Memoir of a Good Death by Anne Sorbie Thistledown Press, 2010 266 Pages Reviewed by Brenda Brooks “Have you ever wondered about the moment of your own death?” These are the opening lines of Anne Sorbie’s novel, Memoir of a Good Death. The question is posed by Rhegan Flett whose father has collapsed while delivering [...]
Mennonites Don’t Dance by Darcie Friesen Hossack Thistledown Press, 2010 201 pp. $18.95 CAD 978-1-897235-78-2 Reviewed by Annie Vigna Mennonites Don’t Dance, the title of Darcie Friesen Hossack’s collection of eleven short stories, evokes constraint, restraint, and foreboding. It suggests that there are rules, and perhaps consequences for breaking rules or rebelling against rules. The [...]
Monoceros by Suzette Mayr Coach House Books, 2011 220 pages Reviewed by Brenda Brooks Once upon a time, not so terribly long ago, in the kingdom of Calgary, there lived a virginal young maiden named Faraday who required the healing power of unicorns so desperately that she ordered a whole shipment from the Black Forest [...]
Murder on the Bow by John Ballem Calgary, Recliner Books, 2010 325pp. $14.99 978-0-9813640-2-5 Reviewed by Annie Vigna Murder on the Bow is the second book published by Dustin Smith, chief editor at Recliner Books, the newest publishing company in Calgary. That John Ballem loved the city of Calgary is well known to those [...]
Notes for Monday By Barb Howard Recliner Books, 102 pages 978-3-16-148410-0 Reviewed by Annie Vigna Barb Howard’s novella, Notes for Monday, is set during the XV Winter Olympics in Calgary in 1988. Many readers will remember with great joy those exciting days in February. But Howard’s protagonist, 75-year-old Tommy McBeath, Q.C., is uninterested. Indeed, [...]
Penny Loves Wade, Wade Loves Penny by Caroline Woodward Oolichan, September 2010 256 pp. $18.95 Reviewed by Emily McIvor Penny Loves Wade, Wade Loves Penny is a gripping adventure and a moving love story, with a fast-reading storyline that keeps readers guessing through to the end. Plot is important to this novel, and during the reading of it, I [...]
Ragged Company by Richard Wagamese Doubleday Canada, 2008 376pp. $29.95 978-0-385-66156-0 Reviewed by Annie Vigna Ragged Company is a novel about living and surviving on the street. DYING COLD SUCKS. Trust me. I know….It’s a rough business….So when they told me that they found three of us dead on the first night of the cold [...]
Red Dog Red Dog by Patrick Lane (McLelland and Stewart, 2008) Reviewed by Annie Vigna Red Dog Red Dog is Patrick Lane’s first work of fiction, published after more than twenty books of poetry and his memoir, There is a Season (2004). Lane’s stark realities have a way of soothing tortured souls. His lyricism transcends [...]
Ru by Kim Thúy English Edition, translated by Sheila Fischman Random House Canada (2012) 141 pages Reviewed by Brenda Brooks Sometimes you really can tell a book by its cover. Ru, by Kim Thúy evokes a handmade delicacy, from the texture and color of its flyleaf, to the embossed symbols on the front and back cover and pressed deeply [...]
Running Toward Home by Betty Jane Hegerat NeWest Press, 2006 220 pages Reviewed by Elizabeth Nolan With Running Toward Home Hegerat develops some of the same character types that appear in the stories in A Crack on the Wall, but instead of the insular world of family life, the focus is on a chaotic world spinning [...]
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