Last Days of Montreal

Montreal is a city that has always represented the ideal of languages and peoples meeting, mixing and producing a culture greater than the sum of diverse parts. Last Days of Montreal travels through an imaginary cityscape, powered by apples, beer, the dream of love, and a dark but determined joie de vivre which Montrealers adopt to survive the rising tide of bitter political schism, economic downturn, language laws, record snowfalls, crumbling streets and a baseball team on the verge of disappearing. The locus is a quiet enclave in the north-east end.Donald is an idealistic anglo from Toronto who came to Montreal on the strength of his father's 'Liberal' hopes. But Pascale, his pure-laine wife, is inspired by a messianic 'Lucien' and she sees the future differently. Bruce is a divorced Montreal-born anglo from the West Island, a failing stockbroker and an uncertain father, who is struggling to build a new life on the East Side where he now lives with Genevieve, a French ex-pat and freelance translator. Bruce sees the blue and white Quebec flag everywhere he looks, but when he tries to explain the 'near-death experience' his country suffered in the referendum to Genevieve, she is not as sympathetic as he might wish. She is concerned with something beyond politics.If Bruce and Donald represent a cry from the middle-class, horrid Last Days is their hyper-echo. Loud and legless, Last Days is a dissolute tramp, a self-appointed profit of doom, wheeling around in his electric wheelchair, warning all citizens that Montreal is killing itself with this ridiculous French/English political war. Last Days' world is the downtown streets. But a fateful meeting on the Cartier Bridge sparks love. A true Montrealer, Last Days heads into the north end, in search of his heart's desire.The time span is from the early 90's through to a blessed spring following the Ice Storm of January 1998. At its centre is that cold, nerve-wracking day in November 1995. Last Days of Montreal is emotional history.