Browse Items (117 total)
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I took my dead father to a Red Sox game
Short fiction piece by Waterville, Maine writer, Ron Currie, Jr., about a trip to Fenway Park with his dead father. Published in the online magazine, "Salon," with reference to the author's recent novel, "Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles" (Viking, 2013). -
Have You Seen Ayla Reynolds?
Magazine article on the 2012 disappearance of Waterville, Maine toddler, Ayla Reynolds, as local and national news phenomenon. The missing child and her family at the center of 21st century "info-tainment," situated in the author's own hometown. Currie's reflections on growing up in Waterville, and his thoughts on the effects of the area's patterned economic depression as illustrated in the turns and characters of the Ayla Reynolds story. -
Oak Island : An Acadian Tale
Historical novel driven by a love story, with a search for treasures extending from the 11th-century Crusades and the Knights of Templar, to the Acadians and Mi'kmaq of 17th-century Atlantic Canada, to colonial Boston. Includes illustrations, maps, ancestry charts of historical characters, depictions of settings in 18th-century Boston and Nova Scotia. -
Second Sun : New and Selected Poems
Poetry collection composed of new writings and other previously collected works featured in three of the writer's earlier publications: "Crying in the Cheap Seats" (1971), "The Anarchist Heart" (1977), and "Home Front" (1978). -
The Anarchist Heart
Volume of poetry from native of Southbridge, Massachusetts and creator of collections "Crying in the Cheap Seats" (1971), "Duhamel" (1986), and the novel "The June Rise" (1994), among other works. Professor in creative writing at Colorado State University. This work is presented in five sections: The Community; Readings; Little Miracles; California; The Anarchist Heart. -
The Way That Water Enters Stone
Collection of short stories from native of Worcester, Massachusetts and professor of creative writing at Florida International University. Author of the novels "Louisiana Power & Light" (1994), "Love Warps the Mind a Little" (1997), "Requiem, Mass." (2008), and several other works of prose.Tags Baton Rouge LA, Boston MA, Community: Customs and Social Life, Death and Disaster, Family, Florida, Gorham ME, Irish Americans, Lake Winepesaukee NH, Leominster MA, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Fiction, Literary Works -- Short fiction, Louisiana, Lowell MA, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Old Orchard Beach ME, Orono ME, Providence RI, Saco ME, Sanford ME, Scarborough ME, Violence, Worcester MA -
The Back Roads
Short story narrating Maxime's detours: from a rare West Coast business trip out of Maine to visit his sister and her partner in San Francisco; from routes of his present to certain back roads of memory. -
The Angel on the Roof
Collection of previously published and some uncollected short stories, from 1975 to 2000. From the New England-native author of several novels including "Cloudsplitter" and "Continental Drift." Accounts of breaking laws in Katonga, playing hockey in Catamount, moving furniture in Florida hotels, dodging family matters over the telephone, and accidental death. Many stories set in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. -
Normand Beaupré, militant de la résistance canadienne-française aux États-Unis
Un portrait autobiographique raconté par l'auteur franco-américain, Normand Beaupré, de Biddeford, Maine, sur sa profession, sa vie academique, et sa vocation comme écrivain de la langue française dans la Nouvelle-Angleterre. -
Floor Models
Short short fiction piece of a Lewiston, Maine grandmother, mother, and daughter; family stories whose narrator captures family maladies and how they extend across time. Published for the web on New England Review, NER Digital. -
Loup Garou
Short story narrated by a writer frequently at odds with her spiny and somewhat distant lover on their roadtrip from Oregon to the East Coast. -
Love, Loss, and the Sacred in Maria Chapdelaine
Article discussing the role of the sacred in Louis Hémon's classic Québec novel, <em>Maria Chapdelaine</em>. Textual evidence of transcedence in Hémon's language and narrative, perhaps "markings" of a traditioned religious sensibility. A reading of the novel that traces sacredness as a sub-theme, and attends to character spirituality in the recurrence and development of religious - namely Roman Catholic - imagery, attachment, and detachment. How a religious narrative compounds the author's novel of loss and tradition in rural Québec. -
Frost's Way of Speaking
Article exploring tone in Robert Frost's poetry, as well as the poet's emphasis on the ranges of northern New England colloquial language. Thoughts on Frost's use of colloquialisms in the early 20th century. Influences on Frost. Frost's quoted attitudes toward tone. Select close readings of tonal expressions - expecially of Frost's "self-regard" - in "The Onset," "The Mountain," "The Ax-Helve," "The Road Not Taken," and other poems. Remarks on French-Canadian character and English vernacular as featured in "The Ax-Helve." -
The Happy Time
Coming-of-age novel in lighthearted stories set in and around Ottawa, Ontario, amidst the young narrator Robert's extended family of eccentric men and stern women. Robert's small obsession with a much older boarding woman, and other various crushes; the brief appearances of a friendly canary, a mouse, and Robert's French-Canadian uncles; Father Sebastian building a new church for life's finer things; the errands of neighbor Mrs. Merryweather; pipe organs, adult magazines, little green apples, and special characters in other vignettes. Illustrated. Adapted for stage and screen. -
Continental Drift
Novel following Bob Dubois, a New Hampshire oil burner repairman, and his attempted escape from discontent to a "fresh start" in Florida with his family. Entwined with the story of Vanise, a Haitian emigrant, and the severities she endures with her family along the sea route northward to Florida. -
Under Canadian Skies : A French-Canadian Historical Romance
Novel of historical fiction depicting the Rebellion of 1837 in Canada. Philippe Champagne and Edouard Dumas are two young attorneys whose advocacy on behalf of Lower Canada carries them from Montréal to the Québec countryside, and from the Champagne family and their friends to some of the most notable political figures of the period. The spy, Mireau, who unsettles Lower Canada and threatens its rebellion. Shots fired and swordplay between peasant militia and advancing soldiers. Depictions of animosity between English and French Canadians. Written by a Rhode Island author, and introduced with a brief discussion of New England French speakers. -
Vandal Love
Novel tracing a century of Québec's Hervé family in the United States and Canada, and the genetic conditions that have turned its offspring "alternately [into] brutes or runts" (4). Jude the emigrant boxer in 1960s Georgia and Louisiana, and Isa, his abandoned daughter, into Virginia and Maine. Georgianne and the runt orphaned grandchild, François, from Québec across the Canadian provinces in the middle 20th century; Harvey, his son, and the parental separation that removes one from the other. Harvey's personal spiritual quest across the American Southwest. The tragedy and genealogical loops that unify the characters and their movements through time across North America. -
Kerouac : l'écriture comme errance
Oeuvre critique biographique et littéraire sur le style d'écriture de Jack Kerouac. En deux parties: "VIVRE," ou les espaces de la vie physicale, personelle, solitaire, etc., dont les oeuvres Kerouackians sont nées; et "ÉCRIRE," ou Kérouac comme personnage, auteur, figure littéraire américain au milieu d'une culture littéraire nationale, marginale, et nord-américaine. -
Postnational United States Regional Hinterlands : Proulx's Ethnic Working-Class Communities in Accordion Crimes
Essay analyzing Annie Proulx's novel, "Accordion Crimes," according to the ethnic groups, working-classes, and cultural identities its characters simultaneously challenge and represent. A mid-1990s United States commentary on assimilation, acculturation, race, and place-identity in which this article's author situates the novel. The symbol of the accordion across cultural and geographic lines, within and across certain immigrant communities in the United States, in environments that temper American myths of upward mobility, and within musical communities of diverse qualities.Tags African Americans, Basque, Cajuns, Chicago IL, Creoles, German Americans, Immigration, Iowa, Italian Americans, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Louisiana, Maine, Mexican Americans, Minnesota, Montana, Music, Polish Americans, Québec, Sicilian Americans, Viennese Americans, Violence -
The Corpse in the Stone Wall : Annie Proulx's Ironic New England
Essay describing Annie Proulx's critical treatment of New England - in particular, Vermont - in her works of fiction, "Postcards" and "Heart Songs." Tenuous and tenacious relationships of characters to their rural New England landscapes at once idyllic and ruinous. The failures of fictional New England locals and tourists alike, and the "cultural politics" that pit outside economic influence and quaint projections of regional identity against the provincial knowledge afforded in home spaces and local tradition. Comparisons of Proulx's "New England fiction" to her later works set in and about Wyoming. -
Speeding Across the Rhizome : Deleuze Meets Kerouac On the Road
A reading of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" alongside the literary criticism of Gilles Deleuze and his counterparts. Emphasis on Deleuze and Félix Guattari's notion of the "rhizome" in comparison to the spontaneous routes of cross-country travel taken by characters in Kerouac's novel, and the innovative styles and shapes of his prose. Conversation with Deleuze's own reading of and writings on "On the Road" through the critic's descriptions of what is meant by the term "minor literature" : writing which is characteristically "deterritorializ[ed]" and exhibits a collective, political nature. -
The Pinch-Hitter
Short story about sandlot baseball in Lewiston, Maine in the summer of the narrator's thirteenth year, and the "Phantom Kid," Charlie, who stands up to Billy Boudreau's legendary fastball. Featured in a printed collection of stories told at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee between 1973 and 1990. -
Little French Mary
Short story about a French Canadian family newly arrived to Dulham, in New England, and its six-year-old daughter, Mary, who captures the hearts of Dulham's old men. First published in The Pocket Magazine in 1895. Reprinted in The Life of Nancy (1969) (http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/47340) and published online by Coe College: http://www.public.coe.edu/~theller/soj/lon/mary.htm. -
Never Back Down
Novel set in Keene, New Hampshire between the 1950s and early 2000s. Young baseball prospect Jack Landry comes of age with the Catholic sensibility and working-class ethos of his upbringing. Landry confronts stereotype, forbidden love's trials, and the perils of his personal success under the looming ethereal presences of an ancient event and his tragically killed Memere. A man's life between New England and New Orleans, configured through the guiding motto of his youth: "Never back down, never instigate."Tags Acadians, Cajuns, Death and Disaster, Family, Fiction and Literature, Florida, Gender and Sexuality, Irish Americans, Keene NH, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Fiction, Mexico ME, Mills and Mill Work, Mississippi, Native Americans, New Hampshire, New Orleans LA, Religion, Rumford ME, Sports and Leisure, White River Junction (Vt.), Youth -
Echoes of Antiquity in Maria Chapdelaine
Article exploring Louis Hémon's classic Québec novel, "Maria Chapdelaine" (1913), in light of criticism that has considered it in terms of Québec agrarian and religious mythology. The ways in which the novel employs mythological themes that have "roots in classical antiquity"(62). How the novel can be measured by critical insights into the concept of mythology more generally. Specific comparisons of Hémon's work and characters with "The Odyssey," Greek architecture, and some of the temporal and cosmological concerns of literary antiquity as explored by modern critics. -
David Plante
Radio interview with author David Plante on the occasion of the publication of his novel, "ABC" (Pantheon, 2008). Discussions of Plante's literary engagement with ghosts; with the notions of suffering, belief, and grief; origin and "the ultimate"; and the role of family. Brief discussion of the Providence, Rhode Island Catholic parish cultural milieu of his upbringing. -
Other Brief Discourses
Book of poems from Vermont native and Ottawa writer and performer, Abby Paige. A sequence of writings on Samuel de Champlain's New France - through the lens of his modern returning. -
Mille et un sentiments
1001 lines of poetry from Woonsocket, Rhode Island native and teacher of creative writing at Florida International University. From the author of "Queen for a Day" and "The Star-Spangled Banner." Title modeled after Hervé Le Tellier's Mille pensées. -
Man and His World
Book of international short stories rooted in Montréal and the US Northeast. Written in English with a recognizable play of languages, especially French and German. From renowned fiction writer and essayist, Clark Blaise, author of such books as "I Had a Father," "A North American Education," and "Tribal Justice." Blaise is the former director of the International Writing Program at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. -
Translation
Short fiction piece about a writer who can be either American (Phil Porter) or French Canadian (Philippe Carrier) depending from which side of the border he is travelling, or upon which side he sits. The complexity of a dual identity lived out in a single life - with accounts of his troubled youth in Montréal, his adult life in upstate New York - that seems to surface in his epilepsy. The success of his recent autobiography, "Head Waters," and the connections he makes with familiarity, his past, and his estranged father on a book tour that brings him to Montréal. -
Young Gentlemen's School : New and Collected Poems
Book of poems from a Malden, Massachusetts native, containing new poems alongside work from three of his earlier chapbooks. From the author of the more recent, "Easy to Keep, Hard to Keep In" (2007) and "The Immaculate Conception Mothers' Club" (2010). -
Awake
Book of poems from Augusta, Maine native and creative writing teacher at North Carolina State University. Contains foreword by Philip Levine. Republished in 2007 by Carnegie Mellon University Press. -
Woman in a Bar
Short story about a friend who, always when visiting the narrator, is eager to find a bar. From the author of the poetry collections, "Awake," "What We Carry," "Smoke," and "Facts About the Moon." Appears in the online literary magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly. -
The Captain
Short fiction piece that finds a retired navy captain long after World War II, and his housekeeper, far from the sea. From the author of "God is Dead," "Everything Matters!" and "Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles." Appears in the online literary magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly -
The Art of Fiction, No. 199
Interview with novelist and short story writer, Annie Proulx, about her life, her craft, and her thoughts on writing. Reflections on some of her past works, including the novels "Postcards" and "The Shipping News," as well as the story, "Brokeback Mountain." Her engagement with a wide range of settings and characters, with an emphasis on rural America. Interview conducted at her ranch home in Wyoming. -
Husbands and Lovers
Poem from a Lisbon, Maine writer and founder of poetry's BOA Editions. Dedicated to David Plante. Featured in the New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly published by Middlebury College. Republished posthumously in a collection of A. Poulin, Jr's works, "Selected Poems" (2001). -
Lucien
Novel set near Trois-Rivières, Québec, that begins with the birth of a first child - a daughter, Lucien - to Marie Charbonneau, whose husband Léonce despairs for not having a son to work on their farm. Two hundred miles away, the first-cousins Phonce and Pierre are married and forced to leave their home, later giving birth to a son. The lives of both families and their subsequent children as they come to live side-by-side on neighboring farms. The later life of a maligned Lucien. Winner of the 1938 Avery Hopwood Prize at the University of Michigan. From the author of "Not Without Honor" (1941). -
Negotiating Foreignness Across the U.S.-Canadian Border : Narrating the Francoeur Family's Everyday Life in David Plante's The Family and The Native
Article exploring the Providence, Rhode Island Francoeur family featured in David Plante's novels. The significance that the Canadian-American border plays for this family in shaping the cultural identities of its provincial characters, as well as the French cultural markers that grow out of its Catholic parish Providence locale. Some historical and theoretical discussion of the concept of the "borderland," particularly as it has been considered for Franco Americans within the contexts of Québec, Atlantic Canada, and the US Northeast. The convergence of the Francoeur family's identities as they extend across national borders with those that negotiate the borders of their ethnic neighborhood. -
In Moscow
An account of author David Plante and his editor friend, Nikos, on a trip to Moscow in the 1980s. Accompanying Nikos to meetings with Russians looking to publish works on art and architecture, and Plante's other various guided excursions through the city. How the Soviet Union of Plante's experience compares to the ideas and assumptions of Russia that gave him great interest and fed his imagination from the time of his boyhood in New England. Plante's trip away from home turning him to thoughts on America and himself, understanding his surroundings, and considering the value of ideals.
"My mother would say, 'Then go to Russia, go, if you'd think its better'" (107). -
The Pleasures of a Destroyed City
Short story featuring Joseph Beauchemin, an American expatriate in London, and Dolores, in their apartment in the wake of a public protest. The ways in which they struggle to know one another and to make themselves known - or not - amidst death, politics, and sex. From the author of "The Country," "The Family," and the recent memoir, "American Ghosts." -
The Tent in the Wind
Short story that finds James Briggs in London receiving a New York phone call in the nighttime from the mother of his ex-wife, Joanna, an expatriate in London, alerting him to Joanna's attempt at suicide across town. -
My Uncle Louis
Autobiographical novel revisiting a boy's childhood in Ottawa and the colorful character of his armchair philosopher uncle, Louis LaFrance. When Uncle Louis's marriage troubles find him moving in with the narrator child and his two parents, the household fills with his love of women, wine, good food, poetry, and Canadian politics. From the author of "The Happy Time" and "Hello to Springtime." -
Sex, Death, and Baseball
Book of poems from Wayne, Maine writer and author of the 2004 chapbook, "Children Are Ugly Little Monsters (But You Have to Love Them Anyway"). -
The Economic and Political Ideas of Honoré Beaugrand in Jeanne la fileuse
Brief article placing Honoré Beaugrand and his single novel, Jeanne la fileuse, in the French, French Canadian, and American socioeconomic and political contexts on which the novel clearly comments. An exploration of Beaugrand's ideological positioning, and the ways in which the author is both a product and a producer of a liberal sociopolitical consciousness at the end of the 19th century. A brief historical background of Beaugrand in North America and abroad, as well as a brief synopsis of the novel in question. -
Maria Chapdelaine : A Controversial Text
Critical analysis of Louis Hémon's novel, Maria Chapdelaine, sparked by the recent centennial of Hémon's birth (1880). Some descriptions of the novel's main character, Maria, and her choice between two suitors - one to remain in Canada, or one to leave for Massachusetts. Arguments in favor of a certain type of reading the novel, as well as of the character Maria's eventual choice, her reasoning, and what the author believes to be her self-empowerment. Contrasting interpretations from other literary scholars. Assumes some familiarity with the novel. -
Canuck, nomade franco-américaine : persistence et transformation de l'imaginaire canadien-français
Une étude sur le roman feuilleton "Canuck," par Camille Lessard-Bissonnette, comme example de la continuité des thèmes littéraires - et d'une imagination - canadiens-français dans la littérature aux États-Unis. Des transformations subtiles de ces thèmes dans un nouveau milieu américain. Une discussion d'un nouveau "nomadisme" nord-américain dans le texte : un histoire d'une famille émigrante à Lowell, Massachusetts. -
Jack Kerouac : une conscience de la mort
Une article qui décrit la rôle de la mort dans deux des oeuvres de Jack Kerouac: Visions de Gérard et Tristessa. L'auteur suggére que la préoccupation ou "l'obsession" de Kerouac avec la mort dans ces textes est son certain type d'engagement avec la vie. Quelques comparaisons avec les écrits en prose de Rainer Maria Rilke. -
Les fictions de la franco-américanité
L'introduction au numero 53 de la revue "Québec Studies," dont les auteurs décrivent le contenu comme projet dans la littérature de la franco-américanité: canadienne-française, acadienne, franco-américaine. Discussion des textes majeures dans ce canon littéraire, et de les essais qui explorent sa nature. -
In Advent : Poems
Book of poems from Lisbon, Maine native, former professor of creative writing at SUNY Brockport, and translator of Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies. -
A Picaresque Revenant
Article on Québec emigrant writer, Rémi Tremblay, and the serialized novel based on his time as a Union soldier in the United States Civil War, "Un Revenant: épisode de la guerre de Sécession." Textual interpretations of Tremblay's perceptions of war, and insights to his fiction based on information gleaned from his autobiography, "Pierre qui roule: souvenirs d'un journaliste." Explorations of Tremblay's portrayal of French Canadian emigration to the US at the turn of the century, and his literary representation of what the author calls "a new Francophone vernacular" (380). -
Rare High Meadow of Which I Might Dream
Book of poems from Fort Kent, Maine native and professor of English at New Mexico State University. Author of the book of poems, "Cathedral of the North," published in 2001. -
L'abîme hospitalier
Présentation de douze poèmes écrites par Louis Dantin. Précédée d'un essai critique et biographique de Dantin - sa vie et ses oeuvres au Canada, en Europe, et à Boston aux États-Unis dans la première moitié du XXe siècle. -
We Too Are Sons of Liberty : Franco-American Ethnic Advocacy in Joseph P. Choquet's Under Canadian Skies, a Historical Novel of the Rebellion of 1837
Article describing the early twentieth-century English-language novel, "Under Canadian Skies," as unique to the canon of francophone Franco American novels of the same historical period. How author Joseph Choquet's form of literary ethnic advocacy differs from a more popular notion of "la survivance" apparent in the works of writers Jules Verne and Ernest D. Choquette. Thoughts on the novel's depiction of the Canadian Rebellion of 1837. -
Nationalism, Feminism, Cultural Pluralism : American Interest in Quebec Literature and Culture
Article describing the recent attraction of USA scholarship to French Canadian literature. The integration of this literature within academic French programs, and the various practical and theoretical challenges it poses to the broader canon of Francophone Studies. The unique tie between Quebec literature and the growth of feminist, postcolonialist, and cultural minority literary critiques in Canada and the USA. The impact of Quebec nationalism - as well as multiculturalism - on its provincial literatures, and vice versa. -
Mirbah
Un roman sur la vie immigrante et catholique d'une actrice dans la ville de Holyoke, Massachusetts; sa communauté et paroisse canadienne-française.
Un roman feuilleton publié en dix fascicules entre 1910 et 1912 par "La Justice" à Holyoke, sous le nom de plume "Emma Port-Joli." Republié à 1979 par le National Materials Development Center for French. -
The Erasure of Grace : Reconnecting Peyton Place to its Author
Critical article on the connection between the public reception of the 1950s breakout novel, "Peyton Place," and the attitudes and public persona of its author, Grace Metalious. How Metalious' life might be read in the depictions and trials of her novel's female characters. How the fictional town of Peyton Place - based on Metalious' New Hampshire home - resonated with readers across the United States. -
Literatures of Exile and Return : Jack Kerouac and Quebec
Critical article exploring two of Jack Kerouac's novels - "Doctor Sax" and "Satori in Paris" - in a way that emphasizes the importance of Kerouac's "translingual" identity, cultural heritage, and his relationship to the diasporic history of the people of Québec and French Canada. How Québec literary scholarship has elevated Kerouac's prose to a level unmatched in the United States, where the author argues little attention has been paid to the influence of Kerouac's cultural and linguistic identity on his American writing. A comparative close-reading of Québec writer Jacques Poulin's novel, "Volkswagen Blues," and the various debts it owes to Kerouac. -
Finding Your Inner Moose : Ida Leclair's Guide to Livin' the Good Life
Maine humor self-help guide in the voice of Ida LeClair, the character creation of Maine writer and performer, Susan Poulin. "Commonsensical" wisdoms from the western Maine town of Mahoosuc Mills, drawn from Ida's life experiences; her husband, Charlie; her friends and family, young and old; and the iconic Maine moose. -
Say No More
Short story that finds Norman Malloy sitting in a kitchen alone. He segregates himself from his wife, Colette, their infant daughter, and Colette's large extended family as they celebrate in two languages a grandmother's birthday in the living room nearby. Norman and Colette's car trip home - in tension and in snowfall - from the Biddeford, Maine gathering back to nearby Scarborough. Featured in Portland Monthly Magazine. From Maine author of short story collections "Too Hot & Other Maine Stories" and "Squatter's Rights." -
Alphonsine
Historical novel introducing the author's great-great-grandparents' from Montréal, Québec, and their family's new life after immigrating to Rapid City in the Black Hills area of South Dakota, USA. Begins with the mother - Alphonsine - and her children as they leave Montréal to reunite with the father who had left long before to seek work. Family life in the United States in the 19th century. Illustrated in black and white drawings. Contains an epilogue charting the later lives of Alphonsine, her husband Charles, and their several children. -
Performances of Franco-American Identity in Mirbah : A Portrait of Precious Blood Parish
Article exploring the French language novel, "Mirbah," written by Emma Dumas in Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1910. How the words and actions of the novel's characters can be read as various performances of Franco-American identity. A portrait of Holyoke's Precious Blood Roman Catholic Parish. A particular focus on religious practice and theatrical performance in Holyoke around 1910, and their occurrence within the text, . Thoughts on Dumas's personal commitment to "la survivance," and the writerly activities of her journalistic cultural contemporaries in the early 20th century. -
Kind Ness
Dramatic piece that follows five young people of different sociocultural backgrounds - and one Rwandan gorilla - interacting with one another at various stages of their lives in the suburban United States, all under the apparent study of the narrator. First performed in 1986; published in a 1988 collection of new American plays. -
Siting memory in Normand Beaupré's Le petit mangeur de fleurs
Article on the role of memory in Biddeford, Maine author Normand Beaupré's recent autobiographical novel. How memories and the act of remembering of one's youth and childhood home help to build collective cultural identity among Franco American communities, and become building block's for the author's personal, literary identity. Critical reading of the author's use of the French language, and of the personal and cultural traits upon which his story focuses. -
Arrhythmia
Short fiction piece about a woman's relationship with her mother illuminated in the ticks and increasing demands of her mother's heart condition. A parallel story of the woman's failed relationship with her partner, Mauricia. -
Your People's Ways
Short fiction piece told from the perspective of Rosaire, a young woman who suffers from a painful and mysterious physical injury. Movements in the relationship between Rosaire and her partner Gabriela, a graduate student, who decides to travel from their Michigan home to California, where a past boss and former lover suffers from cancer. -
Buffleheads
Short fiction piece that finds Liliane coming upon the news of a suicide within the family of a former relative, gripped still by the emotions and tensions surrounding the suicide of her own sister - her tie to this other family - decades earlier. -
Jumelage
Short fiction piece that follows Maggie - a Maine woman in Montréal - through a sudden relationship with her "jumelle interlinguistique," Noémi, and with the province and people of which she discovers she may not be a part. -
Mémère Kerouac ou la révanche du berceau en Franco-Américanie
Un bref article de revue sur les significations culturelles dans l'écriture de Jack Kerouac: "un gars de chez vous, aussi bien que de chez nous," comme écrit l'auteur (398). Plus précisement, comment la mère de Jack apparait dans sa vie et, par conséquent, dans sa littérature: ses textes, ses images, son style. -
Envolées : poèmes
Un livre de poèsie, de courtes pièces d'un écrivain et un prêtre de Manchester, New Hampshire. Une introduction par Rosaire Dion-Lévesque. -
Songs of my youth / À la fleur de l'âge
Book of French and English language poems, written in a sequence modeled after the author's teenage years, from 13-20. From a Manchester, New Hampshire native writer. Illustrated in photographs and black and white drawings.
Un livre de poèsie en anglais et en français, d'un écrivain de Manchester, New Hampshire. Écrit en 8 segments: un segment pour chacune des années d'adolescence de l'auteur, 13 ans à 20 ans. Illustré par photos et dessins en noir et blanc. -
Les interprètes du beau
Un ensemble de brèves présentations littéraires et d'études sur les vies et les ouevres de plusieurs écrivain(e)s - locales et internationales, anglophones et francohpones - qui ont eu un influence sur l'auteur. Des réactions à la traduction de "Evangeline" par l'auteur, Maurice Trottier, écrits par ses lecteurs. Composé en trois segments, sur ou par les personnes qui suivent:
Poètes versificateurs: Alice Lemieux Lévesque; Rosaire Dion-Lévesque, Louis Dantin; Emilie-Jeanne Sorson, Anny Ticx, Roger Erre, Henriette Brondani, Roger Forst, Alfred Jarry; Alfred Tennyson, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Poètes prosateurs: Antoine de Saint-Exupery; Henri d'Arles; Saint François de Sales
Interpretateurs: Rosaire Dion Lévesque; L'Illettré; Séraphin Marion; Rodolphe Laplante; Antoine Goulet; Pierre Courtines; René Herval -
La littérature franco-américaine : écrivains et écritures
Un livre d'essais critiques et biographiques sur la littérature franco-américane et ses créateurs. Certains extraits littéraires des œuvres littéraire d'auteurs franco-américains contemporains, en anglais et français. Présenté en deux parties; un préface de la rédactrice, Claire Quintal, Directrice de l'Institut Français, Collège de l'Assumption, Worcester Massachusetts.
Book of critical and biographical essays on historical Franco American writers and their works; literary excerpts from the prose and poetry of contemporary Franco American writers. Essays presented in French, with contemporary literary writings in both French and English. Presented in two parts, with a preface written by the editor, Claire Quintal, director of the French Institute at Assumption College, Worcester, Massachusetts.
Table des matières:
Première partie / Part One:
"Louis Dantin (1865-1945)," par Yves Garon, a.a.
"Les Franco-Américains et l'institution littéraire québécoise : le cas de Rémi Tremblay," par Régis Normandeau
"Will James, né Ernest Dufault - romancier du Far-Ouest," par Florence Tormey Blouin
"Camille Lessard-Bissonnette - à la recherche d'un féminisme franco-américain," par Janet-L. Shideler
"La littérature franco-américaine dans un Petit Canada de la Nouvelle Angleterre: Holyoke, Massachusetts," par Ernest-B. Guillet
"Rosaire Dion-Lévesque, fils d'expatriés," Michel Lapierre
"Au-delà de la route: l'identité franco-américaine de Jack Kerouac," par Robert-B. Perreault
Deuxième partie / Part Two:"Tsi Gars," by David Plante
"A Pearl of Great Price," by Gerard Robichaud
"Un Mot de Chez-Nous," par Normand-C. Dubé
"On Writing a Novel about Franco-Americans," by Richard L. Belair
"Ideas of Order in Little Canada," by Bill Tremblay
"Reading from a Work in Progress," by Jacquie Giasson Fuller
Notices biographiques / Biographical notes, by Claire QuintalTags Boston MA, California, Central Falls RI, Criticism and Review, Fiction and Literature, Holyoke MA, Journalism, Lewiston ME, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Lowell MA, Montana, Montréal QC, Nashua NH, New England, New Mexico, New York NY, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Poetry, Providence RI, Québec, Religion, Southbridge MA, Van Buren ME, Worcester MA -
A Quest for Language : Jack Kerouac as a Minor Author
Article characterizing the literary works of Jack Kerouac as elements of his search for personal, religious, ethnic, and linguistic identity. Particular emphasis on Kerouac's French Canadian heritage roots. The ways in which Kerouac's novels can be interpreted in light of what theorists Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari call "a minor literature," and how these novels unsettle - as the author says - "traditional English prose." Chapter 16 in "Diaspora, Identity, and Language Communities," an issue of Studies in Linguistic Sciences: Illinois Working Papers. -
Two Franco-American Writers : Dantin and Dion-Lévesque
Article exploring the author's notion of cultural "interfacing" through the French Canadian and Anglo American contexts of Montréal-born Louis Dantin (Eugene Seers) and Nashua, New Hampshire native, Rosaire Dion-Lévesque. Both authors wrote in French in early twentieth-century New England. Discussion of Dantin's best-known work, "Les enfances de Fanny," situated in Roxbury, Massachusetts; thoughts on its indifference to "American culture" and to some other themes that predominate other Franco American novels. How the later poetry of Dion-Lévesque, his French translations of Walt Whitman, and his attitudes toward "American culture" compare to the works of Dantin. -
Franco-American Literature Today
Brief review of some resources in Franco-American literature available at the beginning of the 1980s. Specifically mentions collections, works, and writers in Maine, Massachusetts, and Louisiana. -
The Gray Mills of Farley
Short story that finds a textile mill agent caught between the greed of his directors, the powerlessness and plight of his workers, and the wisdom of a priest around the time of a New England mill's cut-back and shut-down. A New England manufactory-town setting and its diverse characters around the turn of the century. Written by a South Berwick, Maine native and author of The Country of the Pointed Firs. Featured in the following collections:
American Local-Color Stories, edited by Harry R. Warfel. 1941. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1188060
Uncollected Stories of Sarah Orne Jewett, edited by Richard Cary. 1971. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/227485
The Irish Stories of Sarah Orne Jewett, edited by Jack Morgan and Louis A. Renza. 1996. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/34475664 -
Jewett and the Incorporation of New England : "The Gray Mills of Farley"
Critical and historical reading of Sarah Orne Jewett's 1898 short story, "The Gray Mills of Farley," about textile mill workers, an agent, and mill directors around the time of a New England mill's cut-back and shut-down. Place and character descriptions in this story, according to the author, give us entry into the social make-up, living conditions, and manufactory settings found at the Salmon Falls Mills at the turn of the century in Rollinsford, New Hampshire - near to Jewett's own hometown in South Berwick, Maine. Author's comparisons between Salmon Falls Mills and the Amoskeag Mills of Manchester, New Hampshire. Reference to Tamara Hareven and Ralph Langenbach's book, "Amoskeag."Tags Brunswick ME, Business and Economics, Criticism and Review, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Fiction and Literature, Irish Americans, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Maine, Mills and Mill Work, New Hampshire, Religion, Rollinsford NH, South Berwick ME -
The Art of Fiction, No. 41
Transcript of 1968 interview with writer Jack Kerouac in his Florida home, shortly before his death in 1969. Conducted by three visitors - principally, poet Ted Berrigan - and with the participation of Jack's wife, Stella Kerouac. Part of a Paris Review series of author interviews, and featured in a Paris Review published anthology of other interviews with literary figures, Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, 4th series (1976), edited by George Plimpton. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/2659470 -
Sanatorium : un roman
Un roman sur Pierre Gagnon, un personnage médecin qui est devenu un nouveau malade dans un infirmerie pour les tuberculeux dans la Nouvelle-Angleterre au début de 20e siècle. Des descriptions vivantes de la vie, des autres malades, et de l'hébergement de l'infirmerie. Écrit par un vrai médecin; basé sur ses experiences avec ceux tuberculeux hôpitalisés à Rutland State Sanatorium, Rutland, Massachusetts. Republié en 1982. -
Au seuil du crepuscule
Livre de poèsie et de chansons. Écrites au Québec; en Ontario; dans plusieurs villes de la Nouvelle-Angleterre. -
Madame Athanase T. Brindamour , raconteuse
Roman composé d'histoires de vie et de la famille à Manchester New Hampshire, tel que racontées par le personnage-titre et son épouse : Marie Solfège Desruisseaux Brindamour et Athanase T. Brindamour. Les voix, personnalités, et communautés de deux raconteurs - femme et homme - franco-americains. Créé par auteur et créateur de "la Souillonne." Comme écrit l'auteur, chacun de ces trois caractères parlent "en dialecte franco-américain." -
Selected Letters , 1940-1956
Collection of selected correspondence between writer Jack Kerouac and family, friends, and other literary figures before 1956. Includes letters to and from William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg; to Kerouac's mother, Gabrielle Kerouac; Neal Cassady; Alfred Kazin; and many others. Contain references to early writings, travels, relationships, etc. Letters presented chronologically, annotated, and linked with editor commentary. Includes biographical chronology and editor introduction. -
A Border Like No Other
Book section exploring how the Canada/US border is used by some Canadian and American fiction writers to examine personal, ethnic, and national identities in comparative or dual contexts. Examines the work of Clark Blaise, Guillermo Verdecchia, Janette Turner Hospital, and Kelly Rebar, among others. Featured in a book that analyzes the thematic roles of the borders between Mexico, the United States, and Canada in contemporary fiction, and what these expressions teach us about transnationalism, globalization, and ethnicity. -
The Several Lives of Joan the Spinner : Honoré Beaugrand’s Jeanne la fileuse : épisode de l’émigration franco-canadienne aux États-Unis and the Making and Remaking of a French Canadian/Franco-American Novel
Critical and historical analysis of of Honoré Beaugrand's 1877-1878 serialized novel, Jeanne la fileuse. Speculation on the author's political, social, and artistic motives for writing about nineteenth-century French Canadian emigration to New England, and the uniqueness of his liberal perspective at that time. Some thoughts on the novel's serialized publication in multiple newspapers, its soon-after publication as a single volume, and its twentieth-century re-publication in France and the United States. Differences among the published versions, varying intentions of the publishers, and consideration for each version's distinct audience. -
Windblown World : The Journals of Jack Kerouac, 1947-1954
Edited selections from the personal, previously unpublished writings of writer Jack Kerouac, from 1947 to 1954. Daily thoughts and travel logs presented together with more formal musings. Contains two sections of personal journal entries and work logs corresponding with the writing of some of his earlier works, "The Town and the City" and "On the Road." Selected reprints of handwritten pages. Many selections dated. Introduced by the editor; presented with brief explanations of the names of people included in the journals. -
Selected Letters , 1957-1969
Collection of selected correspondence between writer Jack Kerouac and friends, other literary figures, and some family from 1957 to the author's death in 1969. Includes letters to William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg; Lawrence Ferlinghetti; Sterling Lord; Robert Giroux; and many others. References to publications, writings, travels, etc. Letters presented chronologically, annotated, and linked with editor commentary. Includes biographical chronology and editor introduction. -
Dirt
Storied reflections on the familial inheritance of an author's personal relationship with dirt. Cleaning habits, life lessons, and attitudes of the author's matriarchs toward the cleanliness of one's home and the neat order of oneself. How her confrontations and reminiscences over dirt appear at turning points in the author's life, and what these events have taught her about herself and her family. -
La langue est gardienne : Language and Identity in Franco-American Literature
Article exploring critically how contemporary Franco American authors use the French language in their works to signify Franco American ethnicity. Discussion and comparison of two works and their creators: Normand Beaupré's coming of age novel set in Biddeford, Maine, Le petit mangeur des fleurs; David Plante's recent memoir, American Ghosts, featuring prominently the parish of his hometown, Providence, Rhode Island. -
Safe in Heaven Dead : Interviews with Jack Kerouac
Short compilation of selected, transcribed segments of interviews conducted with Jack Kerouac between 1957 and 1969. Some of Kerouac's thoughts on ancestry, the Beat Generation, literature, his writing, Buddhism, Catholicism, family, and his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. Index of sources where interviews were originally printed. -
Requiem, Mass.
Novel centered around a family of four and a son's retelling of his disrupted youth. An absent, long-haul trucker father and his multiple families; a psychologically troubled mother who claims, among other things, that her children are imposters; an imaginative younger sister; the ubiquitous cat. The real and make-believe characters who intersect the narrator's life at home, school, and wherever his journeys take him in his attempts to save his family - in life or in story. Plays with, and discusses, concepts of fiction and memoir. Written by Worcester, Massachusetts native and teacher of Creative Writing at Florida International University. Winner of the Florida Book Award. -
Maine's Acadia : Young Writers Celebrate a Heritage
A collection of student writings in celebration of the 200th year of the Acadian settlement at St. David, Maine, in the northern St. John River Valley. Created during a 1985 Madawaska, Maine summer program for gifted and talented students - MEGA Magnified - under the direction of Gloria Hutchinson.
Includes the following pieces:
Introduction, Gloria Hutchinson
"The Acadians," by Msgr. Gilman Chalout
Sneak Previews
"The Sanctuary," by Robert P. Cyr
"The Time for When to Go," by Carol Dufour Baker
"Oui, Je Me Souviens," by Carol Dufour Baker
"Give Me a Spot in Northern Maine," by Jane Martin
"Growing Up on the Border," by Kim Geraghty
"Two Languages Are Better Than One," by Janet Hebert
"Daigle-Boone: A Game Behaviorist," by Christian Cyr
"Yesterday Came Suddenly," by Mary Marin
"Are Acadians Becoming Americanized?" by Joey Keller
Student Pictures
"The Accursed," by Gina Miranda
"Raindrops from the East," by Lori Ann Albert
"The Vengeance of Three-Fingered Willie," by Shawn Guerrette
"A Pair of Star-Cross'd Lovers," by Tina Chasse
"Crossing the Threshold," by Gary Albert
"In the Name of Honor," by Jenny Albert
"Notes from a Terrorist," by T. Mark Kelly
"Valley Images" (Selected Poems), by T. Chasse, R. P. Cyr, C. Baker, G. M. Miranda, G. Hutchinson
"In Memoriam," by Christian CyrTags Acadians, Acculturation and Assimilation, Allagash ME, Emigration and Immigration, Essay, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fiction and Literature, Folklore, Fort Kent ME, Language and Linguistics, Literary Works -- Anthology, Madawaska ME, Maine, Native Americans, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Poetry, Religion, St. Agatha ME, St. David ME, St. John River Valley, Wallagrass ME -
A Clue to Somersworth : La Malle Mystérieuse
The story of a young buy from Québec - Jean-Pierre - who pays a visit to the sister city of his own Thetford Mines: Somersworth, New Hampshire. A day exploring with his new friend, Laurie, takes them to Grandpa's house, through stories of old, and into a history of the city of Somersworth. Designed for children in the bilingual education classroom. Presented in side-by-side English and French text. Illustrated with photos of Somersworth and other drawings.
L'histoire de Jean-Pierre, un garçon du Québec, qui part de Thetford Mines pour visiter la ville de Somersworth, New Hampshire. Une journée dans Somersworth avec ses nouveaux amis, Laurie et son grand-père, et une exploration de l'histoire de la ville par leurs contes et photos. Conçu pour les étudiants dans la classe bilingue. En anglais et français. Illustré par des photos de Somersworth et des autres dessins. -
Tall Timber Poems
Book of poems on the Maine outdoors from a Rumford, Maine native and once-resident of Coburn Gore. From the author: "a collection of nature poems, humorous ballads, photos and sketches" -
North Country Ballads
Book of poems on the woods and woodland creatures of Maine and New Hampshire, from a Rumford, Maine native and once-resident of Coburn Gore. -
Fatherless and Dispossessed : Grace Metalious as a French‐Canadian Writer
Article profiling Manchester, New Hampshire native writer, Grace (de Repentigny) Metalious. Summary and analysis of her best-selling scandalous novel, "Peyton Place," her reportedly favorite novel, "The Tight White Collar," and her final work, "No Adam in Eden." The autobiographical turn of Metalious's writing and the elements of her personal and family lives that shaped her fiction. Featured in an edition of the Journal of Popular Culture entitled, "Canadian Women Writers." -
Boutades et rêveries : poésies diverses
Un recueil de poèmes et un drame dans un acte par un poète, journaliste, et romancier canadien-français à Fall River, Massachusetts du 19ème siècle. -
Letourneau's Used Auto Parts
The second in a collection of novels by this North Parsonsfield, Maine author. Set in the fictional, rural Maine town of Egypt. A series of vignettes centered around Big Lucien Letourneau, his family, and the other hardscrabble characters in their rural community. Letourneau's auto parts business and all the quirks, love, and violence between the people in his salvage yard/shantytown known as "Miracle City." -
Maine River Drivers
Short poem about the sort of men who worked to drive logs down the rivers of Maine to its many lumber mills, and the natural dangers these men encountered. Written by a Maine writer and published in the 15th collection from the Maine Writers' Conference at Ocean Park, Old Orchard Beach, Maine. -
Cecile's Dog Bo
Short story about Maureen, a young woman with distant Maine roots, returning to her "homeland" in a town like Lewiston. Her roommate, Cecile, and the dog named "Bo" that was left in their care with the departure of Cecile's husband. First published in Yankee Magazine, 1993. Reprinted in a collection of Maine writings edited by Wesley McNair. -
The Front Parlor
Short poem about wake services being held in the front parlor of the writer's childhood home. From a Lisbon, Maine native poet. Reprinted from the author's collection, "A Momentary Order," published in 1987. Featured in a collection of Maine writings edited by Wesley McNair. -
Cave Dwellers
Collection of poems from Lisbon, Maine native. Noted professor of poetry at SUNY Brockport, and famed translator of some of the works of Rainer Maria Rilke and Anne Hébert.
Presented in four sections:
I. Angelic Orders: A Bestiary of Angels
II. The Elephant's Womb: A Bestiary of the Will
III. Letters from the Tower
IV. Cave Dwellers -
Selected Poems
Selections from the published and unpublished works of Lisbon, Maine native poet, professor, and famed translator of poetry. Collected and published posthumously, with an introduction from the collection's editor. Divided into five parts. -
Canuck
Ce roman franco-américain essentiel commence en 1900 avec l'arrivée à Lowell, Massachusetts d'immigrants canadiens-français. La nouvelle vie de travail de Victoria (Vic) Labranche, quinze ans, dans les moulins de Lowell. Ses jours dans un Petit Canada de la Nouvelle-Angleterre. Son retour au Québec après avoir appris la maladie de son père. Publié à l'origine comme feuilleton par le journal Le Messager de Lewiston, Maine. Republié en 1980 par le National Materials Development Center à Bedford, New Hampshire. Traductions en anglais sont disponibles. (English translation is also available. Read more HERE)Tags Concord NH, Death and Disaster, Emigration and Immigration, Family, Fiction and Literature, Gender and Sexuality, Laconia NH, Literary Works -- Fiction, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Merrimack River Valley, Mills and Mill Work, Nashua NH, Québec, St. Johnsbury VT, St. Martinville LA, Travel and Movement -
La jeune Franco-Américaine
L'histoire de Jeanne, fille de Jean, dans le Petit Canada de la ville de Lewiston, Maine, au debut du XXe siècle. Le mort de sa mère, la fierté de son père, sa foi catholique, et les luttes qu'elle endure avec l'amour dans sa jeune vie. Publié à l'origine en 1933 par Le Messager de Lewiston, Maine. Republié en 1980 par le National Materials Development Center à Bedford, New Hampshire. Traductions en anglais sont disponibles. (English translation is also available. Read more HERE) -
Voisine
Short fiction set in the author's Bateston, Maine. A man narrates a brief trip to Cecile's Market. His thoughts while limping home with a bag of groceries. Part I of The Façade, a novel in progress. -
Madame Simone Lavoie
Short fiction set in the author's Bateston, Maine. Madame Simone Lavoie narrates suppertime at home with her family - daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. Mémère's illness and some of the changes it has forced on her routine. Dinner conversation. Part II of The Façade, a novel in progress. -
Accenting the French in Comparative American Studies
Critical essay on the inclusion of Francophone peoples and regions in the broadening scope of American Studies. Brief survey on certain literary works and literary criticism that illustrate how cultural identity gets articulated in terms of the wide geography, multiple languages, and human migrations of the Americas. The ways in which regional writers "remap" their region's identity and build specific international relationships, with examples from Haiti, Québec, and other Francophone areas in the western hemisphere. Particular emphasis on the peoples and literatures of Latin America and the Caribbean, Québec and French Canada, with some comments on Cajuns and Creoles in Louisiana and Franco Americans New England. -
The French-Canadian Heritage of Jack Kerouac as Seen in His Autobiographical Works
Critical essay exploring some of the cultural values and worldviews perceived in the contexts and characters of Jack Kerouac's autobiographical fiction. Considers concepts of work, sin, individualism, and time, in particular, as supported in cultural research on certain aspects of French Canadian heritage. <br /><br /> From the author: "The purpose of this paper is to examine the biographically oriented works of Jean Louis Lebris de Kerouac, particularly those centered around his early years at home." -
La Bêche (The Spade), ou, les Assimilateurs en action : Album de dessins gais
Sous-titrée, "Dédié aux Franco-Américains de la Nouvelle Angleterre."
Une collection de dessins politiques qui soulèvent des questions sur le traitement des Franco-Américaines par leur clergé catholique dans la Nouvelle-Angleterre, ou plus précisément, dans le Maine. Commentaire artistique québécois sur la relation entre l'Église catholique - principalement, les évêques catholiques - et l'assimilation franco-américaine aux États-Unis au début du 20e siècle. Représentations sévères fictifs de la hiérarchie catholique et les Irlando-Américains de la Nouvelle-Angleterre.
De l'éditeur: "Cet album ne surprendra pas ceux qui, depuis vingt ou vingt-cinq ans, s'intéressent au sort de nos compatriotes établis aux Etats-Unis, ou - pour parler avec plus d'exactitude - de nos compatriotes établis en dehors de la province de Québec....Les dessins qui y sont groupés ne font pas autre chose que fixer quelques traits principaux de la vie catholique aux Etats-Unis." -
ISLE : A Magazine for the Arts
Small publication featuring poetry, fiction, and visual art from students at Johnson State College in Johnson, Vermont.
Contains the following works:
POETRY:
"It Was Haunted Wood," "He Works Unhurried" by Robert Chamberlain
"Daydream," "Opiated Lover" by Ted Creighton
"If I Say That I Love You" by Jill Gallant
"Your Touch Is Too Gentle," "Never Before Have I Seen," "The Morning's Softness Is Arriving" by Glenda Haskell
"The Candle Flame Wavers" by Susan Marzbanian
"Inkling" by John Mason
"Watching People" by Ann Odell
"American-City-Sidewalk-Superintendent-Blues" by H. Romero
"Letter," "When She Only Had Her Thoughts," "You Make the Confusion" by Robert Searles "Time (Again)" by Linda Shaw
"First Snow," "Cottage," "Sometimes at Night" by Valerie Stoddard
"The Story," "Heritage," "Donna Whispers," "Memere Would Sit" by Liliane Tetreault
PROSE:
"A Time of Winter" by Leon Betts
short fiction by Frederick Fisher
VISUAL ART:
photograph by Dana Carlson
photographs by Ted Creighton
cover art by Peter Flint
painting and drawing by Jay Hoyt
drawing by Jim LaBelle
"Manners" by Simon McGann
drawing by Wendy Wells
photograph by Jaimie Wolf -
The Questing Beast
Novel told in parallel stories of a father and son. An American artist's eventual return to Canada in search of an identity in the place of his father's birth and death; the father's youthful departure from Quebec to New England many years before. Each man's personal "quest" forward and backward, and the pressures he endures.
From McClelland and Stewart: "'The Questing Beast' traces the lives of a father and son - heirs to a mysterious family disgrace - and their obsessive attempts to appease the specter of their past. Each of them is guided by enigmatic, even mystical, women as their separate journeys take them from the asbestos pits of Thetford Mines, Quebec, to the lush gardens of Miami Beach and, ultimately, back to the same destination."Tags Death and Disaster, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Family, Fiction and Literature, Gender and Sexuality, Hartford CT, Literary Works -- Fiction, Lynn MA, Miami FL, Pawtucket RI, Providence RI, Québec, Taunton MA, United States, Warwick RI, Woonsocket RI -
Roots Always Precede Routes : On the Road, through a Glass Darkly
Critical reading of Jack Kerouac's most famous novel, "On the Road," through the lens of French mobility in America and Kerouac's Franco American cultural identity. How Kerouac's traveling characters signify and explore the "homelessness" that the article's author associates with the French Canadian and Franco American in the United States.
From the author: "This article explores the subterranean layers of 'On the Road,' firstly, approaching them from three perspectives (the dyad routes-roots, ethnogenesis and cultural geography), and secondly, considering the novel within a larger project, the 'Road' project, which allows further insight into the genesis of the 1957 edition and of the original scroll published fifty years later. This article focuses on the relationship between space, identity, travel and nation, and attempts to offer a reading of the author’s French-Canadian and Franco-American invisible ethnicity as a guiding line to the 'On the Road' proto-versions and to the themes developed (travel, mapping the land and the quest for the father[land])." -
Everything I Own
From Guernica Editions: "Songwriter Michel Laflamme is stuck in traffic on Montreal's Jacques Cartier Bridge. While waiting for police to try to talk down a potential suicide, Michel turns on the radio and hears his wife, Bijou, founding member of Beaupré, the seminal Quebec folk-rock group. The music takes Michel across a 30-year span of memory, through the emotional and political upheavals of his own life and that of his Belle Province."
"Jack Kerouac meets Beau Dommage! This novel of a coming-of-age in the Montreal music scene of the Seventies is a Québécois blues, wise, pungent, and funny." -- Peter Behrens, Governor-General's Award winning author of The Law of Dreams -
Kind Ness
Dramatic piece that follows five young people of different sociocultural backgrounds - and one Rwandan gorilla - interacting with one another at various stages of their lives in the suburban United States, all under the apparent study of the narrator. First performed in 1986; published in a 1988 collection of new American plays. -
When We Were the Kennedys : A Memoir from Mexico, Maine
Memoir from Mexico, Maine native and author of fiction, Monica Wood. Recalls the period of the author's youth around the time of the sudden death of her father. Her family's experience of the loss of its breadwinner in the 1960s. The shape of her 1963 mill-centered community and the diversity of people who inhabited it; portraits of the power of religion and industry among people in the towns of Rumford and Mexico. President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination - and the widowhood of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis - recounted in light of the disruptive passing of the author's father earlier that same year. -
Alphonsine
Historical novel introducing the author's great-great-grandparents' from Montréal, Québec, and their family's new life after immigrating to Rapid City in the Black Hills area of South Dakota, USA. Begins with the mother - Alphonsine - and her children as they leave Montréal to reunite with the father who had left long before to seek work. Family life in the United States in the 19th century. Illustrated in black and white drawings. Contains an epilogue charting the later lives of Alphonsine, her husband Charles, and their several children. -
Say No More
Short story that finds Norman Malloy sitting in a kitchen alone. He segregates himself from his wife, Colette, their infant daughter, and Colette's large extended family as they celebrate in two languages a grandmother's birthday in the living room nearby. Norman and Colette's car trip home - in tension and in snowfall - from the Biddeford, Maine gathering back to nearby Scarborough. Featured in Portland Monthly Magazine. From Maine author of short story collections "Too Hot & Other Maine Stories" and "Squatter's Rights."