It's that time of year again! The Giller Prize shortlist has been released. The winner will be announced on November 9th, 2010 at the annual Gala in Toronto.
Here are the finalists:
David Bergen for his novel:
THE MATTER WITH MORRIS
(Phyllis Bruce Books/HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.)
When Morris Schutt, a prominent newspaper columnist, surveys his life over the past year, he sees disaster everywhere. His son has just been killed in Afghanistan, and his newspaper has put him on indefinite leave; his psychiatrist wife, Lucille, seems headed for the door; he is strongly attracted to Ursula, the wife of a dairy farmer from Minnesota; and his daughter appears to be having an affair with one of her professors.
What is a thinking man to do but turn to Cicero and Plato and Socrates in search of the truth? Or better still, call one of those discreet “dating services” in search of happiness? But happiness, as Morris discovers, is not that easy to find.
David Bergen’s most accomplished novel yet is an unforgettable story with a vitality and charm and intelligence all its own. Bergen proves once again that he is one of our finest writers, dazzling us with his wit and touching us with his compassion.
Alexander MacLeod for his short story collection:
LIGHT LIFTING
(Biblioasis)
Light Lifting, Alexander MacLeod’s long-awaited first collection of short fiction, offers us a suite of darkly urban and unflinching elegies. These are elemental stories of work and its bonds, of tragedy and tragedy barely averted, but also of beauty, love and fragile understanding.
Sarah Selecky for her short story collection:
THIS CAKE IS FOR THE PARTY
(Thomas Allen Publishers)
Sarah Selecky’s first book takes dead aim at a young generation of men and women who often set out with the best of intentions, only to have plans thwarted or hopes betrayed.
These are stories about friendships and relationships confused by unsettling tensions bubbling beneath the surface. A woman who plans to conceive ends up in the arms of her husband’s best friend; a man who baby-sits a neglected four-year-old ends up questioning his own dysfunctional relationship; a chance encounter at a gala event causes a woman to remember when she volunteered for a nightmarish drug-testing clinic; another woman discovers that her best friend who is about to get married has just had an affair; a young teenager tries to escape from her controlling father and finds an unexpected lover on a bus ride home; a wife tries to overcome her dying mother-in-law’s resistance to her marriage by revealing to her own strange aural stigmata; a friend tries to talk another friend out of dating her cheating ex-boyfriend; and a superstitious candle-maker confesses to a tempestuous relationship that implodes spectacularly.
Sarah Selecky is a talented young writer who evokes a generation teetering on the shoals of consumerism and ambiguous mores. Reminiscent of early Atwood, with echoes of Lisa Moore and Barbara Gowdy, these absorbing stories are about love and longing, stories that touch us in a myriad of subtle and affecting ways.
Johanna Skibsrud for her novel:
THE SENTIMENTALISTS
(Gaspereau Press)
Johanna Skibsrud’s debut novel connects the flooding of an Ontario town, the Vietnam War, a trailer in North Dakota and an unfinished boat in Maine. Parsing family history, worn childhood memories, and the palimpsest of old misunderstandings, Skibsrud’s narrator maps her father’s past.
Napoleon Haskell lives with Henry in the town of Casablanca, Ontario, on the shores of a man-made lake beneath which lie the remains of the former town. Henry is the father of Napoleon’s friend Owen, who died fighting in Vietnam. When her life comes apart, Napoleon’s daughter retreats to Casablanca and is soon immersed in the complicated family stories that lurk below the surface of everyday life. With its quiet mullings and lines from Bogart, The Sentimentalists captures a daughter’s wrestling with a heady family mythology.
Kathleen Winter for her novel:
ANNABEL
(House of Anansi Press)
In 1968, into the beautiful, spare environment of remote coastal Labrador, a mysterious child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret -- the baby's parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbour, Thomasina. Together the adults make a difficult decision: to raise the child as a boy named Wayne. But as Wayne grows to adulthood within the hyper-masculine hunting culture of his father, his shadow-self -- a girl he thinks of as Annabel -- is never entirely extinguished, and indeed is secretly nurtured by the women in his life.
Haunting, sweeping in scope, and stylistically reminiscent of Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, Annabel is a compelling debut novel about one person's struggle to discover the truth in a culture that shuns contradiction.
Best of luck to all!!!
The man who doesn't read good books
has no advantage over the man who can't read them.
~ Mark Twain
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Review: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
I just finished reading the Scarlet Letter for my American Literature class and I really enjoyed it. The story is about a woman named Hester Prynn who is being punished for getting pregnant out of wedlock in a Puritan New England community. She is branded by being forced to wear a piece of fabric on her dress with the letter “A” for adultery, which is her crime. The book goes through the beginning of her life with her daughter Pearl and how they are viewed by their rigidly religious community. For the first half of the book the story hinges a lot on who the father is (which isn’t overly difficult to guess after the first 20 pages or so). It is also a social commentary on the backwards morals of the 17th century. There is even a villain in the story, although I consider the entire community to be blood thirsty and villainous from the very beginning. The role of nature and the part it plays in the story is also fascinating; is nature good or evil?
I felt like I was reading a fairytale set during the first years of what is now the United States. When I say fairytale I mean Brothers Grimm and not Disney. It doesn’t end with happily ever after. If you are like me and are fond of the old fairytales where the stories aren’t watered down like their contemporary counterparts, then you will enjoy this book. It’s scandalous and magical!
Book Information
Title: The Scarlet Letter
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Year of publication: 1850
Purchased at: The Tank @ McMaster University
Rating: 4/5
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