Literary

Frank Lloyd Wright was a genius to refuse basements in his classic designs. We see why in Cape Breton author Susan Farrell’s debut novel, Basement Suite. Liz and Eddy are a pair of 20nothings in a serious relationship living underground in a rainy Vancouver. Their subterranean suite is a metaphor for their emotional purgatory. It’s […]

Sully, the comic-book pseudonym of Montreal-based writer and artist Sherwin Tjia, brings us a collection of short comics about a hipless boy living in a hipster neighbourhood—although, honestly, he doesn’t seem all that unhip. Nonetheless, Sully’s stories are charming reminders of a time of youth that’s both hopeful and nostalgic, with three archetypal characters: the […]

Poet and novelist Anne Simpson, who lives in Antigonish, uses her home turf, and other points across the province, to trod and to think through otherness in writing generally, poetry in particular. Added up, the six essays seem to suggest place is the other for this writer and, as such, helps us understand ourselves, our […]

Following in the footsteps of Chester Brown’s Louis Riel biography, NSCAD alum Kerry Byrne tells the story of Lillian Alling, a young Russian immigrant seamstress living in New York who decides to return to Russia by walking across the Bering Strait. Alling’s story is captivating and beautifully retold by Byrne. Her journey begins in the […]

Zoe Whittall is a championing voice of outsiders and outcasts, of surviving your 20s and all their hangovers, in a polyamorous-leaning generation unencumbered by traditional gender labels. Whereas her first novel Bottle Rocket Hearts updated Mordecai’s Montreal, Holding Still stars contemporary Toronto: first kisses on Now newspaper boxes, gentrifying Parkdale, parties at the Gladstone. Mortality […]

Young Montreal anglophone explores sexuality, finds self, maybe. The novella that makes up the bulk of this short-story collection is Holtz’s addition to that particular genre of young CanLit. But the Montreal-based writer doesn’t limit herself geographically in the other stories here, with plots spanning from Vancouver to Sudbury right down to Spryfield (and, charmingly, […]

Adapted from crime novelist Richard Stark’s (AKA Donald Westlake) novel about a cold-blooded killer, The Hunter is local cartoonist Darwyn Cooke’s first foray into literary adaptation, after working on Marvel and DC titles. Set in a New York full of 1960s smooth-talking, cocktail-swilling white-collar criminals, Cooke’s graphic retelling draws you in. Illustrated with beautiful brush […]

Anna Quon’s debut novel Migration Songs is a hopeful sign for Atlantic Canadian literature moving beyond the traditional rural stories and recognizing that we don’t all share the same history. Though Quon’s Halifax is a blur—this is really a story about the interior life and struggles of Joan, a jobless 30-year-old loner, who feels out […]

With The Incredible Change-Bots, 2007’s hilarious take on transforming robots, Jeffrey Brown dispelled any notion that he was a one-trick pony. Funny Misshapen Body serves as a memoir, detailing his growth as an artist, struggle with Crohn’s disease and the release of his first work, Clumsy. Brown deftly demonstrates his abilities as an illustrator and […]

This collection’s title, a nod to Marian Engel’s Bear, is both a playful observation and hilarious declaration. Holbrook provides a great reminder that poetry is supposed to be fun and fun to read—a professor of literature and creative writing at University of Windsor, she sends up her occupation in “Textbook Case: Questions to Consider Regarding […]