Toward a More Perfect Union?

Kevin Lambert’s young age would be less noteworthy if he were not such a skilled examiner of depravity. His 2017 debut, Tu aimeras ce que tu as tué, was published when he was twenty-five (the text was translated in 2020 by Donald Winkler as You Will Love What You Have Killed ). The novel follows a group of dead characters — all killed in gruesome circumstances — who come back to life to destroy the author’s hometown of Chicoutimi, Quebec.

With his second novel, Lambert once again courts offence, extending his macabre purview to include cannibalism and necrophilia. Querelle of Roberval is, in the writer’s own words, “a pornographic, violent book.” Published in French four years ago, the narrative draws upon Jean Genet’s scandalous tale of a thieving bisexual sailor, Querelle de Brest, from 1947. Retaining the spirit of the source — the original author was...