Borderline is the first book by Montreal Francophone writer Marie-Sissi Labrèche. Released in 2000, the work won a cult following and went on to be adapted into a film of the same name, whose script won the 2009 Genie Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Borderline is a semi-autobiographical narrative that follows a young woman named Sissi as she navigates Montreal in the late nineties, engaging in risky behaviours, struggling with mental illness, and reflecting on her traumatic past.
Hungarian-born, Montreal-based writer Endre Farkas is an award-winning poet. In 2016, he published the semi-autobiographical novel Never, Again, about a family of Holocaust survivors in Hungary. Home Game is the follow-up, with the protagonist Tommy Wolfstein now a teenager in Montreal amid the throes of 1960s social upheaval. Tommy, a star soccer player, gets the opportunity to travel to his homeland for a game, forcing him to confront the spectre of his family’s past.
Contrary to what one would expect from the title, Home Sickness is not a work that unfolds in a diaspora setting, away from “home.” This short story collection by Taiwanese-Canadian author Chih-Ying Lay is set in Taiwan.
Riding the Elephant: Surviving and Loving in a Bipolar Marriage is a self-published memoir from a woman about to turn ninety, and its words inspire as much as they bring insight. Without being overly sentimental, McKenty paints a picture of family charity, faith, and tenacity within an Irish clan whose tentacles reached India and China as missionaries and healers.
Sherwin Tjia’s latest, the graphic novel Plummet, is the surreal story of a woman who wakes up to find herself, along with assorted other people and objects, in a state of continuous freefall.
Addie Tsai’s journey towards publishing Dear Twin, her first book, has been circuitous – with many side roads, some dead ends, and plenty of footnotes, not unlike the novel itself.
Kaie Kellough can be serious. His general demeanour is that of considered statements and well-placed pauses. He speaks like a poet. The thing is, spending too much time enjoying the way he puts sentences together, both on the page and in person, means that the accompanying sly humour can be missed.
Who Belongs in Quebec?: Identity Politics in a Changing Society closely examines recent political developments and landmark events in Quebec, including the 2018 election of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) majority government, debates around Quebec’s Charter of Values, and the secularism law, Bill 21.
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.
