Ha!: A Self-murder Mystery [Paperback]

Gordon Sheppard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2006

On 15 March 1977, with his wife's consent, celebrated writer and former terrorist Hubert Aquin blew his brains out on the grounds of a Montreal convent school. Shocked by this self-murder, a filmmaker friend feels compelled to understand why Aquin killed himself - and discovers, at the heart of the tragedy, an unforgettable love story. A "documentary fiction" - a category which includes "In Cold Blood" and "The Executioner's Song" - "Ha!" is a seminal work that reinvents the audio-visual revolution of the last century. Interweaving photographs, documents, and images with testimony from Aquin's friends and contemporaries, Aquin himself, and the writers and artists who influenced him, this intriguing novel takes the reader on a Joycean tour of a metropolis in the midst of political and cultural turmoil.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A splendid achievement," A. S. Byatt "One of the most interesting works of fiction - and non-fiction - to appear in a very long time." Alberto Manguel "Witty and remarkable...a spellbinding story." Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels "Monumental...playful...Gordon Sheppard's extravagant and cinematic collage novel is both new and vital." The Globe & Mail "A kind of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for suicide." The Literary Review of Canada "Some passages made me weep. I finished the book and felt tremendous respect for Aquin, his beloved Andree, Sheppard himself." Books in Canada

About the Author

Gordon Sheppard is a Montreal writer, photographer, and award-winning filmmaker who wrote and directed The Most, a documentary about Playboy's Hugh Hefner, and Eliza's Horoscope, a feature film starring Tommy Lee Jones.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 868 pages
• Publisher: Mcgill Queens Univ Pr (April 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0773531009
• ISBN-13: 978-0773531000
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.5 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,145,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HA! ...No laughing matter, November 10, 2003

By 

John W. Macdonald (Greely, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HA!: A Self-Murder Mystery (Hardcover)

This is simply the most unique and impressive book I have ever come across. It weighs in at a whopping 1.6 Kg or 3 1/2lbs. After 6 straight days of reading I feel educated, voyeuristic, saddened and have a deeper sense of insight into Quebec History and Aquin's literary influences. The book, 26 years in the making, is the story of Hubert Aquin's life and ultimate death by his own 'words'. Sheppard explicitly depicts Aquin's life and death as a work of art with respect to a long tradition of such in literature and film. Through quotes, musical interludes and interviews Aquin's last violent act was a work of art by a shattered man. His life, full of tragedy (self-inflicted or otherwise), love and loss, begat several classics in Quebec Literature, namely Prochain Episode. Sheppard's book surely merits a wide audience as does the work of Aquin. I urge you to consider reading this book. Excellent value for the $$. Do pick up and read a copy... it is like jumping off a floating dock in the middle of a familiar lake of your childhood memories. You can swim safely near the tether and enjoy the security that its proximity provides, or risk wading farther away and try to touch the bottom to see how deep you can go. Metaphors aside, it is better to use Sheppard's own words from his 1969 essay, Violence and the French Canadian Male, an early critique of Aquin's first two novels, "We all must try to understand how to be worthy of it." *

* Canada: A Guide to the Peaceable Kingdom, ed. William Kilbourn. p.192.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A dante-esque journey, November 25, 2003

By 

Laurence J. Kirmayer (Montreal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HA!: A Self-Murder Mystery (Hardcover)

This remarkable work of fiction/biography/rapportage and montage is both vastly entertaining and deeply disturbing. Certainly, it is the most detailed portrait of the emotional and cultural logic of a suicide ever written. It is also a window onto the landscape of Quebec society in the 60s and 70s. All this is offered in the most accessible and playful form with multimedia annotations, and cultural excursions that carry the reader along through circle after circle in this intimate journey. Anyone who loves literature, is fascinated by human motivations, or simply wants to know more about a unique soul in its place and time, will be richly rewarded.

5.0 out of 5 stars Nous sommes d'accord, December 4, 2010

By 

T. C. Brown (Jericho, Vermont USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ha!: A Self-Murder Mystery (Self-Murder Mysteries) (Hardcover)

We agree. This book will give you a powerful look into the mind of a man who considered suicide from a very high intellectual standpoint and helps you to understand why someone might take their own life, yet still I wonder if it wasn't a waste of a life. We like to think that there's always a way to solve this problem but maybe sometimes it is the right thing to do, and thus, it must be done properly, so here's the guide for those who chose the ultimate. Sheppard succeeds in his goal of writing the account as a friend of Herbert. This has to be an unrecognized work... not of genius, but of love of one man for another and of a commitment to historical biographical documentation. I read it twice.