Quill and Quire

Fiction: Novels

Akin

By Emma Donoghue

Noah Selvaggio, the protagonist of Emma Donoghue’s new novel, doesn’t like change. His Upper West Side apartment is a shrine to the past; he can’t even bring himself to throw out his dead dog’s old ... Read More »

September 5, 2019 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

Watching You Without Me

By Lynn Coady

After four novels, two short-story collections (including the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning Hellgoing), and appearances in myriad journals and anthologies, we’ve come to expect a certain level of excellence from Lynn Coady. Though less forceful ... Read More »

August 26, 2019 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Greenwood

By Michael Christie

In Greenwood, his thought-provoking second novel, B.C. writer Michael Christie uses the ringed cross-section of a tree as an organizing principle and structure. As Christie writes, “Wood is time captured. A map. A cellular memory. ... Read More »

August 26, 2019 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

The Innocents

By Michael Crummey

The Book of Genesis meets “Hansel and Gretel” by way of Flowers in the Attic: that would not be an inappropriate way to situate Michael Crummey’s new novel, a return to historical fiction following 2014’s ... Read More »

August 22, 2019 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Fog

By Rana Bose

James M. Cain was once quoted as saying he wanted to write about “the average man, from the fields, the streets, the bars, the offices, and even the gutters of his country.” It seems Montreal-based ... Read More »

July 15, 2019 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews

★ Bunny

By Mona Awad

Mona Awad’s Bunny is gripping, frenetically readable, and bewilderingly erotic. In this exploration of how women’s repressed rage and desires can manifest, Awad weaponizes cuteness in a ferocious and dynamic way. The author’s second novel ... Read More »

July 15, 2019 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels, Reviews