Wildly funny and wonderfully moving, Bad Ideas is about just that a string of bad ideas and the absurdity of love Trudy works nights in a linen factory, avoiding romance and sharing the care of her four-year-old niece with Trudy s mother, Claire. Claire still pines for Trudy s father, a St. Lawrence Seaway construction worker who left her twenty years ago. Claire believes in true love. Trudy does not. She s keeping herself to herself. But when Jules Tremblay, aspiring daredevil, walks into the Jubilee restaurant, Trudy s a goner. Loosely inspired by Ken the Crazy Canuck Carter s attempt to jump the St. Lawrence River in a rocket car, and set in a 1970s hollowed-out town in eastern Ontario, Bad Ideas paints an indelible portrait of people on the forgotten fringes of life. Witty and wise, this is a novel that will stay with you a long time.