On the block in Mechanicsville - A loving, profane and funny portrait of a neighbourhood where hookers & stroller moms share the streets

Donnie LaFlamme wants to remember what it used to be, with all its warts, be they hilarious or heinous.

Mechanicsville Monologues is based on pieces LaFlamme wrote for the stage (he's codirector of Chamber Theatre Hintonburg, and teaches theatre at Algonquin College). It's mostly fictional stories about a neighbourhood where "if houses could talk, some would slur through rotten teeth." They're full of hard-knock characters who are, LaFlamme says, "based on people and situations I have known, but there is a lot of embellishment going on."

LaFlamme's stories are full of bleak, often laugh-out-loud humour, and swear words. The popular cusses are here, reused and relished, as if the narrator is a profanely chatty drunk - which it often is. The rawness is leavened by LaFlamme's love for the neighbourhood, and by vivid observations amid the human wreckage.

LaFlamme says he wrote the stories "to make sure some of these characters and situations lived on beyond my own tiny circle of activity."... Overall, the book is a loving, profane and by times scandalously funny portrait of a neighbourhood that is disappearing, and taking with it an age of Ottawa culture.