Paulette Dubé’s debut novel Talon is a testament to the tenacity of family ties: no matter where you go or with whom you share your life, you cannot escape where you came from. Dubé begins the tale with Rubis Morin, a ramensheur – faith healer and midwife – in 19th-century Quebec, specifically Gaspé, “le talon, the heap of Quebec.” Rubis is eventually killed by men who fear her powers; sensing this fate, she sends her young son out west with her brothers to help settle new land. Before he leaves, she gives him her diary, a book replete with wisdom, folklore, and recipes.

Phélice Trefflé is Rubis’s great-great-granddaughter, a student nurse in 1960s Edmonton who is trying to validate the lore in Rubis’s diary within a modern medical context. Through reading this diary and asking family members for explanations, she discovers some unpleasant truths about her family and herself.

Dubé mixes time, place, and voice to illustrate how Phélice’s story began long before she was born, with her ancestors setting her physical, spiritual, and emotional map in place. Family histories have many narrative strands, but here Dubé tries to create a single narrative out of a choir of voices all gasping to be heard. The effect is similar to being in a room full of people all vying for your attention; what began as intriguing becomes confusing and irritating, building to a crescendo that’s dampened by its own density. Dubé’s poetic capabilities are undeniable (she won the Milton Acorn Memorial People’s Poetry Award), but these sensibilities – despite their beauty, cleverness, and depth – strand too many ideas and actions within the prose, eventually clogging the narrative. Leitmotifs and metaphor are favourite devices, but beautifully written passages don’t always make for gripping reading.