Literary

FlutterAlice BurdickMansfield PressThis collection could very well have been titled “mind your origins,” a line from one of the book’s best poems, “Colonial fall.” Throughout Flutter, Alice Burdick tracks back to origins of human behaviour: action and interaction with other humans and other beings—the natural world. But back to “Colonial fall” for a moment; the […]

Mother SuperiorSaleema Nawaz(Freehand Books)In its first year, newbie publisher Freehand Books has filled its mantle with a bunch of prizes. Now Saleema Nawaz has scored the Journey Prize, impressing three of my favourite writers, Lynn Coady, Heather O’Neill and Neil Smith, with “My Three Girls,” a story which appears in her debut collection, Mother Superior. […]

Dora BorealisDaccia Bloomfield(ECW)Dora Borealis isn’t the first contemporary urban ghost story, but it’s probably the weirdest. Unlike Stephanie Domet’s ghost in Homing who’s lost his way, Bloomfield’s ghost Bella is quite nasty. Flip, an unemployed writer lacking in the hygiene and social skills department, first met Bella (she comes to him as the sound of […]

Things the Grandchildren Should Know Mark Oliver Everett(Thomas Dunne Books)You do a lot of flipping back to reread passages in this memoir from the founder and front man of the American music group, Eels. Not because it’s written unclearly or the ideas are difficult, but because of sheer disbelief that so much misfortune can befall […]

More Austin Clarke(Thomas Allen Publishers)We all want more, living according to our collective, out-of-control consumerist impulse. The spongy social fabric of individuals who want nothing more than to soak up money, materials and social-status credits wraps itself around, and squeezes, Idora. She’s the Barbadian single mother living in Toronto, whose four disorienting days of worry […]

Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of WealthMargaret Atwood(Anansi)Only Margaret Atwood can turn finance into a gripping tale of mythology and history. In her 2008 Massey Lecture, she looks at debt in all its forms—credit card, budget deficits and debts that require a human life to be repaid. Going from prehistory through classical and Middle […]

Saudade – Possibilities of Place(Coach House Books)Anik SeeAnik See doesn’t see very well. Or, she doesn’t look that hard, letting her eye and mind rest on the well-worn, scuffed surface of the world around her. Which is surprising considering her essays claim to be about the possibilities of place. In one essay, about how she […]

Our Starland/Dear Canada CouncilEmily Holton(Conundrum) NSCAD University alumna Emily Holton demonstrates her artistic and literary talents in two novellas bound together in the same book. Dear Canada Council will be popular with anyone who has ever filled out the endless and unnecessary pages of grant applications. But this narrator hopes that Canada Council can help […]

CockroachRawi Hage (Anansi)Following up his IMPAC Dublin Literary Award-winning debut novel, De Niro’s Game, Lebanon-born, Montreal-based Canadian novelist Rawi Hage storms back with Cockroach, another probing, intriguing and powerfully thrilling immersion into the mindset and mores of mainstream Middle Eastern agnostics. This time, however, Hage pitches his compelling story not in sectarian violence-ravaged Beirut, but […]

Fear of Fighting Stacey May Fowles (Invisible Publishing) The prologue to Stacey May Fowles’ new novel starts with the prophetic line, “There are lots of songs that have been written about girls.” The same could be said about novels that explore devastating relationship break-ups—the subject of Fear of Fighting. And yet, we’ll never get sick […]

StuntClaudia Dey(Coach House)I’ve always felt a kinship to Claudia Dey, both of us being right-brained alumni of the same lawyer- and engineer-producing high school. The florid style of her plays and her Globe and Mail advice column has a timeless, nearly ethereal quality. Stunt, her first novel, brings to mind the poetry of Gwendolyn Mac-Ewen […]

All the Pretty GirlsChandra Mayor(Conundrum)Chandra Mayor thinks knitting is “achingly boring and not particularly radical,” which is enough to get me to read her novels. A follow-up to her 2005 debut Cherry, set in Winnipeg’s punk scene in the ’90s, All the Pretty Girlsis a collection of short stories in the same vein, the characters […]