“He was no longer asking, Why am I going? but, Why are we all going? We’re leaving together, it should be for the same reason. It was no longer enough for him to know his own motive. He had to know the truth that was guiding them all, the principle which had guided the soldiers of the last Great War, without which their departure now had no meaning but was merely a repetition of the same mistake.”
This book was originally written in French titled Bonheur d’occasion and was translated to English by Alan Brown.
Set in St.Henri in Montreal during the 1940s, the story gives a clear picture of the society of the era. Everyone is still reeling from the Great Depression and is pushed into the war. Even so far away from where the actual fighting is, the war’s effects on the people and it’s polarising power are strong. This is also the story of family and hardship. The characters Rose-Anna, Florentine, Jean, Emmanuel, and Azarius are so human in their portrayal.
It’s Rose-Anna who keeps everything going, and whom I will remember for a long time. She is the mother, the glue that holds the family together, and whose constant vigilance keeps it from slipping out of balance.
The picture of abject poverty that is described; where the death is seen as a release, where a hospital bed feels better than one’s home, and the struggle to make ends meet, makes us suffer along with the family.
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