Quill and Quire

Fiction: Novels

Flagged Victor

By Keith Hollihan

Readers who enjoyed Keith Hollihan’s debut novel, The Four Stages of Cruelty, which chronicled the harrowing life of a maximum-security prison inmate, may be perplexed by his follow-up. Though also focused on men operating persistently ... Read More »

November 13, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Widow Tree

By Nicole Lundrigan

In her fifth novel, Nicole Lundrigan shifts her focus from Newfoundland (her setting of choice in previous novels) to 1953 Yugoslavia, delivering in the process a wrenching tale of betrayal and loss. At the centre ... Read More »

November 13, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Unexploded

By Alison MacLeod

In Unexploded, which was longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, life in 1940 Brighton is tense and terrifying. Following the German invasion of France, the English city becomes focused on a potential incursion from ... Read More »

November 13, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Crooked Maid

By Dan Vyleta

“When I set out to write The Crooked Maid,” says Dan Vyleta in the acknowledgements to his 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize–nominated novel, “I had contracted the Balzacian bug.” Vyleta’s reference is appropriate, since the 19th-century ... Read More »

November 5, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The n-Body Problem

By Tony Burgess

The title of Tony Burgess’s new novel refers to a question in classical mechanics: is it possible to predict the individual movements of a group of celestial objects that interact with one another gravitationally? Isaac ... Read More »

October 28, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Bait

By J. Kent Messum

Some novels cry out to be filmed. Bait, the debut from musician-turned-wordsmith J. Kent Messum, simply roars. That’s not a knock against Messum’s stylistic approach. The B-movie premise and far-fetched plot don’t detract from one’s ... Read More »

October 22, 2013 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels