The private self is arguably one’s most authentic voice, if only for the truth of what is expressed before any social filter is applied. The written word, however, “outs” the author, muddying the distinction between private self and public persona. What happens to the author who knows his or her most personal reflections will be paraded in front of the public and even celebrated by that public? What happens to the writing? And what exactly is celebrity?
Young Canadians travelling abroad have a reputation for being pleasant, earnest, and occasionally prickly. Daniel Baylis is just such a Canadian, searching for social engagement, and meaning at a point in his late twenties when, for some people, working life can begin to look like a protracted actuarial exercise. The Traveller is the true story of the year Baylis spent volunteer-circumnavigating the world. Twelve months. Twelve countries. Twelve volunteer stints. Or that was the plan anyway.
It’s October 16, 1970, the morning the War Measures Act is brought into force in Quebec. Fifteen-year-old Gaétan Simard, who has just started working in a textile factory, arrives at the apartment of his older friend Luc Maheu, also a factory worker. They’re about to go for a beer at the tavern after Gaétan’s overnight shift the first week on the job, when unexpected visitors arrive.
Some readers of Bill Haugland may remember him from his tenure (from 1961 to 2006) as a journalist and reporter at CFCF-TV in Montreal. His profession has, evidently, given him the chops to shape a story succinctly and with empathy. His first two novels, Mobile 9 and The Bidding, are devoted to crime, danger, and mystery as experienced by his main character, television reporter Ty Davis. After the Rain is Haugland’s first short story collection, and each story skilfully builds suspense.
George Ellenbogen is a cartographer of the heart and of the memories it contains. In his memoir, A Stone in My Shoe: In Search of Neighbourhood, he maps the circumstances leading to his family’s immigration to Montreal from Europe in the years prior to World War II.
For those who enjoy depictions of that life, complete with sled dogs, snow, and a smattering of Algonquin vocabulary, Robert Poirier’s collection, On the Crow and Other Stories, might afford a pleasurable read.
Poetic language that is dense and rich can be like fruitcake: a fingerling or two is nice with tea, but the going gets rough after the fifth or sixth slice. The Traymore Rooms, a first novel by Montreal poet Norm Sibum, is almost 700 pages. That's a lot of fruitcake.
Though the events of Portrait of a Scandal took place nearly 150 years ago, the multidimensional characters and the themes of desire and downfall make this tale of our city both timeless and familiar.
Juxtaposing essays, poems, journal entries, letters, interviews, and short stories, Van Der Meer demonstrates how our life story is seldom, if ever, set in stone. Instead, it’s a moving target, a kaleidoscope of the complicated ways in which we choose to remember.
A new cartoon biography of Sanger, written and drawn by underground comics luminary Peter Bagge, attempts to rescue Sanger from the online maelstrom that has her putting the so-called undesirable and unfit under the sterilization knife.
