Tag: masculinity
Set in Paris (1940) and Baltimore (1992), a bestselling prize-magnet of a (2011) novel features a dazzling meditation on friendship, loyalty, manhood, race, and the truths and half-truths we tell our past and present selves. The new edition has a striking new cover, but “it arrives without a critical introduction or any contextual apparatus to differentiate it from earlier editions,” our reviewer notes. —Selena Mercuri reviews Half-Blood Blues (Canadian Classics Edition), by Esi Edugyan (Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2026) $24.99 / 9781443478731
Surreal Toronto-set novel takes place over a single day and features prose with a hypnotic cadence, staccato passages that are “closer … to Palahniuk than Hemingway,” and characters who speak “in impulsive half-sentences.” “And in the end,” our reviewer writes, “I would prefer to engage with art that takes these big swings, even if some of them occasionally miss, than to see no big swings taken at all.” —Logan Macnair reviews I Met Death & Sex Through My Friend, Tom Meuley, by Thom Vernon (Gananoque: Guernica Editions, 2024) $29.95 / 9781771838795
In a poet’s Jerusalem-set first novel, sixteen-year old Aziz seeks “the right side” as he wanders and works—and learns about himself, his family, and his society. “Zaghal invites us into Aziz’s world, shows us what he’s up against, and elicits our compassion for a young man finding his way against all odds,” our reviewer writes. —Janet S. Pollock reviews Seven Heavens Away, by Ashraf Zaghal (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2026) $26.99 / 9781487013486
“[F]ull of adventurous precision,” a poet’s third poetry collection “digs into language that renders sonic, succinct, and imagistic lines.” And more: “Beautifully rendered, it offers the reader a full poetic experience.” —Steven Ross Smith reviews Empties, by Neil Surkan (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2026) $19.95 / 9780228027317
Reissued 2014 novel recounts a father and son’s journey to a backcountry destination: “In Wagamese’s prose, the descriptions of these places are so skilfully rendered that the ugliness becomes beautiful. In the rhythmic, pulsing language, you can smell the empty bottles, the smoke and ashes, the unwashed bodies, the frying bologna.” —Ryan Frawley reviews Medicine Walk, by Richard Wagamese (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2025) $22.00 / 9780771023521
Set in Western Canada during the Summer of Love, a coolly stylish novel portrays a juvenile boy’s educational misadventures during an unsanctioned road trip. —Ryan Frawley reviews Amaranthine Chevrolet, by Dennis E. Bolen (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2025) $25.99 / 9781459754775
Shot through with brooding darkness and gothic motifs, a volume features stories that “leave the sense that people’s lives, ordinary people’s lives, can have troubling undercurrents weaving through their very humanity.” —Theo Dombrowski reviews Graveyard Shift at the Lemonade Stand, by Tim Bowling (Calgary: Freehand Press, 2025) $22.95 / 9781990601866
“But it’s how we get there, and the questions that go unanswered as we sit right there in the passenger seat with Teddy, that give the book its force.” —Ryan Frawley reviews The Passenger Seat, by Vijay Khurana (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2025) $22.95 / 9781771966306
A debut collection of “spare, sharply focused” and “intensely male” short stories depicts a “world of physical work, training for it, engaging in it—or suffering from its absence.” —Theo Dombrowski reviews Cane Wood: Based on True Stories, by Stephen L. Howard (Altona: Friesen Press, 2025) $13.49 / 9781038326300
A baker’s dozen of engrossing stories range broadly—from militaristic dystopias to the Vietnam War—and often portray the volatile dynamics of men in imbalanced relationships. —Theo Dombrowski reviews Unsettling Dreams, by Michael Whatling (Victoria: Mortal Coil Books, 2024) $16.99 / 1777569958
Memorable debut poetry collection offers “poetry of the ordinary” while also examining masculinity and personal ghosts. —Harold Rhenisch reviews Little Bit Die, by Jason Emde (Barrie: Bolero Bird, 2023) $20.00 / 9781775330073
“Penetrating every corner of this cramped and desolate world, in a town with ‘the world’s shittiest beach and a lot of bitter people,’ is, unsurprisingly, alcohol. If poverty is the villain of the novel, its ruthless accomplice is alcohol.” —Theo Dombrowski reviews Bruise, by Adrian Markle (Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2024) $24.00 / 9781990071072
An entertaining, raucous, and deeply weird novel splices together a boxing comeback story, veganism, bout fixing, and… Sherlock Holmes. —Logan Macnair reviews Pet, Pet, Slap, by Andrew Battershill (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2024) $23.95 / 9781552454763
Two poets tackle social margins and underbellies. —Joe Enns reviews A Brief Relief From Hunger, by Spenser Smith (Guelph: Gordon Hill Press, 2023) $20.00 / 9781774220986 and Fishing for Leviathan, by Rodney DeCroo (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2023) $18.00 / 9781772142136