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
In “Madeline’s Birthday”, the sadness slips to the background, like it does in an Elizabeth Taylor story, with a hint of darkness besides. Madeline is a guest in the Tracy family’s summer home, and her seventeenth birthday affects every resident. Readers briefly inhabit the perspective of most inhabitants (even
In which pages are turned, at a faster rate than usual. Character-soaked, but still fast-paced storytelling. Cherie Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves (2017) is set in a future in which the dominant culture has determined that the blood of indigenous peoples holds an inherent value for healing. Exploitation and genocide ensue. This
Boundaries and borders, between countries and between stages of life: Andrée A. Michaud's Boundary darts across the dotted lines, back and forth, sedately in one moment and chillingly the next. Because the story revolves around the murders of two young women in the small community of Bondrée, questions of
This week, we are invited to pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. "It can be a 'If you loved this book, read this!' or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real
