Eightyfive years of art and history through the eyes of a woman who fled her family as reimagined by her granddaughter Anais BarbeauLavalette never knew her mothers mother Curious to understand why her grandmother Suzanne a sometime painter and poet associated with Les Automatistes a movement of dissident artists that included PaulEmile Borduas abandoned her husband and young family BarbeauLavalette hired a private detective to piece together Suzannes life Suzanne winner of the Prix des libraires du Quebec and a bestseller in French is a fictionalized account of Suzannes life over eightyfive years from Montreal to New York to Brussels from lover to lover through an abortion alcoholism Buddhism and an asylum It takes readers through the Great Depression Quebecs Quiet Revolution womens liberation and the American civil rights movement offering a portrait of a volatile fascinating woman on the margins of history And its a granddaughters search for a past for herself for understanding and forgiveness Its about a nameless despair an unbearable sadness But its also a reflection on what it means to be a mother and an artist Most of all its a magnificent novel Les Meconnus