Who? Where? “Nimbus Publishing is the largest English-language publisher east of Toronto in Canada. Nimbus produces more than fifty new titles a year on a range of subjects relevant to the Atlantic Provinces— children’s picture books and fiction, literary non-fiction, social and cultural history, nature photography, current events, biography, sports, and cultural issues. Nimbus publishes the best books on Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.” (About)

First encounter? Likely due to listening to Naomi at Consumed by Ink chatting about her reading inspired by Atlantic Canadian literary awards.

Other Nimbus Reading:
Wanda Lauren Taylor’s The Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children (2015 look at history and legacy of an orphanage);
Ian Colford’s A Dark House and Other Stories (2019 collection of stories, sometimes dark, always heartful);
George Elliott Clarke’s Portia White (2019 illustrated biography of an opera singer);
Andrea Gunraj’s The Lost Sister (2019 debut novel exploring the trauma of a missing sibling/daughter);
Jaime Burnet’s Crocuses Hatch from Snow (2019 debut novel about social injustice and finding one’s way);
Deborah Hemming’s Throw Down Your Shadows (2020 debut coming-of-age novel);
Séan McCann and Andrea Aragon’s One Good Reason (2020 memoir of a musician);
Carol Bruneau’s Brighten the Corner Where You Are (2020 fictionalized story of artist Maud Lewis).

Read Indies: Hosted by Karen and Lizzy

RECENT READ: Mark Blagrave’s Lay Figures (2020)

Mark Blagrave’s debut novel Silver Salts (2008) was nominated for the Commonwealth First Novel Award, and Lay Figures follows his 2014 collection of linked stories, Salt in the Wounds (2014).

Two scenes from Fall 1941 act as bookends for this story; they secure the novelistic bent, but there is a sense of linked stories in Lay Figures, too—as the lives of these artists in 1930s and 1940s Saint John, New Brunswick in Atlantic Canada enmesh.

It opens with Elizabeth having a discussion with her landlord, about the mural that remains in a recently deceased tenant’s apartment; it’s clear she’s had a relationship with that tenant, William, and clear that she struggles with  “things I am trying to forget”, but to clarify things further readers must travel back to the summer of 1938. “That’s the truth. A version of the truth.” It’s fortunate that Elizabeth is a writer; her creative work is a record of sorts. (I love the fact that Elizabeth goes to the library to work: “There always seemed to be dishes to be done and floor to be swept. The cat was eternally hungry. I felt no responsibility to clean the free public library.”

For anyone who’s felt drawn to the Bloomsbury and the Harlem Renaissance creatives, this intimate view of an artists’ clique is immediately fascinating. The Author’s Note roots the novel in newspaper stories of the age, as well as decades of experience walking St. John’s streets, and Blagrave explains that “Miller Brittain, Jack Humphrey, Ted Campbell, Kay Smith, and P.K. Page, and others have nevertheless been on my mind from time to time.” Integrating some of the dialogue into indirect discourse would highlight his judiciously selected historical detail and showcase Blagrave’s knack for scenic writing to even greater effect, for this is a theme and setting bound to appeal to many readers.

…and it’s just been nominated for the IMPAC Award!