Marcel Bourbonnais

I was raised in Lachine Quebec in the swirling eddies of Catholic intrigues, awash in the smells of whiskey, beer and coffee produced by the ton each year by local industry. Around the age of 10, I became aware of death. Repeatedly people I knew died: my grandfather died of cancer, a schoolmate was killed on the street, a fellow living down the block fell from the railway bridge into the St. Lawrence River. Uncles and aunts died. As a teenager I lost friends to alcohol, drugs, steel and hero…