There is no great mystery at the heart of Jennifer LoveGrove's debut novel. No simple explanation for the way its pages turn, relentlessly. Emily's story is a quiet story, the ground beneath her feet shifting subtly, though inexorably. In relaying her story to readers, Jennifer LoveGrove makes a series of
When describing this book to a friend recently, I said I found his style "quintessentially male". That's a sloppy term, but when you've bookchatted with someone about many books over several years, a certain shorthand develops. All I had to add was that it left with me the same feeling
This from Hugh MacLennan to young Marian Engel in 1956: "If I can be of any help to you, don't hesitate to write and tell me so. I'm cynical about theses, having done one myself, but I suppose they are necessary if you can avoid taking them too seriously." University
Everything I know about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which precipitated WWI, I learned from fiction. First, Aleksandar Hemon's short story, "The Accordian", which explores the very moment of the shots' impact, inspired by the presence of a bystander. This man seems to be the author's grandfather, standing in the
Readers have an elevated view of the events in Cary Fagan's A Bird's Eye. "Over streets, over the buildings of the university with the zigzag pattern on their roofs, over the playing fields towards the downtown." And, yet, readers glimpse, in the opening chapters, all the characters necessary for an
