Betsi Larousse is the surreal story of a pop diva, a sculptor and a wild-eyed adventurer who spend three days in a remote mountain cabin. Sculptor Marc Carrière is on a three-day wilderness adventure that will change his life forever. Driving north to his hunting camp, he’s reluctantly seduced by pop star Betsi Larousse warbling a love ballad on the radio. Suddenly, a moose crashes through his windshield, knocking him out of his sound-wave slumber. He heads to a nearby town, where Betsi is giving a concert, and runs into an old friend, a strange explorer who’s madly in love with the singer, and who’ll try to win her heart with a truckload of roses. The three of them head off to Marc’s cabin where, secluded deep in Laurentian wilderness, they’ll spend three days swimming, grouse hunting and feasting on wild mushrooms. The sculptor and explorer will fall under Betsi’s spell. Her eyes, her voice, her body… everything about her will kindle their desires. Filled with dramatic flair and brilliantly told, Betsi Larousse is a story drawn in shades of madness and humour that, according to Montreal’s La Presse, confirmed Louis Hamelin’s status as the leading Quebec writer of his generation.

Louis Hamelin burst onto the literary scene in 1989 with his first novel, La Rage, which won the Governor General's Literary Award. With this critically acclaimed novel, Hamelin staked out his territory: the cancerous advance of technology, the rape of the wilderness, the estrangement of contemporary society from matters of the soul.

This is Jean Paul Murray's first published literary translation. Previously, he published two translations, Dead-End Democracy?, by Yves Leclerc, and Hello, World!, by Jacques Hebert. Jean Paul Murray lives in Old Chelsea, Quebec, works in the Senate of Canada, and is English translating co-ordinator for the magazine Cite libre.

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A writer, translator, researcher and communications specialist, Jean-Paul Murray has translated ten books, including Betsi Larousse and Cowboy, novels by Governor General’s Award winner Louis Hamelin, The Biker Who Shot Me, by Michel Auger, and I Was a Killer for the Hells Angels, by Pierre Martineau. From 1995 to 1998, Mr. Murray was managing editor of Cité libre, a magazine founded by Pierre Trudeau, and was the magazine’s English translating coordinator from 1998 to 2000. Among his Cité libre translations are works authored by Allan Cairns, Jacques Hébert, Mordecai Richler, F. R. Scott, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Jean-Paul Murray's profile page