The darkest of Keith Maillard’s novels, Motet is “sung” in three radically different voices. Paul, a professor of musicology, is researching a sixteenth century motet and finding a nightmarish story of heresy, persecution, torture and death. Steve, a rock drummer, longs for the “sainthood” of Hendrix, Joplin, or Jim Morrison, but remains haunted by a drug-related murder in Boston’s 60s underground. Kathy, a failed jazz musician and Steve’s deserted wife, is living a life of quiet desperation. These three are drawn together by precocious teenaged Wendy, Paul’s daughter and Kathy’s student. Just when Kathy is beginning make a new life with Paul, Steve reappears with disastrous results. Reeking with sex and violence, Motet is a nerve-wracking bravura performance that ultimately offers the hope of spiritual redemption.
Motet won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize in 1990.
Episode 10, Canadian Fiction Podcast (March 19, 2013).
Keith Maillard, reading from Motet followed by interview with Erika Thorkelson.
©Keith Maillard, 1989