They Won't Demolish Me! is not only a fantastic farce full of the most extraordinary comic invention. It deals with more than the funny antics of a group of oddballs who seem to be living through a never ending naughty childhood. This comedy is just one of the many levels on which the book moves, and it is a level which is firmly rooted in the serious.

"They" of the title are the developers, of course, the big guys, the capitalists, the faceless bosses who never appear. Ever expanding, "they" are also the City Administration, the English, change, progress, even death and God himself. On the other side, the "me" who resists demolition is Dorval, his house, the little man, the French Canadian, the drones in a heartless society, the irrepressible forces of life which make a man wrestle to maintain himself and the small area of the...