“The rest of my time is free for writing. “I work 32 bar hours in two (consecutive) days,” he said. Looking ahead, Larue appears set to strike the balance between the bar that he has co-owned for a year, Le Pélican in Mile End, and his literary vocation.

I could see that I had said something important.” “People who went through addiction and rehab, saying, ‘Your book tells it so well.’ That was very touching for me. “Many readers have sent me letters,” Larue said. His parents proved accepting and forgiving - partly, Larue guesses, because they could see the good the book was doing as it worked its way into the world. It transforms your link to the world and how you meet people.” Bit by bit, you lose friends who work the 9 to 5 because it’s harder and harder to see them. and what’s open? Other bars, other restaurants. Well, when you’re in a kitchen and you’re done with your shift, it’s not 5 p.m. “They go and have a drink, they go meet friends. “What do people do when they finish their 9-to-5 job?,” Larue asked rhetorically. One of the novel’s greatest strengths is its group portrait, of people, often from society’s margins, who are drawn together by their specialized work and its very specific social demands I couldn’t just use them as a vague source.” As for the unnamed dishwasher’s finely drawn co-workers, he said “These are people who actually existed, and they are the core of the story. “The dishwasher sees everything, like a fly on the wall,” Larue said in explaining his choice of narrator. Larue’s eye is so keen, his grip on his milieu so sure, that a set-piece description of a busy night in the overworked kitchen of a trendy Plateau restaurant can take on the drama of a war story, with all the shifting dynamics, loyalties and small betrayals implied.

I’m part-owner of a bar today.”įor those who have been a part of the nocturnal kitchen world, the sense of identification with The Dishwasher is intense for those of us who haven’t, it’s like being granted entry into a heretofore private realm, one with its own intricate codes and rituals. Then came the switch to bars and bartending. “Then into the dining room: busboy, waiter, maître d’, manager. “Dishwasher, kitchen helper,” Larue said, listing off the rungs on his restaurant ladder. Encouraged by his editor, Larue dove headlong for inspiration back to his late teens and the start an ongoing 19-year sojourn in the restaurant and bar business, one that was maintained through Cégep and university, where he majored in comparative literature while also battling an addiction, of which more later. “It was supposed to be short,” Larue said with the air of someone who has gone a long way in the opposite direction. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

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Le Plongeur by Stéphane Larue