In 2001, the skeleton of a woman was found in the woods surrounding the then-Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. Despite a thorough investigation involving the hospital's records, a reconstitution of the woman's face, several missing person appeals, DNA tests and hair analyses, it was impossible to tell who the woman was. She was dubbed Madame Victoria, put into a box in an evidence room, and once again forgotten. In a series of brilliant and increasingly outlandish tales, Catherine Leroux presents thirteen possible histories of Madame Victoria's life. This is not who Victoria was. We will never know that. These are dreams of who she wasn't - but could have been.
"An imaginative, haunting, and insightful examination of the lives of women...absorbing and often poignant, Madame Victoria is an achievement, both as a mystery about the missing identity of one woman and in its portrayal of women's lives more broadly."
