Fiction: Novels

If I Were Me

If I were Lander – guilt-ridden main character, failed father and husband, famous neurolinguist – I might be less forgiving of myself. So why does author Clark Blaise allow his character to find so much ... Read More »

April 19, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Lydia Thrippe! A Critic’s Diary Followed by the Lydiad

By Daniel Sloate

At university I was given a secondhand copy of a literary anthology, with a free form novel-in-progress attached. The book had been owned by a celebrated Upper Canada College academic, who had scribbled thousands of ... Read More »

April 16, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Bodies in Motion: A Matthew Prior Mystery

By Anthony Quogan

In pseudonymous Toronto mystery writer Anthony Quogan’s Bodies in Motion, recurring character Matthew Prior is commissioned to adapt Hitchcock’s train thriller The Lady Vanishes for a modern-day American audience. By way of research, he is ... Read More »

April 16, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Between the Stillness and the Grove

By Erika de Vasconcelos

Erika de Vasconcelos’s second novel is more ambitious in scope than her acclaimed debut. Where My Darling Dead Ones concerned itself with the personal histories of a family of women, Between the Stillness and the ... Read More »

April 16, 2004 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Novels

A Complicated Kindness

By Miriam Toews

Miriam Toews’ second novel starts with a funny-sad zinger: “Half of our family, the better-looking half, is missing,” and right away we’re hooked on our narrator’s mournful smarts. Laconic, restless, sixteen-year-old Naomi “Nomi” Nickel doesn’t ... Read More »

April 12, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

After Surfing Ocean Beach

By Mary Soderstrom

Mary Soderstrom’s third novel, though relatively uncomplicated in both style and structure, is curiously enigmatic. The mystery begins with the title: although the surf at Ocean Beach provides the setting for a number of flashback ... Read More »

April 12, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

After Goodlake’s

By Terence Young

Fergus Goodlake is a passive, middle-aged man with prostate trouble who up until now has managed to amble through life taking the path of least resistance. The latest of three generations of Goodlakes to own ... Read More »

April 12, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Fruit: A Novel About a Boy and His Nipples

By Brian Francis

You have to feel sorry for Peter Paddington, the narrator of Brian Francis’s debut novel. It’s 1984, Sarnia, and Peter is a 13-year-old who weighs over 200 pounds, and whose nipples have suddenly developed from ... Read More »

April 8, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Fire Thief

By Stephen Guppy

For his first novel, Vancouver poet and short story author Stephen Guppy has set up a fictional town – Danforth, nicknamed “Atomic, U.S.A.” – near Seattle. All of it, from schools to stop signs and ... Read More »

April 8, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Flame of Separation

By Des Kennedy

After three books about gardening, eco-activist and columnist Des Kennedy’s first novel, The Garden Club, was shortlisted for the 1997 Leacock Medal. Interestingly, Kennedy’s new novel is a psychological mystery, told without any noticeable horticulture ... Read More »

April 8, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

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