by prfire | May 2, 2013 | Book Reviews, Fiction
Hope Plett, the protagonist of David Bergen’s seventh novel, The Age of Hope, makes her first appearance at the tail end of a misguided attempt at aerial daredevilry. This incident leaves the pilot, a potential suitor, dead, and Hope saddened but not overly put out....
by prfire | Jan 24, 2013 | Book Reviews, Poetry
Katherena Vermette’s North End Love Songs is a debut collection from an emerging Winnipeg poet, a book that combines elegiac and fiercely ecstatic melodies to sing of a complicated love for a city, a river, and a neighbourhood. It is deeply rooted in its location, yet...
by prfire | Jan 24, 2013 | Book Reviews, Poetry
It took me a while to figure it out, but now I know who David McFadden reminds me of – the late American performing artist Andy Kaufman. He has that same almost illicit sense of humour – a kind of wicked take-your-PC-and-shove-it attitude that doesn’t show up...
by prfire | Jan 24, 2013 | Book Reviews, Poetry
Aldous Huxley said, “Every man’s memory is his private literature.” In choosing to share his life, George Amabile has crafted beautifully detailed settings in which characters and conflicts are brought to life through rich imagery. He has woven the moments of everyday...
by prfire | Jan 24, 2013 | Book Reviews, Fiction
The protagonists in the short-story collection Leaving Berlin are typically failed romantics who have been forced to change their perception of the world. The reader is invited to look over the shoulders of characters at the same time as entering their point of view...
by prfire | Jan 24, 2013 | Book Reviews, Fiction
Think of the word “mongrel” and the image of a mixed-breed dog comes to mind. In this case, the term refers to the ethnically mixed protagonists in Montreal writer Marko Sijan’s debut collection of short fiction. Replete with sex, violence and moral ambiguity, his...
