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Media Hits: COMRADE PAPA, NEAR DISTANCE, A CASE OF MATRICIDE, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

COMRADE PAPA

Comrade Papa by GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne (Oct 8, 2024), was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal! The review was published online on November 14, and is available to read here.

Critic Sam Sacks writes,

“GauZ’ avoids moralizing and is always alive to the humor and peculiarity of his stories. There are very funny scenes of the young Marxist speechifying to his unimpressed elders about the class struggle and the ‘retching of the earth.’ (Frank Wynne’s translation from the French shows a deft touch with Anouman’s malapropisms.)”

Comrade Papa was also a bookseller choice in Electric Literature’s article “The Best Books of the Fall, According to Indie Booksellers”! The list was published November 1, and you can check it out here.

Josh Cook (Porter Square Books) wrote,

“A funhouse mirror version of the colonial adventure story, Comrade Papa pokes, prods, & mocks a whole suite of ideologies & assumptions. GauZ’ has an exuberant, nimble style & an off-center imagination that will keep readers on their toes.”

Get Comrade Papa here!

A WAY TO BE HAPPY

Caroline Adderson, author of A Way to Be Happy (Sep 10, 2024), was interviewed on CBC’s The Next Chapter! The interview with Antonio Michael Downing was posted November 15, and you can read it here.

A Way to Be Happy was also reviewed in FreeFall! The review was posted online on November 3, and you can read it here.

Lori Hahnel writes,

“As the author of many books of fiction and non-fiction, the breadth of Adderson’s writing experience is evident in her craft. This clever and meticulously crafted collection from a writer who has mastered her art is a pleasure to read.”

Get A Way to Be Happy here!

A CASE OF MATRICIDE

A Case of Matricide by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Nov 12, 2024)was reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement on November 15. You can read it in full here.

Critic Nicolas Cree writes,

“A remarkable crime trilogy of doublings and disappearance . . . These are crime novels in which identities are unstable, evidence is slippery and solutions are obscure.”

A Case of Matricide was also reviewed in the Miramichi Reader on November 14, which you can check out here.

Luke Francis Beirne writes,

“The story in A Case of Matricide is intricately woven, with layers of significance throughout . . . Graeme Macrae Burnet has elevated the detective novel to incredible heights.”

Get A Case of Matricide here!

NEAR DISTANCE

Near Distance by Hanna Stoltenberg, translated by Wendy H Gabrielsen (Jan 14, 2025), was reviewed in Kirkus Reviews. The review was published in their November 15 print issue and is available to read online here.

Kirkus writes,

“Grimly fascinating . . . infused with a sense of dread, and observed in microscopic detail from a bemused and calculated remove. Page after page leaves the reader anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Preorder Near Distance here!

HEAVEN AND HELL

Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Feb 4, 2025), was given a starred review in Kirkus Reviews! The review was posted online on November 9, and will appear in their December 15 print issue. Read it here.

Kirkus writes,

“A moving story of loss and courage told in prose as crisp and clear as the Icelandic landscape where it takes place. . . Stefánsson writes like an epic poet of old about the price the natural world exacts on humans, but he’s not without sympathy or an ability to find affirming qualities in difficult situations.”

Preorder Heaven and Hell here!

SETH’S CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES

The 2024 Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories were featured on So Many Damn Books podcast for the Holiday Gift Guide episode! Listen to the full episode here.

Host Christopher Hamelin says,

“Awesome pocket editions of forgotten horror stories, or mystery stories, from the past, in this perfect set . . . This ‘Ghost Story for Christmas’ series is some of the most delightful reading that I do all year.”

Get all three 2024 Christmas Ghost Stories here!

THE PAGES OF THE SEA

The Pages of the Sea by Anne Hawk (Sep 17, 2024) was reviewed in the Ottawa Review of Books. The review was published online, and is available to read here.

Timothy Niedermann writes,

“A moving portrayal of a young girl’s efforts to grow out of a state of melancholy and confusion and acquire self-confidence and assertiveness, despite her young age.”

Get The Pages of the Sea here!

OLD ROMANTICS

Old Romantics by Maggie Armstrong (Apr 1, 2025) was reviewed in The Stinging Fly on November 15, which you can check out here.

Sarah Gilmartin writes,

“Readers of Old Romantics will be swept up in the verve of Armstrong’s storytelling, but the deeper purpose of the humour, as with all good comedic writing, is that of connection, of recognition: this crazy thing called life, tell me you feel it too? The more we laugh, the closer we are to tears. Old Romantics is a collection big on feeling, on living, romanticism with a capital R.”

Preorder Old Romantics here!

Media Hits: THE NOTEBOOK, A WAY TO BE HAPPY, THE PAGES OF THE SEA, and more!

IN THE NEWS

THE NOTEBOOK

The Notebook by Roland Allen (Sep 3, 2024) was reviewed in the New York Times on November 2! The review is available to read online here.

Wilson Wong writes,

“The book is a revealing document of a relationship so intimate as to be sacred: that of the writer and the page. It’s a reminder that note-taking is an act of noticing, of being present and showing up to the blank paper, again and again, and discovering what may arise there.”

Get The Notebook here.

A WAY TO BE HAPPY

A Way to Be Happy by Caroline Adderson (Sep 10, 2024) was reviewed on The Longest Chapter on October 31, and you can read it in full here.

NPR’s Kassie Rose writes,

“It’s difficult to make happiness interesting. Caroline Adderson, however, succeeds with stylish skill. She creates sympathetic characters struggling with inner complexities—what it feels like to be a disappointment, or to not be believed, or to lead a passionless life; always offering, though, an encounter providing a respite from loneliness or isolation.”

Grab A Way to Be Happy here!

THE PAGES OF THE SEA

Anne Hawk, author of The Pages of the Sea (Sep 17, 2024), was interviewed on The Conversation podcast (here) on October 21, and also talked about her debut novel on the Bookspo podcast (here) on October 16.

Grab The Pages of the Sea here!

MAY OUR JOY ENDURE

Kev Lambert, author of May Our Joy Endure (trans. Donald Winkler, Sep 3, 2024), was profiled in the Globe and Mail by Emily Donaldson on October 25! You can read the full feature here.

Donaldson calls Lambert,

“[A] literary wunderkind.”

May Our Joy Endure was also reviewed in the Montreal Review of Books on October 30. Check out the full review here.

Marisa Grizenko writes,

“Like Bruegel and Blais, Lambert uses a large cast of characters to depict society’s complexities. His gaze is oceanic, homing in on individuals and zooming out to the systems within which they operate.”

Get May Our Joy Endure here!

QUESTION AUTHORITY

Mark Kingwell, author of Question Authority (Nov 5, 2024), was interviewed on the Canadaland podcast on October 28. Listen to the full episode here.

Grab Question Authority here!

A CASE OF MATRICIDE

A Case of Matricide by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Nov 12, 2024) was reviewed in the Los Angeles Times as part of their list of “10 books to add to your reading list in November.” The article was published online on November 1, and you can read it here.

Bethanne Patrick writes,

“Burnet’s trilogy concludes with a mystery about what we put up with in mystery narratives . . . It’s smart, quirky and fun.”

Grab A Case of Matricide here!

SETH’S CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES 2024

Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories (Oct 29, 2024) were featured on the Total Christmas Podcast on October 26, and you can listed to the segment (starting at 16:00) here.

Host Jack Ford calls the trio,

“Delightful little books . . . it’s something that people that love Christmas might enjoy, reviving that old tradition of Christmas ghost stories.”

Podolo, one of this year’s three stories, was read in full on the Christmas Past Podcast by Brian Earl. You can listen to the full episode here.

Grab all three Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories here!

The Bibliophile: Anne Hawk on Caribbean English

Want to get new excerpts, musings, and more from The Bibliophile right away? Sign up for our weekly newsletter here!

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Attention Vancouver readers! The brilliant booksellers at Upstart & Crow will host the Canadian launch of The Pages of the Sea next Thursday, October 3, 2024, at 7:00 PM!

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Next week marks the US publication date of The Pages of the Sea, Anne Hawk’s debut novel. Featuring Wheeler, an unforgettable young protagonist coping with her mother’s absence while also navigating the mysteries and misadventures of growing up, it’s equally a single girl’s story and a novel of manners: as Wheeler learns to be apart from her mother, she also learns about the life of her small Caribbean community. Like the work of Jane Austen or Marilynne Robinson, The Pages of the Sea captures a distinct time and a place, richly detailed in its observations of the values and customs of one community at a moment in its history. Hawk’s elegant prose ushers the untravelled reader into its world, and—for the place and the people that inspired it—becomes an act of cultural preservation, not least by virtue of its commitment to the community’s heritage language.

I wrote last week about a few of the many reasons this remarkable debut caught my attention, and this week I’m delighted to give you Anne herself, writing on the historical origin of Caribbean English, her own mother tongue, and how her work and that of other Caribbean writers is one means by which its story is being told.

Vanessa Stauffer,
Managing Editor

***

Photo: The Pages of the Sea by Anne Hawk, with a cover beautifully designed by Kate Sinclair!

What Is Caribbean English?

The term ‘Caribbean English’ refers to the diverse English-based dialects spoken in former British colonies in the Caribbean. Though commonly grouped under one heading, each language is different, having originated in isolated colonies from Jamaica to Guyana on the northern tip of South America. They reflect influences as diverse as Irish and Scots—the language of plantation overseers—as well as South Asian languages spoken by indentured workers. In some Caribbean countries, the lingering presence of French bears testament to centuries of conflict between French and British colonisers.

There is nothing ‘broken’ about the varieties of English spoken in the Caribbean, as some might suggest. These are heritage languages with a history behind them; namely, the response by enslaved Africans to the wholesale erasure by the trans-Atlantic slave trade of their languages of origin. Fearing those they had enslaved might plot against them—which they frequently did—plantation owners forced enslaved Africans to speak in English only. African languages were policed and ultimately lost in the brutal everyday of chattel slavery. The need to communicate with estate managers as well as other enslaved people gave rise to the development of various forms of English with grammatical features of West African languages, the languages of origin of most enslaved people. Far from broken, Caribbean English contains intimations of cultural preservation and cultural referencing.

Similar in origin, the various dialects spoken in the Caribbean have evolved independently of each other. Attempts to standardise them have largely been unsuccessful, due perhaps to each nation holding to its own historically adapted form of English.

Utter the Jamaican word ‘duppy’ in the Windward Islands and you’ll be met with a blank stare. Change the word to ‘jumbee’ and you’ll get a knowing look. Both are words for ‘spirit’ or ‘ghost’. From bluggoe to alligator pear, enslaved people named the world around them, at times ascribing names from their own languages to similar-looking vegetables and fruit; with the same plant, not surprisingly, being given different names in different places: taro, cocoyam, eddo.

Caribbean English as spoken in Grenada is my mother tongue. It’s a language I haven’t spoken in decades, having emigrated as a child to the UK and then to Canada. Called out on my British-Canadian pronunciation, my iffy vocab, Grenadian English is a language that I haven’t dared speak in the presence of Grenadians for many years.

Who knows how a seemingly ‘lost’ language returns?

The Pages of the Sea, my debut novel, tells the story of the children left behind by the Windrush Generation—migrants from the Caribbean to the UK in the post-war period. The novel chronicles the friendship of Wheeler and her cousin as they spend their free time knocking about, enjoying a type of autonomy that was once commonplace for young children. While thinking as my main character, the inflections and cadences, the rhythm and sounds of my first language seeped into my mouth, like water from a disused well. In service to my young protagonist, I started thinking fluently in Caribbean English, and was subsequently able to give voice to the book’s other characters as well.

The novel is a collaboration between Caribbean and standardised English: between Wheeler—who thinks and speaks in the rich cadences of Caribbean English (Wha it is y’say?)—and a Standard English narrator. From Ingrid Persaud (Love After Love) to Kei Miller (Augustown), Caribbean writers have invented their own ways of reproducing this versatile, bejewelled language on the page. I took the decision to alter the appearance of certain words, for instance ‘hav’ and ‘giv’, in capturing the spoken language of The Pages of the Sea. This is a visual reminder that the book’s narrator and characters inhabit separate language worlds, despite their attributes in common.

Separate and inherently unequal, Caribbean and British English have existed alongside each other for centuries. Educated people once eschewed their mother tongue in favour of Standard English, in case they were thought to be illiterate. Those days are thankfully gone. The history of this diverse and inventive language is now being appreciated and acknowledged. While standardised English is still preferred in formal settings and written work, the spoken language of choice for most people has become their own legacy language, to the extent that many people in the region now support the teaching of Caribbean English in schools.

© Anne Hawk, September 2024

***

In good publicity news:

Media Hits: A WAY TO BE HAPPY, MAY OUR JOY ENDURE, CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

A WAY TO BE HAPPY

A Way to Be Happy by Caroline Adderson (Sep 10, 2024) was reviewed in The New Indian Express. The review was published online on Sep 21, and is available to read here.

Reviewer Saurabh Sharma writes,

A Way to Be Happy is immensely refreshing, as it not only explores the uniqueness but also showcases the unpredictability of the everyday in a manner only a few writers manage to do.”

A Way to Be Happy was reviewed in McGill University’s The Tribune on September 10. Check out the full review here.

Isobel Bray writes,

“Adderson’s prose is straightforward but doesn’t flatline; every word choice feels intentional. When she goes into detail, it is perfectly placed to highlight her characters’ idiosyncrasies, making the reader empathize with their struggles.”

A Way to Be Happy appeared on the Globe and Mail‘s Fall Book Preview on September 20! Check out the full list of titles here.

Critic Emily Donaldson writes,

“Though her writing is incisive, emotionally astute, slyly funny and award-winning, it still feels like Adderson hasn’t quite gotten her due as one of this country’s best short-story writers.”

Grab A Way to Be Happy here!

MAY OUR JOY ENDURE

May Our Joy Endure by Kev Lambert, translated by Donald Winkler (Sep 3, 2024), was reviewed in The Walrus! The review was published online on September 19, and you can read it in full here.

Reviewer André Forget writes,

“At a time when many fiction writers feel pressure to write socially useful literature, Lambert’s refusal to deal in solutions feels like an invigorating slap in the face.”

Kev Lambert was interviewed by Sonali Karnick on CBC’s All in a Weekend! The interview was posted online on September 22, and you can listen to the full segment here.

May Our Joy Endure was included on the Globe and Mail‘s Fall Book Preview on September 20! See the full list of titles here.

Critic Emily Donaldson writes,

“‘Febrile,’ ‘provocative’ and ‘incendiary’ are among the breathless adjectives used to describe the novels of this young writer from Chicoutimi . . . [May Our Joy Endure] (a Prix Goncourt finalist) is a social satire involving an architect who faces extreme unanticipated blowback for her plans for a major Montreal public works project.”

Get May Our Joy Endure here!

SETH’S CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES

Seth‘s Christmas Ghost Stories (Oct 29, 2024) were featured in Guelph Today! The article included an interview with Seth about the series 10th anniversary alongside mentions of this year’s stories: Podolo, The Amethyst Cross, and Captain Dalgety Returns. The article was published on September 21, and you can read it here.

Seth says of the series,

“If you go back far enough, you realize, oh yes, Christmas is in winter, a dark time for telling ghost stories . . . A story should have a strong sense of place, a real feeling of atmosphere, and needs to be creepy in some way.”

Get all three 2024 Christmas Ghost Stories here!

THE PAGES OF THE SEA

The Pages of the Sea by Anne Hawk (Sep 17, 2024) was included on the Globe and Mail‘s Fall Book Preview on September 20! See the full list of titles here.

Critic Emily Donaldson calls the book,

“[A] finely observed debut.”

Get The Pages of the Sea here!

A CASE OF MATRICIDE

A Case of Matricide by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Nov 12, 2024) was also included on the Globe and Mail‘s Fall Book Preview on September 20! See the full list of titles here.

Critic Emily Donaldson writes,

“The multiple Booker-nominated Scottish novelist has made a project of undermining the certainties and assumptions we bring to fiction by blurring truth and artifice. In this third book featuring the melancholic, insecure Inspector Gorski, the latter finds himself drawn to the case of a woman in a small French town who’s convinced that her novelist son is plotting her demise.”

Get A Case of Matricide here!

A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE

A Factotum in the Book Trade by Marius Kociejowski was featured in Canadian Writers Abroad on September 17. Check out the full review here.

Reviewer Wayne Grady writes,

“[A] mesmerizing memoir of fifty years as an antiquarian bookseller . . . A Factotum in the Book Trade thus pays homage to an era of bookselling that is fast fading from memory.”

Get A Factotum in the Book Trade here!

The Bibliophile: Why We Published It

Want to get new excerpts, musings, and more from The Bibliophile right away? Sign up for our weekly newsletter here!

***

Editors’ note: While The Bibliophile was taking its summer nap, we were wide awake and thinking about some kinds of features we’d like to run in this space. Thus, this week’s installment is the first in a charmingly irregular series we should probably call “Why We Published It,” which debuts with Vanessa’s response to Anne Hawk’s The Pages of the Sea.

Photo: You can pre-order a copy of The Pages of the Sea today!

As a kid growing up in southeastern Pennsylvania in the 1980s, I spent a lot of time by myself. We lived on the rural outskirts of an already rural place, four miles from a town of fewer than 1,600. Between the turquoise waters of the public swimming pool—what was to me, at age six, the hallowed centre of the known universe—and the farmhouse I grew up in: cornfields and fields of tobacco and soy, rolling hills and the rocky glens and old-growth trees that stair-step the lower third of the the county down to the wide Susquehanna. A trip into town to the grocery store or drive-through at the bank was a source of excitement, and seeing my father’s brown Ford Ranger emerge from behind the woods at the top of the ridge that formed the southern edge of the little valley we lived in engendered a chanting sort of song that I’d sing as he made the left hand turn onto our little road, technically two lanes, but closer to one and a half, and into the long stone drive at the end of a day he’d spent pumping gas and changing tires at the gas station in town.

When I was eight or nine, my father got a new job, one that required he wake at 4:30 in the morning and drive an hour to a welding shop where, from what I could tell, he spent the day burning tiny holes in his t-shirts. Around this time, my mother stopped her part-time work cleaning houses and took a night shift stocking shelves at the grocery store. Now she slept all day, and left for her job as my father was coming home, exhausted, from his. What did I know, what did I know, as Robert Hayden asked, of the sacrifices they made, what it took from them to meet their responsibilities the best they could? Not much, if anything at all.

I did know there was a meadow with a modest herd of Holsteins and that sometimes there was a bull, and when that was the case I could not climb the metal gate or slip under the barbed wire to take the old dirt footpath along the dry creek to the tree with the bent trunk, the moss-covered one I liked to sit on. I knew I had to make myself lunch in the summer, and quietly, so as to not wake my mother, and when she was promoted, for her hard work, to a daytime position, I knew where we kept the key to the front door to let myself in after school. I can’t remember if I was told to lock it behind me: probably not. But other than these rules and similar, and school, and church most Sundays, I was left almost entirely to my own devices. I swung on the tire swing that hung from the weeping willow, and played in the sandbox, and practiced with my youth-sized recurve bow, shooting at a stack of haybales against the barn. I kicked a soccer ball against a wall and practiced free throws in the driveway and shot my BB gun at the stop sign on top of the hill, straining to hear the faint ping. I walked the fencerows back towards the deeper woods as far as I was not afraid to go, and I read stacks and stacks and stacks of books.

***

Books: have we come round, at last, to the point? The Pages of the Sea, a debut novel by Anne Hawk, landed in my inbox one day in April courtesy of Dan, who’d received it from the good people at Weatherglass Books, an independent press in the UK. I took a galley home and started reading that night. (Some childhood habits, happily, never change.) In the opening scene, Wheeler, the novel’s young protagonist, is sitting outside watching her aunt, Celeste, go in and out of the house:

We quickly learn that Wheeler and her two sisters have recently moved into the house they now share with their two aunts and three cousins because their mother has gone overseas to work in England, and “[e]ach month a postal order arrived from England covering the sisters’ room and board.”

When Tant’Celeste speaks to Wheeler, it’s to ask a question she can’t answer: where the rest of the children have gone. When Wheeler doesn’t respond, Celeste sends her to look for them, and when she returns alone, she’s not sure what to make of her aunt’s response:

It’s a beautiful piece of exposition, these opening four pages: Hawk immerses us in Wheeler’s world, capturing the child’s discomfort in the unfamiliar situation and her uncertainty about the mysterious actions and emotions of adults, and establishing both conflict and setting, one inextricable from the other. Wheeler’s interior monologue, written in the rich cadences of her native Caribbean English, with dialogue rendered in the same, voice the lived experience of a time and place and together join a standard English narration in what Hawk describes as a collaboration between Englishes that complement and often overlap each other. It’s a technique that puts me in mind of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston’s brilliant vernacular novel of the American South, which starts gazing out towards a metaphorical sea and then introduces a young protagonist growing up without a father or mother, and of another of our favourite Biblioasis books: Roy Jacobsen’s The Unseen, with its inventive English translation, by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw, of an untranslatable Norwegian dialect—and another novel that begins with a small girl living on a small island, wondering about the world of adults. Like both of those books—one a classic of Modern literature, one an International Booker finalist and bestselling Biblioasis novel—this one welcomes its readers into its world on its own terms from a position of imaginative generosity and of love. It’s often said a great book teaches you how to read it: let me be one of the first, and certainly not the last, to say this is a great book.

For reasons likely obvious by now, my response was: sign it up. And so I couldn’t be more pleased to be writing this to you, Dear Reader, the week before the Canadian publication of Anne Hawk’s brilliant debut novel, The Pages of the Sea. I hope it will find you, wherever you are and wherever you are from, and it will remind you what literature is for. And I hope you’ll stay tuned for September 27, when The Bibliophile will feature an original essay by Anne Hawk on Caribbean English.

BC readers: Upstart & Crow will host the launch of The Pages of the Sea on October 3, 2024 at 7:00PM.

Vanessa Stauffer
Managing Editor

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Keep up with us!

Media Hits: THE NOTEBOOK, A WAY TO BE HAPPY, MAY OUR JOY ENDURE, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE NOTEBOOK

The Notebook by Roland Allen (Sep 3, 2024) was excerpted in Lit Hub on September 9. You can check out the excerpt, “Paper Trail: On the Cross-Cultural Evolution of the Notebook” here.

Roland Allen was interviewed by Piya Chattopadhyay for CBC Sunday Magazine. The interview was posted on September 8, and you can check it out in full here.

Grab The Notebook here!

A WAY TO BE HAPPY

A Way to Be Happy by Caroline Adderson (Sep 10, 2024) has been longlisted for the Giller Prize, and is showing up on a number of lists! Publishers Weekly (Sep 5), CBC Books (Sep 4), and Quill & Quire (Sep 4) have all posted about the longlist.

A Way to Be Happy was also highlighted in the Georgia Straight as one of the five books on the Giller longlist by BC authors. You can check out that article here.

A Way to Be Happy was reviewed in the BC Review on September 4. You can read the full review online here.

Reviewer Bill Paul writes,

“For each story, Adderson expertly develops a detailed setting . . . [and] the author carefully constructs vivid characters from every walk of life. Each one of them making their way to some undetermined fate.”

Grab A Way to Be Happy here!

MAY OUR JOY ENDURE

May Our Joy Endure by Kev Lambert, translated by Donald Winkler (Sep 3, 2024), was mentioned in the New York Times in an interview with writer Garth Greenwell. The article was published online on September 5, and you can read the it here.

Kev Lambert was interviewed by Steven W. Beattie about May Our Joy Endure for Quill and Quire, published online on September 5, 2024. You can read the full interview here.

Lambert says in the interview,

“I wanted to challenge the idea that humanizing the person you critique is giving them credit. We hear this sometimes in political or media circles. But I think it’s a fake or a wrong idea . . . I’m starting to think that we should try to have empathy. Which doesn’t mean stop criticizing or saying everything’s fine because we have empathy. But I think it gives you an understanding of humans that is more accurate and more useful for political engagement.”

May Our Joy Endure was listed as one of The Walrus‘s “Best Books of Fall 2024.” The article was published online on September 4, 2024, and you can read it here.

Contributor Michelle Cyca writes,

“Who hasn’t wished a little divine retribution upon the ultrarich for all their sins? Kevin Lambert’s third novel, nimbly translated by Donald Winkler, is an icy, cerebral social novel . . . showcasing Lambert’s gimlet eye for the delusions and designer preferences of the 1 percent.”

May Our Joy Endure also appeared on the Daily Kos‘s list of “Contemporary Fiction Views: A new book season is about to begin,” posted online September 3. You can check out the full article here.

Grab May Our Joy Endure here!

THE PAGES OF THE SEA

The Pages of the Sea by Anne Hawk (Sep 17, 2024) was included in the Toronto Star‘s list of “25 books worthy of a place at the top of your to-read pile.” The list was published on September 1, 2024, and you can view it here.

Get Pages of the Sea here!

UTOPIAN GENERATION

The Utopian Generation by Pepetela, translated by David Brookshaw (Aug 13, 2024), was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada. The review will appear in print in their October issue.

The LRC writes,

“A classic post-colonial text . . . This sweeping novel, which moves in roughly ten-year increments from 1961 to 1991, tells the steadily absorbing story of ‘how a generation embarks on a glorious struggle for independence and then destroys itself.'”

Get The Utopian Generation here!

CROSSES IN THE SKY

Crosses in the Sky: Jean de Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia by Mark Bourrie (May 21, 2024) was reviewed in The Millstone on August 29. Read the full review here.

Edith Cody-Rice writes,

“[A] fascinating and engrossing tale . . . a meticulously researched book . . . It told me, on nearly every page, something I did not know about the history of this province, of the lives lived here in the 17th century.”

Crosses in the Sky was also mentioned in an interview between actress & director Kaniehtiio Horn and interviewer Jim Slotek in Original Cin, posted on September 5. Check out the article here.

Grab Crosses in the Sky here!

CASE STUDY

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet was included in the Globe and Mail‘s list of “Books we’re reading and loving in September.” The list was published on September 5, and you can check it out here.

Ian Brown writes,

“Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Case Study (longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize) is the best type of novel: the sharply crafted, deeply intelligent but compulsively readable kind . . . As soon as you stop reading, you’ll want to read it again.”

Get Case Study here!

Preorder Burnet’s forthcoming book, A Case of Matricide, here!

Media Hits: MAY OUR JOY ENDURE, THE NOTEBOOK, THE PAGES OF THE SEA, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE PAGES OF THE SEA

The Pages of the Sea by Anne Hawk (Sep 17, 2024) was reviewed in The Guardian! The review was published online on July 25, and is available to read here.

Critic Claire Adam writes,

“The writing is confident and precise; evocative of the beauty of the Caribbean and full of sparkling observation. I’ll eagerly await whatever this talented author has in store for us next.”

Order The Pages of the Sea here!

THE NOTEBOOK

Roland Allen, author of The Notebook, has been interviewed by David Marr on ABC’s Late Night Live podcast, talking about how the humble notebook changed the world. The interview was posted online on July 25, and you can listen to it here.

Roland Allen was also interviewed by John Dickerson on Slate‘s Gabfest Reads podcast, in which they discuss the historical origins of notebooks, how to keep a notebook and their own personal journeys documenting their lives. The episode was posted online on July 20, and you can listen to it here.

Order The Notebook here!

MAY OUR JOY ENDURE

May Our Joy Endure by Kevin Lambert, translated by Donald Winkler (Sep 10, 2024), was featured in Quill & Quire’s  2024 Fall Fiction Preview. The list was published online on July 24, and you can check out the full preview here.

Attila Berki writes,

“Like his previous works, including Querelle of Roberval, Kevin Lambert’s new novel has garnered acclaim and won multiple awards in the original French. A philosophical critique of the ultra-privileged, it tells of a famous architect who returns to her hometown and creates a furor with a widely condemned Montreal megaproject.”

May Our Joy Endure was also reviewed (in French) in Fugues. The review was posted on July 21, and you can read it here.

Reviewer Benoit Migneault writes,

“[A] translation . . . that masterfully captures the quality of the original text. As a reminder, May Our Joy Endure brilliantly explores and satirizes the world of the ultra-rich, the galloping gentrification of neighborhoods, and the incestuous and parasitic links between political and economic circles.”

Order May Our Joy Endure here!

CROSSES IN THE SKY

Crosses in the Sky: Jean de Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia by Mark Bourrie (May 21, 2024) was excerpted in the Ottawa Citizen. The excerpt, “Up to Huronia” from chapter two of the book, was published online on July 22. Read it in full here.

Grab Crosses in the Sky here!

Media Hits: PAGES OF THE SEA, COMRADE PAPA, ON CLASS, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE PAGES OF THE SEA

The Pages of the Sea by Anne Hawk (Sep 17, 2024) was reviewed in Kirkus Reviews. The review will appear in their Aug 15 print issue, and was published online on July 19. Check it out in full here!

Kirkus writes,

“Hawk’s prose is beautiful, a lyrical and loving portrayal of an island and its people . . . A unique, scrappy, tender bildungsroman.”

Order The Pages of the Sea here!

COMRADE PAPA

Comrade Papa by GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne (Oct 8, 2024), was reviewed by Alison Manley in The Seaboard Review. The review was published online on July 14, and you can read it here.

Manley writes,

Comrade Papa is a sweeping coming-of-age story, spanning two centuries and continents, linking two characters across time and space to critique the long-lasting effects of colonialism. It’s also a very playful novel, poking fun at the purity of movements and the one-note branding we often slap on history. GauZ’ is a really interesting and experimental writer, and it shows here in his second book translated into English by Frank Wynne.”

Order Comrade Papa here!

ON CLASS

On Class by Deborah Dundas (May 9, 2023) was reviewed in the Montreal Serai. The review was published online on July 15, and you can read it in full here.

Reviewer Veena Gokhale writes,

“Coming at the complex issue of class from several angles, Deborah Dundas draws from personal narrative, interviews and testimonies, formal research and studies, information from media, and other sources to present a holistic, nuanced and highly informative view of class in Canada.”

Get On Class here!

Check out the rest of the Field Notes series here!

YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jon Kalman Stefansson, translated by Philip Roughton (Mar 5, 2024), was included in the Sarnia Journal‘s list, “The ultimate summer 2024 reading guide: The Book Keeper’s top picks.” The article was published online on July 17, and you can read it here.

Bookseller Ann writes,

“This is way more charming, endearing, beautiful and hopeful than the title, the cover and the themes of grief make it sound. It’s the perfect summer read if you love a cast of funny, endearing characters who roll over each other’s stories in a way that clarifies the meaning of community.”

Get Your Absence Is Darkness here!

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