8:17 pm, Rue Darling(2002)

Bernard ÉmondJohn Gilmore

Stories are sacred. I'm unsure about a lot of things in life, but I know stories are sacred. Stories are the only eternity an agnostic like me can believe in...

Quebec film-maker Bernard Émond's novel, brought to life in an award-winning feature film,  makes its English debut in this fast-faced translation by John Gilmore.

Written in the crisp, punchy style of a hardened journalist, 8:17 pm, rue Darling is the story of Gérard and his struggle to stop drinking and make amends to the world. When tragedy strikes and Gérard is mysteriously saved, he sets off looking for answers and a new meaning for his life. His quest takes him from the city morgue to a deer hunter's festival in rural Quebec, from AA meetings and a locked psychiatric ward, to a brush with Montreal's criminal underworld. Bitingly humourous at times, introspective at others, Gérard's story is a look at life and love from the point of view of someone who has lost everything except the will to survive.


... For once in my life, I was going to make a good story out of the news. So I wouldn't drink. So I wouldn't kill myself.

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Translator John Gilmore is a former Montreal journalist and the author of Swinging in The Story of Jazz in Montreal.