Monday, December 15, 2008

CanLit 2008: It Didn't All Suck

Or so says Steven Beattie over at That Shakespherian Rag. He's posted the five Canadian books which didn't suck here, and -- I know, you were waiting for it -- one of ours placed. Of Rebecca Rosenblum's Once Beattie writes:

On Matt Galloway’s CBC Radio One show Here and Now this past September, your humble correspondent referred to Rebecca Rosenblum’s debut collection as the most exciting first book of short stories by a Canadian writer since Munro’s Dance of the Happy Shades. This is not to suggest that the two writers are similar in terms of themes or approach: to the contrary, they couldn’t be more different. Rosenblum tells edgy, urban stories about listless twentysomethings trying to find their way in the world. But she writes with such concise vigour, and includes such moments of crystalline beauty, that her stories belie her relative youth and inexperience. Once would be a superior fifth or sixth collection. As a first book, it is nothing short of remarkable.

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