February 19, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels
In Joey Smallwood’s lifetime, the world fought 84 wars and 210 revolutions. Nine kings, four queens, and two princes were assassinated, along with 16 presidents, 18 premiers, six ministers, and two governors. Some would say ... Read More »
In a 1997 essay, Steven Heighton – poet, short story writer, intellectual, registered hunk, and now novelist – warns that “to survive as a full-time writer you have to manage your affairs in a way ... Read More »
February 19, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels
In The Worlds Within Her Neil Bissoondath picks up where he left off in his previous fiction – chronicling the small, crucial emotional turning points in ordinary lives. When we first meet Bissoondath’s protagonist Yasmin, ... Read More »
February 18, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels
Best known for the novel Slash and the poetry collection Breath Tracks, Okanagan writer Jeannette Armstrong combines genres in her new novel to bring readers into the world of Penny Jackson, a painter, activist, and ... Read More »
February 17, 2004 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Novels
Just for Comfort is a Canadian counter-culture road movie set to the page: Goin’ Down the Road meets Thelma and Louise. First-time novelist Ralph Osborne has written a gentle, comic tale of addiction and violence ... Read More »
February 17, 2004 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Novels
Don’t suspend disbelief. Don’t arrest it, curtail it, or unfrock it. Disbelief is in the fine print scratched at the bottom of Leon Rooke’s literary contract. What the meta-narrator of The Fall of Gravity calls ... Read More »
February 17, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels
Imagine that you’re Lindy Hammond, a 63-year-old single woman in a depressed rural hamlet, looking after a wandering, 90-year-old aunt and running a seedy convenience store: what are your chances of finally finding love and ... Read More »
February 17, 2004 | Filed under: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Novels
Robbiestime has some of the same characters who appeared in Don Dickinson’s first book, the short-story collection Fighting the Upstream. It also has some of that book’s old-fashioned Canadian qualities, such as a preoccupation with ... Read More »
February 17, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels
Carole Giangrande’s rich and ambitious new novel, A Forest Burning, is a story of generations of loss, soul baring, and secrets. The central story, which unfolds carefully, if a little pedantically, is much more compelling ... Read More »
February 17, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels
In Survival, Margaret Atwood titled her chapter on Quebec literature “Burning Mansions.” She could well have been presaging Gaétan Soucy’s latest novel The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches. Cleansing fires that destroy ... Read More »
February 17, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels