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Table of Contents
About The Book
“In haunting and elegiac prose, Catherine Leroux brings us into an eerie Montreal where the housing crisis has taken a disastrous turn. This is Leroux at her finest.” —Heather O’Neill, bestselling author of When We Lost Our Heads
From the “unparalleled storytelling talent” (Lettres québécoises) behind Canada Reads–winning novel The Future comes a searing tour de force about a city beset by government conspiracies, strange disappearances, and fake news—and a rebellious journalist increasingly embroiled within the story she’s writing.
In near-future Montreal, where housing is a luxury that few can afford, rumours have begun to stir.
Sidonie, a trailblazing journalist, is the first to break the news of people disappearing off the streets—unsettling reports of unmarked government vehicles and attacks that have left encampment communities on edge. The story spreads like wildfire, thrusting Sidonie into the spotlight as the trusted mouthpiece for the most vulnerable population. But as public outrage and concern mount, Sidonie must decide how much she’s willing to risk to tell this story.
Eventually she finds herself on the other side of the mirror, within the walls of a new kind of institution whose residents may or may not be paid for their labour, and of which they may or may not be captive. In this context, Sidonie’s only escape is through her writing. As she reconstructs the events that led her here in her journal, she begins to realize that the page can provide an escape in more ways than one, and fiction, not truth, might set her free.
Funny, profound, and relentless, Republic of Glass is a singular exploration of the notions of home, survival, lies, and truth, and an exuberant plea for the imagination.
From the “unparalleled storytelling talent” (Lettres québécoises) behind Canada Reads–winning novel The Future comes a searing tour de force about a city beset by government conspiracies, strange disappearances, and fake news—and a rebellious journalist increasingly embroiled within the story she’s writing.
In near-future Montreal, where housing is a luxury that few can afford, rumours have begun to stir.
Sidonie, a trailblazing journalist, is the first to break the news of people disappearing off the streets—unsettling reports of unmarked government vehicles and attacks that have left encampment communities on edge. The story spreads like wildfire, thrusting Sidonie into the spotlight as the trusted mouthpiece for the most vulnerable population. But as public outrage and concern mount, Sidonie must decide how much she’s willing to risk to tell this story.
Eventually she finds herself on the other side of the mirror, within the walls of a new kind of institution whose residents may or may not be paid for their labour, and of which they may or may not be captive. In this context, Sidonie’s only escape is through her writing. As she reconstructs the events that led her here in her journal, she begins to realize that the page can provide an escape in more ways than one, and fiction, not truth, might set her free.
Funny, profound, and relentless, Republic of Glass is a singular exploration of the notions of home, survival, lies, and truth, and an exuberant plea for the imagination.
About The Author
Photograph © Justine Latour
Catherine Leroux is the author of four highly praised novels and an innovative sequence of short stories. Her first novel, La marche en forêt, was a finalist for Quebec’s Booksellers’ Prize. Her bestselling second novel, Le mur mitoyen, won the France-Quebec Prize, and its translation, The Party Wall, was a finalist for the Giller Prize and longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Award. Leroux’s story sequence, Madame Victoria, won Quebec’s Adrienne Choquette Prize. The Future, championed by Heather O’Neill, won Canada Reads 2024 and was longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. The French original of The Future (L’avenir) won the Jacques-Brossard Prize and was a finalist for the Imaginary Horizons Prize and the Quebec Booksellers’ Prize. Catherine Leroux works as a translator and editor in Montreal. She was awarded the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation.
Product Details
- Publisher: Scribner Canada (September 29, 2026)
- Length: 272 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668093313
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Raves and Reviews
"Republic of Glass is an audacious speculative novel that overflows with intelligence and daring, while asking its reader to not only question our current trajectory but everything else along the way. Catherine Leroux writes with a fierceness and originality that is hard to shake.” —Iain Reid, bestselling author of Foe and I'm Thinking of Ending Things
“In haunting and elegiac prose, Catherine Leroux brings us into an eerie Montreal where the housing crisis has taken a disastrous turn. This is Leroux at her finest.” —Heather O’Neill, bestselling author of When We Lost Our Heads
“Catherine Leroux’s return to the near future is a sophisticated and dizzying adventure -- an acid-tipped indictment of what society does to its seemingly most dispensable citizens, and a passionate evocation of what it means to have a home. Like Alice, her bristly, ambitious, and fabulating heroine finds herself in ignominious exile on the other side of the looking-glass – a place where strange magic, unflinching looks at brutality, and a remarkable cast of characters draw the agape reader relentlessly through to the novel’s conclusion.” —Zsuzsi Gartner, Giller and Rogers Trust Prize short-listed author of Better Living through Plastic Explosives and The Beguiling
"An ambitious exploration and demonstration of the power and danger of language, Republic of Glass is revelatory, inventive, and blazingly intelligent—a speculative future that confronts the brutality of our present and does not flinch." —Kim Fu, author of The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts
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