Looking Back on Lot's Wife

Lot's Wife [La Femme de Loth]Monique Bosco [trans John Glassco]Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1975151 pagesDe temps à autre, un mot, une phrase, entendus malgré moi, me frappent comme un autre soufflet immérité.– La Femme de Loth, Monique Bosco, 1970There was a time in this great land when translations of French-language books were published with near exclusivity in hardcover. There were no second printings and there were no paperback reissues. I'm thinking of titles like In Quest of Splendour (Pierre le magnifique), Orphan Street (Un Chaîne dans la parc), and The Scarecrows of Saint-Emmanuel (L'épouvantail).Lot's Wife met the very same fate.I was a child when La Femme de Loth was published. I was an adolescent when it appeared in English translation. I was adult when I first read Lot's Wife. I was an older adult when I wrote Monique Bosco to ask about her working relationship with the translator. This was when I was working on A Gentleman of Pleasure, my biography of John Glassco.…