The republication of a book which is among the finest that Hugh Hood, one of Canada's most sophisticated and accomplished authors, has ever written. Around the Mountain: Scenes from Montr?al Life is, in the words of John Metcalf, 'an almost perfect achievement.'

Around the Mountain is a documentary/fantasy portrait of Montr?al, its people, politics, folkways, geography and appearance as they were in the heady days of Expo 67. These twelve short narratives form a cyclical, encyclopaedic account of a dozen quarters of the city that literally circle around the peak of the low hill that Montr?alers call 'the mountain'. As Hood recalls in the new introduction to the book:

'I wanted to give a kind of fossil-like existence to something that was in the process of being born and simultaneously passing away. It is fascinating to me to go through these twelve stories to judge what has remained in place and what has been swept away and forgotten. Every reader who knows Montr?al will have an opinion about this. But some things have remained unmistakably in place.'

Around the Mountain is populated with people and their stories, from the misadventures of a convivial defenceman called Fred Carpenter, to the angelic messenger, Angela Mary Robinson, whose bicultural message of love and understanding nobody understands, to Victor LaTourelle who is haunted, as so many of us in the late twentieth century are haunted, by the past.

Hugh Hood was born in Toronto in 1928 and studied at the University of Toronto, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1955. He worked as a university teacher for over forty years -- over thirty of those years spent at the Universit? de Montr?al. He was married to painter and printmaker Noreen Mallory and had four children. He died in Montreal in August of 2000.

Hood wrote 32 books, amongst them novels, collections of stories and essays, an art book, and a book of sports journalism. His most extended project, begun in 1975 and occupying him right up until the time of his death, was a twelve volume roman fleuve entitled The New Age / Le nouveau si?cle. The last book in this series, Near Water, was published by Anansi in 2000.

Hugh Hood's profile page

'Hood has written a book in which the city is the main character, and he wonderfully evokes its atmosphere.'

Vancouver Sun

'He loves that city, and makes the reader love it too, even if one has already felt its spell.'

Ottawa Citizen

'Hood's style is simplicity itself, his approach quite refreshingly ingenuous.'

Montreal Star