book reviews

If prison labour did not exist, it would have been invented by a philosopher playing with employment as a concept: Imagine there were a group of workers who were not permitted to leave a compound for months or even years at a time

What seemed like an entertaining vampire adventure with somewhat sophomoric social insights blossomed into maybe the most poignant metaphorical commentary on racial politics I’ve ever read.

Cecilia Gentili writes of being dirt-poor, a dysfunctional relationship with her parents, and sexual abuse. At times one wonders how she managed to escape with her life. But it’s not a downer of a book—Faltas is funny, and tells its story with charm and grace.

With sharpness and ephemerality that could only have been harnessed via cliquey 13-year-olds, Dizz Tate writes a class-act debut about the divine knowledge of girlhood, the claustrophobia of adolescence, secrecy and the curious need we have to observe and be observed.

Great poems move different people in different ways. Nobel-poet Wisława Szymborska’s pieces trace a reliable arc from simple seeds, through surprise development, and land in the subtle neighbourhood of the sublime.

Told in fragmented, rapidly oscillating points of view, Refugia muses on the insufficiencies of language in the face of a vast and unexplainable island.

A look into small-town life with a magical air, The Animals reminded me a little of my own travels through some of Ontario’s tourist destinations, and even the game Night in the Woods.

In a series of stories mostly set in modern-day South Korea, Bora Chung writes of heads coming up out of toilets, robots that fall in love and unexpected pregnancies. Her stories read like parables, where decisions made for business’s sake have long and supernatural repercussions.

Contagious Imagination contains a collection of rigorously researched essays and artistic texts that reify Lynda Barry’s teachings. Like Barry’s own idiosyncratic work, it touches on memory, relationships and the everyday.