David Bezmozgis' The Free World HarperCollins, 2011 The Krasnansky family is making their way out of Soviet Russia, travelling to Rome. Samuil, the patriarch, is annoyed by the tour guide's suggestion that the history of Western civilization could be plotted along the road that the bus is travelling. "Their history:
Dan Vyleta's The Quiet Twin Harper Collins, 2011 Dan Vyleta's The Quiet Twin is like Hitchcock's "Rear Window" gone wrong-er. There's no Technicolor; imagine everyone is dressed in black, and that some individuals conceal an over-sized pocket-knife. Instead of the director cameo, there is a little blonde girl with pigtails
Genni Gunn's Solitaria Signature Editions, 2011 It's debatable, who is at the heart of Genni Gunn's novel, and that is partly why it is so satisfying. It ironic, given its title that it is not the story of a single person, although much of it is told from a single
Lynn Coady's The Antagonist House of Anansi, 2011 The protagonist in The Antagonist is Rank. Actually, Gordon Rankin. But he's insisted, since he was twelve years old, that his friends call him Rank. Now it occurs to him that he's been instructing people to call him stinky, but that's not
Clark Blaise's The Meagre Tarmac Biblioasis, 2011 The quote from Margaret Atwood on the back of this collection identifies Clark Blaise as a "master storyteller and border-crosser". This might refer to the national borders that the characters cross in the eleven stories in this collection. It might also refer to
