Thomas, A Secret Life

Life is not as good or easy as Thomas Pichon imagined as a 12-year old in early-18th-century Normandy. Inclined to poetry and religious/erotic imaginings, he is an office clerk, aspires to be a writer and is a part-time spy for the police. But his careers advance too slowly, and he takes comfort and release with prostitutes. A courtesan brings a new possibility and Thomas wants to have his cake and eat it too. Award-winning Canadian author A.J.B. Johnston has published more than a dozen books and hundreds of articles about 18th-century French colonial history in Acadia. A Chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques, Johnston applied his considerable sense of French history to imagine Thomas Pichon’s life. Johnston lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Historical, biographical fiction.