By the Same Author
No Place More Suitable: Four Centuries of Montreal Stories
Véhicule Press, Montreal, 2018
Here are seventy-five true tales from Canada’s most beguiling city to inspire, amuse, horrify and captivate. They include humourist Stephen Leacock’s flinty bitterness at being forced into academic retirement; a boat race along the streets of downtown Montreal in the dead of winter; a duel sparked by a society ball; and city-wide celebrations marking the end of World War II. In No Place More Suitable, we have the full range of human endeavour, genius, hilarity, poignancy and sadness.
A Stain Upon the Land: Love and Death in Old Montreal
Shoreline, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, 2017
When a shotgun blast ripped into an unsuspecting Robert Watson in 1827, it not only horrified the bustling city of Montreal but also launched a mystery that endures to this day: who killed Watson, and why?
Blending fact and fiction, A Stain Upon the Land is a tale of intrigue, passion and violence that ranges from the highlands of Scotland to the backwoods of Ontario’s Glengarry County, from the War of 1812 to a cholera epidemic that scourged Montreal in 1832.
The novel follows the fortunes of a young woman and the two men
who love her—and not all of them can survive.
* Kalbfleisch's blending of fact and fiction—the book is nominally a murder mystery, but with a strong historical underpinning—proves the perfect approach to a story
whose real-life resonances are still felt today.
Ian McGillis, Montreal Gazette
* I’ve often been suspicious of historical novels, fearing that one gains neither good fiction
nor reliable fact. But I was won over by A Stain Upon the Land. It offers good characters and swift action,
and it illuminates an interesting era in Montreal’s history.
Dane Lanken, Montreal Review of Books
* One feels … the beginnings of modern-day Montreal: the cultural mix
with its attendant rivalries, and the openness of the city to successive waves of immigrants.
Margaret Joyce, Goodreads
Le Cadeau royal: Histoire de la ville de Mont-Royal / The Royal Gift: a History of Town of Mount Royal
Town of Mount Royal, 2013
Town of Mount Royal’s founding is directly related to the digging of a tunnel under Mount Royal by the Canadian Northern Railway, thus giving its trains access to downtown Montreal. To fund the project, the company created a model city at the northern end of the future tunnel where before there had been nothing but open farm fields.
In planning the Town, landscape architect Frederick Gage Todd was inspired
by the progressive City Beautiful and Garden City movements. The Town
was incorporated on December 21, 1912, and the first passenger train rolled
through the tunnel in 1918. The Town grew at a steady pace over the following decades,
through two world wars and successive administrations, but always adhering to Todd’s plan.
Le cadeau royal / The Royal Gift, published by the Town to celebrate its centenary,
traces the development of a garden city renowned for the quiet charm
of its road network and the quality of its residential architecture.
No wonder it was designated a National Monument of Canada in 2008.
This Island in Time: Remarkable Tales from Montreal’s Past
Véhicule Press, Montreal, 2008
A Mohawk who thought he was the rightful king of France, an Anglican priest who could barely speak English and just maybe the assassin of Abraham Lincoln: what do these three men have in common? Not much, perhaps, except the Montreal air they breathed.
From Montreal’s founding nearly four centuries ago down to the present day, an astonishing range of people have trod the city’s streets. Priests and princes, heroes and the humble, financial wizards and outright fools all have their stories to be told.
Here we have no ordinary history of Montreal. Instead, with this account of spies, zealots, royal tourists, people on the brink of death, and many others besides, something different emerges. It’s a portrait as colourful as the city itself.
* A vivid blend of fact and fiction, gossip and substance.
Laura Roberts, Quill and Quire
* Kalbfleisch is clearly fascinated by the people whose stories he tells,
and his enthusiasm is contagious. His easy writing style leads the reader through the eras.
Margaret Goldik, co-editor, Montreal Review of Books
Montreal’s Century: a Record of the News and People Who Shaped the City
in the 20th Century (co-author)
Éditions de Trécarré, Outremont, 1999
Montreal has always been the crucible of Canadian culture and politics. It has produced many of the country’s greatest leaders and sports heroes. It is where many of the country’s defining moments and most significant news events have occurred.
To celebrate the end of the 20th century, the Gazette and le Journal de Montréal collaborated to publish this book and a French version, Un siècle à Montréal. It is a collection of more than 250 historic news, sports and city-life photographs, with essays recalling some of the events shaping the city and the lives of its people.
* Le livre des deux quotidiens montre aussi que les deux communautés de Montréal ont une vision différent de l’actualité, chacune étant fière de ses heroes ayant contribué à la réputation de leur même ville.
Michel Larose, Le Journal de Montréal
* [The photos] unleash the sweet pleasures of nostalgia. But more importantly,
they create a vivid image of how our city has grown and changed during the last hundred years.
William Weintraub, author of City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights
in the 1940s and ’50s
