Mister Blue

One of Jacques Poulin’s masterpieces, this tender and perceptive tale explores the textures of solitude, compassion, language, fear, and the imagination. Meet Jim: writer suffering from vivid dreams and bouts of writer’s block. Meet Mister Blue, a dignified and prophetic cat and Jim’s sole companion that spring on the Île d’Orléans. That is, until the day they discover a copy of The Arabian Nights in a cave along the beach. Tinged with heartbreak as well as joy, Mister Blue is a novel of subtle shadows and emotions, of wide-open blue sky—a ballet of the possible.One of my favorite writers in the world is Jacques Poulin. —Rawi Hage

This is a great and very beautiful novel. —Le Devoir

Poulin shares a mix of detached humor, fantasy, and compassion with Vonnegut and Salinger. —Saskatoon Star-Phoenix

The writer hiding from the world in his house on the beach is as shy and charming and friendly as this light, generous, refreshing novel. . . told with Hemingway-like sparseness and minimal melodrama...Poulin earns his lump-in-the-throat ending. —Shelf AwarenessBorn in Saint-Gédéon-de-Beauce, Jacques Poulin is the author of fourteen novels. Among his many honors are the Governor General's Award, the Molson Prize in the Arts, the Gilles-Corbeil Prize, and the France-Québec Prize. He lives in Québec City.

Sheila Fischman has published more than 125 translations of contemporary French-Canadian. Fischman was named to the Order of Canada in 2002 and to the Ordre national du Québec in 2008; in the same year she received the Molson Prize in the Arts.Spring had arrived.
The day was so mild that I came down from the attic earlier than usual. I went out on the beach with Mr. Blue and walked to the end of the bay. I was taking a little rest, sitting on a rock that faced the river, when suddenly I noticed some footprints in the sand.
Out of curiosity, I placed my own foot in one of the prints. I was surprised to observe that they were exactly the same size. And yet these were not my prints: I hadn’t walked here for several days, and there had been time for the tide, which was very high, to obliterate my trail.
Mr. Blue was just as intrigued as I was. With his tail in the air like a question mark and his muzzle in the sand, the old cat sniffed at the prints. They led directly to a little cave I already knew was there, which one entered by edging through a very narrow gap.
The cave was divided into two rooms. In the larger one, which must have been four meters wide and three meters high, I found the remains of a campfire. Mr. Blue, who got there before me, was nosing among the remains of a fire in the middle of the floor. On a sort of long, narrow shelf formed by a projection of the rock face sat a candle, a book, and a box of matches.
I went closer to look at the book: it was The Arabian Nights. I would have liked to pick it up and turn the pages, but something held me back. I had the feeling that to do so would be indiscreet. It was as if I were in some person’s bedroom. I mean: in everything I could see there – the footprints, the objects, even in the air itself – there was a sense of somebody’s soul. I didn’t touch the book. I didn’t touch anything, I didn’t even visit the second room in the cave; I went back to the house.