Click on the thumbnails to find out which fiction titles mattered the most in 2012.
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- At 81 years of age, it might be tempting to suggest that Alice Munro has reached a period of late mastery. Tempting, that is, were it not for the fact that she has produced a seemingly unbroken series of masterpieces since her first short-story collection, <i>Dance of the Happy Shades</i>, won the Governor General's Literary Award in 1968. What is truly remarkable is how, even after 14 collections, Munro continues to evolve, refusing to remain complacent with past successes. <br /> <p> With <i>Dear Life</i>, the woman Margaret Atwood once anointed to international literary sainthood continues to surprise and delight readers and critics alike. In his starred feature review, James Grainger points out that Munro sustains her movement away from larger, more detailed narratives toward a style that is more expressionistic. The result, Grainger writes, is a less complete but more startling accounting of character types familiar to Munro's readers. We've encountered these people before, the reader thinks, but not with such stark, almost surreal insight. In book after book, Munro signals there may be nothing she is incapable of doing in her fiction.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0771064861/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=15121&creative=330641&creativeASIN=0771064861&linkCode=as2&tag=quillquire-20">Buy this book</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.ca/e/ir?t=quillquire-20&l=as2&o=15&a=0771064861" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important;margin:0px !important" /></p>
- <a href=http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=7798>Dear Life by Alice Munro (McClelland & Stewart)</A>
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- 95249
- Richard Wagamese's courageous novel addresses a dark episode of recent Canadian history “ residential schools and their legacy “ without becoming didactic. And like its unforgettable protagonist, the novel is small in stature (it runs fewer than 200 pages) but packs a lot of punch.<br /> <p> <i>Indian Horse</i> is the story of Saul, a young Ojibway boy who lands at a residential school after his parents abandon him in the bush. The ritual abuse and humiliation suffered by the students is devastating, but the novel is shot through with moments of joy, as Saul discovers a passion for hockey and a possible escape from his bleak surroundings. As James Grainger writes in his feature review, Saul is portrayed clearly enough to function as a believable, engaging narrator, but he also operates as a kind of allegorical figure in a larger, spiritual drama of personal and communal trauma, endurance, and recovery. Wagamese pulls off a fine balancing act: exposing the horrors of the country's residential schools while also celebrating Canada's national game. <br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1553654021/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=15121&creative=330641&creativeASIN=1553654021&linkCode=as2&tag=quillquire-20">Buy this book</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.ca/e/ir?t=quillquire-20&l=as2&o=15&a=1553654021" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important;margin:0px !important" /><br /> </p>
- <a HREF=http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=7535>Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese (Douglas & McIntyre)</A>
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- 95250
- Alix Ohlin's second novel (which appeared simultaneously alongside the short-story collection <i>Signs and Wonders</i>) seemed like an unlikely candidate to become a lightning rod for literary disputes. The target of a particularly vicious takedown in <i>The New York Times Book Review</i>, it touched off debate about the ethics of negative reviewing. Elsewhere, <i>Inside</i> was heaped with praise, becoming the only title to appear on both the 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize and Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize shortlists. <br /> <p> Behind the accolades and controversy is a smart novel comprised of three taut, interconnected stories about a Montreal therapist and her relationships with her ex-husband, a patient, and a suicidal stranger she rescues on a ski trail. In her starred feature review, Dory Cerny praised Ohlin's ability to craft relatable characters: Ultimately, they are human; whether the reader likes them or not doesn't really matter, because they are so damned easy to relate to, and are presented in such head-shakingly honest ways that one can't help but be sucked into the vortex of their lives. Here's betting the honesty and humanity found in Ohlin's fiction will stick with readers long after the negative reviews are forgotten.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1770892060/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=15121&creative=330641&creativeASIN=1770892060&linkCode=as2&tag=quillquire-20">Buy this book</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.ca/e/ir?t=quillquire-20&l=as2&o=15&a=1770892060" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important;margin:0px !important" /><br /> <br /> </p>
- <a HREF="http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=7724">Inside by Alix Ohlin (House of Anansi Press)</a>
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- 95251
- For better or worse, 2012 will likely be remembered in publishing circles as the year <i>Fifty Shades of Grey</i> dominated bestseller lists. E.L. James's ill-conceived and poorly written light-BDSM trilogy sent a frisson of naughtiness through readers the world over, and ushered in a seemingly endless stream of knock-offs. <br /> <p> Amid all the fuss, another erotically charged novel “ much better written, darker, and more intelligent “ flew largely under the radar. On one level this is understandable: Tamara Faith Berger's third book of fiction, about the sexual coming of age of an adolescent girl, is explicit and unflinching, and features material bound to make even adventurous readers uneasy. And it resolutely refuses to sugarcoat its dissection of sexual, racial, and economic disparities.<br /> </p><p> However, readers who were willing to follow Berger through some undeniably thorny terrain discovered a book that is potent, honest, and searing. In her starred review, Lisa Foad called it a masterpiece, a richly layered, complexly rendered, rhythmically written, and brilliantly executed meditation on power, desire, and consciousness. It is also impossible to deny the power of Ingrid Paulson's stunning, Freudian cover design, which should be the first indication that this is anything but a straightforward work of bland erotica.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/155245259X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=15121&creative=330641&creativeASIN=155245259X&linkCode=as2&tag=quillquire-20">Buy this book</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.ca/e/ir?t=quillquire-20&l=as2&o=15&a=155245259X" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important;margin:0px !important" /><br /> <br /> </p>
- <A HREF="http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=7590">Maidenhead by Tamara Faith Berger (Coach House Books)</a>
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- 95252
- Munro isn't the only reason Canadian authors have earned a reputation for consistently producing some of the best short fiction found anywhere in the world. Another standout in 2012 is the third collection from Ontario author Tamas Dobozy. <br /> <p> <i>Siege 13</i> is a suite of stories that finds its genesis in the 1944 siege of Budapest, which ousted the Nazis only to replace them with the equally repressive Soviet army. Shuttling back and forth across time (from the Second World War to the present) and geography (from Eastern Europe to Toronto), Dobozy illustrates the scars “ both physical and psychic “ the incursion left on Hungary and its citizens. <br /> </p><p> In prose that is lyrical but never sentimental, hallucinatory but never self-conscious, Dobozy lays bare the ravages of history and the often brutal repercussions in the present. In his starred review, Robert J. Wiersema writes, Carefully crafted, but executed with seeming effortlessness, every sentence in this collection, every paragraph, is a thing of beauty, and the stories themselves are without flaws. Others agree: <i>Siege 13</i> found its way onto multiple awards lists this season, appearing on the shortlists for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award. <br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1771022043/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=15121&creative=330641&creativeASIN=1771022043&linkCode=as2&tag=quillquire-20">Buy this book</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.ca/e/ir?t=quillquire-20&l=as2&o=15&a=1771022043" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important;margin:0px !important" /><br /> <br /> </p>
- <a href="http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/review.cfm?review_id=7796">Siege 13 by Tamas Dobozy (Thomas Allen Publishers)</a>
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