Louise Erdrich’s The Beet Queen (1985)

2018-01-17T15:28:33-05:00

The longer the books in the Love Medicine cycle, the harder it is to recall that Louise Erdrich began with short fiction, stories which linked, interconnected, taking their own time to draw in their circles before spiralling outward once more. Tracks and Four Souls were slim volumes, but readers

Louise Erdrich’s The Beet Queen (1985)2018-01-17T15:28:33-05:00

Mavis Gallant’s “Night and Day” (1962)

2017-12-05T18:09:33-05:00

This story falls between some longer ones in Going Ashore, with Mavis Gallant's early and uncollected stories, "One Morning in May" and "A Day Like Any Other". Both stories in which young people's innocence moves into the shadows of experience. In the shorter stories I've been reading lately, "From Gamut to Yalta",

Mavis Gallant’s “Night and Day” (1962)2017-12-05T18:09:33-05:00

In My Reading Log, Summer 2017

2017-09-20T10:23:01-04:00

In which there is talk of novels which were read too quickly to allow for extensive note-taking and snapshots: good reading. Yewande Omotoso's The Woman Next Door (2017) Longlisted for the Women's Fiction Prize this year, this story about two women in their eighties, neighbours in South Africa, is quietly

In My Reading Log, Summer 20172017-09-20T10:23:01-04:00

Vickie Gendreau’s Testament (2012; 2016)

2017-05-02T09:37:11-04:00

Originally written after the author had been diagnosed with a brain tumour, Testament is a response to the news that Vickie Gendreau would have little time left to live: about a year. 2012; Book Thug, 2016 The novel's translator, Aimee Wall, writes about the work, a few months

Vickie Gendreau’s Testament (2012; 2016)2017-05-02T09:37:11-04:00

Darren Greer’s Advocate (2016)

2020-10-22T12:25:06-04:00

"The past presses so hard on the present, the present is badly bruised, blood brims under the skin." These lines from Brenda Shaughnessy's poem “Nachträglichkeit”* fit beautifully with Darren Greer's new novel, Advocate: Not only because much of Advocate is preoccupied with memory, with what the characters carry with them

Darren Greer’s Advocate (2016)2020-10-22T12:25:06-04:00
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