Fiction: Novels

The Occidental Hotel

The essay by author Antanas Sileika that opens the late John Bentley Mays’s previously unpublished final novel, The Occidental Hotel, is bracingly upfront in managing a reader’s expectations. “I cautioned John that many Canadian readers ... Read More »

October 19, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Like a Bird

By Fariha Róisín

“Truth is what you’ve experienced. It’s what you know.” So says Taylia Chatterjee, the first-person narrator of Australian-Canadian author Fariha Róisín’s debut novel. Taylia voices what has become a staple of postmodern, therapy-inspired philosophy: truth ... Read More »

October 15, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Cam & Beau

By Maria Cichosz

Maria Cichosz’s debut novel – the first in a projected series – brims with theory and tension. Cam and Beau are long-time best friends and roommates living in Toronto at the beginning of the 21st ... Read More »

October 5, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

★ Daniil and Vanya

By Marie-Hélène Larochelle; Michelle Winters (trans.)

Reading Marie-Hélène Larochelle’s debut novel is like watching a terrifying play. The sense of dread and horror is physically palpable, and the careful stagecraft of the writing – in Michelle Winters’s capable English translation – ... Read More »

October 1, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ The Company We Keep

By Frances Itani

If nothing else, Frances Itani’s latest novel shows the utter importance of community. Such a message is ironically timely, given the current need for physical distancing during a global pandemic. But Itani’s book is much ... Read More »

September 28, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Happy Hour

By Marlowe Granados

Isa Epley wants to learn as much as she can about the world. Sophisticated, adventurous, and somewhat weary, she sees things with a perspective fresher than most. Her meticulously kept diary is littered with thoughtful ... Read More »

September 10, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Crosshairs

By Catherine Hernandez

In Crosshairs, the second novel by Toronto writer and playwright Catherine Hernandez, the distinction between dystopia and reality becomes increasingly imperceptible. Hernandez presents the disintegration of Canada into a bifurcated society of haves and have-nots, ... Read More »

August 31, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

★ Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies

By Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

The new book by the multi-talented Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg of Alderville First Nation) is a novel of Anishinaabe aesthetics cast in prose and poetic fragments. It presses readers – Indigenous and settler ... Read More »

August 27, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

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