Born in Providence, Rhode Island, to a Cree mother and a French father, Réauna, affectionately known throughout Tremblay’s work as “Nana,” was sent with her two younger sisters, Béa and Alice, to be raised on her maternal grandparents’ farm in Sainte-Maria-de-Saskatchewan, a francophone Catholic enclave of two hundred souls. At the age of ten, amid swaying fields of wheat under the idyllic prairie sky of her loving foster family, Nana is suddenly told by her mother, whom she hasn’t seen in five years and who now lives in Montreal, to come “home” and help take care of her new baby brother. So it is that Nana, with her faint recollection of the smell of the sea, embarks alone on an epic journey by train through Regina, Winnipeg, and Ottawa, on which she encounters a dizzying array of strangers and distant relatives, including Ti-Lou, the “she-wolf of Ottawa.” To our delight, Michel Tremblay here takes his readers outside Quebec for the first time, on a quintessential North American journey – it is 1913, at a time of industry and adventure, when crossing the continent was an enterprise undertaken by so many, young and old, from myriads of cultures, unimpeded by the abstractly constructed borders and identities that have so fractured our world of today. This, the first in Tremblay’s series of "crossings" novels, provides us with the back-story to the characters of his great Chronicles of Plateau Mont-Royal, particularly of his mother, “The Fat Woman Next Door …” and his maternal grandmother, who, though largely uneducated, was a voracious reader and introduced him to the world of reading and books, including Tintin adventure comics, mass-market novels, and The Inn of the Guardian Angel, which fascinated the young Tremblay with its sections of dramatic dialogue, inspiring the many great plays he would eventually write.

The story continues ... The second in Michel Tremblay's new series of novels presents two very different lives. We meet Maria as she leaves the city of Providence, Rhode Island, pregnant and alone. Two years later, we also meet Maria's older daughter, Rh�auna, as she disembarks the train at Windsor Station, having crossed the continent from her grandparents' farm in Saskatchewan, called home to Montreal to care for her one-year-old baby brother, Th�o, while Maria works. Along the way, Crossing the City affectionately and accurately depicts Montreal's Plateau neighbourhood at the beginning of the last century. Readers will delight in the small details of description, and Tremblay fans will revel in the backstory to the characters of his great Chronicles of Plateau Mont-Royal, particularly of his mother, celebrated as Nana throughout his work, including as his famous Fat Woman next door. In this novel, Nana is the young Rh�auna, reunited with her mother, Maria, for better or for worse. Crossing the City continues the Desrosiers Diaspora novel series.

A Crossing of Hearts continues Michel Tremblay’s Desrosiers Diaspora series of novels, a family saga set in Montreal during World War I. August 1915. Montreal is stifled by a heat wave while war rages in Europe. The three Desrosiers sisters – Tititte, Teena, and Maria – had been planning a whole week of vacation in the mountains, to do nothing but gossip, laugh, drink, and overeat while basking in the sun. Maria had decided to leave her children, Nana and Théo, in Montreal, in the care of a neighbour who gives her a hand when she needs it. Now Maria’s children come roaring into the kitchen, pink with pleasure, begging to come too. “I keep telling you, Momma, we’ll be as quiet as little mice,” Nana assures her. “We’ll hardly take up any room. You won’t even know we’re there.” Reluctantly, Maria takes her children along on the week-long trip to the Laurentians. As the reader views the journey through young Nana’s eyes, we come to understand the impoverished circumstances they leave behind in Montreal, only to find poverty ever more present in the country. Yet here it is surrounded by mountains, reflected in a lovely lake, and the blue sky gives them a moment of respite. It feels good to get out of town, and Tremblay’s writing remains so vivid that the reader imagines dipping into cool lake water along with the family. Encounters with rural relatives crystallize young Nana’s true feelings for her mother, as confidences and family secrets fuse day into night. This third novel in Tremblay’s Desrosiers Diaspora series bursts with life as Nana, the young city girl, explores the natural world – and the enchanted forest of her inner, maturing self. The novel also further develops the character of Maria so that we understand her motivations more fully, and at the same time recognize nods to the history of Quebec and the dynamics of the family under the strictures of the Catholic church.

At the crossroads at the end of childhood, Nana faces the hectic passing of her adolescence and the arrival of new responsibilities as her grandmother Joséphine approaches her last hours. To calm the storm, Nana reads the enthralling tales of Josaphat-le-Violon – a returning character in Tremblay’s Plateau-Mont-Royal Chronicles. Three of Josaphat’s fantastical stories contain revelations whose full influence in her own existence Nana cannot yet measure. In parallel, Nana’s rebellious mother Maria languishes back in Montréal. She is torn between her desire to gather her young family around her and her deep uncertainty about being able to care for them properly. Always in search of what’s “best” and what’s “elsewhere,” will Maria seize the opportunity “which only hits the door of life once”? Rite of Passage is the awaited fourth instalment in Michel Tremblay’s enthralling and intensely moving Desrosiers Diaspora series of novels, translated from French by the critically acclaimed and long-time Tremblay specialist Linda Gaboriau. Earlier instalments in the saga are Crossing the Continent (2008 Prix du grand public Salon du livre de Montréal / La Presse), Crossing the City (2009 Prix du grand public Salon du livre de Montréal / La Presse), and A Crossing of Hearts.

It's May 1922, and preparations are in full swing for the marriage of Nana and Gabriel, which will take place the following month. There's just one problem: Nana's wedding dress has yet to be bought. Nana's mercurial mother, Maria, torn between her desire to measure up as a mother and the inescapable constraints of poverty, wonders how to pay for the wedding. And she's not the only one battling demons - the thought of the upcoming reunion unsettles every member of the large and dispersed Desrosiers family. While the wedding invitations announce a celebration, they also stir up old memories, past desires, and big regrets.

En 1925, Louise Wilson, la Louve d’Ottawa, délaisse sa carrière de guidoune et rentre à Montréal. Lorsqu’elle débarque à la gare Windsor, cinq avenues s’ouvrent devant elle, cinq destins que Tremblay a décidé d’offrir en hommage à ce personnage tout aussi flamboyant que pathétique.

Le Paradise est ce club du Red Light de Montréal qui, en 1930, accueille les vieux garçons dans un espace nommé le ringside. C'est là qu'Édouard Tremblay aimerait bien faire son entrée dans le "grand monde", peu après son embauche comme vendeur de chaussures sur l'avenue du Mont-Royal. Car à presque dix-huit ans, il est déjà emporté par le double qui l'habite, cette duchesse de Langeais qui deviendra son personnage de folle des nuits de la métropole. Et c'est aussi au Paradise que travaille la mère de Nana, Maria Desrosiers, toujours aux prises avec "cette boule dans la gorge, ce poids sur son coeuur". Autour d'elles s'agitent les membres des deux familles, à la merci de ce "maudit destin qui ne mène jamais où on veut aller" : Ti-Lou et Maurice, Victoire et Télesphore, Albertine et Madeleine, Teena, et l'inconsolable Josaphat-le-Violon, qui se réfugie à l'asile Saint-Jean-de-Dieu.

Dans cette éblouissante chronique de septembre 1935, le « monde » de Michel Tremblay vit des heures émouvantes, encore et encore et encore. Heures glorieuses et tragiques avec Ti-Lou et Édouard en duchesse, un duo coloré dont les échanges pétillants cachent des douleurs indissolubles, même sous le parfum du gardénia. Heures crépusculaires et sombres avec Victoire et Télesphore au fond de la ruelle des Fortifications, entre Josaphat et Laura Cadieux, sa fille infortunée qui veut à tout prix retrouver sa mère, Imelda Beausoleil. Cette chronique de résiliences, si elle ouvre les tiroirs des vies difficiles et désenchantées du monde ordinaire, fait voir aussi des existences qui s’accommodent du bonheur qui passe, toujours trop vite et presque trop tard : Tititte et le docteur Woolf au restaurant du neuvième étage d’Eaton ; Théo au cinéma avec la belle Fleurette ; Maria l’impétueuse en voyage à Québec avec Fulgence. Ah ! Maria… se laisser aimer pourrait-il devenir une façon de survivre à son incurable mal de vivre ? Ah ! Ti-Lou… que faire de ses cinquante paires de souliers kitsch, maintenant qu’elle n’a plus qu’une jambe ? Oh ! Édouard… réussira-t-il ou ratera-t-il son entrée au Paradise, déguisé en femme pour la première fois et aspergé de gardénia ? Ah ! Teena… pourra-t-elle supporter son fils Ernest qui débarque chez elle sans prévenir ? Comment survivre ? se demandent tous ces personnages, aux prises avec les situations inextricables des âges de la vie, le cycle des illusions perdues et des rêves oubliés. Victoire, dans un aveu terrible, résume ainsi son exaspération et sa désespérance : « Chus tannée ! M’entends-tu ? Chus tannée ! J’en ai assez ! De toute ! Pas juste de toé ! De moé, aussi ! Du maudit appartement ! De la maudite job de concierge ! T’es juste un paresseux, Télesphore ! T’es pas un poète, t’es pas un rêveur, t’es un sans-cœur ! »

Neuvième et dernier volet de La diaspora des Desrosiers, cette chronique du malheur campe son action en août 1941, au moment où les familles de Nana et de Gabriel s’entassent dans un nouvel appartement, rue Fabre. Nana, toujours inconsolable après la perte de ses deux aînés, victimes de la tuberculose, doit cohabiter avec Victoire et Édouard, ainsi qu’avec Albertine, son mari, Paul, et leurs enfants, Thérèse et Marcel, encore bébé. La maisonnée devient un lieu de promiscuité difficile à vivre, alors que la guerre fait rage et que les rations privent tous du nécessaire. Les personnages ignorent ce que les lecteurs savent déjà : dans un an, en mai 1942, la Grosse Femme, enceinte de sept mois, ouvrira les fabuleuses Chroniques du Plateau-Mont-Royal…