The Woman before Wallis: A Novel of Windsors, Vanderbilts, and Royal Scandal

If one positive thing came out of Madonna’s disastrous 2011 Wallis Simpson biopic, W.E., it’s that the film introduced Toronto writer Bryn Turnbull to the story of Thelma Morgan Furness. The American socialite had been ... Read More »

July 20, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

The Imago Stage

By Karoline Georges; Rhonda Mullins (trans.)

The epigraph to Daniel J. Boorstin’s essential 1961 book The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America is a quote from the Swiss playwright Max Frisch: “Technology … the knack of so arranging the world ... Read More »

July 13, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

The Diamond House

By Dianne Warren

How does one measure the worth of a life? By deeds done or money earned? The number of family and friends one holds close? Years lived? And how do these measurements differ when applied to ... Read More »

July 9, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Speechless

By Anne Simpson

A novel about a white woman claiming to speak for a Black woman comes burdened with the pre-existing trope of the “white saviour complex,” a belief system rooted in colonization’s “civilizing” efforts of trade, religion, ... Read More »

July 6, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Last Impressions

By Joseph Kertes

In this tender tragicomic novel, Joseph Kertes plumbs themes that have obsessed him throughout his career. How does a family come to terms with a traumatic history that feels too painful to talk about? Can ... Read More »

June 8, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

All I Ask

By Eva Crocker

Who among us can honestly say they’d be free of fear or embarrassment if their phone and laptop were seized and scrutinized by law enforcement? Such is the anxiety-plagued situation of Stacey Power, the protagonist ... Read More »

May 21, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Stay Where I Can See You

By Katrina Onstad

Gwen Kaplan is a content, loving, maybe even slightly smug suburban stay-at-home mom of two. She is devoted to her children and husband and comfortable with her modest, unassuming life. When she wins close to ... Read More »

May 14, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Where the Waters Meet

By Stéphanie Boulay; Ghislaine LeFranc (trans.)

A shifting, nebulous sense of identity sits at the heart of this dense, metaphoric novella by French-Canadian author Stéphanie Boulay. Set in what we can assume are the wilds of rural Quebec, Where the Waters ... Read More »

May 7, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Polar Vortex

By Shani Mootoo

There are certain strains of cannabis, which, when vaped, stretch the experience of time to include the distant past, so that one feels they have relived entire lives in an action as brief as washing ... Read More »

April 23, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

The Birth Yard

By Mallory Tater

The harrowing and powerful debut novel from Vancouver writer Mallory Tater begins in September, or, as it is known in the world of the book, Arrival. Sable Ursu has just turned 18. “Everyone on our ... Read More »

April 13, 2020 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Prev 123 4....225 226 Next

Quill and Quire