First published 2017
Jimmy camps on Montreal's streets, a tall redhead in his thirties whose military service left him broken by PTSD. He struggles to piece together memories of his youth while surviving as a homeless veteran in the modern city. Jimmy bears an uncanny resemblance to General James Wolfe, the eighteenth-century British officer who died conquering Quebec in 1759. The historical Wolfe had received precious leave in 1752 to pursue his artistic passions in Paris, studying poetry, music and dance. But Britain's calendar change that year erased eleven days from September, stealing his entire vacation. Wolfe never experienced those lost days of creative freedom before his death seven years later on the Plains of Abraham. Now Jimmy wanders Montreal and Quebec City, reclaiming those eleven missing days that history took from Wolfe. Instead of Parisian salons, he explores contemporary streets, carrying the weight of military trauma rather than imperial glory. Winter reimagines this famous figure not as the celebrated Hero of Quebec but as a damaged soldier seeking redemption in the same landscape where Wolfe once fought and died.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, military-fiction, contemporary, canadian-literature, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: damaged-hero, redemption, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Montreal, Paris, Quebec, Plains of Abraham
Period: 1759, 1752
304 pages · Hardcover · Knopf Canada
Content warnings: mental-illness, war