Motet

The darkest of Keith Maillard’s novels, Motet is “sung” in three radically different voices.

Paul, a professor of musicology, is researching a sixteenth century motet and finding a nightmarish story of heresy, persecution, torture and death. Steve, a rock drummer, longs for the transformative “sainthood” of Hendrix, Joplin, or Jim Morrison, but remains haunted by a drug-related murder in Boston’s 60s underground. Kathy, a failed jazz musician and Steve’s deserted wife, is living a life of quiet desperation. These three are drawn together by precocious teenaged Wendy, Paul’s daughter and Kathy’s student. Just when Kathy is beginning make a new life with Paul, Steve reappears with disastrous results.

Reeking with sex and violence, Motet is a nerve-wracking bravura performance that ultimately offers the hope of spiritual redemption. It won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize in 1990.

“Behind each word, each sentence, you can feel the blood coursing, the flesh breathing and the sinews tensing…. Maillard writes a damn good story.”
The Toronto Star

“Large and brave, readable and provocative.”
The Globe and Mail