"There’s no backstitching in stories. Nothing can be locked in place." So says a character in Studio Saint-Ex, but readers of Ania Szado's second novel might disagree; she seems to have no trouble locking a good story in place. She began where all good stories begin, with a fascination. In
Twenty-two years ago, I clipped an article from a Toronto newspaper about the restoration of Sainte-Marie among the Hurons near Midland, Ontario. I had studied the history of the mission and the slaughter of the Jesuit priests when I was in elementary school, culminating in a vague understanding of it
Jami Attenberg’s novel is about what we wrap up. The cover of The Middlesteins appears to be a fast-food burger wrapper: quintessentially flavourful but fleeting. Edie’s mother watches Edie’s father’s heart beat beneath the skin of his chest. Edie notices the bones at the top of her chest, poking out like
In her work as a journalist, Sara Wheeler has often inhabited “borderlands of turbulence and uncertainty”, and travelled into dangerous territory. Readers familiar with Catherine Bush's earlier novels might recall Arcadia from Rules of Engagement, her fascination with war and violence, and the question that haunts her: “What would you be willing
It begins with a short but vividly drawn scene: two lovers alone in a room in Paris in 1917. Sensorily rich and broadly sketched: the reader is immediately engaged. Not only by the substance, but by a couple of unexpected phrases therein: questions arise. Those questions are soon set aside
