The story is beautiful. However, I’m feeling a similar way about this book than I did about Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous—this is a poet’s prose. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that the writing style isn’t for me. But this book deserves your time and your attention, and I’m sure many people will love it.

Billy-Ray Belcourt crafts a beautiful piece of fiction. A Minor Chorus is an excellent debut novel from one the best Indigenous writers in the last 10 years. Though I also can't say I am surprised since his poetry and non-fiction work are also fantastic.

The Unnamed Narrators struggles with writers block and his deep reflection upon returning to his small Northern Alberta community and how he contemplates who his live turned out in comparison to his cousin Jack. Truly a gripping story from beginning to end that was thoughtful, heartbreaking and poetic.

One of my favourite books of the year and I look forward to what Billy-Ray writes next,

I am lucky enough to work at a bookstore where Billy-Ray Belcourt shops on a weekly basis. Knowing him on this surface level, gave me a lot of context to this book, which feels like a memoir more than it feels like fiction. Billy-Ray, as usually, is not only pushing boundaries with his work, but creating new ones. Blurring lines between fiction, autobiography, poetry, and sharp social commentary. This work is indescribable. I've searched for the words but I can't find them. All I can do is let the book speak for itself. I am honored to sell this to customers who visit the store I work at.

Read if you like: character-driven stories.
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The book's main character is an Indigenous Ph.D. student from northern Alberta who begins to question his dissertation and puts it aside to work on a novel. The book then follows a few important conversations with people for his book.
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The novel is a short, quick read but so good. The writing is beautiful and I love how the author played around with the structure of the novel. The author explores the themes of Indigenous Queer experiences and, youth, and residential school survivors. I highly recommend this poignant book.
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CW: death, residential schools, trauma, sexual content, homophobia, racism, police brutality, incarceration.

I do wish the editor had convinced the author to cut the business about abandoning his doctorate. I’m told the book gets a lot better after that but I never got there.

I read Belcourt’s memoir back in February and some of his poetry and absolutely loved his writing. It is beautifully poetic and raw, and his debut novel, A Minor Chorus, is by no means an exception.

I don’t think I can fully encapsulate what this novel is about and does but I will try my best. The unnamed narrator, a queer indigenous doctorate student in Edmonton, abandons his thesis to write a novel. Leaving the city to go home to rural northern Alberta, talking to the people from his past and his hometown to paint a portrait of life there, an autobiography of his home. It takes apart the traditional novel structure and is put back together with conversations, memories, reflections, and stunning prose.

For such a short novel it contains so much; it looks at colonialism and its lasting effect and the trauma it has caused, queer life and existence, the crimes of Canada against indigenous people, pressure placed on marginalized students in academia, police violence, white supremacy and hetero-patriarchal culture, so many important questions are asked and criticisms that need to be said. As the Goodreads synopsis says, ‘it shines a light on the realities of indigenous survival’.

I have so many lines in this underlined, the prose were stunning and every sentence felt so thought out, you can tell that the author is a poet. While reading this, I constantly forgot that this was fiction, it felt so real and honest that I feel like it must be inspired by the author's own life and experience. I think it is such a stunning and important debut and I am so glad to see that it has been nominated for the Giller Prize. I’ve read a couple on the longlist and would love to read more, but I really think that this is such a beautiful and impactful novel that I would love to see win.

I highly recommend reading this, especially for readers who like less plot heavy books with gorgeous writing. I will definitely be reading everything Billy-Ray Belcourt writes, and I will just leave with this quote from the novel,

“I write because I've read and been moved into a position of wonder. I write because I've loved and been loved. I want to find out what 'we' or 'us' I can walk into or build a roof over. To hold hands with others, really. To be less alone.”

content warnings mentions of residential school, homophobia, police brutality, trauma, and possibly more

I have proclaimed my love of Belcourt’s writing before, I will again now, and I’m sure you’ll be hearing from me in the future, too. Wow. I am in awe of this one. The Goodreads synopsis characterizes this story as one of “the realities of Indigenous survival” and I think that is as apt a characterization as any.

Belcourt writes with the most poetic voice I have ever read. This is a novel with a new take on the novel’s structure; it reads like a communal undertaking which is created through a series of conversations / interviews with different characters the narrator conducts throughout. This story is character driven at its core, it is self reflexive and gorgeous; lots of interiority to parse in our main character.

And, if you didn’t catch it, A Minor Chorus is on the Giller Prize long list which was released yesterday. How exciting!

A few TWs to be mindful of: death, residential schools, indigenous trauma, police brutality, homophobia, incarceration.

I highly recommend reading if you enjoy character driven stories, poetic prose, Indigenous literature.

Thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for my eARC!

After having read Belcourt's memoir, I knew going into their novel would be just as affecting and poignant.

A Minor Chorus follows a Ph.D. grad student who begins to struggle with their academic path and what writing means to and holds for them. They return to their community to collect stories, memories, and experiences in an attempt to understand.

The way in which Belcourt approaches language through their character is reflective of moving through and within spaces that were not constructed for coloured bodies, but where still, contortions and conformation is expected.

As I read, there were many instances where the realities conveyed using fiction were vivid markers of life for people who have been taken, shackled, murdered, and used. There is the 'I' of this language that is not truly our own, which we must now use in order to exist and be heard, to stand in all our identities, to be removed from our land and expected to exist in one where we are hardly wanted or accepted.

Belcourt is very aware of the varied meanings that can be harvested from language, the power of language and the people who speak it. This work is reflective and transportive in the way the writer invites each character to speak their truth the way they know how.

I have read other works by Belcourt, so I knew to expect very raw and poetic writing, which is exactly what this book ended up being.

The story is fictional, though seems quite similar to Belcourt’s own life. A queer Indigenous narrator takes us along for a journey of self reflection, and discusses indigeniety, queerness, academia, and belonging.

The narrator is in the middle of their thesis, trying to find inspiration to finish their PHD, when they decide to go back to their rez and interview their relations. You get to learn about everyday life as an Indigenous person in Alberta, while coming to terms with the violence, genocide, and trauma that comes along with it.

The main theme seems to be being queer and being Indigenous, specifically in small towns, and the isolation that that can bring- as well as the homophobia and racism. This intersection of indigiqueer leads to a double violence, a double oppression in Canada, more so in Alberta where the story takes place.

Overall, this book asks lots of questions about what it means to be Indigenous, what it means to be queer, and what it means to be both. The writing is absolutely stunning, while points of the story are completely heartbreaking. It’s so raw and real, like being inside someone’s head. I highly recommend this book, I might even go so far to say it’s a must read!

Belcourt's first novel will feel immediately familiar to reader's of their memoir, A History of My Brief Body. Toeing the line between autofiction and metafiction, this novel feels less like a clear narrative and more like a tribute to the contemporary novel. Homages to Brandon Taylor, Rachel Cusk, Alexander Chee, Toni Morrison, Maggie Nelson, Ocean Vuong and many others are found in these pages, including direct references and quotations in the text.
This is a short book (under 200 pages) and while I think that overall it was successful it would have certainly benefited from having more room to breathe. There are so many ideas packed in here that the actual plot often feels cramped, to the point that at several points I wondered if a book of essays would have been a better approach to this project.
When it works, it really works though. The overall structure that is clearly crafted after Nelson and Chee's works, the opening conflict that is very reminiscent of Taylor's Real Life, and several chapters that feel pulled directly from Cusk's Outline trilogy. In the hands of most writers this would have fallen flat but Belcourt's way with words is the perfect stitching that holds this patchwork quilt together. The language is simultaneously beautiful, precise, and heartbreaking while keeping things moving at a good pace, and deeply exploring queer Indigenous life.
This is a book that I would recommend to any reader, but particularly to those familiar with any of the works referenced - there's lots of treats hidden in this book for readers to uncover.

*“Rather than change the world, a novel could index a longing for something else, for a different arrangement of bodies, feelings, and environments in which human flourishing wasn’t inhibited for the marginalized, which seemed as urgent an act of rebellion as any.”*

One of my most anticipated releases of 2022. Billy Ray Belcourt’s skill as a poet shines in his novel *A Minor Chorus* as I knew it would — this book is *stunning.* Following an unnamed queer Cree narrator who pauses his PhD dissertation work to travel to the rez where he grew up to conduct research for a novel, *A Minor Chorus* is deeply affecting book that turns a critical and self-reflexive eye to the novel, as a form, and its possibilities. Through a series of encounters with family members, friends, lovers, and strangers, the narrator offers an account which is simultaneously literary, philosophical, and deeply political. Incredible.

*Content warnings:* racism, heterosexism, homophobia, violence, state violence, police brutality, colonialism, incarceration, genocide, grieving

*Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for providing an ARC in exchange for this review*.

I love Billy-Ray Belcourt’s writing and this is no exception. While I found the dialogue a bit off-putting (I find it difficult to imagine people using the poetic/theoretical language he does conversationally), the novel itself is beautiful and unlike any I’ve ever read. Belcourt has taken the form and reinvented it. The narrator’s voice won’t leave my mind any time soon.