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History, true and fictional: A review of poet Kate Cayley’s “When This World Comes to an End”
When This World Comes to an End By Kate Cayley Brick Books, February 2013 $20 A first book of poems is a beautiful thing. But while this is Kate Cayley’s first poetry volume, she is no newcomer to writing. Her short stories and poems have appeared in journals across the country, she has authored a young adult novel, The Hangman…
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Sex, Bugs, and Schizophrenia: A review of Poison Shy
Reviewed in this essay: Poison Shy by Stacey Madden. ECW Press, 2012. Sex, bugs, and schizophrenia form an unlikely trinity, it is true. And yet they converge with surprising semblance in Stacey Madden’s first novel, Poison Shy. Told through first-person retrospective narration, Poison Shy is the story of a love triangle between two heavy-drinking late…
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Starting the conversation: A review of First Nations 101: Tons of Stuff You Need to Know About First Nations People
Reviewed in this essay: First Nations 101: Tons of Stuff You Need to Know About First Nations People, by Lynda Gray (Adaawx, 2011, 275 pages). I’m a First Nations survivor of the ’60s and ’70s “Scoop”, the government-imposed movement that took hundreds of Aboriginal children away from their families, culture, traditions and heritage. I was…
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Chasing Cures: A Review of Erin Knight’s Chaser
Reviewed in this essay: Chaser by Erin Knight, House of Anansi Press, 2012. Without experiencing the discomfits of illness, we cannot benefit from the advancement of knowledge and understanding that accompanies diagnosis and healing. Erin Knight’s second book of poems, Chaser, released last spring, explores this fascinating contradiction, as well as the pathologies that affect…
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Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection at the Ryerson Image Centre
Reviewed in this essay: “Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection,” Ryerson Image Centre inaugural exhibition. Ryerson University recently became home to the Black Star Collection, a massive archive of photojournalistic prints (over 292,000 objects) that together document the cultural, social, and political history of the 20th century. To mark this significant acquisition (the collection was…
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Hell on Earth: A Review of Jim Williams’s Rock Reject
Rock Reject By Jim Williams Fernwood Press 2012 $19.95 248 pages Asbestos was once referred to as the “miracle fibre.” It’s used as a binder in cement, as insulation and in anti-fire walls. It’s also a carcinogen with a legacy of death that stretches across the globe. It causes cancerous growths on the lungs as…
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Giant: A Witty Revolution
Reviewed in this essay: Giant by Aga Maksimowska. Pedlar Press, 2012. In 1988, Eastern Europe is on the brink of revolution. The citizens of Poland are weary from the stifling Communist management of their lives. Workers set in motion an unprecedented series of strikes that ripple across the country and ignite a slow but steady…
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Confoundingly Wonderful: Martin McDonagh’s “Seven Psychopaths”
Reviewed in this essay: Seven Psychopaths, written and directed by Martin McDonagh. Starring Colin Farrell, Christopher Walken, and Woody Harrelson. Running time: 110 minutes. The trailers for Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s third film, Seven Psychopaths, are wonderfully misleading: they present the film as a quirky gangster comedy about a dog kidnapping gone wrong. They are…
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An infinite number of writing tips: A review of Monkeys with Typewriters
Reviewed in this essay: Monkeys with Typewriters, Scarlett Thomas, Canongate, 2012 Those who can, write; those who can’t, write how-to-write manuals. Of the thousands of fiction and screenwriting how-to books out there, far too few are by published or produced writers. In fact, this former wannabe screenwriter can’t think of a single one. Until now.
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An ambitious take on human nature: Edward O. Wilson’s The Social Conquest of Earth
Reviewed in this essay: The Social Conquest of Earth, by Edward O. Wilson. Liveright, 2012. The first scientific controversy to capture the mind of the young Edward O. Wilson was the so-called Lysenko affair. Wilson, 14 at the time, wrote an enthusiastic essay about the Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko, a Stalinist protégé who advocated the now…
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Going Glocal – FOCUS ASIA at Art Toronto
Reviewed in this article: Beyond Geography, flagship FOCUS ASIA exhibition for Art Toronto It’s no coincidence that Art Toronto, Toronto’s biggest international art fair, chose “Focus ASIA” as it’s theme this year, inviting galleries from Asian countries including China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and the Philippines to show. The rise of the museum in China occupies…
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Total humanity: A review of Mad Hope
Reviewed in this essay: Mad Hope by Heather Birrell. Coach House Books, 2012. Mad Hope, by Toronto writer Heather Birrell, is a collection of 11 short stories that gives the unshakable sense that life, death, love, and grief are being felt and experienced at the highest pitch, all around you. From family relationships, to lovers’…