2022 Montreal

Philippe is about to turn 40, having settled for a quiet family life and a house in the suburbs of Montreal. But when his old friend Robert unexpectedly turns up on his doorstep, demons are reawakened and Philippe leaves everything behind to hunt down a band of white supremacists. The road to redemption is a long one, and there's a fine line between justice and revenge for the two firebrands and partners in crime.

While Quebec is well known for its provincial-level party politics and thriving nationalism, voting behaviour and electoral campaigning at the municipal level have failed to gain much attention to date. Voting in Quebec Municipal Elections seeks to transform the state of municipal elections research in Quebec through a systematic study of the 2017 Montreal and Quebec City elections. Drawing upon data from the Canadian Municipal Election Study, the authors demonstrate not only the importance of Quebec municipal politics, but the many ways that municipal elections research can inform our broader understanding of voting behaviour in the province. This volume considers the features particular to the Quebec local context, such as the importance of language and nationalism, the effects of local party labels for down-ballot races, and the role of ideology. Voting in Quebec Municipal Elections represents the largest-ever collection of work on local elections in the province’s history, making a significant contribution to our understanding of the municipal voter in Quebec.

This book provides an historical account of the emergence and spread of the climate change counter movement across the globe. Drawing on an extensive database developed by the author, the book recounts the development of an international network, taking the reader on a journey through the history of the movement before looking closely at a series of comparative case studies examining movement organisations in different countries.

First published in 1997, No Crystal Stair is an absorbing story of Montreal in the 1940s. Raising her three daughters alone, Marion discovers she can only find gainful employment if she passes as white. Set in Little Burgundy against the backdrop of an exciting cosmopolitan jazz scene--home of Oscar Peterson, Oliver Jones, and Rockhead's Paradise--and the tense years of World War II, No Crystal Stair is both a tender story and an indictment of Canada's "soft" racism. In 2005, No Crystal Stair was nominated for that year's Canada Reads and was defended by Olympic fencer Sherraine MacKay.

The Black Death epidemic spawned Boccaccio's Decameron; the bubonic plague brought us A Journal of the Plague Year. Many other great literary works have centered around storytelling at the time of a pandemic. Of people quarantined in their homes in 1722, Daniel Defoe wrote: It was generally in such houses that we heard the most dismal shrieks and outcries of the poor people, terrified and even frighted to death by the sight of the condition of their dearest relations, and by the terror of being imprisoned as they were. In March of 2020, a new virus in the shape of a crown forced Montrealers and people worldwide to be locked in their homes in fear of contagion. Social distancing, self-isolation, and quarantine became the new buzzwords dominating everyday vocabulary. In April, once this new reality set in, the Quebec Writers' Federation asked its members, What's the story of your day?" It initiated a project, Chronicling the Days, inviting writers to detail a typical day in their life. The aim was to provide writers with a forum to put their creative thoughts to paper to try to make sense of the surreal situation and find some connection with other writers. "Every story valid," the guidelines stated. One hundred writers responded to the challenge. In the words of Rachel McCrum, who curated the series, "There have been stories of people facing homeschooling and the challenges of suddenly having children at home all day; there have been worries over stockpiling, access to supplies, and the wearing of masks. There have been health scares. There have been love stories, and there has been grief. There has been isolation and loneliness, and there have been families coming together. There have been intimate glimpses into domestic lives. There have been closed cafés and quiet streets. There have been racist incidents. There has been anxiety and fear and generosity and courage. There have been quite a few stories of writers reflecting that staying at home and not seeing many people isn't that unusual for them. There has been a story from an ICU nurse. There have been stories of cats. There has been community." True to its slogan of "No Borders, No Limits," Guernica Editions is collaborating with the Quebec Writers' Federation to publish these essays in an anthology in the spring of 2021. These 100 essays are interspersed by six longer ones, also on the topic of the pandemic, but written for the QWF Writes series. Most submissions are by professional authors, members of the QWF; for some, however, this anthology represents their first time in print. Dispatches from a Pandemic -- Chronicling the Days provides an intimate panorama of the early days and experiences of the coronavirus. Constituting a rich mosaic of different styles, forms, and voices, this anthology provides a moving account of the everyday life of Quebec writers in isolation, digging deeply into their souls and reaching out to others.

Like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, this is a fascinating voyage into a strange and wonderful land, a provocative meditation on communication, biology, adaptation, and culture. In Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the subject of deafness, and the result is a deeply felt portrait of a minority struggling for recognition and respect — a minority with its own rich, sometimes astonishing, culture and unique visual language, an extraordinary mode of communication that tells us much about the basis of language in hearing people as well. Seeing Voices is, as Studs Terkel has written, "an exquisite, as well as revelatory, work."