The Town Below

Originally published in 1944 in French as Au pied de la pente douce, The Town Below takes place in St. Joseph Parish of Quebec City's Saint-Sauveur suburb. Saint-Sauveur is a parochial and provincial place where narrow piety and corruption can be found in every corner, and Denis and Lise, two adolescents in love, scandalize the town with their affair. Scheming politicians and clergymen and grasping social climbers mix with salt-of-the-earth citizens in a rough-and-tumble satiric assault on pre-Quiet Revolution Quebec mores and attitudes. The Town Below, Lemelin's first novel, won the Prix David, the Prix de la langue française, and two Guggenheim Awards. A bestseller in Quebec when it originally appeared, it has been called the "pioneer novel of working-class Quebec" and exploded, with great controversy, the smothering social and religious strictures prevalent among post-war Québécois.