Quill and Quire

Fiction: Novels

Nerve

By Barbra Leslie

In the first chapter of this debut book, the protagonist’s mother tells her that her father died when she was a child because “he lost his nerve.” Evelyn is 15 at this point, and it’s ... Read More »

March 14, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Diamond Grill

By Fred Wah

Fred Wah’s Diamond Grill is a small gem of a book. Wah refers to the book as a “biotext”; the publisher calls it both “biofiction” and “biography.” Wah denies that it contains “true stories but, ... Read More »

March 12, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Angel Walk

By Katherine Govier

The wide-angled scope of Angel Walk, spanning a half-dozen decades and the world from Parry Sound to Nagasaki, doubtless explains why this is Katherine Govier’s first novel in five years. It reprises a chaotic century ... Read More »

March 12, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Chump Change

By David Eddie

This is a funny book, though it may fetch bigger laughs than mine from the generation whose idiom it speaks and whose purported ennui it celebrates. Chump Change is a coming-of-age novel with a hero ... Read More »

March 12, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Kerouac’s Ghost

By Ken McGoogan

Back in 1993, Ken McGoogan, literary editor of the Calgary Herald, published a novel called Visions of Kerouac. This was an ebullient, unapologetically Kerouac-obsessed coming-of-age story. Its hero and main narrator, Frankie McCracken, was a ... Read More »

March 12, 2004 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels