Do we really need another book about Rocket Richard? Or Gordie Howe or Bobby Orr or Tim Horton for that matter? Do we need to be retold the same weathered story of another hockey great when there are so many untold stories?

There’s no simple answer. Since hockey lore is like scripture to many Canadians – a means of understanding who we are – it’s also important that it’s kept alive lest it go the way of much of our history: sepia memories workshopped by actors and sold as heritage moments. But no matter how important these stories are to our national identity, the point’s moot if the tale’s not well told.

One is grateful, then, that Our Life with the Rocket is so inspired. Roch Carrier, in his introduction, admits that he long resisted writing this book, having already made a substantial contribution to the Rocket’s legend with “The Hockey Sweater,” one of the most famous short works in Canadian literature. This confession is the first truth in a book that is a river of truth.

Our Life with the Rocket is as much about the hockey player as it is about Quebec, Carrier, and the author’s family. Carrier’s one of those writers who can position his own story inside another narrative and leave enough breathing room for both. Scenes of Quebec in the 1940s and ’50s (the story is told as an anecdotal serial) fade and rise into each other like movements in an orchestra. The scenes shift from battlefields of the Second World War to Richard fighting his way through amateur hockey to Carrier listening to the old men at the abbatoir debate whether or not Richard is worthy of the great Howie Morenz’s mantle. Each story is an epic, and while any of these alone would have made for compelling literature, that Carrier can weave them together is a triumph. One supports the other like stilts holding up a house.

“Do French Canadians need a flag? They have the Rocket,” Carrier writes. In the wrong hands, such a line could easily sound heavy-handed, but Carrier is able to drop the resonant note at the right time. Since many of Richard’s heroics are painted in relation to Carrier’s own story of growing up French in an emerging English nation, they carry a profound weight that supercedes the mere anatomy of goals and assists and fights (of which there are plenty, too). Hockey reflects life, which reflects hockey.

Carrier has the gift of telling a huge story simply. He takes a tale that is considered gospel to millions of Canadians and Quebecois and sits it at the breakfast table, couching it in the experiences of the everyday, illuminated through Carrier’s own life as a boy. There’s plenty of heart here, too. Reading this story is to share in the love that we, as hockey fans, feel for particular players and teams who so closely shadow our lives.

Our Life with the Rocket is also meticulously researched. Carrier’s description of how the Forum fans shouted “Fake! Fake!” when the Blackhawks threatened to win the Stanley Cup on Montreal ice makes for stunning reading (the Habs, led by Richard, stormed back to win the game, and the Cup). His retelling of the infamous Rocket Richard Riot of 1957 – where irate Canadiens fans erupted in violence when Richard was suspended for punching a linesman – reads like finely detailed stage directions: “Among the fans a young man is shaking. In his pocket there’s a tear gas bomb that he’ll launch when the moment is right. He’s very nervous. Luckily, he’s not alone. Friends are with him. They know his secret.”

Sports literature, at its most dubious, can be self-important and melancholy. Rarely are the complications of heroism and society explored in detail, and too often the storyline follows a familiar arc. These trappings are simply part of the genre, but Carrier’s lyricism and passion breathes life into a story that reads like it’s being told for the first time.