November 15, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
Anne Michaels’s new novel opens on a battlefield in France in 1917, as John lies wounded in the snow. The dozens of short passages, some as concise as two words (“Memory seeping”), capture John’s experience, ... Read More »
Marie-Claire Blais first appeared on the literary landscape fully formed at the age of 20; her debut, La Belle Bête (translated into English as Mad Shadows), caused a furor in her home province of Quebec. ... Read More »
October 18, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
On the acknowledgements page of his gobsmackingly accomplished book The Adversary, Michael Crummey (author of the Scotiabank Giller Prize–shortlisted The Innocents) touches on the “looting and pilfering” that went into the writing of his sixth novel. ... Read More »
October 4, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
Roaming, the latest graphic novel from cousins Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki, explores friendship, sex, and identity in an energetic romp through New York City rendered with sharp dialogue and in mesmerizing tableaus of soft ... Read More »
September 20, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Graphica, Reviews
Given the sudden and vehement uptick in climate-change disasters across the globe, we likely can expect novels with a focus on environmental issues to pop up with ever-increasing frequency. Two recent entries into the eco-fiction ... Read More »
September 20, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
Reuniting With Strangers is a novel about motion. After years of waiting – either in Canada or the Philippines – every character in Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio’s debut work of fiction finds themselves reuniting with a family ... Read More »
September 13, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
When Laura Keys, the contemporary protagonist of Elizabeth Ruth’s Semi-Detached, first enters the house at Two Condor Avenue on an icy winter day in Toronto in 2013, she feels as if she has “stepped into ... Read More »
September 6, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
“So what happens when you don’t need a human being to write anything anymore? When you can just turn to your magic smartbox and say, ‘Write me a novel about ornithologists and spies?’” This question, ... Read More »
September 6, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
Historical fiction often dwells in the gap between what happened and what was recorded. The best examples also explore the historical conditions for why that gap exists. Emma Donoghue’s latest novel, Learned by Heart, does ... Read More »
August 30, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews
A novel as sheerly entertaining as it is profound is a rare treat, and Sean Dixon’s newest work is exactly that. The Abduction of Seven Forgers is the latest fiction for adults by the ... Read More »
August 23, 2023 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels