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Mrs. Bridge, by Evan Connell
For as long as I have been reading, there has always been a small group of American “writers’ writers” somewhere on my radar. While authors like Salinger, Cheever, Updike and Roth were frequently...
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The Juliet Stories, by Carrie Snyder
I don’t often feel sympathy for those individuals who write cover blurbs for fiction books, but the person who was assigned the task for The Juliet Stories has my full attention. The title seems to...
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KfC’s 2013 Project: The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields
All she’s trying to do is keep things straight in her head. To keep the weight of her memories evenly distributed. To hold the chapters of her life in order. She feels a new tenderness growing for...
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Breakfast on Pluto, by Patrick McCabe
Patrick McCabe has a special place on the KfC blog. It was just over four years ago, after reading his new novel, that I signed up with WordPress and penned the first book review I had written in some...
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The Pilgrimage, by John Broderick
Michael Glynn is the richest man in an Irish village not far from Dublin — he made his money in the construction boom that followed World War II. Now however, he suffers from crippling arthritis which...
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Autumn Laing, by Alex Miller
Autumn Laing is 85 when 1991 dawns — her body failing (excessive farting, among other disorders), but her mind still sharp (most of the time), she has already prepared for her own end by hiding away...
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A Family Daughter, by Maile Meloy
For this reader, A Family Daughter is an unsual book, in an unusual way: my reaction to it is almost completely neutral. There are certainly books that enthuse me — Meloy’s own story collecton Both...
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The Dinner, by Herman Koch
Translated by Sam Garrett The Dinner is the first of Herman Koch’s seven novels that I have read (actually, as far as I can tell it is the only one that has been translated into English) but the Dutch...
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KfC’s 2013 Project: Solomon Gursky Was Here, by Mordecai Richler
Including Mordecai Richler in KfC’s 2013 project of re-reading Canadian authors who influenced me was a no-brainer decision from the start. Like any Canadian reader of my era, I have known his fiction...
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Satantango, by László Krasznahorkai
Translated by George Szirtes Satantango is a novel of 274 pages, told in 12 chapters, a total of 12 paragraphs, each featuring a number of narrators. The experience of reading it is as much one of...
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Mount Pleasant, by Don Gillmor
Here are just a few of the reasons that I approached Mount Pleasant with some anticipation: – I have an acknowledged affinity for “city” novels, fiction set in neighborhoods of the world’s memorable...
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I’ll Go To Bed At Noon, by Gerard Woodward
I’ll Go To Bed At Noon is volume two of Gerard Woodward’s trilogy chronicling the life of the Jones family. It is very much a continuation of the first volume, August, so a brief reminder of my...
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The Hungry Ghosts, by Shyam Selvadurai
The “hungry ghost” that supplies the title for Shyam Selvadurai’s new novel is the peréthaya, a creature that appears in a number of Buddhist and Sri Lankan myths. Its presence is over-arching in the...
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Life after Life, by Kate Atkinson
‘Time isn’t circular,’ she said to Dr Kellet. ‘It’s like a … palimpsest.’ ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘That sounds vexing.’ ‘And memories are sometimes in the future.’ While that quote comes from late in the...
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KfC’s 2013 Project: Surfacing, by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood is undoubtedly one of Canada’s best known and most prolific authors. The third volume in her Oryx and Crake trilogy, Maddaddam, is due for publication later this year — it will be novel...
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The Hired Man, by Aminatta Forna
Fiction set in the Balkans has a special attraction for me. The region is where West meets East — that certainly carries cultural interest but all too often during the last 1,000 years it has also...
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All That Is, by James Salter
James Salter is an author who has always perplexed me (that’s a backhand way of alluding to why this review promised for May 5 does not appear until May 23). His backlist is relatively slim — five...
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KfC’s 2013 Project: White Figure, White Ground, by Hugh Hood
Alexander MacDonald is a painter, a successful one already in 1960s Montreal with his first New York show now being negotiated. Before he can get to that, however, he needs to make a personal journey...
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The Woman Upstairs, by Claire Messud
Elementary school teacher Nora Eldridge is an angry, angry woman with a chip on her shoulder that is more log than chip: It was supposed to say “Great Artist” on my tombstone, but if I died right now...
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NW, by Zadie Smith
Let’s start by considering the “London” that author Zadie Smith has chosen to make the centre of this novel. I am a Canadian, but I have visited London many times and consider it my favorite...
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