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Amir Radi hates washing dishes. When he left Beirut, with a tightly grasped suitcase, he hadn't expected he'd end up at a Middle-Eastern restaurant with old cooks and dirty dishes. Amir knows his immigrant dream has somehow drowned in foamy dishwater. But one night, he meets Rami and begins to feel less isolated, more hopeful, and closer to overcoming a tragic time in his childhood, something he had tried to leave in Beirut. Set in Montreal and Lebanon, The Lebanese Dishwasher tells the story of one man's struggle with his past and self-acceptance while burdened with culture and obligation. The author presents an all-male version of Romeo and Juliet in which the Arab lovers find themselves threatened by society and worst of all by family prejudice and homophobia that culminates in a catastrophic climactic scene. The Lebanese Dishwasher is poetically charged, dramatically presented with engaging dialogue and employs a plot having almost fairy tale symmetry. Saikaley reveals herself as a writer with much to offer the reader, both in her knowledge of the rich culture of the Middle East and in the insight she brings to the gay character of Amir.
Set in Toronto seedy underbelly, The Green Hotel challenges our notions of "Toronto the good." Rich in detail, the book engages us with gritty realism and a startling portrayal of a life steeped in sex, drugs and pyromania as a young man tries to cope with the anxiety of co-existing with a suicidal father. Despite the all-enveloping despair, the main character, through moments of deep reflection and self-awareness, manages to harvest some light from the darkness
The gripping, dark tale of a man searching for answers. What happens in the mind of a man when, all of a sudden, he loses all reason for living? When everything in his life collapses around him and he is left with nothing, wondering why fate has been so scornfully unremitting. What stops one from becoming monstrous when morality is no longer an issue? Those are the questions facing the central character of Against God.
Sharp and strong as steel blades, the poems in Night-Eater fuse eerie beauty with gleaming wit, and strangeness with tenderness. In showing the intersection of the mundane and the domestic with the uncouth and uncanny, the author again lives up to such praises as "an artist ... whose sensitivity to language is characteristic of the truly great in poetry" (R. W. Stedingh) and "Young moves in and out of time and worlds, never flagging or faltering and takes the reader with her" (Susan Musgrave). These are "poems to understand life by" (Rick Gibbs).
In The Hundred Lives Russell Thornton illuminates the intricate imaginative orders of love at work within an individual life.
In Niagara of the 1960s, a mysterious proxy bride arrives from Italy to marry a candy shop owner with crime connections, only to fall in love with her proxy husband's teenaged son. Part fairy tale, part gritty realism, The Proxy Bride explores the underbelly of a southern Ontario community steeped in gambling, smuggling and pornography. Terri Favro's The Proxy Bride is a brilliantly constructed tale of innocence versus wickedness.
A tattered coat upon a stick represents both a summing-up and a continued breaking of new ground by a distinguished poet still at the top of his game after a long career. This full-bodied, symphonically-arranged collection encompasses Levenson's early years in England, a sequence of poems that vividly surveys the geography along the length of the Trans-Canada Highway through to Vancouver, a poignant meditation on the life and music of Brahms, and humourous and ironic sketches concerning old age.
Set in the Toronto neighbourhood of Parkdale, An Imperfect Man narrates two devastating weeks in the life of Jack Hughes as he battles his left arm and his past. Praise for Calabro's previous works: "Echoes of Pirandello and Calvino punctuate The Cousin, best described as tragic surrealism." -- The Globe and Mail "[The short story A Glass of Wine is] ... a subtly subversive piece of fiction." -- Descant "[Bellecour] is a small masterwork of erotic candour and psychological acuity." -- The Globe and Mail
In the tradition of short story writers Alice Munro and Carol Shields, Binnie Brennan examines the minutiae of ordinary life. During a tipsy night out escaping the frustrations of daily routines, two middle-aged school teachers try their luck at scoring a joint. A long-haul trucker drives an injured butterfly to its breeding ground in Florida, giving them both a much-needed migration. And while struggling with the death of her ex-husband, a single mother questions her place in her family's lives. A Certain Grace is richly told in spare prose and woven with vignettes of a much-loved grandfather's life.
?Brother Dumb is the memoir of a reclusive American literary icon. Brother Dumb is a how-to manual for meaningful critical engagement with the real world. Brother Dumb is a celebration of innocence, youth, and altruism. Brother Dumb is a true story of self-imposed exile. . . . Brother Dumb is also a work of fiction. Brother Dumb begins in the mid-40s, but spans decades, delving deep into the five tortured relationships that have shaped one writer s psycho-sexual history but it also details his bitter literary decline and withdrawal from public life. Brother Dumb is a