From Bruised Fell

Through the 1990s, tales of childhood abuse were thick on the ground, the villain generally a brutal father. In this charged debut novel, it is the mother – volatile, cigarillo-smoking, and imperious, who inflicts profound ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ Play the Monster Blind

By Lynn Coady

In her first collection of short stories, erstwhile Cape Bretoner Lynn Coady mines much the same ground she did in her award-winning debut novel, Strange Heaven. In Play the Monster Blind, Coady affects the same ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

The Peony Season

By Sarah Klassen

In her impressive first collection of short stories, Sarah Klassen, a Mennonite writer based in Winnipeg, explores human spirituality through a series of meditative portraits of contemporary life in southern Manitoba.The title story exemplifies Klassen’s ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Prayers of a Young Man

By Roch Carrier, Sheila Fischman, trans.

While it is categorized as fiction/humour by its publisher, Roch Carrier’s Prayers of a Young Man could just as easily have been categorized as philosophy or religion. In this chronicle of one individual’s constant wrestling ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ The Rules of Engagement

By Catherine Bush

Starting with the opening line – “Lux was coming” – Toronto writer Catherine Bush’s second novel is peppered with interesting, albeit unusual, names. Consider the sisters Arcadia and Lux Hearne, and the Somali refugee Basra ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

★ Afterimage

By Helen Humphreys

It is daunting to review a book as accomplished as Helen Humphreys’ second novel, Afterimage. One scarcely knows how to do justice to prose of such sharp beauty, characters of such astonishing complexity, settings so ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Grey: Stories for Grown-ups

By Judy MacDonald

Judy MacDonald’s first book, Jane, was a novella-length monologue delivered by a teenage girl whose relationship with an older boy moves from troubling to dangerous to psychotic. The messed-up teenage voice is flawless, making for ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

★ 16 Categories of Desire

By Douglas Glover

Early nineties, I hunted hard for a press – the right press – for my slim collection of stories. I was eager and greedy; tossed my little net too many times. But Goose Lane Editions ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

The Topography of Love

By Bernice Morgan

In her novels Random Passage and Waiting for Time, Bernice Morgan delved into the Newfoundland of long ago, telling the engaging story of an outport’s first families and their struggle to survive and settle. With ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

The Truth About Love

By Patrick Roscoe

Anyone titling a book The Truth About Love is asking for trouble. The potential to sentimentalize or to make claims the book cannot sustain is daunting. Patrick Roscoe, then, should be commended for his ambition ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

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