C. Joybell C.

Saint Paul Trois Châteaux: 1948: a Novella by C. Joybell C.

There are those who say life is a pathway one paves with many things: time, space, questions, answers, desires, fulfillment, and loss. They believe we carefully arrange each for cause and consequence to give life order and structure. Life, however, provides an alternative outlook, where it lays its elements according to its own will. The pavement is not carefully arranged; rather the elements lay loosely, and in between them are the white spaces that we fill with joy, sorrow, and the depth of what it means to be human. For Thibaut and Pierre-Auguste Desmarais, Lucy Nightingberg's return visit for a night in Amaury Babin's pub La Place de St-Paul will bring their individual paths into sharp relief. Over the course of one evening, memories, sudden recollections, and immediate emotions give rise to passion, longing, and the unveiling of beclouded secrets, as a delicate dance of fervent love and redemption roils. Unannounced glimpses into their pasts glue pieces of the story together, and an understanding of the narrative in its entirety is constructed from which a truth might be gleaned. 
A rich emotional tableau is the setting for an evening of love, passion, atonement in C. JoyBell C.'s new novella. Full of extraordinary depth and a keen sense for the primal needs of her disparate characters, her profound understanding of the human condition is reminiscent of the classics Madame Bovary and Wuthering Heights. As past and present collide, the author's focus on the universal and her fierce characterizations make this modern update of classic romanticism succeed where many fail, utilizing the underlying human experience to serve as a foundation to take a classic literary style and make it new. Though it is no small feat capturing the aesthetic of modern drama while simultaneously retaining the depth of a previous literary form, Saint Paul Trois Châteaux: 1948 accomplishes this task with ease and aplomb, consistently delivering startling moments of emotion the likes of which are rare indeed.