The evening in the Appel Salon at the Toronto Reference Library begins with a sincere expression of enthusiasm on the part of the interviewer, introducing and welcoming the author. Not rote expression of interest or distant admiration, but a sense of true excitement as Jared Bland takes his seat, and
An engrossing story, a compelling narrative voice: Three Souls is an easy book to recommend. Because of the setting and romantic elements of the story, it's tempting to draw comparisons with the novels of Amy Tan and Ai Mi. Given the readability, one might think of Sue Monk Kidd's The
Reading Craig Davidson's Cataract City took me somewhere else. You might think, if you have heard something of the novel, that I am about to say Niagara Falls. But as much as the novel is about two boys' coming-of-age in this environs, it is a study of how 'what-came-before' morphs and
One might say that the narrator of Margaret Drabble's novel is an anthropologist of sorts. Perhaps that would be misleading, however: "Anthropology is full of strange spirit stories, about shamans and witchcraft and night ridings and animal shape-shiftings, stories which hover between myth and fairytale and religion and tribal memories
This from Hugh MacLennan to young Marian Engel in 1956: "If I can be of any help to you, don't hesitate to write and tell me so. I'm cynical about theses, having done one myself, but I suppose they are necessary if you can avoid taking them too seriously." University
