A Study in Redby Connie GaultPublished by Thistledown PressReview by Brandon Fick$24.95 ISBN 9781771872904 A Study in Red is aptly named. It evokes Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel. Literally, the novel is a study of red emotions like lust, anger, and jealousy. Edgar Degas’ painting, Combing the Hair, nicknamed “the big red monster,” is a subject of fascination for one of A Study in Red’s protagonists, the painting’s ambiguity and eroticism key to understanding the novel’s aims. The word “study” is also well chosen, as this is a highly intelligent work of fiction that circles a crucial event in the past, putting its two female leads under the microscope. Summer is the perfect time to read this mystery that generates considerable suspense without resorting to genre-specific tropes. There are two narrators in A Study in Red, Amy and Carol, and part of the suspense comes from the alternating nature of their narration. Connie Gault renders their voices with precision and considerable difference. It is a masterclass in psychological writing. Amy is introduced first, on the run, speaking in terse sentences: “I left Hattie’s place after everyone else. I left the cabins empty, the pool drained. I’d like to…

The Rasmussen Papersby Connie GaultPublished by Thistledown PressReview by Brandon Fick$24.95 ISBN 9781771872539 Connie Gault’s The Rasmussen Papers is a precise work of psychological realism about one woman’s obsessive quest to gain access to the papers of a deceased poet, Marianne Rasmussen, in order to write her biography. Readers enter the mind of an unnamed narrator who bluffs her way into lodging with Rasmussen’s former lover, the almost-centenarian Aubrey Ash, and his eighty-year-old brother, Harry, who live in an aging townhouse in Toronto’s Cabbagetown. Gault’s novel toys with the premise of Henry James’ 1888 novella, The Aspern Papers, but no knowledge of that book is required to enjoy this deft look at a lonely soul. One of the book’s major strengths is the narrator’s observations of those around her, whether it’s Aubrey’s “shiny, scaly, scabby scalp, his dandruff sprinkled Ray-Bans, the blue vein like a snake at his temple,” or in a key turning point, a female addict with the “look of having been eroded from the inside.” But there is a limit to these observations. What does the narrator really see? There’s more to the situation with Aubrey and Harry, Marianne’s poetry, the marginalized people she encounters, and even…

Euphoria by Connie Gault Published by Coteau Books Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $21.00 ISBN 978-1-55050-409-5 It’s no surprise that Connie Gault’s historical novel, Euphoria: A Novel, was shortlisted for the 2009 Book of the Year (Saskatchewan Book Awards). The Regina writer of stage and radio plays and author of two well-received short story collections is one of those (too rare) writers who takes the time to get each book right, and now, with Coteau’s release of Euphoria, Gault’s secured her place as one of Saskatchewan’s most talented. The structuring of time and place is especially admirable in this novel. The story itself is what’s sometimes referred to as a quiet novel; the focus is on character development rather than a dramatic plot (though the aftermath of the Regina “cyclone” of 1912 does figure prominently). It’s a testament to Gault’s literary finesse that she not only keeps readers interested in the “quiet” lives of these characters who live, work, oversee, and, in the case of Orillia Cooper, convalesce in boarding houses, but that she also successfully shuffles these many lives – forward and back – over decades and disparate locations, without missing a beat. The author begins with two central…