Jean-Paul Eid and Claude Paiement. La femme aux cartes postales, Montréal, La Pastèque, 2016.

Commented by Anna Giaufret, international member (June 2020):

A site of remembrance. This is the nature of this magnificent album.

First, because the narration follows the reconstruction of one of the characters’ memories. This protagonist, by a stroke of fate, will follow mysterious traces backwards in time that will lead him to discover a family secret. We are in 2002, Victor Weiss arrives in Gaspésie. The year before, the twin towers collapsed in New York, and that is when it all began.

Second, because the album revives Montréal of the late fifties, with its international jazz scene, struggles for power, crime and morality campaigns. Through a song, an improvisation, or a meticulously reproduced cocktail stick, it seems like you can hear, feel, and touch that Montréal, just like Rosie Rainbow and her "Two Little Birds."

And finally, it is another milestone in contemporary history that will mark a sudden turn in the lives of the characters: the Cuban revolution. There will be a before and an after for the three musicians. A fascinating reading, which transports the reader through space and time through the meticulous reconstruction of the scenery and the evocation of a bewitching sound universe, revealing disappeared universes before their eyes.

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