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The tenth and final instalment of the legendary Soifs cycle
For her eighteenth birthday, Mai hosts a party on the unnamed island where her family lives, on the edge of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
The celebrants include Daniel, Mai's father and a writer; the children of Bahama Street who sing in Pastor Jeremy’s church; the wealthy artists and famous poets; the refugees and ex-cons; the trans performers of the Porte du Baiser Saloon. From this core, vast circles emerge, examining in one breath the horrors of fascist regimes and the beauty of queer nightlife, embracing the America of mass shooters and the struggles for civil rights, and laying bare the tragedies that shook the 20th century and laid the foundation for the years to come.
Poetic and meditative, with language that rolls and crashes like the ocean itself, Together by the Sea sings with the complexity of all beings, good and evil, past and present, here and elsewhere, connecting us all in the same unique, pitiful, and grandiose humanity.
“Few [avant-garde writers] match the combination of formal daring with the sweeping, world-creating scope of Marie-Claire Blais’s 10-book Soifs cycle.” — The Globe and Mail
“It’s good to be reminded, from time to time, that every life is as alive as the imperious flicker of our own, as is done in Together by the Sea, tragically, beautifully … It may break your heart, or it may help you understand what is broken around you already, or it may only make you pause for a moment, that is, if you allow it.” — Montreal Review of Books
“Blais’s virtuosity lies in her ability to form a rich and textured harmony through disparate voices.” — Literary Review of Canada