“Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures,” (Van Pelt 350). Tova Sullivan is a woman who knows how to cope. Thirty-years ago her eighteen-year-old son Erik vanished on a boat in Puget Sound, and only a few years ago her husband Will died of cancer. …
“‘I feel alone,” she says, ‘when I’m with other people.’ ‘Ah,’ Ernest says. ‘The worst kind of lonesome,’” (Lockyer). In the rural town of Burr, Ontario thirteen-year-old Jane’s dad has just died. She spends her time fantasizing about becoming a worm that will burrow into his body, buys tarot cards and tries Ouija boards to …
I’m very grateful to the Literary Review of Canada for reaching out to me to review Nick Bantock’s The Corset & the Jellyfish. Read my full review on their Substack, Bookworm!
“I wonder what the fuck I have to do for people to recognise me as a threat, you know? It’s like…am I even doing this shit? Have I even fucking done anything?…Do I have to smash a glass over the head of every single man I come into contact with, just so I leave a …
“lost and alone,/wandering./i swill back the pain; it burns and it belches/rage and despair/leaving only a windigo/who cannibalizes himself,” (Thistle, 157, “Windigo”). Jesse Thistle recounts his journey of recovery from drug-addiction. He remembers his brief time in the foster-care system with his brothers, moving to Ontario with his paternal grandparents, until he finds himself homeless. …
“I’m no longer sure which is worse: surviving and living the rest of my life as a lie, or wasting away in this apartment and dying from this cancer,” (Maylott 35). Paige Maylott’s debut memoir is an honest exploration of transition and discovery. Finding solace, community, and love in online communities and games, Maylott comes into …
“To be loved by your father is to be loved by God,” (Dey 17). Despite everything, Mona Dean can’t stay away from her famous writer father Paul Dean. Not when he left her mother and sister when she was eleven, not when he ignored the abuse his new wife, Cherry, dealt against her and her sister …
“At seventeen, Lenora Hope/ Hung her sister with a rope/ Stabbed her father with a knife/ Took her mother’s happy life/ ‘It wasn’t me,’ Lenora said/ But she’s the only one not dead,” (Sager 9-10). Kit McDeere is familiar with the childhood chant of Lenora Hope, the young teenaged girl who all those years ago was …
“Of course that’s you, the jars seem to whisper. Who else would it be?” (Awad 230). Mirabelle Nour’s mother is dead. Travelling from Montreal to Southern California, Mira needs to get her mother’s estate in order, find a way to pay off her mother’s astronomical debt, all while maintaining her skincare routine. But when she’s invited …
“I won’t/ be used/ without consent./ You think me/ easy to ignore./ Perhaps I am./ But only notice me/ when you have use/ and I will scream/ so loud I’ll wake the dead,/ and they might have/ some words for you” (McCullough). Cordelia, Ophelia, and Juliet gather beneath the trapdoor of the stage to retell their …
Sarah O'Connor 