A Trick of the Light

Gamache and Beauvoir visit an old church in Montreal, where Lillian’s AA meeting is held. Gamache finds the building unappealing but realizes he has seen it before: Lillian painted it as a warm and inviting destination.

The investigators are greeted by the meeting’s attendees, who give them beginners’ chips like the one in the Morrow garden. The attendees insist that men and women do not socialize in AA and are caught off-guard when Gamache has Lillian’s book, which marks women’s meetings. Beauvoir is instantly on-guard when the meeting begins with the Serenity Prayer from Lillian’s chip: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference (“Prayer For Serenity.” Marquette University). Beauvoir pronounces the meeting a “cult” and declares, “you can’t tell me these people aren’t into mind control” (165). The meeting includes a man sharing his journey with substance use disorder: He drove while intoxicated and killed a child with his car. Gamache suddenly realizes that the man presiding over the meeting is a prominent public figure. Thierry Pineault, the chief justice of Québec’s Supreme Court, is an AA member.