We’re just a month out from the publication of Martha Wilson’s Nosy White Woman, in which a daughter tries to explain to her mother why calling the police isn’t always a good idea. A caretaking group of sisters must rely on each other, but one has a fierce drinking problem. A mother confronts the frightening environmental damage of the world in which her child must grow old. In these sixteen stories, Martha Wilson provides a powerful look at the intersection of politics and daily life in our contemporary world, showing us the banal and gritty connections that lie there.

The critics are raving about Nosy White Woman:

“Resonates in that narrow space where everyday life drips with meaning and the quiet world around us breathes its secrets. Nosy White Woman both elevates the ordinary and strips back its facade to reveal the often uncomfortable truths it hides.”
—Charlie Lovett, New York Times-bestselling author of The Bookman’s Tale and The Lost Book of the Grail

“Nosy White Woman is a collection of compelling stories replete with delicious contradictions. Filled with sardonic, sly humour, the stories can be as touching and fleeting as daily life. The book catches today’s zeitgeist, while the style is at once traditional and decidedly contemporary. I looked forward to every spare moment I could find to read this terrific collection.”
—Antanas Sileika, author of Provisionally Yours and The Barefoot Bingo Caller

“If I say morally subtle, I’m worried you won’t get how thrilling these stories are. And oh, they are thrilling. Martha Wilson plumbs the smallest moments of everyday life—of aging, marriage, parents and children—to unclog the biggest questions. In her gloomy and hilarious way, she makes familiar dramas, insults, and injuries—what one narrator calls “the small tragedies”—sparklingly fresh. If you’re looking for crescendo and certainty, though, then don’t read this absolutely quietly perfect book that I devoured through the night with a headlamp on because that’s how good it is.”
—Catherine Newman, author of Catastrophic Happiness and Waiting for Birdy

“Martha Wilson’s curiosity about the world is wide-ranging and generous. In these fine stories, she brings a tender, courageous and precise attention to her characters’ foibles and concerns, while charting the places where ordinary lives intersect with and react to the political.”
—Kim Aubrey, author of What We Hold in Our Hands

“Martha Wilson is one of those authors who gives the impression of knowing all our secrets and liking us anyway. She writes with wit and compassion about ordinary people dealing as well as they can with life’s immensities – growing up, getting married, becoming parents, watching their own parents age and die. Halfway through this wonderful collection of stories, I knew I would recognize Martha Wilson’s voice whenever I encountered it. And I hope I will encounter it often.”
—K.D. Miller, author of Late Breaking and the Rogers Writers’ Trust-shortlisted All Saints

Can’t wait to hear more from Martha Wilson? Here’s an interview:

A Biblioasis Interview with Martha Wilson, author of Nosy White Woman

For those who are coming to your work for the first time, can you tell us a little about yourself and your writing?

I’m interested in the small events of daily life. My favourite moments are when I notice some weird little detail or transaction, often something I nearly miss. I might feel the faintest poke at the back of my brain: “Hang on; what was that?” I love that we can stop and assess what just happened, like a video replay. In one of Barbara Pym’s novels there’s a character in a cafe who observes a tiny moment of friction between a customer and a waitress, and he asks himself, “Now what have I seen? Something or nothing?” I’ve thought about that passage a lot over the years.

How did this collection come together?

I write really slowly, and it took me a long time to finish these stories. One thing I’ve found satisfying about finally completing the book is that it seemed to free up some space in my brain for other writing and for future projects. Sometimes I turn an idea over and over in my mind for years, trying to figure out what it means, or meant, or could mean, or might have meant. Once I had those remembered elements pinned down at last, after a long time of letting them tumble around, I felt a satisfying sense of things clicking into place—a sense of doneness, of finishing. That was an unanticipated pleasure.

If you could pick one thing you’d like your reader to take away from this book, what would it be?

We all think, want, plan so many of the same crazy things. Reading is so private and internal and kind of unsharable; but it’s also being inside another person’s head. It’s pretty intimate! And I’m always fascinated when it turns out that some weird notion I’m afraid I made up is, in fact, evidently quite common. It happens all the time. We’re not alone! You’re not alone! Whatever peculiar idea you’re fretting over, millions of other people are wondering exactly the same thing. I find great comfort in that.

Your title story, “Nosy White Woman,” looks at why white people are so ready to call the police, which is a hot political topic right now, but it wasn’t as talked about when you first wrote the story. How did you come to new realizations about privilege as an adult, and why did you decide to write about them?

I first became aware of the phrase “driving while black” with the early Men in Black movies. So around twenty years ago. While it’s played for laughs in those movies (wry jokes, but still jokes), over time I heard about it more often and realized that this was way, way beyond merely a nuisance for the people getting stopped. The two changes that underlined this reality were smartphones and social media platforms; suddenly people could record their encounters with police and post them online. And it’s horrifying. A relatively calm situation can accelerate so quickly. To have to endure this ongoing possibility of violence, every day, seems exhausting and scary beyond words.

In that story, the mom is someone who hasn’t assimilated this information yet. She’s not a racist. She’s a white woman who hasn’t yet recognized this aspect of white privilege, because her experience has been so completely different. For her the police have always, only, been helpful and reasonable.

The Men in Black example is an apt one, in fact, because seeing the encounters some people have had with police officers made me feel there was a whole different world from the one I live in—a parallel universe. I thought, How have I been so naive? Am I crazy? It was a crystal-clear, extremely chilling example of white privilege that I had been utterly oblivious about. It flipped my understanding of a lot of things about the world.

Who are some short fiction writers who have inspired you?

Well, Alice Munro. I don’t think she’s even human, what she can do. And I love writing that’s self-conscious and funny and sad, without being tricky or fancy with the language. I like plain language. I love Nicholson Baker, Julie Hecht—I chose the epigraphs for my book from their work. Sarah Shun-lien Bynum; I deeply admire her fiction collection Ms. Hempel Chronicles. It’s about a middle school teacher! How cool is that? I loved that book.

How have your experiences living abroad changed your perspective and your writing?

Elections are terribly important—that’s something I’ve come to understand. And not just the big ones; president, prime minister. Local elections matter so much. Policy has an enormous, ongoing impact on people’s daily lives, and elections determine policy. I’m also surprised, and frustrated, that it’s so difficult to deeply understand another place’s politics. This is something I wrote a bit about in my book, in the story “Midway.” Even when you earnestly try, what’s going on elsewhere is slippery and nuanced and multi-layered, with all sorts of background and ramifications that are hard to parse if you don’t live there. Still, we need to pay a lot more attention than we generally do.

What are you reading right now?

I just began Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble, and I’m liking it a lot so far. It really gallops along—so smart and compelling. I’m rereading Crampton Hodnet, my favourite Barbara Pym book. It’s not her best, but it’s irresistible. (A few years ago I gave a paper at the annual Barbara Pym conference in Boston, and it remains one of the highlights of my life. I adore her.) And I’ve just begun a truly terrible Agatha Christie mystery set in ancient Egypt (!!). (I know.) It’s called Death Comes as the End. My older daughter and I hoard Christie mysteries we track down at bookstores over the course of the year, and as soon as she finishes school for the summer we tuck into them and compare notes. Oh, and I’m reading Swann’s Way, also with that daughter. She and I have a two-person book club. We are shocked—Swann is a dog. He truly is. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it.

Dear Friends,

When I started this year at Biblioasis, I read as many of our books as I could get my hands on, and Death and the Seaside by Alison Moore has been my favourite one so far (and there are ARCs available now!). It’s thought-provoking, enchanting, and creepy (but not so creepy that a complete wuss like me couldn’t handle it). I found myself listening for noises in the house when I read it at night, and I couldn’t stop thinking about getting back to it when I was at work.

It’s about Bonnie, an aspiring writer in her late twenties, who finally moves out of her parents’ place and into her own apartment. Her landlady starts to take an interest in both her and her writing—and let’s just say some boundaries are crossed. Soon they’re heading out of town on holiday together to a town similar to one in a story Bonnie is writing, and things get intense.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

‘Where do you think the anxiety in your writing stems from?’ asked Sylvia. ‘This obsession with the fragility of limbs?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Bonnie, who had never seen her writing that way. ‘I don’t feel particularly anxious.’

‘Well, here and now, you are in a safe and predictable environment. But were you to be removed from such a safe and predictable environment, you might expect anxiety levels to rise.’

Bonnie looked anxiously at Sylvia. ‘Removed?’ she said. 

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

It’s also easily a big office favourite. Theo loves how Sylvia struggles to distinguish between fiction and life, between literary criticsim and descriptions of reality and how the book critiques that problem. She also loved the book’s description of post-BA drift—that moment when you’re done school and still not quite sure what you should do next.

Meghan said the book was one of the best explorations of anxiety, inertia, and the lack of personal agency that she’d ever seen. While her feelings of unease grew throughout the book, so too did her desire to see Bonnie take charge of her own story. Meghan said that Moore gives us one of the cleanest and most satisfying endings she’s read in a long time.

Casey called it unsettling and intimate. She noted how easily Sylvia takes control of Bonnie and how helpless you feel for her. You can feel whatever little sense of independence and self-regard Bonnie has being meticulously swept away by her landlady—you know that there is something malevolent about Sylvia, but you can’t look away. Casey called the ending “a friggin’ ending for the record books.” She said it was completely unexpected, with an emotional crash of a falling building. Though Casey loves all of Alison Moore’s books, she thinks this is her at her undeniable best.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

The book already saw raves in the UK:

“As with earlier masters of the genre such as Daphne du Maurier, Moore creates a psychological thriller dripping with foreboding . . . Another triumph from Moore, her clear and unambiguous writing style as well as her ability to build tension will appeal to both adolescents and adults.”
—Jacqueline Snider, Library Journal

“Book of the day. Dense, complex, thought-provoking, it manages to be at once a fairytale and a philosophical treatise, high-octane thriller and literary interrogation. Like the dreams that haunt Bonnie’s night-times, it holds its secrets close, and repays careful rereading. The end of the novel, abrupt and death-haunted, feels as neat and tight as a key in a lock, and sheds light on the mysteries that have gone before.”
—Sarah Crown, The Guardian

“She is both gifted stylist and talented creator of a new English grotesque.”
—Isabel Berwick, Financial Times

I hope you’ll check out this beautiful and haunting novel! E-mail Casey for an ARC at cplett@biblioasis.com!

Best,
Chloe

Announcing the July 9 publication of Patrick Warner’s My Camino

Three plucky misfits cycle the Camino de Santiago—backwards.
Reeling from the Night of Nights, an unexpected blockbuster art show, Floss, a transgender New York gallery owner, invites subversive installation artist Budsy and their best friend the Apostle John to cycle the Camino de Santiago. When Floss tells her friends about her shocking experience at the hands of the King of the New York art scene, the journey becomes an anti-pilgrimage—from spiritual discovery to revenge fantasy. Moving from New York to Spain to Dublin, My Camino is a book about misfits, identity, art and spirituality narrated by the audacious Apostle John whose telling sometimes rhymes, is often hilarious and is always a blistering account of the contemporary art world.

If you can’t wait until July 9 to hear more about this crazy book, then read on for a Biblioasis interview with Patrick Warner:

For those who are unfamiliar with your work, can you tell us a little about yourself and your writing?

That’s a hard one. Who can say with any confidence what their writing is about? I’ve published five collections of poetry. My poems tend to be image based with one foot in the traditional world of meter and rhyme. I will write a poem about whatever engages me—so I’ve written poems about shellfish, dancehall fights, leaves, turf, fishing, insurance, hotel rooms, etc. . . . My novels are also image based—breakthrough insight: I have a visual imagination. I write about what to me is blackly funny: grief, revenge, etc. I do this not because I’m Irish. In terms of style (and maybe I picked this up from poetry) but less is always more. I care a lot about sentence rhythm. I get bored easily, so I like to pack as much into a scene as possible, and I like my language to carry weight without appearing to do so. I want my stories to resonate with current themes, but not to be about those themes. So, in terms of characters, they may identify or be identified in particular ways but really my stories explore who the characters are over and above how others see them or label them. I guess what I’m saying is that I am interested more in what is broadly human than in what is socially-constructed. Between the way people portray themselves and who they actually are. The gap between those two states is where I find comedy.

You’ve said that the germ of this novel came when you were visiting a New York art gallery opening in 2016. Can you tell me more about that?

I’m not sure I said that. I think I may have said that around that time I was writing a long poem, one piece of which was set in a gallery. The poem died, but the man in the white suit and the gallery scene survived to become the core of My Camino.

The novel moves from New York to Spain to Dublin—tell us a bit about your relationship with those places. (And if such a relationship doesn’t exist, tell us about that too!)

I have visited New York and once lived for a year on Staten Island where I worked for the branch libraries of the New York Public Library. I grew up in Ireland (though not in Dublin), moving to Newfoundland when I was 17. Until the recent death of my parents I visited Ireland regularly. Since their deaths I haven’t been back, though I probably will go again soon. I’ve never been to Spain, but during the long cold Canadian winters I keep myself sane with thoughts of moving there and becoming close personal friends with Penélope Cruz and her sister, Monica.

You’re a poet and a novelist. Tell me about the commonalities and differences of working in such different forms.

They are not so far apart as people think. In fact, the longer I work in both forms the fewer differences I see. Compression is the main one, I suppose. Also, the availability of fixed forms—though one could broadly see the middle-brow novel as a fixed form at this stage.

Budsy is obviously a play on Banksy, and the novel’s a send-up of the art world. Tell us a little more about the satire of My Camino.

For art world read literary world. I know almost nothing about the art scene except what I have read and seen on the telly.

What are you reading right now?

The Lesser Blessed by Richard van Camp; Tom Dawe’s New and Selected Poems.

We’re thrilled that not one but two of our summer novels have gotten some New York Times love!

On May 30, Tom Barbash wrote that Original Prin is “an original animal…Clever, often ingenious . . . [raising] fascinating questions about fanaticism and the state of the modern world. Prin evolves in surprising ways, and tensions spike. For readers feeling confounded at the end, fear not. It’s the first in a planned trilogy.”

The very next day, Julie Klam wrote, “Dream Sequence succeeds as a narrative thanks to Foulds’s prose. He doesn’t waste a single word, is frequently very funny, insightful and surprising. And he does a marvelous job of making us wonder who loves Henry the most, Kristin or Henry—and which of these possibilities is the most alarming consequence of celebrity.”

These NYT plaudits follow streams of praise from other sources.

Other Praise for Original Prin:

“Original Prin is many things at once: a richly funny campus novel, a painfully humorous portrait of a modern family, an examination of a whole spectrum of religious faith from shaky to fanatical, and finally, in a climax of pitch-black comedy, a thriller too. Boyagoda writes with real panache and drive. An unputdownable book.”

—Salman Rushdie

“University corruption, infidelity, Catholic theology, Middle Eastern politics: not many writers could convincingly keep so many balls in the air, and that Boyagoda does so in a truly funny novel is impressive enough. But perhaps even more striking is the depth of sensitivity and understanding that Boyagoda brings to the emotive issues of faith, immigration, and violence. By examining the messy intersections between religious fundamentalism, global capitalism, and liberal values through the gentle comic form of the campus novel, Boyagoda does more than offer clever satire—he humanizes these vast impersonal forces even as he imbues them with a moral complexity that frustrates easy political judgment.”

—The Walrus

“That Boyagoda can take on faith, global capitalism, religious terrorism, upper-middle-class preciousness and self-delusion—all the while implicating Canada in traditionally “American” problems—attests to his talent. It also manages to be a taut and funny novel throughout…This is the first volume of a planned trilogy. If I could hazard my own divination of signs, I would bet Boyagoda could take [Prin] anywhere.”

—America: The Jesuit Review of Faith & Culture

“One of the best satirical writers today…immediately funny.”

—Micah Mattix, The American Conservative

“Boyagoda sets up a tightly paced novel in Original Prin that succeeds on a number of fronts. It’s a hilarious romp of a campus novel, poking fun at the market-driven ethos of the modern Canadian academy. It’s a touching look at the complicated sacrifices demanded of familial love. At heart, it’s a richly humorous novel that explores the struggle for spiritual believers in a fiercely secular world…capturing the rambunctious multi-faith, multicultural zeitgeist of the city, particularly in corners where cultures and faith overlap…Boyagoda has crafted a novel that’s fresh and utterly original.”

—Toronto Star

“Timely…supremely funny…Original Prin deals with much that is purely human, centering on Prin’s desire to do the right thing and the very relateable hang-ups and weaknesses that constantly thwart him. Boyagoda’s novels are a reminder of what Catholic literature should be like.”

—The Catholic Register

“A winning combination of academic satire and sociopolitical commentary that leaves readers facing grim reality and acknowledging the irrationality of it all. Globally aware and witty, this is the opening title in a projected trilogy and a tale that offers a fascinating new perspective on journeys of faith and contemporary intellectual pursuits.”

—Booklist

“[Original Prin] skewers the corporatized university and modern world politics alike in this delicious satire…A lively complement to Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim, Malcolm Bradbury’s The History Man, Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys, and other academic sendups.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Princely Umbiligoda appears to have it all—a great job as the leading expert on the marine imagery in Canadian literature; a loving family consisting of a wife and four Disney-obsessed daughters; and a strong spiritual connection to his Catholic faith. But underneath there’s trouble. Trouble at home, trouble at work, trouble in the newspapers, and trouble with his prostate, troubles that lead to troubling doubts about God. And the disturbing reappearance of an old girlfriend. And a career change to…suicide bomber? Did I mention this is a comedy? Well, it is, a great comedy with a brisk pace and a delightfully hapless protagonist the likes of whom I’ve never met before. Original Prin left me eager to read many more of his exploits. Secondary Prin? Tertiary Prin? Bring ’em on.”

—James Crossley, Madison Books

“Boyagoda tempers the subject matter with deftly cunning and witty prose, pinning classical literary references alongside the mundane beauty of office supplies. If it’s possible to create a sympathetic character in a potential suicide bomber, Boyagoda has done it: Prin is a complex yet relatable man searching for, above all, a reason to live.” —Morgan McComb, Raven Book Store

“Original Prin is one of those books that defy classification. It’s very real, yet surreal. It’s funny – actually laugh-out-loud so – but sad.” —Desi News

“A very entertaining read…Prin’s antics are alarming and funny, but the story’s themes of faith and self-deception resonate long after the last sentence.” —CBC Books

“Original Prin finds Boyagoda working explicitly in the tradition of comic Catholic writers such as Evelyn Waugh…It is fabulously rare, in our secular age, to find a novel that focuses so insistently and unironically on a character whose religion is not an ancillary aspect of his persona but absolutely central.” —Quill & Quire

“Boyagoda gets it right.” —Hamilton Review of Books

Other Praise for Dream Sequence:

“Everyone loves a good page-turner full of aspirational scene-setting, but few literary novelists dare to try it . . . [Dream Sequence] is a sexy, celeby drama . . . just like The Great Gatsby, this novel billows around you like a queasy dream, its grand scenery and awful characters combining to take us out of the real world and into another, oddly shimmering version of it.”

—The Times (London)

“Adam Foulds is one of the best fiction writers working today. Dream Sequence possesses all the hallmarks of his previous books–emotional acuity, beautiful prose–and also a seductive plot and an ingenious structure. It’s a great novel. I read it practically in one sitting.”

—David Bezmozgis, author of the Giller-shortlisted The Free World

“Dream Sequence notices everything . . . Description is intimate and visceral, scratching at the glossy surface of the lives of the characters and underpinning the ‘vacuum’ they move through, together but apart . . . This is a novel of screens, of echoes and constant counterpoint, driven by changes in light as much as its reflective plot where matters of ‘acting’ are paramount … [a] shimmering novel.” 

—Times Literary Supplement (TLS)

“What makes this pair so interesting isn’t the asymmetry of their relationship, but that deep down, they’re so similar . . . Both of these people channel their dissatisfaction with the present by living in a rich fantasy land of the future they imagine for themselves – to borrow the novel’s title, a dream sequence – albeit in different ways . . . Proverbial are the dangers of living in the past, but we rarely speak about the perils of living too much for what we imagine to come. Dream Sequence reminds readers to be present and to value what you have now.”

—The Globe and Mail

“[An] entertainingly skewering new novel about ambition and obsession.”

—Toronto Star

“[A] livewire exploration of sex and power.” 

—Metro News

“An outstanding and unyielding exploration of celebrity, fame, and all its attendant obsessions…Foulds’s novel is fun, smart, and tense, part psychological drama about media-driven obsession and part razor-sharp social critique.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[Dream Sequence] is an exquisitely concocted, riveting account of artistic ambition and unrequited love verging on obsession . . . Foulds is proving himself to be a versatile writer of intelligence and charm.”

—The Spectator

“Precise and compressed language . . . while Henry’s precarious mix of insecurity and massive self-regard is sometimes played, effectively, for comedy, Foulds is also taking a serious look at contemporary identity and the alienating consequences of fame . . . terrifically good writing.”

—Winnipeg Free Press

“The dream Adam Foulds weaves in this scintillating novel is gradually revealed, with grace and subtlety, to be an especially timely form of waking nightmare—but a nightmare so precise, and often beautiful, that one comes to prefer it, in some ways, to dull reality. Read this book.”

—John Wray, author of Godsend 

“Adam Foulds’s fourth novel, Dream Sequence, is an exquisitely concocted, riveting account of artistic ambition and unrequited love verging on obsession . . . One finishes the book wishing the dream were longer.”

—Philip Womack, The Spectator

Beautifully written . . . A novel about loneliness and obsession in contemporary life, set in hotels and airports, sterile apartment blocks, gyms and yoga classes.”

—Alice O’Keefe, New Statesman

“Entrancing language . . . Lyricism abounds throughout this deftly handled ­cautionary tale—one which warns that meeting our heroes can be dangerous and dreams can be frighteningly real.”

—Abu Dhabi National

“There’s deep psychology on every page . . . it’s the details of the writing itself—the precision of the word selection combined with the precision of the observation—that make for such enjoyable reading . . . Add to this keenness of perception a poetical ear for euphony and cadence and you have the quiddity of Foulds’s gift.”

—The Guardian

“[I]ncisively well-written and alluringly readable . . . Adam Foulds—whose previous work includes The Quickening Maze, about the poet John Clare’s incarceration in an Epping Forest asylum in the 1840s, and In the Wolf’s Mouth, set in North Africa and Sicily during the Second World War—is acutely sensitive to shifting environments, conveying them brilliantly with few words. This prose is truly poetic . . . Yet this novel also moves like a thriller, as these different vacancies, Henry and Kristin, collide in their desires. A terrific book about the realities and delusions of fame distorting the way we live now: not to be missed.”

—The Evening Standard

“[Foulds] has turned his keen attention to the present day, and the result is a book whose “thriller” label comes less from plot and more from the deepening unsettlement as Foulds turns the lights up on the derangements, both mundane and catastrophic, that drive both Henry and Kristin. As always with Foulds, though, the real star here is the writing, a delight at the smallest levels…An incisive and disquieting look at the consequences of fame.”

—Kirkus

“Foulds once again brings his psychological acuity to bear on characters bound within claustrophobic lives that they long to escape…[a] lucid, richly detailed and tense novel.” 

—Financial Times

Dan kicked off the proceedings with a welcome to the crowd and to writers Elise Levine, Antanas Sileika, and Adam Foulds.

Adam Foulds introduced us to Henry Banks, one of the protagonists in his deftly-observed Dream Sequence, a novel about celebrity obsession, self-obsession, and the pathology of destiny.

Elise Levine read from “Alice in the Field,” the final story in her lyrical, character-drive collection This Wicked Tongue.

Antanas Sileika’s cold-war spy thriller Provisionally Yours took us to a swanky party.

. . . And since no party, swanky or otherwise, is complete without cake . . .