I’m very grateful to the Literary Review of Canada for reaching out to me to review R.M. Vaughan’s posthumous novel Pervatory. Read my full review on their Substack, Bookworm!
“Sometimes patrons ask if my full first name is Benjamin. Then they ask if I know what my name means…They are surprised to find out I’m the oldest of two sons and not the youngest of twelve. They look at me as if I’m wearing the wrong name tag, wearing the wrong name,” (Robinson 31). …
“If God gives yoyu meaning, if God makes you good, if God makes you real and worthy and powerful, then that’s my Ralph. Ralph made my suffering better, healthy and righteous. He made my suffering want only good things: make the pain stop and I’ll be the best wife in the world,” (Hogarth). After Abby’s mother-in-law …
“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 …
“One day I will die, and one day everyone I know will die. One day everyone I don’t know will die. One day every animal and plant on this planet will die. One day earth itself will die, and one day all of humanity, and all relics of human life,” (Austin). Twenty-seven-year-old atheist lesbian Gilda …
CW: Sexual assault (off-page), animal death. “I will hide her small truths in this story and she will take shape among the pages, emerge like a pop-up, come face to face with the reader. Then they will know. Then, his story will be concluded,” (Parker 86). Famous Canadian author Baby Davidson is writing a memoir, or …
“There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated …
“I’d much rather wile away the hours Helping you clean up cadavers of all of you ex-lovers Watch you give them all one last kiss of death I fear this will be me in a few weeks,” – “Imagine A World In Which We Didn’t Have To Hide Who We Are” (Walker 31). Jade Walker’s …
“Grieving the dead, I’ve learned, is also about grieving your lost self, the self that only existed in relation to that person. When they die, those versions of you die as well,” (Gartner 264). After the death of her beloved cousin Zoltan, strangers begin confessing things to Lucy. She doesn’t ask them to, doesn’t pry, …
Sarah O'Connor 