Quebec’s Metropolis

O God! O Montreal! Oh wait . . . Are we going all Samuel Butler again, nodding to his century-old A Psalm of Montreal, which includes that refrain? Are we offering (apologies to Buzz Bissinger, who wrote a book about Philadelphia with this title) a prayer for the city in the St. Lawrence? A love song (apologies to Frank Sinatra, who sang this about Chicago) to that toddlin’ town? Well, yes. And a good thing, too.

In recent years, the quarterly magazine Maisonneuve, which borrows its title from Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, the founder of Quebec’s largest city and the namesake of the one-way boulevard (and frantic two-way bike lane) that marches westbound through town, has published brisk but evocative Letters from Montreal. These are dispatches that celebrate the city. That eviscerate the city. That explore the hidden mews and reigning myths of the city. That get...