The Butcher of Park Ex is a humorous collection of personal stories inspired by growing up in Montreal's Park Extension neighbourhood. Not fitting in with his ethnic Greek community, and never feeling like part of mainstream Quebec society, Andreas Kessaris sets out on a forty-year search for answers, while trying to navigate a world where he is constantly the odd man out.
It was 1975 and the English/French dispute in Quebec was reaching a boiling point. The PSBGM English schools taught French in Kindergarten once a week for half an hour. The French teacher, Madame Sigeault, whom I referred to as “Madame Seagull” (not as a sign of disrespect; I actually thought that was her name … I said it to her face and she never corrected me), a no-nonsense, middle-aged blonde with thick glasses who always wore navy blue or black polyester pantsuits, showed up once a week. She never spoke so much as a word to the English teachers, who always seemed to greet her arrival with a low-level degree of snarky contempt.
A bittersweet but charming coming of age look at the universal Montreal immigrant experience. Brimming with a yearning innocent nostalgia, it brings the rich street scene of Park Extension to life with painstaking attention to the telling detail.
Tommy Schnurmacher, broadcaster and author of Makeup Tips From Auschwitz: How Vanity Saved My Mother’s Life
Andreas Kessaris’ collection of short stories will delight the reader. Each tale is a gem combining wit with deeper feelings drawn from life. After reading this book readers will wait impatiently for more from this talented writer.
Richard King, books columnist for CBC and author of A Stab at Life.
Rambunctious, big-hearted and lively, this book is both entertaining and moving. Andreas Kessaris writes with ruthless honesty and tenderness about authentic characters, their misadventures and passions, and his memories of growing up in an iconic Montreal neighbourhood.
Cora Siré, author of Behold Things Beautiful
The stories in The Butcher of Park Ex are sometimes irreverent, and at times even a little sad, but they’re always filled with humour and honesty. Andreas Kessaris tells it like it is and doesn’t shy away from self-deprecation. He could be the star of his own sitcom, a sort of Greek Anglo-Montrealer mix of Kramer and George in Seinfeld. If someone asked me which Greek God best represents Andreas, I would answer: “The one that couldn’t sit still, broke the mould, and doesn’t have his own statue.”
Jacques Filippi, co-editor of Montreal Noir