Storied Streets: Montreal in the Literary Imagination

Published just too late to appear in the last mRb, but too important a book not to mention, is Bryan Demchinsky and Elaine Kalman Naves’s Storied Streets: Montreal in the Literary Imagination. (McFarlane Walter & Ross, $45). Not intended as the definitive guide to Montreal-related fiction (that would have been a multi-volume undertaking), the book is instead a look at how the city’s history and growth have been mirrored in its literature, with representative examples – sometimes classic (Nelligan, Roy, MacLennan, Richler, Mavis Gallant), sometimes pleasantly surprising (Robert Majzels, Linda Leith) – selected for each period and part of the city. Sleekly designed, filled with well-chosen photographs and infused with the co-authors’ clear passion for their subject, Storied Streets gives one of the world’s most “imagined” cities its due. mRb