Suspenseful and riveting, Sunrise at Dusk is Thorold native Alain Fournier’s debut novel. The retired aerospace worker skillfully wove a story that keeps readers rooting for 17-year old Jesse Decruz. Set in the notorious government projects of Toronto’s Regent Park during the mid-1980s, Jesse rises from victim to hero, subjected to an abusive alcoholic father and surrounded by rampant crime, violence, and drugs in his school and neighbourhood.
An original hero in this inspirational story, Jesse becomes the single ray of light in a gaping abyss of hopelessness and despair. Bolstered by the unconditional love of his mother, his loyal friends, and a unique gift he possesses, Jesse commits to changing the world around him for the better, by forging an unlikely alliance with an ambitious school principal and his own abusive father. Sunrise at Dusk is a gripping good-versus-evil portrayal of how the sun can still rise even as darkness falls.
The idea for Fournier’s first novel “was born out of every underdog and comeback story I’ve ever read or watched on TV or in movies,” he told ThoroldNews. “I’ve always wanted to create my own version of this tale in order to develop a vulnerable character, stack the deck against them, put them through hell, then conclude the story in a way that leaves the reader satisfied.”
“I picked the 1980s because that was a great decade, a place in time I felt strongly connected. I picked Toronto’s Regent Park because I wanted a Canadian setting and it was arguably the most challenged area to live in at that time. I first became intrigued with Regent Park after my daughter Lauren finished her teacher’s training placement term there where she shared her experiences and the challenges children faced growing up in that region.”
“The title of the book is a metaphor, not only for the main character and story, but also the area, Regent Park, which has experienced a revitalization of sorts over the past several years. Tom McDonald and Carmen Derose were my best friends growing up in Thorold and both still live there. I did steal their nicknames ‘Goz’ and ‘Minoo’ for characters in the book but the parallels pretty much end there, although Goz was a tough guy and Minoo was a smooth talker.”
Fournier was raised on Battle Street, and his family was good friends with the Derose family, whose Pine Street home backed onto the Fournier property. Both fathers worked at the Abitibi Paper Mill, and Alain and Carmen became fast friends at age five.
“Carmen’s mother was an outstanding cook. As a typical Italian mother, she felt compelled to feed me every time I entered their home. I was a skinny kid and she likely believed I was not being properly fed at home. I could never leave their house until I agreed to eat something. I was the token ‘mangiacake’ Frenchman in a predominantly Italian town back then.”
Fournier recalled how Carmen’s father “would crush the grapes he grew and bottle his own wine in the garage, then store the bottles in their basement. Needless to say, Carmen and I would spend a lot of time in his basement during the winter months playing hockey and sampling some of his father’s finest from time to time.”
“Growing up in our area of Thorold, it was not Disneyland for sure,” Fournier noted, but he and his friends made their own fun, rummaging through “huge bundles of recycled magazines, comic books, hockey cards” that were dumped at the Domtar recycling plant near our homes. The plant was off limits to the general public, of course, but that didn’t stop us. We would sneak through the outer perimeter fence of the plant and scout out the warehouse filled with these paper bundles, waited until the workers vacated the area for lunch, then quickly made our move, pulling out huge stashes of every conceivable comic book and magazine (Archies, Superman, Sports Illustrated…) we could get our hands on, including entire eight-foot uncut rolls of hockey trading cards, which were like gold back then.”
“We’d swim in the old Welland Canal and used the 30-foot bridge at a place called the ‘Doom’ as a diving board to jump into the water. Completely unsafe by today’s standards, but for us, and many other friends, was quite normal back then, we survived nonetheless.”
“Carmen and I went through school and played soccer together into our late teens. Soccer consumed all our time throughout the summer months while street hockey occupied us in the winter; typical life growing up in Thorold. After high school, he and I travelled to Bowling Green University in Ohio with the goal of securing a soccer scholarship with the university there. Although we fell short of our goal, it was quite an adventure, as we had to hitchhike from London, Ontario back to Thorold when our transportation plans fell through.”
Derose went to South Carolina on a soccer scholarship with Clemson University, while Fournier completed a business and economics degree and played varsity soccer at Wilfrid Laurier University. Fournier spent summers at his parents’ Thorold home, working at the Fraser Inc. paper mill with his father to earn tuition. Fournier held various management positions with numerous aerospace manufacturers, including Boeing for 20 years, and ended his career as the Director of Supply Management with Air Canada Jazz before retiring in 2017.
He and his wife Marianne settled in Brampton and raised two daughters – Lauren, now 30, and Michelle, age 28—and plan to move back to Niagara next year.
Sunrise at Dusk is available on FriesenPress, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, iTunes and Kobo Bookstores, Google Play, and other book websites. It can be purchased in hard cover, paperback, and E-book formats. In January, it will be available in select stores in Toronto and the GTA. Readers can access the book now through his website or directly through his publisher’s page using either link below:
