Book Review: The Future by Catherine Leroux

I picked The Future up when it was shortlisted for this year’s Canada Reads competition. This is where 5 books are “championed” by famous Canadians over the course of one week until there is one final winner. I always follow along with interest but it doesn’t generally add a lot of titles to my TBR. This year I had already read Bad Cree and Shut Up, You’re Pretty. I decided to pick up a copy of The Future simply because it was being championed by Heather O’Neill, whose books I’ve read and enjoyed. I find I often have good luck reading books recommended by authors I like. Plus, The Future is translated from French so it would add to my goal to read more translated work.

The Future is set in an alternate version of the city of Detroit, known as Fort Detroit. Fort Detroit is a sort of dystopian hellscape where its residents struggle to survive and yet come together to support each other. In one of the very first scenes, an elderly man is run down in the street by a bus and it’s clear that there will be no justice for his death.

(I’ll be honest, I was never quite clear where Fort Detroit’s history diverged with that of real life Detroit. I think it is playing on the idea that France never ceded this territory to Britain in the 18th century. There is a heavy French influence in Fort Detroit but I wasn’t clear what country it was supposed to be currently part of.)

Gloria has arrived in Fort Detroit following the death of her daughter, Judith. Judith lived with her two young daughters, who have disappeared in the aftermath of their mother’s death. Gloria moves into their house, attempting to get a better sense of who exactly her daughter was and increasingly desperate to find out where her granddaughters are.

Gloria befriends the other dwellers of her neighbourhood and learns of the surprising and sometimes beautiful ways they survive in Fort Detroit. Urban gardens and community help feature heavily with some lovely descriptive writing. The neighbourhood is populated with quirky characters but it never feels heavyhanded or false because, after all, only the strangest of people would choose to dwell in such a place.

When Gloria learns that a number of children are dwelling alone and feral in a park in the centre of the city, she dares to breach the unspoken border in search of Judith’s daughters.

As we learn more about the characters and their pasts, there is a growing sense of darkness surrounding Judith and what happened to her. Here again, Leroux excels with her rate of revelation. These sections are largely from Gloria’s perspective and it feels like we are learning things precisely as she is, not as though information is being held for us. Leroux also does an excellent job of balancing the darkness with beauty. Fort Detroit seems like a terrible and dangerous place, but the people that Gloria meets are kind and generous. The children in the park live in filth and fear but the descriptions of the nature around them give an inkling of what they may love about their wild home.

Overall, I was impressed. I’m not sure this is a book every Canadian will read, mostly because I think it’s a little darker and a lot stranger than many readers care for but I think those willing to dive in will be rewarded.