Reviews

Songs of Exile

Bänoo Zan immigrated to Canada in 2010 from Iran, where she taught English literature. The poems in her debut collection are not overtly autobiographical, but nevertheless powerfully convey the immigrant experience. The language is spare, ... Read More »

March 21, 2016 | Filed under: Poetry

Little Dogs: New and Selected

By Michael Crummey

Many Canadian fiction writers started out as poets. Rarer are people like Michael Crummey and Steven Heighton, who write poetry and prose in tandem. A grim warning: only a few of the greatest writers (Thomas ... Read More »

March 21, 2016 | Filed under: Poetry

★ Don’t Be Interesting

By Jacob McArthur Mooney

Jacob McArthur Mooney’s first collection since 2011’s Folk (which was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize) has at its centre a mind-bending conundrum. A graph (which functions as a kind of preface to the collection ... Read More »

March 16, 2016 | Filed under: Poetry

The Killing Game: Martyrdom, Murder and the Lure of ISIS

By Mark Bourrie

Marshall McLuhan would have had a field day exploring the dynamics of a terrorist group whose instantly recognizable brand of brutality appeals to disaffected youth while inspiring panic in the world’s most powerful nations. Ottawa ... Read More »

March 10, 2016 | Filed under: Politics & Current Affairs

A Mingus Lullaby

By Dane Swan

“Genre doesn’t exist,” claims Dane Swan in a 2013 interview on the website Black Coffee Poet. “There are different ways you have to manipulate your work so that it fits a medium. Medium exists. For ... Read More »

March 9, 2016 | Filed under: Poetry

Startle and Illuminate: Carol Shields on Writing

By Carol Shields; Anne Giardini (ed.); Nicholas Giardini (ed.)

When Carol Shields died in 2003, she left behind a wealth of papers and unpublished material now housed at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. One of Canada’s pre-eminent novelists (the word “beloved” frequently accompanies ... Read More »

March 7, 2016 | Filed under: Criticism & Essays

Glory Over Everything

By Kathleen Grissom

Glory Over Everything, the second novel by Saskatchewan-raised, Virginia-based Kathleen Grissom, is the sequel to the New York Times bestseller and book-club favourite The Kitchen House. Drawing its title from the words of abolitionist Harriet ... Read More »

February 29, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Double Dutch

By Laura Trunkey

Double Dutch is a confident debut collection containing nine stories that mostly offer varying perspectives on a single theme. That theme – the body/soul duality – is an old one, though the way Trunkey employs ... Read More »

February 29, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

From Up River and for One Night Only

By Brett Josef Grubisic

In our attention-span-devoid, smartphone-optimized era, it seems rare – nostalgic even – for an author to prioritize meticulous craft over an action-packed storyline. Though University of British Columbia lecturer in English (and Q&Q reviewer) Brett ... Read More »

February 25, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Three Sisters Bar and Hotel

By Katherine Govier

Having spent the past decade writing about Japan, Katherine Govier turns her gaze homeward in her latest novel – not to Toronto, where the author has lived for many years, but to her birthplace of ... Read More »

February 24, 2016 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

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