"It's about a nameless despair, an unbearable sadness. But it's also a reflection on what it means to be a mother, and an artist. Most of all, it's a magnificent novel." —Les Méconnus Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette never knew her maternal grandmother. Hoping to understand why the sometime painter and poet associated with Les Automatistes, a movement of dissident artists that included Paul-Émile Borduas, abandoned her husband and young family, Barbeau-Lavalette hired a private detective to piece together Suzanne's life. Suzanne is a fictionalized account of Suzanne's life over eighty five years - from Montreal to Brussels to New York, from lover to lover, through a series of personal and artistic travails that mirror the political movements of the times: the Great Depression, Quebec's Quiet Revolution, women's liberation, and the American civil rights movement. Along the way, Suzanne offers an unforgettable portrait of a volatile, fascinating woman and the near-century she witnessed, while chronicling a granddaughter's search for understanding, forgiveness, and a familial past.