Dunlevy: Letters From Montreal book tells stories of the city we love

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There are 8 million stories in the naked city, and 50 in Letters from Montreal: Tales of an Exceptional City.

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The whimsical, at times insightful and highly entertaining new book, released this week by Véhicule Press, is a collection of essays from the popular column that has run for more than a decade on the back cover of Maisonneuve magazine.

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“It’s always been a reader favourite,” Maisonneuve editor-in-chief Madi Haslam said Wednesday. “People often turn to the last page and read it first, especially Montrealers.”

Is easy to see why. Succinct, snappy and full of a spirit of adventure, the tales read like postcards from disparate corners of this strange and intoxicating place we inhabit.

“The column is short and fun,” Haslam said. “It’s meant to capture what it means to live in this city, or in a specific part of the city at a specific moment in time. They really are love letters to Montreal, without romanticizing it or overlooking the challenges of living here, whether it’s the politics of Bill 21 or something more personal, like someone’s messy love life.

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“It aims to give an intimate glimpse into the lives of the mostly Anglophone Montrealers, celebrating their unique experiences here. It can be absurd at times, but there’s a sense of wonder about them that unites them.”

Haslam sets the tone in the introduction, with a strange image that any Montrealer can appreciate: “When I first moved to Montreal, I saw the sun set in the north. I knew this just doesn’t happen. And yet, there it was, sinking below the horizon like a shrunken orange julep.”

From there, we follow Melissa Bull drifting between relationships on a difficult day at Parc La Fontaine; Crystal Chan plays kinky games with her French classmates; Bernard Rudny takes us on a historical tour of Montreal street names; Jessica Wei traces her family’s deep roots in Chinatown; Deborah Ostrovsky marvels at the poise of the children of French expats; Kyle Carney skateboards all over town as a rite of passage; newcomer Eva Crocker gets bored at Westmount before finding “Montreal weird” through a chorus of fake orgasms at Parc Ex; and Selena Ross recalls an unusual job interview at Simcha’s grocery store on St-Laurent Blvd.

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There are flirty drinks on the rooftops at dawn, relatives die, cats become friends, bicycles are smashed.

“I think living in Montreal every day can be a surreal experience,” Haslam said. “In any city, there’s a surprise waiting around every corner, but I think that’s particularly true in Montreal.”

There is a youthful slant to many of the anecdotes, perhaps a reflection of the demographics of Maisonneuve’s group of writers. Win Butler from Arcade Fire (the subject of recent sexual misconduct allegations) is mentioned more than once, including in future author Sean Michaels’ tongue-in-cheek The Battle of the Bands from 2012.

“It is unfortunate that the allegations surfaced two weeks after we went to press,” Haslam said. “We would have treated those stories differently or had conversations about how to handle them if the allegations had come out sooner.”

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While most of the stories were taken from the magazine in the last 10 years, there are also a handful of commissioned essays, including novelist Heather O’Neill who recalls the subversive allure of NDG’s historic Cinema V in her youth.

“There are parts of Montreal that everyone knows and associates with the city,” Haslam said, “from the mountain to St-Viateur and the tam tams, as well as so many cultural references near and dear to the people who live here, like the slim las walls shared by neighbors, potholes and construction, or the gestures Anglos make when trying to communicate with Francophones while learning French”.

The result is a page turn that plays chord after chord. Even when the stories don’t directly echo one’s personal experience, they combine to create a warm, familiar buzz that feels right at home.

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