Heroine

It is October, 1980, the 10th anniversary of the October Crisis. In a bathtub in a rooming house near the city’s heart, Montreal’s “Main”, a woman is trying to negotiate her personal passage from Quebec’s politically turbulent 70s to the threatening bleakness of the 80s. She is negotiating other passages, too: from a passionate “open” love affair with a male left leader, and from deep involvement in far left politics, to a new way of life and living whose form she knows can only be grasped as she speaks it.

Fiction. Available again. It is October, 1980, the 10th anniversary of the October Crisis. In a bathtub in a rooming house near the city's heart, the Montreal's "Main," a woman is trying to negotiate her personal passage from Quebec's politically turbulent 70's to the threatening bleakness of the 80's. "Sepia, she's so beautiful when she talks of writing, you can almost feel the edge of freedom. As in a Cocteau film, ca 1940. A woman in a black skirt, black gloves, nipped in waist is walking out a door towards a black and white cafe. Orpheus waits. From that moment, you know anything can happen" (page 172). "Nothing I've read since satisfies my desire for density and beauty...Here memory is not 'the past', but imbues vitally the moment, as desire the future creates itself). As in Lorca's New York, desire is inscribed in the the city itself is tied with love" (Erin Moure).

Gail Scott
Gail Scott’s fiction and criticism have appeared in several journals. She is the author of two novels: Main Brides (1993) and Heroine (1987); Spare Parts, a collection of short stories; and Spaces Like Stairs, a collection of essays. Most recently, she translated Lise Tremblay’s Mile End (La danse juive, Lemeac, 1999). She lives in Montréal.