Novel
The Tin Flute
Bonheur d'occasion
Gabrielle Roy · 1945
Synopsis
Montreal, Saint-Henri district, from February to the spring of 1940. Florentine Lacasse, nineteen, a waitress at the restaurant of a discount store, supports her family. She falls in love with Jean Lévesque, an ambitious machinist who dreams of leaving the district, and he introduces her to his friend Emmanuel Létourneau, a soldier on leave, an idealist, who in turn falls in love with her. Her mother Rose-Anna, pregnant again, looks every spring for a cheaper place to live; her father, Azarius, holds no job for long. Around them, men without work enlist for the pay.
Context
The novel grew out of its author's reporting in Saint-Henri, a district she walked by day and by night, and out of series of articles based on observation. It appeared in Montreal in June 1945, from the Société des Éditions Pascal. The action takes place at the moment when, for the people of the district, the war arrives as a salvation that pulls them out of unemployment. The title speaks of a substitute happiness, for want of better.
Who it is for
A novel of medium length, with precise realism. The language is classical, the dialogue is in Montreal French.
Prizes and reception
Prix Femina 1947, the first Canadian book to win it, and the Governor General's Award the same year; chosen by the Literary Guild of America, at seven hundred thousand copies.
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