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Survive! Survive! transports readers to September 1935, to glorious, tragic times in the company of Ti-Lou and "la Duchesse" Édouard, whose sparkling exchanges hide indissoluble pain; to sombre, twilight times with Victoire and Télesphore and between Josaphat and his ill-fated daughter. "How to survive?" they all ask, inextricably caught in life's cycle of lost illusions and forgotten dreams.
The series closes in August 1941 with
Crossing the Gulf of Misfortune, when a grieving Nana and her family must share an apartment with Victoire and Édouard as well as with Albertine and her children. Outside this unbearably crowded household, war rages and rationing rules over daily life. But in a year, in May 1942, Nana - the Fat Woman Next Door - seven months pregnant, will open the fabulous Chronicles of the Plateau-Mont-Royal ...
About the author
A major figure in Québec literature, Michel Tremblay has built an impressive body of work as a playwright, novelist, translator, and screenwriter. To date Tremblay's complete works include forty-one plays, thirty novels, seven collections of autobiographical stories, a collection of tales, seven screenplays, forty-seven translations and adaptations of works by foreign writers, ten plays and fifteen stories printed in diverse publications, an opera libretto, a song cycle, a Symphonic Christmas Tale, and two musicals. His plays have been published and translated into forty languages and have garnered critical acclaim in Canada, the United States, and more than fifty countries around the world. He lives in Montréal.
Summary
Survive! Survive! transports readers to September 1935, to glorious, tragic times in the colourful company of Ti-Lou and “the Duchess” Édouard, whose sparkling exchanges hide indissoluble pain; to sombre, twilight times with Victoire and Télesphore at the bottom of the ruelle des Fortifications, and between Josaphat and Laura Cadieux, his ill-fated daughter who wants at all costs to find her mother, Imelda Beausoleil. “How to survive?” they all ask, inextricably caught in life’s cycle of lost illusions and forgotten dreams. Even as this chronicle of resilience dwells in the difficulties and disenchantments of ordinary life, it reveals existences that accommodate a happiness that passes – always too fast and almost too late.
The series closes with Misery’s Progress, whose action unfolds in August 1941, when the families of Nana and Gabriel unhappily cram together in a new apartment. Nana, inconsolable after the loss of her two eldest children to tuberculosis, is forced to live with Victoire and Édouard, as well as with Albertine, her husband Paul, and their children, Thérèse and baby Marcel. Outside this unbearably crowded household, war rages and rationing deprives everyone of basic necessities.
These characters don’t know what readers of Tremblay do: that in a year, in May 1942, Nana – the Fat Woman Next Door – seven months pregnant, will open the fabulous Chronicles of the Plateau-Mont-Royal …
