Moncton Mantra

Ellen Pilon is a library assistant in the Patrick Power Library at Saint
Mary’s University in Halifax.

Moncton Mantra reads like a diary as it chronicles the life of a New
Brunswick Acadian youth in the 1970s. Raised in Bouctouche, Alain
Gautreau moves to the nearby city of Moncton where he attends the
university. Seeking to come to terms with his French-Acadian roots, he
indulges in a perpetual round of parties and drugs. Many of his friends
and all of his lovers are gay and similarly artistically inclined. Most
of them are French, although only a few share his agonizing over his
Acadianness. Obsessed with writing, Alain talks about it incessantly,
but writes only a few poems (which he does not share with his readers).
Only by the end of the book does he manage to focus his artistic
energies and publish a book of poems.

The mantra the reader expects is the French-Acadian voice, but that
voice is obscured in a drug haze. Mostly, the book portrays the
superficiality of young pseudo-intellectuals.