School for Girls (Qc Fiction)

A boarding school deep in the forest carries the echoes of its past inhabitants. Hints of a disturbing history and the unfolding events of the present are refracted by the multiple voices of the girls who now live within its walls, their suggestive and enigmatic accounts interweaving in a rich and unsettling chorus. When the winter months are skewered by a terrible accident, cracks begin to appear between the teachers and pupils as the girls navigate adolescence, their place in the group, and their complex and shifting relationships with each other, as well as the natural world that surrounds them and the seasons that shape their existence.

Tony's Reading List

"School for Girls is a wonderful little piece, a book of feelings and moods... it’s a joy to read... another excellent QC offering, and a fitting book to crack open on one of those cold northern nights – just don’t read it too close to bedtime."

Benoît Vanbeselaere, Les Libraires

“A choral piece with gothic undertones. With an impressive multiplicity of forms, this book tackles a wide variety of themes, underpinned by a strong feminist voice.”

Laurence Perron, Lettres québécoises

“A whole troupe of poisonous young girls, neither demonized nor deified, appearing in all the fragile ferocity of adolescence.”

Silvia Galipeau, La Presse

“(…) dark, fraught, frightening in places. And one to read in a single sitting.”

Tony's Reading List

"A joy to read ... well worth seeking out"

Literary Review of Canada

"It is powerful, challenging, and still somewhat mysterious after two readings. I think Lessard intended it that way."

Consumed by Ink

"A little gem of a book...haunting"

Subterrain Magazine

"Lessard builds the atmosphere of a girls' school unconventionally but convincingly as rivalries persist, friendships falter, and consequences deepen . . . a pleasingly macabre combination of Lauren Goff's Matrix and The Shining (either King or Kubrick)."

From the Back Cover

A boarding school deep in the forest carries the echoes of its past inhabitants. Hints of a disturbing history and the unfolding events of the present are refracted by the multiple voices of the girls who now live within its walls, their suggestive and enigmatic accounts interweaving in a rich and unsettling chorus. When the winter months are skewered by a terrible accident, cracks begin to appear between the teachers and pupils as the girls navigate adolescence, their place in the group, and their complex and shifting relationships with each other, as well as the natural world that surrounds them and the seasons that shape their existence.

About the Author

Ariane Lessard was born in 1990 in Lévis, not far from a monastery of cloistered sisters. She published her first novel, Feue, in 2018, which was a finalist for the Rendez-vous du premier roman, a first novel award. She also took part in the first residency of L'Hôtel des autrices in 2020, a feminist digital platform created in Berlin during the pandemic, in which she wrote a novel in one month. School for Girls is her first novel to be translated into English. Frances Pope is a translator and writer from the UK. She lived in Montreal between 2015 and 2020, where she received her MA in translation studies from Concordia University. Now living in Bristol (UK), she continues to translate in the arts and non-profit sectors, as well as reviewing and writing about electronic music. Frances has two published collections of poetry, Quarters (Ekstasis Editions) and The Brazen Forecast (Cactus Press), both published in 2020.

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