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.
John McAuley, one of the Vehicule Poets who were so influential in Montreal circa 1975–80, published four books from 1977–79. His new collection, All I Can Say for Sure, is so good that the long silence must be regretted.
