SaskBooks Reviews

Murder at San Miguelby Danee WilsonPublished by Radiant PressReview by Toby A. Welch$22.00 ISBN 9781989274767 Murder at San Miguel is a solid read with a riveting storyline. The main character – an archaeological illustrator named Beatrix Forster – tags along to Spain when her archaeology professor husband goes to excavate a medieval cemetery. (They undertake the adventure as it is believed that a famous medieval knight is potentially buried at the site.) What ensues is an exciting story involving a murder as well as twists and turns that I didn’t see coming. I won’t say more as I don’t want to ruin it for you – although I will mention that an adorable fox terrier named Muffin tags along on the journey, adding a touch of canine love and humour to the book.  Don’t fear – you don’t need to have even a remote interest in archaeology to enjoy Murder at San Miguel. I knew nothing about secondary burial places or burying bodies facing specific directions yet I thoroughly devoured every page. As a side bonus, as someone who has never given a thought to archaeology beyond watching Indiana Jones movies, I found myself enjoying the subject matter. Of course…

Danceland Diaryby Dee Hobsbawn-SmithPublished by Radiant PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$22.00 ISBN 9-781989-274828 ‘Tis a wondrous thing to watch a writer’s oeuvre grow. I’ve had the pleasure of following Saskatchewan’s Dee Hobsbawn-Smith evolution as she’s published enviable books of poetry, short fiction and nonfiction—including the scrumptious Bread & Water: Essays—and now this hard-working writer’s earned another literary moniker: novelist. Danceland Diary, the award-winning author’s premiere novel, is saturated with poetic imagery, a juicy plot, and longing. First-person narrator Luka Dekker’s been born into an off-colony Hutterite family that harbours dark secrets—indeed, keeping secrets seems an intergenerational trait for these “gypsy Hutterites,” and Luka’s got a dandy of her own. It’s been twenty-two years since Luka’s unstable mother, Lark, abandoned Luka and her sister, Connie, and moved to the west coast. The girls were raised by their grandmother, the matriarch Anky, and never saw Lark again. At eighteen Luka left her rural Saskatchewan life to attempt to find her beautiful and elusive mother in Vancouver. The timing of Lark’s disappearance eerily lines up with Robert Pickton’s murders of women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Is there a connection? Luka’s thirty when the novel begins. She has horticulture and botany degrees, and a…

Goby Shelley A. LeedahlPublished by Radiant PressReview by Elena Bentley$20.00 ISBN 9781989274675 How often do we find a book of poetry in which a poet generously invites us in, like a long-time friend, to sit down and catch up? Not often. But in Go, Shelley A. Leedahl’s beautifully crafted fifth collection of poetry, the decades “dissolve / as mysteriously as mist” as Leedahl describes a life spent untethered to person or place and the loneliness that accompanies it. Friends give you all the important details, and so does Go: the messiness of lovers, the grief of losing a parent, the seemingly insignificant significance of gladiolus, salmonberries, and bald eagles. Go is open and honest in a way I’ve rarely experienced in a collection of poems. And I appreciate that Leedahl doesn’t sugar-coat or romanticize loneliness: “I may forever come home / to an empty house […] me with my pathetic need / to hold another warm hand, / to be whispered to across a pillow.” She acknowledges her desire for companionship, and I find it a refreshing confession. Keeping an “[e]ar to the pane,” Leedahl uses windows as a clever literary device with which to reflect on her past. “I…

The Vivian Poems: Street Photographer Vivian Maierby Bruce RicePublished by Radiant PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$20.00  ISBN 9-781989-274293 Choosing a subject most readers will be unfamiliar with is a risky undertaking for a poet. Will readers care about a subject they don’t know? Has enough research been done? Will the poet sufficiently engage his or her audience with this new literary territory? Regarding Bruce Rice’s The Vivian Poems: Street Photographer Vivian Maier, I say Yes, Yes, and Yes. Rice is Saskatchewan’s Poet Laureate, and this poetic portrait of Chicago photographer Vivian Maier (d. 2009) – whom Rice first learned of via CBC Radio – is the Regina writer’s sixth poetry collection. Maier, his “obsessively private” subject, was employed as a nanny, shot diverse subjects, and died poor, leaving a “legacy of 140,000 black and white negatives, prints, undeveloped rolls of colour film, Super 8 films, and audio recordings” that would later inspire several books, documentaries and “over 60 international exhibits”. Clearly, Rice – who’s frequently inspired by art – found an intriguing subject. He credits many – including the Saskatchewan Arts Board, re: funding his research trip to Chicago – for assistance in bringing this title to fruition.  I was…

The Vivian Poems: Street Photographer Vivian Maierby Bruce Rice Published by Radiant PressReview by gillian harding-russell $20.00 ISBN 9781989274293 Through The Vivian Poems, Bruce Rice creates a vital portrait of the “mystery nanny” who was also a gifted New York City and Chicago street photographer between the 1950’s and 70’s (until her death in 2007). By entering into her point of view, telescoping through her eye and adopting her persona and voice, Rice lures us into her way of seeing and thinking. By turns, we see the photographer as she was perceived by others, through her opinions as drawn from personal writings and through her street photographs which typically capture people in poses that reflect human moments of indecision. Although some of the poems may be termed ekphrastic, Rice in seeing through the artist’s eyes may also be said to project himself into his own poems, and in so doing, he leaves room for self-discovery inside us all.      What better way to open the collection than with Vivian’s voice to introduce herself in “Vivian Writes Her Own Prologue.” In this elegantly choreographed poem, we see through the child, Vivian’s eyes when she stays with her mother, a single parent, at a friend’s…

A Beautiful Stone: Poems and Ululationsby Lynda Monahan and Rod ThompsonPublished by Radiant PressReview by gillian harding-russell$20.00 IBSN 9781989274200 A Beautiful Stone is a unique collection of poems written collaboratively by Lynda Monahan and Rod Thompson. At the Radiant launch, Lynda explained their creative method whereby the two poets took turns editing a virtual copy of poems over the internet and, in this way, the poems like stones in a stream were shaped by the combined experiences of both writers ( Lynda lives in Prince Albert and Rod lives “west of the city in the woods” according to his author bio). Lynda’s rationale for their chosen method was that they had both shared common experiences, such as the loss of a father, and so she hoped by interweaving the best of the images from two minds they could together create a seamless poem that had a greater universal appeal. As a past writer-in-residence for the John M. Cuelenaere Library in Prince Albert, Monahan strongly supports the idea of art as therapy for life’s downfalls. The collection is divided into a trinity of sections: “Choice of Light,” “Loon and I,” and “Ululation.” The first section introduces a mature speaker whose chosen…

every day we disappear by Angela Long Published by Radiant Press Reviewed by Toby A. Welch $22.00 ISBN 9781775183938 I am a firm believer that the best writing – or at least the most entertaining writing to read – comes from authors who hold nothing back. Those that dig so deep that they must’ve felt like they were laying in the gutter after they poured out their words are my favourites. In every day we disappear, Angela Long proves herself to be one of those writers. When she listed the lovers she’s had, I applauded her honesty. When she shared her inability to leave a toxic relationship, I felt her pain. Long spares nothing. It is refreshing to experience in the often politically correct world we live in. It was glorious to travel the world with Long from the coziness of my reading chair. I could almost feel the chaos of India as we meandered across the country, from Delhi to the Zanskar mountain range and a dozen other places. I felt at home with Long in Montreal. Her time in Italy has me seriously contemplating moving there. And northern BC sounds like another planet, albeit a fascinating one The…