A debut novel co-written by Denis Morin and Michel Lemieux

Life partners for many years, one a writer and the other a multidisciplinary artist, Denis Morin and Michel Lemieux decided to join their creative forces and write a novel together: The Sum of Us. In this first collaborative work, the authors explore the ties that bind the members of a family scattered across the globe and across time. Through their correspondence and glimpses of their lives, we discover how secrets can drive us apart, but can also bring us closer.

The novel is available in bookstores and online from éditions TNT or on libraires.ca.

"Surprisingly, this novel reveals the multiplication of our two complementary imaginations, where one voice becomes the other's, in an inseparable harmony. We started from a story structure I already had in mind, and Michel brought his creativity as a director to it, shaping the characters' intentions and dialogue the way it's done in theatre and film."

Denis Morin

"In forty years of multidisciplinary work, this is the first time I've taken on a purely literary project. I've had the chance to work with great playwrights whose words I got to explore in depth by staging them and giving them visual form. I've also always written out the concepts behind my works before creating them, so taking part in this novel with Denis feels like a natural extension of my creative practice."

Michel Lemieux

Synopsis

A young pianist from Rivière-du-Loup flees convention for post-war France. Fifty years later, a Quebec mother and author receives an enigmatic letter, I will love you always written across it in elegant cursive. An intimate story in which the taboos of one era echo down through the generations.

A scattered family tries to rebuild its bonds across the ocean, from Rivière-du-Loup to the French countryside, from Gaspé to Estcourt, from Vancouver to Deux-Montagnes. Driven by a deep humanity, these moving characters slowly find one another again, confronting the most deeply buried secrets.