by prfire | Sep 4, 2018 | Book Reviews, Fiction
In Bill Gaston’s short story “Hello:,” the narrator tells us that, according to some Tibetan Buddhist teachings, guardian spirits called Protectors exist, whose “sole purpose is to promote our wakefulness” and like to do so by “giving us a slap.” This original, vivid,...
by prfire | Aug 17, 2018 | Book Reviews, Fiction
The Heavy Bear is Tim Bowling’s latest novel and like In the Suicide’s Library (2004) its focus is on the ghosts of great male artists. Where In the Suicide’s Library meanders around the lives of Wallace Stevens and Weldon Keese, The Heavy Bear tracks the ghosts of...
by prfire | Jul 25, 2018 | All Reviews, Book Reviews, Fiction
The author’s subtitle, “60 Sudden Fictions,” illuminates much of what a reader experiences in delving into Midwife of Torment: having entire life-narratives sprung fully grown upon the sensibilities, like Athena’s delivery from her father Zeus’s head to relieve a...
by prfire | May 7, 2018 | All Reviews, Book Reviews, Fiction
Witches and teeth, hippies and cleaning ladies, pregnancy and ghosts, tattoos and sex in a Saskatoon bus station bathroom: Annette Lapointe’s You Are Not Needed Now reads like a collection of oddities and curiosities masquerading as the mundane. This book surprises me...
by prfire | Apr 26, 2018 | All Reviews, Book Reviews, Fiction
Kevin Hardcastle’s book In the Cage is not for the faint-hearted. Hardcastle takes readers into a part of society where poverty hovers and taunts at the shoulder. Daniel, the author’s central character, battles every hard knock thrown his way in order to survive....
by prfire | Apr 6, 2018 | All Reviews, Book Reviews, Fiction
Re-reading A Lover’s Discourse in 2017, it’s hard not to consider how Roland Barthes’ impatient Proustian temperament in love might stand to update. Surely Barthes would be hitting ‘refresh’ incessantly, texting with ‘Read’ receipts on, sitting on his hands.“The...