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.
