-
Tracing the Heat of Others in Nancy Huston’s Infrared
Reviewed in this essay: Infrared, by Nancy Huston. McArthur and Company, 2011. Paris is burning and Rena Greenblat has averted her eyes, and more importantly, her camera. While social unrest heats up the city that she lives and loves in, she refuses to return to Paris to do what she does best—hold up a photographic mirror…
-
Have We Dreamed so Big?: A Review of Rebecca Rosenblum’s The Big Dream
Reviewed in this essay: The Big Dream, by Rebecca Rosenblum. Biblioasis, 2011. Have we dreamed so big, only to awake small, suburban and fragile? Rosenblum’s collection of linked short stories is a chronicle of the disappointments of waking/growing up, only to find that the golden palace of your dream is a squat, square low-rise commercial…
-
Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live by Ray Robertson
Reviewed in this essay: Why Not? Fifteen Reason to Live by Ray Robertson. Biblioasis, 2011. It is November in Toronto. I could use fifteen or so reasons to live right now. Ray Robertson implies a big answer with his new title. Having just completed a draft of a novel and experiencing an OCD-induced depression, Robertson…
-
A World Elsewhere, by Wayne Johnson
Reviewed in this essay: A World Elsewhere by Wayne Johnson. Knopf Canada, 2011. A tale of fathers, real and make-believe, is the backbone of Johnson`s new novel. Landish Druken is an exile at home, estranged from his father, starving in a garret, writing a book that he burns every night. On the edge of Dark…