Abstract

Cinema L’Amour is a novella about escape explored through my characters’ obsession with the legendary escape artist Harry Houdini. Cinema L'Amour is set in a Montreal theatre of the same name, where Houdini is rumoured to have been performing when he received a fatal blow to his abdomen in 1926. Once a vibrant vaudeville theatre but currently a porn cinema, Cinema L'Amour is the centre of this novella; it is where the characters come to know one another and Houdini, and it is where the present meets, and mixes with, the past. Cinema L'Amour achieves temporal depth through the characters' engagement with Houdini and through the two parallel story lines—one historical, one present-day—that structure the novella. The contemporary story line is about a group of characters who plan a Houdini tribute show on the anniversary of his death, while the second story line is an account—sometimes factual, sometimes imagined—of Houdini. All of the characters are escaping something in Cinema L’Amour, whether physical restraints in the form of ropes and chains, or emotional impediments, like memories or fear.