Ceri Morgan - Mindscapes of Montreal: Québec’s Urban Novel, 1960-2005

FRENCH AND FRANCOPHONE STUDIES

Series Editors

Hanna Diamond (University of Bath)

Claire Gorrara (Cardiff University)

Editorial Board

Ronan le Coadic (Universit Rennes 2)

Nicola Cooper (Swansea University)

Colin Davis (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Didier Francfort (Universit Nancy 2)

Sharif Gemie (University of Glamorgan)

H. R. Kedward (Sussex University)

Margaret Majumdar (Goldsmiths College,

University of London)

Nicholas Parsons (Cardiff University)

Mindscapes of Montral

Qubecs urban novel, 19602005

Ceri Morgan

Ceri Morgan, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owners written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP.

www.uwp.co.uk

British Library CIP

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-7083-2533-9

e-ISBN 978-1-78316-539-1

The right of Ceri Morgan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77, 78 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Cover: The Vieux Port and skyline of Montreal Tibor Bognar/Corbis.

For my parents, Lynne and Cledwyn Morgan

This series showcases the work of new and established scholars working within the fields of French and francophone studies. It publishes introductory texts aimed at a student readership, as well as research-orientated monographs at the cutting edge of their discipline area. The series aims to highlight shifting patterns of research in French and francophone studies, to re-evaluate traditional representations of French and francophone identities and to encourage the exchange of ideas and perspectives across a wide range of discipline areas. The emphasis throughout the series will be on the ways in which French and francophone communities across the world are evolving into the twenty-first century.

Hanna Diamond and Claire Gorrara

I shall begin by thanking the person who set me along the path of working on Qubec literature, society and culture, namely Bill Marshall, who has been, in his idiosyncratic way, inspirational. This book could not have been written without support. To this effect, I should like to thank Keele University for providing me with research leave. I should also like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC ) for a matching leave award in 2007. I spent part of this time as Eakin Fellow at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC). I am extremely grateful to the Eakin family for this opportunity, especially to Gail Eakin and Desmond Morton, who went out of their way to make me feel welcome. This period was a very important time in my life: many thanks go to Will Straw, then acting director of MISC, for integrating me into the life of the centre, for being an excellent academic role model and for providing much in the way of stimulating and entertaining conversation. Funding for research on the bof generation novel came from a Government of Canada Faculty Research Programme award in 2005. Part of chapter 3 has been published as Spectacular sexualities on la Sainte-Catherine, London Journal for Canadian Studies , 22 Gender and the City (20067), 12740. See http://www.canadianstudies.net/lccs/LJCS/Vol_22/index.html . I should like to thank M. Marcel Lvesque at la Socit de Transport de Montral (STM) for granting me permission to use an STM image. I am grateful to Sarah Lewis and her colleagues at the University of Wales Press for their support, encouragement and advice.

My initial fieldwork in Qubec was as a stagiaire de recherche at lUniversit du Qubec Montral (lUQM) in 1997. I should like to thank Paul Chamberland for admitting me to the Dpartment dtudes littraires at that time, and Louise Dupr, Lori Saint-Martin and Barbara Havercroft for allowing me to sit in on their classes. I have retained my association with lUQM and, before the construction of la Grande bibliothque de Montral, was granted library rights there on several research visits. In this respect, I am grateful to Max Roy and Michle Nevert. I am a member of La Traverse: atelier qubcois de gopotique and am indebted to Rachel Bouvet, Andr Carpentier and others for welcoming me to the group and introducing me to a new way of working, as well as to a host of colleagues and friends. Important amongst these are Daniel Laforest, Audrey Camus and my greatly missed friend, Lucie Tanguay, who died in September 2009. I cannot write about the Saint Lawrence River without thinking of the wonderful boat trip we took along it during a workshop run by La Traverse: photographing each other on the front of the boat, we imagined ourselves to be millionaires.

Other Montral academics to whom I am thankful for advice, along with interesting and enjoyable discussions, include Sherry Simon, Robert Dion, Annick Germain and David Leahy. I am also grateful to Marie-Jeanne Poirier, a former librarian at la Grande bibliothque, for so many pleasurable lunches in her company.

Montral is unimaginable for me without the following people: Martine Delvaux, lie Beaudoin-Delvaux, Jarrett Rudy, Cynthia Kelly and Mathieu Lapointe. I cannot thank them enough for making a space for me in their lives and for helping to make Montral what Daniel Laforest calls ma deuxime ville.

I should have been unable to write this book without the backing of family, friends and colleagues in the UK. I should like to thank my extended family for their enthusiasm for my project and for their patience in seeing it through. Thanks, too, to Pete Griffith, for financial and emotional support at a crucial time. Some of the ideas for this book came out of conversations started a long time ago. I am especially grateful to the geographers, formerly at the University of Southampton, who encouraged me to work on cultural geography despite having no formal training in the discipline, namely Jane Wills, Alison Blunt and David Pinder. Other key people I should like to thank are Dominique Belkadi, Hitomi Tobe, Jeremy Herbert, Ann Ireson, Erica Arthur, John Fagg, Richard Wild, Rosemary Chapman, Cline Gagnon, Nicky Marsh and Liam Connell. Still others include my colleagues in the School of Humanities, the Humanities Research Institute and the Languages Learning Unit at Keele University, including Robin Bell, Ilse Whrer, Concha Perez, Martina Wallner, Simone Clarke, Nathaniel Golden, David Amigoni, Ian Bell and Ann Hughes. Mark Featherstone read a draft of the manuscript and offered invaluable insights over coffee. The activities of the British Association of Canadian Studies, le Groupe de recherches et dtudes sur le Canada francophone, the CanadaUK Cities group and the LondonQubec Network have all been instrumental in fostering my research. I am particularly grateful to Richard Dennis, Steve Shaw, Leigh Oakes, Karen Fricker, Rachel Killick, Danielle Fuller and Jodie Robson.