First Quarter of the Moon

It is June 20, 1952, a decade after the events described in The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant, the first volume of Michel Tremblay's series of autobiographical fiction. The mystic yet palpable instant of summer's arrival is experienced simultaneously by the fat woman's son and his cousin Marcel. These moving, profoundly different epiphanies of a transforming world, seen through the memories of the characters, set the stage for the action of the novel which takes place in the space of this single, evocative day. The first quarter of the moonówhich rises over the final scenes of the novel in which the fat woman's son recognizes and acknowledges Marcel's geniusóis an exquisitely crafted and resonant metaphor for the symbiotic relation between the imaginary and the real, the privileged "educated elite "and the "great unwashed, "innocence and experience, sanity and madness.AKAKOther novels in the Chronicles of the Plateau Mont Royal series:AKAKThe Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant AKThe Duchess and the Commoner AKNews from Edouard AKThÈrËse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel AKA Thing of Beauty AKAKAK--------------------------------------------------------------------------------AKAKAKISBN 0-88922-352-1; $19.95 Canada / $15.95 U.S.A.AK©1994; 5.5 x 8.5; 240 pp; FictionAKAKAK--------------------------------------------------------------------------------AKAK... more than just a book that reads well, [this] is a self-conscious cultural document about a specific period in Quebec history. Fortunately, Tremblay offers both a portrait of the artist and a vivid depiction of the dark years before the Quiet Revolution without distracting self-glorification or polemic. The final effect is... warm, touching, and extra-real.AKóQuill & QuireAKAKAKAK--------------------------------------------------------------------------------AKAKAKTo order TalonbooksTremblay, Michel is the author of 'First Quarter of the Moon' with ISBN 9780889223523 and ISBN 0889223521.