Twists of Fate
If by Chance & Destination Paradise
Twists of Fate: If by Chance and Destination Paradise combines volumes 6 and 7 of Michel Tremblay's acclaimed Desrosiers Diaspora series. In If by Chance, the great Ti-Lou, the famous She-Wolf of Ottawa, returns to Montréal after a fruitful career in the royal suite at the Château Laurier, where she welcomed diplomats and men of the world, politicians and ministers of worship. But in 1925 she packs up and sneaks off, her suitcases replete with savings. When she arrives at Windsor station, five possible fates await her, each with their share of risks and opportunities, of good and less good fortune. But in each of these lives, Ti-Lou will have to deal with more than mere chance; waiting for her at the crossroads are the blade of loneliness and, worse still, the fear of allowing herself to be loved. In Destination Paradise, set in 1930, we enter the Paradise Club, one of the few places that caters to “confirmed bachelors,” where Édouard makes his entry into the “big world.” Precocious despite his young age, he is carried away by his double, La Duchesse de Langeais, whose story he has just read in Balzac’s eponymous novel. Of course we already know that Édouard will become the undisputed queen of the Montréal drag scene, but we knew less about Édouard’s beginning in life, the childhood of his stage character: Destination Paradise tenderly narrates Édouard’s rite of passage.
A major figure in Quebec theatre, MICHEL TREMBLAY has built an impressive body of work as a playwright, novelist, translator, and screenwriter. To date, Michel’s complete works include 29 plays (including 2 theatrical adaptations of his own work); 30 novels; 6 collections of autobiographical stories; a collection of tales; 7 screenplays; 46 translations/adaptations of works by foreign writers; 9 plays and 12 stories printed in diverse publications; an opera libretto; a song cycle; a Symphonic Christmas Tale and 2 musicals. His plays have been published and translated into 40 languages and have garnered critical acclaim in Canada, the United States, and more than 50 countries around the world. His name can be found in the Larousse and Robert Dictionaries, the Who’s Who Encyclopedia, the Dictionary of International Biography and the Encyclopedia Britannica. During his career, Michel has received more than 80 prizes, citations and honours including the Grand Prix de la Francophonie, awarded by the Académie française in 2018, as well as the Prince Pierre de Monaco Literary Prize and the Prix Gilles-Corbeil for his contribution to the arts in 2017. A six-time winner of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, he won nine Chalmers Awards and five Grand Prix du public presented during Montreal’s annual book fair le Salon du livre. In 1999, he was awarded the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards. He has also received six honorary doctorates.
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