Dead Writers

Creativity, genius, a romantic spirit, a poetic sensibility—none of these things are free. At least that is what Jean Marc Ah-Sen, Michael LaPointe, Cassidy McFadzean and Naben Ruthnum communicate in their stories for the collection Dead Writers (Invisible). Each writer’s skills come through clearly in this set of novellas united by the theme of bargaining. In Ruthnum’s story, a woman who works in the publishing industry is tasked with writing the biography of a dead writer whom she hardly knew while he was alive. The narrative provides a fresh angle on the trope of the writer’s bargain—in which literary skills come with a tortured-genius complex—by showing the consequences from an outsider’s perspective. McFadzean’s story follows a recovering alcoholic on vacation in Sicily, struggling to stay sober as she negotiates the terms of her relationship and her new life. McFadzean infuses the story with the tonal malaise that only a poet can create. For a collection of four stories that explore the same theme, Dead Writers is a diverse work; one that compels readers to assess the sacrifices made and stakes involved in their own bargains. —Adam Inniss

Montreal Standard Time

Before she became an acclaimed short story writer, Canadian author Mavis Gallant made a name for herself as a weekly columnist for the Montreal Standard, a now-defunct English-language newspaper that largely published features. Gallant’s columns are compiled for the first time in Montreal Standard Time (Véhicule), an enthralling collection of her early journalism. Gallant got her start as a columnist in 1944, at the age of twenty-two, with a focus not on breaking news but on timely, ordinary subjects. There was a war going on, but rather than update readers with news from the frontlines, Gallant’s writing gave voice to those who were left behind. She reported on the varied aspects of the Montreal of her day, spending time with war brides, returning soldiers, immigrants, street kids, city dwellers and country folk. The young writer’s ability to convey the quiet strength of her subjects amidst uncertain times is heartwarming; and her eye for detail, which later served her in her career as a prolific fiction writer, is evident from the book’s very first pieces. —Ariane Fournier

It Really Is

Many of us are familiar with the winter blues; as the sun sets early and snow falls outside, we hunker down indoors for what feels like perpetuity, waiting for the cold to pass. These feelings of dread and defeat, so often associated with Canadian winters, are well-represented in the graphic novel It Really Is (Conundrum). The lack of colour in Cole Degenstein’s illustrations feels apt—it captures the feeling of being drained of warmth during the winter months. The beginning of this autofictional comic is steeped in loneliness and sorrow, but, later on, feelings of nostalgia, yearning and mild joy start to break through. Spurts of an inner monologue convey the narrator’s realizations that winter is not eternal, and that there can be a simplicity to feeling good all year round. It Really Is shows that even in the winter, there is joy to be had—sometimes in things as small as enjoying citrus fruits. —Meredith Poirier 

No Credit River

No Credit River (Book*hug) warns readers off the bat that it is, at its core, a story about queer heartbreak. The collection of prose poems by poet and novelist Zoe Whittall explores a relationship defined by intense attraction, but rocked by the speaker’s constant uncertainty of where she stands within it. With humour and honest self-reflection, the poems confront the pain of realizing you’ve given yourself to someone who will never do the same. No Credit River tries to make sense of the whiplash of little hurts and the broken promises of commitment. “I cringe at how you had to pretend I wasn’t always disappointing you,” the speaker repeats in “Sunset Junction Pantoum,” somberly reflecting on her tolerance for her partner’s harshness. Whittall weaves the collection’s central thread of lost love through tangents about a failed move to Los Angeles, a writers’ retreat and post-breakup pandemic sex. Eventually, the collection’s exploration of a difficult relationship lands on something not quite like acceptance, but more akin to clarity. —Hannah Carty