Reading Challenge Redux: St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

It's once again been awhile since I've reported back on my Reading Challenge Redux for this year. If you need a refresher, I've committed to reading 12 books in 2013 by authors of whom I've previously only read a single book. With May rapidly coming to a close, my showing is pretty poor: I've only blogged about one of the books on my list.

Here's an attempt to make up for that with a peek at St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (M), the début short story collection by American author Karen Russell. I'm pretty sure I've gone on at length on The Reader about how delightful I find Russell and about how much I enjoyed her 2011 novel Swamplandia! (M) I've been eager to read more from her for awhile.

If you're a fan of Swamplandia! you'll want to pick up St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves if only to read the collection opener "Ava Wrestles the Alligator". Ava is Ava Bigtree: the protagonist of Swamplandia! and the novel evidently grew out of this story. Swamplandia! fans will not only recognize the characters, but they will also feel right at home amidst Russell's vivid descriptions of the Florida wetlands other natural landscapes. Like in Swamplandia! the stories are peopled with quirky characters, fantastical developments and natural settings that are memorable and vibrant.

(C) Joanne Chan

Russell has many literary talents and these stories highlight them. In "The Star-Gazer's Log of Summer-Time Crime" she displays her gift for telling stories through the eyes of children. Ollie (a nerdish, good-kid) enters into a summer friendship with the cool-kid/bully from his grade school: Russell gives a pitch perfect depiction of the delicate and unlikely friendships that develop in the brief out-of-school period known as summer vacation. In "from Children's Reminiscences of the Westward Migration" she shows her knack for making the mythical seem ordinary as she weaves the tale of a family struggling across America in a wagon train. A story that feels like a classic American western historical in all respects but the fact that the father of the family happens to be the Minotaur.


Personally, I struggle with reading full short fiction collections: I'm more of a reader who likes to pick and choose a few tales from a full book and often feel like I have to push myself to read a collection cover to cover. This book was no different and there were some stories that didn't work well for me: on another occasion I might enjoy them, but in attempting to read the book start to finish, I just wasn't in the mood for all of these tales. On the whole though, I agree with this jacket quote from Carlo Wolff of The Denver Post : "A master of tone and texture and an authority on the bizarre, Karen Russell writes with great flair and fearlessness." There is a quality to her writing that takes you back to childhood imaginings and yet many of the stories have very grown-up messages. My favourite in the collection is title story, in which a group of girls are left by their wolf parents at a boarding school that aims to reintroduce them to human society. The last story in the book, it makes commentary on feminism, colonialism, family ties and what it means to to be an individual while being funny and filled with delight. If you only read one in this collection, I'd suggest this one.

Although only just past 30, Russell's writing has already garnered a number of accolades that any writer would be pleased to accumulate over a life time of writing. She has appeared on lists of young authors to watch, was long-listed for the Orange Prize and named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is among a number of writers who are currently credited with revitalizing the short story form and has just released a new book of short stories called Vampires in the Lemon Grove.

If you like Karen Russell you may also find these authors interesting:

Chris Adrian (M):another novelist who mixes fantastical elements into his stories. Try The Great Night: a modern retelling of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Jim Shepherd (M) another American author known for his short story prowess. Like Russell, Shepherd has a wry sense of humour.

Hot Crime Novels

Five hot new crime novels.

Old Turk's Load (M)
by Gregory Gibson

"A tight, fast, and funny crime novel set amid the Newark riots of 1967. When a load of high octane heroin goes missing in the melee, criminals, cops, do-gooders, and lowlifes scramble to possess it. But the heroin has ideas of its own, leading its pursuers on a very un-merry, increasingly deadly chase." -Publisher

"Gibson’s elliptical, ever-evolving plot seems a marriage of Raymond Chandler complexity and Donald E. Westlake comic haplessness, but he imbues his characters with a kind of desperate humanity that is brilliantly played out when Manhattan goes dark in the famous 1967 blackout. The sense of time and place is wonderfully evocative, and The Old Turk’s Load will be a signal pleasure for crime-fiction aficionados" -Booklist

Angel Baby (M)
by Richard Lange

"When you find yourself rooting for the killer in a grisly crime novel, you know you’re in the hands of a real writer. Every character in Richard Lange’s ANGEL BABY feels like flesh and bone, even the ones who show up just to be killed. The story hangs on the entwined fortunes of Rolando, a Tijuana crime boss respectfully known as el Príncipe; his drug-addled wife, Luz; and Kevin Malone, an American drifter who drives illegals across the Mexican border." The New York Times

"A rising star.... Lange embraces classic noir in all its violence, bleakness, and dark humor. He makes readers care about his flawed characters and appreciate the odds that were stacked against them by the circumstances of their upbringing. A film waiting to happen, this book boasts memorable characters, evocative settings, and a suspenseful plot." Kirkus Reviews

The Andalucian Friend : a novel (M)
by Alexander Soderberg

"Sophie Brinkmann had no idea her former patient was an international crime lord. Hector Guzman had a Latin charm and easy smile she couldn't deny, so she agreed to a date...
Jens Vall is in Paraguay facilitating a delivery of very dangerous weapons when he's attacked by angry Russians. They think he stole their drugs...
Lars Vinge is a beat cop with a nasty drug habit he thought he kicked. He's given an important assignment that soon turns into deadly obsession...

All of their paths will collide in this turbo-charged, action-packed, highly sophisticated debut thriller that will set the world on fire." -Publisher

Three Graves Full (M)
by Jamie Mason

There is very little peace for a man with a body buried in his backyard. But it could always be worse. . . .

"More than a year ago, mild-mannered Jason Getty killed a man he wished he’d never met. Then he planted the problem a little too close to home. But just as he’s learning to live with the undeniable reality of what he’s done, police unearth two bodies on his property—neither of which is the one Jason buried." -Publisher

“Three Graves Full is something special - an offbeat, high-class, pacey mystery that blends black humor with dark lyricism, and deft, intricate plotting with dead-on psychological insight. This is a gem of a debut.” —Tana French, author of In the Woods

The Accidental Pallbearer (M)
by Frank Lentricchia

"This series debut by the author of The Book of Ruth and The Italian Actress is a high-art frenetic novel laced with black humor, one-liners, puns, guns, Mafia assassinations, crooked police, and the closely linked issues of loyalty and betrayal. The dissolute antihero Eliot Conte was once an academic until he dangled UCLA's provost out a window. Most professors are similarly inclined but show self-control. Returning home to bleak Utica, NY, he has become an equally unorthodox PI.

When Eliot's highly unlikely blood brother, Antonio Robinson, Utica's corrupt black chief of police, enlists him to neutralize his deputy chief, Eliot's investigation uncovers links to the 15-year-old case of a mob assassination carried out by a last-minute replacement pallbearer (anything but accidental!). Eliot is already running a personal probe of a train passenger he witnessed assaulting the passenger's own child. The two cases are linked, of course, in true noir fashion. Conte is a cad, but his actions are guided by a moral compass, no matter how skewed.

Verdict The terrific writing, clever plots, bleak humor, and colorful characters recommend this to fans of gritty noir crime fiction" - Library Journal

Read Your Way Around the World - Barbados

Read Your Way Around the World invites you to Barbados.

Probably best known to Canadians is Barbadian writer Austin Clarke (M), who was born in Barbados and moved to Canada in the 1950s as a young man. He is perhaps most widely known for his Giller-winning The Polished Hoe (M) published in 2002. In a country named Bimshire, much like Barbados, there is an elderly woman named Mary Matilda who recalls her life on a large sugar plantation, and in doing so, recalls what life was like on the West Indian Island in the first half of the 20th century. Mary Margaret worked her way up from field hand to household servant to the plantation manager's mistress. The tragic circumstances she recounts illustrate the vulnerability of poor women in a society mired in sexual exploitation, colonialism and racism.

Photo: Peter Middleton

In The Origin of Waves (M) he brings two Barbadian emigrants to Canada. "Austin Clarke’s luminous novel, written in vivid, hypnotic prose, reveals the dislocations of place and the nature of memory and the past. Two elderly Barbadian men, childhood friends who haven’t seen each other in fifty years, collide in a snowstorm on a Toronto street. In the warmth of a nearby bar, through the afternoon and into the night, they relate stories, exchange opinions, and share memories of a past in Barbados when, as children, neither could conceive any other place existed for them. As these two men confess to each other their innermost truths, their exploits and their love affairs, one tells the haunting story of a young Chinese woman, the other of the real reason for his visit to Toronto. Infused with pathos and humour, and with an affecting nostalgia for the idea of home, The Origin of Waves is a stunning and original novel by one of the country’s most gifted writers." publisher

Andrea Stuart has written not only her own family history in Sugar in the Blood: a family's story of slavery and empire (M), but also a history of the sugar and slave trades.Stuart was aware that she was descended from slaves on a Barbadian sugar plantation, and had reason to suspect that she was also descended from an Englishman named George Ashby who actually arrived in Barbados before the advent of the sugar trade. She tells of a later descendant of Ashby's, a Robert Cooper Ashby, who was charming but cruel.

© Clara Molden

Stuart credits the sugar trade and slaves for enabling nineteenth century great mansions and libraries to exist. Stuart creates an image of a day in the life of such a plantation before the end of the slavery. Sugar in the Blood takes the reader to present day when the plantation has been turned into condos, and liberty and equality exist, but exist alongside subtle racism.

Not unlike many Canadian writers, Andrea Stuart and Austin Clarke left Barbados in their youth, and reflect back on their childhood from afar. Similarly Cecil Foster emigrated to Canada in the 1970's and published Island Wings (M) in 1998.

"Island Wings is Cecil Foster's deeply affecting story of growing up in a country that was, at the same time, also struggling to find its own independence and place in the world. It is a story guided by the universal truths of heart, mind, and money: where a young boy is raised by an impoverished and physically abusive grandmother, a woman stretched to the limit by trying to raise her own children and grandchildren; where parents routinely leave their children behind for the dream of a better life off the island; where an education provides the slender thread of hope for a job in the civil service or hospital.

(C) Cecil Foster

Despite its setting of poverty and struggle, Island Wings is a story bursting with life and the rhythms of the island, of a young boy's memories of nights spent under a star-filled sky, of cricket games and of a teacher who dared children to dream and think. Cecil Foster's story is also the story of Barbados, politically and economically volatile as it reached for independence from British rule. As a young news reporter, Cecil Foster witnessed the awakening political climate within the Caribbean nations, and his eventual departure from Barbados is inexorably intertwined with the island's turmoil." publisher

Book Review: The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

The Casual Vacancy by J.K.Rowling (M)

When councillor Barry Fairbrother dies, the people in his community begin to realize just how much he meant to their town. Then mysterious messages written by his “ghost” start appearing on the parish council website, exposing secrets and causing the carefully crafted lives of the townspeople to fall apart.

This is really a book for adults, and Rowling really wastes no time proving that—in the first 20 pages, there’s cursing and discussion of very adult subject matter, and as the book continues, it’s clear that this is not written for children.

So clearly this is very different from J.K. Rowling’s famous Harry Potter series…and yet they do have their similarities. Both deal with huge ensemble casts living in a relatively isolated and insulated community where gossip travels quickly and can be devastating. Both tend to venerate the dead. Both deal with adolescents having to make decisions far beyond their years. Both have gay characters whose sexuality is not explored in any kind of depth and seems to be just kind of thrown in—readers weren’t even explicitly told Dumbledore was gay until after publication. In both novels, Rowling seems to have great sympathy for the poor but very little for the obese.

In terms of the writing, Rowling’s style seems to be intact: dialogue-heavy (with each character having a distinctive voice), trademark sly humour, deep thematic wisdom. Where Rowling really excels is in descriptions of places (and their inhabitants by proxy), especially when describing the filth in a run-down area of down.

With such a huge cast of characters, Rowling does a remarkable job at making each character complex and interesting—but most are not, at least to me, particularly likeable, so I found it hard to enjoy the book. I found it actually physically upsetting at times, and I think this was because I recognized so many of the characters’ flaws as those I’ve personally encountered. Whatever its cause, though, I get a jaded and cynical feeling from the brutal realism in The Casual Vacancy. I never wanted to leave Hogwarts but, despite being impressed by the writing, I couldn’t really wait to exit petty, squabbling little Pagford.

~Ashlee

Far Flung Award Winners

There more and more book awards every year, which makes it a little easier to find high quality titles. Here  for your reading consideration are a few regional award winners from a few far flung places:

British Sports Book Awards

Best Biography
Seven Deadly Sins : my pursuit of Lance Armstrong (M)
by David Walsh

"From award-winning journalist David Walsh, the definitive account of the author's twelve-year quest to uncover and make known the truth about Lance Armstrong's long history of performance-enhancing drug use, which ultimately led to the cyclist's being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles"

The 32nd Northern California Book Awards
Fiction
A Partial History of Lost Causes : a novel (M)
by Jennifer DuBois

"A long-lost letter links two disparate characters, each searching for meaning against seemingly insurmountable odds. One is a Russian world chess champion who has turned to dissident politics. The other is an American woman who finds a copy of the letter her late father had written to the young chess champion, to which he'd never received adequate response."

Creative Non-fiction
God's Hotel : a doctor, a hospital, and a pilgrimage to the heart of medicine (M)
by Victoria Sweet

"San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hotel-Dieu (God's Hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves--"anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times" and needed extended medical care-ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for twenty years."

Translation in Fiction
Blindly (M)
by Claudio Magris ; English translation by Anne Milano Appel

"Hailed as a masterpiece upon its initial publication in Italy, BLINDLY is a novel of highly original, poetic intensity. In a shifting, choral monologue - part confession, part psychiatric session - a man recounts (invents, falsifies, hides, screams out) his life, which has passed through the horrors, the hopes and betrayals, and the revolution of the last century, as well as through different lands and seas. Who is the mysterious narrator? He is all the partisans, prisoners, seamen, and rebels who experience the perils and injustices of persecution, war, violence and adventure. From the award-winning author of DANUBE"

Best Translated Book Award (University of Rochester)

Satantango (M)
by László Krasznahorkai ; translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes

"Set in an isolated hamlet, Satantango unfolds over the course of a few rain-soaked days. Only a dozen inhabitants remain in the bleak village, rank with the stench of failed schemes, betrayals, failure, infidelity, sudden hopes, and aborted dreams. At the center of Satantango is the eponymous drunken dance."


The Believer Book Award
Maidenhead  (M)
by Tamara Faith Berger

"Maidenhead offers an uncensored take on an omnivorous, shame-ridden teenage sexual brain. On a mangy beach in Key West, sixteen-year-old Myra meets Elijah, a Tanzanian musician twice her age. Trapped on a Spring Break family vacation, Myra longs to lose her virginity to Elijah, and is shocked to learn he lives with Gayl, a secretive, violent woman with a strange power over him. When Myra and her splitting-up family return home, she falls in with a pot-smoking anarchist crowd. But when Gayl and Elijah follow her north, she walks willingly into their world, engaging in more and more abject sexual games. As Myra enters unfamiliar worlds of sex, porn, race and class, she explores territories unknown in herself. Maidenhead traverses the desperate, wild spaces of a teenage girl's self-consciousness."

Book with Buzz - Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi

Ghana Must Go (M) is the debut novel by Nigerian-Ghanaian author Taiye Selasi. It has been generating a lot of buzz in literary circles.

"This arresting first novel comes garlanded with mighty expectations: translated into umpteen languages already, the author mentored by no less than Toni Morrison, advance approval from Salman Rushdie and cover quotes from Penelope Lively and Teju Cole.  

Is the hype justified? The generous answer is yes, though I worry about how the talented Taiye Selasi can follow this stunning opening act." - The Guardian

Book Summary:

Kweku Sai is dead. A renowned surgeon and failed husband, he succumbs suddenly at dawn outside his home in suburban Accra. The news of Kweku’s death sends a ripple around the world, bringing together the family he abandoned years before. Ghana Must Go is their story. Electric, exhilarating, beautifully crafted, Ghana Must Go is a testament to the transformative power of unconditional love, from a debut novelist of extraordinary talent.
~

"Unleashing a strong new literary voice, Selasi joins other gifted writers such as Zadie Smith and Edwidge Danticat with connections to Africa or the African diaspora" - Library Journal

"A finely crafted yarn that seamlessly weaves the past and present, Selasi's moving debut expertly limns the way the bonds of family endure even when they are tested and strained." - Booklist

"Selasi's gorgeous debut is a thoughtful look at how the sacrifices we make for our family can be its very undoing... Reminiscent of Jhumpa Lahiri but with even greater warmth and vibrancy, Selasi's novel, driven by her eloquent prose, tells the powerful story of a family discovering that what once held them together could make them whole again." - Publisher Weekly

Meeting Canadian Publishers - Erinne Sevigny

Today's reading suggestions have been inspired by Erinne Sevigny's travelogue / blogging project, The Great Canadian Publishing Tour: a coast-to-coast look at Canadian book publishing.

I learned about this neat project from the Arts East blog and was thus inspired to offer up some publishing/bibliophile related titles as reading suggestions.  I've even included a couple murder mysteries just for fun.

I encourage you to checkout Erinne's blog, but to also read the Arts East article, as it contains additional details about Erinne's visit to Nova Scotia.

Book: a futurist's manifesto : essays from the bleeding edge of publishing (M)
edited by Hugh McGuire and Brian O'Leary

The ground beneath the book publishing industry dramatically shifted in 2007, the year the Kindle and the iPhone debuted. Widespread consumer demand for these and other devices has brought the pace of digital change in book publishing from "it might happen sometime" to "it’s happening right now"—and it is happening faster than anyone predicted.

Yet this is only a transitional phase. Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto is your guide to what comes next, when all books are truly digital, connected, and ubiquitous. Through this collection of essays from thought leaders and practitioners, you’ll become familiar with a wide range of developments occurring in the wake of this digital book shakeup."


Golden Legacy : how Golden Books won children's hearts, changed publishing forever, and became an American icon along the way (M)
by Leonard S. Marcus

"Since their launch in 1942, Golden Books have occupied a singular and beloved place in children's literature. Leonard S. Marcus explores their history in Golden Legacy: how Golden Books won children's hearts, changed publishing forever, and became an American Icon along the way.

Marcus traces the books' development from the years leading up to their first appearance (selling 1.5 million copies in their first five months on the market) through their roster of acclaimed artists (including Margaret Wise Brown, Mary Blair and Richard Scarry, to name a scant few) and the titles that continue to be treasured to this day (The Poky Little Puppy and The Golden Egg Book among them). William Joyce, Harry Bliss, Avi and others reflect on the influence of the books, and readers of all ages will thrill to the decades' worth of archival illustrations. Stately and comprehensive, this hardcover volume stands in lush contrast to the tiny cardboard-backed titles themselves, but it pays handsome tribute to a publishing phenomenon." -Publisher Weekly


Women Who Love Books Too Much: bibliophiles, bluestockings & prolific pens from the Algonquin Hotel to the Ya-Ya sisterhood (M)
by Brenda Knight

"More about writing than book lovers, this book consists of short (mostly 500- to 1000-word) essays on over 70 women writers as diverse as Sappho, Danielle Steele, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as many lesser-known writers. Knight, author of the American Book Award-winning Women of the Beat Generation, divides the book into well-known women writers, famous writing families, spiritual authors, banned writers, prolific writers, style-setters, and "adored" authors.

Material on most of these authors will already be a part of library collections that support women's studies curricula. However, the volume's easily understandable and inspiring style, augmented by concise entries, an appendix on book groups, and a resource guide, make it an entertaining introduction to women writers." - Library Journal

~fiction~

Foul Matter (M)
by Martha Grimes

"Author Paul Giverney is between publishers. Despite stratospheric sales of his books and frenzied competition to sign him up, he lives modestly in New York's East Village and nurses a secret ambition of a very different sort. In fact, he has a byzantine plan for accomplishing it: the #1 condition of his proposed contract with the literary giant Mackenzie-Haack. They must drop Ned Isaly, a brilliant but far less successful author, and assign his equally gifted editor to Paul. In the hornets' nest of preening egos and cutthroat career moves this stirs up, ambitious editor Clive Esterhaus covets the glossy megastar Paul for himself. But Isaly's book contract is unbreakable and Clive never dreams how a very different kind of contract will force him-and his ambition-into a very foul matter, indeed." - Publisher


Desert Shadows: publishing can be murder (M)
by Betty Webb

"At the ripe old age of 76, Gloriana Allerton, doyenne of Scottsdale, Arizona, high society, was murdered during a reception at a book exposition, just as her imprint, Patriot's Blood Press, was starting to earn acclaim in Southwest publishing. To Lena Jones, an ex-cop turned private eye, the accused--Owen Sisiwan, an Afghanistan war vet who worked for Gloriana doing odd jobs to help support his family--seems an unlikely suspect. As Lena starts digging into the circumstances surrounding Gloriana's murder, a slew of potential suspects emerge, opening up an Agatha Christie-like whodunit replete with greedy relatives, extremist politicians, and hate groups. Simultaneous with this investigation, Lena faces her own past as she reluctantly uncovers the mystery behind her nightmares.

This third in Webb's series makes good use of both tony Scottsdale and the small-press publishing scene. Lena makes a refreshing heroine; being raised by nine different foster families gives her unusual depth. Solid series fare." Booklist

Gene Wolfe awarded the 2012 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award

Science Fiction and Fantasy author Gene Wolfe (M) has been bestowed with the prestigious Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master designation by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, as part of the 2012 Nebula Awards.

Gene Wolfe is an American writer born in 1931. He published his first novel (Operation Ares) in 1970 and his most recent title is 2012's Home Fires. He is perhaps best known for The Book of the New Sun (M), a four volume epic story describes as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" - Publishers Weekly.  

Wolfe's other best known work is Peace (M), first published in 1975 and reprinted many times since.

"Peace" is a spellbinding, brilliant tour de force of the imagination. The melancholy memoir of Alden Dennis Weer, an embittered old man living out his last days in a small midwestern town, the novel reveals a miraculous dimension as the narrative unfolds. For Weer's imagination has the power to obliterate time and reshape reality, transcending even death itself. Powerfully moving and uncompromisingly honest, Peace ranks alongside the finest literary works of our time" - Publisher

He has won many many writing awards, including multiple Locus and Nebula awards.

Here is what author Neil Gaiman has to say:

“It’s not that Gene Wolfe is, in the opinion of many (and I am one of the many), our finest living science fiction writer. It is that he is, in the opinion of the Washington Post (and of me, too) one of our finest living writers. He has been our uncrowned Grand Master for a long time, and now the rest of the world will know as well.”

Don't Miss This! Eva Stachniak Reads Tonight at the Keshen Goodman Library

The Winter Palace: a novel of Catherine the Great (M) is a literary tour de force and should be not be missed. Eva Stachniak's third novel has received many glowing reviews and recommendations.

"Stachniak sets a tone that grips the reader from the first page on, and vividly paints the atmosphere of the Czar’s court, the smells, the tastes, the superstition and the addiction to new fashions, the unimaginable opulence…” It’s well-written and thoroughly convincing!" - Die Presse

"Eva Stachniak’s first novel, Necessary Lies, won the 2000 Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award. That book told a contemporary story; her follow-up, Garden of Venus, and her latest, The Winter Palace, together should establish her as a pre-eminent writer of historical fiction". - Quill and Quire

"The Russian Imperial Court comes to life with its grandeur and overindulgence. Even the descriptions of food are divine. This is absolutely an “eating book,” in that the reader is likely to find herself starving after reading several chapters. Who would have thought that one could crave blinys, smoked sturgeon and borscht so much?" - National Post

“brilliant, bold historical novel . . . This superb biographical epic proves the Tudors don’t have a monopoly on marital scandal, royal intrigue, or feminine triumph.” - Booklist

Please join us tonight at the Keshen Goodman Library to meet (and hear) Canadian Literary star Eva Stachniak.  The reading starts at 7:00pm and all are welcome!

Special thanks to The Canada Council for the Arts for their support.

Staff Pick - 419 by Will Ferguson

2012 Giller prize winning 419 (M) is a departure for the usually funny Will Ferguson (M), author of Generica, How to Be a Canadian, even if you already are one, and Beauty Tips from Moosejaw just to name a few.  419 is an atmospheric brooding thriller set around 2002 which explores the apparently thin line between greed and heroics, and victim and culprit.

419 is section of the Nigerian criminal code that deals with fraudulent activity and scams. Anyone with an email account has received a plea on behalf of a wealthy Nigerian who will give you a portion of his fortune, if only you will receive the money into your bank account. Thankfully, most will delete this email, but what happens when, for reasons of greed or altruism, the email recipient responds? 419 begins with an emotional blast when the family of a retired Calgary teacher learn that he has been killed in a car accident. Investigators quickly determine that this is a suicide and that he has been duped by Nigerian fraudsters and has lost everything - savings, home, everything.

Henry Curtis had been approached via email by Nigerian scammer Winston and tricked into believing that a vulnerable young girl was in trouble and her only hope was to have her fortune transferred out of Nigeria, enabling her to leave the country. The 419 scam follows a progression beginning with a personalized and eloquent appeal. The victim's curiosity/greed/generosity is piqued and contact is made. Official and legal-looking, though entirely meaningless documents are exchanged before roadblocks appear which can only be circumvented with more money. Eventually the victim has invested so much money that they can't afford to back out, and if they do the communication becomes aggressive, blaming and threatening the victim. Henry's daughter, Laura, seemingly reserved and timid, refuses to accept that nothing can be done about this crime.

419 is not just about the victims of this scam. It takes the reader as well to Nigeria to follow other storylines that will eventually intersect at the end. There is Winston, the already mentioned scammer, an educated city man who makes this scam into something of an art form. Nnamdi, a boy born in a fishing village which is being ruined by oil companies, whose father asks the key question, "Would a parent die for his child?" Amina, a pregnant and solitary young girl - the ultimate portrait of vulnerability, and finally Ironsi-Egobia, the criminal mastermind who is controlling them all. The scammers do not see themselves as criminals, they justify their acts by their belief that they are merely taking back what has been stolen from them.

While not necessarily an easy read, 419 has a very exciting and rewarding conclusion. The novel can be uncomfortable as it is easy to see how a vulnerable person might be taken in by such as scam. It is a crime whose target may lose general sympathy as there is always the promise of a cash reward, even if their motives are altruistic. 419 is a challenging novel and is an interesting combination of literary fiction and suspense thriller. Fans of Patricia Highsmith (M), Elmore Leonard (M), and Ian McEwan (M) may enjoy.

In the Time of Queen Victoria

Happy Victoria Day.

In the spirit of the day, I offer up as reading suggestions, novels published this year that are set in the time of Queen Victoria.

Lady of Ashes (M)
by Christine Trent

"In 1861 London, Violet Morgan is struggling to establish a good reputation for the undertaking business that her husband has largely abandoned. She provides comfort for the grieving, advises them on funeral fashion and etiquette, and arranges funerals. Unbeknownst to his wife, Graham, who has nursed a hatred of America since his grandfather soldiered for Great Britain in the War of 1812, becomes involved in a scheme to sell arms to the South. Meanwhile, Violet receives the commission of a lifetime: undertaking the funeral for a friend of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. But her position remains precarious, especially when Graham disappears and she begins investigating a series of deaths among the poor. And the closer she gets to the truth, the greater the danger for them both..." - Publisher

Queen Victoria's Book of Spells (M)
edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

"Gaslamp Fantasy," or historical fantasy set in a magical version of the nineteenth century, has long been popular with readers and writers alike. A number of wonderful fantasy novels, including Stardust by Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, and The Prestige by Christopher Priest, owe their inspiration to works by nineteenth-century writers ranging from Jane Austen, the Bronte and George Meredith to Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and William Morris. And, of course, the entire steampunk genre and subculture owes more than a little to literature inspired by this period. Queen Victoria's Book of Spells is an anthology for everyone who loves these works of neo-Victorian fiction, and wishes to explore the wide variety of ways that modern fantasists are using nineteenth-century settings, characters, and themes. These approaches stretch from steampunk fiction to the Austen-and-Trollope inspired works that some critics call Fantasy of Manners, all of which fit under the larger umbrella of Gaslamp Fantasy." - Publisher

Graphic Novel
Agent Gates and the secret adventures of Devonton Abbey : (a parody) (M)
written by Camaren Subhiyah ; illustrated by Kyle Hilton

"Presenting a parody spin on the characters we know and love from the hit show Downton Abbey, this story is told through the eyes of the downstairs staff--especially one secretly badass valet John Gates, who turns out to be an undercover spy for Her Royal Majesty's British Secret Intelligence Agency (the SIS). Gates and several other Devonton staffers are part of a nationwide top-secret division of operatives scattered throughout country estates, all supervised by (who else?) the Dowager Countess, a close personal friend of Queen Victoria herself. Armed with his own superpower--his limp disguises a steampunk titanium leg perfect for dispatching enemies of the crown--Gates's mission is to protect Devonton Abbey from foreign spies, assassination attempts, and traitorous household staff, all while posing as the valet to the utterly clueless Lord Samson. Action-packed antics ensue, romance blossons, and, as usual, the downstairs crew continues to run the show...and always saves the day" - Publisher

Doktor Glass (M)
by Thomas Brennan

"In an age of zeppelins and gyroplanes, atomics and horseless carriages, the Transatlantic Span is the industrial marvel of the nineteenth century. A monumental feat of engineering, the steel suspension bridge stretches across the Atlantic from Liverpool to the distant harbor of New York City, supported by no less than seven hundred towers. But in the shadows of its massive struts, on the docks of the River Mersey, lies a faceless corpse... Inspector Matthew Langton is still seized with grief when he thinks of Sarah, his late wife. Tortured by nightmares and afflicted by breathless attacks of despair and terror, he forces himself to focus on the investigation of the faceless man. The victim wears the uniform of the Transatlantic Span Company but bears the tattoos of the Boers--could there be a Boer conspiracy to assassinate Queen Victoria on the upcoming inauguration day of the Span? But the truth, as it begins to emerge, is far more bizarre than a political coup. As additional victims turn up--all with strange twin burn marks on their necks--Langton draws a connection between the dead man beneath the bridge and chilling rumors of the Jar Boys, soul snatchers who come under cover of night. Most frightening of all is the mythic and elusive Doktor Glass, who not only may be behind the illicit trade in souls...but may hold the key to what happened to the inspector's own beloved wife on her deathbed.." - Publisher