Quill and Quire

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

The Betrayer

By Michael Hennessey

Mention orphans and Prince Edward Island, and Anne Shirley immediately springs to mind. As Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s creation has become an island industry. Mickey Casey – the nasty, drunken, murderous narrator ... Read More »

November 19, 2003 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Animal Sciences

By Ron Hotz

Ron Hotz distinguishes his first novel, The Animal Sciences, from other Canadian stories of dysfunctional characters and difficult loves by presenting it as a kind of scientific case study rather than as a deeply felt ... Read More »

November 19, 2003 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Coyote: A Mystery

By Brian Brett

With his new novel, Saltspring Island poet and novelist Brian Brett has created a postmodern, Gulf Island-based, Buddhism-infused, eco-psycho-killer thriller. Coyote is at once leisurely paced and thrilling, thought-provoking and humorous, character-focussed and intellectually challenging. ... Read More »

November 11, 2003 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Last Cowboy

By Lee Gowan

The word “cowboy” comes freighted with so many different meanings. For immigrants from Europe, Asia, or Africa, it can be romance personified, a somewhat updated version of the medieval knight, out riding the range, communing ... Read More »

November 11, 2003 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels