Of Vengeance

August 5, 2019
The anonymous narrator of Kurtness’s satirical debut, which won Canada’s Indigenous Voices Award for French Prose, kills people just because they annoy her. She becomes aware of her “vocation” at the age of 12, when she accidentally kills a classmate. His death plants the little seed of mayhem in her soul. As an adult, she works as a translator of such reality TV shows as Polygamous and Proud and Dwarves: Larger than Life. Her free time is spent getting even. She begins targeting vehicles “driven by people who consistently committed basic infractions. Excessive speeding, failure to stop for pedestrians, sound pollution, general boorishness.” As she expands her murderous activities, she laments, “There are just too many people to choose from.” She also rambles on about agrifood conglomerates, money-grubbing businessmen, complacent politicians, and radioactive waste disposal, among other peeves. Kurtness writes smoothly, but the black humor won’t be to every taste. Readers into passive-aggressive fantasies will best appreciate this one.

August 15, 2019
A young female psychopath lives a life of escalating crimes, including murder. "Let's be honest," muses the narrator of this voice-driven novella by Kurtness, a French-language author who's a member of Canada's Indigenous Innu Nation. "Who hasn't fantasized about shooting someone in the face with a hunting rifle?" Each morning she looks into the mirror and affirms her prowess as a murderer. In chapters alternating between the killer's past as a spying, calculating teen and her present as a reclusive, perturbed criminal, we observe her increasing craving for justice and vengeance. "Death is cleansing," she tells us. "It makes us better people than we actually were." Though her first kill--as a girl--is almost accidental, it's the "euphoria" it gives her that leads her toward a life of revenge crimes: Setting free the dogs of cruel owners and stuffing the tailpipes of unsafe drivers with expandable foam. She says "the art of vengeance requires both energy and risk," so she keeps herself fit and observant, planning for the perfect crime, when she'll get to see the face of the dying as he knows he is about to die. She speaks with a detached coldness reminiscent of Camus' Meursault, saying, "My theory [is] that all good and evil are relative, that the world has its own distinct meaning for each and every one of us," yet her crimes are less a reaction to the world around her and more the result of patient, careful planning and execution. "Like a magician," she says, "I focus people's attention away from where the sleight of hand occurs." A chilling justification of a life of violence, as nonchalant as it is grim.

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