It’s such a good title, for such a good book. Ready to declare Miriam Toews in my top five fav authors ever (those wondering the rest: Toni Morrison, Margaret Laurence, Dave Eggers (I know, I know), Alice Munro and… Miriam Toews) (list subject to change) (do not hold me to these late hour, several drinks decisions). Continue reading
Category Archives: Prize Winner
Women Talking: Reading in Company
Filed under Canadian Literature, Fiction, Giller prize, Prize Winner
White Tears: And then suddenly there are ghosts
Hari Kunzru’s White Tears starts out as a conventional realist novel. Uber rich Carter and scholarship kid Seth meet up in college and bond over a love of music and sound. Together they make music, buy records and come of age. Seth, our narrator, loves Carter both for the person he is and for the world he invites him in to: one where making and accessing music is possible because budget doesn’t (seem) to matter. At this point the reader thinks the book is about male friendship, income inequality and coming of age as Gen Z. A lot of spoilers follow. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction, Prize Winner
An Ocean of Minutes: Time Traveling Romance
So if you loved The Time Travellers Wife, you’ll probably enjoy Thea Lim’s An Ocean of Minutes, which is probably the last thing Lim wants me to write, and I’m sorry for saying it. Because they’re very different books. This one is beautifully written, with complex characters and a compelling plot: our protagonists are separated in time when Polly jumps to the future in a gamble to save her lover, Frank, from dying of a pandemic flu. The post-apocalypse future of life after the flu is as disturbing as it is resonant.
But the overarching romance of their relationship, the way the mechanics of time and time travel play in to their relationship, the urgency of their reunion, and the gender politics of a woman waiting – forever waiting – to be reunited with her man – echo strongly with the best-known time travel novel.
That said, whether you’ve read Time Travellers or not, or have no opinions about time travel, I’d recommend this read. It’s not like The Best thing I’ve read, but it’s a solid bet and you could do worse for first books for 2019.
[SPOILER FOLLOWS] Continue reading
Filed under Canadian Literature, Fiction, Giller prize
Literary Vice 