Little Fish

In her debut novel, Little Fish, Lambda Literary Award-winner Casey Plett tells a heartbreaking but hopeful story about time, identity, and the intricate relationships that tie people together. The events of Little Fish take place during a Winnipeg winter, and Plett does an extraordinary job of setting the tone of the novel through the characters’ interactions in this unique context. Little Fish is not an easy read; rather, it will challenge readers to reflect upon their own understandings of humanity and love, and to ask themselves how we may be responsible to and for each other.

Sodom Road Exit

Returning to Ontario’s Crystal Beach after dropping out of university and accumulating a fair amount of debt in Toronto, Starla Mia Martin doesn’t plan on sticking around her birthplace forever. Her viewpoint quickly changes when she encounters Etta, the paranormal product of a tragic death at the recently closed and charred Crystal Beach Amusement Park. Together, they try to peel away at each other’s pasts and salvage what’s left of their personal ruins.

In a time where survivors’ stories are at the forefront of discussions surrounding sexual abuse, violence, and harassment, Sodom Road Exit speaks about the realities of trauma with honesty. Much like the ghost that is interested in Starla, trauma attaches itself to survivors and is with them every step of the way. In the book, the intimacy gained from sharing stories of trauma acts as a step toward confronting pain and healing. The friendships that are formed come from a sense of characters wanting each other to be whole—to be the versions of themselves that “could have been if pain didn’t happen.” At every opportunity Amber Dawn reminds us that Starla, as well as her newfound friends, are messy human beings. She also reminds us that in order to be a mess, one, at some point, must have been tidy.

The stream of consciousness Starla loses herself in is both terrifying and wonderful. When her thoughts mingle with Etta’s, it’s clear that Starla needs something to hold on to when things get tough. However, Amber Dawn clearly illustrates in her “lesbian supernatural thriller” that relying on others can only get you so far when it comes to your own well-being.

Tarry This Night

Tarry This Night by Kristyn Dunnion is a dystopian tale that takes readers through the days of a bunkered polygamist cult leader, Father Ernst, and his “family.” Told from the perspectives of various family members, Dunnion’s novel reflects a dark coming-of-age story about protagonist Ruth, who must reevaluate her faith in order to survive the fallout of civil war in America and the looming threat in her own quarters.

Considering the current socio-political climate in the world, it’s no wonder why the dystopian genre has become so relevant. That’s what makes Tarry This Night both so interesting and terrifying. The novel touches upon several top-of-mind topics, including war, religion, power struggles, and gender relations. Dunnion has a haunting use of language that is almost lyrical, often leaving readers stunned at certain points when they realize the gravity of the horrors she’s weaving into the plot.

Though at times brutal to read, Tarry This Night is ultimately a beautiful tale of female resistance. Father Ernst represents the patriarchal system, the unquestioned status quo, while his wives are the everyday people who must choose whether or not to toe the line. Heavy biblical references aside, Dunnion makes hope the focus of this story by creating incredibly strong characters that do so much more than just tarry the night and its burdens. After reading the wives’ stories, readers will question the “greater good” and grapple with what it truly means to progress in society. Tarry This Night is exactly the kind of story we need to remember what it means to endure despite the most dire circumstances.

Oracle Bone

Oracle Bone is Vancouver-based poet and author Lydia Kwa’s latest foray into magic-realist fiction. Drawing on elements of Chinese mythology, the novel centres on an oracle bone, a mystical artifact used for divination purposes. Kwa’s unadorned prose maintains a rich, cinematic vigor, leaning on historical literary traditions without veering into exoticism. Set in 7th-century China, Oracle Bone’s engaging tripartite plot maintains structural clarity. Main protagonist Ling’s transformative journey from enslavement to warriorhood by way of supernatural martial arts masterfully explores timely themes of gender empowerment and identity in the process.

The Dirt Chronicles is a delicate alloy of Burroughs and Gallant, walking an uncompromising line where the homeless, the junkies, the punks, and the dispossessed are one and all pushing against a threat sometimes left to vague societal pressures but otherwise embodied in the interweaving stories’ antagonist. The King, a sadist vice cop with a thing for rockabilly bent on breaking the dignities and backs of our heroes, is the Toronto underworld’s answer to Dr. Satan.

Her characters carry chips on their shoulders and monkeys on their backs, from the whipped and broken crackhead Darcy to the fragile, indomitable Ferret to the tragically incarcerated Eddie.

When they’re bent or broken, Dunnion narrates enough pain to pass sympathetic jolts to her reader. A visceral and violent book that could have set out to shock is instead touching. The dance between her characters’ strengths and weaknesses is compelling, readable, and tempers the handful of potshots she takes at the world of the well-fed and gainfully employed.

The Prescription Errors

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the rich, dark and contradictory nature of human relationships and politics. Demers has a promising literary career ahead of him. He has another book coming out at the end of November, Vancouver Special, published by Arsenal Pulp Press.

Q&A

This isn’t your average, plot-driven fiction novel. What motivated you to write it?

Actually, the two storylines – the longer, Daniel narrative and the shorter one about Ty – originated separately and gradually grew closer together. I spent the summer of 2005 working as a researcher on a study of patient safety as it relates to medical equipment and technology in a Vancouver General Hospital building right next to where I spent a large part of my childhood visiting my mother, who was sick for many years before we lost her. At first, being so close to the site was overwhelming, and I worried that I couldn’t handle the job. But the further I got into the research, the less immediate the trauma seemed. Daniel’s story came out of wondering what it would be like for someone to set out to do that on purpose.

Tyler’s story came out of a conversation I had while I was working on a comedy project with Phil Hartman’s brother, Paul. Paul was explaining how, after Phil died, all of his characters on the Simpsons were performed by another voice actor. In Hartman’s case, he was replaced by one of the most accomplished voice actors in the world, but I immediately started imagining what it would be like if his replacement were an emptier vessel; someone who didn’t have their own real source of identity.

In the early stages of writing both stories, I realized that they shared a lot; they were both about fundamentally solipsistic guys dealing with the fragility of other people, and the stories interpenetrated in a way that made it impossible for me to think of them separately.

How much of the novel is fiction? Is the protagonist a reflection of your personal experiences?

The whole of the novel is fiction – even the parts based on my own experiences or inspired by people from my life take on their own, created dynamics in the writing. Daniel and I share a lot of biographical touchstones – like him, I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, I lost my mother, I worked at Scott Paper and at pressure-washing a parkade (I had to quit after one shift, though, because it was too depressing) – and I think we share a certain sense of humour, but he’s not me. I feel very close to him, but distinct from him, too.

Why opt for a very Vancouver-based novel?

Vancouver’s the only place I know well enough to anchor a story of this length in, for one thing. I was born and raised here, and I feel a great deal of affection for this city. Philosophically, too, I think it’s important for people to tell stories about the places that they are, especially in the case of a relatively peripheral place like Vancouver. It’s not out of any sense of close-mindedness or provincialism – I just think that it’s important for a wide variety of stories to get told, and there’s such a pressure on Canadian authors (non-Toronto-or-Montreal ones especially) to erase the geographical distinction of their stories that I think it’s a little victory to be able to describe Commercial Drive or Kitsilano in detail.

Tell me about Daniel. What kind of character did you intend him to be?

This is tricky, because I’m not sure it matters how I intended him, but rather what readers take away from him. I know one thing I wanted was to write about an intelligent person who doesn’t have money; usually, the kinds of characters who get to have existential worries are middle-class types, while working-class people deal with external challenges, say, oppression by social and natural phenomena. In my life, I know countless people who scraped up the money or indebted themselves enough to get through college or university, and nevertheless spend their twenties and thirties in working class jobs or earning next to nothing in cultural or political work. They have robust intellectual lives but don’t get the opulent backdrop for it, like the characters in Woody Allen movies or something. Aside from that, I mean – I think Daniel is a sympathetic character who, like a lot of people, finds it exceedingly difficult to imagine the world from any vantage other than the one behind his own eyes, and struggles with that.

Pretty much, in your own words, what is the story about? What message, if any, do you hope that people will take from your book?

Again, I don’t want to limit the possible interpretations by laying down my own (well, I don’t want to limit them too much; Daniel-as-Aryan-hero, I don’t mind saying, is an incorrect reading). But I think there’s great beauty in human interdependence, and I also think that there’s a great urgency to rip political thinking out of the ethers and back into people’s lives in a meaningful way; I hope that those ideas are reflected in this novel, but most importantly I hope that people engage with the story and enjoy the way that it’s written.

Thankfully, things have progressed and young (and not-so-young) girls now have a whole new breed of strong, smart subversive female fighters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Lara Croft, Tomb Raider.

Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Mutants, Slayers and Freaks (Sumach Press) analyzes these new pop culture superheroines and their popularity, problems and, at times, conflicting messages. Through essays, analysis, fiction, art and comics, this insightful, entertaining and empowering anthology explores the evolution of the female superhero from early characters like The Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman to today’s fictional fighters like Xena, Warrior Princess.

Along the way, contributors, including editor Emily Pohl-Weary, explore the roles of women as both comic characters and creators, challenging the idea that all -superheroines need be skinny, young, white, heterosexual and able-bodied. Contributors dissect old female superheroes, invent new ones and teach us about the superhero lurking in all of us.

There’s Candra K. Gill’s excellent essay “’Cuz the Black Chick Always Gets It First,” exploring issues of race and diversity in Buffy. Halli Villegas introduces us to Jane Bond, Catherine Stinson takes on her childhood hero Little Orphan Annie, Lisa Rundle slays so-called feminist superheroes on the big screen and Esther Vincent seeks out the elusive female action hero to add to her collection.

And just in case you thought it was easier to leap tall buildings in a single bound than bridge the gap between average everyday gal and superhero, there are enough reminders in this anthology (check out Rose Bianchini’s story “Everyday Superhero”) that it’s the little things we do daily that grant us superpowers. Whether it’s sexism, ageism or depression, we all slay vampires and monsters each day (in whatever form they might take). And if you get hungry from a life of fighting crime there’s even an adventure comic complete with a spring roll recipe. — Lisa Whittington-Hill

LD: Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver By Daniel Francis (Arsenal Pulp Press)

On the strength of his reputation as “an ordinary man representing ordinary folk,” Louis D. Taylor was elected mayor of Vancouver eight times between 1910 and 1934. But his life was closer to extraordinary: he was, at various times, wanted by the Chicago police, owner of the tallest building in the British Empire and a starving Klondike prospector. As mayor he was ahead of his time, encouraging women’s suffrage and an eight-hour workday, but he was also thoroughly of his time, declaring the need to “preserve British Columbia for the white people.” As a result, LD is both lest-we-forget history and celebration of an unsung visionary, made eminently readable by Francis’s graceful style. —Adam Lewis Schroeder

Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America By Daniel Drache (Fernwood Publishing)

The title distills the essence of Drache. The early Canadian nationalist, critic of free trade, eminent globetrotting political economist and, once upon a time, editor and writer for This Magazine, powerfully demonstrates that borders never ceased to matter, free trade agreements notwithstanding, and are now all too much in vogue in all the wrong ways since 9/11. Goods—and so-called intelligence, mostly false—move too easily, while people, particularly those in need of a safe haven, face increasing obstacles. This book is an essential background guide to following the Maher Arar inquiry, arguably one of the most revealing political happenings in Canada in recent history. —Mel Watkins

Catch and Release: Trout Fishing and the Meaning of Life By Mark Kingwell (Viking Canada)

Perhaps his best book, Catch and Release is a memoir of sorts, built around a fishing trip to Kelowna, British Columbia that Kingwell took a few years ago with his father and two brothers. The trip begins with Mark the Skeptic declaring that “I will not fish,” and it ends a few days later with the philosopher soundly converted to the Brotherhood of the Angle. Along the way, Kingwell uses the intersection of writing, fishing and philosophy to work out familiar philosophical problems about the relationship between thought and action. Ultimately, we are left with a sort of Zen koan as written by Izaak Walton:

Q. What is the meaning of life?

A. Let’s go fishing! —Andrew Potter