Perhaps Hélène is not a likely hero. She is "only eight years old, a bit florid in colour, with bluish veins on a body that weighed twenty-three kilos, holding back a mind that was always trying to run off to faraway, pitiless realms". Oscar sounds like a more heroic name,
It recalls Sharon Butala's love of the prairie, reverence for the land. It brings to mind Lee Maracle's focus on relationships between women, love and friendship and sustenance. And it reminds me of Louise Erdrich's unflinching consideration of violence against women and the world. But Alanda Greene's Napi's
“Number One, satire is not on. Critics love it, real people turn it off." That from the satirical novel Easy to Like*, which takes on Canadian media just as Linda Svendsen takes on Canadian politics in Sussex Drive. Of course, Edward Riche was satirizing the idea of satire
Raami is "just a spit past seven" in 1975, when the year of the Tiger shifts to the year of the Rabbit. It is the Khmer New Year, and Raami's parents disagree about whether it is appropriate to celebrate when there is so much misery and fighting. Raami is pleased
You cannot know of what an old sailor dreams, but perhaps he, as Wallace Stevens' poem suggests, dreams of tigers in red weather. It's a vivid imagining, but only the old sailor has experienced his dream.* Little, Brown & Company, 2012 In Liza Klaussmann's debut novel, each of
