« We have become responsible for the world, we must take care of it » – Liberation

“A young man decides to take a solo vacation in a forest and discovers a pond on which floats a strange orange foam. Not far from there, a bat lies in the mud, weakened and covered with pimples. ” Laurent Lussier takes us, with A terrible evil is preparing (Arthaud) in an astonishing police investigation in the heart of the forest. Where animals fall sick, men are not far from not going well. « But that’s how you have to live (…) by expecting the worst (…) The tests arrive by surprise. At any time can resonate an alarm (…) adversity occurs at any time, of course, but the main thing is to be ready ”. The complex « Cohabitation between nature and civilization »such is the ambitious remarks of this work.

Laurent Lussier has an urban planner training. He is particularly interested in the situation of animals in the city, which fascinates him. This ecosystem where foxes or coyotes live, these wild animals that live by eating waste, these « Denatured animals that live in a humanized environment, where nature is present » As he explains to Release.

For a long time, the author organized three -day steps in Greater Montreal, where he lives, crossing diagonally. He rubs shoulders with large commercial areas, factories, swamp, residential spaces … His novel makes a curious echo at the Fontaine Fable Sick animals of the plague. And he adds maliciously: “We can read the book as an exercise in style, but this threat is not a fiction. Are people of these environmental issues aware of them? In Canada for example, We build a terminal to liquefy gas and send it to Europe. There are always good reasons. There are serious things on which no one has a catch. ”

And to continue: « We are making the collection of injured animals, but once collected that we do? » We have become responsible for the world, we must take care of it. There is a presence of the animal to which we were no longer used to. That animals, in town, fall ill, that does not generate any feeling of responsibility ”.

In the book, we find in filigree the true history of white muzzle disease which is lodged in the nose of bats. They do not humby and die of fatigue. A massacre. « The more generations arrive, the more the references changeexplains the author. For example, the absence of frogs becomes normal. There are more and more environmental concerns. ” Does Laurent Lussier see himself as a whistleblower? “I have a lot of respect for activism. I have discomfort with the position of author who claims to be activism, which must get my hands dirty. But if we are aware of people that something happens, it can be used as a basis for reflection. Our collective imagination is transformed. Unmissable questions are formed, in the way of approaching the world. ”