Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Salty Ink reviews Light Lifting


The first review of Alexander MacLeod's Light Lifting is in, from Chad Pelley's Salty Ink.

The apple may have fallen from the tree, but Alistair and Alexander are two very different apples, writing-wise. Green and red, or Granny Smith and Gala: each with their own distinctive qualities. Alistair seems known as a masterful storyteller, and the voice of dwindling cultures, whereas Alexander feels like part of the “new wave” of “the new writing” out of Atlantic Canada. His writing is clean, confident, and distinctive. His stories — urban and universal — are ambitiously constructed and all the more solid for it. In fact, Light Lifting, features a story, “Miracle Mile,” that was a Journey Prize finalist — the Journey Prize being the country’s most esteemed award for short fiction. And it’s not even the best story in the collection.

...

Calling B iblioasis "the metal detector for short fiction gold" -- Rosenblum, Jones, Winter (not to mention Young & Young, Rooke, Flood and others) anyone -- he finishes by saying that "Light Lifting is an assured and promising debut, and one of the region’s finest collections of shorts in 2010. It puts a new MacLeod on the scene, and the way I see it, from here on in, we’ll have to say, “Which one?” when someone refers to MacLeod’s writing."

For the whole review please go here. And we're expecting copies of Light Lifting to arrive any day, and should see bookshelves near you by the 20th of the month.


1 comment:

Kerry said...

I've never forgotten "Miracle Mile" since I read it in TNQ. Congratulations on another great book.