Staff Picks

A Minor Chorus is equal parts love letter to storytelling and searing critique of colonialism. In true Billy-Ray Belcourt fashion, the writing is concise and lyrical, bringing sensation to the forefront and encouraging active participation from the reader. It doesn't shy away from hard truths, and yet the tone is stubbornly hopeful. This short book has changed my relationship with reading, writing, and the world.

Publisher’s description
A debut novel from a rising literary star that brings the modern queer and Indigenous experience into sharp relief. In Northern Alberta, a queer Indigenous doctoral student steps away from his dissertation to write a novel. He is adrift, caught between his childhood on the reservation and this new life of the urban intelligentsia. Billy-Ray Belcourt's unnamed narrator chronicles a series of encounters: a heart-to-heart with fellow doctoral student River over the mounting pressure placed on marginalized scholars; a meeting with Michael, a closeted adult from his hometown whose vulnerability and loneliness punctuate the realities of queer life on the fringe. Amid these conversations, the narrator is haunted by memories of Jack, a cousin caught in the cycle of police violence, drugs, and survival. Jack's life parallels the narrator's own; the possibilities of escape and imprisonment are left to chance with colonialism stacking the odds. A Minor Chorus introduces the dazzling literary voice of a Lambda Literary Award winner and Canadian #1 national best-selling poet to the United States, shining much-needed light on the realities of Indigenous survival.

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Vladivostok Circus is about liminality: between adolescence and adulthood, enemies and friends, life and death. Elisa Shua Dusapin masterfully explores expansive themes and deep emotions through the seemingly mundane observations of a costume designer for a Russian bar trio. The tensions are high, the stakes are high, and the writing is quietly beautiful.

 

Publisher's description:

'Tonight is the opening night. There are birds perched everywhere, on the power lines, the guy ropes, the strings of light that festoon the tent . . . when I think of all those little bodies suspended between earth and sky, it makes me smile to remind myself that for some of them, their first flight begins with a fall.' Nathalie arrives at the circus in Vladivostok, Russia, fresh out of fashion school in Geneva. She is there to design the costumes for a trio of artists who are due to perform one of the most dangerous acts of all: the Russian Bar. As winter approaches, the season at Vladivostok is winding down, leaving the windy port city empty as the performers rush off to catch trains, boats and buses home; all except the Russian bar trio and their manager. They are scheduled to perform at a festival in Ulan Ude, just before Christmas. What ensues is an intimate and beguiling account of four people learning to work with and trust one another. This is a book about the delicate balance that must be achieved when flirting with death in such spectacular fashion, set against the backdrop of a cloudy ocean and immersing the reader into Dusapin's trademark dreamlike prose.

 

How far will greed take people? And when this greed threatens a community's survival, how far will locals go to save themselves? These questions are central to Imbolo Mbue's sophomore novel. The deep character studies and lyrical writing encourage emotional investment, while the Greek chorus creates an eerie undertone. The narrative highlights the complicated nature of resistance in the face of seemingly unending violence. This beautifully written book leaves a lasting impact.

 

Publisher's description:
'We should have known the end was near.' So begins Imbolo Mbue's exquisite and devastating novel How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by a large and powerful American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean up and financial reparations to the villagers are made--and ignored. The country's government, led by a corrupt, brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interest. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight the American corporation. Doing so will come at a steep price. Told through multiple perspectives and centered around a fierce young girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary, How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghosts of colonialism, comes up against one community's determination to hold on to its ancestral land--and a young woman's willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people's freedom.

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Sonia's life is a mess when she joins a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. What follows is a brilliant examination of art, personal and national identity, and the power of community. The book plays with form and trusts us to read between the lines. The ending, like the title, is haunting.

Publisher's description: 

A stage actress returns to Palestine to visit her older sister and becomes unwittingly involved with a local group who wants to put on a production of Hamlet in the West Bank using all Palestinian actors.

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This horror novel is also a thoughtful exploration of mental illness, intergenerational trauma, and love, and the power of storytelling. The tone changes frequently, which kept me on the edge of my seat, and the ending is so powerful and surprising that I found myself wanting to re-read it immediately.

 

Publisher's description:

On the surface, Alice is exactly where she should be in life: she's just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her ever-charming husband Steve--a white academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture--is nothing but supportive; and they've just moved into a new home in a wealthy neighbourhood in Toronto, a generous gift from her in-laws. But Alice could not feel like more of an imposter. She isn't connecting with Dawn, ... and every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from Steve and their picture-perfect neighbours, amongst whom she's the sole Indigenous resident. Even when she does have a moment to herself, her perpetual self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: her goal of writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story. Then strange things start happening  ...