René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois in Power

Gratien Allaire is a professor of history at Laurentian University in
Sudbury, Ontario.

First published in 1984, this book is an account of the Parti
Québécois and the man who founded the party and led it for more than
25 years. René Lévesque was the leader of a movement that united a
broad spectrum of political tendencies to pursue one objective—Quebec
sovereignty.

Part 1, “Winning,” describes the journey of Lévesque, from boyhood
in a small Gaspé Peninsula town, through journalism and party politics,
to premiership and power. Part 2, “The Politics of Pride,” traces
the evolution of the Parti Québécois government up to the 1980
referendum—the subject of Part 3 (“The Referendum”). Part 4,
“The Politics of Humiliation,” is centred on the post-referendum
malaise and the patriation of the Constitution. In addition to notes,
photographs, a bibliography, and an index, the book includes a detailed
chronology and an appendix titled “Members of the Lévesque Cabinets,
1976–84.” New to the second edition is a preface that discusses
Lévesque’s leadership, his life up to his death in 1987, and the
story of the Parti Québécois since 1984.

Graham Fraser narrates events he covered and witnessed as a reporter.
His journalistic style makes his book easy to read. Its greatest
strength, though, is the light it sheds on a fundamental contradiction
in Lévesque—a contradiction that, according to Camille Laurin, the
minister responsible for the language law, “compel[led] him to strive
for liberation and at the same time prevent him from achieving it,”
and made him oscillate “between the light and the dark, impatience and
confidence, tenderness and severity, scolding and the call to
self-betterment.”