Toronto Star

Anik See's Saudade is another title that requires explanation. It's a Portuguese word with no direct English translation. But a Portuguese friend tells me it means a longing for somewhere, someone or an experience that is now past.

For See, who travels widely but divides the rest between Canada and the Netherlands, it seems to represent relishing a simple life and regretting modern, stifling intrusions on old shores (as in new developments in old Amsterdam).

Of the three human enterprises most often named as means to defy death — religion, art and sex — Mike Hoolboom's novel The Steve Machine is most heartily concerned with the latter two.

There’s a passage in When the Devil Holds the Candle, by the Norwegian mystery writer Karin Fossum, in which her detective, obviously a literary sort, reflects on what he likes about poetry: "It's like playing Virtual Reality, he thought. Poof! -- and you're in a different landscape."

The landscape in both of today’s collections is familiar, in a way.

Shipwrecked in magic Parkdale

A local playwright has an entertaining ball with a rich kingdom around the King car

April 20, 2008

Patricia Robertson

Claudia Dey's magical and sensuous first novel, Stunt, is a triumphant launch to the award-winning playwright's literary career. Dey has produced a remarkable piece of magic realism.

A lonely schoolyard prince plots some choice revenge

Calgary rocker debuts with a 10-year-old hero who remains as nameless as his unspoken fear, but we cheer the kid on in the end

June 17, 2007

Nancy Wigston

The Milk Chicken Bomb

by Andrew Wedderburn

Coach House, 291 pages, $21.95

This odd, mysterious first novel is narrated by a 10-year-old boy living in the fictional town of Marvin, outside Calgary.