Entre Rive and Shore By Dominique Bernier-Cormier Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 2023 $19.95 / 9781781773102870 Undoing Hours By Selina Boan Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2021 $18.95 / 9780889713963 The Punishment By Joseph Dandurand Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2022 $21.95 / 9780889714328 Shapeshifters By Délani Valin Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2022 $19.95 / 9780889714281 Reviewed…
Read more 1854 Gifts of reconciliation
Storylines: How Words Shape Our World by J. Edward Chamberlin Madeira Park, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 2023 $26.95 / 9781771623513 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * British novelist D.H. Lawrence once quipped that readers should trust the tale and not the teller. What did he mean? Prof emeritus J. Edward Chamberlin offers some possible answers in…
Read more 1853 Trust the tale not the teller?
The Last Unsuitable Man By Louise Carson Winnipeg, MB: Signature Editions, 2022 $17.95 / 9781773241159 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Louise Carson’s 14th book, The Last Unsuitable Man, is a combination of mystery, music, love affairs gone wrong, and slow-paced twists and thrills. The thing I liked best about it is the division of the…
Read more 1852 Ex-lovers, ex-husbands, and murder
Sunsetter By Curtis LeBlanc Toronto: ECW Press, 2023 $22.95 / 9781770416901 Reviewed by Bill Paul * In the fictional prairie town of Perron, it’s a tradition for residents to attend the annual Sunsetter Rodeo and Fair held in late May. For Dallan and Brooks, two close friends in their late teens, it’s an occasion to…
Read more 1851 ‘A town without pity’
What Remains of Elsie Jane by Chelsea Wakelyn Toronto, ON: Dundurn Press, 2023 $24.99 / 9781459750845 Review by Rhea Tregebov * “We witness and absorb the subjective sensory patterns of those we love, just by virtue of spending time with them. And when they’re gone, even when they’re gone for good, a part of them…
Read more 1850 ‘The realities of human mourning’
its th sailors life / still in treetment: meditaysyuns from gold mountain By bill bissett Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2022 $24.95 / 9781772013917 Reviewed by Cathy Ford * To begin at the beginning, first, I owe this book, its author, and the editorial review accompanying, apologies. I had hoped to review this book last November, then receiving…
Read more 1849 Poetic ‘meditaysyuns’
Inheritance: a pick-the-path experience by Daniel Arnold, Darrell Dennis, and Medina Hahn Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2022 $24.95 / 9781772013627 Reviewed by Trevor Marc Hughes * There was an opportunity to post this review on National Indigenous Peoples Day, but then, I got to thinking: why do we have to pick just one day to look at…
Read more 1848 Share and share alike
Atomweight by Emi Sasagawa New Westminster, BC: Tidewater Press, 2023 $22.95 / 9781990160165 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Emi Sasagawa’s debut novel, Atomweight, tackles a number of important issues such as racism and homophobia through its central character and narrator, Aki, who leaves familiar privilege in West Vancouver to attend London School of Economics. Her…
Read more 1847 Coming out swinging in London
The Life of Gronsky By Bill Engleson Victoria BC: Tellwell Talent, 2023 $26.95 / 0228888417 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * What does it mean to understand a life? Any novelist brave enough to attempt to distil a character’s life might think of Laurence Sterne’s monumental and classic Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, possibly the…
Read more 1846 An ‘honest expression of humility and truth’
To the Bridge by Yasuko Thanh Toronto: Hamish Hamilton, 2023 $24.95 / 9780735244672 Reviewed by W.H. New * Specifically, Yasuko Thanh’s To the Bridge concerns a suicide attempt. More generally, it deals with time: the times when characters walked ‘to the bridge’ and sat, a different time when one of them jumped, and the time before…
Read more 1845 Tremors
Walking the Camino: On Earth As It Is By Maryanna Gabriel Lawrencetown Beach, NS: Pottersfield Press, 2023 $21.95 / 9781990770180 Reviewed by Carellin Brooks * Maryanna Gabriel’s Walking the Camino has little in the way of conventional plot, but a journey of eight hundred kilometres and forty-plus days imposes its own narrative urgency. The route…
Read more 1844 A ‘trek of her own’
Cactus Gardens By Evelyn Lau Vancouver, BC: Anvil Press, 2022 $18 / 9781772141948 Reviewed by Joe Enns * Cactus Gardens, Evelyn Lau’s ninth poetry collection, drifts among seasons of lost relationships, green-grey geographies, and the eerie effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as though “beyond time, suspended / in transit, outcomes unclear.” The collection evokes vivid…
Read more 1843 ‘Bold lines and vivid imagery’
Bosun: The Mariner’s Journals By Gary H. Karlsen Victoria, BC: First Choice Books, 2023 $24.95 / 9781775266921 Reviewed by Eric W. Sager * Bosun, whose name is Ulf Kleivik, is well into his nineties, living in a small wooden house north of the Arctic circle. He finds a “penman,” a writer, to turn Kleivik’s journals…
Read more 1842 A maritime saga
Interview channel update by Richard Mackie * Since January 2023 Trevor Hughes, interim non-fiction editor of The British Columbia Review, has branched out as Video Segment Producer and curator of our new Interview Channel, hosted by YouTube. So far, Trevor has uploaded thirteen interviews that capture in words a broad spectrum of British Columbian authors,…
Read more 1841 BC Review interviews update
Exculpatory Lilies By Susan Musgrave Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2023 $22.95 / 9780771099007 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson * How do we convert the pain of loss into poetry? Grief over the death of a friend or lover or a family member is a common enough theme throughout poetry of every era and has often, in Lycidas or In Memoriam, produced elegiac masterpieces. In one…
Read more 1840 ‘Provocatively brilliant for the right reader’
Gold, Grit, Guns: Miners on BC’s Fraser River in 1858 by Alexander Globe Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2022 $26.95 / 9781553805847 Reviewed by Matthew Downey * The ironic fact at the heart of British Columbia’s genesis is that its colonial foundation was not rooted in an influx of British settlers, but rather the uneasy invasion of…
Read more 1839 Gold Rush ‘surgical social analysis’
Emily Carr: Life & Work by Lisa Baldissera, with an introduction by Sara Angel Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2021 $40.00 / 9781487102326 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Most people in Victoria, throughout British Columbia and across Canada are of course familiar with the works of artist/writer Emily Carr. Her artwork is acclaimed both nationally and…
Read more 1838 ‘The woman behind the art’
The Power of Dreams: 27 Years Off-grid in a Wilderness Valley by Dave and Rosemary Neads Surrey: Hancock House Publishers, 2022 $24.95 / 9780888397188 Review by Phyllis Reeve * A couple built a house in the wilderness of Precipice Valley, on the ancient trade route linking BC’s Interior Plateau with the coast, and stayed for…
Read more 1837 A dose of planetary reality
the trick of staying and leaving by David Zieroth Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2023 $22.95 / 9781990776021 watching for life by David Zieroth Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022 $19.95 / 9780228014744 Reviewed by Heidi Greco * I can’t help but think that in a past life David Zieroth may well have been an…
Read more 1836 Tender poetic ruminations
The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2023 $32.99 / 9781487009915 Reviewed by Bill Paul * In the novel, The Librarianist, characters have names like Mr. Baker-Bailey, Chance and Chicky Bitsch, and the one-armed Mr. More. Patrick’s deWitt’s fifth novel is set in Portland, Oregon and follows Bob Comet as he grows…
Read more 1835 A simple twist of fate