BURY YOUR DEAD by Louise Penny (2010) Sphere

If you haven't found your way to the Three Pines mysteries by Louise Penny, you should. I've read all of them and find myself welcomed back to the fold each time by the familiar warmth and intelligence of Detective Armand Gamache and the antics of the charismatic locals: artists Peter and Clara Morrow; psychologist-turned-bookseller Myrna; cranky, but gifted, poet Ruth; bistro patrons and partners, Gabri and Olivier.

BURY YOUR DEAD relies partially on the fallout of a curious murder in the previous novel THE BRUTAL TELLING (the 5th in the series, recently named the 2010 Anthony Award winner for the best crime novel in the US) where Olivier has been arrested and convicted of killing the enigmatic Hermit. Gamache has doubts about this conviction, and, as a man of conscience, he sends his 2 I.C., Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir, back to the sleepy hamlet to investigate further.

In the recent past there is a moment that personally haunts Gamache, one that leads him to take a temporary leave of absence from the work that he so loves and we learn in an intentionally suspenseful way throughout this narrative what actually happened to break him.

Ostensibly attempting to heal himself in the company of his mentor, the retired Chief Inspector, 80-year-old Emile Comeau who "knew the power, and length of time, Avec le temps, it takes to heal" Gamache heads to Quebec City for respite with his wife Reine-Marie and their adopted German shepherd Henri. There Gamache immerses himself in research about the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at the local library and when his wife returns to Montreal he has Emile introduce him to the members of the Societé Champlain. Gamache also ingratiates himself with the Anglo community that is the Literary and Historical Society and they turn to him for help when there is a grisly murder on their premises. A man has been brutally killed in one of the city's oldest buildings, a place where the English citizens of Quebec safeguard their version of history.

Penny knows her characters intimately and writes convincingly from their perspectives in all of her books, but it's in BURY YOUR DEAD that she fully realizes her narrative structural potential. This newest Inspector Gamache mystery will have you eagerly turning pages through its smart twists and turns to a completely satisfying conclusion.

Check out Louise Penny's website: www.louisepenny.com

FAUNA by Alissa York (2010) RandomHouse Canada

I've been dipping into FAUNA for a few weeks, taking my time, having surrendered completely to York's world. It is a gorgeous book both inside and out.

Protagonist Edal Jones is on leave from her job as a federal wildlife officer, having witnessed one too many humans smuggling in rare creatures and killing most in the process. One morning, as she's cycling through the empty streets at the heart of Toronto, Edal watches a young girl and her big black dog rescuing birds that have knocked themselves out on the city's glass skyscrapers. Edal follows Lily to a wrecker's yard and there meets more waifs and strays both animal and human who seek refuge in this unexpected haven.

York creates memorable characters in Edal, Lily, Guy and Stephen-- all vulnerable and deeply wounded--and suggests that literature itself offers emotional balm as they gather to hear Guy read from Kipling.

What most amazed me about this novel is the confidence from which the narrative unfurls from the perspectives of raccoons, skunks and coyotes as well as from the mouths and minds of the humans.

FAUNA is a billet-doux to Toronto's wildlife community and to broken souls everywhere.

If you are in Toronto, come to Ben McNally Books (366 Bay Street, south of Richmond) on Tues. Nov. 16th at 7:30 PM and get your own copy of FAUNA personalized by Alissa York. It makes a wonderful gift and an even better treat for yourself.

FREEDOM by Jonathan Franzen (2010) HarperCollins Canada

After hearing Franzen read from FREEDOM at IFOA in October, I was lured to crack the spine of his most-recently lauded magnum opus that landed him on the cover of TIME Magazine (joining Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, Robert Frost and Stephen King as one of the few writers to do so) and found him forgiven by Oprah who made her own corrections by selecting this novel as her next book club pick, deifying him in the process.

FREEDOM is a brick of a book weighing in at 562 pages and it is not for those of you who are looking for a page-turner to get you through your next trans-Atlantic flight. But, it is worth the time and attention that it requires. Franzen is a literary novelist and he takes his writing seriously.

I'd already met Walter and Patty Berglund in an excerpt in THE NEW YORKER, so knew a little of what to expect at least stylistically of this epic narrative about contemporary love and marriage. There are the stereotypic threats to Patty and Walter's partnership: the younger woman (Walter's assistant, of course) and the college rival roommate (who just happens to be a minor rock star on whom Patty has had a crush for over 20 years).

The Berglunds have two adult children, Jessica and Joey, who do their best to assert their navel-gazing importance. And, though there are many tears throughout the narrative--most of them understandable and pain-driven--I didn't find myself weeping alongside the characters as I did when I read THE CORRECTIONS, Franzen's previous novel that completely exhausted me and left me gobsmacked in awe at his capacity to render fully formed such flawed beings.

Like Dickens, Franzen manages to write a convincing cast of supporting characters who weave memorably in and out as the story moves from the present to the past and back again. And, he takes on big issues increasingly relevant today: environmentalism, moral courage, responsibility.

There were times that I felt bogged down by detail in the middle of the book and frustrated by the narcissism of Joey (who certainly made my smacking hand itch) especially; however, I suspect being irritated is entirely the point.

In FREEDOM Jonathan Franzen has offered up a looking glass to contemporary North American culture and it is no small wonder when we shudder at the image of what is reflected back.

THE BONE CAGE by Angie Abdou (2007) NeWest Press

Without my obsessive tweeting about books and following other like-minded bibliophiles in the Twitterverse, I don't think I would have found my way to THE BONE CAGE, dedicated advocate of CanLit that I am--and what a shame that would have been.

Those of you who follow CBC books and are aware of its recent request to find the top 40 Canadian novels/collections of short stories published since 2000 (as suggested by readers across the country) may have become aware of Abdou's book there when it leapt to the controversially curated Top 10 List where it holds its place alongside Ami MacKay's THE BIRTH HOUSE, Lawrence Hill's THE BOOK OF NEGROES and Joseph Boyden's THREE DAY ROAD--perhaps the finest novel ever written about the WWI Front and its consequences.

My copy of THE BONE CAGE came winging to me in the mail last week as payback for a copy of Alexander MacLeod's LIGHT LIFTING. How lucky I am in return.

THE BONE CAGE is a dual narrative told in confident third-person about two elite athletes training in Calgary with the hope of making it to the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney: The Show. Sadie is a swimmer with an English Literature degree and Digger is an 85-kilo wrestler and both stand on the verge of realizing every competitive athlete's dream. Because Sadie is 26 and Digger is 30, both are also already beginning to contemplate what will become of them when their bodies eventually betray them, as all bodies do.

Abdou's description is visceral and precise and I found myself wishing I could work up a sweat at the gym as efficiently as Digger and find the vision to work through pain like Sadie does for hours every day in the pool. In addition to her focused narrative drive, I found myself admiring Abdou's original figurative language: "His words come from far away, and they barely reach her. She feels them slide off her body and land in a puddle at her feet." Wow. Right?

I hope that the current exposure on the road to Canada Reads 2011 finds Angie Abdou's THE BONE CAGE the wider and appreciative audience that it so deserves.

WILDLIFE by Richard Ford (1990) Random House

I am on a Richard Ford reading binge, flipping through each book that comes my way. Plus I have my Grade 12 writing students delving in as well to short pieces like "Leaving for Kenosha" (short story), "A City Beyond the Reach of Empathy" (nonfiction about immediate post-Katrina New Orleans), and "Gov't On Our Minds" (about the US midterm elections & published last week in The New Yorker)

Everywhere I turn Ford's prose startles and energizes me.

In WILDLIFE, set in Great Falls, Montana in 1960, protagonist Joe Brinson bears witness to the dissolution of his parents' marriage. Joe's father, Jerry Brinson, was a man who "loved the game of golf because it was a game that other people found difficult and that was easy for him." When he is fired from his job as a golf pro at a local club where he'd hoped to ride the coattails of his wealthy clients and experience the promise of good times that their successes suggested, Jerry makes the unconventional decision of joining a group of volunteer firefighters who will be facing the wildfire that threatens to destroy their community. His wife Jeannette predicts that Jerry will "get burned up," since his only knowledge of fires comes from library books.

Ford creates palpable tension between the main players of this three-day drama and at the end of those days it's difficult not to believe every word of what has happened to the Brinsons, all of whose lives have been made wild by the events. What is remarkable to me is how Jeannette and Jerry find their way back after so much has happened to rend them apart.

Richard Ford must be read. By picking up WILDLIFE, you will learn more about yourself and your capacity for dignity, courage and forgiveness--all essential elements of being human.

HALF BROTHER by Kenneth Oppel (2010) HarperCollins Canada

Thirteen-year-old Ben Tomlin is less than thrilled when his mother brings home an 8-day-old chimpanzee they name Zan. Ben is accustomed to being the only child of two curious behavioural scientist parents, but now thanks to one of his father's high-profile experiments, Ben has been uprooted to the west coast where a university has agreed to support the project that hopes to determine if a chimpanzee can learn human sign language. And, Ben finds himself in the sometimes uncomfortable position of explaining that he now has a little brother who is a chimp.

To begin with Zan is treated like a human baby, swaddled in blankets and diapered. He adjusts relatively well to his new life with the Tomlins and a caring group of graduate students that help to support him. It only takes a few months for Zan to learn his first few signs and he becomes a media sensation with reporters from TIME magazine showing up as well as a 60 MINUTES crew. It's the 70s and there are nascent groups of Animal Rights Activists who are becoming vocal. Could they threaten the fascinating project that Dr. Tomlin has created?

Being a teenager, Ben is also struggling to fit in to a new community of schoolmates and coming to terms with what he refers to as the "Project Jennifer"-his intention to properly woo one of his classmates whose father is his own father's boss at the university.

HALF BROTHER raises ethical questions about animal experimentation and there were several moments where I found myself weeping for Zan as he struggles with his own identity: animal or human?

Oppel clearly remembers what it is like to navigate the turbulent waters of adolescence and writes convincingly from Ben's perspective as a result. This is a novel that would appeal tremendously to Grades 6-8, especially as students are developing moral courage and figuring out what is fair.

SANCTUARY LINE by Jane Urquhart (2010) McClelland & Stewart

Set today SANCTUARY LINE follows Liz Crane, an entomologist, who moves back to the family farmhouse where she spent most of her childhood summers in southwestern Ontario. Liz is there for pragmatic and personal reasons: she will be monitoring the Monarch butterfly colony nearby and trying to cope with the recent loss of her cousin Amanda, a skilled military strategist killed recently while serving in Afghanistan.

Just being in this particular place cracks wide Liz's memories of her formative years growing up with her cousins, reminding her of the stories that her uncle told of previous generations of lighthouse keepers and the Mexican workers who laboured throughout the orchards at harvest time. Liz is especially haunted by her recollection of a young Mexican named Teo, the son of the foreman Dolores, who held a special place in Liz's heart.

With the begrudging help of her mother, Liz is able to reconstruct the events of the final summer in the farmhouse, the summer that became the turning point for both her and Amanda in the way they were able to see truth for the first time. There are secrets broken and kept and it's only through forgiveness that Liz manages to understand why the people she loves made the choices they did.

THE NIGHT SHIFT: REAL LIFE IN THE HEART OF THE E.R. by Dr. Brian Goldman (2010) HarperCollins Canada

Dr. Brian Goldman may be a familiar name to you if you're a CBC geek like me. He's the host of CBC Radio's "White Coat, Black Art," a show that aims to speak directly about issues facing doctors and patients. However, in addition to being a recognized medical journalist, Goldman also continues to work as an emergency room physician at Mount Sinai Hospital here in Toronto.

THE NIGHT SHIFT demystifies life in an Emergency Room and follows Goldman through a typical round from 10pm to 7am one evening, an evening where he deals with a dislocated shoulder, a dying cancer patient having a seizure, a stroke victim in denial, a paranoid woman, a pregnant woman who had no idea she was in labour, a victim of a date-rape drug, kidney failure presenting as a gastrointestinal bleed, a broken wrist, and a suicide risk, among several others.

Ever wondered about the triage rules? There are 5 levels ranging from 1-5 depending on the urgency of your required care and here are the wait times as well:
1: resuscitation (requires immediate, aggressive intervention) IMMEDIATE ATTENTION
2: emergent (almost same danger as level 1) WITHIN 15 MINUTES
3: urgent (vaginal bleeding, moderate head trauma, acute pain, suicidal thoughts) WITHIN 30 MINUTES
4: semi-urgent (back pain, headaches) 60 MINUTES
5: non-urgent (sore throat, minor abdominal pain) 2 HOURS

The book is rife with interesting anecdotes and statistics like, in Ontario, it may take anywhere from 24 hours - 3 years to have a suitable available liver for transplantation--that's quite an open window. If you have needed a push to SIGN YOUR Organ Donor Card, consider this statistic that reality check.

All of the chapters have engaging titles, but the most intriguing to me is "Moonlighters and Frequent Flyers" which explores the cases of patients who are prescription drug addicts and make their own rounds from hospital to hospital telling their embellished tales of lost-in-flight bottles of Oxycontin or accidentally flushed Demerol tablets. The frequent flyers of the title are alcohol dependents, some of whom have minor scrapes and bruises from a bar brawl, but who intend to be placed on a gurney in the hallway and wait for the opportunity to swipe bottles of hand sanitizer which they consume to become further intoxicated.

The range of patients requiring treatment on any given NIGHT SHIFT keeps E.R. physicians like Goldman engaged in the adrenaline-pumping, creative problem-solving essential to practicing their chosen medicine.

Dr. Brian Goldman may be followed on twitter @WCBADoctorBrian and you may meet him and have him sign a copy of NIGHT SHIFT at GET CAUGHT READING on Tuesday November 16th at 7pm at Ben McNally Books--RSGC's annual event that this year supports The Children's Book Bank here in Toronto. The event is open to the public. I hope to see you there.

LIGHT LIFTING by Alexander MacLeod (2010) Biblioasis

Yesterday afternoon I heard the IFOA panel hosted by Antanas Sileika and featuring Alexander MacLeod, Paolo Giordano and Karl Marlantes: word/sentence/book. Each of these writers is a little startled by the remarkable successes of their first books. I'd already dipped into LIGHT LIFTING, but after this incredibly engaging round table discussion was buoyed to finish it.

In their very public conversation, MacLeod referred to the opening paragraph of "Miracle Mile," the first story in this exquisite, elegiac collection. He wanted to write a piece that "whittles down, the focus becoming so precise that all other social context is irrelevant." He does just that in the moment just before Mike Tyson bites off Evander Holyfield's ear when "the tendons in his neck bulge out and his eyes pop wide open and his teeth come grinding down." That moment is pure instinct and rage.

MacLeod went on to say that "everyone has material, but you admire the way that they do it. You lust after style." As I was reading each of these stories that contemplates the ordinariness of daily lives, I couldn't help but compare their rhythm and pacing to Richard Ford's A MULTITUDE OF SINS. Each sentence is measured without being overwrought. And, it's interesting to know that both fiction writers read their work aloud to be sure that it sounds just right.

What especially impresses me about each story is the resonant final sentence that folds in on itself and gestures to both personal and shared experiences. Take a look for yourself at the final image in "Wonder About Parents": "Like a discotheque, maybe, or the reflection of ancient fire in a cave;" or in "Light Lifting:" "It wasn't right and I kept wishing for it to be darker so I didn't have to see it all so clearly;" or in "Adult Beginner 1:" "It rises out of the dark, advances over the water and swallows everything in its path." Do you see what I mean?

LIGHT LIFTING is the product of 15 years of hard work. I sure hope we won't have to wait another 15 for Alexander MacLeod's next book. Lucky for you, if you live in Toronto, he will be reading from this luminous collection on Saturday October 30th at the Scotiabank Giller Shortlist night at IFOA. 8pm Fleck Dance Theatre.

A MULTITUDE OF SINS: STORIES by Richard Ford (1996) Random House

Before the Opening Night of the International Festival of Authors here in Toronto on Wednesday night, I was already firmly entrenched in my belief that Richard Ford is one of the finest fiction writers scribbling today. Having met him and spent time speaking with him since he headlined the event that I co-chaired to support PEN Canada, I am also besotted with Richard Ford the man. The mensch. And he is one, full stop.

Talking about the role of literature in his life he said, it "gave meaning to my life. Reaching out both ways. You know, that rare understanding between reader & writer?" Well, yes. Don't you? And, "when everyone was telling me about the best in Mississippi during those days of segregation, literature helped me believe in a better place." At its best, literature convinces me of a better place, where others listen, bear witness, act compassionately, are playful, love books.

A MULTITUDE OF SINS is Ford's previous collection of short stories, (he has promised his publisher another forthcoming after his next novel CANADA, mostly penned already) many of which contemplate infidelity and its consequences.

What if you manage to sneak your girlfriend off on a trip to the Grand Canyon without your spouses knowing, but then you find her a little boring, and she just happens to accidentally die there? What then? What if your wife admits to adultery on the way to a dinner party hosted by her lover? What do you do? Do you respond honestly? Do you hold back your true feelings? Are you able to treat her like a lady? What if you still love your husband, but find him straying, yet know that he still loves you?

These are not questions with easy answers, but the way Ford exposes the underlying truths with candor and insight may just encourage you to be more sincere, empathic, passionate and loving to those you desire. Moral ground is messy territory, especially when your sense of right and wrong is put into such vivid relief against the backdrop of a Richard Ford story.

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF MAF THE DOG AND OF HIS FRIEND MARILYN MONROE by Andrew O'Hagan (2010) McClelland & Stewart

I will read anything that Andrew O'Hagan writes, from a short story in GRANTA to a book review in the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS to one of his gorgeous literary novels like PERSONALITY or BE NEAR ME.

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF MAF THE DOG AND OF HIS FRIEND MARILYN MONROE will transport you headlong into the 60s: the nascent Camelot presidency of JFK; the brat pack tomfoolery of Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin; the Hollywood star system that transformed Natalie Wood and Marilyn Monroe into superluminaries.

Maf is the canine companion, a gift to Marilyn from Sinatra, who journeys everywhere with Marilyn in the final two years of her life. He dines at the best restaurants in NYC and LA, visits film sets, travels to Mexico to finalize Marilyn's divorce from Arthur Miller, witnesses acting classes with the Strassbergs and philosophizes all the while about high art, bedroom comedy, cats who mimic poet William Carlos Williams and the heady politics of change.

Written in the tradition of picaresque novels of the 18th century and with homage to other pets that have gone before Maf (Virginia Woolf's Mitz "who behaved as if the world were a question"; Maud Gonne's Chaperone, "a grey marmoset filled with Celtic lore and Hellinc rhymes [about] the impotence of human passion;" Greyfriars Bobby, "a kind of saint, really. And sainthood is the kind of fame you want;" Laika, "a brave Russian soul...[whose] memoirs would constitute a masterpiece to rival David Copperfield."), THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF MAF THE DOG AND OF HIS FRIEND MARILYN MONROE is a marvelous romp that will have you yearning for more stories of such wit, rife with literary and popular culture allusion.

Mafia Honey (Monroe's full name for her beloved Maltese) may well be my new best friend.

Hollywood has hopped on the Andrew O'Hagan bandwagon and will be producing Maf's story for the big screen, featuring George Clooney as Sinatra and Angelina Jolie as Monroe. It should be a lark.

A SECRET KEPT by Tatiana De Rosnay (2010)

If you love being read to, then get yourself a copy of Macmillan Audio's unabridged audio book of Tatiana De Rosnay's A SECRET KEPT, masterfully read by Simon Vance.

Protagonist Antoine Rey organizes a surprise 40th birthday getaway for his younger sister Melanie at Noirmoutier, an island where they spent several pleasurable summers as small children with their parents and grandparents. It's been 30 years since the Reys' last visit, the summer before their mother Clarisse died unexpectedly. Antoine and Melanie reminisce about those halcyon days, but the visit also triggers in Melanie a memory that unsettles her.

When Melanie finds the courage to disclose this troubled memory to Antoine on their drive back to Paris, the car veers off the road and Melanie, a wisp of a woman to begin with (and the mirror image of her mother), ends up fighting for her life in a provincial hospital. There, Antoine meets a remarkable woman, Angele, who happens to be the hospital mortician. And, although her work day is filled with death, it is Angele who infuses new life into Antoine.

Months later as Melanie is recovering at home in Paris she tells Antoine the dark secret about their mother, a taboo topic that causes both of them pain. As Antoine copes with other losses in his life involving his ex wife Astrid and their teenaged children, he struggles with the idea that perhaps he never really knew the real Clarisse and tries to figure out a way to make peace with his past.

Written with exquisite attention to the complications and messiness of ordinary lives and the human capacity to endure, De Rosnay shows that some secrets, no matter how painful, are meant to be told.

THE SPORTSWRITER by Richard Ford (1986)

Having read Ford's Bascombe trilogy in backwards order (because that's the way they arrived from my local library), I feel like I've been time-traveling back to the 80s in the often erudite and always direct company of protagonist Frank Bascombe, the sportswriter of the title.

At 38, Frank is a fairly recent member of the Divorced Men's Club, where he has met men his introspective equal, and one in particular who has become confessional in a way that makes Frank feel a little ill at ease, because the last thing he needs is someone else to worry about.

On this long Easter weekend over which the novel takes place, Frank finds himself facing the great sadness of his own past (the death of his young son Ralph) and longing for "one of the last moments of unalloyed tenderness in the world" that he shared with his then-wife Ann as Ralph died. In the present he finds himself at the table of his girlfriend VIcki's father, a likable man who has found God and even has the life-sized image of His Son hanging outside his suburban home. There Frank receives a call from the police that pushes him away from Vicki and all that she symbolizes and further into himself, stumbling temporarily into the succour offered from the kindness of a stranger.

And, as Frank concludes, "the only truth that can never be a lie...is life itself--the thing that happens." Spend time in Frank Bascombe's company. Your eyes will be opened a little wider and you'll be all the richer for it.

INDEPENDENCE DAY by Richard Ford (1995)

The middle novel of the Bascombe trilogy, INDEPENDENCE DAY, won Ford the coveted Pulitzer Prize. No longer a sportswriter, protagonist Frank Bascombe is divorced and selling real estate in Haddam, New Jersey, in the midst of what he refers to as the Existence Period of his life.

His ex-wife Ann lives in Connecticut with their two children Claire and Paul and her wealthy paramour Charley O'Dell. This holiday weekend Frank has plans to take the Ur-father/son excursion with Paul to Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame, stopping en route at the Basketball Hall of Fame to warm up. Paul has recently clocked his stepfather and has begun barking for attention, so Frank is hopeful that his opportunity to bond alone with Paul might be just what the doctor ordered, if not his ex-wife.

Humming along in the subplot is Frank's nascent 10 month-old relationship with his lady friend, "blond, tall and leggy Sally Caldwell" , and the very separate demands of hard-to-please real estate clients looking to get a new start in Frank's neck of the woods.

Frank's Independence Day weekend goes awry in a batting box at the Baseball Hall of Fame and he finds himself negotiating with his ex-wife for emergency medical care for their son and unexpectedly reunited with his stepbrother who helps to get him through this unexpected turn of events. Yet, by the time Frank faces the 4th of July head on, this most private of private men finds himself drawn to the parade crowd: "The trumpets go again. My heartbeat quickens. I feel the push, pull, the weave and sway of others."

PRACTICAL JEAN by Trevor Cole (2010)

Trevor Cole reeled me in with his opening sentences: "You might think is a rather horrible and depraved sort of story. But that's because you're a nice person. The events of this story are not the sort of thing that nice people think about, let alone do."

Even if you don't admit to being a prurient sort of person, you can't help but find that narrative taunt alluring. Cole knows how to weave a tale and to sweep you along for the wild ride. It's heartening to know that his accomplished storytelling and dark humour have not gone unnoticed by fiction juries. Last week, PRACTICAL JEAN was named to the shortlist for this year's Rogers Writers' Trust fiction prize where it is in handsome company with THE DEATH OF DONNA WHALEN, ROOM, ANNABEL and CITIES OF REFUGE, all novels previously written about in this blog.

When I began PRACTICAL JEAN, I felt immediate kinship with the titular character as she witnesses first hand the horrors of aging and the mess that dying of natural and painful causes can be as she nurses her mother. Relieved by her mother's death, Jean resolves to embrace practicality and to offer "last poems" to her closest friends, so they won't ever have to suffer as her mother did. Determined in the rightness of her cause, Jean embarks on a brave new project and the sleepy town of Kotemee will never be the same.

Lynn Coady writes that "this take on female friendship gives chilling new meaning to the phrase tough love. PRACTICAL JEAN is Trevor Cole at his satirical best."

Believe her and believe me: PRACTICAL JEAN is witty, naughty fun.

THE DEATH OF DONNA WHALEN by Michael Winter (2010)

Steven Truscott, Guy Paul Morin, David Milgard and now Sheldon Troke--all members of the pantheon of wrongfully convicted Canadians.

Michael Winter's documentary novel is a game changer. Reminiscent stylistically of Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD, Winter's THE DEATH OF DONNA WHALEN relies heavily on documentary evidence including thousands of pages of court transcripts, police wiretaps, personal diary entries, newspaper reports and private letters. Through a polyphony of third person narratives, Winter exposes the flawed process that led to Sheldon Troke's conviction of the brutal stabbing death of his girlfriend Donna Whalen.

This filmic book reads like a Hollywood thriller with stock elements including a paid informant, a delusional witness (convinced she could communicate regularly with angels), coerced testimonies, bungling police investigation, and family feuding, but all are shockingly real. There is enough emotional distance provided to stomach the forensic details, yet you are sure to come away from the story feeling moved to outrage or to pity. Most certainly you will wonder where the justice could possibly be for Donna Whalen's family.

Written in Winter's trademark style where you feel as much an eavesdropper as a reader, THE DEATH OF DONNA WHALEN is certainly worth your time.

THE SLAP by Christos Tsiolkas (2009)

Winner of the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book and long-listed for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, THE SLAP is both profound and profane.

At a suburban BBQ in Australia, peopled with relatives and neighbours and long-time friends, a man slaps a misbehaving child who is not his own. That gesture reverberates throughout the multi-voiced narrative that follows. You might think it easy to take sides, but in a web of complex relationships, where each character seems to be protecting secrets from his/her past, morality is complicated, multifaceted and perhaps ultimately ambiguous.

Tsiolkas has written about domestic life in an unflinching portrayal of midlife crises, fragile marriages, and adolescent coming of age.

THE SLAP will haunt you long after you've turned its final page and acknowledge gratefully, like Richie, that "soon, unexpectedly, like the future that had begun to creep up on him, sleep did come."

FAR TO GO by Alison Pick (2010)

I became a fan of Pick's prose with her first novel THE SWEET EDGE, a he said/she said story reminiscent of Carol Shields' HAPPENSTANCE, so I was curious to see if this new one, recently launched, met my expectations.

FAR TO GO is certainly a more personal book, inspired as it is by the journey of Pick's own grandparents out of Czechoslovakia during WWII, Europe's darkest hour. I was intrigued by the framing techniques used with lists of the Shoah dead and a short passage from an omniscient narrator referring to a train that "will never arrive," one that is both literal and symbolic.

The story proper finds Pavel and Anneliese Bauer, secular affluent Jews, and their young son Pepik and his nanny Marta with their lives upturned by the German occupation. Fearing deportation, they flee to Prague and secure passage for 6 year old Pepik on a Kinderstransport to Scotland where he is temporarily housed with a family that has real troubles of their own. Pavel and Anneliese write positive loving letters to Pepik, though are uncertain that he ever receives them since they never receive a note in return, unlike some of their friends whose own children manage to reassure them that they are being cared for by their surrogate families.

With the tentative thread of a present-day narrator, we learn stitch by stitch, story by story what became of Pepik, his parents and Marta in a way that is harrowing, occasionally hopeful, and always emotionally true.

We are often warned not to judge a book by its cover, but in the case of FAR TO GO, be prepared to do just that. It is even more exquisite between the pages than its gorgeous gem-toned cover art suggests.

THE LAY OF THE LAND by Richard Ford (2007)

It's been ages since I read Richard Ford (not since WOMEN WITH MEN several years ago), but where have I been? Find a finer chronicler of American mid-life anywhere! Yes, of course, Philip Roth and John Updike, but really, for my money, Ford is the man, waving his Pulitzer Prize from the sidelines.

In realtor Frank Bascombe, Ford has created a character as convincing and familiar as your next door neighbour. Maybe because I've watched friends die from cancer and I am firmly middle-aged myself, I find Frank's candour appealing. He's on his second marriage, has two adult children, and has recently been treated at the Mayo clinic with titanium BBs inserted in his prostate, to treat a disease about which he is not surprised at contracting.

Frank IS his name and unabashedly, unashamedly comments on the New Jersey life so familiar to him. We follow him to funerals, take walks along the beach in stride with him and his lesbian daughter, and worry about getting through the demands of a capital T Thanksgiving with all of the trimmings.

THE LAY OF THE LAND is harrowing, profound and outright hilarious at times. I now know what I've been missing and plan to reach back to the earlier books in the trilogy, THE SPORTSWRITER (1986) and INDEPENDENCE DAY (1995) to marvel again at the words of a writer who continues to hone his craft.

HERE IS NEW YORK by E.B. White (1949)

This little gem of a book is an encomium to New York City penned with great affection. White wrote these 60 or so pages as a favour to his stepson Roger Angell, who was then an up-and-coming editor at The New Yorker. He moved back into the city for several weeks, setting up shop at the Algonquin Hotel, that literary hub made infamous by Dorothy Parker. And, like the city itself that summer, he "should have been touched in the head by the August heat and gone off [his] rocker."

HERE IS NEW YORK opens with White's caveat that "on any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy." Having just visited the city that never sleeps a week ago, I have to say that White's observation continues to ring true.

I loved his time-capsule anecdotes about the St. Patrick's Day Parade that "hits every New Yorker on the head," because "the Irish are a hard race to tune out." And, that the NY Public Library, guarded by those proud sculpted lions near Bryant Park, has a "great rustling oaken silence, with the book elevator (like an old waterwheel) spewing out books onto trays." Or, the "Empire State Building...has been jumped off of by so many unhappy people that pedestrians instinctively quicken step when passing Fifth Avenue and 34th." In parts of the city, "overhead, like banners decorating a cotillion hall, stream the pants and bras from the pulley lines."

White's diction is often poetic and always evocative of the particular time and place he immortalizes. If you are planning a trip to NYC, you really must take HERE IS NEW YORK along for company.