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
Graffiti, Canadian Style by Ernest Hekkanen First published in The Ormsby Review, April 9, 2019 * It was twenty years ago, in 1999, that Ernest Hekkanen wrote this diatribe about why Vancouver public art is so godawful, why Canada’s granting agencies can be foolish or corrupt, and why he rejected a contract from a respected…
Read more #527 Canadian graffiti
Black Star by Maureen Medved Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2018 $20.00 / 9781772141122 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski First published Apr. 7, 2019 * Encountering the barbed and dazzling shards that make up the word world of Black Star, a reader might feel on uneven ground. And for good reason. This is a novel that jolts, jars,…
Read more #526 Lies, tenure, and dark energy
Patrick Lane (1939-2019) An obituary by Alan Twigg * Patrick Lane was born on March 26, 1939 in the Kootenay mountain town of Sheep Creek, near Nelson, and grew up in the B.C. Interior, primarily in Vernon. His father, an ex-miner, had moved to the dry Interior because he was suffering from silicosis. Lane couldn’t…
Read more #502 Patrick Lane (1939-2019)
The Death and Life of Strother Purcell by Ian Weir Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 2018 $22.95 / 9781773100296 Reviewed by Valerie Green First published Feb. 18, 2019 * Whether or not early British Columbia can, in reality, be lumped into a western American formula is for the professional historian to decide. Meanwhile, if you…
Read more #489 Trouble at Hell’s Gate
He Speaks Volumes: A Biography of George Bowering by Rebecca Wigod Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $24.95 / 9781772012064 Reviewed by Kathy Mezei First published Feb. 12, 2019 * What a great title. For George Bowering does speak volumes; he is out-spoken, loud, witty, loquacious, a “talk producer” as Virginia Woolf once described a character. And, as…
Read more #484 A life in books: George Bowering
Property Values by Charles Demers Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018 $17.95 / 9781551527277 Reviewed by John Douglas Belshaw First published Feb. 4, 2019 * We need to talk about … Burquitlam. It’s liminal. Which is a scholarly word meaning it occupies “a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.” (Thank you,…
Read more #478 Land deals in Burquitlam
Twin Studies by Keith Maillard Calgary: Freehand Books, 2018 $24.95 / 9781988298313 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski First published January 22, 2019 * We can never say what spark lies behind the gestation of a novel — a character, an incident, a storyline, perhaps a social or political issue. Some novels read as if they sprang…
Read more #470 Gender, manga, and teen idiom
A Piece of the Continent by Paul Nicholson Victoria: Paul Nicholson, 2018 $24.50 / 9781775192305 Available from Amazon.ca and from the author Reviewed by Valerie Green First published January 19, 2019 * It is obvious from the first page of Paul Nicholson’s book that he is passionate about the two topics he covers in A…
Read more #469 From Passchendaele to Paris
INTERVIEW: Shelagh Rogers by Starlight: CBC’s Host of The Next Chapter Shines a Light on Indigenous Authors by Margot Fedoruk * Shelagh Rogers walks in with an air of authority and greets everyone warmly as she stands in line at the local coffee shop on Gabriola Island. Rogers wears the iconic pointy blue glasses that…
Read more #466 A tribute to Richard Wagamese
White by Deni Ellis Béchard Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $19.95 / 9781772012088 Reviewed by Paul Headrick First published Jan. 15, 2019 * The narrator of White has a dramatic CV: freelance war reporter, novelist, and memoirist. It’s a background that closely matches the author’s, even down to the contents of their memoirs. Béchard’s explores his difficult…
Read more #465 Flight to the Congo
Starlight: An Unfinished Novel by Richard Wagamese Toronto: Penguin Random House (McClelland & Stewart), 2018 $19.95 / 9780771070877 Reviewed by Eldon Yellowhorn * Wagamese divides his straightforward narrative into a prologue and three sections, though the last is truncated by his death. The publisher then provides a note explaining the decision to release Starlight as…
Read more #463 Escape from the Nechako Valley
The Governor General’s Literary Awards of Canada: A Bibliography by Andrew David Irvine with the assistance of Edmond Rivère and Stephanie Tolman Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2018 $79.95 / 9780776627397 Les Prix littéraires du Gouverneur général du Canada: Une bibliographie by Andrew David Irvine, with the assistance of Edmond Rivère and Stephanie Tolman Ottawa:…
Read more #430 Looking back at the GGs
Angela of the Stones by Amanda Hale Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 2018 $19.95 / 9781771871655 Reviewed by Linda Rogers First published November 3, 2018 * Appropriately, “La Huelga,” The Strike, the first story in the collection Angela of the Stones, begins with a raised fist, the collective slogan SEREMOS COMO EL CHE now applied to transforming…
Read more #413 Cuban saints and stones
Ordinary Strangers by Bill Stenson Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2018 $23.95 / 9781896949710 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski First published October 30th, 2018 * The title is the key. This is a novel about the ordinary, yes, but also about people who are, in many different ways, “strangers:” within the first few pages an…
Read more #410 Journey to Fernie
Crow Jazz by Linda Rogers, illustrated by Rick Van Krugel Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2018 $23.95 / 9781896949659 Reviewed by Paul Headrick First published October 22nd, 2018 * Linda Rogers’s Crow Jazz is a challenging, perplexing, and glorious collection of stories, perhaps just what we would expect from a poet whose startling juxtapositions…
Read more #405 Crows and crime scenes