Name: Rat Bohemia (Violet Hour Book Club)
Start: 2025-10-18T15:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-10-18T17:00:00-04:00
Location: 6450 Avenue Christophe-Colomb, Montréal, QC H2S 2G7, Canada

Join us for the next meeting of the Violet Hour Book Club, a reading group devoted to classic and contemporary works of LGBTQ literature. The book we will be discussing is Rat Bohemia (1995) by Sarah Schulman.
Toustes sont invités·es au Violet Hour Book Club, et chacun.e est bienvenu.e à partager ses pensées sur le livre en anglais ou en français.
We will be meeting at Espace des Possibles Petite-Patrie (6450 Avenue Christophe Colomb, Beaubien Metro). L’Espace des Possibles a comme mission d’offrir un lieu d’entraide, d’apprentissages et d’implication dédié à la transition sociale et écologique (la transition socio-écologique).
The space is given to us for free, but VHBC participants are welcome to make voluntary contributions to help support our mandate to create LGBTQ literary events for Montrealers.
A reminder: All VHBC titles are available at Librairie Paragraphe Bookstore (2220, McGill College Ave) at 15% off and at Librairie Pulp Books & Cafe (3952 Wellington St.) at 10% off.
ABOUT THE BOOK ///
First published in 1995, this award-winning novel, written from the epicentre of the AIDS crisis, is a bold, achingly honest story set in the "rat bohemia" of New York City, whose huddled masses include gay men and lesbians who bond with one another in the wake of loss. Navigating the currents of the city is Rita Mae, a rat exterminator who holds the optimism of all true bohemians--those who stand outside of the prevailing social apparatus. She and her friends seek new ways to be truthful and honest about their lives as others around them avert their glances. Inspired by A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe, Rat Bohemia is an expansive novel about coping with loss and healing the wounds of the past by reinventing oneself in the city.
Rat Bohemia won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction, and was named one of the "100 Best Gay and Lesbian Novels of All Time" by the Publishing Triangle.