A Tale of One City

Maxime Raymond Bock animates Morel with a time-tested literary premise: That even seemingly unremarkable human lives are worthy of examination. That such examination, when conducted with empathy, specificity, and a generosity of spirit, may yield truths about yearning, regret, and redemption — in other words, the big questions.

Published in French in 2021 and recently translated into English by Melissa Bull, the novel follows Jean-Claude Morel, a mid-century construction worker who bears witness to and participates in Montreal’s transformation from a soot-choked industrial centre to a cosmopolitan cultural capital. It unearths parts of a city lost to urban development — including the Faubourg à m’lasse neighbourhood, named for the smell of molasses from West Indies trading ships and demolished in the ’60s and ’70s — just as it evokes the many pains and joys of working-class life in the vanishing landscape.

Within the first ten pages...