Mama’s Boy Behind Bars by David Goudreault, Translated by JC Sutcliffe

Now I’ve killed another person. I’m a serial killer. Sure, two people is hardly serial, but it’s a good start. I’m still young. Who knows where opportunities might lead me? Opportunity makes the thief, or the murderer, or even the pastry chef. It’s well documented.

Mama’s Boy Behind Bars is the second book in David Goudreault’s wildly successful and darkly funny Mama’s Boy trilogy. Once again written with gritty humour in the form of a confession, Mama’s Boy Behind Bars picks up where the first book in the series left off.

Mama’s Boy finds himself in jail following a tender and violent search for his long lost mother. In an attempt to survive his incarceration, he sets out to make a name for himself in prison and is desperate to achieve his ambition of joining the ranks of the hardcore criminals. But things get wildly complicated when he falls in love with a prison guard. Can Mama’s Boy juggle love and crime?

Praise for Mama’s Boy Behind Bars:

“Another essential work for anyone who wants to clearly see the things our society would rather keep hidden, the things that so clearly reveal who we are.”
—info-culture.biz

“Mama’s Boy Behind Bars is, without question, even better than Mama’s Boy: delicious observations, hard-hitting humour, a majestic style, and a sense of rhythm that will make many more experienced authors envious.”
—Huffington Post Québec

Press Coverage for Mama’s Boy Behind Bars:

Most Anticipated: Our Spring 2019 Fiction Preview —49th Shelf

Spring Preview 2019: Short fiction, poetry, and novels in translation —Quill & Quire

David Goudreault is a Quebecois novelist, poet, columnist and social worker. He is the author of the wildly popular, bestselling La Bête trilogy from Stanké, which includes La Bête à sa mère (Mama’s Boy, Book*hug Press, 2018), La Bête et sa cage (Mama’s Boy Behind Bars, Book*hug Press, 2019), and Abattre la bête (forthcoming in English as Mama’s Boy: Game Over from Book*hug Press in 2020). He has also published three poetry collections with Écrits des Forges. He was the first person from Quebec to win the Poetry World Cup in Paris (2011), and he has also received many other awards, including the Médaille de l’Assemblée Nationale (2012), the Prix des Nouvelles Voix de la Littérature (2016), the Prix de la ville de Sherbrooke (2016), the Grand Prix Littéraire Archambault (2016) and the Prix Lèvres Urbaines (2017). His work has been published internationally in France and Mexico. Goudreault lives in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

JC Sutcliffe is a writer, translator, book reviewer, and editor who has lived in England, France, and Canada. She has reviewed for the Times Literary Supplement, The Globe and Mail and the National Post, among others. Her recent translations include Mama’s Boy by David Goudreault, Document 1 by François Blais, and Worst Case, We Get Married by Sophie Bienvenu.