Sadie X by Clara Dupuis-Morency, Translated by Aimee Wall

Having followed the brilliant virologist Régnier from Montreal to Marseille many years ago, Sadie now works as a researcher in a lab, spending most of her time among microscopic creatures who teach her about life as a parasite. By day, she pushes the limits of her understanding alongside Régnier, who taught her that to study viruses, she must think infectiously, allow herself to be contaminated by dangerous ideas. By night, Sadie loses herself in bars, music, drugs, sensuality. Until she gets a call from the past that lures her back across the Atlantic.

When her estranged father tells her that a bizarre virus has been found in his hospital, Sadie returns to Montreal and her family, and all the unexpected changes time has wrought, to solve this new puzzle. Soon she realizes that the person she thought she was—someone who can leave everything behind—no longer exists. What is left for her instead is sinking into the unknown to find out what happens when ideas come to life.

This is a deeply inventive and singular novel about the power of metamorphosis and symbiosis. Combining the cerebral and the sensual, Sadie X explores humanity’s relationship to the rest of the world, and the role of rationale—and its limits in our multilayered, regenerative existences.

Press Coverage

“After winning just about everyone over with her first novel, Mère d’invention, Clara Dupuis-Morency is back with Sadie X, an equally ambitious work set in the world of virus research. This ‘novel of unlearning,’ which feels like an astonishing mix of Maylis de Kerangal and Virginie Despentes, is a high-wire act that could not be more timely.” —Chantal Guy, La Presse

“A demanding and highly intelligent novel, Sadie X boldly challenges everything the reader thinks they know up to the very last page.” —Collections: La revue du livre d’ici

“Clara Dupuis-Morency is a virtuoso of language!” —Chantal Guy and Karine Rosso, Plus on est de fous, plus on lit

Most Anticipated: Our 2023 Fall Fiction Preview —49th Shelf

74 works of Canadian fiction to read in fall 2023 —CBC Books

Science Friction: A Review of Sadie X —Alexander Taurozzi, Montreal Review of Books

“This character study is fascinating, as is the discussion of giant viruses… Dupuis-Morency is subtle in her exploration here… It was refreshing, once more, to look at the story of an older woman, and view her transformation over the novel.” —Alison Manley, The Miramichi Reader

“Dupuis-Morency has radically transformed perceptions of human interaction, putting aside anthopocentric traditions to carefully build a beguiling new way of interpreting our existence. Sadie X asks the reader to consider our lives and bodies in relation to the unseen objects around us, living in oceans and puddles, like viruses.” —Simon Lowe, Event Magazine

“With language games translated impeccably by Aimee Wall, [Sadie X is] an incredible portrait of a mind inside a world made by the mind…. This isn’t a pandemic novel (its French publication was in 2021 and books this good take years to cook), which allows for ambiguity about the virus as cypher. Contemporary dread fades, the theses complicate, and curiosity breaks containment.” —Miles Forrester, Broken Pencil

Clara Dupuis-Morency was born in Quebec City and lives in Montreal. Her first novel, Mère d’invention, was a finalist for Prix des libraires du Québec, Prix du CALQ–Work by an Emerging Artist, and for the France-Québec prize, Les Rendez-vous du premier roman. She also works as a translator and is the mother of twin girls.

Newfoundland-native Aimee Wall is a writer and translator. Her essays, short fiction, and criticism have appeared in numerous publications, including Maisonneuve, Matrix Magazine, the Montreal Review of Books, and Lemon Hound. Wall’s translations include Vickie Gendreau’s novels Testament (2016), and Drama Queens (2019), and Sports and Pastimes by Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard (2017). Her acclaimed debut novel, We, Jane was nominated for nine literary prizes including the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the BMO Winterset Award, the ReLit Award for Fiction, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. Wall lives in Montreal.