In April, at Montreal’s second annual Blue Metropolis literary festival, writers from Scotland, Trinidad, and Toronto tossed around variations on a theme: can one live imaginatively in one’s homeplace before it has been represented in literature? Storied Streets: Montreal in the Literary Imagination illustrates that Montrealers have never had to ask themselves that question.

Jacques Cartier, say the authors, began mythologizing the city before it even existed. He wrote that he had been enthusiastically received by the native inhabitants of a village called Hochelaga, close to a mountain he called “Mount Royal.” In the absence of physical evidence of Hochelaga, both Montreal East and West claim to inhabit the original site; no less than Stephen Leacock proclaimed Hochelaga to have never exisited at all.

So begins the intrigue of imagining Montreal. Bryan Demchinsky and Elaine Kalman Naves’s lively, info-packed ride begins with the first European settlement, huddles around Old Montreal for a while, then moves up and out as the city did. Streets and neighbourhoods are recreated through the lives and words of authors who immortalized them. Eighteenth-century visitors enthuse over Montreal’s stylish women and wild party scene, showing that plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Gabrielle Roy and Mairuth Sarsfield describe family life and dreaming in St. Henri and Little Burgundy; Emile Nelligan springs from the Plateau, Mordecai Richler from St. Urbain and the Main.

Throughout, the authors – both veteran literary journalists at Montreal’s The Gazette – are humorous, engaging, and engaged. They couldn’t be comprehensive, but have tried hard and chosen well: some good writers have been omitted (Yann Martel comes to mind) but those included are deserving and appropriate. A large selection of photos and illustrations helps make the scene descriptions still more vivid. Storied Streets continues the work of the books it discusses, making Montreal more real by making it more imagined.