Of fathers, sons, and red-footed boobies

What did it mean to live in mid-1980’s Montreal?
As much as we embrace ironic retro fashions today, few of us can really grasp the political and intellectual climate of Trudeau-era Quebec. This was Montreal before the smoking ban and the closing of Ben’s, still fresh from the passing of Bill 101 and bitterly divided by the language debate.
This is the climate in which Concordia graduate Nino Ricci’s dazzling new novel The Origin of Species takes place. We find protagonist and Concordia PhD student Alex Fratarcangeli struggling over his dissertation, “a sort of Grand Unified Theory.” Sensitive and kind-hearted, Alex nevertheless grows despondent as he muses about his dysfunctional family, a mental block, and failed relationships, all while eking out a half-life in a crumbling apartment building.
He meets Esther, a young woman with multiple sclerosis living on the 11th floor. Initially uncomfortable around her, Alex grows to admire her sometimes awkward but unapologetic approach to life.
In one scene, he rebukes her advances in the aftermath of a party.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she says. “Sometimes I go months and no one even touches me. It’s like I’m already dead.”
The author brings the same depth to the other characters that populate the novel. Alex teaches English both at the Berlitz language school and at a centre for refugees in St-Henri. At the former, he meets Félix, an older Québécois man who inspires little sympathy at first, but is later revealed to be living with the spectre of AIDS. At the latter, Alex becomes involved with María and Miguel, siblings fleeing from El Salvador’s civil war.
Eventually, we encounter Jiri, the protagonist’s wayward thesis advisor. He consistently shoots down his student’s ideas, breezing through his job despite a looming divorce and rumours of a skinhead son. Ricci deftly touches upon evolutionary biology, literature, and philosophy as Alex’s thesis is revealed: a marriage of human narrative with Darwin’s theory of evolution. In other words, the theory to end all theories.
As Alex grows more doubtful about his life, memories of a tryst with a Swedish woman named Ingrid weigh more heavily on his mind. One day, a letter arrives from her with momentous news. Slowly, the ghost of an expedition to the Galapagos Islands rears its head and brings to light one of Alex’s most private skeletons.
Ricci recreates a decade that, much like its main character, defined itself through uncertainty. His writing veers between sombreness and humour, all the while retaining a profoundness rarely matched in contemporary writers.
The Origin of Species is a novel about fathers and sons. It’s about the tug of war between our intellect and our primal drives. It’s about the often unfathomable quality of the human soul. But most of all, it’s a story about the human heart.