Overeating is just one of many obsessions Tremblay explores in La Grosse Femme (the full title means "the fat lady next door is pregnant"). The book is a day (May 2, 1942) in the lives of 20 or so working-class Montrealers ranging in age from two to 72 and in species from cat to Fate. That's right, the novel features the inner dialogue of Duplessis the cat (all political allusions intended) as he patrols his garbage cans and valiantly defends them against scavenging mongrels. On a more classical level, three immortal sisters and their mother sit on a walk-up balcony knitting booties for the fat lady's future child, invisible to all the characters except Duplessis and the occasional madman.

A writer who plays games like these has grandiose schemes in mind, and this is apparently only the first of an extended cycle of novels. The themes introduced here are familiar from Tremblay's...