Therese and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

In June 1942 the entire Montreal working-class parish of Saint Stanislas-de-Kostka is busy preparing for the annual Corpus Christi ceremony. At the Ecole des Saints-Anges, and at the story’s centre, three little best-friends are a-twitter to learn whether one of their number will be chosen to portray the Blessed Virgin, Sainte Bernadette Soubirous, or the little “Hanging Angel” who is to dangle above the altar — the three “plum” roles in the pageant. The background for this great event is the teeming parish described by author Tremblay in his earlier novel, The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant. It is a self-sufficient, complex world, and the glimpses of convent politics and cattiness, conscription, and crises of conscience provided by this witty and discerning portraitist fill a canvas more lively than any painted by Cornelius Krieghoff. Most readable, and a great deal of credit is due the admirable translation by Sheila Fischman.