Quill and Quire

Fiction: Novels

Alms

By Cynthia MacDonald

Alms is set in the 1980s in Toronto. Its sad-sack protagonist, Martine Craythorn, describes her people as “the late-century rich – back-patters and horse-laughers.” In an age of ambition and acquisition, Martine is obsessed only ... Read More »

November 20, 2003 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

A Blade of Grass

By Lewis DeSoto

A Blade of Grass, the first novel from Toronto writer and painter Lewis DeSoto, is an impressive, if flawed, debut, a compelling examination of race and place, the personal and the political, in South Africa. ... Read More »

November 20, 2003 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Distance

By Jack Hodgins

For several years my parents had a painting by a well-known local artist hung in their living room. The painting was a typical, post-Group of Seven landscape of the Canadian Shield. The lake looked properly ... Read More »

November 19, 2003 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Speaking Cure

By David Homel

Shot through with gallows humour and a brand of wartime slapstick, David Homel’s The Speaking Cure communicates a subtle and powerful anti-censorship message while blurring already shifty lines between right and wrong, victim and oppressor. ... Read More »

November 19, 2003 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels