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The Bibliophile: Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre

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Late one evening in 2023 I received a Facebook message from a pair of high school friends I hadn’t seen since graduation more than thirty years before. They were heading down from Chatham on a day-long cruise on their Harleys and were going to stop by the bookstore, and they were wondering if I’d be around. I made sure I was, and when they arrived, we went to the Walkerville Brewery to catch up. It was a wonderful couple of hours: both these men, despite our losing contact for decades, were fellows I had wondered about from time to time, good men who, when boys, helped bring me through very rough patches. I even lived with one for a while when my own home life was fraught. When they left that aft, we promised to keep in touch, and later that eve came an invitation to a WhatsApp group called, simply, The Boys. My two friends were connected to half a dozen others from high school, and they used the group to keep in touch, pass jokes and memes, and arrange meeting times at the local bar. Most of it was typical middle-aged silly fun. I didn’t participate much, but I got a kick out of the back and forth, sharing a bit of these guys’ lives.

But there was one thing that surprised me. With increasing regularity, various members of this group shared political posts, almost all of them focusing on Prime Minister Trudeau’s latest gaffe or supposed idiocy; others attacked Liberal policies on the pandemic response, the housing crisis, and the carbon tax. More than once, I was tipped off to some new “scandal” via these messages before some variant of the same story turned up in the pages of the Globe and Mail or the National Post. The messages were deeply partisan, and most (but not all) couldn’t have withstood much more than a quick Google, let alone a proper fact-check. But that didn’t matter, because there was no fact-checking. Several times I almost said something, then thought better of it: I did not want to get into a political debate, nor did I feel it was my place. I stopped engaging much and just watched, growing more and more fascinated and concerned.

Occasionally, someone would share a political story that wasn’t Canadian at all. After the last Russian election, a member of the Boys shared an interview between a Russian-supported online news agency and a Russian propagandist explaining that Putin had actually earned his resounding election victory as a result of the genuine love and faith entrusted to him by Russian voters, and that Russia had a stronger democracy than either Canada or the US. One of the boys responded with something akin to “When Putin defeats Ukraine I hope his next stop is Canada, where he can help finally rid us of Trudeau.”

These were not boys, or men, I would have ever expected to be overtly politically engaged. Our parents tended to think about politics dutifully and when they needed to: it wasn’t a topic of casual interaction. And we certainly weren’t political as kids, more interested in the latest hardcore sound (my ears still ring from 1988’s Anthrax concert), or scoring a mickey of something to drink in the park on Friday night. As men, they all work hard, demanding jobs; they have children and wives and mortgages; they look forward to Friday night at Chuck’s, a few pops and more laughs—who couldn’t use more of both? But here they were, passing along slickly made political memes and videos with increasing regularity, whether they were of Conservative or Russian origin, bashing the government and championing the person that everyone said would be the next prime minister of Canada: Pierre Poilievre. For the Boys, this couldn’t happen fast enough.

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Photo: Mark Bourrie reading from Crosses in the Sky at the Biblioasis Spring Launch at Biblioasis Bookshop, May 2024.

Towards the end of last May, Biblioasis hosted a book launch in Windsor. Mark Bourrie, whose Crosses in the Sky we had just published, was among the authors, and the next morning he and I met for coffee. Conversation naturally turned to his next project. Mark wanted to gather, revise, and expand some of the work he’d previously published on Great Lakes shipwrecks; he had an idea for a book on African exploration and another on a strange American assassin: they were all of interest.

Mark had also previously pitched me several times on a Field Note about the crisis facing Canadian media, and the conversation switched to this. I told him about my Boys WhatsApp group, and how I feared that the app was being used to misinform and radicalize the men and others like them, and that no one seemed to be talking about it. But Mark reminded me that he had explored exactly this in books like Kill the Messengers and The Killing Game. And then he told me how the Conservatives had developed massive alternative media networks to amplify their message, allowing them to directly reach voters outside of traditional channels: what I had come across was just one small part of it. Pierre Poilievre, Mark argued, had mastered the use of social media to reach people through YouTube, where he’d posted thousands of videos over his career, and through other social media channels: his videos and messages were full of misinformation that he was rarely called on, but that were viewed between tens and hundreds of thousands of times. Poilievre had had the benefit of almost everything Canada offered, and yet he’d long been the angriest man on the political stage, constantly flinging rage. Mark said that he was terrified about what a Poilievre government might mean for the country: he feared that it would result in the cementing of a Trump-like political culture in Canada, and that many of the most vulnerable, including a lot of people who, as has been the case with Trump, would likely vote for Poilievre would suffer enormously. Poilievre was a partisan who had not substantially altered his political views since, as a teenager, he’d been exposed to the work of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman. He was Canada’s great divider, and we needed to show people, before the next election, what he really stood for.

It was probably around this point that I suggested that, rather than writing a Field Note on the decline of Canadian media, Mark write one on Pierre Poilievre. I imagined something short and quick and polemical. We tossed the idea around for a while before he left. A few days later I received a short email, saying that he’d do it. We set the publication date for late Spring, to give ourselves a few months before the anticipated Fall 2025 election.

Photo: Three books from our Field Notes series: On Class by Deborah Dundas, On Property by Rinaldo Walcott, and the latest addition, On Book Banning by Ira Wells.

But what started as a Field Note morphed quickly into a full-length political biography. First pages arrived in December: we were at the early stages of editorial when Chrystia Freeland resigned as finance minister and the crisis seemed ready to topple the government and trigger an early election. I consoled myself with the idea that, rather than having the first critical biography of Poilievre—Andrew Lawton’s, from last year, at times seems to border on hagiography—we’d have the first critical biography of the new prime minister of Canada. Mark worked out when he thought the election would be called and asked what we would need to do to get the book done before that became the case. I told him, and he said that he could do it.

So we worked incessantly for the better part of two months, through December and the Christmas break, January and into the first week of February, writing, editing, rewriting. It was an immense, almost impossible amount of work, with the resulting manuscript expanding to flesh out its portrait not only of Poilievre, but of the Canada that has brought him to the brink of power. The thesis of this book is that Poilievre has always been what he is: a rigid partisan and attack dog and divider, or in the parlance of David Brooks, who, in a pandemic-era New York Times column on the political forces shaping the modern world, helped to give this book its title: a ripper.

Here’s the working cover copy:

As Canada heads towards a pivotal election, bestselling author Mark Bourrie charts the rise of Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre and considers the history and potential cost of the politics of division.

Six weeks into the Covid pandemic, New York Times columnist David Brooks identified two types of Western politicians: rippers and weavers. Rippers, whether on the right or the left, see politics as war. They don’t care about the destruction that’s caused as they fight for power. Weavers are their opposite: people who try to fix things, who want to bring people together and try to build consensus. At the beginning of the pandemic, weavers seemed to be winning. Five years later, as Canada heads towards a pivotal election, that’s no longer the case. Across the border, a ripper is remaking the American government. And for the first time in its history, Canada has its own ripper poised to assume power.

Pierre Poilievre has enjoyed most of the advantages of the mainstream Canadian middle class. Yet he’s long been the angriest man on the political stage. In Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre, bestselling author Mark Bourrie, winner of the Charles Taylor Prize, charts Poilievre’s rise through the political system, from teenage volunteer to outspoken Opposition leader known for cutting soundbites and theatrics. Bourrie shows how we arrived at this divisive moment in our history, one in which rippers are poised to capitalize on conflict. He shows how Poilievre and this new style of politics have gained so much ground—and warns of what it will cost us if they succeed.

Books should start hitting shelves at the end of March.

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Photo: A hand places a card into a ballot box. Credit: Element5 Digital, Pexels.com.

As we watch what Trump and Musk are doing in the US, and the license the last few weeks have given Poilievre and his team to make similar statements about cutting government bureaucracy; gender essentialism; deporting migrants; and the problems with Canadian foreign aid, it’s become even more apparent that this is a pivotal national election. And that’s before even considering the question of who is the better leader to guide the country through Trump’s proposed economic sanctions and provide a real alternative to what we see happening in the United States. If Poilievre is a ripper, who will be our much needed weaver? Only time will tell.

I’m immensely proud of the work that Mark has put in to make this book happen, and of the intelligence, care, and compassion that is central to it. I think Ripper offers a harsh but fair portrait of a talented politician built for opposition, but one who would make, especially at this particular moment in our history, a terrible first minister. But it’s an equally harsh portrait of who we as a people have increasingly become. Working on it has been a privilege that’s given me much pause; I hope it does the same for each and every one of you.

Dan Wells,
Publisher

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20 Bookstores for 20 Years: The City & The City Books

The City & The City Books in Hamilton, Ontario, is an energetic and highly curated store that offers an impressive collection of independently published titles from across North America and beyond. Owners Tim and Janet cultivate a welcoming atmosphere where you’ll feel at home coming in out of the cold to hunt down a hidden gem and enjoy lively conversations about your latest read (Check out their book club that meets every other month at the Hearty Hooligan!) Read on for why Dan sees The City & The City Books as a home away from home, and why owner Tim loves Patrick McCabe’s Poguemahone.

Photo: The bright interior of The City & The City Books.

Dan on The City & The City Books: I first met Tim and Janet nearly two decades ago at a mutual friend’s book launch, the evening spent in ever-tightening circles talking about books and music. Almost immediately I felt a sense of kinship, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when I learned that they had left Big Smoke with the idea of opening an independent bookstore in Hamilton, Ontario. Nor is it a surprise that their shop is as good as it is, offering exactly the right mix of the anticipated and unexpected, with a particularly strong selection of the best independently published titles from across North America, and even further afield. Hamilton is a city blessed with a handful of excellent bookshops—including Epic and King W—but I have a hard time not thinking of Tim and Janet’s The City & The City as my home away from home, no matter how infrequently I get to darken its doorstep.

Photo: Owner Tim Hanna holds up his Biblioasis pick, Poguemahone.

Why Tim loved the “unhinged spirit” of Poguemahone: “A rollicking 600 pages of Patrick McCabe’s—greatest talker since Francis Brady in The Butcher Boy. A free verse epic to be sang, yelled and danced. A book that forces you up out of the reading chair; to stomp around and read to the rafters.”

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In good publicity news:

  • Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalman Stefánsson (trans. Philip Roughton) was reviewed in the New York Times: “The good news is that Heaven and Hell is the first book in a trilogy, and there is more of this beguiling life to come.”
  • The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana was named an March 2025 Indie Next Pick, and reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada: “The Passenger Seat will both mesmerize and refuse comforting resolution.”
  • The Pages of the Sea by Anne Hawk was included in the CBC Books list “25 Canadian books to read during Black History Month 2025 and beyond.”
  • Hello, Horse by Richard Kelly Kemick was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada: “Kemick’s unique voice shines . . . By using dark humour to sharpen the impact of otherwise grim scenarios, he traverses the extremes of slapstick comedy and gory tragedy.”
  • Near Distance by Hanna Stoltenberg (trans. Wendy H. Gabrielsen) was reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press (“sparse, direct and discomforting prose”) and The Complete Review (“offers a strong character- and relationship-portrait”).

The Bibliophile: 2025 Staff Picks

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In which! The crew of the good ship Biblio sails into the new year with a preview of some of their most anticipated 2025 titles. (Yes, we made them choose. No, they didn’t like it.)

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Vanessa’s Picks

 

Cover design by Kate Sinclair.

Dark Like Under by Alice Chadwick

My new year’s resolution was to not complain about having to choose from among our books, and so I guess that’s all I’m allowed to say about that. Instead I’ll say how excited I am that we’ll be sharing Alice Chadwick’s debut with you. It’s a circadian novel, set over the course of a single day in the 1980s, and it follows a large cast of characters at an elite secondary school in a rural English town as they grapple with the surprising death of a beloved member of the faculty. It’s a book about resilience and connection, systems and resistance, renewal and what we leave behind, and a work of great poetic insight, keenly sensitive to paradox: that the old ways oppress while the ancient can illuminate, that the pastoral can be claustrophobic as well as restorative, that time is both a line and a circle. The form itself works into and against the conventions of Western narrative, the Western mind: in following the hours of the clock, around which human action revolves, we are reminded that although the earth turns circles inside of circles, somehow we still believe we travel a straight line, even in spite of having watched the hands sweep around and around. It’s the kind of fiction, and vision, that is for me the antidote to the disaffected irony and fashionable despair of a great deal of contemporary fiction, a book that risks all those old-fashioned ideas: generosity, forgiveness, love—even hope.

Cover design by Ingrid Paulson.

On Oil (Field Notes #10) by Don Gillmor

If you’d told me a year ago that I would spend a late afternoon inhaling a nonfiction book about the history and culture of oil in North America, stopping only because it was time for dinner and picking it back up to finish as soon as the dishes were done, I’d have been, admittedly, surprised. But if you’d told me Don Gillmor was the author, I wouldn’t have argued. Gillmor, a novelist, memoirist, historian, children’s author, journalist, and, it turns out, former roughneck, can do just about anything. In On Oil, Gillmor draws on the latter two professions to chart the rise and imminent fall of the oil industry, beginning with firsthand experience on oil rigs during the seventies oil boom in Alberta and traveling across the continent and then the globe to show the complex and maddening means by which oil has captured government interests and profoundly impacted—for better, and more often for worse—life on Planet Earth. The picture, I found out, is both more and less grim than one might think, but I’ve always been with Francis Bacon on difficult truths: knowledge is power.

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Ahmed’s Picks

 

Cover design by Zoe Norvell.

The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana

This was the first book I read as an official Biblioasis employee and I was floored. It was the prose that first did it, beautifully tense, controlled, electric. And then the questions this novel raises—about masculinity, violence, personal responsibility—all lingered in my mind for weeks after. We follow two young men who hit the road with no real plan other than to get away from their lives and their town. But, moment by moment, we see how they become more and more violent, until they cross a line from which they can never return. It’s all a game to them and it makes you wonder if we could ever learn anything from those who commit such violent acts. There are no neat and tidy answers, but I think that’s what’ll keep me coming back to this book. It’s a tragic story that stays with you because it insists we don’t look away anymore.

Cover design by Ingrid Paulson.

On Book Banning (Field Notes #9) by Ira Wells

The increase in book bans across the country is startling and alarming. Some people want to ban books with LGBTQ+ characters because they think those books are indoctrinating their children. And some people want to ban classics and important contemporary works because they contain language deemed offensive today. I wonder what books will be left on the shelf. Probably bland ones. With the forces of censorship seemingly getting stronger, I’m really grateful for what Wells does in this short book. It’s both a history lesson and passionate defense for the right to read. From ancient to recent cases, Wells walks us through the history of censorship and shows how and why book bans are making a comeback. On Book Banning is an excellent distillation of how we treat books today and how book bans are connected to the need to control others. It’s a useful reminder of why the freedom to read is crucial and what we lose when it is taken away. A very important read today and, I think, for the years to come.

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Dominique’s Picks

 

Cover design by Ingrid Paulson.

Baldwin, Styron, and Me by Mélikah Abdelmoumen, translated from the French by Catherine Khordoc

I read Baldwin, Styron, and Me in two sittings; the book’s hybrid form is addictive—it’s at once a memoir of Québecois identity, a literary history of the friendship between James Baldwin and William Styron, and a thoughtful critique of race, cultural appropriation, and the possibility for meaningful disagreement and debate. Abdelmoumen is a champion of resisting certainty, and her commitment to this is refreshing and inspiring (and important as we enter the increasingly politically-fraught new year).

Cover design by Ingrid Paulson.

UNMET by stephanie roberts

I’ve already read this collection a few times, and it’s impressive. roberts’ poems lean against surrealism without losing their humanity, their creatureness, their affinity for the real. And these sentences are just so pleasurable to read: they sinew and worm into a world-expanding illogic. I’ll be reading her first collection, rushes from the river of disappointment, soon. I’m thrilled UNMET is making its way into the world next year; I think roberts is one of Canada’s best, most original voices.

Cover design by Ingrid Paulson.

Dust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars) by Ray Robertson

I love reading about music almost as much as listening to it. And Robertson writes from a loving, considerate space that avoids the hyper-analytical, that instead creates a kind of music to live alongside the music. I can tell from this book’s setlist (Alex Chilton, Captain Beefheart, Muddy Waters, etc.) and from his previous Lives of the Poets (which includes some truly beautiful pieces on Gram Parsons and Townes Van Zandt), that this book will be a fount of joy and discovery for me in the new year.

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Ashley’s Picks

 

Cover design by Natalie Olsen.

Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton

Your Absence Is Darkness was one of my favourite reads of last year, so I was quite pleased to find out that we’re not only publishing more of Stefánsson’s work, but a full trilogy is on the way. Heaven and Hell is a brilliant start to The Trilogy About the Boy, with everything I loved from Your Absence returning here, in perhaps what some might find a more accessible introduction to his writing (translated in excellent form by Philip Roughton). Stefánsson has this way of describing the world—from the way two distant lovers look up at the same moon, to the chill of a stormy ocean soaking a man to the bone, to the slow loss of sight—that really strikes a reader, and makes me consider things in a different way. It’s poetic and straightforward, and complements the emotions woven through the story, of the boy’s struggle with life or death, and the ways in which he connects with the people around him and remembers those who have passed. I look forward to reading more of this journey.

Cover design by Ingrid Paulson.

Sacred Rage: Selected Stories by Steven Heighton

I first learned of this forthcoming collection of the late Steven Heighton’s stories in the form of a handwritten table-of-contents, passed along from editor John Metcalf, to our publisher Dan, and then along to me—for compilation. Consequently, I’ve gotten to know this collection quite well already, having spent the last few months gradually acquiring, scanning, and cleaning up the converted text of a majority of these stories from older editions without available digital files. Heighton takes his readers across the world, from the back kitchen of a chicken restaurant to an onsen in Japan. Reading a collection in bits and pieces, before it’s been neatly woven together in order and packaged in its usual final book form, is a strange but exciting experience; I can say I’ve read Sacred Rage already in one sense, but what I’m looking forward to most is the day we receive our printed copies in-office, so I can finally sit down and enjoy these brilliantly written short stories—without the need to hunt for missing characters and lost italicizations—and be properly reintroduced to Heighton’s best works.

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Emily’s Picks

 

Cover design by Natalie Olsen.

Near Distance by Hanna Stoltenberg, translated from the Norwegian by Wendy Harrison Gabrielson

I’m not a reader who is typically drawn to a domestic drama or narrative centered around motherhood. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read plenty of amazing literary books about just these things—but they’re rarely a narrative I find myself naturally delighting in. I was surprised and delighted as soon as I opened Near Distance by Hanna Stoltenberg (trans. Wendy Harrison Gabrielson). Taut and sparse, it’s the story of a mother (Karin) who has largely opted out of her daughter’s (Helene) life. When Helene asks Karin to travel with her to London, the result is an emotionally tense and very uneasy road trip story. It’s cold, sparse, and elegant, and made me chuckle darkly several times. What luck to start 2025 with such a beautiful and understated bang—Near Distance would have been a one sitting read for me had life not interrupted.

Cover design by Fiachra McCarthy.

Old Romantics by Maggie Armstrong

If you read our holiday Bibliophile, you may remember I’m a short story superfan. I won’t wax poetic about the form again, but you need to know that Old Romantics is a remarkably good story collection made even more remarkable by the fact that it’s debut. From the very first story, Maggie Armstrong made me laugh out loud in recognition (I mean we’ve all either been someone or known someone whose terrible boyfriend wouldn’t even chip in for a slice of pizza, right?) Witty and wry, the stories offer a distinctly literary and nuanced take on the popular “sad girl” genre. As I read through, I recognized shades of Fleabag and Halle Butler in the character variations. And impressively, while the stories stand alone taken together they are “a novel in stories” about an artist’s growth and maturity. Every character’s name is an alternative form of “Maggie,” and the reader gets the sense they’re watching the author grapple with Irish patriarchy and history in real time. When you pick up Old Romantics you’re not only picking up a very good book—you get to enjoy the next great voice in Irish literature.

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Dan’s Picks

 

Cover design by Ingrid Paulson.

I’m no more able to tell you what my favourite books for 2025 will be than I was able to declare my favourites from the past year. This is complicated further by the fact that the 2025 list is still taking shape. We’re still reading in the hopes of locating an international title or two for fall, and there are a handful of Canadian titles that may or may not be ready in time for the latter part of the 2025 season. And we have at least one title that we’re not in a position to announce anything about quite yet, though I promise it will stir things up something fierce.

What I can promise is a list that rivals all others before it, brimming with exceptional works of short fiction and novels and poetry and translations and history and cultural and social criticism, our yearly Best Canadian anthologies, and seasonal ghost stories (with a special addition in that department, to be revealed at a later date). It’s a heady mix of the new and familiar. As difficult as it is for me, I won’t repeat anything about the titles that others have highlighted above (except to say that there isn’t a person reading this who shouldn’t have Jón Kalman Stéfansson’s Heaven and Hell high on their to-be-read list: this series, of which this is only the introductory volume, is one of the great modern classics by my estimation, finally available here for the first time). But there are a few forthcoming titles from this fall that most staff haven’t had the opportunity to read quite yet. These include Russell Smith’s long-awaited and quite savagely propulsive new novel Self Care, about a young woman who gets involved, against her better judgement, with an incel; there’s a meditation on the spirit of sport in a new Field Note, On Sports, by David Macfarlane, that captures well my own ambivalence about what has long been one of my very favourite things; there’s a new work of memoir/cultural investigation by Elaine Dewar, tentatively titled Growing Up Oblivious in Mississippi North, about which I should say little else for now; and an important, timely, and moving investigation into the lives of migrant workers in Canada in Marcello Di Cintio’s Precarious. With, as I said, more to come.

Cover design by Kate Sinclair.

The best way to ensure that you don’t miss any of these publications is to either pre-order them from your favourite independent (it’s so easy to do, especially with those shops that use the Bookmanager interface), or to take out a subscription directly from the press: we have several options available, that cover all aspects of our list. There’s no better way to ensure that independent publishers can continue to do the work that we do in this increasingly precarious time.

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In good publicity news:

The Bibliophile: May You Enjoy Your Stuff

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Lots of exercises are tricky: distinguishing your backlist from your frontlist; packing up your life and moving to another city; burpees. In last week’s newsletter, Vanessa helped with the first item. This week, I plan to help with the second. May god help you with the third.

I have had at least seven different mailing addresses across three cities over the last ten years. It might not be surprising then that I’ve become proficient at packing my life into boxes and bags and have completely given up on owning hangable artwork (I get tattoos now). To clarify, I never set out to be a digital nomad or minimalist. My circumstances have dictated that I choose which physical things to own very carefully. Having (approximately) exactly what you need makes the packing and moving process a lot less painful than it otherwise would be. You don’t want to trip while you’re carrying a box of deteriorating Teflon non-stick pans down a winding staircase (true story).

Photo: You can pick up a copy of May Our Joy Endure September 3, 2024.

These days, I tend to only keep material goods that bring a high degree of utility and aesthetic value to my life. The mugs that I own, for instance, are all different sizes and represent my various interests from wabi-sabi interior design to Star Wars. I also tend to only keep books I would re-read, find beautiful to look at, and are comfortable to hold. Until our author interview with Kev Lambert, I hadn’t paid too much conscious attention to what these items say about me. Kev, by the way, is the author of Que Notre Joie Demeure, a runaway bestseller that was shortlisted for the 2023 Goncourt Prize, and won the 2023 Médicis Prize (making Kev the first Canadian writer in a couple of generations to win this most prestigious of French awards). Donald Winkler’s translation into English, May Our Joy Endure will be available September 3, 2024. The novel transports readers into the lives of the ultra-privileged, primarily following Céline Wachowski, an internationally renowned architect who is accused of destroying struggling neighborhoods in Montreal with her plans for a newly commissioned project—the Webuy Complex. In a time of widening wealth disparity and rising costs of living, Céline’s depicted lavish lifestyle is simultaneously alluring and terrible. When we asked about their intentions behind these details in May Our Joy Endure, Kev shared some nice food for thought about our relationship to material things:

Q:

Let’s talk about the stuff in this novel, from the fashion (Comme des Garçons, Vivienne Westwood and Marie St. Pierre), to the books (from Lacan, to Tremblay, to Proust), to the wine, (they don’t drink white, they drink Sancerre), to the architectural materials (one of the characters has Corten Steel on the front door of his house which is beautiful but he fears was too trendy and is now dated). This is a novel about material culture that is very detailed in terms of what our culture is made of and how it is all put together. Why are these details important to both the novel’s aesthetic and its ambivalent perspective on cultural “makers” to use an ascendant if dubious term.

A:

There’s a sociological aspect to these decisions: these are all signs of distinction. Céline is ultra-rich but she doesn’t see herself as vulgar. Even if Céline is, in fact, nouveau riche because her money isn’t old, she certainly doesn’t want to be seen as nouveau riche, because she wants to be seen as a kind of radical aesthetic figure of the avant-garde. She has to communicate this in her style. She couldn’t wear Chanel because it’s too conservative and classic. So there’s an aspect of the referentiality that is character development. While I’m critical of these objects that are completely caught up in a capitalist culture of consumerism, there are still brilliant people who have thought about these clothes in an aesthetic way. You don’t need to own the object to see it and to understand its value. These materials in the novel also operate as a kind of intertextuality—the fashion designers the characters wear, the art on their walls, the food they eat, the opening nights they attend, it’s never insignificant. It’s a way of winking at the reader, of encouraging them to gain some critical distance from the world of Céline and of the novel at one moment and of pulling them in closer the next.

Photo: Kev’s Biblioasis books May Our Joy Endure, Querelle of Roberval, and You Will Love What You Have Killed.

So, as it is at the conclusion of a move, there seems to be much to unpack in May Our Joy Endure. The things we own might be valuable insofar as they: help us do things, mean something to us, and reflect us back into the world. To make matters more complex, this value might change over time as when our phone batteries die and cease to function (thanks to planned obsolescence) or when you can suddenly pull a leopard print coat from the back of your closet to look cool on a night out (thanks to the trending ‘mob wife aesthetic’). And presumably, we tend to hold onto our valuables and are more willing to let go of the less valuable. Quick—you can only grab three things on your way out of your burning home—what are you rescuing? The exercise of moving homes forces you to entertain a less intense version of this thought experiment, though it still confronts you about your relationship to everything you own.

Unlike the nouveau riche characters in May Our Joy Endure, I have grown into the habit of gently decluttering regularly and being very slow to purchase or borrow new-to-me things. My turnover of things has decreased, which in turn, has increased my awareness and appreciation for the things I have. It just so happens that this also reduces the stress associated with packing up your life and moving onto your next chapter since you already have a good idea of what to bring.

Julia Lei
Publicist

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Keep up with us!

News & Awards: HOW TO BUILD A BOAT, ON COMMUNITY, FULL-MOON WHALING CHRONICLES, and more!

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IN THE NEWS!

THE FULL-MOON WHALING CHRONICLES

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles by Jason Guriel (August 1, 2023) has been reviewed in the Toronto Star by Michael Coren. The review was published online on July 29, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Michael Coren writes,

“[T]he book that’s going to get under your skin this summer … dizzyingly interesting … there is something utterly new and exciting here.”

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles has also been reviewed in Booklist. The review was published online on July 28, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Sal A. Joyce calls it:

“A story with heart, intrigue, and mystery … Lovers of science fiction will find this unlike anything they’ve read before.”

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles has been featured in Lit Hub and Book Riot. Both articles were published on August 1, 2023.

Read Lit Hub’s “27 New Books Out Today” list here and Book Riot’s “New Releases” list here.

Get The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles here!

HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (November 7, 2023) has been longlisted for The Booker Prize 2023! The longlist was announced this morning, August 1, 2023. You can read the full announcement here.

The Booker jury writes:

“The interweaving stories of Jamie, a teenage boy trying to make sense of the world, and Tess, a teacher at his school, make up this humorous and insightful novel about family and the need for connection. Feeney has written an absorbing coming-of-age story which also explores the restrictions of class and education in a small community. A complex and genuinely moving novel.”

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney was also reviewed in the Irish Times and RTE Ireland. Both articles were published online on July 22, 2023.

Irish Times calls it a “beautiful meditation on love,” while RTE Ireland calls it a “beautifully-written, tenderhearted story.”

Order How to Build a Boat here!

ON COMMUNITY

On Community by Casey Plett (November 7, 2023) has been featured in Quill and Quire’s 2023 Fall Nonfiction Preview. The article was published online on August 2, 2023.

You can read the preview here.

Order On Community here!

COCKTAIL

Cocktail by Lisa Alward (September 12, 2023) has been reviewed in The Miramichi Reader. The review was published online on August 1, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Lucy Black writes,

“This collection of twelve pristine short stories might best be described as small snapshots of lives shadowed by disquietude. The writing is crisp, accomplished and assured, and the characters are vividly and sympathetically drawn, as they experience the emotional convolutions of individuals struggling between that which they believe to be right and that which they desire.”

Order Cocktail here!

THE ART OF LIBROMANCY

The Art of Libromancy by Josh Cook (August 22, 2023) has been featured in the Chicago Review of Books as one of their “12 Must Read Books of August.” The article was published online on August 1, 2023. You can read the full article here.

Michael Welch calls it

“A necessarily critical look at the practice of connecting readers with their next book in the age of monopolization and censorship.”

Order The Art of Libromancy here!

THE COUNTRY OF TOO

The Country of Toó by Rodrigo Rey Rosa, translated by Stephen Henighan (July 11, 2023) has been reviewed in The Complete Review. The review was published online on July 29, 2023. You can read the full review here.

MA Orthofer calls it

“An appealing panorama of both the country and the different cultures and forces—from Mayan to global-capitalist—at work in it.”

Get The Country of Toó here!

SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY & OFF THE RECORD

Sleep is Now a Foreign Country by Mike Barnes (November 7, 2023) and Off the Record edited by John Metcalf (November 14, 2023) were both featured in Quill and Quire’s 2023 Fall Preview: Poetry, Memoir, and Biography. The article was published online on July 26, 2023. You can read the full article here.

Order Sleep is Now a Foreign Country here!

Order Off the Record here!