Literary

When Sunderson retires from the police force, he refuses to give up on his last unsolved case. Recently divorced, drunk more often than not and lonely, the search for a cult leader and suspected pedophile is the only thing he has left, and he stumbles blindly toward it even as he gets beaten black and […]

Fourteen years ago, The Mi’kmaq Anthology was published. Elder Rita Joe, poet laureate of the Mi’kmaq people, known for poems such as “I Lost my Talk” and “Five Hundred Years,” approached Lesley Choyce with the idea of inspiring Mi’kmaq writers and compiling their works to form the collection. When Theresa Meuse heard of Joe’s passing […]

What encore does Jeffrey Eugenides perform following his 2003 Pulitzer Prize for the universally acclaimed Middlesex? Writing an even better book. The Marriage Plot may initially underwhelm, as Eugenides’ detailed narration of one college clique’s graduation week at Brown University resembles an elitist scrapbook illustrating his brilliantly tight first novel, he Virgin Suicides. Once off-campus, […]

Every year Nova Scotia sends a tree to Boston, in thanks for Boston’s quick response to the Halifax Explosion in 1917, landing here within 48 hours with supplies and doctors and nurses. This tree-giving tradition has been going on for 40 years now. I only learned of it recently and I thought it was a […]

On the cusp of adulthood and hopeful days ahead, Devlin set out to study theology at the University of Cambridge, only to suffer a mental breakdown which derailed his career forever. The devastation lingered upon his return to Nova Scotia, and idealism and rose-coloured nostalgia led Devlin to create Nova Canatabrigiensis—a series of drawings representing […]

Chasing Freedom is a story of Black Loyalists, slaves who fought in the American Revolution and were granted freedom in Birchtown in the late 18th century. As the title suggests, what is officially granted proves elusive. One of the ensemble of characters, Lydia, puts it: “No different from what we left behind.” Her son and […]

It’s been about eight months since Dr. Michael Ungar released his first novel and so far, the profusion of online feedback has mostly come from human service professionals. Simply put, whether you are a social worker or a milkman, grew up in foster care or lived a sheltered life, you have to read The Social […]

Twelve-year-old Moth dreams of riches, mansions and exotic pets, and mostly of leaving behind her dreary life in the slums of New York—but instead is sold into servitude by her mother only to “escape” into a life of prostitution. When inspected for cleanliness and virginity at her new brothel home, Moth first meets Dr. Sadie, […]

The Sixth Gun is an action-adventure-horror-western comic, a combination that works surprisingly well. Pinkertons, cursed civil war veterans, priests with machine guns and a preacher’s daughter all duke it out amongst each other to control the sixth gun, a weapon that gives its owner the powers of prophecy. The characters may not be all that […]

When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barbara Walsh told her father she wanted to write a Perfect Storm-style book, she never expected he’d respond with: “You have a story like that in your own family.” He told her about the August gale of 1935, a devastating hurricane that swept through Marystown, Newfoundland, claiming the lives of many […]

Big Town is a story of friendship more than a story of Africville, as its cover suggests. The friendship between the dim-witted Early, sick and troubled Toby and tomboy Chub unfolds with the community and its destruction as a backdrop. Narrated by Early, seventeen but with the mental age of seven or eight, is a […]

Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá are Brazilian twins whose distinct art style has added flair to several comic-book series. With Daytripper, the twins take on art and writing duties to create a graphic novel that is beautiful and thought-provoking. The book, about an obituary writer living in Sao Paulo, meditates on life and death in […]