2097 Tremblay, Michel. Bonbons Assortis/ Assorted Candies. Translated by Linda Gaboriau. Vancouver: Talonbooks. 156p. $17.95pa. ISBN 0-88922-541-9pa. CCIP. DDC C842'.54.

With his uniquely intimate perspective of family life on the Rue Fabre in Montreal, Michel Tremblay needs no introduction to Québecois, Canadian, or international readers.
        Bonbons Assortis/Assorted Candies is the fourth assemblage of autobiographical stories of Tremblay’s childhood. The books, films, and plays that were the focus of his previous “show and tell” tales clearly informed the writer’s imagination even as his familial observations shaped his own particular generational subject matter. The title of the latest volume refers to the boxes of Lowney’s chocolates that were a standard and perennial gift for his mother on special occasions. In the stories contained in this gift box, the writer seems quite content to let the natural dialogue of their telling work its magic without having to insist that “these are a few of my favourite things” or to underline these incidents as having been a step in his formation as a writer. For that reason they may give the impression of being a tad lighter or without consequence, but in their straightforward and simple telling they reveal much more profoundly the sensitivity and the growing sensibility of the writer.
        In the first story (“The Wedding Present”), little Marcel is like a Günter Grass midget hiding under the family table to observe his family with its over-the-top emotions expressed in the immediately recognizable maternal idiom that Tremblay captures so entertainingly (and which in Linda Gaboriau’s translation garnered a 2006 Governor General’s Award nomination). In “Sturm und Drang,” we get a rare glimpse of closeness with the author’s father and the amazed perspective of a small child suddenly seeing the world from atop his father’s shoulders. Two stories regarding the “Irrefutable Proof That Santa Claus Exist,” are narrative gems that could easily become Christmas classics like Stephen Leacock’s “Hoodoo McFiggin’s Christmas.” Indeed, like luscious chocolate centres, each story brings a carefully crafted new delight. The volume is rounded off with perhaps the best tribute to his mother’s sense and sensibility that one could imagine.
        Tremblay has already adapted these stories into a hugely successful stage version.