Inheritance: a common literary theme. Here, Mrs. Boldescu has died, leaving behind four grown children and a family grocery shop on St. Eulalie Street in Montreal: “Rumania Fancy Groceries". Small shops in 1935, imagine "Rumania Family Groceries" on the signClick for source details Carol and Georgie are the older brothers, and
This feels like a quintessential Mavis Gallant story: expectations and disappointments swirling around a young girl's form, as she begins to assemble a set of truths about the world. The town in "Wing's Chips" would never make it onto a postcard of Valley-living(Click for source details) Although the setting appears
A new Friday fugue, concluding this week, considering the ways in which our working lives appear on the pages of novels and short stories. (Previous weeks can be viewed here, here and here, if you're keen.) Riverhead, 2013 Mohsin Hamid’s How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
Mark Lavorato’s debut novel is aptly titled as the novel is equally divided between these two characters, a young woman who dances on stage and a young man who takes photographs on the streets. Through them, readers experience Montreal of the 1920s, from vaudeville to fascism, and women’s rights to
You'd think that the heart of the story in The River Burns is the covered bridge. The cover. The marketing. And the Author's Note which launches the novel refers to the actual Wakefield Bridge fire. "Historical events inspired the novel's genesis; skeletal aspects are mirrored here; yet the gentle shifts to time
