Misconduct of the Heart by Cordelia Strube
2020
Award-winning author Cordelia Strube returns to her unforgettable terrain of the forgotten inner burbs of east Toronto with this caustic, darkly humorous, and infinitely humane story of those who work at a small-chain restaurant. Stevie, a recovering alcoholic and kitchen manager, is frantically trying to prevent the people around her from going supernova: her PTSD-suffering veteran son, her uproariously demented parents, the polyglot eccentrics who work in her kitchen, the blind geriatric dog she inherits, and a damaged five-year-old who landed on her doorstep and might just be her granddaughter.
The Time of My Life: Dirty Dancing by Andrea Warner
2024
Celebrated music journalist Andrea Warner excavates the layers of Dirty Dancing, from its anachronistic, chart-topping soundtrack, to Baby and Johnny’s chemistry, to Bergstein’s political intentions, to the abortion subplot that is more relevant today than ever. The film’s remarkable longevity would never have been possible if it was just a throwaway summer fling story. It is precisely because of its themes—deeply feminist, sensitively written—that we, over 30 years later, are still holding our breath during that last, exhilarating lift.
The Winter Knight by Jes Battis
2023
A queer, modern Arthurian tale set in contemporary Vancouver. An autistic college student who is the latest reincarnation of Sir Gawain is drawn deeper and deeper into the family secrets and round table feuds he’s spent his life trying to avoid while a Valkyrie tries to figure out who is murdering knights before the body count climbs. The Winter Knight is a propulsive urban fairy tale and detective story with queer and trans heroes that asks what it means to be a myth, who gets to star in these tales, and ultimately, how we make our stories our own.
Shepherd’s Sight by Barbara MacLean
2024
For 50 years, Barbara McLean has tended a flock of Border Leicester sheep on her small Ontario farm. Shepherd’s Sight shares the crises, pleasures, and challenges of farm life through the seasons. Now in her 70s, McLean faces a new problem: how much longer she can continue with the physically taxing work that is her central source of meaning and satisfaction. With its lyrical description and absorbing storytelling, Shepherd’s Sight offers an unforgettable glimpse of a life lived on the land.
Shared Universe: New and Selected Poems 1995–2020 by Paul Vermeersch
2020
Bringing together the very best of his poetry from the last quarter century with new and never-before-published works, Shared Universe is a sprawling chronicle of the dawn of civilizations, the riddles of 21st-century existence, and any number of glorious, or menacing, futures. Here, alongside popular favourites, are recently unearthed gems and visionary new poems that reveal the books hidden within the books of one of Canada’s most distinctive and imaginative poets.
The Conjoined by Jen Sookfong Lee
2016
You may know Jen Sookfong Lee from her recent acclaimed novel, The Hunger We Pass Down, or her tenure as one of ECW’s in-house editors, but let’s rewind back to 2016’s The Conjoined! A literary novel inspired by crime fiction, The Conjoined follows a Vancouver social worker as she struggles to uncover her dead mother’s deeply buried secrets. Moving between present and past, this riveting novel unflinchingly examines the myth of social heroism and traces the often-hidden fractures that divide our diverse cities.
* * *
Thanks to ECW Press for sharing these backlist beauties with us. You can order any of these books through All Lit Up, or click the “Shop Local” button on the book listings to discover them at your local indie bookstore.
