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“Required reading for any person troubled by our world right now.” – Maureen Medved
Jake’s life is shaped by the Spanish Civil War and the not-so-civil wars that go on within families and intimate relationships.
With engaging wit and originality, David Spaner does for Vancouver what writers like Mordecai Richler and Philip Roth did for Montreal and Newark. Jake Feldman grows up on Keefer Street in the dynamic working-class immigrant neighbourhood of Strathcona in Vancouver. This is the first novel to bring to life the vibrancy of Strathcona and its largely Jewish Keefer Street.
Jake’s left-wing, rabble-rousing street politics of his youth eventually lead him to leave Depression-era Vancouver to join the international volunteers fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War. But his return home is unheralded and his idealism is worn down by the mundaneness of everyday life and family conflict.
Fifty years later, he recaptures the passion of his youth during a reunion of civil war volunteers in Spain. Keefer Street explores how to preserve your idealism in order to live a life of purpose.
When Joey enters puberty, his father Jake finds himself in a morally ambiguous position. Joey is severely disabled, but he still has the same sexual desires as any seventeen-year-old boy, only he can’t do anything to relieve the tension. Jake is a widower whose life is devoted to his son, but when he suddenly develops a serious medical condition, he becomes the one to rely on the people around him, including his sister Twyla, his friend Robyn, and Joey’s best friend Rowdy. As Jake’s condition worsens, an ethical dilemma troubles the household as everyone is forced to consider the possibility of saying goodbye.
Stories are carried like cargo on trains from the Rocky Mountains to the East Coast in this cautionary tale of what happens when we’re haunted by the hunger for the ever-greater development and exploitation of natural resources.
A nineteenth-century fur trader and his Métis guide are harrowingly pursued by an unseen monster on the Athabasca River. Two freshwater biologists in present-day Fort McMurray investigate pollution downstream from the oil sands, until one becomes obsessed with his discovery of a centuries-old skeleton. A young man comes to work in the Alberta oil sands, but is driven home after discovering the body of a missing co-worker. The residents of a small town unite in grief after an entirely preventable disaster. Stories intersect and echo, connecting the dots between voraciousness and victimhood, beasts without and beasts within, and ravaged landscapes and ruined souls.
The turmoil in Max’s life was set in motion by Sylvia, an elusive figure who enters his life and charges Max with the task of finding Tommy Jade, a Chinese immigrant from the 1920s. Dragged further into the history of the Chinese-Canadian struggle for redress and into the lives of those involved, Max discovers that not only is his life in danger, but also his son’s. A modern-day noir that draws from both Haruki Murakami and Frank Miller, lady in the red dress is a darkly comic story about the skeletons in our closets and the consequences of our inactions told by one of Canada’s most-promising young playwrights.
A funny and emotionally resonant coming-of-age novel about one summer of momentous social and political change at a Jewish sleepover camp
It’s the summer of 2013 and 21-year-old Ruby, a counselor at Camp Burntshore, can’t wait to supervise a rowdy cabin of 11-year-olds, smoke weed by the fire, and argue about which city make the best bagels. But when Brent, the camp owner’s son, hires Israeli soldiers to deal with a staffing shortfall, Ruby, a committed anti-Zionist, must decide if she’s willing to jeopardize her place at Burntshore to fight Brent over the contentious issues of Jewish belonging and settler colonialism, even as she finds herself falling in love with one of the soldiers, the sweetly handsome Etai.
Soon it becomes clear that the conflict is not just about the camp’s internal divisions but also about Burntshore’s relationship with the neighboring Black Spruce First Nation, strained because of Brent’s larger scheme to buy the Crown land surrounding the lake. As campers swim, go canoe tripping, and stage an over-the-top musical, Ruby has to contend with her feelings for Etai while simultaneously trying to save her beloved camp from greed and colonialism. A social satire, romance, and political commentary all in one, Lake Burntshore celebrates the contemporary Jewish world through its most iconic symbol — the often idyllic yet always dramatic summer camp.
Lana the llama lives in the farmyard with all of her sheep friends. She loves being part of their flock, but she knows that she doesn?t fit in?her legs and neck are much too long, and her ?baa? is very baaad. Lana does her best to look like the other sheep, until one day a bully arrives, and Lana has to stand up for herself and her friends.
One year after the suicide of their teenage son Joel, Debora and Michael Shaun-Hastings sit down to dinner with their son’s bully and his parents. Closure is on the menu, but accusations are the main course as everyone takes a turn in the hot seat for their real or imagined part in the tragedy. Blame shifts over the course of the evening from one person to the next, raising questions no one is prepared to answer.
Late September is an intimate queer coming-of-age tale exploring the nuances of love, trauma and mental health. A compelling literary fiction pick for readers of Heather O’Neill and Zoe Whittall.In the summer of 2000, Ines, a grief-stricken skateboarder beginning to explore her sexuality, leaves behind her sheltered hometown on a Greyhound bus bound for Montreal. In awe of the city’s vibrancy, and armed with a journal and a Discman, Ines sets out to find a new way, befriending April, a latex-loving goth who gets her a job as a cam-girl. In the midst of a bar fight Ines meets Max, a magnetic skateboarder, whom she quickly falls for.As summer fades to fall Ines tries to uphold the bliss of their intoxicating summer, realizing that while she has escaped the confines of her small-town life, she cannot escape her past. The city changes and their romance darkens as Ines learns that Max is experiencing mental health challenges, all while a regular at the cam studio gets threateningly close. Ines learns that loving herself first requires trial and error—and that love is not always an innocent word.
Launch thrusts readers into the life of Theo Strahl, a quirky artist and inventor from Winnipeg who’s spent the past two decades happily scavenging back-lanes and transforming scrap into art. But beneath his contented exterior, Theo has always been quietly expecting the world to end within his lifetime.
On his fortieth birthday, Theo’s fears are brought to life when an otherworldly voice named Ford disrupts his celebration, commanding him to build a Noah’s Ark-esque spaceship to escape the doomed planet. As someone who’s convinced that the countdown to global collapse is ticking away, Ford’s message feels disturbingly plausible. In the weeks that follow, Theo becomes consumed by Ford’s impossible task, unraveling his once-happy life as he prepares to escape from a world he’s always feared would implode. His obsession strains his marriage and alienates his son — leaving Theo to confront his deepest fears about life, love, and the meaning of survival.
Launch explores the haunting echoes of Cold War trauma, the fragility of family bonds, and the eternal struggle between hope and despair. In a world on the brink of ruin, can Theo salvage his relationships — or will his journey to the stars tear everything apart?
How do you change the world?
Meet Léa, polyglot, labour activist, farbrente feminist. Born to a large Jewish family and raised in a French Catholic town, Léa moves fluidly between languages and cultures. Her search for meaning and her instinct for justice place her at the centre of the great changes of the 20th century. From street fights in Berlin to protests in Montreal, she defies the expectations and limitations of women’s lives, wins historic victories for the union movement, and grapples with her own convictions. Based on the life of famed activist Léa Roback, this novel brings to life a heroine emboldened by political strugglea that resonate to this day.
Rik Emmett’s second collection originated during the dark limbo of COVID-19: 2021–22. Five parts go from autofictional narration to observations on the modern world, moving inside out, then outside in. Eventually, Leaning Into It looks beyond.
Leaning Into … what? The prevailing chaos of narcissistic, egotistical, patrimonial power-mongering lends these poems renewed vitality, as the author’s frustration and disappointment with current undemocratic global politics play out.
How much leaning gets us a tiny bit closer to wisdom? Emmett favors the balatrones, jesters, fools, poets, comedians, and atheists in his social media feeds. “Power” ignores the balanced values of a sense of humor and a good-natured humility — but this poetry takes on the world as it is, ultimately leaning into hope.
Delia Buckley hasn’t seen Daniel Wolfe in twenty-two years, ever since he’d abandoned her and their unborn child. But now here he is, knowing all about Delia’s family troubles and wanting to employ her to nurse him in his terminal illness. Desperate for money to keep both the family farm, and her sister Maggie in the home for the mentally ill she’s lived in for years, Delia is in no position to turn down Daniel’s very handsome offer. She is determined keep her distance and the truth about the past from him. But the past rises up around Delia from all sides. Daniel wants to be forgiven. His daughter, Jude, arrives from Vancouver and wants to talk about her sister, who disappeared six months after the death of their mother, and to cap it all off, a young woman called Iris shows up on the doorstep asking questions about relatives her mother on her deathbed had told her to seek out. The secrets of the past refuse to remain buried. Set in contemporary Ireland, this family drama explores how our choices ?and our mistakes ? echo through generations.
Incorporating elements of creative nonfiction and oral history, Let It All Fall: Underground Music and the Culture of Rebellion in Newfoundland, 1977–95 is a collection of interview-based first-person monologues that describe the experiences of a generation of independent musicians, artists, and activists.
Beginning in the late 1970s, a new raw sound began to emerge from the basements and garages of St. John’s which, by the mid-’90s, had grown into a vibrant community. With few resources, dozens of bands produced a staggering amount of music.
Let It All Fall traces how underground youth culture challenged social and economic inequity, as well as cultural norms, during one of the most turbulent times in Newfoundland history.
Set in the waning days of the Klondike Gold Rush, Ley Lines begins in the mythical boom town of Sawdust City, Yukon Territory. Luckless prospector Steve Ladle has accepted an unusual job offer: accompany a local con artist to the unconquered top of a nearby mountain. What he finds there briefly upends the town’s fading fortunes, attracting a crowd of gawkers and acolytes, while inadvertently setting in motion a series of events that brings about the town’s ruin.
In the aftermath, a ragtag group of characters is sent reeling across the Klondike, struggling to come to grips with a world that has been suddenly and unpredictably upturned. As they attempt to carve out a place for themselves, our protagonists reckon with the various personal, historical and supernatural forces that have brought them to this moment.
A wildly inventive, psychedelic odyssey, Ley Lines flips the frontier narrative on its ear, and heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in Canadian fiction.