Four (+) Equals One

Season 7, Episode 98

Anyone who knows Linda also knows that she has a very passionate love-hate relationship with the city of Montreal. While one some days, she is bursting with pride for all that is wonderful about the city, on other days, she is less enthusiastic (read: construction, pothalls, parking tickets, taxes). But she’s not alone in her ardour, as the litany of authors who have been featuring Montreal in their work highlights—from Louise Penny's Grey Wolf (Minotaur Books) to Lee Lai's award-winning Cannon (Drawn & Quarterly), Montreal is a city that people love to write about. In this episode, Linda chats with another such author – Arjun Basu – about his novel The Reeds (ECW Press)– and how Montreal is featured, somewhat unobtrusively as part of the plot but also as another character in this novel. The four main characters, each perspective advancing the plot, are what Basu refers as “Four Equals One”—but Linda adds Montreal to that list.

Want to know more about this novel? Check out this review in Montreal Review of Books.

Producer: Linda Morra; Associate Producer; Maia Harris; Music by Raphael Krux