Sports and Pastimes

Fiction. Translated by Aimee Wall. Inspired by Erik Satie's work of the same name, SPORTS AND PASTIMES is the first novel by acclaimed Montreal playwright and author Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard to appear in English.

This fast-paced story follows the daily life, at once empty and overloaded, of a group of friends who spend all their energy trying to distract themselves with huge hits of endorphins, art and various substances, navigating pleasure and boredom, the extraordinary and the banal, as (more or less) worthy representatives of the best and worst of what their era has to offer. Consider a mashup of "Girls" and "Less Than Zero" and you are pretty close to the fun and games of SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

"The novel of rich, apathetic youth has been done so often that it has almost become a genre of its own, but rarely has it been written in Quebec with such mastery of its codes as by Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard."—Dominic Tardif

"If the body is an obstacle to feelings or emotions, we must emphasize the strength of the interiority of the characters."—Jeremi Perrault