May 26: The Montreal Connection

The Violets of Usambara also takes place in part in the Mile End district of Montreal. It’s a neighborhood I know well, having strolled its streets for three decades. We live just a few blocks away from the house where I imagine the Brossards living, although I’m not quite sure which side of Waverly Street it’s on. While I feel strongly about being true to the spirit and details of the location where a story takes place—that’s the reason why I went to Africa after all—this is a fiction, and I think it’s fair to take a few liberties with the setting. Similarly I give made-up names to the churches where Louise worships and to the stores where she trades, but people familiar with the neighborhood have told me they know exactly what I’m writing about.

That verisimilitude can be dangerous if it goes too far, though. When I first started writing the book and I explained that the hero Thomas Brossard was a Franco American from Boston who came to Canada in part to avoid being drafted in the Viet Nam war, and who then got involved in Federal politics, people would say: “Oh you mean so and so?”

Of course, I didn’t. Thomas and Louise are both made-up characters, but if readers see in them shadows of people they know, I’m pleased.

Photo: Part of The Violets of Usambara takes place in the Mile End district of Montreal, a neighborhood built before the First World War for working and middle class families and which has become gentrified.