Quill and Quire

Reviews

Raising Orion

By Lesley Choyce

An enigmatic woman named Molly is the subject of prolific Nova Scotia writer Lesley Choyce’s newest novel. Raising Orion describes Molly’s childhood as the daughter of the last lighthouse keeper on an isolated island off ... Read More »

April 6, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Bats or Swallows

By Teri Vlassopoulos

Montreal writer Teri Vlassopoulos’s debut collection contains stories about characters coming of age, suffering through severed relationships, and searching for their own identities. The author mixes kitchen-sink realism with elementary philosophy to portray the confusion, ... Read More »

April 6, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Short

Spat the Dummy

By Ed Macdonald

The perilous repercussions of a horrific childhood secret propel Spat the Dummy, Gemini Award–winning screenwriter Ed Macdonald’s dynamic exploration of sex, drugs, violence, and the meaning of fatherhood. This excellent debut novel combines gutsy language ... Read More »

April 6, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Extensions

By Myrna Dey

At first glance, Myrna Dey’s debut novel offers a familiar set-up: a modern-day city slicker finds a packet of letters written by her great-grandmother Jane, a Welsh immigrant battling poverty and loneliness amid the misery ... Read More »

April 6, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Irma Voth

By Miriam Toews

Miriam Toews’ follow-up to 2008’s The Flying Troutmans details its eponymous protagonist’s various attempts to answer the question, “How do I behave in this world without following the directions of my father, my husband, or ... Read More »

April 1, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

The Free World

By David Bezmozgis

After Henry Roth, after Isaac Bashevis Singer, after Saul Bellow, after Philip Roth, after Grace Paley, after Mordecai Richler, after Cynthia Ozick, after countless other writers secular and religious, socialist and conservative, Zionist and assimilationist, ... Read More »

March 28, 2011 | Filed under: Fiction: Novels

Civil and Civic

By Jonathan Bennett

There’s nothing terribly civil about the title poem in Jonathan Bennett’s second collection, which describes a political protest that tumbles headlong into anarchic violence when the “blunt harm of a brick” is thrown at riot ... Read More »

March 21, 2011 | Filed under: Poetry