Bride of New France by Suzanne Desrochers
2013, WW Norton & Company, 316 Pages, $26.77
Historical Fiction
While not about Ottawa directly, this is a narrative journey into New France in the early 1670s. The narrator is a seamstress working with the orphans at the famous Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, before being shipped off to forests Quebec to marry a fur trader near Ville Marie (modern Montreal). Laure, the protagonist, tries to stand up for the people at the orphanage because of their starvation rations, and gets proclaimed as a fille du roi (daughter of the king – an orphan to be sent to Quebec to help populate the colony). She meets her husband, who is neglectful, though not abusive, and she has an affair with an Iroquois man, conceives a child, and much of the book deals with the hardships of life in the French colony.
This is a good impression of what daily life would have been like in New France at the time, particularly for a woman, whose husband is away for the winter months. It’s a harsh slice of daily life and contextualises a lot of the government policies towards population while the crown was trying to establish the French as a permanent presence in the new world, in the way that the English and Spanish already had.
My two criticisms of the book are that there was no overt context given. I understood the reasoning behind the social policies because I’d read about them independently of the book. The story would have benefited by having a deus ex machina character explain the ways of the world to the reader vicariously through the narrator. The other lack of context is that it takes place during some of the bloodiest years of the French-Iroquois or Beaver Wars, and there is no clue given that this would have been in the background. In fact the Iroquois appear to be well integrated into the society at Ville Marie.
My second criticism is that it is more of a book than a story. The research is great. The detail is great. The setting is great. The characters are pretty basic, without much depth. Even a flat, stock character would have benefited this book because at least then their motivations and personality would have been present. The story doesn’t really move anywhere, so this book feels more like the author wanted to write a history book and then got convinced to try and shoe-horn in a story and make it a novel.
Pacing-wise, the main character doesn’t actually go to New France until midway through the book. There was no hint that a trip to Canada was coming until Chapter 11 of 24.
I wouldn’t recommend this book to just anyone. If you’re looking for a “slice of life” about what the early colonial life would have been like for one of the famous filles de roi, I would imagine that this book would be right for you. If that’s not you, then I’d suggest leaving it on the shelf.
★★★☆☆
