After coming out with two remarkable novels - Heave and The Memento - Watermark is Christy Ann Conlin's first book of short stories. Watermark has already garnished a lot of praise from some well-known Atlantic Canadian authors. Lynn Coady remarks that Conlin's stories "achieve a dizzying balance of light and dark"; Lisa Moore calls the stories … Continue reading Watermark by Christy Ann Conlin
The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler (1952) It's been a long time coming, but I've finally read this book. Everyone else around me has read it, being a Canadian classic set in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley. The author lived in the valley himself, and so I imagine this novel is partly autobiographical, although, … Continue reading Two Books that Slipped Through the Cracks: Elizabeth Hay and Ernest Buckler
First, let's delight in the title of this book. I love this title, and think it suits the book perfectly. 'Heave' implies a weighty subject matter. 'Heave' leads me to imagine someone pitching something away, in this case an old crappy life in exchange for a new one. As the protagonist is an alcoholic, there … Continue reading Heave by Christy Ann Conlin
