July 25, 2018

New Summer Reads

I feel selfish keeping my vacation reads to myself, not sharing them properly in reviews (even if those reviews are kind of mini). These books are great, and I want to tell you so properly…

A Tiding of Magpies, by Steve Burrows

The fifth instalment in the Birder Murder Detective Series, which I’ve been a fan of since 2014, I really loved this one. It’s a decidedly post-Brexit novel in which non-domestic birds are causing havoc on the landscape and response is mirroring the xenophobic human population. Detective Chief Inspector Dominic Jejeune is in an interesting place here as an immigrant from Canada, and an expert bird-watcher no less, and when a body turns up (of course) he finds himself distracted by an inquiry regarding his most famous case, and all the while he suspects his girlfriend is in serious danger. As we’ve come to expect from the series, this novel is smart and thoughtful, and rich with suspense.

*

Sunburn, by Laura Lippman

Last year Lippman’s Wilde Lake was a summer reading highlight for Stuart and I both, so we did not hesitate to pick up her latest, which was enthralling and full of twists and so excellent. Laura Lippman is a masterful crafter of both plots and sentences, and this story is truly original and so steeped in atmosphere. Read this to find how how Sunburn is a subversion of the “dead girl” trope.

*

How To Be Famous, by Caitlin Moran

And finally, I am such a Caitlin Moran completist that I even own The Chronicles of Narmo, which she published at age 16. This one is her “second” novel (or third, counting Narmo, which I don’t think she does), a follow-up to How to Build a Girl, and it’s a love letter to Brit-pop and the 1990s, and also a fantasy novel in which teenage girls are loved, valued, and confident in everything they deserve. A self-fulfilling prophecy, I hope? I’l definitely be passing it onto my daughters when it’s time.

July 16, 2018

Summer Reading

When we arrived at our rental cottage up north last Saturday, I was surprised to feel troubled, because here we were in the most idyllic place imaginable on a glorious summer day, the beginning of a splendid week. But it was unease that I encountered—so slight but visceral—as I climbed the hill, took in the vista, and walked the paths I last walked almost a year ago. A few moments before it all clicked: it had been the books, of course. And also the weather—last summer the sky was always dark and brooding and there were storms every day. It was such an uneasy summer, climate-wise, and the books I’d brought along with me only complemented the atmosphere. It is possible that anyone would feel disturbed upon returning to the place where they’d read Emily Fridlund’s History of Wolves, I mean, or experienced the intensity of Liane Moriarty’s Truly, Madly, Guilty. Wilde Lake too, which was a modern take on To Kill a Mockingbird, but with more sinister undertones. Our last night there I started reading a Louise Penny novel and the weather in the opening chapter was identical to the thunder storm crashing outside our cabin window, and I began to wonder if the line between fiction and reality had become blurred. It really was intense, all of it, nine books in a week the definition of intensity anyway. So that when I arrived back there, it all came back, those incredible books I’d been so wrapped up in.

Last year’s summer reads.

It’s funny how books stay with you, and not always in the ways you’d expect. I really enjoyed Jessica J. Lee’s Turning: A Year in the Water last year at the cottage, but it wasn’t a book I expected to return to. I gave that book away in the spring, but when I jumped into the lake last week (over and over again) I realized what a mistake I’d made, that here was a book that had changed my life. I’ve been jumping into lakes and pools ever since I read it instead of easing my way in gently (and sloooowly) as in previous summers, thinking, “If Jessica J. Lee can use a hammer to crack the ice and jump in a lake in December, I’m certainly capable of a cannonball in July.” Back in the lake beside which I first read it, I realized how much this memoir needs a space in my book collection. How much all those books I read last summer had gotten under my skin.

I wasn’t sure how the reading was going to pan out this year—we were going on vacation with three other families, and while this was a very good plan, I was concerned that being surrounded on all sides by people I like might get in the way of my reading prowess. But it turned out not to be the case because, a) it turned out no one was interested in surrounding me on all sides 24 hours a day b) everyone else was reading too and c) our friends had brought their children, who whisked mine away for so much freedom, fun and adventure that I scarcely saw them all week long and therefore got to read so much that I almost go bored of reading. (Almost. I did, however, get bored of potato chips, shockingly, but that was only very temporary and things are back to normal.)

Anyway, it turns out that I read nine books again, and it was exhilarating and amazing. Liane Moriarty again, who does not get nearly enough credit for being a literary genius—the nuance and craft in her work is astounding. More Laura Lippman too, because she is just such an astounding novelist. The latest Birder Murder Mystery, A Tiding of Magpies, which was the first anti-Brexit novel I’ve read since Ali Smith’s Autumn (and it made me thinking about whether a good pro-Brexit novel was a literary impossibility). I really liked it, and also Death in a Darkening Mist, by Iona Whishaw, the third book I’ve read in the Lane Winslow mystery series which has really been a highlight of my summer. The new Caitlin Moran, which was so terrific, laugh-out-loud funny, powerful and profound. So glad to read Celeste Ng’s first novel after loving her latest a few months back. I was happy standing in line at Webers, because I had Tish Cohen’s Little Green in my bag, which was a certainly a novel that had me in its thrall. And Rumaan Alam’s That Kind of Mother still has me thinking about all the spaces in between its story and I think I’m haunted by the ending—such a subtly provocative book.

I wonder which of these will still be haunting me a year from now?

December 18, 2017

Best Bookshops of 2017

There are ups and downs to the book publishing experience, but one definitively excellent thing about putting a book in the world is that it becomes your business to hang out in bookshops all the time. So that even though I hang out in bookshops all the time anyway, I got to do it even more often this year, and to visit legendary bookshops further afield. It was such a delight to visit the following bookshops this year on my travels, but before I get to my list I want to send a shout-out to Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge ON, which is one of my favourite bookstores ever, and to Words Worth Books in Waterloo ON, both of which had me for events this spring but not in-store, which means I didn’t get to go shopping. Which also means I’m probably due for a trip now. I’m also grateful to staff at Bay Bloor Indigo in Toronto and Chapters in Peterborough ON, who were really supportive of my book.

****

Audreys Books, Edmonton AB

I had the best time in Edmonton in September, but a chance to visit Audreys was definitely a highlight. And not just because Mitzi Bytes was a staff pick and had been a bestseller there in May–but it certainly warmed my heart to the place! The story was huge with an amazing selection, and I particularly loved perusing the local authors section—I ended up choosing books by Claire Kelly and Jen Powley. I also bought books for my children and my husband back home, and each of the books was so well-received that it was almost a little bit magic. I could have browsed those shelves for hours…

*

Beggars Banquet Books, Gananoque ON

It rained the whole weekend I was in Gananoque, but during a brief lull in the downpour, I hurried up the road to Beggars Banquet, which I already had an affinity for having become quite fond of owners Alison and Tom, who were charged with bookselling during the 1000 Island Writers Festival. Sometimes a second-hand bookshop [although Beggars Banquet sells books new and used!] smells of dust and must (and I mean that in the best way), but this one smelled of sawdust, brand new bookshelves, whose contents I explored for ages. I ended up getting Liane Moriarty’s Truly Madly Guilty, which I LOVED.

*

Ben McNally Books, Toronto ON

We launched Mitzi Bytes at Ben McNally Books in March, which was absolutely terrific. And then I got to return a week or so later for my friend Rebecca’s launch for So Much Love. Our most recent visit to this hallowed space was at the beginning of the month after going to see the Christmas windows at The Bay—I did some Christmas shopping, and also picked up My Life With Bob, by Pamela Paul, which I’d had my eye on for ages.

*

Curiosity House Books, Creemore ON

I got to go to Creemore three times this year! Once on the most hilarious road trip with Karma Brown, Jennifer Robson, and Kate Hilton for Authors for Indies, when we ate gummy bears and I laughed until I cried at the idea that Drew Berrymore had been previously been married to Red Green, among much other absurdity. I was so absolutely in love with Curiosity House Books that I knew we had to return there with my family in tow, which is what we did for my birthday in June, and we really did have the most perfect day. And then in September we were back again for the nearby Dunedin Literary Festival. And now I really want to check out their new sister store in Collingwood!

*

Happenstance Books and Yarns, Lakefield ON

How had I never been so Happenstance? Not a huge store, but so well stocked, plus they sell knitting supplies too, and there is a candy store adjacent, which pleased my children exponentially. The first time I was there this summer (for the Lakefield Literary Festival) I picked up Laura Lippman’s Wilde Lake, which I adored, and then I returned later in August and got The Misfortune of Marion Palm, by Emily Culliton. They have a great selection, their titles for children in particular.

*

Hunter Street Books, Peterborough ON

Remember when I got into a car accident on the way to Hunter Street Books and ended up owing a mechanic $800, and in the end considered it money well spent because the bookstore didn’t disappoint in the slightest? The store continues to be excellent. We launched Mitzi Bytes there in March and sold all the books, thanks to my parents’ spectacular networking skills, mostly, but still, it was a triumph. When we were back in town in August I ended up buying another stack—I have a problem with self control with their incredible selection of books, and can never buy just one.

*

Lexicon Books, Lunenburg NS

Has a bookshop ever lived up to one’s expectations like Lexicon Books in Lunenburg, NS, though? Originally I was just excited to be visiting, and then they invited me to read alongside Johanna Skibsrud and Rebecca Silver Slayter. I was so excited to meet co-owner Alice, and when I walked into the store, co-owner Jo was sitting at the counter reading my book!! The store was so cozy and charming, and my family (who have seen a bookshop or two) declared their kids’ section the best ever. I ended up buying Alice’s staff pick, 300 Arguments, by Sarah Manguso, and took her comment card too by accident, and now it lives on my bedside table, the best souvenir ever.

*

Lighthouse Books, Brighton ON

This was our second trip to Lighthouse Books, corresponding with our annual camping weekend, and we were so excited to see Mitzi Bytes on the Canadian authors shelf, along with so many other great picks. I ended up buying A History of Wolves, by Emily Fredlund, and my children got a stuffed hedgehog and a teddy bear, we found out their all-time bestselling book was Where Is the Green Sheep, by Mem Fox (a classic!) and then we met a falconer. We can’t wait to be back next year!

*

Mabel’s Fables, Toronto ON

One day last summer, I took my children across town on a road trip to Mabel’s Fable’s and it was the grandest adventure—we explored cool 1960s’ public art along Davisville Avenue, played in the Sharon Lois and Bram Playground, ate super fancy French cakes in a bakery full of weird rich people who were obsessed with dogs, and then we hit up Mabel’s Fables, and had the very best time. I ended up buying Scarborough, by Catherine Hernandez, from their adult selection. And yes, there was a cat called Mabel, the store’s namesake. It was totally worth the trip, and then some.

*

Mabel Murple’s. River John NS

Oh my gosh, and speaking of being worth the trip! The opening of Sheree Fitch’s bookstore (in her barn at the end of an old dirt road) was the reason we went to Nova Scotia in the first place. We showed up the Monday after Canada Day for the store’s opening, along with hundreds of other Fitch fanatics—and we even made the local paper! It was everything—brimful of literary goodness, good people, music, sunshine, and magic. Plus a donkey, and a horse, and a sheep. We had the very best time—and then afterwards we drove up the road and got to play in the ocean.

*

Queen Books, Toronto ON

We had nothing to do on Good Friday, and then I discovered that Toronto’s newest bookshop was open that day. And so we jumped on the streetcar and across town we went, and it was really so delightful, with golden ceilings, amazing wallpaper, so much space and light, and really great books. Something I particularly appreciated was that they managed to have that boutique exclusive feel in terms of inventory and atmosphere, but also coupled this with friendly customer service—which is rare. My one complaint was that my book wasn’t on their shelf, but I didn’t even actually complain, because everything else about the store was wonderful. And then when I returned in October for Jessica Westhead’s book launch for And Also Sharks, having made peace with the fact that they were too cool to stock my book and even forgiven them for it—my book was there! It was there. I could have my bookshop cake and eat it too; really, I could scarcely believe it. (PS On my first visit I got Eileen, by Ottessa Mosfegh, which seems seasonally appropriate, albeit not in an especially festive sense, but I am excited to begin reading it tonight!)

October 10, 2017

Where do my books come from?

The other week I posted a photo of my mailbox on a day that was, I’ll admit it, particularly remarkable, but not unprecedented. I get a lot of books in the mail, and the photo received a lot of likes and comments that made me think about a variety of things—where my books come from, what I do with the books I receive from publishers, whether or not I persist with books I’m not enjoying, and other things. These questions are going to be the foundations of this post, and a couple of others to come, but I wanted to start with this, which is a meme I’ve done before involving listing the last books you’ve read most recently and where they came from.

1. Saints and Misfits, by S.K. Ali: Received from publisher
2. My Conversations with Canadians, by Lee Maracle: Purchased from Publisher’s Booth at Word on the Street
3. Dazzle Patterns, by Alison Watt: Received from publisher
4. What Happened, by Hillary Rodham Clinton: Purchased from Publisher’s Booth at Word on the Street
5. Snacks: A Canadian Food History, by Janis Thiessen: Received from publisher
6. Collected Tarts and Other Indelicacies, by Tabatha Southey: Received from publisher
7. Once More With Feeling, by Meira Cook: Received from publisher
8. Just Jen: Thriving Through Multiple Sclerosis, by Jen Powley: Purchased from Staff Picks shelf at Audreys Books
9. If Clara, by Martha Bailey: Received from publisher
10. The Mother, by Yvette Edwards: Purchased from A Different Book List
11. We All Love the Beautiful Girls, by Joanne Proulx: Purchased from Hunter Street Books
12. What is Going to Happen, by Karen Hoffman: Received from publisher
13. A Bird on Every Tree, by Carol Bruneau: Received from publisher
14. Guidebook to Relative Strangers, by Camille Dungy: Purchased from Parentbooks
15. The Misfortune of Marion Palm, by Emily Culliton: Purchased from Happenstance Books and Yarns
16. Glass Houses, by Louise Penny: Received from publisher (ARC)
17. Today Will Be Different, by Maria Semple: Purchased from Parentbooks last year, this was a reread
18. Annie Muktuk and Other Stories, by Norma Dunning: Received from publisher
19. The Lesser Bohemians, by Eimear McBride: Purchased from Blue Heron Books
20. Pond, by Claire Louise Bennett: Purchased from Parentbooks, this was a reread
21. The Murder Stone, by Louise Penny: Found it in cottage library
22. Wilde Lake, by Laura Lippman: Purchased from Happenstance Books and Yarn
23. Truly, Madly, Guilty, by Lianne Moriarty: Purchased (secondhand) from Beggar’s Bouquet Books
24. Scarborough, by Catherine Hernandez: Purchased from Mabel’s Fables
25. History of Wolves, by Emily Fridlund: Purchased from Lighthouse Books
26. Weaving Water, by Annamarie Beckel: Borrowed from the Toronto Public Library
27. Do Not Become Alarmed, by Maile Meloy: Purchased from Curiosity House Books
28. Turning, by Jessica J. Lee: Purchased from Curiosity House Books
29. The Burning Girl, by Claire Messud: Received from Publisher
30. In the Land of the Birdfishes, by Rebecca Silver Slayter: Purchased from Lexicon Books

Results are a little bit skewed because eight of these are books I read on my summer vacation and I tend to more deliberate in those choices, but still. Of the 30 books I read, 11 of them were received from publishers. They tended to be smaller publishers too because a) these are publishers I have relationships with through my work with 49thShelf.com and b) some of these books are harder to find in Ontario bookstores so I am unlikely to come across them on my own steam, at least before review copies arrive. A few are books that I would not have previously sought out of my own. Two of them I read because their publicists were quite emphatic that I, Kerry Clare addressed personally, should do so—nice work publicists; you were right. And when I do read these books publishers send me, I tend to write about them either on my blog or on 49thShelf.com, or in both places.

I tend not to read ARCs because I don’t like them—I liked to read finished books with nice covers and I like to read them when everyone else is reading them.

I also buy a lot of books and am an avid independent bookshop customer.

And finally, I don’t disclose in blog posts if I’ve received a book from a publisher. A lot of bloggers do, and on some blogs that are exclusively review sites, it makes sense. But I don’t think it does for me. I trust myself after ten years that my reviews are not biased because I’ve received a review copy—though this was a learning curve for me for sure but I got over it years ago. I get so many books in the mail, most of which I don’t even read, that the idea of treating these books differently than the books I purchase myself is kind of ridiculous—if anything, these books that find their way to me rather than me seeking them out myself actually get read much more critically, as in, “You better be worth my precious time, Book-I-didn’t-even-ask-for.” I also know that professional reviewers (of which I am one) receive review copies as standard practice and this doesn’t need to be disclosed in their reviews. And finally, I see this blog as a space for me, first and foremost, and that anybody else likes to read it is just gravy, but to pepper my posts with disclosures and the like would undermine the authenticity of what I’m up to here.

August 27, 2017

All Time Record

I made a very uncharacteristic vow a few months ago to only bring a couple of books on vacation, and not be so maniacally compelled to be always reading. Because I remember feeling pressure to read on previous vacations, which is stupid for a vacation and also made me anti-social…and then I ended up bringing seven books on vacation, plus a few extras, for Stuart to read and for just-in-case scenarios. But I decided I didn’t have to finish them all during our week at the lake. What better way to retain that holiday feeling than to let the holiday reading continue over into the week we’re back home, I thought. There was no pressure. I was going away with a towering stack, but I didn’t have to read all of them.

But then I did! Without being anti-social, even, because I also swam in the lake, played UNO and charades and Old Maid and Zingo. But on top of this, I lingered in bed in the mornings, read by flashlight at night after everyone was asleep, and got lots of reading in while the children were out chasing frogs, treasure hunting, or partaking in nighttime movies every evening at 7pm in the rec hall. There was time enough for all the reading, but also for all the other things. The days were so perfectly elastic, the way summer days are meant to be.

There was no rhyme nor reason to my stack of holiday books, except for the first, which was The Burning Girl, by Claire Messud, because I had to get it read for work reasons. But it turned out to be perfect, because it was such a summer book, steeped in atmosphere and there was a quarry and everything. Such a strange, skewed book too though, like everything Messud writes. It’s a look back on a friendship between two girls which breaks off at the point in which girlhood breaks off into womanhood, and the whole story delivered with this spectacular dose of nostalgia—except the main events of the narrative are just two years before and the narrator is still a teenager. I wasn’t expecting that, and it was kind of disorienting, this idea of the 1990s being something that happened “before I was born.” I’m used to young protagonists being set in the past. It was interesting. And she was such an interesting protagonist too, elusive and tricky in the way of Messud’s from The Women Upstairs. (Remember the furor from that book, about women and likability, and then Jennifer Weiner got involved?) This book is more subtle though, so much so that it needs an additional read to puzzle out its construction. The “Bev Burnes” character continues to haunt me, with her ample backside. And yes, the quarry. It would turn out that nearly all my holiday books would take place around bodies of water. Isn’t it funny the way that a syllabus assumes itself?

From this point on my reading also became a fun celebration of all the bookshops I’ve been visiting this spring and summer. I picked up Turning, by Jessica J. Lee at Curiosity House Books when we were in Creemore in June, a book I was partial to for #SwimLit reasons and also because of Lindsay’s review at her swimming hole blog. Once again, a book focussed on a body of water, or in this case many of them—although this time I’d seen it coming. The memoir is Lee’s story of her lifelong complicated relationship with swimming and water, and also with notions of identity and home, and about how she got over a bout of heartache and depression by spending a year swimming in lakes near her home in Berlin. A year indeed, which means Lee swims in all kinds of weather, in the deepest winter with a hammer to break the ice, and in the winter she never swims for too long. Although apparently the more you winter swim, your body grows accustomed to lower temperatures—though I’m going to just take her word for it. (I must say that Lee inspired me to jump into the lake wholeheartedly every day and not be a slow entering ninny. If she can swim in December, I can just in during August.) I liked the book a lot, and found it strange and disorienting in a fascinating way, the way a foreign city first appears, kind of. It was unusual to be reading about Germany and Berlin because all my frames of reference for swimming are so Canadian and English—it occurs to me that I know nothing about German geography at all, and little more about its literature. There is so much still to be immersed it, but Lee’s memoir was a memorable dip.

Next I read Do Not Become Alarmed, by Maile Maloy (also from Curiosity House Books in Creemore), whom I’d never read before, but I purchased the novel after reading Ann Patchett’s endorsement. In her back-of-the-book blurb, Patchett writes that this is the kind of novel you will barrel through and then should go back and re-read to realize how technically brilliant it is. Not quite sure I’ll be doing the latter, but this is a 300+page book that I read in less than a day. Also about a body of water, this one being an alligator-infested river in Panama in which a group of American children are floating in inner-tubes when they drift away from their errant parents. The American children are on a cruise with their families and they’ve just embarked from an excursion, and it’s all gone a bit wrong, and it’s only going to get worse. The story is indeed fast-paced and enthralling, and there were a few moments where the prose and what was happening took my breath away. This is a book about privilege, naivety, stupidity, and the ways in which Americans (and their ilk—hi! [waves]) are able to go about their lives protected from the risks and dangers that are commonplace in so many other countries.

Next up was Weaving Water, by Annamarie Beckel, which was a book I’d been interested in for Annie Dillard Tinker Creek reasons, and then picked up to read after I met Annamarie at the Lakefield Literary Festival. In this book, the body of water in question is a pond in Newfoundland—and the novel points out that “ponds” in Newfoundland can often be the size of large lakes. On the banks of the pond is an old cabin that belonged to Beth Meyer’s husband’s great-aunt, who left it to them after she died. An ecologist by training and on the cusp of a new stage in life now that her daughter has gone away to school, Beth moves out to the remote cabin to do research on river otters, looking for answers to save an earth in peril. She meets her eccentric neighbour with an unshakable belief in ghosts and magic, and her neighbour’s nephew who Beth is drawn to in spite of herself. It turns out the answers Beth is looking for are not just about river otters after all, but the creatures remain at the centre of the novel and Beckel’s wonder at their habits and mysteries are absolutely palpable.

It took me a while to know that Emily Fridlund’s A History of Wolves (which I bought at Lighthouse Books in Brighton the weekend we were camping) would really work. There’s something off-putting about it, and it takes time to realize that that off-puttingness is part of its very design. Ostensibly, it fits right in with all the other books, with the body of water even—the lake the narrator lives on with her parents at their abandoned commune, isolated in the woods of northern Minnesota. But then a couple moves into a new cabin across the lake, and she can watches them through their windows, and begins to care for their young son. And she’s drawn to the family in a way that’s connected with a former teacher who was eventually charged with possession of child p*rnography, and a classmate who’d been connected to him. How do all the pieces fit together? To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure and it’s the kind of book I should return to and I’m even compelled to, but am not sure I will. Because of the off-puttingness, a narrator who never really connects to anyone. Again, which is the point, and there’s a killer last line that underlines this point. I ended up really appreciating this book, though I can’t say I liked it. But in the end, it was a perfect fit with all the rest, the splash of the paddle from Linda’s canoe as she makes her way across the lake.

I wasn’t sure how Scarborough, by Catherine Hernandez (which I bought on our trip to Mabel’s Fables a few weeks back), would fit in with all the rest, a book that is so urban. But then it turned out to have its own body of water, the Rouge River, and the book opens with a heron at the river’s mouth, and it moves through the seasons in the same way Lee’s Turning did. I loved this novel, which had been recommended by loads of people and which I read in less than a day. At the centre of the story is a drop-in centre at a Scarborough elementary school where families turn up for company, support…and breakfast. We see the program coordinator’s communications with her supervisor and the way that bureaucratic requirements (and racism) keep the program from properly serving the people it’s meant to. There are failings and there is tragedy, but there is also resilience and connection. Scarborough has just been nominated for a Toronto Book Award and I’m thrilled about that.

Next up was Lianne Moriarty’s Truly Madly Guilty, which I bought at Beggar’s Banquet Books in Gananoque when I was there in early May. I loved her Big Little Lies back in March, and remember hearing about this one when it came out last year but then didn’t read it after coming across a dismissive review—I think there was a big reveal that was meant to be anti-climatic in the end. But I’m so glad I finally picked it up. Moriarty is brilliant, and will never get the literary credit she deserves for sexist reasons. Indeed, this is a novel that revolves around a mystery—something happened at a bbq and the novel moves between the perspectives of different characters reflecting on the events leading up to it. At the centre of the book is two friends, Clementine and Erica, friends since childhood with a complicated dynamic. And Moriarty gets it so perfectly, the way that a friendship can come with ambivalence and animosity, and she ties it to the women’s marriages and their relationships to their mothers. The reviewer is correct that the big reveal is less than we’ve been lead to believe it’s going to be—but it doesn’t matter because the point of the book turns out to be so much bigger than what happened one night. And that’s what’s so fantastic about it, the hugeness of this novel’s scope—this event of one night ends up connecting to stories that are decades old and to characters far-flung and nearby. It reminded me of The Slap, by Christian Tsiolkas, but without the violence and misogyny. Moriarty manages to show every single character at their worst, but redeem them too in a way that’s entirely believable. And now I want to read every single thing she’s ever written. (PS: this was the one that didn’t quite click with all the others, but then there ended up being a body of water after all, which was a very tacky backyard fountain that meets with a sorry end.)

And next up to another woman writer who doesn’t get the credit for being as brilliant as she is, and that’s Laura Lippman—although she gets some credit. I’ve loved her work for years now, and was happy to read Wilde Lake, which I bought at Happenstance Books when I was there for the Lakefield Literary Festival. Stuart had already read it and couldn’t wait for me to finally get to it so we could talk about it. Loosely an homage to To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s about a newly elected State Attorney in Howard County, Maryland, who’s following in her revered father’s footsteps. When Lu’s first big murder case surprisingly hearkens back to events during the summer of 1980 during which her big-shot brother was involved in an altercation where somebody turned up dead, all kinds of long-forgotten secrets are brought up to the surface. This is a novel about rape culture, and the ways in which changes in the law have influenced how rapes are prosecuted, and it’s about fallibility, family secrets, and lost ideals, and I thought about it for days and days afterwards. It’s full of twists and surprises, and the most evocatively depicted small town, built around a lake, of course. It’s really an extraordinarily good novel.

And then it was Friday and we were heading home the next day and the other book we’d bought was Bear Town, but Stuart was in the middle of it. And so I went to check out the library at the resort we were staying at, and was pleased to discover The Murder Stone, by Louise Penny (which was the UK title, published in Canada as A Rule Against Murder), which I haven’t read yet. (I came to Penny’s Three Pines series late with A Trick of the Light.) It was absolutely perfect to read because it was set at a place much like the place where were staying (albeit much much more fancy!) and as I was reading the part in the book where there was a huge storm with thunder and lightning, we were having the exact same weather and the lightning kept illuminating our little cabin just like daylight, and it was all a little too close to home.

January 11, 2015

The Devil You Know by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

The stakes were high for Elisabeth de Mariaffi’s The Devil You Know. On Wednesday morning, I walked 2km at -25 degrees to get a copy, because I’d been hearing such good things about it and it seemed like exactly the kind of book you want to hang out with curled up warm while the blizzard howls. A mystery, a thriller, a book set in Southern Ontario during the 1980s and early ’90s, during which a series of young girls were kidnapped and sometimes found murdered, otherwise their faces depicted on posters for years afterwards under the heading, “Missing.” Years later, “aged-enhanced” images of these children would be updated, but we’d still recognize them. I’ve noticed that reviewers have been responding to the book personally, viscerally. There’s a whole generation of us haunted by these missing girls—I could plot my own history by theirs, from Nicole Morin to Alicia Ross. (I was too young to know about the disappearance and murder of Sharin’ Morningstar Keenan in 1983, though she was taken the very playground where my children play.)

Evie Jones, rookie reporter and protagonist of The Devil You Know is similarly haunted, not least because she’s currently covering the Paul Bernardo case as he and his wife are arrested for the murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy in 1993. But also, in particular, because her own childhood best friend was one of the dead girls, Lianne Gagnon, whose story is a fiction conflating the cases of Keenan and Allison Parrott, who was last seen getting into a car with a strange man near Varsity Stadium eleven years before. Leanne’s killer was never found. And when a strange man begins appearing on Evie’s fire escape and elsewhere, a dark figure skirting on the periphery of her life, she begins to wonder if it’s Lianne’s killer returned and if there’s something that he wants from her. Her fears are dismissed by those around her, but she can’t shake the feeling that she’s under threat, and no wonder—her own history, and the stories of women in the world that she covers in her job, do absolutely nothing to suggest otherwise.

It is suggested—perhaps too strongly, my one criticism of this book, for the signs are there and the reader surely can read them—that Evie’s job as a crime reporter is part of her need to control the forces in her life, that she seeks out stories like Bernardo’s and the stories in missing and dead girls, in order to be in command of the narrative for once. And by those concerned for Evie’s wellbeing, it is suggested too that her need for control is a bad thing, that it’s detrimental to her mental health, and that it’s this desperation making her imagine the footsteps at the door… I mean, never mind the actual footsteps at the door.

But with Evie, de Mariaffi dares to posit instead that female agency is a salve instead of a symptom. Evie Jones is far from perfect, but she’s smart, unflinching, shameless, and brave. The hero of her own story, certainly.

In her research, employing a brand new tool called the internet, Evie starts looking back at the records of what happened to her friend, and learns that there is more to the story than she ever knew. The big picture that emerges as she puts pieces together begins to suggest that the story of Lianne’s disappearance is less random than Evie ever supposed, and that she can trace the case back to a place that’s closer to home than she can bare to imagine. And that all the trouble (and the footsteps) might not be in her head after all.

The Devil You Know is a gripping, fast-paced book that I had to be torn away from, an excellent crime book with strong female protagonists, in scintillating company with those by Laura Lippman and Gillian Flynn. But there is more to it than that. More than just nostalgia too, though it’s a part of it. de Mariaffi was long-listed for the Giller prize a couple of years ago for her short story collection, How to Get Along With Women, which included her acclaimed short story, “Kiss Me Like I’m the Last Man on Earth,” which I first read in The New Quarterly. And while it seemed like a leap for a writer to go from literary short stories to a thriller, once I began reading The Devil…, the connection seemed quite straightforward to me. Partly because of the nostalgia that infuses both the novel and the story, 1980s Toronto in startling specificity. But also because of how much short story writing sets one up to write a plot driven novel—this has never occurred to me before.

Short stories are all about atmosphere and their scenes, one moment standing in for many, representative of a broader picture. Nothing is extraneous, and so too is it with a crime novel, plot-driven, which just really means one scene after another. Though perhaps with some writers and books, the reader doesn’t notice the scene, so preoccupied is she by plot, but the scenes stand out in The Devil You Know. A gripping, fast-paced book that I had to be torn away from, and I kept noticing the scenes, which were like tiny short stories contained within. The plot is the book’s foundation, but the story rises far and large above it.

It was terrific, and definitely worth a walk in the cold.

• Purchase The Devil You Know from McNally Robinson Booksellers

August 26, 2012

Suspicion by Rachel Wyatt

Of course, there’s been that one book that everyone’s been talking about this summer, but in more discerning circles, that one book has been Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. I was sold on it by buzzing from reliable sources, as well as back cover blurbs by Kate Atkinson, Laura Lippman and Kate Christensen, which is some kind of pedigree. I devoured Gone Girl the first day of my vacation last month, and adored how Flynn sent-up and played with tropes of the mystery and thriller genres in her smart, funny, and very contemporary novel. It was a “whodunnit” in which we (thought we) knew “who”, but the “it” remained the question, compelling us through a whirligig of twists and turns.

In her new novel Suspicion, Rachel Wyatt has given us a Canadian version of Gillian Flynn’s summer sensation. Similarly, a woman has gone missing, and suspicion falls upon her husband. The backdrop to the story is a troubled economy that might drive anyone’s desparation, and it turns out that few people  in the supposedly close-knit community of Ghills Lake know their neighbours quite as well as they should. And that those who do know a little too much…

The twist in Suspicion, however, is that the “it” in “whodunnit” is precisely nothing, and the “who” is no one. Candace Wilson is missing, not because her husband did her in to get sympathy for his unpopular development project that threatens to mar the waterfront in their BC interior community, and not because her ex-lover’s wife killed her out of spite (and besides, how could she from her wheelchair?) and not because her resentful sister had finally had enough. No, as Wyatt makes clear from the start, Candace has stumbled into a deep hole hidden in the ground (not metaphorical) and she has broken her leg. She is trapped in the hole with no hope of rescue, what with everyone being all-consumed by far more dramatic theories involving murder, kidnapping, and scandalous trysts.

As with Flynn’s book, the characters in Suspicion find themselves unwitting players in a plot well-recognized from books, movies and TV. Against all their instincts and best intentions, they find themselves playing to type, the suspicious husband looking even more suspicious after he gets arrested for driving drunk, acts strange in police interviews and sleeps with his sister-in-law. The sister-in-law too is pulled between her own suspicions, her feelings for her sister’s husband, and her shameful feelings of relief about her sister being gone.

Other characters begin to manipulate the story for their own purposes, the wheelchair-bound wife of Candace’s ex-lover sharing her own theories on the internet forum where she commands authority, Candace’s sister’s husband finding himself overwhelmed by visions of Candace’s whereabouts which he employs in his mediocre art, and a journalist who’s turned up in town searching for some local colour is spinning her own impossible version of events. The police chase up one hopeless lead after another, all the while Candace is lying underground, cold and hungry and losing consciousness.

Suspicion is a literary trick masquerading as a great suspense novel, a story with meta-elements in which characters must reconcile the fact that they’ve become characters. Some resist, others revel, and we are shown how story, plot and drama are born in ordinary places, in ordinary lives. The only problem with this approach, of course, is that Wyatt’s characters acting as stock-characters can begin to seem a little too much like stock-characters, at times more to due sloppy plotting than a literary sleight-of-hand. There are a few too many scenes with hysterical women fleeing rooms in tears, with men struggling to contain inexpressible rage, smarmy types too eager to capitalize on Candace’s misfortune. There is a fine line between those characters who think they’re people on a page, and the people on a page after all. Even if they’re actually people on a page (and here is where my argument begins to look like the girl on the Borax box who’s holding a Borax box on into infinity).

But for the most part, Wyatt has drawn this line well, and ultimately, Suspicion is successful. Like Gone Girl, it’s a book very much of its time and place, very evocotively “there and now”. And while readers will come for the promises of gripping suspense, they’ll stay for the literary play, and the novel’s reflections on modern life, and love and marriage.

June 25, 2012

Summer summer at 49thShelf

I’m in love with the main page of 49thShelf this week, with its Summer Summer list front and centre. Images of docks, beaches, summer reading, barbecues, the Beach Boys and a swing. I’m looking forward to reading Tricia Dower’s Stony River in the next week or so– I enjoyed her first book and interviewed her in 2008. Right now I’m reading Emily Perkins’ The Forrests, which starts slow but becomes enthralling. Also, I received Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl for my birthday, which is my cottage reading set. She’s got blurbs by Kate Atkinson, Kate Christensen and Laura Lippman, which is some pedigree, I think. Can’t wait to be beach-side with this one.

August 16, 2011

Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens

I’m really not a snob, I’ve just got a problem with bad books, and this is why I struggle so much when I try to read popular fiction. Which is why I’m always so elated when I discover a book that proves that bad books and popular fiction are not synonymous, that finally I too get to be swept away by a thriller that holds me right to the end. And in this case, the book was Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens, a book I love with the same part of me that loves loves Laura Lippman (and also with the part that really loved Scream.)

Sara Gallagher has always believed that discovering the identity of her birth mother would bring her some closure, to fill in the missing pieces of the background of a life that has turned out pretty well. She runs a successful business, is well-loved by her young daughter, is engaged to be married to a man who she loves. But Julia, her birth mother, is cold and hostile when she finally meets her, and Sara senses there is more to the story than what she’s been told. With a little prying, Sara discovers that her birth mother is the only surviving victim of the notorious Campsite Killer, and that the Campsite Killer is her father.

When Sara and Julia’s identities are leaked onto an online crime forum, suddenly the whole world discovers the story, including Sara’s own parents who are angry that she never told them she was searching for the truth about her past. Even worse, however, the Campsite Killer himself, still on the loose and killing after all these years, finds out that he has a daughter, and is determined to make a connection. Sara is forced into a complicated situation as she must satisfy her own curiosity about the father she never knew, reconcile that she’s the product of a monster, assist the police in their investigation by forging a relationship with the killer, and also not let her self or her family come into danger. Sara is being used by the police and by the killer for their own ends, and the situation strains Sara’s own relationship with her daughter and fiance as her wedding date approaches.

With Stevens’ previous novel Still Missing, Never Knowing is structured in first person narrative, with Sara talking with her psychiatrist. The structure works, carefully controlling how the tension builds throughout the novel, and the narration never suffers from unnecessary exposition– it all unfolds quite naturally. Sara’s voice is strong and it makes her character clear. Stevens complicates the plot with domestic drama– Sarah has never seen eye-to-eye with her domineering father, she can’t stand one of her sisters, her fiance is jealous of the police officer who’s working closely with Sara on the case. Her daughter is acting out in response to all the attention Sara is paying elsewhere, and her daughter’s behaviour, as well as Sara’s own impulsiveness have her considering the possibilities of her genetic inheritance.

What I loved about this book is that Sara’s were responses were that of a real person, rather than a plot device. She keeps those around her informed of what’s going on, we don’t have to tell her, “Don’t go down into the basement!” because she knows better. She’s a smart woman whose wits are being tested, but she’s got her self-preservation instincts in tact, and her first priority is protecting her daughter. Which becomes more and more difficult as the Campsite Killer gets closer, and though it’s clearly never going to end well, Sara’s adamant that she’s going to end it nevertheless.

June 10, 2010

Hot Summer Books!

Okay, these are called hot only because I’m looking forward to reading them this summer, but that’s hot enough, right?

The Lovers by Vendela Vida: Truthfully, I know nothing about this book except that it’s Vida’s new one, but her last novel Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name was so stunning, surprising, and subtly brutal that I’ve been hungry for its follow-up ever since.

Far to Go by Alison Pick: I read an excerpt in The New Quarterly a few issues ago, and have been looking foward to it ever since. I read Pick’s first novel The Sweet Edge last summer, she’s a poet as well, and this story is something completely different, set in Czechoslovakia in 1939 and based on the experiences of her family. (I can’t find a link, but it’s published by Anansi).

The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn: I read her novel What Was Lost last summer, and am looking forward to this follow-up. Though British old-lady novelists are my favourite, I’ve got a thing for the young ones too.

I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman: Once again, I know nothing about this except that it’s Laura Lippman’s latest stand-alone, and we do love Laura Lippman here at Pickle Me This. Sadly, my life is no longer as such that I can curl up in a Muskoka chair with a beer, and give my weekend over to it, but I’ll make do and no doubt be enthralled.