Every Happy Family by Dede Crane Published by Coteau Books Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $19.95 ISBN 978-1-55050-548-1 After finishing Every Happy Family, by Victoria-based Dede Crane, I felt the warmth of being included in a family that truly loves and cares for each other, despite divergent interests and personalities. In short, I felt this family’s embrace. Crane’s novel is a realistic study of family and the complex relationships that develop between generations, between husbands and wives, and between siblings. Readers are privy to the private thoughts, fears and hopes of various members of the Wright family over a period of five dynamic years. The story is told through the perspectives of each of the Wrights. Introspective Jill is an “itinerant linguistics scholar”. Words matter to this woman. Her Sandwich Generation responsibilities involve caring for her increasingly eccentric mother (the older woman spontaneously invites two men and a woman-“we need a fourth for bridge”-to live with her), and parenting three teenaged children: studious Quinn; athletic Beau; and adopted Tibetan daughter, Pema. The familial roster also includes Jill’s husband, Les, and her artsy sister-in-law, Annie. Crane’s taken on a large cast and she’s successfully created completely individual identities for each member….

Wiseman’s Wager by Dave Margoshes Published by Coteau Books Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $21.95 ISBN 978-1-55050-601-3 Winter’s an especially wonderful time to settle in with a thick and thought-provoking novel, and Coteau Books provides one that fits the bill nicely. Wiseman’s Wager is by the prolific and award-winning Dave Margoshes, who has been entertaining readers with his novels, short story collections, poetry, and nonfiction (a biography of Tommy Douglas) for decades. The Saskatchewan-based writer has now spun a 382-page tale about two Jewish-Canadian brothers, both in their 80s, and their often tumultuous lives. There’s a gun, and prison time. There are multiple marriages, Yiddish, and the Communist Party. There are counselling sessions with a desirable female psychologist, and there’s a wife in a 12-year coma. This dialogue-driven novel is less about plot, however, and more about the relationship between the brothers-and the family they’ve lost-and how memory kicks in and out, seemingly of its own volition, like a weak signal on an ancient radio. Zan, the intellectual protagonist, wrote a novel (“The Wise Men of Chelm”) that was a failure when published in 1932, but re-released 30 years later to great acclaim. Throughout the story feisty Zan mourns his…

Clearwater by Kim McCullough Published by Coteau Books Review by Alison Slowski $19.95 ISBN 978-1-55050-565-8 The novel Clearwater tells the difficult coming-of-age story of a young woman and her friends who go with her on a journey of self-discovery, and ultimately of hope for the preservation of memory. Claire is a fifteen-year-old when she first moves to a small airport town up in northern Manitoba with her mother and her older siblings Daniel and Leah in the early 1980’s. Here she meets Jeff, a solitary figure who lives next door with his parents. As Claire and Jeff’s friendship develops and they spend a great deal of time together, Claire doesn’t notice how unhappy her sister is with the move, though her brother does. As two violent acts happen, bringing events to a head in the small Northern town, life begins to spin out of control for Claire, Jeff, Daniel, Leah, and Leah’s boyfriend Shane. The group of young people begin to question their grip on reality, their place in the world, and their place among each other as friends and family. McCullough’s delicate dialogue puts the reader right into the action, showing the tenuous, tense conversations with one suffering from…

The Path to Ardroe by John Lent Published by Thistledown Press Review by Justin Dittrick ISBN 978-1-927068-01-4 John Lent’s novel, The Path to Ardroe, offers a sustained, polymorphous meditation on understanding and accepting oneself, as seen in the shared memories, thoughts, and experiences of several Canadians. It offers a tapestry consisting of four strands of narrative, including those of three characters approaching mid-life, which are told in the first-person, and one of a young woman in her early twenties, which is told in the third-person. Lent’s approach in this terrain is balanced and focused, each character’s situation being sufficiently engrossing to make the experience effortlessly contemplative, highly observant, and satisfyingly rich with detail and personal insight. It is not only an enjoyable novel to read, but to sustain in the mind, as each perspective differs in its orientation to the landscape, the present, and the past, making the strands of selves form the parts of a distinct chord, the hum of the chord being unique and enjoyable, in itself. The Path to Ardroe is a novel of the themes that recur and reverberate across lives and generations, showing their tendency to enter and enrich the texture of human thought and…

Tomorrow It Will Be Fine by Joseph Vida Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Justin Dittrick ISBN 978-1-927371-34-3 It should be said at the outset that Joseph Vida’s Tomorrow It Will Be Fine is an outstanding achievement. It is entertaining and absorbing, socially conscious and sure-footed, linguistically extravagant and methodically plotted, sprawling and detailed, witty and trenchant. Its themes are so engrained in Canadian consciousness that the novel’s title can be read as prophetic of the eternal wish and frustrations of immigrants anywhere. Vida has a fine ear for the dialects of both the transplanted and native. His observation of social attitudes and tendencies and his depiction of idioms and jargons are spot on. Yet, the novel goes a little further than that, a little deeper. Few Canadian social novels read like a symphonic work. Joseph Vida’s does. At its heart, the work is a social novel set in Toronto, which is experiencing a boom after the Second World War. It’s protagonist, Endre, is a Hungarian immigrant seen at an anxious, but illuminating, time in his life. He is beginning to tire of working job after job without any reason to expect a better future. He has suffered…

Violet Quesnel: Stories by Coby Stephenson Published by Thistledown Press Review by Jessica Bickford $9.95 978-1-927068-10-6 Regina author Coby Stephenson’s first book, Violet Quesnel, is at least as unique as her title character’s name. This book of connected short stories peeks in on Violet at various stages in her life, sometimes from Violet’s perspective and sometimes those of her family and friends. The stories seem to drift and shift unreservedly between points of view, periods of time, and physical locations, but the titular character holds everything together in a patchwork of history and growth. Violet struggles with bi-polar disorder, and this leads to the inevitable conflicts between Violet and her family, and even Violet and herself. She fights for normalcy against crippling bouts of depression and family members who either refuse, or simply fail to understand what she’s up against. In each episode we learn more about Violet and her compulsions, her intrusive thoughts and how she intersects with the lives of those she meets. This slim volume of stories manages to not only illuminate an extraordinary character, but deftly and realistically navigates the challenges of mental illness as experienced by both Violet herself, and those around her. We see…

Suspicion by Rachael Wyatt Published by Coteau Books Review by Michelle Shaw $14.95 ISBN 9781550505177 Candace Wilson is missing. She left home for an early dentist appointment and then vanished. Now the little town of Ghills Lake is enveloped in suspicion. One of the town’s inhabitants, an anonymous chat-room regular known only as Marguerite, has seen something and seems determined to stir up suspicion. But then she too is felled by an accident… As a lover of mysteries, I eagerly dipped into veteran author Rachael Wyatt’s latest book. It wasn’t quite what I expected. I’d never read one of her books before so, from the description, I was expecting a fast paced mystery. Instead, I was caught up in a psychologically layered chronicle of the suspicion that surrounds the various people in Candace’s life. Candace’s husband Jack is stressed and frustrated by the innumerable delays in his multi-million dollar housing development that, he is sure, will transform sleepy little Ghills Lake. Did he lash out in a stress-induced rage? Or was he perhaps overcome with fury when he found out about Candace’s brief affair? Could her sister be responsible? Erica and Candace have been at odds for years, and she…

Jonah’s Daughter by M.C. Conacher Published by Benchmark Press Review by Regine Haensel $16.95 ISBN 978-1-927352-02-1              Jonah’s Daughter is M.C. Conacher’s third published book, and is dedicated to the twelve other nurses who graduated with her from nurses’ training in Prince Albert in 1950.      The novel tells the story of Sedelia Lawson, “fifth and last child of Jonah and Margaret Lawson,” born during the Depression.  There are many details about family life in rural Saskatchewan in the 1940’s and 50’s, and about Sedelia’s brothers and sisters. The major part of the book deals with Sedelia’s training as a nurse at the Protestant Hospital in Prince Albert.  A happy, go-lucky girl, Sedelia likes the training and the work.  She goes out with young men in her spare time and enjoys life.      One evening, a planned date goes wrong for Sedelia, so on a whim she agrees to go to a gospel church with a couple of other nurses in training.  Marie and Dorothy are not Sedelia’s best friends by any stretch of the imagination.  Both of them plan to become missionaries, which Sedelia finds hard to comprehend.  However, Sedelia is mesmerized by the speaker…

To The Edge of the Sea by Anne McDonald Published by Thistledown Press Review by Regine Haensel ISBN 9781897235850 $19.95 Anne McDonald has been writing for many years, with publications in magazines such as “Descant” and broadcasts on CBC radio. In To The Edge of the Sea, her first book, she takes us on a journey into Canada’s past, the time of Confederation, the formation of a country. Her themes include connection, loss, risk, and hope. We meet John Alexander Macdonald, future first prime minister of Canada, who walks a metaphorical tightrope as he attempts to balance the wishes of the disparate regions. Young fisherman Alex leaves his home and family on Prince Edward Island, and boards a ship to follow the circus because he is fascinated by the tightrope walkers. Alex’s older brother Reggie is left behind, but finds his own way to leave the fishing life by joining the Tenant Leaguers, in order to improve the lot of tenant farmers. Mercy Coles, twenty-six years old, encounters John A. Macdonald at a social event, then follows, with other supporters, to Quebec City. At a dinner, “All of them laughed at McGee’s story of how the tightrope walker Farini had…

To Everything a Season by Helen Mourre Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Alison Slowski $16.95 ISBN 978-1-894431-89-7 Helen Mourre’s short story collection, To Everything a Season, is her latest work, after the books Landlocked and What’s Come Over Her from Thistledown Press. Throughout her short stories about parents, about children, about young unmarried men and women, Mourre displays a strong understanding of the bonds that hold community and family together. She captures the reader’s attention by painting a portrait of the hardships families endure while experiencing the loss of a parent, the loss of a spouse, or even the loss of a cherished family home in exchange for a new one. The theme of loss carries through the entire book, paralleled and mitigated by the spark of hope. Though the characters have experienced some dark times, there is always the hope that things will improve. Mourre’s writing is candid and honest, and each swell of each story told, while it may be tragic, is also filled with hope.  Her words are penned with obvious love for the Saskatchewan prairies, a small-town community, and the ties between that community and friends and family. THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT…