"Some stories of this collection by Brulotte are among the best texts published in Quebec in 1982, simple, sober, nourished by an original and rich intelligence of emotion." Rene Lapierre, Liberté, April 1983.
"Gaëtan Brulotte is one of those writers who have participated in a significant fashion to the recent history of Quebec short story. (… ) The Secret Voice is said to be an emblematic collection, which has contributed to give a formidable impulse to the genre." Francine Bordeleau, Montreal, Lettres québécoises 87 (1997), 14.
"Among the best collections since the beginning of the 80s" Jean-François Chassay, Spirale, March 1986.
"A collection of ten short stories of a rare quality. [...] A perfect mastery of short story writing. [...] Universal themes inspired from small but significant facts of daily life, an acute sense of irony [...] evident skills in text construction, intelligence of style [...] all make this collection of short stories a great achievement. The Secret Voice is a book that is at the same time solemn and funny, full of modern references which unveil with soberness and just a tremor the dramatic side of the contemporary world. This is a book that you must read." Noel Audet, Le Devoir (Montreal), Dec. 18, 1982
"It is certainly The Secret Voice by Gaëtan Brulotte which leads the way (...) this collection is a rupture and sets the tone, the future orientation that will take the genre. With minute detail Brulotte unearths the absurd, shams, even the totalitarian dimension hidden in apparent automatisms, social fights, and hierarchical relations. His characters well illustrate what we may call, following Freud, a "daily life psychopathology". But The Secret Voice tells emotional states rather than stories, Brulotte is not only in fiction but also in metafiction, and his texts seem to be reflecting on the writing process itself..." Marie Caron, Lettres québécoises, 2000, p. 39
"...belongs to the literature of the absurd, depicts a universal truth: humans engage in senseless activity most of the time and try to make it appear purposeful by finding justification in bending human will and intelligence to the omniscience of an order, for no other reason than it has been given. (…) Sparkling passages (...) together with nunerous penetrating insights, keep the reader's interest throughout." Thomas Brown, Quebec Studies, Hanover, New Hampshire (USA), 3, 1985, p. 221-222.
"Although the collection ends on a note of hope, we must not underestimate the warning contained in the collection's title. Le Surveillant enfolds not only the obvious noun phrase but also a disquieting participial construction whose object is imprecise, and whose subject is absent. [...] The threat of the possibility of extinguishing the human desire for freedom, decency, and meaning is always with us; it must be countered by perpetual vigilance." Ruth M. Mésavage. "Conceptual Rhetoric and Poetic Language in Le Surveillant by Gaétan Brulotte," Quebec Studies (Hanover, New Hampshire, USA), 3(1985): 201
"It is not easy to give to a collection of short stories homogeneity of style as well as of content. With The Secret Voice, Brulotte succeeds in doing so. [...] All his characters and situations talk definitely of loss and lack, in other words of desire. What Brulotte seems to dramatize, by a sort of exacerbation of the law, is close to the preoccupations of the modernity. All is done here softly, with an economy of means that reminds us Beckett and Kafka." Marcel Labine, Spirale, March 1983.
"Gaetan Brulotte is a master of irony. [...] The attractions of this literary style are numerous: delicacy, drollery, very correct and elegant prose, coherent text [...] Discreetly, politely, Brulotte proceeds to systematic demystification and points out the absurdity of situations and the unconsciousness of individuals." Gilles Cossette, Lettres québécoises 29, Spring 1983.
"I did not read Double Exposure. I have therefore the pleasure today to congratulate a writer, a real one, who knows how to write and to tell stories, who goes, with a remarkable ease, into all kinds of absurdities that compose our world. [...] We laugh sometimes while reading Brulotte. But it is never with a frank laugh. Because the situations, even the most fantastic ones, in which he throws his characters, are too similar to those we live everyday for not stirring up some malaise. Things could really be like he shows them." Gilles Marcotte, L'Actualité, April 1983, p. 118.
"The Brulotte’s collection is written in an impeccable style that accompanies very well the described situations: short, abrupt and concise sentences. Isn’t this rare economy of means the key quality of a good writer? Brulotte is talented. We are looking forward to his next work because he has something to say and he knows how to say it." Aurélien Boivin, Québec francais, March 1983, p. 3
"A grave and funny book all at the same time (…) An exceptional mastery." André Gaudreault, Le Nouvelliste, Feb. 5, 1983
"The style is beautiful, elegant, sensual. In a few words, the characters gain density, become real. They are at the same time vain and tragic, ridiculous and passionate." Christine Laforge, Le Quotidien (Chicoutimi), Dec. 24, 1982
"It is an important problem that Gaetan Brulotte is addressing in his book. (..) Gaetan Brulotte has succeeded in creating, with a humorist tone, one of the great philosophical tales of our time, which is aimed at making us think about the significance of life and labor." Jean Sarrazin, La vie quotidienne, Radio-Canada AM, Dec. 8, 1982
"We are fully in action literature [...]. These are authentic short stories. We don’t have the impression of reading short novels. There is a condensation, I am insisting on the word, that makes a short story of fifteen pages a total situation, a cosmos that would seem complete [...] Brulotte’s writing is meticulous (…) capable serial extensions.(…) Do not wait for the next books of Gaetan Brulotte. You must read this one." Gilles Pellerin, Book Club, Radio-Canada FM, Jan. 24, 1983
"The quiet power of the absurd. (…) We recognize the manner of the author: a good mastery of his means of expression, the maximum adequacy of form and content [...] Brulotte has succeeded in giving to his ten short stories, even though they are very different, a unity of inspiration. [...] A collection of great quality." Réginald Martel, La Presse, Montreal, Feb. 12 1983
"Gaetan Brulotte is a novelist that will leave a durable mark on our literature. He practices the economy of words when the trend is to waste. No scoria or complacency like those accumulated by beginners or even professional writers. He prefers the short cut over talkative show off, discretion and modesty to provocation [...] As we progress in the reading, a kind of liberation appears through style and poetry. [...] It ends in beauty and sweetness. That is also the art of short story. To leave a souvenir that can transform itself into dream. To build a world with a few words and to look at it vibrate and transform itself during a few minutes, during a few pages.." Madeleine O. Michalska, Livres et auteurs québécois, Jan. 1983
"The author’s writing is characterized by a soberness that serves well the absurd. The reading of this book is never boring because the author knows how to find the strangeness that hides behind the platitudes of daily life." Raymond Martin, Moebius 17, Spring 1983, p. 92.
"This collection of short stories is surely worth reading [...] It makes us think, it charms us, it touches us, [...] And all this in an admirable style. (…) Gaetan Brulotte is no doubt a good writer. Really good. (…) There are talents that can never fool." Claude Wintgens, Image de la Mauricie,7.6 March 1983, p. 29.
"Gaetan Brulotte likes to experience newness, originality and strangeness. Such as the Surrealists, he finds the unusual in the most ordinary everyday life. He likes to discover its mysteries, its outrageousness and its social deviations [...] Behind all this, there is also a fight with the forbidden that is reassuring but also disturbing. And each time it is a feast for the eyes. Each time it is an incursion into the most obscure but also richest parts of the human soul. It is certainly also all the sensual density of an exceptional style." Gérald Gaudet, L’Echange [Trois-Rivières] May 1981, p.1.
"A different style, refined, metaphorical, a bit fantastic. [...] All this is presented with humor [...] a humor which is at the same time subtle and defiant." Normand Desjardins, Nos livres, March 1983, p. 15.
"Ten short stories of a remarkable concision. Here are ten brief incursions into the daily life, which become quickly ours due to the efficiency of a precise and sober style." Paul A. Bourque, Au Masculin, August 1983, p.31.
"One must be deeply human to write such stories. And the style is very beautiful [...] According to me, in these texts there is all of this: there is dancing, choreography, and of course, an actor side to it, there is theatre, but there is also cinema, there is television, and it is radio-oriented. A very unusual melting pot! After thirty-one years in the professional business, I can surely say it now and I know what I am talking about. It is very rare! And I found all that the very first time I worked on these texts." Julien Bessette, actor, CBC, 1981.
"G. Brulotte is a formidable observer of all forms of alienation, whether they are subtle or bold. His short stories are brief but troubling incursions into the country of absurd. (…) G. Brulotte succeeded in finding the laconic or ironic tone that suits best to his narratives. The writing is polished, precise and perfectly mastered." André Berthiaume, Livres et auteurs québécois Presses de l'Université Laval, Québec City, 1982, p. 36-37.
"Gaetan Brulotte is very skilled and his skillfulness is reflected in his writing which is very beautiful, very elaborate and minute. (…) It is probably the theme of liberty that could unify the ten short stories of The Secret Voice. (…) I am under the impression that we can not find in Quebec literature any affiliation to the Brulotte short stories." Michelle Roy, CKRL FM, Québec City, Jan. 26, 1983
"Gaetan Brulotte never considered his life or his career with a light head. (…) He has always chosen the most difficult paths, the most demanding ones." Pierrette Roy, Sherbrooke, La Tribune, Jan. 15 1983, p. B-3
"I am the desert man, says the painter of harsh landscapes and dry experiences, the writer of excessive states of the earth’s crust and the human soul. This desert man is Gaetan Brulotte. His Sentinel (in The Secret Voice) is also a desert man." Régis Tremblay, Quebec City, Le Soleil, Jan. 29 1983, p. D-3
"Well written, an often bitter lucidity." Paul Mancel, Montreal, Le Devoir, Dec. 4, 1982.
"An impressive record. Marginal characters who look like everyone (…) We recognize ourselves in such short stories as ‘The Sentinel’, ‘The Sweeper’, ‘The Exalted One’ (…) In The Secret Voice we recognize the author’s style, his sophisticated writing, which is precise, original, and its meticulousness in developing his characters…" Louis-Marie Lapointe, Progrès-Dimanche, Chicoutimi (Québec), Dec. 26, 1982
"There are no embellishments (…) you will laugh a great deal, not always but often. And this is easy to read." Jean Malo, "Tout sur tout," CHLT TV, Sherbrooke (Québec), Jan. 13 1983.
"A good collection of short stories. Small and brief pieces of prose, slightly ironic, cruelly true. Always in the margins of events. (…) The depicted universes constitute a kind of kaleidoscope of the contemporary world." Réjean Beaudoin, Liberté, Montreal.
"There is the rhythm, it’s written for the ear. There are the colors, it’s written for the eye. There are the acute observation and the disturbing humor, it’s written for the mind." Raymonde L. Leclerc, L'hebdo de Trois-Rivières, March 5 1985, p.3
"Gaetan Brulotte is without any doubt one of the best young writer singled out by a prize. (…) Confronted with the meaninglessness of the Order, the characters entrust themselves in it so intensely and with a logic and an absurdity that is so absolute that they end up despite of themselves getting around the Law or at least, blocking its mechanism. (…) It is that conjunction of the very brief questioning and the fatal abolition of being that makes all the power of these texts. The use of short story allows Brulotte to force our participation in an unbearable lightness rather than in an emphasis on depth." Francine Bordeleau, Nuit Blanche 23, May-June, 1986, 33
"The author of The Secret Voice has come out of the Quebec collective world and set about his search for universal experiences. He represents in a wonderful fashion the new Quebec state of mind: to open oneself to the world. The Secret Voice is a piece of work of undeniable quality. It proves all the refinement and subtlety of a professional and serious author." Cheryl Demharter, The French Review, USA, April 1984
"Ten short stories where under the cover of small facts, unravels or tightens the network of relationships between people, their work and their way of killing time. As we progress through this universe, we discover that the watchman is himself watched and subjected to orders that come from a mysterious and unpredictable superior figure. To obey the orders would mean to accept self-destruction. But paradoxically, victory comes often with obedience, which splendidly shows the ridiculous side of the law. Here the submission is only apparent. The originality of these short stories comes from the duality of a strict and concise prose, which indicates issues as well as closes doors. How to get away? By introspection, by monologue. Characters tell their story with a great amount of precision or they simply give up the struggle against order and renounce their duty. What is imprisoned, i.e., all that is reasonable, is liberated and reaches a stage of "soft madness" where the absurdity does not hurt anymore. Like the protagonists, the reader hesitates between doubt and certainty but he recognizes his own fantasies. And the humor, which is always present in this collection and has an irresistible power, certainly catches him." Union des écrivains québécois (Quebec Writers’ Association), 1983
One of the best and most well-structured collections of the period". Boivin, Aurélien, ed. Dictionnaire des oeuvres littéraires du Québec, T. VII (1981-1985), Montreal, Fides, 2003, p. XXIX.