SAINT LEONARD OF ASTON. For his first novel, Jeanne Tousignant and the Prince of Miami, Nicole Campeau was inspired by her mother and aunt to break the clichés about the elderly in a work of fiction that the author qualifies as anti-Harlequin. Jeanne Tousignant, who doesn’t make lace, promises to make you smile, and maybe even… blush!
“At 80, Jeanne Tousignant learns that the evil Larry Coulson, the great love of her youth who has been missing for half a century, lives in Miami and has become a wealthy real estate developer. Her living wound of a betrayed woman opens as on the first day. Jeanne then has only one idea in mind: find Larry and settle his bill. Jeanne will thus undertake a road trip in Florida and a manhunt in Miami along with one of his old friends, Leopold, and his depressed sister, Rose.
This is not Nicole Campeau’s first writing project. After a career as a journalist and an extensive writing career (short stories in literary magazines, biographical accounts, collective writing), Ms. Campeau admits that it was her old dream to write a novel, and that is what she has finally done! “Since the autobiography didn’t interest me, I drew inspiration from my family! reveals Madame Campeau, referring to mother and aunt who created Jeanne (her aunt) and her sister Rose (her mother), the two main characters of her.
“I was inspired by the two important women in my life, from my youth. I come from a working-class background, always a party environment, from a large family, and Jeanne was my favorite aunt because she was funny, because she was different, because she had no filters, says the author. The Office of the French Language didn’t know that, and neither did modesty! »
A story that beats time
Love, pain, anger at living, humour, tenderness… these are the words used by Nicole Campeau to describe her novel which contrasts time. “In this writing I wanted to portray old age, because often when old people are not stars, they are invisible. However, the passion, the desires, the dreams, remain alive throughout life and can be just as intense in people who have reached a venerable age”, explains Ms. Campeau.
“I also wanted to pay homage to all these women who will never go down in history with a capital S, but who are great characters nonetheless,” she continues. She thinks of her Jeanne character of her that she’s a woman born at the turn of the century and that she broke her mold in her own way.
“She is a woman who has no education. She worked in a factory all her life, but she was an independent woman, a woman of character, a woman who wanted to live her own life as she saw fit. I wanted to show strong women. Not all of us can go down in history, but small history is made up of great characters. I think Jeanne Tousignant is one of them and I wanted to pay tribute to her ”, she concludes.
The novel Jeanne Tousignant and the Prince of Miami it is available in three outlets in Saint-Léonard-d’Aston (Lodging Boisclair, Au Poivre noir and the Proxim pharmacy), at the Exèdre bookshop in Trois-Rivières and on the bookshop’s online shop.
