The Music Game

The Music Game is the winner of the 2023 French-American Translation Prize for Fiction. It is about three young women navigating everyday losses and fears against the backdrop of a tumultuous twenty-first century. The novel is an ode to friendship and the ties that bind us together, confronting the violence of the modern world and paying homage to those who work in the hope and faith that it can still be made a better place.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 31 March 2022
Publisher: Biblioasis

Winner of the 2023 French-American Translation Prize for Fiction, "The Music Game" by Stéfanie Clermont is a powerful exploration of friendship, loss, and the search for meaning in a tumultuous world. Set against the backdrop of Montreal, Ontario, and the Bay Area, the novel follows the lives of three young women, Céline, Julie, and Sabrina, as they come of age at the start of a new millennium. Friends since grade school, the three women support each other and drift apart as their lives take different directions. However, when their friend dies by suicide in an abandoned city lot where they once gathered, they are forced to carry on in the world that left him behind.

The novel is an ode to friendship and the ties that bind us together, confronting the violence of the modern world and paying homage to those who work in the hope and faith that it can still be made a better place. Through their experiences, the three young women navigate everyday losses and fears against the backdrop of a tumultuous twenty-first century. From the grind of Montreal service jobs to the isolated French Ontario countryside childhoods to the tenuous cooperation of Bay Area punk squats, the women experience a range of environments that shape their lives and relationships.

"The Music Game" is a beautifully written and emotionally resonant novel that will leave readers thinking about the power of friendship, the importance of community, and the resilience of the human spirit. Clermont's portrayal of the characters is nuanced and authentic, and her exploration of themes of loss, hope, and resilience is thought-provoking and powerful. This is a must-read for anyone who loves literary fiction and is interested in exploring the complexities of modern life.

Weight: 322g
Dimension: 134 x 210 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781771963787