Bina: A Novel in Warnings by Anakana Schofield Toronto: Penguin Random House (Knopf Canada), 2019 $29.95 / 9780735273214 Reviewed by Paul Headrick * The narrator of Anakana Schofield’s Bina, a Novel in Warnings is an elderly woman, more-or-less trapped in her house near Castlebar, Ireland. While awaiting possible trial on an unspecified criminal charge, she…
Read more #623 Leave the man in the ditch
Vancouver Noir by Sam Wiebe (editor) Brooklyn, NY: Akashic Books, 2018 $23.95 / 9781617756597 Reviewed by Paul Falardeau * Vancouver is a beautiful city, one you might expect is a good place to find some world-class, city-adjacent hikes, the best smoked salmon, and some of the finest sinsemilla you could ever hope to smoke. It’s…
Read more #620 Vancouver beyond the postcards
Women’s Writing in Canada by Patricia Demers Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019 $34.95 / 9780802095015 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * They used to throw women artists in mental institutions, our radical behaviour disruptive to the norm. Across the street from my house, there is a half way home for mentally challenged adults, the victims…
Read more #618 The deeper language of women
Floating City by Kerri Sakamoto Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2018; Penguin Random House, 2019 $21.00 / 9780345809896 Reviewed by Grahame Ware * “One swallow doth not a summer make” – Shakespeare, from Aristotle Kerri Sakamoto’s flight south to warmer climes after the publication of One Hundred Million Hearts (Penguin, 2005) has been a multi-year migration. And…
Read more #615 A floating city sinks
Mistakes to Run With: A Memoir by Yasuko Thanh Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Hamish Hamilton), 2019 $24.95 / 9780735234413 Reviewed by Paul Falardeau * On March 12, 2020, Yasuko Thanh’s Mistakes to Run With: A Memoir was one of five books shortlisted for the 2020 Jim Deva Prize (for “writing that provokes”) from the…
Read more #609 The pen is mightier than the street
Sodom Road Exit by Amber Dawn Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018 $21.95 / 9781551527161 Reviewed by Ben Matthews * There is a moment in Amber Dawn’s Sodom Road Exit when a character reads a letter that she is so certain is a breakup letter, that it becomes one. The words on the page, the love…
Read more #602 Second chance at Crystal Beach
The Three Pleasures by Terry Watada Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2017 $24.99 / 9781772140958 Reviewed by Michael Kluckner * One of the touchstones of Canadian historical fiction is Obasan, Joy Kogawa’s gentle, autobiographical 1981 story of a Japanese-Canadian childhood disrupted by the racism of the Second World War years in British Columbia. With its cast of…
Read more #601 Notice to all Japanese Persons
Worry Stones by Joanna Lilley Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2018 $18.95 / 9781553805410 Reviewed by Jenna Butler * There’s more than a touch of the autobiographical about Joanna Lilley’s first novel, the beautifully poetic Worry Stones. Originally from the UK, Lilley emigrated to Canada in 2006 and now calls Whitehorse home, in much the same way…
Read more #600 Rolling into Whitehorse
Dead Flowers by Alexander Laidlaw Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2019 $19.95 / 9780889713550 Reviewed by Heather Graham * Dead Flowers is a collection of eight stories by a young writer who currently calls the Sunshine Coast home. As far as the reader can tell, only one of the stories, “On Gordon Head,” is actually set in…
Read more #598 Alienated and unmotivated
Jim Christy: A Vagabond Life by Ian Cutler, with a foreword by Luis E. Navia Port Angeles, WA: Feral House, 2019 $17.95 (U.S.) / 9781627310741 Reviewed by John Moore * Literary biography is a problematic genre. Ostensibly, its purpose is to illuminate the author’s work, but writing about an author inevitably means competing with a…
Read more #596 Escape from the fish farm
Collapsible by Tim Conley Vancouver: New Star Books, 2019 $18.00 / 9781554201518 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn with Ginny Ratsoy * The author of several previous books of poetry, Tim Conley teaches twentieth-century literature at Brock University, specializing in modernists such as Joyce and Beckett, as well as “experimental novelists and avant-garde poets,” according to his…
Read more #594 Talking feet & werewolf expertise
Trevor Clark (1955-2019) An obituary by Alan Twigg * Born in Toronto in 1955, ex-Vancouverite Trevor Clark died in Montreal on April 4, 2019. Clark, who moved to Vancouver in 2008, specialized in ne’er-do-well characters with vagabond tendencies and volatile relationships. He is survived by his daughter, Jade. A coincidentally novel, Damaged at Daybreak (Now…
Read more #589 Trevor Clark (1955-2019)
Moccasin Square Gardens: Short Stories by Richard Van Camp Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019 $19.95 / 9781771622165 Reviewed by Paul Falardeau * Richard Van Camp, the celebrated Tłįcho storyteller, may be best known for his novel, The Lesser Blessed, or his involvement with the CBC program, North of 60. However, one would be remiss…
Read more #576 In conversation with Van Camp
Reproduction by Ian Williams Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada, 2019 $35.00 / 9780735274051 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * On September 3, 2019, Ian Williams’ debut novel Reproduction was longlisted for the ScotiaBank Giller Prize and later that month was one of six books shortlisted for the prize. Williams, of UBC, was announced as the winner…
Read more #569 Superscript and sexual tension
Damage Done by the Storm by Jack Hodgins Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2019 $18.95 / 9781553805595 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy and Alexandra Horsman * First published by McClelland and Stewart in 2004, this collection has been reissued with one story added. We are happy to report that Damage Done by the Storm withstands the test of…
Read more #561 At home with Jack Hodgins
Keith Harrison (1945-2019) An obituary by Alan Twigg * Born in Vancouver on June 18, 1945, John Keith Harrison, author of nine books, died at his home on Hornby Island on April 10, 2019. As a well-liked and respected professor of English and Creative Writing and Journalism at Vancouver Island University for 22 years, Keith Harrison…
Read more #551 Keith Harrison (1945-2019)
Hider/Seeker: Stories by Jen Currin Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2018 $20.00 / 9781772141177 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * The twenty stories in Vancouver poet Jen Currin’s debut collection of fiction explore the lives of LGBTQ+ characters, in particular their relationships as they fall apart. Loneliness is occasionally assuaged by sex, which is mistaken for love, but…
Read more #546 Flashes of fascinating humanity
Lost Boy by Shelley Hrdlitschka Victora: Orca Book Publishers, 2018 $14.95 / 9781459816374 Reviewed by Carol Anne Shaw * Having enjoyed Shelley Hrdlitschka’s Sister Wife (Orca Books, 2008) — a young adult novel about a fictitious polygynous community in Canada — I was excited to read Lost Boy, the story of a young boy’s escape…
Read more #543 In unity is not strength
The Canadian Short Story by John Metcalf Windsor, Ontario: Biblioasis, 2018 $28.95 / 9781771960847 * Best Canadian Stories 2018 by Russell Smith (editor) Windsor, Ontario: Biblioasis, 2018 $19.95 / 9781771962490 Both books reviewed by Paul Headrick First published April 28, 2019 * …
Read more #538 Two short story critics
From the Heart of it All: Ten Years of Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside by Heidi Greco (editor) Vancouver: Otter Press, 2018 $18.00 / 9780994821942 Reviewed by Yvonne Blomer First published April 20, 2019 * For ten years (2008-2018), the Thursdays Writing Collective was an important part of Vancouver’s literary scene. At its goodbye party…
Read more #533 Downtown Eastside Scribes