Breathing Lessons is a timely novel. It feels contemporary, and – as an account of the intimate life of Henry Moss, identified as a “homosexual everyman” on the back cover – it deals with questions that could only be broached now, when gay people are making their way into the social mainstream and facing the issues that this inevitably involves.
Music must float in the air over Montreal, a city that has nurtured many a lauded performer from the late classical pianist Ellen Ballon to Arcade Fire and Nikki Yanofsky. So it is only natural that music has been the central focus of a number of books by local authors, including most recently Mary Soderstrom’s River Music.
In 1990, Paul Almond (OC) retired from his career as a television and film screen writer, director, and producer and embarked on a new career path as a novelist. His Alford Family Saga is a series of eight historical novels chronicling the arrival of his ancestors in 1880 to the Gaspé region of Quebec, and their subsequent settlement there. Each novel follows a different male protagonist along the Alford family line and offers stories about personal struggle, overcoming the odds, and love set against the backdrop of historical events.
In recent years, Mile End has endured more than its fair share of mythologizing. The supposed beating heart of Montreal’s artistic lifeworld, not to mention the first thing you think of when you hear “hipster” and “gentrification,” the neighbourhood is almost a caricature of itself, an imaginary Sesame Street dreamed into being by someone who reads exclusively VICE, Kinfolk, and Japanese post-rock blogs.
Her memoir, The Permanent Nature of Everything, is a reflection on her early years from birth until her first year of high school. It also involves a great deal of historical excavation, an attempt at uncovering the lives of her parents and grandparents.
Pain and Prejudice is a rare account of one woman’s scientific career. Messing has an easy style – personal and personable, earnest and engaging. The book is a lively portrait of a committed scholar doing science with and for people
Often, we take trees for granted, seeing them as part of the mosaic that forms the backdrop of our lives. Yet as Chester highlights in her fascinating guide to Montreal’s arboreal life, Island of Trees: Fifty Trees, Fifty Tales of Montreal, these trees should be valued as sacred spots where “the earth resurfaces” as “islands” in the waters of a built environment.
Like the twenty-nine other pithy contributions, “Salut King Kong” is no longer than 1200 words. The stories are short and seldom (too) sweet; they showcase established talent as well as new voices. It’s a Montreal book timed perfectly for a Montreal metro ride.
