Republic of Glass

“In haunting and elegiac prose, Catherine Leroux brings us into an eerie Montreal where the housing crisis has taken a disastrous turn. This is Leroux at her finest.” —Heather O’Neill, bestselling author of When We Lost Our Heads

From the “unparalleled storytelling talent” (Lettres québécoises) behind Canada Reads–winning novel The Future comes a searing tour de force about a city beset by government conspiracies, strange disappearances, and fake news—and a rebellious journalist increasingly embroiled within the story she’s writing.

In near-future Montreal, where housing is a luxury that few can afford, rumours have begun to stir.

Sidonie, a trailblazing journalist, is the first to break the news of people disappearing off the streets—unsettling reports of unmarked government vehicles and attacks that have left encampment communities on edge. The story spreads like wildfire, thrusting Sidonie into the spotlight as the trusted mouthpiece for the most vulnerable population. But as public outrage and concern mount, Sidonie must decide how much she’s willing to risk to tell this story.

Eventually she finds herself on the other side of the mirror, within the walls of a new kind of institution whose residents may or may not be paid for their labour, and of which they may or may not be captive. In this context, Sidonie’s only escape is through her writing. As she reconstructs the events that led her here in her journal, she begins to realize that the page can provide an escape in more ways than one, and fiction, not truth, might set her free.

Funny, profound, and relentless, Republic of Glass is a singular exploration of the notions of home, survival, lies, and truth, and an exuberant plea for the imagination.