Where the River Narrows

by Aimee Laberge

On Sale: 01/08/2004

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Where the River Narrows

by Aimee Laberge

On Sale: 01/08/2004

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Amazon Indigo

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About the Book

The story of Where the River Narrows begins with the mysterious figure of Antonio Tremblay, the mythical coureur de bois who traps in the forests surrounding Chicoutimi, Québec. Of mixed blood himself, he takes two wives: the saintly Marie-Ange, who gives him two daughters, and Marie Kapesh, his clandestine "wood wife", whose children remain hidden in the forest. Marie-Ange’s younger daughter, the beautiful Marie-Reine, becomes the matriarch of a boisterous, tightly knit family, whose children, grand-children, and great-grandchildren must chart their own way in a changing Québec.

Where the River Narrows sweeps effortlessly across the centuries, from the French royal court to the founding of Québec City in 1608, from the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 to the FLQ Crisis. Against this rich panorama, the daily lives of the Tremblays unfold. Marie-Reine’s children grow up, marry, have their own children who, in turn, spread beyond Québec to a wider world. It is Lucie, a child of the -60s facing a troubled marriage, who begins the long journey back, bringing to life a history she had glimpsed only in school books and discovering a past peopled by saints and sinners, weighed down by history and religion. From the beginning, Lucie senses that there are long-buried secrets shaping the fortunes of the Tremblays, secrets that draw her into the dark forests of her ancestors.

This passionate novel resonates with joie de vivre as the Tremblays fight and reconcile, mourn and worship, hate and love one another. Ranging from the wilderness of eighteenth-century New France to the -60s faux farmhouses o of suburban Sainte-Foy, Where the River Narrows echoes the many voices and visions that have shaped a unique part of Canada.