To the Boys Who Wear Pink is the story of a party. Revolving around a core of eight former self-identified kings of high school, the night is narrated through a string of twenty-four voices as each attendee is given a chance at the narrative auxiliary cable.
Vicki Gendreau operates in a mode that oscillates between nihilism and sincerity, a whirl of impenetrable irony. Nothing Gendreau writes is true or serious, but everything is.
Every aspect of the book, from its plot to its construction, speaks to its title. The words are strung together delicately, reflecting on the fragility of life, questioning the purpose of this human existence.
Butterflies, Zebras, Moonbeams, the debut novel from Ceilidh Michelle, follows B, a “not yet [...] but soon” musician, as she wanders through the apartments and lovers of her twenties.
The manifesto of plucky editors Cait Gordon and Talia C. Johnson for this anthology was to gather great short stories that not only centre the disabled experience (all main characters are disabled, Deaf, neurodiverse, spoonie, and/or managing mental illness or chronic conditions), but also buck the tired tropes that dominate disabled representation.
Claremont traces the intersecting stories of the members of a family that is not only simply unhappy, but reeling in the face of tragedy. In the first chapter, readers follow nine-year-old Tom as his abusive father, Russell, murders his mother Mona before also killing himself. In the wake of these events, Mona’s three siblings, Will, Sonya, and Rose, attempt to rally together to care for Tom.
Set-Point might seem effortless in its easy, acerbic veneer, and the affectlessness of its language might be confused for a kind of apathetic neutrality, but to mistake it for either is to be the butt of the book’s joke. Parker is here to remind us: nothing is easy.
Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) is a strange and wonderful hybrid that uses the creation of an encyclopedia about a fictional 2001 television show, Little Blue, to pay tribute to the narrator’s closest friend Vivian Cloze after she’s gone. In the process, it casts beautiful insights onto its many themes: queer and trans living, unrequited love, ongoing mourning, joyful friendship, and the powers of (obscure) pop culture to help us cope.
Of Vengeance hints at another layer of crime that forms the undercurrent of the novel. In deceptively simple prose, Kurtness mounts a poignant and timely argument about the danger of running headlong into the hands of technologies we don’t fully understand.
Prez’s story is drawn from the author’s own experiences. In 1969, nineteen-year- old Freeman was stopped by a white Chicago police officer. When Freeman argued that the stop was unconstitutional, the officer, Terrence Knox, became extremely aggressive, shouting racist epithets. He pointed a gun at Freeman’s head. There was a struggle, and Knox was hit in the arm by three bullets.
Heroine, Gail Scott’s classic feminist Montreal novel, balances on the border of these two eras. Gail, our narrator, soaks in the bath in a rented room in 1980, recalling her recent experiences as a young would-be militant during the heady days of separatist revolutionary fervour. As she remembers, she also reconfigures what happened, visiting and revisiting her relationships, her moods, and her own trajectory as both an observer and an actor in a time of personal and political upheaval.
Dreamers and Misfits of Montclair is Paterson’s third short story collection, and it demonstrates his ease with the form’s range. “Salut King Kong” is a quick hit – quirky and to the point. Even quicker and quirkier are postcard pieces like “Body Noises with the Door Open” and “Spring Training.”
