Last Days of Montreal

Availability:
Ebook in EPUB format. Available for immediate download after we receive your order

DRM:
Watermark

Publication Year:
2012

ISBN-13: 9781897109915

<p>Montreal is a city that has always represented the ideal of languages and peoples meeting, mixing and producing a culture greater than the sum of diverse parts. <i>Last Days of Montreal</i> travels through an imaginary cityscape, powered by apples, beer, the dream of love, and a dark but determined <i>joie de vivre</i> which Montrealers adopt to survive the rising tide of bitter political schism, economic downturn, language laws, record snowfalls, crumbling streets and a baseball team on the verge of disappearing. The locus is a quiet enclave in the north-east end.</p><p>Donald is an idealistic anglo from Toronto who came to Montreal on the strength of his father's "Liberal" hopes. But Pascale, his <i>pure-laine</i> wife, is inspired by a messianic "Lucien" and she sees the future differently. Bruce is a divorced Montreal-born anglo from the West Island, a failing stockbroker and an uncertain father, who is struggling to build a new life on the East Side where he now lives with Genevieve, a French ex-pat and freelance translator. Bruce sees the blue and white Quebec flag everywhere he looks, but when he tries to explain the "near-death experience" his country suffered in the referendum to Genevieve, she is not as sympathetic as he might wish. She is concerned with something beyond politics.</p><p>If Bruce and Donald represent a cry from the middle-class, horrid Last Days is their hyper-echo. Loud and legless, Last Days is a dissolute tramp, a self-appointed profit of doom, wheeling around in his electric wheelchair, warning all citizens that Montreal is killing itself with this ridiculous French/English political war. Last Days' world is the downtown streets. But a fateful meeting on the Cartier Bridge sparks love. A true Montrealer, Last Days heads into the north end, in search of his heart's desire.</p><p>The time span is from the early 90's through to a blessed spring following the Ice Storm of January 1998. At its centre is that cold, nerve-wracking day in November 1995. <i>Last Days of Montreal</i> is emotional history.</p>