Writing the Heartland II: Monique LaRue and la Côte Nord

Abstract

This article comes out of a project entitled Heartlands/Pays de cœur, which looks at representations of places outside of Montreal in contemporary francophone Quebecois and Canadian fi ction. Although the last ten years or so have seen an increase in examinations of the spatial in francophone Quebecois fi ction, apart from a few exceptions, analyses of representations of the rural tend to be limited to specifi c book chapters, or else focus on le roman du terroir (the novel of the land).1 This was a major literary genre from the middle of the nineteenth century to the 1940s, and celebrated the French-Canadian nationalist ideologies of Catholicism, an attachment to the land, and la revanche des berceaux (literally ‘the revenge of the cradles’, that is, maintaining a high birth rate). These were considered vital to the survival of French-Canadian culture and society. Largely because Montreal is the economic and cultural centre of the province, francophone – and anglophone – Quebecois literature is primarily identifi ed with this city. The prevalence of Montreal in francophone cultural production is also attributable to its particular signifi cance within the Quebecois imaginary. By virtue of its historical association with an anglophone – primarily Anglo-Scots – business and social elite, Montreal has been seen as both home and yet not home for francophone Quebeckers.