The Duchess and the Commoner

Marguerite Andersen is a professor of French Studies at the University
of Guelph. She is the author of Courts métrages et instantanés and La
Soupe.

Michel Tremblay is the master of sensitive observation. His plays and
novels create a world inhabited by common people with dreams and
disappointments.

In this third volume of his Mont-Royal books, an epic series that
imagines the lives of all the characters in his plays, including the
strange but lovable women of Les Belles-Soeurs and their family members,
Tremblay focuses on Albertine’s brother, Йdouard, who enters into the
1940s show-business world of Montreal. Central to this world is The
Palace, “a hangout for all the rogues and rascals of Plateau
Mont-Royal, with its French films from France and its local music-hall
actors.” Here are Montreal row houses with exterior iron staircases
and narrow balconies.

In the story, we read about a silent little boy listening to the sounds
of his mother’s undressing, people wanting to hear Tino Rossi invading
a concert hall usually reserved for amateurs of classical music,
children growing up, an old woman dying—these are scenes reconstructed
by someone who knows how to see every detail.

The Duchess and the Commoner is more than just a thinly disguised
autobiographical novel, however, it is also a metaphor about Quebecers
wanting to find a place on the world stage. Recommended for all public
libraries.