There’s an illustration of a treadmill on the cover of Rob Benvie’s latest novel, Maintenance. It works, and not just because the book features several exercise sequences: a post-conjugal violence workout, a teen’s weightlifting sesh, tennis champs sweating it up on the courts, and even some allusion to a lapsed yoga habit.
More than merely “not linked,” the stories in Abray’s book demonstrate noteworthy range. They examine family, romantic relationships, childhood, loss, and mourning among other things and do so using diverse voices, points of view, and formal treatments.
Near the beginning of Rain Falls Like Mercy, a Wyoming ranch owner tells a reporter what’s what: “You want to write about the West, you have to know the truth about this country. Take away the yarns that stretch the truth, and all you have left is the East with better scenery.”
In an episode from the third season of Mad Men, the main character – a man calling himself Don Draper – experiences his greatest nightmare when his real name and backstory come to light. His wife (who makes the discovery) is appalled: “You’ve been lying to me every day,” she says.
To recognize life’s tender spots and extract the meaty stuff is the mark of a skilled writer. Unfortunately, Elizabeth Bass, who in Wherever Grace is Needed tackles the complexities of family, its bonds – real or imagined – and the ache to belong, fails to find these tender spots.
In his fifth novel, Turkish-Canadian writer Agop J. Hacikyan constructs a loving portrait of life in Istanbul during the mid-twentieth century that sadly misses the mark as often as it hits it. Written in the third person, yet with a distinct journal-like quality, The Lamppost Diary is a rambling episodic tale.
Varsha Dharma is the teenaged daughter of Canadian-born parents. Her family lives in the house that her mysterious immigrant grandfather Mr. J.K. Dharma built in the wilderness outside a small town in northern British Columbia. When Varsha’s mother dies, her father goes to India to get a new wife. Suman, the new bride, could not have imagined the cold and isolation awaiting her.
Imagine a murder during the 1955 Maurice Richard Riot in Montreal. It happens right in front of the Sun Life Building, and the murder weapon is a legendary Quebec artefact. One pictures a smile on the author’s face as he feels the tension and potential of the set-up.
In his second novel, Dirty Feet, Togo-born Quebec author Edem Awumey overlooks the much-explored image of Paris as the luxurious and vibrant cultural centre in favour of the city’s dark side.
What constitutes a person other than a collection of memories, both those acquired in one’s own lifetime and those passed down through generations? If you strip someone of his memories, do you strip him of his soul? And if memories are the very building blocks of humanity, who decides what to construct?
