Kirkus Loves Alphabet

Giving Kathy Page's Alphabet a coveted starred review, Kirkus Reviews had the following to say:

A moving novel about knowledge, self-awareness and the power of words, set in the purgatory of prison. This young man's life demands our attention and refuses to let go.

Simon Austen is serving life imprisonment for the murder of his girlfriend in a fit of uncontrollable rage. It's Margaret Thatcher's 1980s England, but he is lost in time, attending sessions with institutional psychiatrists who might be able to help him gain parole. He learns to read with the aid of a prison volunteer and writes letters for his fellow inmates to lawyers, mothers and lovers, considering it his job. He also writes his version of his life story, tattooing his body with the words others have called him in spite and hate: “ARROGANT,” “WEIRDO,” “BASTARD,” “COLD,” “MURDERER.” Then “COURAGEOUS,” inspired by Bernadette "Bernie" Nightingale, a counselor he fantasizes about and works with to enter an experimental program that may move his parole forward. Page writes fiercely, drawing a fine portrait of a man who lives daily, routinely, fragilely in an environment that can erupt in violence at any time. It does, in a powerful scene where Simon is gang-beaten, has bleach poured down his throat, and is sent to a hospital, where all we've learned about him is dramatically, but tenderly, unsettled. Vic is his roommate in the prison hospital and an unforgettable character as he transforms into Charlotte, disrupting Simon’s view of life's predictability and moving him to a greater understanding. Charlotte is freed, figuratively and literally, but writes letters and visits Simon, giving him strength and a vision of life outside the cement and steel of incarceration and the confinement of his own history. The words that are inked over Simon’s body are simply prologue to the next chapter of his life.

Page doesn't sentimentalize the cruelty of life in a prison system but manages to transcend it through Simon, who writes his own story in tattoo ink and letters. This powerful novel is simply an epiphany.

Publishers Weekly Praises Kathy Page's Alphabet

Kathy Page's Alphabet, one of our new reprint titles (though a first publication south of the 49th) comes in for some praise -  and our second starred review for the book in the US -- from Publisher's Weekly: 

Page’s gritty and illuminating sixth novel, originally published in 2004, and shortlisted for Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Awards in 2005, follows Simon Austen, a convicted murderer, through a series of inner triumphs and small victories as he makes his way through the British penal system. Fascinating from the first page, readers watch Austen as he learns how to read, becomes a letter writer for his fellow inmates, and “gets into education, big time,” eventually earning all his high school credits. He decides to address the issue of his inability to relate to women, on his own at first, by corresponding with various women. His description, in one of those letters, of the events that lead him to strangle his girlfriend sends him into a tailspin as he begins to face the underlying reasons behind the impulsive violent act that has defined his life. He is sent to an intensive therapeutic program that forces him to face many of his most serious issues. The journey Austen makes is primarily an inner one, a slow peeling back of the layers of protection he uses to shut everyone out, including himself. As he starts to let people in, in a series of increasingly authentic interactions, we bear witness to his slow and inspiring transformation.

A Season of Serious Reading

In the Toronto Star's list of the most anticipated Fall books of the season, Emily Donaldson gave a shout-out to our very own Freedom in American Songs, by Kathleen Winter, saying:

I’m also excited about Kathleen Winter’s new story collection The Freedom in American Songs, whose tales her publisher Biblioasis describes as being about “modern loneliness, small-town gay teens, catastrophic love, and the holiness of ordinary life”; in other words, everything.

For the full list of the Star's anticipated Fall titles, which also included a Kathleen's other book this season, Boundless (Anansi), please go here.

Starred Quill & Quire Review for Kathleen Winter's Freedom in American Songs

It's with great pleasure that we welcome Kathleen Winter back to Biblioasis with her wonderful new collection of short fiction, The Freedom in American Songs.  It's, in our opinion, her best book to date, and we're pleased to see that Quill and Quire seems as impressed with it as we are, giving it a starred review in the September issue.  Reviewer Robert Weirsma says, in part:

Winter’s language is more complex, more complicated than it initially appears: sentences linger and bloom in the reader’s mind paragraphs later. That approach, writ large, is the modus operandi for the collection as a whole. These stories, seemingly light and quirky, build to their full effect. And when they do, it is wonderful indeed.

For the full review, please go here.

Jailbreaks: Belongs in Every School in the Country

So says Maurice Mierau in a review in the Winnipeg Free Press. We, of course, completely agree with him.

Here's a short excerpt:

Vancouver

poet and critic Zachariah

Wells has edited a collection of

Canadian sonnets that should be in

every school library. Jailbreaks:

99 Canadian Sonnets (Biblioasis,

160 pages, $20) reminds us of our

national involvement in one of

English poetry's most significant

forms.

The entire review, which also has a good review of honourary Biblioasis poet Adam Getty's latest, can be found here:

www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/books/story/4189885p-4780427c.html

Books in Canada

A very positive review of David's Saltsea in Books in Canada. I can't quote it all for you here (later, later), but reviewer Michael Greenstein writes " ... At the beginning, the reader has to adjust to the shifts in perspective, but once the reader becomes more familiar with the characters, the novel succeeds beautifully, thanks to Helwig's poetic, dramatic and cinematic talents. Multiple streams of consciousness make it seem as if the spirit of Henry James or Virginia Woolf were hovering over Helwig's Island. ..."

It is an excellent review, much better (though equally full of praise) than the Globe review of a few weeks past. Greenstein delves more deeply into the book here, into its structure, motifs, music. The review is only marred by one line, the last in the review, though this has nothing to do with David or his novel, but with us:

"Only some faulty typesetting diminishes Helwig's fine figures."

An odd statement, offered with no explanantion, and one I cannot understand, as I think Saltsea -- with one small exception, a bleed issue on the title page which did not get caught (& remains easy to miss) -- an elegantly typeset book. The only thing I can think of is the reviewer may not be a fan of the unjustified margin. In any case, I have sent a query to ask him. I would never bother a reviewer about their perception of a book, but design is another thing. Perhaps he can point out where we erred here, and I may learn something.

A review that appeared in the Globe & Mail of David Helwig's Saltsea, for those of you who missed it.

If you're fond of sand dunes and Saltsea air
DAVE WILLIAMSON
Saltsea
By David Helwig
Biblioasis, 214 pages, $28.95

What better setting for a novel than a hotel? What better place to find a wide range of characters who have been arbitrarily thrown together? One thinks of such absorbing and entertaining past novels as The Hotel New Hampshire, by John Irving, or Hotel Honolulu, by Paul Theroux (to say nothing of the old Arthur Hailey bestseller, Hotel).

David Helwig's Saltsea takes place in a summer vacation spot called the Saltsea Inn, on the coast of Prince Edward Island (which former Ontarian Helwig now calls home). Having only last year published The Names of Things, a lively memoir of his life in CanLit, Helwig comes right back with a novel that may be his finest.

The inn was once the summer residence of New York millionaire Arthur Melcot. It ceased to be a family retreat after Arthur's granddaughter Barbara used it for a time as a hippy commune. Saltsea sat empty for years, but has since been bought by retired civil servant Lawrence (Log) Gardiner and his wife Janet. They have turned it into a pleasant inn that boasts good food and a relaxing beach.

The novel spans a few summer days as people come and go, people such as:

Monica, who brings her two little boys and worries about what her husband is up to back in Toronto.

Meta, an earnest lesbian archeologist from Montreal, who sets up a dig on the Saltsea beach, hoping to find proof of visits by ancient Norsemen. She's accompanied by her provocative young friend Adrienne, who plays on both sides of the street, as they say.

America and James Onley, attractive young New York newlyweds on their honeymoon. The wealthy would-be actress America happens to be the great-granddaughter of the former owner and the daughter of one-time hippy Barbara.

Lizzie McKellan, recently widowed; she's come here before with her husband and she's longing for companionship: "Desire came on her as a powerful, strange half-nauseous ache. She was afraid that one of these days she would discover herself making overtures to a plumber or telephone repairman."

An elderly man known simply as The Professor, who is scouting the area for a summer house; he's haunted by strange dreams and by his wife, who controls his actions even though she stayed in Toronto.

Overweight widows Marg and Doris, happily trying to videotape everybody.

Then there is America's mother, Barbara, who's become a drunk; she arrives to try to reclaim some of the good memories of her hippy youth. Also onto the scene comes Lucas, handsome piano-playing son of the current owners. You know it won't be long before he makes a move on lovely America.

Besides these and other guests, there is Palmer McVeigh, who's been doing odd jobs around the inn since it was a private residence. He spends much of his spare time playing poker with his imaginary friend Adolfo. When he picks up the Onleys at the airport, America thinks he looks like George Burns.

There's the local minister, Father Bob Watkins, who may not be as innocent as he looks. And there's the hotel staff, headed by Peeters, the live-in cook who's raising pheasants in cages out back for future special dinners; with his brooding sous-chef Darren, and three waitresses: lazy Kayleen, crazy Jasmyn and the perky and hard-working Robin, who has aspirations of being a filmmaker.

Helwig does a remarkable job of developing every one of these characters, and you hate to see any of them leave. As they meet and observe one another, the encounters are conveyed through crisp dialogue and just enough description.

Helwig is equally effective when he brings everybody together -- for dinner in the Saltsea dining room, or at a concert, where America and Lucas perform and The Professor recites poetry. And he builds suspense around Meta's excavation: exactly what has she dug up, both literally and figuratively?

Even Palmer McVeigh's dog has personality: "The dog gave him a look as if he'd heard enough stupid human remarks and would appreciate it if Palmer would just be quiet."

As a reader, you feel as if you've gone to this quaint place for a vacation and met all these intriguing people, and you have the privilege of knowing what they think about themselves and each other. Helwig's considerable accomplishment is that he makes you care about all of them. Since he gives you lots to laugh about, as well as some insight into the past and some mystery, you come away from Saltsea feeling that it was the best damned vacation you've had in a long while.

Dave Williamson is a Winnipeg novelist who has been following Helwig's work since reviewing two of the four books called The Kingston Novels in the early 1980s.