{"id":5149,"date":"2009-12-11T16:23:28","date_gmt":"2009-12-11T21:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/?p=5149"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:22:29","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:22:29","slug":"coups-de-coeur-michel-tremblays-grosse-femme-da-cote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/12\/11\/coups-de-coeur-michel-tremblays-grosse-femme-da-cote\/","title":{"rendered":"Coups de Coeur: Michel Tremblay’s Grosse femme d’\u00e0 cot\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Image: Rue Fabre pr\u00e8s de Laurier cc Fran\u00e7ois Hogue<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

In the early nineties, my dad lived on Rue Fabre, just above Avenue Mont Royal. He was working a day job and composing a novel; his roommate was an actor who hung his bicycle from hooks in the stairwell.<\/p>\n

The rent was affordable (the cupboards bred roaches) but from my earliest memories, the Plateau was synonymous with gentrification and I suppose we were among its pioneers. The underlying implication was that we were dwelling in place to which we were not quite entitled, our presence effacing some more “authentic” Plateau way of life.<\/p>\n

Yet it wasn’t until I read Michel Tremblay’s Chroniques du Plateau Montr\u00e9al<\/em> series that I finally got a sense of what the Plateau was like long before the artists, students and finally yuppies paraded in.<\/p>\n

La Grosse Femme d’\u00e0 Cot\u00e9 est enceinte<\/em> is set right on rue Fabre, on first day of spring in 1942. In the bars, voices are raised over whether the men should join the war effort and defend France (who had, after all, abandoned Quebec long ago). Fathers of large families can duck the draft and all the wives up and down the street are, coincidentally, pregnant.<\/p>\n

It is the story of people packed explosively, too-intimately into a Plateau apartment. Five adults and four (soon to be 5) kids share a 7-and-a-half (the kind that, upon closer examination, turns out to be a large 5-and-a-half with only one proper bedroom).<\/p>\n

Like the apartment, Tremblay’s novel is bursting with life: a catholic-school girl toying with new-found powers of seduction; an alley-cat in love with a 4-year-old boy; a prostitute playing hooky in park Lafontaine; far off, but not quite out of reach, theatre lights shining on the Main.<\/p>\n

And then there are the Grandparents whose roots are still in the country-side but whose front-porch tall-tales, fiddle-tunes and guardian angels have followed them to the the brick triplexes and iron-railed balconies of the Plateau.<\/p>\n

La Grosse Femme d’\u00e0 Cot\u00e9<\/em> is one of my favourite books, a story that is epic and magical, intimate and sad. A must read for anyone who’s ever created a home on the Plateau. (It can easily be read in French, even if you’ve never read a book in French before).<\/p>\n

Here’s an little taste:<\/p>\n

“Mercedes avait rencontr\u00e9 B\u00e9atrice dans le tramway 52 qui partait du petit terminus au coin de Mont-Royal et Fullum pour descendre jusqu\u2019\u00e0 Atwater et Saint-Catherine, en passant par la rue Saint-Laurent. C\u2019\u00e9tait la plus longue ride en ville et les m\u00e9nag\u00e8res du Plateau Mont-Royal en profitaient largement. Elles partaient en groupe, le vendredi ou le samedi, bruyantes, rieuses, d\u00e9fon\u00e7ant des sacs de bonbons \u00e0 une cenne ou m\u00e2chant d\u2019\u00e9normes chiques de gomme rose. Tant que le tramway longeait la rue Mont-Royal, elles \u00e9taient chez elles, elles faisaient tous les temps, se donnant parfois des claques dans le dos quand elles s\u2019\u00e9touffaient, interpellaient d\u2019autres femmes qu\u2019elles connaissaient, elles aillaient m\u00eame parfois jusqu\u2019\u00e0 demander au conducteur comment il se faisait qu\u2019il n \u2018\u00e9tait pas encore parti pour la guerre. <\/em><\/p>\n

Mais quand le tramway tournait dans la rue Saint-Laurent vers le sud, elles se calmaient d\u2019un coup et se renfon\u00e7aient dans leurs bancs de paille tress\u00e9e : toutes, sans exception, elles devaient de l\u2019argent aux Juifs de la rue Saint-Laurent, surtout aux marchands de meubles et de v\u00eatements, et le long chemin qui s\u00e9parait la rue Mont-Royal, de la rue Sainte-Catherine \u00e9tait pour elles tr\u00e8s d\u00e9licat \u00e0 parcourir.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image: Rue Fabre pr\u00e8s de Laurier cc Fran\u00e7ois Hogue In the early nineties, my dad lived on Rue Fabre, just above Avenue Mont Royal. He was working a day job and composing a novel; his roommate was an actor who hung his bicycle from hooks in the stairwell. The rent was affordable (the cupboards bredContinue reading “Coups de Coeur: Michel Tremblay’s Grosse femme d’\u00e0 cot\u00e9”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7832,7839],"tags":[4687,147,510,4689,2962,56,4688,292],"class_list":["post-5149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-neighbourhoods","tag-actor","tag-art-culture","tag-france","tag-francois-hogue","tag-michel-tremblay","tag-plateau-mont-royal","tag-plateau-montreal","tag-quebec"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCoups de Coeur: Michel Tremblay's Grosse femme d'\u00e0 cot\u00e9 - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/12\/11\/coups-de-coeur-michel-tremblays-grosse-femme-da-cote\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Coups de Coeur: Michel Tremblay's Grosse femme d'\u00e0 cot\u00e9 - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Image: Rue Fabre pr\u00e8s de Laurier cc Fran\u00e7ois Hogue In the early nineties, my dad lived on Rue Fabre, just above Avenue Mont Royal. 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