SOURCE: "Ferron's Fairy Tale about a Corporate Madman," in Saturday Night, Vol. 91, No. 8, November, 1976, pp. 58-61.

In the following excerpt, Sandler remarks on the underlying political message in Wild Roses.

No one takes much notice of a Quiet Revolution, but who can ignore an "apprehended insurrection"? We know instinctively that people who are capable of writing their history with blood are bound to write interesting books, so it's no accident that translations of Québec literature have proliferated since October, 1970. And it's not surprising that English Canadians are interested in Jacques Ferron, the man who interceded between Pierre Trudeau and Paul Rose of the FLQ.

Jacques Ferron, physician and man of letters, has been quietly influencing Québec politics and literature for twenty years. He was known as a playwright when his first book of fiction, Contes du pays incertain, established his reputation as a brilliant, ironic story-teller...