Next Episode

Set in the heady days of 1960s Quebec, Next Episode offers a disturbing glimpse into the mind of a young terrorist. Idling away his incarceration in a Montreal psychiatric hospital, a member of Quebec's separatist army (the FLQ) begins writing a quasi-autobiographical spy thriller. The volatile narrator of this flamboyant novel within a novel reunites by chance with a long-lost lover and fellow revolutionary, the enigmatic "K," only to embark on a mission to assassinate a wealthy RCMP informer known as H. de Heutz. In a vertiginous car chase through Switzerland, however, he suffers a crisis of nerve. Who exactly is the elusive H. de Heutz? And could his target's mysterious blond companion be K? Hubert Aquin's passionate first novel galvanized a generation of Quebec youth when it first appeared in French in 1965. Canadian film actor Carl Marotte captures the urgency and breathtaking lyricism of this anguished intellectual tour de force, which originally aired on CBC Radio's "Between the Covers."