Book Review: "Sacré Bleus: An Unsentimental Journey through Quebec" by Taras Grescoe (2001)

Vancouver journalist Taras Grescoe takes a trip through la belle province and dissects the intersections between language, culture, religion, immigration, relationships, media, crime, film, music, politics, sports and economics in a fun and extremely well-written look at Quebec from an outsider's point of view.

Even for someone like me who has lived across the river from the province for 13 years and is married to a "bon Québ", Quebec is at once fascinating, cosmopolitan and rich, and yet maddeningly mystifying and even a little bit Southern in its own way. As Grescoe demonstrates, it's these paradoxes and contradictions that make Quebec what it is.

"Sacré Bleus" is the best kind of travel writing: social analysis buffeted with anecdotes that cause you to think and perhaps shift some of your own long-held points of view about a certain people or place, and one which makes you love it even more in spite of all its faults.

Everyone who is still trying to understand Quebec for themselves should read this book. There's no right or wrong answer, of course, but perhaps you'll look at some things more closely and others not as much. Quebecois will find much to laugh at here, too.

The perfect companion for a summer vacation.

Overall rating: 9/10