Quill and Quire

Reviews

Between Trains

By Barry Callaghan

The stories in Barry Callaghan’s new collection are written in a plain style reminiscent of Hemingway. And as with Hemingway, there are depths of emotion roiling beneath the deceptively simple surface of Callaghan’s prose. Callaghan’s ... Read More »

June 14, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

The Milk Chicken Bomb

By Andrew Wedderburn

Welcome to Marvin, Alberta, the fictional landscape of writer/musician Andrew Wedderburn’s debut novel. Starring “the kid,” an unnamed narrator who stands against the backdrop of the local meat-packing plant, amid Russian expatriates, smalltown antiheroes, bonspiels, ... Read More »

June 13, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Belle Falls

By Sherri Vanderveen

It’s a compelling opening for a novel: on a sunny afternoon, six-year-old Brennan Allister is riding his bike around his affluent neighbourhood when he disappears. Hours later, bruised, bitten, and wearing only his underwear, he ... Read More »

June 13, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Combustion

By Lorri Neilsen Glenn

Halifax poet laureate Lorri Neilsen Glenn’s second collection consists mostly of free-verse lyrics, prose poems, family memoirs, and occasional observations. Reading it, I couldn’t help but think of Canada Council director Robert Sirman’s recent plea ... Read More »

June 13, 2007 | Filed under: Poetry

Missing the Ark

By Catherine Kidd

Mining the animal kingdom for metaphors for the human condition, this flawed first novel by acclaimed Montreal spoken word artist Catherine Kidd provides a fascinating look into the lives of animals and the craft of ... Read More »

June 13, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Tablecloth Trick

By Rick Crilly

Toronto writer Rick Crilly’s debut is labelled as “experimental fiction” by its publisher. This is a fair statement. To less than a hundred pages of fragmented narrative Crilly adds 54 footnotes and 20 endnotes that ... Read More »

June 13, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Right Away Monday

By Joel Thomas Hynes

Clayton Reid, the booze-besotted, drug-addicted ne’er-do-well at the centre of Joel Thomas Hynes’s second novel, bears a striking resemblance to Keith Kavanagh, the shiftless antihero of Down to the Dirt, Hynes’s 2004 debut. Both are ... Read More »

June 12, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Bank

By David Bledin

The worlds of banking and literature seldom meet, and probably for good reason. There’s not much drama to be found in the facts and figures of the financial district. Or is there?Bank is the debut ... Read More »

May 29, 2007 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels