I’m delighted to feature a guest post from Canadian author and actor, Jerome J Bourgault whose new novel Day of Epiphany was the winner of CANREADS Award for Historical Fiction 2026. The novel is an exploration of a dark chapter in Canadian and specifically Quebecois history: the “Grande Noirceur” (“Great Darkness”) of 1944–1959 when the Catholic Church wielded its influence through the provincial government, controlling education, healthcare and orphanages. Here’s Jerome Bourgault …
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As early as December, 2018, I’d begun to throw together ideas for my second novel. My first book, The Perpetual Now, was still over a year away from publication and I knew I wanted to tell a different kind of story for my follow-up novel, one more rooted in history.
Over the past few years, I’d been developing an interest in French Canadian history of the 1940s and ‘50s, an era when my own parents were in their teens and twenties. Their shared memories of this period had long been incubating in my mind, and while it was never going to be a biographical work, I thought the new novel could be a place where many of their stories could find a voice and live on, while contributing generously to the detail of the picture I wanted to paint.
As I threw myself into researching the social history of the period, one name dominated from the start: Union nationale party leader Maurice Duplessis.
La Grande Noirceur: a storyteller’s goldmine
I didn’t know much about Le Chef initially, except that he was premier of Québec for the better part of 20 years, and that he was immensely influential. What they didn’t teach us in high school was his dubious legacy. First, the Duplessis era itself came to be known as La grande noirceur—the Great Darkness—a period of extreme conservatism, sluggish economic growth and stifled cultural development. Second was the scandal of the Duplessis orphans; these were hundreds of children whom Duplessis allowed to be deliberately misclassified as mental patients in order to qualify for federal subsidies earmarked for psychiatric hospitals. It was an incredibly compelling and tragic episode which I quickly discovered was largely unknown in English-speaking Canada. I decided this was to be my historical setting.
Next, the plot. If the story was to be set in 1950s Québec, the Catholic Church would obviously play a central part. The Church had a stranglehold on all matters pertaining to social programs, health, and education in the province, and had the full support and protection of the the premier. It was then that I remembered an idea first suggested to me back in the 1980s by one of my oldest friends and most valuable collaborators: what happens when a parishioner confesses to a priest to committing murder? And what if this person were themselves a member of the clergy? It was an intriguing plot idea, and forty years later, an altered version of it would serve as the opening sequence of my novel.
In its early iterations, the book that would become Day of Epiphany looked more like a straight-ahead mystery, using the Duplessis era as a backdrop. But as I read more about the period and the tragedy of the Duplessis orphans in particular, it became increasingly important for me to tell more of that story. Aside from Joanna Goodman’s excellent 2018 novel The Home for Unwanted Girls, the subject of the Duplessis orphans has barely been touched in English-language fiction.
Writing English for French… in Québec… in the 1950s
On the subject of language, a unique aspect of Day of Epiphany was the temporal and cultural—namely linguistic—distance between the characters I was creating and the readers I was writing for. This is an English language novel intended for an English-speaking audience, but written within the context of 1950s Québec. Unless specifically indicated—3 or 4 scenes in particular—the characters would of course be speaking to one another in French throughout the novel. How to deal with that, and do I address the question at all? The best solution I could come up with was to make the narration, and the dialogue in particular, as natural and fluent as possible. As much as I could, I avoided the inclusion of French terms, unless there were no appropriate or better term in English. For instance, at the beginning of the first chapter, I make reference to a père prédicataire—essentially an itinerant preacher—and I use the term curé—parish priest—a fair amount throughout the book as well. These were terms that I thought important enough for the reader to learn. On the other hand, as tempting as it might be, I never made use of the expansive Québécois lexicon of colourful curse words—tabarnak, câlisse, ostie, Crisse, trou de cul, bâtard, etc.. Instead, when my characters needed to curse or call someone a nasty name, they would do so in English. To do otherwise would be, in my opinion, the literary equivalent of the tired trope of countless Hollywood war movies, where German soldiers speak to one another in English with German accents.
Next, I had to ensure that the language was consistent with the period. I’d recently read a scene from a contemporary historical novel set in the 1980s, in which a character uses the very current expression “a big ask,” meaning “a lot to ask for.” Having lived through the 1980s, I can promise you that NO ONE ever said “a big ask” in that context. Reading an expression so clearly from the 21st century in a scene from the ‘80s diminished the authenticity of the book for me just that much, and I had no intention of making that kind of mistake in my own novel, whether the characters were ostensibly speaking French or not.
At the same time, I deliberately avoided the use of ’50s era vernacular, simply because—rightly or wrongly—I identified it too closely with American popular culture, which felt out of place for Québec. I did however use a couple of terms—namely “darwinists” instead of “evolutionary biologists” and “Mohammedans” instead of “Muslims”—that I felt would be appropriate for the period, especially by members of the clergy.
The Final Shape
Eventually, as it grew in the telling, the novel would focus primarily on the abuse suffered by the children at the hands of nuns and medical staff, and the increasingly desperate efforts of one nun to protect them. No, it’s not an easy book.
Remaining true to its original vision, there is still an element of mystery to Day of Epiphany; call it a historical fiction/mystery cross-over. It is also loosely connected to The Perpetual Now—some people and places will be familiar—and while it doesn’t really delve into the realm of science-fiction, Day of Epiphany resembles its predecessor in that it starts off as one thing, and then—quite subtly—becomes something else entirely.
Many thanks, Jerome. What a fascinating period of time and dramatic storyline. No wonder it’s a winner. Now on my TBR list!
Day of Epiphany by Jerome J Bourgault
At the stroke of a pen, Sister Cassandra Lalonde has gone from being a teacher in an orphanage to a nurse in a psychiatric hospital, and her beloved students have been “reclassified” as mental patients. Set against the backdrop of Québec’s Grande Noirceur (Great Darkness) of the 1940s and ’50s, Day of Epiphany tells a haunting, riveting story inspired by the true events of the Duplessis orphans scandal, a much overlooked national tragedy.
Invisible to society, and with no rights under the law, the children of Sainte-Madeleine Institute are subjected to horrific experimental treatments and unspeakable abuse. Alone against the combined powers of the Catholic Church, the autocratic government of Maurice Duplessis, and the province’s medical authorities, Cassandra must resort to increasingly drastic measures to protect those under her care. Ghostly hymns and desperate prayers build to a crescendo. When Cassandra’s plans to save one of her best and brightest students fall apart, she renounces her vows, and is left to pick up the threads of a shocking criminal scandal with roots stretching far beyond the walls of Sainte-Madeleine.
This is a story of faith and betrayal, irreconcilable loyalties, and one courageous woman’s dauntless humanity in the face of institutionalized oppression. Part historical fiction and part mystery, with the atmosphere of a noir thriller, Day of Epiphany underscores a transformative moment in Canadian history.
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M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel THAT WAS THEN is a contemporary thriller. Mary’s other novels, THE ADMIRAL’S WIFE, PARIS IN RUINS, TIME AND REGRET, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook or on her website www.mktod.com.v
