Who? Where?
“Based in Fredericton, New Brunswick’s capital, Goose Lane Editions is a vital part of Canada’s ever-morphing publishing landscape. Whether it’s homegrown Canadian fiction, singular collections of poetry, books on contemporary art, or courageous stances on environmental issues and global politics, we provide book lovers with great reads that inspire, spur conversation, and stimulate minds. We seek to represent a balance of voices and proudly embrace Queer Lit as well as First Nations and Inuit authors and artists who are shaping and transforming our perspectives.”
“From Webpage”
First encounter?
As a bookseller, via a trade show (a loooong time ago), I was given a scratchpad with their logo and a bookish quote. Then, in 2006, a friend was taking the Humber Creative Writing course with Kim Moritsugu and I decided to read her 1996 novel Looks Perfect.
Other Goose Lane Reading, Fiction:
Catherine Bush’s Accusation (2013) and Blaze Island (2020)
Libby Creelman’s Split (2015)
Tyler Enfield’s Like Rum-Drunk Angels (2020)
Michelle Butler Hallett’s This Marlowe (2016)
Pauline Holdstock’s The Hunter and the Wild Girl (2015) (LOVED this!)
Mark Anthony Jarman’s Knife Party at the Hotel Europa (2015)
Michael Kaan’s The Water Beetles (2017)
Arley McNeney’s The Time We All Went Marching (2011)
Lori McNulty’s Life on Mars (2017)
Rabindranath Maharaj’s Homer in Flight (1997)
Riel Nason’s All the Things We Leave Behind (2016) and The Town that Drowned (2011)
Rosemary Nixon’s Kalila (2011)
Jocelyn Parr’s Uncertain Weights & Measures (2017)
Patricia Robertson’s Hour of the Crab (2021)
Running the Whale’s Back (Ed. Atkinson and Harris, 2013)
Margaret Sweatman’s Mr Jones (2014)
Tamai Kobayashi’s Prairie Ostrich (2014)
Ian Weir’s Will Starling (2014)
Jared Young’s Into the Current (2016)
Other Goose Lane Reading, Non-Fiction:
Gerry Fostaty’s As You Were (2011)
Debra Komar’s The Lynching of Peter Wheeler (2014)
Monique LaRue’s Between Books: A Writer’s Time (2010)
Bruce McDougall’s The Last Hockey Game (2014)
Peter Nowak’s Humans 3.0 (2015)
Annie Pootoogook’s cutting ice (2018)
Laura Trethewey’s The Imperilled Ocean: Human Stories from a Changing Sea (2020)
Where the Nights are Twice as Long: Love Letters of Canadian Poets (Ed. Eso and Lynes)
RECENT READ: David Bergen’s Out of Mind (2021)
David Bergen is one of the writers who taught me how to be a more attentive reader. The first book of his I read—The Time In Between—just washed over me. That spare prose, it left me unmoved.
The layers in the story seemed invisible to me, and I didn’t recognise how themes reverberated therein. Both The Age of Hope (2012) and Stranger (2016) would later impress me, but it was being stuck in a waiting room with The Matter with Morris (2010) that provoked a new kind of attentiveness.
Out of Mind is a novel that focuses on Lucille, Morris’ wife in Bergen’s 2010 novel. It’s a companion novel in the sense that as Lucille reflects on past events in her life, a reader’s understanding of her marriage to Morris and their family dynamics broadens.
But, in fact, the novel does take place later in time, so technically it functions like a sequel; Out of Mind updates you on family life, even though Lucille’s reflections and preoccupations have her looking backwards more often than not.
Lucille’s story is not happy, but nor is it bitter or sorrowful. More peaceful, I’d say: “It’s like I have a cave there and it goes deep. I didn’t know that it was possible to have that much space there. So much space. And so deep. I do not think it will go away.”
She’s aware that people crave a certain kind of story, and it doesn’t seem to be the story offered here. “People loved true stories. Readers adored the personal. They wanted the underbelly. They wanted ugliness. And then they wanted redemption.”
The prose is distanced, emotions controlled, resolution suspended. There’s a hint of another kind of narrative for her: “You are vibrant. There will come a day, Lucille, when you will be wearing my shoes, pacing your own little place and wondering how you got there. It is unavoidable.”
Some forces that surround Lucille seem to erode possibility: “Except for parents, who forsook themselves for the children. She would be a mother until she died, and her children would always be her children. Even when Lucille was seventy-five, and Libby was forty-five, Libby would still wield control over her.”
Bergen makes the story work, slim and precise as it is, by tapping into universal truths that resonate with readers: “Loneliness again. Youth. Sadness and then happiness, and then more sadness and then more happiness.”
It’s what makes up a life, and it makes a good story for patient readers who are willing to sit with characters, rather than expecting them to entertain or enlighten.
I’ve got that latest David Bergren book on my shelf from Gooselane, but I must admit I’ve been avoiding it because I don’t love his reading. I know i’m not an attentive enough reader, and I’m generally an impatient person, which never helps LOL
On the scale of things, it is exceptionally Bergen-y, so I would simply pass it along to another reader. It’s an advantage, knowing the kinds of writing that appeal to you: life is short!
Ok good to know! Life is short, especially for booklovers haha
I love your comment about books for “patient readers who are willing to sit with characters, rather than expecting them to entertain or enlighten”. I’m often drawn to these quiet, contemplative stories, especially in autumn and winter.
There is the possibility of being enlightened here, and a few small chuckles along the way too, but it is contemplative and, overall, I’d say he is a writer of quiet, tender stories.
This is a great summary of Goose Lane–I don’t know them nearly as well as you. Thanks for this!
It’s been interesting to me, too, to peruse my reading logs. Often when I’ve thought there would be a lot of books, there weren’t actually many that I posted about (as with Biblioasis, for instance, I’ve read more of their stuff than I’ve written about) and, in this instance, I’d read even more than I thought, simply in total (a lot of art books in my log from them, but very few written about…well, I’m not an artist, what am I going to say exactly?!).
I love Goose Lane’s books, but haven’t read as many as you have. I might have read a couple of different ones, though, that aren’t on your list. If I remember, I will check!
I have Out of Mind in my stack and I’m looking forward to it. Now I’m worried, though, that I need to read about Morris first – I haven’t read that one. The description of this one makes me think of The Age of Hope.
If you aren’t planning a post for which they’re suitable, feel free to email me the titles/authors with links to your reviews and I will insert them into your comment above.
I’ve been dithering about this overnight. Part of me wants to say “oh, just read this one” because it’s succinct and I’m curious to hear how you receive this story without having heard from Morris. But another part of me cannot imagine this story without the backdrop of the other. I don’t thiiiink that, in reading this one, you will feel like you need to hear more from Morris…but maaaaybe you would still want to go back to the first afterwards?
Hmm… Well, now I’m kind of curious to read it on its own just to see how well it stands alone. (Plus then I’ll be more likely to read it sooner!)
“Crow” by Amy Spurway: https://consumedbyink.ca/2019/04/09/crow-by-amy-spurway/
“The High-Rise in Fort Fierce” by Paul Karlucci: https://consumedbyink.ca/2019/01/31/linked-story-collections-paul-carlucci-and-martine-desjardins/
“The Douglas Notebooks” byChristine Eddie: https://consumedbyink.ca/2016/02/08/the-douglas-notebooks-a-fable-by-christine-eddie/
“The Ballad of Jacob Peck” by Debra Komar: https://consumedbyink.ca/2014/09/12/the-ballad-of-jacob-peck-by-debra-komar/
I added them myself to save you the trouble!
That last sentence resonates with me. I read Stranger and was impressed by its political sensibility wrapped up in an accessible, easy read.
If you appreciated Stranger, I am sure you would enjoy all of his books: he is always “up to” that kind of trick. Deeply satisfying (unless you overlook the entire charade, as I did in the past heheh). I particularly recommend The Age of Hope to you, for its marriage-talk (but this pair would be my next, for the same reason).