Talonbooks Spring 2010
Talonbooks Awards and Prizes, Recent Highlights 2009 Acorn-Plantos Award for Poetry: Weyman Chan, Noise from the Laundry (Finalist) Ann Saddlemyer Award: Sherrill Grace, Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon Pollock (Winner) CBC Canada Reads: Michel Tremblay, The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant, translated by Sheila Fischman (Finalist) Governor General’s Award, Drama: Kevin Loring, Where the Blood Mixes (Winner) Governor General’s Award, Drama: Joan MacLeod, Another Home Invasion (Finalist)
Contents 1 13 16 25 32 50 58 64 67 68 69
New Releases Recent Releases Non-fiction Backlist Fiction Backlist Drama Backlist Poetry Backlist Index of Complete Booklist by Author Index of Complete Booklist by Title Index of Translators Sales Representation and Ordering Canadian Trade Terms and Return Policy
Governor General’s Award, Translation: Thierry Hentsch, Empire of Desire, translated by Fred A. Reed (Finalist) Governor General’s Award, Translation: Stéphane Bourguignon, A Slight Case of Fatigue, translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott (Finalist) Jessie Richardson Award, Outstanding Original Script: Kevin Loring, Where the Blood Mixes (Winner) Jessie Richardson Award, Sydney Risk Prize for Outstanding Original Script by an Emerging Playwright: Kevin Loring, Where the Blood Mixes (Winner)
Head Office: Post Office Box 2076 Vancouver, BC V6B 3S3 phone: (604) 444-4889 fax: (604) 444-4119 info@talonbooks.com www.talonbooks.com
Editorial Office: 6828 Alberni Street Powell River, BC V8A 2B5 phone: (604) 485-5801 fax: (604) 485-5802 edit@talonbooks.com
Libris Award, Small Press Publisher of the Year: Talonbooks (Finalist) ReLit Award, Poetry: Fred Wah, Sentenced to Light (Finalist)
2008
Receiving: 278 East 1st Avenue Vancouver, BC V5T 1A6 phone: (604) 444-4889
Talonbooks
Governor General’s Award, Poetry: Sachiko Murakami, The Invisibility Exhibit (Finalist) Governor General’s Award, Poetry: Weyman Chan, Noise from the Laundry (Finalist) Governor General’s Award, Drama: Marie Clements, Copper Thunderbird (Finalist)
G.S.T. is not included in Canadian prices quoted in this catalogue. G.S.T. # 88535-3235 All information in this catalogue is subject to change without notice.
ReLit Award, Poetry: Colin Browne, The Shovel (Finalist)
2007 Governor General’s Award, Translation: Hervé Fischer, The Decline of the Hollywood Empire, translated by Rhonda Mullins (Finalist) Governor General’s Award, Drama: Morris Panych, What Lies Before Us (Finalist) Grey Campbell Award: Karl Siegler (Publisher, Talonbooks) (Winner)
2006 Governor General’s Award, Translation: Michel Tremblay, Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies, translated by Linda Gaboriau (Finalist) Governor General’s Award, Drama: Drew Hayden Taylor, In a World Created by a Drunken God (Finalist) Governor General’s Award, Translation: Larry Tremblay, The Bicycle Eater, translated by Sheila Fischman (Finalist)
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts; the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program; and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit for our publishing activities.
Talonbooks
New Releases / 1
Imperial Canada Inc. Legal Haven of Choice for the World’s Mining Industries Alain Deneault, with Delphine Abadie, Mathieu Denis, Patrick Ducharme, Charles Ficner, David Gill & William Sacher Translated by Fred A. Reed & Robin Philpot
Alain Deneault was born in the Outaouais region of Québec. He completed a research-doctorate at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin and the Université de Paris 8, at which he received his PhD in Philosophy under the direction of Jacques Rancière. Deneault’s research and writing practices are diverse and often collaborative, focusing on how international financial and legal agreements increasingly foster the interests of “stateless” transnational corporations over those of nation-states and the interests of their human communities. International journalist and literary translator Fred A. Reed is a three-time winner of the Governor General’s Award for translation. He has translated major works by Thierry Hentsch and many of Québec’s leading authors, as well as by Nikos Kazantzakis and other modern Greek writers. He lives in Montreal. Montreal-based author and translator Robin Philpot attained degrees in history and literature from the University of Toronto, taught English and History in Africa, and pursued a career in Québec politics. He sparked public controversy with the on-line release of his book Rwanda 1994: Colonialism Dies Hard.
ISBN 978-0-88922-635-7 Non-fiction / International Trade 5.5 x 8.5; 320 pp; Trade paper $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD May
Imperial Canada Inc. sets out to ask a simple question: why is Canada home to more than 70% of the world’s mining companies? Created by the British North America Act of 1867, Canada, rather than turning away from its colonial past, actively embraced, appropriated and perpetuated the imperial ambitions of its mother country. Two years later, it took possession of Rupert’s Land—all of the land draining into Hudson Bay—and the North West Territories from the Hudson’s Bay Company, three million square miles of resources, and set about its nation-building enterprise of extending its Dominion “from sea to sea.” This Canadian imperial heritage continues to offer the extractive sector worldwide a customized trading environment that supports speculation, enables capital flows to finance questionable projects abroad, pursues a proactive diplomacy which successfully promotes this sector to international institutions, opens fiscal pipelines to Caribbean tax havens, provides government subsidies and most especially, offers a politicized legal haven from litigation. Traditionally rooted in Canadian law, the right to reputation effectively supersedes freedom of expression and the public’s right to information. Hence, Canadian “bodies corporate,” i.e. Canadian-based corporations, can sue for “libel” any and all persons or legal entities that quote documents or generate analyses of their corporate practices that they do not approve of. Even foreign academics have become hesitant about presenting their work in Canada for fear of such prosecution. The authors of Imperial Canada Inc., all respected scholars in their fields, meticulously research four factors that contribute to the answer to this question: Québec’s and Ontario’s mining codes; the history of the Toronto Stock Exchange; Canada’s involvement with Caribbean tax havens; and, finally, Canada’s official role of promoting itself to international institutions governing the world’s mining sector. Alain Deneault’s Paul Martin & Companies is also available from Talonbooks. Praise for Deneault’s Paul Martin & Companies: Sixty Theses on the Alegal Nature of Tax Havens: “Here is a political book that does not rest with the satisfaction of having revealed certain secrecies, but persists in getting to the bottom of things … An essential read which goes beyond the scope of strict policy.” —Le Libraire
2 / New Releases
Talonbooks
The Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack Dorothy Kennedy & Randy Bouchard
The British Columbia Indian Language Project is directed by ethnographer/linguist Randy Bouchard and socio-cultural anthropologist Dr. Dorothy Kennedy, who completed her PhD at Oxford University. Since its founding in the early 1970s, the Project has been dedicated to the documentation and preservation of B.C.’s First Nations languages, cultures and histories. Kennedy and Bouchard’s comprehensive study of the Native people of the Desolation Sound area, Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands, was published by Talonbooks in 1983. They are also coeditors of Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America, the acclaimed annotated translation of Franz Boas’ landmark anthropological study, Indianischen Sagen. As Bouchard and Kennedy Research Consultants, they continue to contribute to the establishment of aboriginal rights and title claims, having recently shown that the Squamish and Lil'wat both have aboriginal rights and title interests in the Whistler area, making them First Nations co-hosts of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
ISBN 978-0-88922-640-1 Non-fiction / Ethnography 6.75 x 9.75; 288 pp; Trade paper $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD February
Early in their ethnographic work, Randy Bouchard and Dorothy Kennedy were privileged to meet Charlie Mack. Born on the Mount Currie Reserve in 1899, he was a fascinating character and a font of wisdom, exemplifying by his way of life, his skills in trapping and canoe-making, and his knowledge of the history of his people, the living world of the Lil’wat, which the young ethnologists were able to record on tape and in their notes and photographs. Most important among what Charlie Mack gave them was a wide corpus of stories; he was a master storyteller, holding his listeners spellbound with his animated and dramatic delivery in both Lil’wat and English. Charlie Mack’s stories were originally recorded in his native language as part of a systematic government-sponsored effort to create public awareness of the threatened indigenous languages of British Columbia and Washington State, and were eventually published as a highly popular translated and edited collection, Lillooet Stories (1977), by the British Columbia Archives. More time spent with Charlie Mack before his death in 1990 revealed to Kennedy and Bouchard that his worldview embedded a moral code, information about the environment and the self-evident truths of his world not easily comprehended out of context: an interweaving of myth, history and experience invoked in daily conversation and deeply rooted in a sense of place. Now, two decades after Charlie Mack’s passing, the authors present a selection of his English renditions of some of these stories, drawing on their transcribed interviews, correspondence and field notes to re-contextualize the narratives he wanted to share, and guide the reader to a more holistic understanding of this Lil’wat elder’s world. This book is a tribute to a long friendship; the result of the authors reflecting on a lifetime of listening to a man who had something to say. Dorothy Kennedy and Randy Bouchard’s Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America and Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands are also available from Talonbooks. Praise for Kennedy & Bouchard’s Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands: “An excellent portrait of these people.”
—Canadian Book Review Annual
Talonbooks
New Releases / 3
My Darling Nellie Grey George Bowering
George Bowering, Canada’s first Poet Laureate, was born in the Okanagan Valley. After serving as an aerial photographer in the Royal Canadian Air Force, Bowering earned a BA in English and an MA in History at the University of British Columbia, where he became one of the co-founders of the avantgarde poetry magazine TISH. He has taught literature at the University of Calgary, the University of Western Ontario and Simon Fraser University. He continues to act as a Canadian literary ambassador at international conferences and readings. A distinguished novelist, poet, editor, professor, historian and tireless supporter of fellow writers, Bowering has authored more than eighty books, including works of poetry, fiction, autobiography, biography and youth fiction. His writing has also been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese and Romanian. In 2002, Bowering was recognized by the Vancouver Sun as one of the most influential people in British Columbia.
In December 2005, stalled on a novel he was writing, George Bowering thought he needed a challenge. By the end of the year he had made a New Year’s resolution: write a poem a day for the 365 days of 2006. While working on Crows in the Wind, in January, he decided each monthly sequence should have a rule: something for the writing to attend to. So for February, each day’s piece had to have one sentence and two stanzas, then off he went; inventing ten further formal monthly compositional frames. As it happened, 2006 became fraught with personal challenges for Bowering—including a second marriage and a death in his new family—but he kept going, never cheating. The result of this uncompromising personal and formal discipline is one of the most fascinating books of poetry ever written. Initially lacking a “subject,” the book’s metanarrative almost inevitably took the shape of an exquisite poetic autobiography that is at once both intensely personal and profoundly public. In it, among many other astonishments, we discover the deeply ambiguous roots of his father’s favourite folksong; we catch a fleeting childhood glimpse of Bowering’s young mother, graceful as a gazelle, frozen in mid-stride like a Keatsian art-deco statue by the poet’s innocently Oedipal gaze; a complete history of Cuba in the context of US foreign policy in Latin America that gives an entirely new, but older, meaning to the date September 11; and the roots of tragedy that led to the “Balkanization” of Yugoslavia. Throughout, the poet’s narrative personae assume the guises of a lifetime, reeling in and out of an ever-shifting “present”: a fluid “here and now” that swirls over the gravel of a stream alive with recognitions, as all of the events of that imagined life become simultaneously present in their voices. “One of Canadian literature’s chief mockers and iconoclasts.” —Vancouver Sun
ISBN 978-0-88922-634-0 Poetry 6 x 9; 416 pp; Trade paper $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD April
George Bowering’s And Other Stories, Baseball Love, Blonds on Bikes, Harry’s Fragments, Kerrisdale Elegies, The Moustache, The Rain Barrel, Sticks & Stones and Vermeer’s Light are also available from Talonbooks.
4 / New Releases
Talonbooks
Decompositions Ken Belford
Ken Belford was born to a farming family in Alberta and grew up in Vancouver. An early advocate for the nascent “ecology movement,” he homesteaded in Northwestern BC in the late 1960s with his wife and daughter. For thirtyfive years they operated a “soft paths” eco-tourism business there in the remote headwaters of the Nass and Skeena Rivers. The self-educated “lan(d)guage” poet has said that living for decades in the “back country” has afforded him a unique relationship to language that rejects the colonial impulse to write about nature, but attempts to write from nature and our relationship to the land. Currently living in Prince George, BC, he continues to write outside the boundaries of the conventional forms espoused by what he calls the “tribal schools” of poetry. His six previous books of poetry are: fireweed; The Post Electric Cave Man; Pathways Into the Mountains; ecologue; lan(d)guage; and when snakes awaken.
If language is an index of belonging, then Decompositions is the writing of an exile, a tribe of one. For much of his life, Ken Belford has lived in the north, in the pristine region of the headwaters of the Nass River. His careful (de)compositions disclose the land as a complex living organism, articulate the names of it, see the whole of it. Yet the landscape of these poems is not a matter of latitude and longitude, but that unroaded place which begins at the edge of the rancher’s field, wherever that boundary is, and looks back at “civilization” with a vision and a voice that is unique and new. These poems catch their readers up in a surprising social engagement that is at once larger and other than the consumer discourse of trade and ownership. The construction of the lyric in contemporary poetry is most often grounded in a gaze from shelter, out onto a common field that is captured, and thus appropriated—an “aboutism” or constructed estrangement of the other that is challenged by these decompositions of that sheltered and privileged “I.” For Belford, poetry is a social process that explores linguistic and political particulars from a gaze that is opposite to the shelters of convention, the academy, the city, or the south. It is a writing that rules out the anticipation and doubt of traditional narrative. These are not safe poems, they resist more than they assure. While Belford’s self-taught language of subsistence isn’t aligned with the well-worn ancestral narratives of our forefathers, its sub-text remains rooted in questions of both origin and evolution, foregrounding a consciousness informed by the latest recognitions of science and technology. Uncolonized spaces are represented here not as a return to a golden age, but as bright openings to our undisclosed future. “Ken has spent his entire life re-mapping both internal and external geographies like an explorer bent on ‘undiscovering’ the land; to spark fresh perspectives through poetry, and undermine preconceptions about identity … “ —Josh Massey, Northwords
ISBN 978-0-88922-631-9 Poetry 6 x 9; 96 pp; Trade paper $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD April
“Belford is a delight. [His poems] read with the kind of inevitability of image and rhythm that makes other poets grit their teeth with envy.” —Margaret Atwood “Ken Belford speaks from outside the literary centres and brings a freshness to literature itself. He finds poems in the untamed places where direct experience and language are inseparable.” —Robert Kroetsch
Talonbooks
New Releases / 5
Asian Skies Ken Norris
Ken Norris was born in New York City in 1951. He immigrated to Canada in the early 1970s and quickly became one of Montreal’s infamous Véhicule Poets. One of Canada’s most prolific poets, Norris has always given his readers subtly capricious and edgy poetry that reveals unanticipated possibilities and explores new horizons. He is the author of two dozen books and chapbooks of poetry, and is the editor of eight anthologies of poetry and poetics. His work has been widely anthologized in Canada and throughout the English-speaking world, as well as published in translation in France, Belgium, Israel and China. Québècois poet Pierre DesRuisseaux has translated two of his books into French, La Route Des Limbes (Limbo Road, Écrits Des Forges) and Hotel Montréal (Éditions Du Noroit). Norris teaches Canadian literature and creative writing at the University of Maine. He divides his time between Canada, the U.S. and Asia.
Asian Skies is the final book of Ken Norris’s travel trilogy. With Dante as his guide, he has previously left behind the predominantly European terrain of the first book, Limbo Road, only to find himself in the terra incognita of the new world of the second, Dominican Moon. Now guideless, Norris continues his search for the metaphorical shortcut, the “inside passage” of the age of discovery; the easy transcendence of “a passage to India” from the post-industrial world, and sets out for that most foreign of shores to the Western mind: Asia—a world of glittering wealth, precious spice, exotic religiosity, tyrannical rule, mysterious ritual and deadly storm. Composed like a dark novel-in-verse, this is the unsettling story of the deficiencies of love that have produced our commodified and globalized world—a perhaps not-so-divine comedy of those who don’t love enough— steeped in a clash of cultures wherein the third world seems willingly, even perversely, to offer itself up as a simulacrum of the first, while its otherness remains hidden, inaccessible. As he transits the beaches of Phuket to the island of Bali, the flood plains of Bangladesh to the sublime heights of the Himalaya, Norris ultimately understands it is the absence of a beloved that turns the world upside down: where what was loved is hated, what was benign is threatening, what was dangerous is embraced, what was worshipped is murdered, what was past is future. Part travel journal, part meditation on the rudderless denizens of the global village of which he is merely one, Asian Skies chronicles a search for the beloved, one that will lead to “the City of God.” That she appears only in glimpses is a credit to Ken Norris’s adept reading of the twenty-first century and his disciplined mapping of its increasingly unknown territories. “He is, in short, a poet, and a good one. The world he inhabits is a geographically, politically, and emotionally extensive one in which he is entirely comfortable in his own skin, and therefore able to register the surrounding phenomena exactly.” —Hiram Poetry Review
ISBN 978-0-88922-633-3 Poetry 6 x 9; 128 pp; Trade paper $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD April
Ken Norris’s Dominican Moon, Fifty, Going Home, Hotel Montreal and Limbo Road are also available from Talonbooks.
6 / New Releases
Talonbooks
Hypoderm Weyman Chan
Weyman Chan was born in Calgary, Alberta in 1963, to immigrant parents from China. He has published poems and short stories in a wide variety of literary journals and anthologies. He won the 2002 National Magazine Awards silver prize for his poem “At work” and the 2003 Alberta Book Award for his first book of poetry, Before a Blue Sky Moon. His second book, Noise From the Laundry (Talonbooks), was nominated for the 2008 Governor General’s Award for Poetry. A laboratory technician by trade, Chan wrote his first poem when he was thirteen years old. Distilling a unique voice and ethnic point of view in the spiralling, nonsequential and non-temporal syntax of poetry remains the most liberating form of expression he has found to engage in. “Every writer must come to terms with their own inner language—and it takes time to learn how to use it to best effect.”
The idea for this book, says Weyman Chan, is simple—approach the world as metaphor, and it will come to you. Subtitled “notes to myself,” Hypoderm is a manifesto of observations, intimations and recognitions of mortality that get under the poet’s skin—that remind the reader that poetry is documentation and speculation, not a sentimental fabrication of the rapture (rupture) of our “end times.” We live in an age of anxiety, where social order and the imagination are as alienated as they have ever been, creating our estrangement from a sane and necessary privacy the cause of which the poet locates in the anthropocentric doctrine that man has been divinely ordained to take dominion over the earth. Chan’s lines “What monster taught Adam / to see a bird and say the word” echo those of Blake; his “the name that can be named is not the real name” recall the words of Milton; his “shouldn’t the final / translation of any word in any language / be silence” invoke the teachings of Buddha. Drawing on cosmologies as disparate as molecular biology, Chinese and Mayan celestial cycles, and the conflict of Horus and Seth in Egyptian mythology, Chan finds everywhere the recognition that: “As all prey let out / sounds of deepest obligation / when they’re caught, so / the binding surrounds.” Every living thing is already looking over its shoulder in its necessarily parasitic conditions for existence. It is within this dance of coordinates, as biological drives encounter mental constructs, that these poems document how micro and macro worlds collide, and speculate that just as our somatic mitochondria were once free-floating protozoa that got inside us and adapted to our metabolism, so the earth’s green skin is being infected by the drills and dragnets of our Nietzschean will to power. Praise for Chan’s Noise from the Laundry: “The question of how to act with integrity underlies many of his poems, which are less like linear narratives than intricate reveries richly threaded with reminiscences, dreams, musings on his cultural heritage ... Chan’s poems are ... as delicate and resonant as [a] paper crane.” —CBC
ISBN 978-0-88922-637-1 Poetry 6 x 9; 96 pp; Trade paper $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD April
Weyman Chan’s Noise from the Laundry is also available from Talonbooks.
Talonbooks
New Releases / 7
On the Material Stephen Collis
Stephen Collis is the author of three previous books of poetry, Mine (New Star, 2001), Anarchive (New Star, 2005), which was nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and The Commons (Talonbooks, 2008)—the latter two forming parts of the on-going “Barricades Project.” Noted for his seminal analyses of affinities between twentieth-century poets, he has lectured widely on poetics and done numerous readings in Canada and the U.S. He is also the author of two book-length studies, Phyllis Webb and the Common Good (Talonbooks, 2007) and Through Words of Others: Susan Howe and AnarchoScholasticism (ELS Editions, 2006). He is currently editing a collection of essays, Reading Duncan Reading; organizing the Charles Olson Centenary Conference (June 4–6, 2010); and continuing his work on “The Barricades Project.” A member of the Kootenay School of Writing, he teaches American literature, poetry and poetics at Simon Fraser University.
Structured in three parts, On the Material is a meditation on language, geography, socio-economics and the body, moving from the glut of fossilfuelled consumer excess to the materiality of a single book. Composed almost entirely of quatrains (each page being comprised of four four-line stanzas) and written while travelling through North America in 2008, “4x4” navigates issues of space and movement in the global age. As economies crumble, ecosystems fail and peak oil approaches, Collis records the production of a disarticulation of social discourse that our consumer society has generated: “After all we made money out of matter here / Now condos shield us from the computer hum / Of on-line trading and wars flash on flat screens / As 4x4s cool and ping mud covered in double garages.” In its bridging second section, “I Fought the Lyric and the Lyric Won,” the desire to express wins out over the desire to possess. Beauty, contemplation and human communication seem to have abandoned the world, and their absence from the everyday has re-engaged the poet’s struggle with language—has left a need to reinvent human discourse and its attendant relations. The third section, “Gail’s Books,” is a sequence of poems in memory of Stephen Collis’s sister, Gail Tulloch. A month after Gail’s death from cancer in 2002, a fire destroyed her house, removing every material reminder of her from the earth. All that remained was one book recovered from a pool of water in the ruins after the fire. Dried in the air, this book, and those Collis had previously borrowed from his sister, become a way for the poet to read back into the elemental heart of absence and loss—the “material” of the books displacing, and in some way recovering, how language holds the materiality of the physical world. “Stephen Collis’s poems are a blizzard, a whiteout of all we know and understand.” —Canadian Literature
Stephen Collis’s The Commons and Phyllis Webb and the Common Good are also available from Talonbooks. ISBN 978-0-88922-632-6 Poetry 6 x 9; 128 pp; Trade paper $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD April
8 / New Releases
Talonbooks
Bardy Google Frank Davey
Born in Vancouver, Frank Davey was Carl F. Klinck Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of Western Ontario. Upon his retirement in 2005, the conference “Poetics and Public Culture in Canada” was held in his honour. Davey attended the University of British Columbia where he was a co-founder of the avant-garde poetry magazine TISH. Since 1963, he has been the editorpublisher of the poetics journal Open Letter. With fellow TISH poet Fred Wah, Davey founded the world’s first online literary magazine, SwiftCurrent in 1984. A prolific and highly-esteemed author of numerous books and scholarly articles on Canadian literary criticism and poetry, Davey writes with a unique panache as he examines with humour and irony the ambiguous play of signs in contemporary culture, the popular stories that lie behind it, and the struggles between different identitybased groups in our globalizing society—racial, regional, gender-based, ethnic, economic—that drive this play.
For thousands of years, formal compositional rules of rhyme, metre and rhetorical devices have shaped the language of poetry, creating “meaning” through the interplay between these culturally determined aesthetic prerequisites imposed on its syntax, and the “other” intelligence of the poet pushing against these constraints. Bardy Google reinvents these formal boundaries within the frame of our wired world. With only one hidden exception, each of the texts in this book was constructed through Frank Davey’s use of specifically devised Internet searches. The “rules” for their composition varied: “Love + 560” began at the 560th line of the search results; most selections excluded incomplete sentences; most included only the first sentence of a search result; all excluded sentences in which all the terms searched for did not occur; and all except two sequenced the sentences in the order found. Some, such as “Time Lapse Action,” “Sorry” and “The Imaginaries,” contain tonal shifts enabled by an abrupt change of the search protocol during their composition. In all cases, any re-composition of the pieces was done only by revising the initial search protocol and generating a new text to replace a previous one. Because the content of the Internet, and the search-engine priorities assigned to that content, change continuously, these texts are unique and unrepeatable. The same search protocols used in a later month or year could produce quite different results from those assembled here—or distressingly similar ones. These texts are part of Davey’s ongoing work on the use of the sentence as the basic structural unit of poetry—to create poetic texts, as they have always been created, out of the materials of prose. They also constitute another of his forays into cultural commentary—in this case, disclosing how our engagement with globalized culture creates meaning as it “speaks through itself.” Praise for Davey’s Cultural Mischief: “Finally, what’s left is an irresistable read that’s bound to raise eyebrows.” —Monday Magazine
ISBN 978-0-88922-636-4 Poetry 6 x 9; 96 pp; Trade paper $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD April
Frank Davey’s Margaret Atwood: A Feminist Poetics, Back to the War, Cultural Mischief, Popular Narratives and Selected Poems: The Arches are also available from Talonbooks.
Talonbooks
New Releases / 9
How to Write derek beaulieu
Author of four books of poetry and two volumes of conceptual fiction, derek beaulieu’s work is consistently praised as some of the most radical and challenging contemporary Canadian writing. Editor and publisher of the acclaimed small presses housepress (1997–2004), dANDelion (2001–04) and no press (2005–present), beaulieu has spoken and written on poetics internationally. From 2004 to 2007 beaulieu was the Administrative Director at Calgary’s The New Gallery, western Canada’s oldest artist–run centre. Toro magazine recently wrote: “using techniques drawn from graphic design, fine art, and experimental writing, [beaulieu] vigorously tests the restrictions, conventions, and denotations of the letters of the alphabet.” beaulieu’s fractal economies (Talonbooks) included a cogent and widely-discussed argument for poetry which works beyond conventional meaning-making, pushing the boundaries of syntax into graphic design, gesture and collaboration. beaulieu lives in Calgary where he teaches through the Calgary Board of Education and at the University of Calgary.
How to Write is a perverse Coles Notes: a paradigm of prosody where writing as sampling, borrowing, cutting-and-pasting and mash-up meets literature. This collection of conceptual short fiction takes inspiration from Lautréamont’s decree that “plagiarism is necessary. It is implied in the idea of progress. It clasps the author’s sentence tight, uses his expressions, eliminates a false idea, replaces it with the right idea.” Already early in the twentieth century, the modernist Ezra Pound asserted that poets should “make it new,” and of course by “it” he meant “the tradition”: the materiality of pre-existent writing. The assertion is by no means original, much less post-modern: John Donne, for example, argued centuries ago that “all mankind is of one author, and is one volume.” How to Write is an instruction manual for the demise of ownership. A multitudinous dialogue of writers and subjects, words and contexts, it unleashes a cacophony of voices where authors don’t own their words, they merely rent them from other authors. Containing ten pieces of conceptual prose ranging from the purely appropriated through the entirely recomposed, and covering a range of texts from the anonymous to the famous, it includes samplings from, among many others: Lawrence Sterne; Agatha Christie; Bob Kane; Roy Lichtenstein; and every piece of text within one block of the author’s home. Its title story is an exhaustive record of every incidence of the words “write” or “writes” in forty different English-language texts picked aesthetically to represent a disparate number of genres. With How to Write, beaulieu suggests writers and artists would be better served to “make it reframed, make it borrowed, make it re-contextualized.” By recasting the canon with cut-up directions for successful writing, catalogues of events, and lists of vocabulary, he gleefully illustrates Picasso’s dictum that “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.” Praise for beaulieu’s fractal economies: “In derek beaulieu’s fractal economies, language regards itself, stalks itself, begins, slowly, to eat itself.” —Canadian Literature
derek beaulieu’s fractal economies is also available from Talonbooks. ISBN 978-0-88922-629-6 Non-fiction / Language Arts / Creative Writing 4.25 x 7; 72 pp; Trade paper $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD April
10 / New Releases
Talonbooks
After Jack Garry Thomas Morse
Jack Spicer, the barroom soothsayer of the “Berkeley Renaissance,” forged a new kind of poetry with Robert Duncan and Robin Blaser in the decade 1945–1955, grounded in their “queer genealogy” of Arthur Rimbaud, Federico García Lorca and other gay writers. Beginning his famous serial poem, After Lorca, in 1956, Spicer described it to Robin Blaser a year later:
Computer programmer by day and frenetic sculptor of literary texts by night, Garry Thomas Morse applies the demands of elegant internal consistency to all languages. He has had two books of poetry published by LINEbooks, Transversals for Orpheus (2006) and Streams (2007), and one collection of fiction, Death in Vancouver (2009) published by Talonbooks. Grounded in the work of Jack Spicer, Rainer Maria Rilke, Ezra Pound and his Native oral traditions, his work has been featured in a variety of publications, including Canadian Literature, The Capilano Review, dANDelion, filling Station, memewar, The Vancouver Review and West Coast Line. Morse received the 2008 City of Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Artist and has twice been selected as runner-up for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry.
I enclose my eight latest “translations.” Transformations might be a better word. Several are originals and most of the rest change the poem vitally. I can’t seem to make anybody understand this or what I’m doing. They look blank or ask what the Spanish is for a word that isn’t in the Spanish or praise (like Duncan did) an original poem as typically Lorca. What I am trying to do is establish a tradition. When I’m through … I’d like someone as good as I am to translate these translations into French (or Pushtu) adding more. Do you understand? No. Nobody does.
Clearly, Spicer had not anticipated the birth of Garry Thomas Morse. Not merely an homage to Jack Spicer, but also a tribute to his Orphic conception of the serial poem, After Jack is a palimpsestuous attempt to achieve the dark art of nekuia, to encourage the means of poetic transmission and to divine the polyphony of both Federico García Lorca and Jack Spicer as their voices interweave, transform and become inexorably entangled with a fresh and undeniably peculiar, disturbingly profane authorial voice. Only via the enchanted act of re:writing can Billy the Kid make explicit the homosexual subtext of Gore Vidal’s 1955 TV play The Left-Handed Gun, or Walt Whitman turn into an apocalyptic figure, or the knights of the Round Table turn into the enlightened circle of the poet’s friends. But then, as Jack said, “we were never friends.” “Garry Thomas Morse is an extraordinarily talented writer, and his Death in Vancouver is nothing less than a stunning accomplishment. It is work of prodigious erudition and imaginative daring, and it brings vividly to life (and death) the entangled narratives and sonantic richness of the global city.” —Dave Chariandy
ISBN 978-0-88922-630-2 Poetry 6 x 9; 160 pp; Trade paper $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD April
Garry Thomas Morse’s Death in Vancouver is also available from Talonbooks.
Talonbooks
New Releases / 11
The Trespassers Morris Panych
Playwright, actor and director Morris Panych has been described as “a man for all seasons in Canadian theatre.” He has appeared in over fifty theatre productions and in numerous television and film roles. He has directed over thirty theatre productions and written over a dozen plays that have been translated and produced throughout the world. He has twice won the Governor General’s Award and has won the Jessie Richardson Theatre Award fourteen times for acting and directing. He has also been nominated six times for Toronto’s Dora Mavor Moore Award and three times for the Chalmers Award. His play Vigil, under the title Auntie & Me, was produced in London in 2003–04; it was also produced in French at Théâtre la bruyère in Paris in 2005; and his classic 7 Stories ranks 9th among the ten best-selling plays in Canada, outselling the Coles version of Romeo & Juliet.
The Trespassers unfolds over the course of a few weeks in a town in the middle of nowhere—not small enough to be a quaint place or large enough to be in any way an interesting one. They once had a sawmill here, which was a going concern before it was shut down in a labour dispute, and it now crowns a sort of half-town, gutted of its reason for being. Fifteen-year-old Lowell is no average teenager—and his grandfather, Hardy, is no conventional role model. Whether urging the boy to pilfer peaches from an abandoned orchard, arranging for his sexual initiation with the town’s sole remaining prostitute, or teaching him the importance of gambling, Hardy is the despair of Lowell’s born-again mother, Cash. But how far into forbidden territory has Lowell actually ventured? An unapologetic anarchist, Hardy may once have owned the abandoned orchard at the heart of the town where he and Lowell spend much of their time trespassing, discussing capitalism and the finer points of the Ten Commandments, as if ethics were nothing more than a game of poker where we win or lose not because of what’s in the hand we’ve been dealt, but because of how we play it with what’s in our heads. Torn between his grandfather’s atheism and his mother’s Christian fundamentalism, Lowell begins to understand that things are not what they seem in what is left of this town. When inspector Milton shows up to investigate a mysterious murder, Lowell’s skills at shaping the truth to protect both himself and those he cares about are put to the ultimate test: shall he plea bargain, or stick to the truth as he understands it? As Hardy once pointed out to him, “There’s something in between lying and not lying. It’s called a story.” “Charming and, this being Panych, funny.”
—National Post
“A melancholic, darkly humorous and wrenchingly beautiful portrait of life, death, love and family.” —Waterloo Record
ISBN 978-0-88922-628-9 Drama 5.5 x 8.5; 96 pp; Trade paper $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD February
Morris Panych’s Benevolence, The Dishwashers, Earshot, The Ends of the Earth, Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, Lawrence & Holloman, Other Schools of Thought, 7 Stories, Still Laughing, Vigil and What Lies Before Us are also available from Talonbooks.
12 / New Releases
Talonbooks
Skydive Kevin Kerr
Kevin Kerr is a playwright, director, actor and founding member of Vancouver’s Electric Company Theatre. In the 1999/2000 season, he was Writer-in-Residence at Touchstone Theatre where he developed Unity (1918) (Talonbooks, 2002), which earned him the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama. He is the recipient of three Jessie Richardson Awards for Outstanding Original Play (Brilliant!, The Score and Unity) and his work has been produced across Canada, in the U.S., France, Australia and the U.K. Recent works include The Remittance Man, which was commissioned and premiered by Kelowna’s Sunshine Theatre, Studies in Motion, which was co-produced by Electric Company Theatre and UBC Theatre, and the feature-length screen adaptation of the Electric Company play The Score for CBC Television. His latest work, Skydive, received its premiere in 2007 at the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in Vancouver, co-produced by Vancouver’s Realwheels Theatre and the Belfry Theatre in Victoria.
Skydive explores the world of dreams and imagination: the universal human desire to push beyond our physical limitations and to fly. Having grown apart after a traumatic and defining moment in their youth, two brothers reconnect to fulfill a life-long ambition to go skydiving. Morgan (a feckless schemer who has recently reinvented himself as a counsellor) arrives on the doorstep of Daniel (a housebound agoraphobe), offering to help “liberate” his brother by administering his newly invented technique of “Paratherapy.” Convincing Daniel to face his fears by pursuing their long abandoned childhood dream of jumping from an airplane, the brothers begin a series of misguided training exercises to prepare for their adventure. Yet we realize that something is being subverted as we watch the comedy rooted in a lighthearted nostalgia for their youth in the 1980s give way to a high-stakes adventure in a surreal environment of lucid dreams and startling visions occurring in the final seconds of a freefall adventure gone horribly wrong. Commissioned by Realwheels, a Vancouver-based theatre company that aims to increase audiences’ understanding of the disability experience, Skydive was created to be performed by one able-bodied, and one differently-abled actor. Using the technology of Sven Johansson’s ES Dance Instruments (a seventeen-foot, counterweighted lever that allows a performer to fly in all directions as well as cartwheel and somersault through space), the show is written to be staged almost entirely in the air, intricately choreographed and performed in a tightly orchestrated dance between the actors and the four operators who control the instruments. These instruments, both liberating and restrictive, equalize the bodies of the performers allowing not only for images of flight and freefall, but also for the physical metaphor of the power of dreams, imagination and human connection that lifts us above our individual physicalities. “Skydive into the giddy realms of really innovative theatre.” —Vancouver Sun
ISBN 978-0-88922-638-8 Drama 5.5 x 8.5; 96 pp; Trade paper $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD March
Kevin Kerr’s Studies in Motion and Unity (1918) are also available from Talonbooks.
Talonbooks
Recent Releases / 13
EX MACHINA Creating for the Stage Patrick Caux & Bernard Gilbert
Translated by Neil Kroetsch
This gorgeous full-colour book documents Robert Lepage’s dynamic creative arts company, Ex Machina, constantly on the move in search of new forms of storytelling—from Lepage’s own The Dragons’ Trilogy, through Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Niebelungen for the Metropolitan Opera of New York, to Peter Gabriel’s world tours, or Cirque du Soleil’s Kà in Las Vegas. Its frenetic dynamism means the company must constantly move simultaneously between story draft and stagecraft as it invites audiences the world over to their theatrical experiments where technology is part of the human adventure. “The magician never rests … Robert Lepage, the renowned sorcerer of the stage.”
—enRoute
ISBN 978-0-88922-617-3; Non-fiction; 8 x 10; 84 pp; Trade paper; French flaps; Photos; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD
Circumstances Alter Photographs Captain James Peters’ Reports from the War of 1885 Michael Barnholden
On April 24, 1885, Captain James Peters of the Royal Canadian Artillery’s “A” Battery took the world’s first battlefield photographs under fire at the Battle of Fish Creek in the Northwest Territory of Saskatchewan. Peters subsequently managed to develop an additional seventy glass plates for photos taken both from the ground and on horseback during the “Northwest Rebellion.” Peters was also a war correspondent for the Quebec Morning Chronicle. His regular dispatches and photographs, presented here for the first time in their entirety, serve as a pioneering addition to the history of war correspondence and photography, and literally shine new light on the War of 1885— particularly the second part of the campaign against the Indians under Big Bear, Poundmaker and Miserable Man. ISBN 978-0-88922-621-0; Non-fiction; 8 x 10; 144 pp; Cloth; Photos; $35.00 CAD / $35.00 USD
Gabriel Dumont Speaks Revised, updated edition Gabriel Dumont
Translated by Michael Barnholden
In 1903, eighteen years after leading the Métis Army against the Northwest Expeditionary Force and the Northwest Mounted Police at Fish Creek, Duck Lake and Batoche, Louis Riel’s Adjutant General, Gabriel Dumont, dictated his memoirs. The manuscript remained unpublished in the Manitoba Provincial Archives until its discovery there by Michael Barnholden in 1971. Translated here into English, it preserves a unique experience, offering us a rare opportunity to view one of the central events in the history of the Métis through the eyes of one of their key heroes. “Fascinating.”
—Quill & Quire
ISBN 978-0-88922-625-8; Non-fiction; 5.5 x 8.5; 96 pp; Trade paper; Photos; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
Strange Comfort Essays on the Work of Malcolm Lowry Sherrill Grace
Preface by Richard Lane
Strange Comfort collects the best of Sherrill Grace’s many published essays on the novelist and writer Malcolm Lowry, along with new pieces that incorporate her contemporary approach to his work. There are essays on Under the Volcano, on some of the stories in Hear us O Lord from heaven Thy dwelling place and on Lowry’s most important themes: endless voyaging, the creative role and identity of the artist, the nightmare of history, the pressures of memory and the urgent need to protect the garden of our world. “ ... transcend[s] the intellectual boundaries ... in culture and the arts through cross-disciplinary collaboration.” —Canada Council ISBN 978-0-88922-618-0; Non-fiction; 6 x 9; 224 pp; Trade paper; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
14 / Recent Releases
Talonbooks
Down the Road to Eternity New & Selected Fiction M.A.C. Farrant
Down the Road to Eternity: New & Selected Fiction is a collection of M.A.C. Farrant’s work dating from 1985 to 2009. Satiric and philosophical in approach, indelibly marked by wit, humour, irony, playfulness, a blend of parody and science fiction, irreverent analysis and comic existentialism, these stories celebrate the literary imagination as an antidote to the stranglehold of popular media on the public’s imagination. This collection includes Farrant’s complete new suite of eighteen stories, The North Pole. “The stories are full of changing ideas and scenarios, and contain worlds. The reader might want to pick at these stories slowly, however, as they are extremely rich.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-615-9; Fiction; 5.5 x 8.5; 288 pp; Trade paper; Illustrations; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
The Blue Notebook Michel Tremblay
Translated by Sheila Fischman
In this third installment of Tremblay’s Notebook trilogy, Fine Dumas’ notorious transvestite Boudoir is shut down and Céline must return to waitressing at the Sélect. Then a newcomer appears, the gorgeous Gilbert Forget, a musician who is not insensitive to her charms. Céline, a midget who had until now always felt unworthy, throws herself into a passionate affair, discovering the body’s thrills for the first time. As she has done twice before, Céline records the events and adventures of her life in a notebook, but now she steps outside of herself, using a narrator to tell her story. Will her tempestuous relationship with Gilbert endure? “Tremblay’s characters don’t merely exist, they live out complex, sprawling lives.”
—Globe & Mail
ISBN 978-0-88922-619-7; Fiction; 5.5 x 8.5; 272 pp; Trade paper; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD
is a door Fred Wah
is a door uses the poem’s ability for “suddenness” to subvert closure: the sudden question, the sudden turn, the sudden opening—writing that is generated from linguistic mindfulness, improvisation, compositional problemsolving, collaborative events, travel, investigation, documentary. The first part confronts the smashed and broken doors along the hurricane-devastated waterfront of Telchac Puerto. It resonates throughout the book’s other three sections, with its attention to hybridity and “betweeness”—a poetic investigation of racialized otherness—and the composition of “citizen” and “foreigner” through history and language. “Wah’s poems continually return us to … the realization of our shared, not individual, life.”
—Globe & Mail
ISBN 978-0-88922-620-3; Poetry; 6 x 9; 120 pp; Trade paper; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
Love and Savagery De Walsh
This book of poems is a sustained adoration of the beloved that echoes the work of the troubadours. The unnamed Irish woman of this collection, “the complicated jewel of the Burren Peninsula,” leads the narrator on a spiritual quest from the streets of St. John’s to the seemingly impenetrable evergreen thickets of Ireland. Recently released as a feature film, Love and Savagery is a lyrical story of impossible love. On the twentieth anniversary of its first publication, and the astonishing occasion of its release as a feature film, Talon has published a new edition of Love and Savagery, celebrating the transformation of the essence of such a finely crafted book of poetry into a film that pays homage to its literary roots. “A collection to be read and re-read, pondered and savoured.” ISBN 978-0-88922-599-2; Poetry; 6 x 9; 56 pp; Trade paper; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
—Newfoundland Herald
Talonbooks
Recent Releases / 15
The Gull Daphne Marlatt
With a Japanese translation by Toyoshi Yoshihara
Preface by Richard Emmert
Winner of the prestigious 2008 Uchimura Naoya Prize, The Gull is a play written in the classical Noh style. Set in 1950, when wartime restrictions on interned Japanese Canadians had finally been lifted, allowing them to return to the coast, it exquisitely dramatizes the historical link between the fishing town of Steveston, home to many Japanese Canadians, and Mio, the coastal village in Japan from which many of their ancestors originally emigrated. An international collaboration, The Gull featured: Noh master Akira Matsui, declared an Important Intangible Cultural Asset by Japan in 1998, as the main actor; music by American Noh expert Richard Emmert; masks by Wakayama artist Hakuzan Kubo; and a troupe of professional Noh musicians from Japan. “A masterpiece.”
—International Theatre Institute, UNESCO
ISBN 978-0-88922-616-6; Drama—Bilingual edition: English/Japanese; 5 x 7.375; 128 pp; Trade paper; Photos; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
Another Home Invasion Joan MacLeod
Introduction by Ric Knowles
We in the civilized Western world live in a space inviolate. “Our home is our castle,” the saying goes. But in this Governor General’s Award-nominated play, the word “another” conveys both its meanings: something commonplace; and something of an entirely different kind and nature. Of course this perceptively poignant play involves the hapless, substance-abusing, middle-aged petty criminal we expect to find there, but is he the real threat to the home’s occupants? He even shows up for a return visit. Who, then, are the real perpetrators of the heartless betrayal of the elderly couple who lives here: who is it that’s robbing them of their possessions, their security, their relationship, their family—their home? The answers to these questions are as surprising as they are unsettling. “A startling commentary on aging and elder care.”
—CBC
ISBN 978-0-88922-622-7; Drama; 5.5 x 8.5; 64 pp; Trade paper; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
Ludwig & Mae Louis Patrick Leroux
Translated by Shelley Tepperman and Ellen Warkentin
Foreword by Jane Moss
Ludwig, trained as an engineer, hasn’t been able to find work since graduating. The fact that he is sardonic, philosophically inclined, and suicidal hasn’t helped in this regard. Mae, on the other hand, is an actress who has never been out of work. Caught in a relationship of co-dependency, she plays into Ludwig’s constant mind games until one day she decides she’s had enough. This three-play volume includes: Embedded, which establishes Ludwig and Mae’s Strindbergian relationship; Apocalypse, a monodrama in which Ludwig stages his own suicidal ceremonial; and Redemption, Mae’s testimonial, where she confronts and reconciles herself with Ludwig’s death, and finally comes into her own. “ … audacious avant-garde spectacles of sexual and cruel impulses.”
—Jane Moss
ISBN 978-0-88922-623-4; Drama; 5.5 x 8.5; 224 pp; Trade paper; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
Still Laughing Morris Panych
Introduction by Jerry Wasserman
Just for laughs, Morris Panych updated three great comedy classics from a century ago. Inspired by Gogol himself, who has the characters in The Government Inspector speak to the audience directly, Panych made the lead characters former members of an acting troupe, opening up the fourth wall of the theatre. With Hotel Peccadillo, he wanted to play with the notion of hypocrisy as it relates to infidelity—with the hindsight of Feydeau’s death from syphilis— making the author the landlord of his own bordello to heighten the irony. In Schnitzler’s The Amorous Adventures of Anatol, he has all the female characters played by one actress, dramatizing that for Anatol, the only victim of our elaborate and conspiratorial theatrical illusion, all women are the same. “A summer without a deviceful staging by dauntless extrasensory Morris Panych is … wrong.” ISBN 978-0-88922-624-1; Drama; 5.5 x 8.5; 352 pp; Trade paper; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD
—Torontostage.com
16 / Non-fiction Backlist
Talonbooks
ABC of Reading TRG
Margaret Atwood
The New Canadian Criticism Series Peter Jaeger
A Feminist Poetics
Edited by Frank Davey
Frank Davey
Examines the writings of Steve McCaffery and bpNichol, with a special focus on their collaborative work as the Toronto Research Group (TRG).
Davey reveals Atwood’s extraordinary facility with language as well as her mistrust of it, and offers a “glossary” of recurrent Atwood images and symbols that unveil the hidden level in her writing.
ISBN 978-0-88922-423-0; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1999; 160 pp; illustrations
The New Canadian Criticism Series
ISBN 978-0-88922-217-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1984; 178 pp; 2nd printing
American Notebooks
Bambi and Me
A Writer’s Journey Marie-Claire Blais
Michel Tremblay
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Autobiographical pieces about how movies shaped the life of young Michel Tremblay.
An album of finely drawn literary portraits of writers, musicians, artists and social activists who influenced the life and work of Blais in the 1960s. “Marvelously constructed … beautifully cadenced character studies.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-358-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1996; 208 pp
Translated by Sheila Fischman
Governor General’s Translation Award Winner, 1998. “This translation captures the vigour and vinegar of the original.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-380-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1998; 160 pp
Anarcho-Modernism
Baseball Love
Toward a New Critical Theory in Honour of Jerry Zaslove Edited by Ian Angus
George Bowering
Essays exploring key issues of politics and aesthetics in honour of the founding director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University. “One cannot deny the generosity of spirit which permeates this text … ” —Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-457-5; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2001; 384 pp; photos
Bowering’s life in love and the game unfolds in a picaresque memoir of a road trip taken through the storied ballparks of the poet’s youthful dreams. “The indispensable George Bowering’s Baseball Love is a winning memoir cum love story, as Canada’s first poet laureate and his lady embark on a memorable— in every sense—baseball trope: the road trip.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-529-9; $19.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2006; 256 pp
Anatolia Junction
Beyond Recall
A Journey into Hidden Turkey Fred A. Reed
Mary Meigs
As Fred A. Reed travels through the Middle East, the Balkans and Asia Minor, he concludes that Turkey’s Islamists are reappropriating the culture and beliefs that 70 years of secular fundamentalism have been unable to eradicate.
A beautiful memoir that reads like the most exquisitely crafted fiction.
“Succeeds in showing readers … that Islam is not a monolith, but ‘a rich and complex mosaic.’” —CBRA
Edited by Lise Weil
Lambda Literary Award for Biography Finalist, 2006. “Her real strengths are virtues of drama, colour … and passion that are distilled in succinct images.” —Globe & Mail
Turkish rights sold to Zafer Publishing, Istanbul. ISBN 978-0-88922-426-1; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1999; 320 pp; photos & maps
ISBN 978-0-88922-505-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2005; 160 pp; illus.
Annihilated Time
Birth of a Bookworm
Poetry and Other Politics Jeff Derksen
Michel Tremblay
Essays that explore the ways in which poetry, visual art and critical practices encounter “the long present neoliberal moment” of the imperialist agenda of globalization.
A tour of books that inspired Tremblay’s imagination.
“Derksen raises the question of what it means to make art in the present moment in a new and exciting way.” —Sianne Ngai ISBN 978-0-88922-612-8; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©2009; 304 pp
Translated by Sheila Fischman
Globe & Mail Top 100 Books, 2003. “Quebec’s most celebrated living writer.” —Guardian (UK) “Destined to become a classic.”
––Globe & Mail
ISBN 978-0-88922-476-6; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©2003; 192 pp
Talonbooks
Non-fiction Backlist / 17
Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies
The Burden of Office
Michel Tremblay
Agamemnon and Other Losers Joseph Tussman
Translated by Linda Gaboriau Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2006. “The best of Tremblay can be found in these Assorted Candies … ” ––Voir “Tremblay’s knack for recalling and accessing his boyhood self is uncanny. Assorted Candies is short but sweet.” —Montreal Review of Books
Lucid, original and ultimately wise, this book is as much a work of literature as it is of philosophy. “These stories are meant to delight as well as instruct.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-265-6; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1989; 168 pp; 2nd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-541-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2006; 160 pp
George Bowering
Canadian Drama and the Critics
Bright Circles of Colour
Revised Edition Edited by L. W. Conolly
The New Canadian Criticism Series
Eva-Marie Kröller Edited by Frank Davey This first book-length study of Bowering explores the relationship between his work and the arts. “Perceptive, highly readable account of the avant-garde scene in Canada.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-306-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1992; 144 pp
This lively, updated assortment of critical deliberations on contemporary Canadian drama is an ideal companion text to Modern Canadian Plays Volumes I and II. “Fascinating, entertaining, and instructive.” —Max Wyman ISBN 978-0-88922-359-2; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD rev. ©1995; 384 pp
The Box Closet
The Chilliwacks and Their Neighbors
Mary Meigs
Oliver N. Wells
A narrative woven of her parents’ diaries and letters that integrates Meigs’s discoveries as a daughter and granddaughter.
Active ethnography through conversations, legends and articles. A naturalist’s guide to the Chilliwack Native people and their area.
“Meigs creates a work of considerable insight and beauty.” —Globe & Mail
“Useful for the diligent novice.”
ISBN 978-0-88922-253-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1987; 224 pp; photos
—BC Studies
ISBN 978-0-88922-255-7; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1987; 228 pp; photos, maps & illustrations; 3rd printing
Bridges of Light
Coast Salish Essays
Otto Landauer of Leonard Frank Photos, 1945–1980 Cyril E. Leonoff
Wayne Suttles
This illustrated biography of one of the last great blackand-white photographers of the Pacific Northwest is also an extraordinary photo art book. Printed on wood-free paper.
“A major contribution to the study of the Indians of the Northwest Coast.” —Pacific Northwest Quarterly
City of Vancouver Heritage Award of Merit, 1999.
A careful selection from the work of one of the foremost ethnographers of the Pacific Northwest.
ISBN 978-0-88922-212-0; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1987; 336 pp; photos, maps & illustrations; 4th printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-376-9; $39.95 CAD / $34.95 USD ©1997; 208 pp; cloth; photos & illustrations
Building the West
Conversations in Tehran
The Early Architects of British Columbia (Revised and updated edition) Compiled and edited by Donald Luxton
Jean-Daniel Lafond & Fred A. Reed
This award-winning second edition tells the stories, discovers the hopes and aspirations, and celebrates the successes and accomplishments of the early architects of British Columbia.
Filmmaker Jean-Daniel Lafond and author Fred A. Reed document the fall of Mohammed Khatami’s reform movement through candid conversations with Iranian artists, journalists and political activists.
“For anyone who cares about the built environment, this book is a treasury—and a treasure.” —Vancouver Sun
“A society like ours, which flirts almost unconsciously with the bullies of ‘political correctness’ … needs men, women, writers, journalists, intellectuals like Fred A. Reed.” —CBC Radio-Canada
ISBN 978-0-88922-554-1; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD rev. ©2007; 560 pp; photos and illustrations
ISBN 978-0-88922-550-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2006; 224 pp; photos
18 / Non-fiction Backlist
Talonbooks
Crimes and Mercies
Essays on George F. Walker
The Fate of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation, 1944–1950 James Bacque
Playing with Anxiety Chris Johnson
More than 9 million Germans died from deliberate Allied starvation and expulsion policies after WWII. At the same time, a food-aid program saved an estimated 80 million. “A scholar of great courage and perseverance who deserves to be heard.” —Dr. Dwight D. Murphey ISBN 978-0-88922-567-1; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2007; 272 pp; photos, maps & illustrations
The Decline of the Hollywood Empire
The first book-length examination of the work of Canada’s most-produced and internationally recognized playwright, George F. Walker, who has not only created a substantial body of work, but also impressed it all with his unique “Walkeresque” stamp. ISBN 978-0-921368-82-3; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1999; 272 pp
Hervé Fischer
Timothy Findley and the Aesthetics of Fascism
Translated by Rhonda Mullins
Intertextual Collaboration and Resistance
Heralds an inevitable move from 35 mm to digital distribution which will level the creative playing field between the towering Hollywood empire and marginalized independent artists and producers.
The New Canadian Criticism Series
Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2007. “AN ESSENTIAL READ. That sums up the importance of Fischer’s book … ” —Le Canada français ISBN 978-0-88922-545-9; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2006; 160 pp
Anne Geddes Bailey Edited by Frank Davey Investigates the troubling relationship between narrative meaning and representations of violence within Timothy Findley’s novels. ISBN 978-0-88922-386-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1998; 256 pp
Empire of Desire
Great Lakes Suite
The Abolition of Time Thierry Hentsch
David W. McFadden
Translated by Fred A. Reed This second volume in Hentsch’s epic survey of the Western narrative tradition traces western civilization’s quest for immortality across a further four centuries through an examination of works by Molière, Voltaire, de Sade, Rousseau, Hegel, Melville, Flaubert, Joyce, Proust and others. Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2009. ISBN 978-0-88922-587-9; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©2008; 336 pp
Specially revised and edited, and for the first time in one complete volume, Great Lakes Suite includes A Trip Around Lake Ontario, A Trip Around Lake Erie and A Trip Around Lake Huron. “Consistently entertaining, consistently engaging.” —Toronto Star “Some of the most fascinating writing being done in this country.” —Windsor Star ISBN 978-0-88922-382-0; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1997; 416 pp; illustrations
An English Canadian Poetics
griddle talk
Vol. 1—The Confederation Poets Edited by Robert Hogg
a yeer uv nill n carol dewing brunch Carol Malyon and bill bissett
With an introduction by D.M.R. Bentley
A series of literary conversations between Malyon, who writes within the objective bounds of standard English usage, and bissett, one of contemporary writing’s most exotic practitioners, working with the visual forms of language in his own non-hierarchic, phonetic orthography.
Essays on poetic theory written by Canadian poets from the late 19th century to 1918 that articulate the specific social, cultural and political circumstances under which their poetry was created. “Never before or since in Canada have poetry, poetics, environment, identity, and national distinctiveness been more closely intertwined.” —D.M.R. Bentley
ISBN 978-0-88922-606-7; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2009; 144 pp; photos and illustrations
ISBN 978-0-88922-613-5; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©2009; 320 pp; photos
An Error in Judgement
A Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend
The Politics of Medical Care in an Indian /White Community Dara Culhane
Ralph Maud
An analysis of the controversy surrounding the death of a Native child in Alert Bay, BC. “Successfully forces the liberal white reader to look beyond totem poles and quaint Indian baskets to our common history.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-246-5; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1987; 280 pp; photos; 6th printing
Boas, Teit, Hill-Tout, Barbeau, Swanton, Jenness, the luminaries of field research in British Columbia, are discussed, and their work in Indian folklore evaluated in this comprehensive survey of myth-collecting in B.C. “Important not for what it might tell us about Indian culture in the past, but for what these myths may tell us about our society. This book goes some way toward that goal.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-189-5; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1982; 224 pp; photos; 5th printing
Talonbooks
Non-fiction Backlist / 19
In Plain Sight
Lasagna
Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver Edited by Leslie A. Robertson & Dara Culhane
The Man Behind the Mask Ronald Cross & Hélène Sévigny
A remarkable collection of seven life stories from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, giving voice to women who are seldom heard on their own terms.
A biography of the most notorious of the 1990 Oka warriors.
City of Vancouver Book Award Finalist, 2005.
“The book’s 248 pages are, to put it simply, credible. Read this book—it will open your eyes too.” —Alberta Native News
ISBN 978-0-88922-513-8; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2005; 180 pp; map; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-348-6; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1994; 248 pp; photos
In the Company of Strangers
Lily Briscoe
Mary Meigs
A Self-Portrait Mary Meigs
Based on the NFB production of The Company of Strangers, Meigs’s account of the film unfolds in an intricate meditation on time, old age and bonding. QSPELL Award Winner for Non-fiction, 1992. “Her book on the film is exquisitely attuned to the interplay between art and life.” —Boston Globe
A compelling autobiography about the exercise of will, friendships and dreaming. “A series of landscapes and life drawings, skillfully created.” —Humanities and Applied Arts French language rights sold to HMH Ltée.
ISBN 978-0-88922-294-6; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1991; 176 pp; photos; 4th printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-195-6; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1981; 264 pp; photos; 3rd printing
In the Midst
Lions Gate
Warren Tallman
Lilia D’Acres & Donald Luxton
Warren Tallman was catalyst, shelter and anchor to a whole generation of writers and poets, from the beat generation poets to the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E school writers. In these pieces, Tallman introduces the reader to a world of literary companionship that shaped the language and thought of late 20th-century North America.
Like all great historic landmarks, the Lions Gate Bridge remains a source of powerful, sometimes illuminating, sometimes mysterious stories of the people and times which gave birth to it.
ISBN 978-0-88922-308-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1992; photos; 320 pp
Winner of the Vancouver Heritage Award; BC Historical Federation Writing Competition; Heritage Society of BC Award; City of Vancouver Book Award, 2000; BC Book Prize Finalist, 2000. ISBN 978-0-88922-416-2; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1999; 160 pp; cloth; photos & illus.; 2nd printing
Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America A Translation of Franz Boas’ 1895 Edition of Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas Franz Boas Edited and annotated by Randy Bouchard & Dorothy Kennedy ISBN 978-0-88922-553-4; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD rev. ©2006; photos; 704 pp; 2nd printing
Lost in North America The Imaginary Canadian in the American Dream John Gray A personal, idiosyncratic tour of the collective work of art we call Canada. “More than just well written, entertaining and humorous, this book is also (gasp) moving.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-350-9; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1994; 208 pp
Justice in Our Time
Making Theatre
The Japanese Canadian Redress Settlement Roy Miki & Cassandra Kobayashi
A Life of Sharon Pollock Sherrill Grace
How a community brought the issue of redress for the injustices of the 1940s to the forefront of public debate.
The story of Pollock’s life from her family roots in New Brunswick through her pioneering years as a Canadian playwright to the present as she continues to make theatre.
“A powerful and moving testament to the successful efforts of the NAJC.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-292-2; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1991; 160 pp; cloth; photos & illustrations
Winner Ann Saddlemyer Award, 2009. “Grace’s insightful exploration of … theatrical performance and the traces of Pollock’s successive reinventions of herself is unrivalled.” —Patricia Demers ISBN 978-0-88922-586-2; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD ©2008; 480 pp; photos
20 / Non-fiction Backlist
Talonbooks
Paul Martin & Companies
Charles Olson at the Harbor
Sixty Theses on the Alegal Nature of Tax Havens Alain Deneault
Ralph Maud
A piercing look at what it means when a Canadian prime minister puts his own private interests first.
A repudiation of Tom Clark’s carelessly biased Charles Olson: The Allegory of a Poet’s Life, this diligently researched biography by longtime Olson scholar, friend and correspondent Ralph Maud redeems the reputation of one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century.
“Stands as an example and a rebuke to the watery discourse that passes for ‘political’ commentary in the anglophone press … “ —Geist
ISBN 978-0-88922-576-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2008; 224 pp; photos & illustrations; 2nd printing
Translated by Rhonda Mullins
ISBN 978-0-88922-538-1; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2006; 96 pp
Meanwhile
Outsider Notes
The Critical Writings of bpNichol bpNichol
Feminist Approaches to Nation State Ideology, Writers / Readers and Publishing
Edited by Roy Miki
The New Canadian Criticism Series
A thoughtful and provocative 30-year record of Nichol’s approaches to textual production.
Lynette Hunter
“Almost 15 years after his untimely death, Nichol is being recognized as a major Canadian literary figure.” —National Post
Tough-minded reappraisals of canonicity, modernism, postmodernism, marginality and post-coloniality in Canadian writing.
ISBN 978-0-88922-447-6; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©2002; photos & illustrations; 496 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-363-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1996; 320 pp
The Medusa Head
Peregrinations
Mary Meigs
Conversations with Contemporary Artists Robert Enright
A sensitive psychological portrait of a stormy three-way lesbian relationship. “An unsparing account of love, jealousy and hate.” —Toronto Star “Shaped with intelligence, honesty and humor.” —Ottawa Citizen French language rights sold to HMH Ltée. ISBN 978-0-88922-210-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1983; 160 pp; 3rd printing
Edited by Frank Davey
Informed and considered interviews with the most influential artists of our time. Enright takes us into the environments, both imaginative and actual, that have shaped their personal and artistic histories. “Marvellous interviews … the mind and the world of the artist flooded with light.” —Arthur Danto ISBN 978-0-921368-67-0; $24.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©1997; 352 pp
bpNichol
Performing National Identities
What History Teaches
International Perspectives on Contemporary Canadian Theatre Edited by Sherrill Grace & Albert-Reiner Glaap
The New Canadian Criticism Series
Stephen Scobie Edited by Frank Davey Scobie illuminates Nichol’s relationship to Dadaism, contemporary French literary theory and the writing of Gertrude Stein, positing a cogent argument for Nichol’s importance as a writer of fiction. ISBN 978-0-88922-220-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1984; 154 pp
A collection of 18 original essays on contemporary Canadian theatre by scholars and drama specialists in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary and Japan. ISBN 978-0-88922-475-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2003; 324 pp; photos
No Plaster Saint
Persian Postcards
The Life of Mildred Osterhout Fahrni Nancy Knickerbocker
Iran after Khomeini Fred A. Reed
A crusading socialist and an absolute pacifist, Mildred Osterhout Fahrni walked with J. S. Woodsworth, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The extraordinary story of one of Canada’s pioneer peacemakers.
“An excellent guide to the people, religion, politics and world view of modern Iran.” —Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin
ISBN 978-0-88922-452-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2001; 288 pp; photos
“Assumptions about Iran shattered.”
“Both accessible to the uninitiated and a valuable resource.” —Quill & Quire —Toronto Star
ISBN 978-0-88922-351-6; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1994; 288 pp; photos
Talonbooks
Non-fiction Backlist / 21
The Pleasure of the Crown
A Record of Writing
Anthropology, Law and First Nations Dara Culhane
An Annotated and Illustrated Bibliography of George Bowering Roy Miki
An in-depth analysis of the 130-year history of the Aboriginal title issue in BC, focusing in particular on the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en case.
Traces the development of Poet laureate Bowering’s many writings through four decades.
“Explores fundamental questions … The Pleasure of the Crown is a book that everyone interested in ‘justice for all’ will want to read.” —Vancouver Sun
Gabriel Roy Prize Winner, Best Critical Book in English.
ISBN 978-0-88922-315-8; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1998; 416 pp; map; 2nd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-263-2; $39.95 CAD / $34.95 USD ©1990; 404 pp; cloth; photos & illustrations
Poet to Publisher
The Recovery of the Public World
Charles Olson’s Correspondence with Donald Allen Edited by Ralph Maud
Essays on Poetics in Honour of Robin Blaser Edited by Charles Watts & Edward Byrne
Documents Olson’s influence on The New American Poetry, Allen’s visionary and revolutionary anthology.
“An extraordinary contribution to this field.” —Canadian Library Journal
A collection of texts and talks which address the work of poet Robin Blaser.
“The letters make fascinating reading for their commentary on writers … and literary issues from 1957 to 1969 … ” —Canadian Literature
“Poets and thinkers describe his work, assess his accomplishments and contribute reflections on the literary projects and subjects Blaser has helped to construct.” —Publishers Weekly
ISBN 978-0-88922-486-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©2003; illustrations; 192 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-388-2; $39.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1999; 464 pp; photos
The Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories
Harry Robinson: Living by Stories
The Original Tsimshian Texts of Henry Tate Edited and annotated by Ralph Maud
A Journey of Landscape and Memory Harry Robinson
Henry W. Tate, who died in 1914, was an important Tsimshian informant to ethnographer Franz Boas.
Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire
“Maud acts as restorer, stripping away attitudes and prosody to reveal the vitality of the original text.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-333-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1994; illustrations; 176 pp
This third collection documents how the arrival of whites forever altered the Salish cultural landscape. “Whenever I need to be reminded that language is magic and that stories can change the world, I go to Robinson.” —Thomas King ISBN 978-0-88922-522-0; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2005; 288 pp; 3rd printing
Rational Geomancy
Harry Robinson: Nature Power
The Kids of the Book-Machine The Collected Research Reports of the Toronto Research Group, 1973–1982 Steve McCaffery & bpNichol
In the Spirit of an Okanagan Storyteller Harry Robinson
Edited by Steve McCaffery Reports on translation, the-book-as-machine and the search for non-narrative prose. ISBN 978-0-88922-300-4; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1992; photos & illustrations; 320 pp; 2nd printing
Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire Features tales of the shoo-MISH, or “nature helpers.” BC Book Prize Winner, 1993. “Epic, mesmerizing tales by a great Okanagan storyteller that lift [one] eerily and movingly, into a different world.” —Michele Landsberg, Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-504-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD rev. ©2004; 272 pp
Re: Producing Women’s Dramatic History
Harry Robinson: Write It on Your Heart
The Politics of Playing in Toronto D. A. Hadfield
The Epic World of an Okanagan Storyteller Harry Robinson
Hadfield traces the process of creating a theatrical “success” and investigates how the politics involved influences what we perceive as “good” playwriting. ISBN 978-0-88922-563-3; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2007; 288 pp
Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire BC Book Prize Finalist, 1990. “An important addition to Canadian literature … In reading Robinson, one is virtually forced to read the story out loud, thereby closing the circle, the oral becoming the written becoming the oral.” —Thomas King ISBN 978-0-88922-502-2; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD rev. ©2004; 320 pp; 2nd printing; photos
22 / Non-fiction Backlist
Talonbooks
The Salish People
Shattered Images
Volume I: The Thompson and the Okanagan Charles Hill-Tout
The Rise of Militant Iconoclasm in Syria Fred A. Reed
Edited by Ralph Maud
Discusses all of the major Islamic faiths in its search for the origins of contemporary fundamentalist movements.
The first volume of a four-volume set rich in stories and factual information on the Salish people of the Pacific Northwest. ISBN 978-0-88922-148-2; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1978; 176 pp; photos, maps & illustrations; 2nd printing
“A striking intellectual travelogue … a useful contribution to the literature of interfaith dialogue.” —Globe & Mail Syrian language rights sold to Atlas, Damascus. Turkish language rights sold to Nesil, Istanbul. ISBN 978-0-88922-485-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2003; 260 pp; map
The Salish People
Signs of Literature
Volume II: The Squamish and the Lillooet Charles Hill-Tout
Language, Ideology, and the Literary Text Kenneth James Hughes
Edited by Ralph Maud
The history of language as a made thing—a linguistic and structuralist primer.
Includes the Origin Myth as recounted by a storyteller whose mother saw Captain Vancouver sail into Howe Sound in 1792.
“It’s tough reading but worth a look if you’re into the study of words.” —Vancouver Province
ISBN 978-0-88922-149-9; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1978; 176 pp; photos, maps & illustrations
ISBN 978-0-88922-236-6; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1986; 232 pp; illustrations; 2nd printing
The Salish People
Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands
Volume III: The Mainland Halkomelem Charles Hill-Tout
Dorothy Kennedy & Randy Bouchard
Edited by Ralph Maud
The history and folkways of the Sliammon Coast Salish people of the northern Georgia Strait region.
Stories of the people of the Fraser Valley from Vancouver to Chilliwack, with the earliest account of BC archaeological sites.
“An excellent portrait of these people.” —Canadian Book Review Annual
ISBN 978-0-88922-150-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1978; 176 pp; photos, maps & illustrations
ISBN 978-0-88922-211-3; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1983; 176 pp; photos & maps; 3rd printing
The Salish People
Spectacle of Empire
Volume IV: The Sechelt and the South-Eastern Tribes of Vancouver Island Charles Hill-Tout
Marc Lescarbot’s Theatre of Neptune in New France Edited by Jerry Wasserman
Edited by Ralph Maud
Arguably the first North American play, this edition includes the original French script, two English translations, Ben Jonson’s Masque of Blackness and an extensive historical and critical introduction.
“The rescuing of unorthodox anthropology from the conspiracy of silence that academics have woven around it.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-151-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1978; 192 pp; photos, maps & illustrations
“The French play by Lescarbot is a significant literary and cultural artifact … ” —Dalhousie Review ISBN 978-0-88922-547-3; $21.95 CAD / $21.95 USD ©2006; 108 pp; maps & illustrations
Salonica Terminus
Takeover in Tehran
Travels into the Balkan Nightmare Fred A. Reed
The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture Massoumeh Ebtekar
In his extensive travels in the Balkans, Reed encounters a landscape inscribed with a shocking testimony of ethnoracialist aspirations.
as told to Fred A. Reed
“The good and evil aspects of nationalism … [A] compassionate account of one of the world’s most difficult regions.” —Toronto Star
A revealing first-hand insider account by Iran’s first female vice president, Massoumeh Ebtekar, of the 1979 revolutionary student movement which captured the American Embassy in Tehran.
ISBN 978-0-88922-368-4; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1996; 272 pp; photos & maps
ISBN 978-0-88922-443-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2000; 244 pp; photos; 2nd printing
Talonbooks
Non-fiction Backlist / 23
The Terror of the Coast
Tracing the Paths
Land Alienation and Colonial War on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, 1849–1863 Chris Arnett
Reading =/ Writing The Martyrology Edited by Roy Miki
An extensively detailed reconstruction of the war between the First Nations and Vancouver Island’s colonial government.
“A stimulating companion to those reading, and rereading, Nichol’s quirky, honest, and experimental work.” —Books in Canada
“A scholarly, yet compelling account of a neglected and shameful chapter in BC’s history.” —CBRA ISBN 978-0-88922-318-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1999; 382 pp; photos, maps & illustrations; 2nd printing
A wide spectrum of readings of bpNichol’s challenging and innovative long poem.
ISBN 978-0-88922-256-4; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1988; 344 pp
Theatre and AutoBiography
Transmission Difficulties
Writing and Performing LIves in Theory and Practice Edited by Sherrill Grace & Jerry Wasserman
Franz Boas and Tsimshian Mythology Ralph Maud
This groundbreaking exploration of an increasingly prominent interdisciplinary realm draws on a wide range of contemporary theorists and playwrights. The breadth of styles and performances discussed here is extraordinary. ISBN 978-0-88922-540-4; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2006; 352 pp; photos
They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever Rock Writings in the Stein River Valley of British Columbia Annie York, Richard Daly & Chris Arnett “An invaluable record … of a vanishing culture.” —Toronto Star “[A] combination of academic exposition and plainfolks narrative that entertains while it educates.” —Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-331-8; $60.00 CAD / $40.00 USD ©1993; 320 pp; cloth; photos & illustrations
Ralph Maud delves into the mystery of Boas’s alleged “translations” of the stories gathered by his chief Tsimshian informant, Henry Tate. “A useful contribution to BC anthropology.” —Victoria Times-Colonist
ISBN 978-0-88922-430-8; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©2000; 176 pp; photos & illustrations
Truth or Death The Quest for Immortality in the Western Narrative Tradition Thierry Hentsch Translated by Fred A. Reed Governor General’s Translation Award Winner, 2005. QWF Translation Award Winner, 2005. “A work of great depth, magnificently written.” —Le Devoir ISBN 978-0-88922-509-1; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD ©2004; 416 pp; 2nd printing
This Is My Own
Twelve Opening Acts
Letters to Wes and Other Writings on Japanese Canadians, 1941–1948 Muriel Kitagawa
Michel Tremblay
Edited by Roy Miki Letters written during the uprooting of the JapaneseCanadian community in late 1941. “This collection is skillfully woven together.” —Amerasia Review ISBN 978-0-88922-231-1; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1985; 304 pp; cloth; photos & illustrations; 2nd printing
Translated by Sheila Fischman An account of Tremblay’s discovery of the theatre, from his first recognition at the age of six of how the imagination is actually a public construct, to his winning of a drama competition with his first play. Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2002. ISBN 978-0-88922-466-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©2002; 192 pp
Too Good to Be True
Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand
Alcan’s Kemano Completion Project Bev Christensen
Oral Traditions of the Hul’q’umi’num’ Coast Salish of Kuper Island and Vancouver Island Beryl Cryer
Examines the question of who is to control North America’s vital water and power resources in the 21st century. BC Book Prize Finalist, 1996. “This is an essential story, and a fascinating one” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-354-7; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1995; 352 pp; photos & maps
Compiled and edited by Chris Arnett A vital collection of writings collected during the Depression, first published in Victoria’s oldest newspaper. “An engrossing and delightful book.” —Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-555-8; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©2007; 352 pp; photos; 2nd printing
24 / Non-fiction Backlist
Talonbooks
Vancouver
Phyllis Webb and the Common Good
A Visual History Bruce Macdonald
Poetry / Anarchy / Abstraction
This stunning full-colour historical atlas brings alive Vancouver’s first 14 decades. City of Vancouver Book Award Winner, 1993. BC Book Prize Finalist, 1993. “Bruce Macdonald breaks new ground with an impressive multi-disciplinary atlas.” —Globe & Mail
Stephen Collis “As much about Webb as about the cultural and political milieu of her time, this book is necessary reading for anyone interested in Canadian poetry and the ethics of writing as criticism.” —Smaro Kamboureli ISBN 978-0-88922-559-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2007; 228 pp; photos
ISBN 978-0-88922-311-0; $60.00 CAD / $40.00 USD ©1992; 96 pp; cloth; photos, maps & illus.; 2nd printing
Vancouver Anthology
Women in a World at War
Revised Second Edition Edited with a new afterword by Stan Douglas
Seven Dispatches from the Front Madeleine Gagnon
First published in 1991, this larger format, new edition coincides with a renewal of the Or Gallery’s mandate to incite and promote critical discourse both within and outside of the Vancouver art community.
Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott
“Exactly the type of work that should be published by our own indigenous book industry.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-614-2; $35.00 CAD / $35.00 USD rev. ©2009; 368 pp; cloth; colour photos
Governor General’s French Non-Fiction Award Finalist, 2001. “An extraordinary work … the book crosses borders of country, culture and language to touch fundamental truths in lyrical and haunting prose … ” —Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-483-4; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2003; 320 pp
Talonbooks
Fiction Backlist / 25
All That Glitters
The Bicycle Eater
Martine Desjardins
Larry Tremblay
Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel
Translated by Sheila Fischman
Haunted by the iron jealousy of their commanding officer, Dulac and Nell must risk everything to pursue their desires.
Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2006.
Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2005. “Compels and disturbs, leaving us with questions about chance and fate, love and war.” —Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-520-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2005; 160 pp
Governor General’s French Fiction Award Finalist, 2003. “There is something poetic about the way the narrative slips back and forth as easily as a dream, transcending the limits of linear thinking.” —Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-528-2; $19.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2005; 228 pp
And Other Stories
The Black Notebook
Edited by George Bowering
Michel Tremblay
Taking the theme of postmodernity one step further with 23 short stories edited by Canada’s first poet laureate: Alexis, Arnason, Atwood, Blaise, Bowering, Burnham, Cohen, Dorsey, Elliot, Farrant, Fawcett, Findley, Goto, Fraser, King, Laferrière, Mayr, Rooke, Schoemperlen, Thomas, Verdecchia and Watson.
Translated by Sheila Fischman
ISBN 978-0-88922-451-3; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2001; 320 pp
A young waitress recounts her trials and surprising allies in a lifelong battle against social stigma. “Emerges as a powerful character study, a social history—as always with Tremblay, the political content is there, but always as an organic element of the story … ” —Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-543-5; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2006; 224 pp
The Angel of Solitude
The Breakdown So Far
Marie-Claire Blais
M.A.C. Farrant
Translated by Laura Hodes
Farrant continues her assault on the unaccountably disaffected and disillusioned of the Western world with her eighth volume of extremely short stories.
Eight lesbian women strive to achieve an all-female utopia within which homophobia and their own pasts and differences are abolished. “The narrative voice is wise and fatalistic and full of religiosity.” —Paragraph ISBN 978-0-88922-337-0; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1993; 144 pp; 2nd printing
ReLit Award Nominee, 2008. “Farrant is better at startling us with unnerving, often misanthropic, visions of everyday life than perhaps any other Canadian writer.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-556-5; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2007; 160 pp
The Athabasca Ryga
Cambodia
George Ryga
A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow Brian Fawcett
Edited by E. David Gregory From his farm boy childhood to his struggles as a classconscious wage labourer, Ryga’s early work is offered in a collection of essays, short stories, plays and novels. “It makes you want to read and re-read everything the man ever wrote.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-276-2; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1990; 224 pp
Investigative fictions that examine the intentions of the information revolution. “Cambodia is urgent, blunt, difficult—and vitally necessary.” —Canadian Forum Italian translation rights sold to BLU Edizioni. ISBN 978-0-88922-237-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1986; 208 pp; 7th printing
The Baldwins
Capital Tales
Serge Lamothe
Brian Fawcett
Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel
A collection of stories that form tough, uncompromising portraits of people discovering the illusions they live by.
Set in the post-apocalyptic future, this is a novel of fragments that represents contemporary prose at its most daring and experimental. “Serge Lamothe’s novel falls under the sign of utter creative freedom and is filled with word and language play, evocative imagery and poetic moods.” —Le Devoir ISBN 978-0-88922-544-2; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2006; 96 pp
“Fawcett’s work expands into a well-earned and genuine visionary criticism of the deadly contradictions within society.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-221-2; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1984; 204 pp
26 / Fiction Backlist
Talonbooks
Chameleon & Other Stories
Death in Vancouver
Bill Schermbrucker
Garry Thomas Morse
A collection of short stories from the point of view of a young man growing up in Kenya during the time of Mau Mau.
This brilliant collection of avant-garde fiction reveals edgy new voices that reflect the cultural simultaneity of our cosmopolitan everyday.
“The year’s most ambitious work of short fiction and at the same time the most substantial.” —Letters in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-208-3; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1983; 160 pp
“Morse’s particular genius is his ability to deliver pitch perfect equivalences of whatever he touches or touches him … not mere impressions or impersonations but rather powerful transversals that combine with but do not displace.” —LINE Magazine ISBN 978-0-88922-607-4; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2009; 320 pp
The Circus Performers’ Bar
Death of the Spider
David Arnason
Michèle Mailhot
Witty and formally innovative stories that examine social, political and sexual assumptions with an ironic eye.
Translated by Neil B. Bishop Introduction by Marie-Claire Blais
“This is clever, trenchant stuff, by a master of the art.” —Globe & Mail
A solitary woman’s interior journey of self-discovery.
ISBN 978-0-88922-218-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1984; 160 pp; 2nd printing
Governor General’s French Fiction Award Winner for Le Passé Composé, 1990. Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 1992. ISBN 978-0-88922-298-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1991; 64 pp
Citizen Suárez
Desert of the Heart
Guillermo Verdecchia
Jane Rule
Short stories about people travelling, wandering, or lost between countries and languages—people caught between the impulse to flee and the desire to belong.
Two women meet and fall in love in Reno, Nevada. Set in the late fifties, this classic of lesbian eroticism is Jane Rule’s first novel.
“At times hilarious, at times moving. A great read!” —Ariel Dorfman
“Cool, clear-eyed, compassionate and unsentimental.” —Margaret Laurence, Globe & Mail
“Humorous and strongly political … ” —Vancouver Magazine
“An intelligent and utterly believable novel.” —Joyce Carol Oates
ISBN 978-0-88922-391-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1998; 160 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-301-1; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD rev. ©1991; 224 pp; 5th printing
A Covenant of Salt
Dog Attempts to Drown Man in Saskatoon
Martine Desjardins
Douglas Glover
Translated by Fred A. Reed and David Homel “Mining from the past, Desjardins extracts treasures without ‘getting caught,’ and surfaces like a breath of fresh air. A Covenant of Salt marries literary traditions in a sleek gothic ceremony, silvery salt sprinkled like confetti and the Saint Lawrence coursing through.” —Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-566-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2007; 160 pp
Urbane, stylish and slightly off-beat stories that touch on the lives of a wide variety of people. “Glover is preoccupied with the complicated interweavings of good and evil, and he juggles language superbly.” —Globe & Mail “Glover … seeks to combine a metaphysical approach and style with the nitty-gritty details of daily life. It works.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-228-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1985; 128 pp
Darwin Alone in the Universe
The Duchess and the Commoner
M.A.C. Farrant
Michel Tremblay
A brilliant collection of satirical short stories.
Translated by Sheila Fischman
“Farrant is better at startling us with unnerving, often misanthropic, visions of everyday life than perhaps any other Canadian writer.” —Globe & Mail
This third volume in the Chronicles of the Plateau MontRoyal—an epic series of novels which imagines the lives of the characters of Tremblay’s plays—deals with an explicitly gay thematic: Tremblay’s metaphor for the Québécois desire for a more glamorous identity on the world stage.
“M.A.C. Farrant is a wonderful writer of domestic comedy.” —Bill Richardson, CBC “A brave iconoclast … ”
—Publishers Weekly
ISBN 978-0-88922-471-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2003; 160 pp; illustrations
ISBN 978-0-88922-418-6; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1999; 256 pp
Talonbooks
Fiction Backlist / 27
Dürer’s Angel
Get on Top
Marie-Claire Blais
David Homel
Translated by David Lobdell
In this startlingly original and penetrating novel, the Messiah appears as a woman who shows up in rural America instead of Jerusalem, preaching moral license, not repentance.
A novel of Pauline Archange’s desire to translate the events of her life into words. “A writer who stands head and shoulders above her contemporaries.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-111-6; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1976; 112 pp; 2nd printing
“His novels are acts of witnessing, and his characters carry the conscience of our times.” —Marie-Claire Blais ISBN 978-0-7737-6048-6; $22.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©1999; 282 pp
Fairy Ring
Go Figure
Martine Desjardins
Réjean Ducharme
Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel
Translated by Will Browning
A compulsively readable, beautiful and dark novel of stormy relationships and all-consuming desires.
A hauntingly beautiful tale of a Montreal couple alienated from each other after suffering the miscarriage of twins.
Governor General’s Translation Award Winner, 2001.
Governor General’s French Fiction Award Finalist, 1994.
“Fairy Ring sets up familiar targets, tilts at them with wonderful panache and scores weirdly compelling hits.” —Globe & Mail
“Boasts complex flavours that are so savoury and sustaining you may be compelled to go back for seconds …” —Montreal Review of Books
ISBN 978-0-88922-449-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2001; 224 pp; 2nd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-482-7; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2003; 256 pp
The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant Michel Tremblay
The Happiest Man in the World and Other Stories
Translated by Sheila Fischman
David Arnason
Tremblay’s first novel is an affectionate and funny chronicle of the lives of a family in its community.
A hilarious yet compassionate look at the new male consciousness taking shape in a “post-feminist” world by a witty, articulate raconteur.
CBC ”Canada Reads” Finalist, 2009. “A comic tour de force covering one day in the life of a Montreal street.” —University of Toronto Quarterly ISBN 978-0-88922-190-1; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1981; 256 pp; 9th printing
“A wonderful book.”
—Globe & Mail
ISBN 978-0-88922-269-4; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1989; 164 pp; 2nd printing
Fearless Warriors
Harry’s Fragments
Revised Second Edition Drew Hayden Taylor
A Novel of International Puzzlement George Bowering
By degrees dramatic, shocking, tender, affirmative and tragic, each of these stories takes on a different cliché of inter-racial and inter-cultural relations, all of them suffused with the incomparable wit, generous humour, critical edge and profound emotional empathy of a master story-teller.
In a parody of a thriller novel, Harry the Hack, newly recruited literary spy, follows a mystery woman seeking wisdom and sanity.
“Taylor’s … stories will make you cringe, cry, and when you really need it, laugh a little.” —Windspeaker
“Deconstructs the sexy spy thriller in a clever pastiche of literary styles.” —Ottawa Citizen ISBN 978-0-88910-387-0; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1990; 182 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-597-8; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD rev. ©2008; 192 pp; 2nd printing
The First Quarter of the Moon
The Heart Laid Bare
Michel Tremblay
Michel Tremblay
Translated by Sheila Fischman
Translated by Sheila Fischman
The fifth novel in the Chronicles of the Plateau Mont-Royal juxtaposes the childhood experiences of the fat woman’s son and his gifted cousin.
A fusty academic has fallen in love with a young actor who works as a salesman while waiting for his big break; however, the academic must learn to make room in his life for the actor’s four-year-old son.
“Touching and extra-real.”
—Quill & Quire
ISBN 978-0-88922-352-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1994; 240 pp
“Simply written, but highly topical and touching tale.” —London Times ISBN 978-0-88922-425-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2002; 258 pp
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Talonbooks
Hell & Other Novels
Like a Child of the Earth
Beverley Daurio
Jovette Marchessault
In these haunting, often chilling short stories, Daurio maps the sub-atomic space of contemporary alienation.
Translated by Yvonne M. Klein
“Wonderfully evocative images … well worth reading.” —Quill & Quire “Poetic in their brevity and chilling in their intensity.” —Aritha van Herk ISBN 978-0-88910-421-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1990; 160 pp
The first volume of Jovette Marchessault’s autobiographical trilogy. Prix France-Québec Winner, 1976. “The most profound glimpse into a native Canadian woman’s imaginative experience.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-261-8; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1988; 176 pp
Heroine
Main Brides
Gail Scott
Gail Scott
A woman tries to negotiate her personal passage from Quebec’s politically turbulent ’70s to the threatening bleakness of the ’80s.
The portrait of a woman who is facing the end of the century and creating a history of the present that lifts her out of fear.
“Each page steams with images, echoes, actions and reactions … a magnificent view of a woman’s perception of life, love and la belle province.” —Toronto Star
“Gail Scott has an extraordinary ability to compress scenic observations … into short, jewel-like notations.” —Hugh Hood
ISBN 978-0-88922-415-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD rev. ©1999; 192 pp
“Scott is one of the most gutsy writers around.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88910-456-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1993; 240 pp
The Hunting Ground
Mile End
Lise Tremblay
Lise Tremblay
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Translated by Gail Scott
Remarkably engaging stories recounted by different residents of a northern Canadian village facing a gradual but devastating transformation.
Mile End is a chilling and masterful look at the interior landscapes of psychosis which mirror so perfectly the emptiness of the exterior surfaces they reflect.
“[Lise Tremblay presents] a fictional world in precise, lucid language of a simple, graceful fluidity. A world in which the spirit of being is laid bare.” —Le Devoir
Governor General’s French Fiction Award Winner, 1999. ISBN 978-0-88922-467-4; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2002; 144 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-534-3; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2006; 96 pp
In the Shadow of the Vulture
Mimosa
George Ryga
Bill Schermbrucker
Set in the desert at the Mexico-US border, this novel deals with the hope and despair of immigrant labourers.
An authentic re-creation through sweeping prose of an extraordinary life set against the turbulent backdrop of colonial Africa.
“A striking novel that wrestles with important and difficult problems.” —Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-233-5; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1985; 288 pp
BC Book Prize Winner, 1988. “It’s an impressive debut … deceptively subtle and finely crafted.” —Globe & Mail “Intelligent, humane … universal and accessible.” —Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-254-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1988; 320 pp
Latakia
Mother of the Grass
Audrey Thomas
Jovette Marchessault
A brilliant and intense journey through a relationship, and through language and myth, spanning three continents.
Translated by Yvonne M. Klein
“An evocative fictional voice that is one of the most powerful in Canadian fiction.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-167-3; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1979; 176 pp; 3rd printing
The second volume of Marchessault’s turbulent autobiographical trilogy. “Has enlarged the dimensions of the autobiographical novel by introducing elements of myth and visionary experience.” —Gloria Orenstein ISBN 978-0-88922-267-0; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1989; 176 pp
Talonbooks
Fiction Backlist / 29
Motortherapy
The Pagan Wall
Bill Schermbrucker
David Arnason
A frank and intensely personal book about human relationships.
Written in the tradition of Umberto Eco and Manuel Puig, The Pagan Wall is a first novel by one of Canada’s master storytellers.
“[Stories] stir and shift with deftly-rendered subtleties which at their best recall … Norman Levine and … Alice Munro.” —Quill & Quire “One of the best works of fiction of 1993.” —U of T Quarterly
“If this is the overture, you can’t even imagine what he may eventually do for a finale.” —John Moore ISBN 978-0-88922-312-7; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1992; 304 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-330-1; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1993; 176 pp
Mrs. Blood
The Painter’s Wife
Audrey Thomas
Monique Durand
“Mrs. Blood wears her nerve ends outside her skin like an updated Katherine Mansfield heroine—and responds intensely to her external environment and to her subconscious. The effect is to create a vivid impression of a personality in crisis … A spectacular tour de force, this.” —New York Times Book Review
Translated by Sheila Fischman An extraordinary novel about art and passion inspired by the lives of two great artists, Evelyn Rowat and René Marcil. “Resonant, ethereal, poignant. Here is a novel of rare aesthetic intelligence.” —La Provence (France) “A delight!”
ISBN 978-0-88922-319-6; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD rev. ©1992; 220 pp; 4th printing
—Nuit blanche
ISBN 978-0-88922-535-0; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2006; 176 pp; 2nd printing
My Career with the Leafs & Other Stories
The Rain Barrel
Brian Fawcett
George Bowering
Fawcett’s first book of stories examines growing up, and living, under the rules.
Ten years in the making, these stories display Bowering’s meticulous attention to the details of his craft.
“Fawcett sings sweetly and sourly about growing up.” —Vancouver Sun
“Enough irony, subversion and playfulness for any postmodern fan.” —Books in Canada
ISBN 978-0-88922-199-4; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1982; 192 pp; 2nd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-345-5; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1994; 272 pp
My Name Is Bosnia
Real Mothers
Madeleine Gagnon
Audrey Thomas
Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott
Short stories about mothers and the politics of the family.
A young woman embarks upon an emotionally resonant journey in search of a peaceful new life. IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Longlist, 2007 “Movingly captures the transformative effect of war on human consciousness … ” —Publishers Weekly “In Gagnon’s deft hands the narrative is stirring but never maudlin.” —Quill & Quire
“These stories are for … anyone who admires a writer in masterly control of her material.” —Globe & Mail “Thomas demands more of her readers than most writers, but the rewards are much greater too.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-191-8; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1981; 176 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-542-8; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2006; 256 pp
News from Édouard
The Red Notebook
Michel Tremblay
Michel Tremblay
Translated by Sheila Fischman
Translated by Sheila Fischman
This fourth novel in the Chronicles of the Plateau MontRoyal follows Édouard, the fat woman’s brother-in-law, as he explores Paris.
The second in the Notebook trilogy follows Céline Poulin as she becomes hostess in a transvestite bordello. Tremblay celebrates how it is possible for Céline to embrace her difference and to flourish in solidarity with a community of others with transcendent eloquence and compassion.
“Michel Tremblay’s long labour of love … is a lasting study of and tribute to his own working-class origins that should stand in time as a literary landmark.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-435-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2000; 224 pp; 2nd printing
“Tremblay’s characters don’t merely exist, they live out complex, sprawling lives.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-588-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2008; 288 pp
30 / Fiction Backlist
Talonbooks
George Ryga
A Slight Case of Fatigue
The Prairie Novels George Ryga
Stéphane Bourguignon
Edited by James Hoffman
Eddy is in existential crisis. He once had an enviable life, but now he’s separated from his wife, estranged from his son, and his garden’s grown wild—like the rest of his life. Written in multiple voices, with keen psychological insight, this examination of relationships and past wounds is filled with raucous warmth and humanity—and dark humour.
Translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott
This collection includes Hungry Hills, Ballad of a Stonepicker and Night Desk. “…propelled by compassion and moral outrage, but also by a peculiar and personal awareness of the life and death of human cultures and the values they contain.” —Globe & Mail
Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2009.
ISBN 978-0-88922-501-5; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2004; 320 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-596-1; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2008; 224 pp
Scattered in a Rising Wind
Some Night My Prince Will Come
Jean Marc Dalpé
Michel Tremblay
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Translated by Sheila Fischman
The rush of events in a small town apocalypse is recorded barely at the edge of syntax, with a participatory narrator scrambling to keep up with the unfolding perceptions within the others.
This urban epic of love and desire brings us a burlesque world of transgression and madness, where pleasures are far from simple, and love is somewhat less than pure. An evocative account of romantic adventure stamped with Tremblay’s signature wit and ironic humour.
Governor General’s French Fiction Award Winner, 2000. “An extraordinary book of excellent quality.” —Adrienne Clarkson
ISBN 978-0-88922-510-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2004; 192 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-484-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2003; 160 pp
The School-Marm Tree
Songs My Mother Taught Me
Howard O’Hagan
Audrey Thomas
A novel about mountains by one of Canada’s greatest writers on nature, depicting the “presence” in mountains and the heart’s desire to go beyond mountains.
Republished with a new introduction, this is Audrey Thomas’s classic coming-of-age novel about madness, loneliness, despair and escape.
“Testimony to O’Hagan’s intelligence as a novelist.” —Globe & Mail
“Traps in amber that strange distant decade of the Forties.” —George Woodcock, Maclean’s
“As basic and enduring a tale as a Greek tragedy.” —Vancouver Province
ISBN 978-0-88922-329-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD rev. ©1993; 210 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-129-1; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1977; 256 pp; 2nd printing
The Secret Journal of Alexander Mackenzie
Summerland
Brian Fawcett
Edited by Ann Kujundzic
An industrial biography that investigates personal myths and the great “machines” that drive the world to the abyss of development.
Summerland presents largely unpublished selections from essays, short stories, plays, novels and poems that George Ryga wrote in Summerland, BC, from 1963 until his untimely death in 1987.
“A wonderful book.”
George Ryga
—Kootenay Reporter
ISBN 978-0-88922-227-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1985; 208 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-313-4; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1992; 448 pp
Shinny’s Girls and Other Stories
Tchipayuk
Mary Burns
or The Way of the Wolf Ronald Lavallée
These stories all re-examine the myths of mother-daughter relationships, both in the classical sense of “myth” and in the modern sense of “myth” (lies about relationships). “An accomplished and memorable collection.” —Katherine Govier ISBN 978-0-88922-272-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1989; 208 pp; 2nd printing
Translated by Patricia Claxton A sweeping historical novel about the collision of Native and colonial cultures. Winner of the Prix Jules Verne, Prix Champlain and the Prix Riel. Nominated for the Governor General’s Translation Award, 1994. ISBN 978-0-88922-338-7: $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1994; 480 pp
Talonbooks
Fiction Backlist / 31
Theme for Diverse Instruments
The Time Being
Jane Rule
Mary Meigs
Jane Rule’s first collection of short stories.
An affair born of a correspondence with a distant admirer leads the lovers to an arranged meeting in Australia.
“Jane Rule’s work compares very well with the best fiction being written anywhere.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-060-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1975; 192 pp; 5th printing
“The reader is left with an elaboration of the impulse towards, and the slow collapse of, a love affair … Meigs has also left us in the company of two unforgettable women.” —Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-374-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1997; 160 pp
Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel
Trees Are Lonely Company
Michel Tremblay
This collection of O’Hagan’s short fiction includes stories spanning the decades of his experience as mountain guide, gentleman adventurer and storyteller.
Translated by Sheila Fischman In this second Plateau Mont-Royal novel, three schoolgirls live the mysteries of their rites of passage. “Includes some subtler melodies in counterpoint to the main theme of this symphonic masterpiece.” —Vancouver Sun
Howard O’Hagan
“At their best these stories are as stark as anything Camus or Sartre wrote.” —George Woodcock ISBN 978-0-88922-327-1; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1993; 320 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-198-7; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1996; 256 pp
A Thing of Beauty
White Pebbles in the Dark Forests
Michel Tremblay
Jovette Marchessault
Translated by Sheila Fischman
Translated by Yvonne M. Klein
A coda to his great Chronicles of the Plateau Mont-Royal cycle of novels. Tremblay creates, with grace and tenderness, a fictionalized account of the death of his own mother.
Volume three of Marchessault’s autobiographical trilogy: a reconciliation between women and men, children and parents, animals and humans.
“Sheila Fischman’s sensitive translation is wonderfully assured.” —Canadian Book Review Annual ISBN 978-0-88922-390-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1998; 224 pp
“Rich in emotion in a series of visionary episodes.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-280-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1990; 128 pp
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Talonbooks
Adrift
All the Verdis of Venice
Marcus Youssef
Normand Chaurette
In this play inspired by the novel Adrift on the Nile, by Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, a group of urban Egyptian hipsters engages in debates about secularism and “fundamentalism” with tragic consequences.” Cast of 4 women and 6 men.
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
“Adrift highlights the way we suffer the same losses over and over again, raining revenge on revenge. Our struggle, in essence, never changes.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-585-5; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2008; 128 pp
Cast of 1 woman and 4 men. “Invites its audience to think about the nature of self and its socio-cultural construction, as well as the nature of fame, the role of cultural iconography, but doesn’t presuppose answers. The play is never didactic, and more enjoyable for it.” —Rain Taxi ISBN 978-0-88922-442-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2000; 112 pp
The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil
alterNatives
A Divertimento for Warlords Marcus Youssef, Guillermo Verdecchia & Camyar Chai
Native activists and environmentally concerned vegetarians are invited to a dinner party, where irreconcilable cultural differences clash over moose roast and vegetarian lasagna. Cast of 3 women and 3 men.
A hard-hitting and hilarious satire. Cast of 4 men.
Drew Hayden Taylor
“[A] clever, cutting cabaret act … that entertains as it tries to enlighten … ” —Vancouver Sun
“Drew Hayden Taylor has a deft touch for mixing comedy and commentary in … social satire.” —Vancouver Sun
ISBN 978-0-88922-516-9; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2005; 128 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-428-5; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2000; 144 pp; 6th printing
Albertine in Five Times
Amigo’s Blue Guitar
Michel Tremblay
Joan MacLeod
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
A college student’s life changes when he chooses to sponsor a Salvadoran refugee as a class project. Cast of 2 women and 3 men.
Tremblay presents the powerful story of one woman, Albertine, at five different times in her life. Together, the five Albertines provide a moving portrait of an extraordinary “ordinary” woman in this Chalmers Awardwinning play. Cast of 6 women. “A remarkable play … The conception is brilliant.” —New Statesman
Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 1991. “Theatre of exceptional power … [A] subtle, often funny and ultimately moving play.” —Maclean’s ISBN 978-0-88922-371-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD rev. ©1997; 96 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-627-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2009; 80 pp
Albertine in Five Times
Another Country / bloom
Michel Tremblay
Guillermo Verdecchia
Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco
Two plays, on Argentina’s Dirty War of 1976–83, and on hope flowering in the midst of destruction, constitute an unsparing interrogation of a world perpetually at war.
The powerful story of one woman, Albertine, at five different times in her life. Cast of 6 women. “The right play at the right time … A story of life, told by Tremblay with immense compassion.” —Toronto Sun
“Verdecchia … know[s] how to modulate emotional tones beautifully … bloom is a poetic look at a world where hope must grow in sandy soil.” —NOW
ISBN 978-0-88922-234-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©1986; 80 pp; 7th printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-570-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2007; 144 pp
All Fall Down
Assorted Candies for the Theatre
Wendy Lill
Michel Tremblay
A play about modern-day witch-hunting. Cast of 2 women and 2 men.
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1994. “Lill’s masterful, soberingly intelligent play … goes beyond its surface subject—pedophilia.” —Theatrum ISBN 978-0-88922-336-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1994; 128 pp
An exquisite remembrance of childhood past in Montreal’s Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood, adapted and recrafted to the stage. Cast of 3 women and 4 men. “It’s vintage Tremblay (out-Prousting Proust), filled with primal privations and inspirations of awe, a family’s love and terrors … the whole enthralling works.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-572-5; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2007; 96 pp
Talonbooks
Drama Backlist / 33
The Baby Blues
The Berlin Blues
Drew Hayden Taylor
Drew Hayden Taylor
A highly wrought farce of patrimony in a stifling, politically correct, post-colonial milieu of “fancy dancers” of every stripe on the pow wow trail. Cast of 3 women and 3 men.
Concluding Taylor’s Blues Quartet, German developers here show up on the “Otter Lake Reserve” proposing “OjibwayWorld,” a Native theme park designed to attract Europeans tourists to this destination resort. Cast of 3 women and 3 men.
“A rowdy and often moving journey off the highway and onto the dirt roads of memory.” —NOW ISBN 978-0-88922-406-3; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1999; 96 pp; 5th printing
“This can be taken as a funny series of events. Those hoping for something deeper can find allegories and metaphors running through history.” —LA Splash ISBN 978-0-88922-581-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2007; 96 pp; 2nd printing
Balconville
Bethune
David Fennario
Rod Langley
The English and French working class get together on their balconies in Montreal. Cast of 3 women and 6 men.
A study of how one man’s vision may shape the world. Cast of 3 women and 6 men.
Chalmers Award Winner for Best Canadian Play, 1979.
“A portrait of an enormously complex man.” —Vancouver Sun
“Balconville is a work of genius. It’s angry, bitter, cruel and funny.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-145-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1980; 128 pp; 8th printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-088-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©1975; 128 pp; 5th printing
Banana Boots
Billy Bishop Goes to War
David Fennario
John Gray with Eric Peterson
A one-man-show/memoir in which Fennario recounts, with astonishing insight and wit, the phenomenon of taking his famous bilingual play, Balconville, to Belfast on a British/Canadian cultural mission. Cast of 1 man.
A musical about Canada’s famous World War I flying ace. Cast of 2 men.
“Fennario is, to put it lightly, a phenomenon.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-396-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1998; 64 pp
Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 1982. “A delightful—and cunningly wrought—work of art.” —New Yorker “A superb mixture of laconic irony and white-knuckle tale-telling.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-196-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1982; 104 pp; 12th printing
Les Belles Soeurs
Boiler Room Suite
(Revised) Michel Tremblay
Rex Deverell
Michel Tremblay’s classic joual play. Cast of 15 women.
The broken lives and the heroic struggle for joy of two “tramps” in a hotel boiler room. Cast of 1 woman and 2 men.
“A tart but human satire on Canadian life and aspirations.” —Vancouver Sun
Canadian Authors Association Drama Award Winner, 1978.
Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco
ISBN 978-0-88922-302-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD rev. ©1992; 112 pp; 9th printing
“A beautiful tragicomic look at a couple of losers.” —NBC ISBN 978-0-88922-137-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1978; 96 pp
Benevolence
Bonjour, Là, Bonjour
Morris Panych
(Revised) Michel Tremblay
Full of excruciating twists of fate and malice, this dark comedy of “trading places” resonates with uncomfortable truths about how we see (or don’t see) the people we live with every day. Cast of 2 women and three men. “A lethal mixture of black humour and social observation. When it comes to sparkling, erudite, bitchy dialogue, Panych, as a playwright, has few equals.” —Toronto Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-584-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2008; 128 pp
Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco A beloved brother returns to his family. Cast of 6 women and 2 men. “Theatre does not often touch the heart the way this succeeds in doing.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-252-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD rev. ©1990; 92 pp; 3rd rev printing
34 / Drama Backlist
Talonbooks
Bordertown Café
Les Canadiens
Kelly Rebar
Rick Salutin
Young Jimmy faces a dilemma: embrace the hero of American popular myth as embodied by his father, or engage the task of building a different identity, embodied by his mother “on the Canadian side of nowhere.” Cast of 2 women and 2 men.
Introduction by Ken Dryden
“[A] humorous, human, touching and recognizable look at one family’s search for individual identity.” —Hamilton Spectator
A play about Quebec and Canada using hockey as a metaphor. Cast of 7 men. Chalmers Award Winner for Best Canadian Play, 1977. “An examination of the Canadiens has never been mastered so well.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-122-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©1977; 192 pp; 4th printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-477-3; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2003; 128 pp; 2nd printing
The Boy in the Treehouse Girl Who Loved Her Horses
Cariboo Magi
Drew Hayden Taylor
Hilarious drama ensues when a bedraggled troupe of players heads into the wilds of the Cariboo to perform a Christmas pageant. Set in the gold rush era, Cariboo Magi is an unabashed celebration of the power of theatre to renew our lives and banish our cares. Cast of 2 women and 2 men.
Two plays about the process of children becoming adults and the nature of, and necessity for, rites of passage in all cultures. “[Taylor is] recognized as one of Canada’s ‘hottest’ young playwrights, and long recognized for his witty essays and journalism.” —World Literature Today ISBN 978-0-88922-441-4; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2000; 160 pp; 3rd printing
Lucia Frangione
“A beautifully written tribute to the strength of the human spirit.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-527-5; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2005; 96 pp
Burning Vision
Carmela’s Table
Marie Clements
A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part Two Vittorio Rossi
Dene miners, radium painters and people of Hiroshima labour under the false sun of uranium which poisons their relationships to the earth and to each other. Cast of 5 women and 12 men. Canada-Japan Literary Award Winner, 2004. Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2003.
Italian war veteran Silvio now lives in Montreal with his new family and his mother. Deeply traumatized by his wartime experiences, Silvio’s gradual unravelling ultimately threatens to destroy his family. Cast of 3 women and 2 men.
“[A] brave new play that bombards the senses and fires up the mind.” —Globe & Mail
“Second time out, the volatile Rosato family still offers passion through familial drama.” —Variety.com
ISBN 978-0-88922-472-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2003; 128 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-594-7; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2008; 128 pp; photos
The Buz’Gem Blues
The Carpenter
Drew Hayden Taylor
A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part Three Vittorio Rossi
The third play in Taylor’s ongoing zany, often farcical examination of both Native and non-Native stereotypes in what is to become what he calls his “Blues Quartet.” Cast of 3 women and 3 men. “He skewers liberal and native stereotypes, preferring to deal on a more human level.” —Hamilton Examiner ISBN 978-0-88922-462-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2002; 128 pp; 3rd printing
This heart-wrenching but beautifully cathartic story of a family coming to grips with itself unfolds with unmistakably poignant honesty. Cast of 4 women and 5 men. “Rossi’s plays represent the heftiest addition to the Canadian dramatic canon since David French’s Mercer Cycle or George F. Walker’s East End Plays.” —CBC ISBN 978-0-88922-609-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2009; 128 pp; photos
Can You See Me Yet?
Chimera
Timothy Findley
Wendy Lill
A search for sanctuary in an Ontario insane asylum in 1938. Cast of 7 women and 4 men.
This compelling drama by a former parliamentary critic for persons with disabilities explores the ethical controversy and public policy surrounding reproductive technologies, particularly cross-species chimeras. Cast of 2 women and 5 men.
“Seems to me to be an astonishing work, richly textured, sombre, and yet possessing a relieving wit.” —Margaret Laurence
“The play comes at a propitious time.” ISBN 978-0-88922-119-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1977; 176 pp; 2nd printing
—The Scientist
ISBN 978-0-88922-569-5; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2007; 96 pp
Talonbooks
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Cold Comfort
Corker
Jim Garrard
Wendy Lill
Set in Saskatchewan, the geographic centre of Canada, Cold Comfort depicts the complex relationship among three characters. Cast of 1 woman and 2 men.
Corker uses the familiar but difficult and treacherous 19thcentury device of representing the family as a microcosm of the nation state. Cast of 2 women and 4 men.
“A remarkable achievement … a solid and memorable show.” —Toronto Star
“Tough, compassionate and surprisingly funny.” —Sunday Daily News
“Sheer genius!”
—Arts National, CBC Radio
ISBN 978-0-88922-201-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1982; 96 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-394-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1998; 128 pp
Colours in the Dark
The Coronation Voyage
James Reaney
Michel Marc Bouchard
A mosaic of experiences that form a childhood. Cast of 2 women, 2 men, 1 female child and 1 male child.
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
“Both funny and touching … intriguingly original in its conception.” —Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-001-0; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1969; 136 pp; 5th printing
Will a Montreal Mafioso sacrifice his young son for safe conduct to England? Cast of 6 women and 8 men. “Tackles the themes of sacrifice and forgiveness, the interpretation of history, the lost (i.e. sacrificed) generation, innocence, family and love.” —La Presse “Brilliant, artful, satirical.”
—CBC Radio
ISBN 978-0-88922-422-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1999; 128 pp
The Concise Köchel
Crabdance
Normand Chaurette
Beverley Simons
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
A woman manipulates the men in her life into assuming the stereotypical privatized roles of husband, lover, father and son. Cast of 1 woman and 3 men.
A lifetime’s devotion to the music of Mozart conceals a gruesome secret. Cast of 4 women. “The situation and dialogue are intriguing … The play may be difficult, but Chaurette’s unnerving climax should lead to heated and extended discussions in the lobby after the play is over.” —Stage Directions ISBN 978-0-88922-518-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2005; 96 pp
“An unusual and searing play about a woman caught in a cage of frustration and neglect … ” —Vancouver Sun “One of the most theatrical contemporary plays that I have ever read.” —Malcolm Black ISBN 978-0-88922-016-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1972; 128 pp; 6th printing
Consecrated Ground
Cruel Tears
George Boyd
Ken Mitchell
In 1965, Africville, the largest and oldest black community in Canada, was bulldozed into memory. What was lost to the politicians of Halifax was an inconvenience, an eyesore. What was lost to the people whose roots ran deep through the once-vibrant community was an entire way of life.
An innovative “country opera” set in Saskatoon, with a captivating parallel to Shakespeare’s Othello. Cast of 5 women, 10 men and a band.
“Raw theatrical force … ”
—Halifax Daily News
ISBN 978-0-921368-91-5; $12.95 CAD / $10.95 USD ©1999; 72 pp
“A unique and astonishing dramatic event.” —Calgary Herald “A brilliantly original theatre piece.” —Montreal Star ISBN 978-0-88922-120-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1977; 160 pp; 9th printing
Copper Thunderbird
Cul-de-sac
Marie Clements
Daniel MacIvor
A multi-layered and visionary drama of a life wracked by both triumph and ordeal, based on the persona of famed Ojibwa artist Norval Morrisseau. Cast of 5 women and 4 men.
Introduction by Daniel Brooks
Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2008.
Siminovitch Prize in Theatre Finalist, 2005.
“Marie Clements … is building a powerful reputation for her innovative approaches to … theatre on aboriginal themes.” —Vancouver Sun
Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2005.
ISBN 978-0-88922-568-8; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2007; 84 pp
Written by one of Canada’s most influential postmodern playwrights, this dazzling one-man show is storytelling of the highest order.
“Wickedly funny.”
—National Post
ISBN 978-0-88922-515-2; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2005; 80 pp; 2nd printing
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Cyrano de Bergerac
Diplomacy
Edmond Rostand
Tim Carlson
Translated by John Murrell An epic and heroic tale that has enchanted generations, in an English prose translation that is immanently readable and stageable. Cast of 5 women, 12 men and many minor characters.
Nominally about North American military involvement in Middle East wars, this graphic, conflict-fuelled drama scrutinizes the part the media plays in manufacturing our private reactions to foreign policy. Cast of 1 woman and 3 men.
“[Cyrano de Bergerac is a] brilliant … unforgettable … impressive achievement … ” —Edmonton Journal
“It’s a rare thing—the well-argued blast of political outrage. —Globe & Mail
ISBN 978-0-921368-43-4; $10.95 CAD / $7.95 USD ©1995; 160 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-611-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2009; 96 pp
Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra
The Dishwashers
Michel Tremblay
Morris Panych
Translated by John Van Burek
Haplessly determined to have his own miserable authority vindicated, chief dishwasher Dressler presides over the steam-choked basement of an upscale restaurant, tyrannizing his co-workers with his rants of pride of craft and Marxist rhetoric. Cast of 3 men.
Two interweaving monologues on the sacred and the profane. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man. “A hauntingly powerful evening of theatre.” —Vancouver Express ISBN 978-0-88922-184-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1981; 48 pp
“Funny, sad, strange and uplifting, sometimes in the same breath … ” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-524-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2005; 132 pp; 2nd printing
Dancock’s Dance
Divinity Bash / nine lives
Guy Vanderhaeghe
Bryden MacDonald
Shell-shocked, judged unfit for society and haunted by the sins of war, Lieutenant John Carlyle Dancock finds himself committed to an insane asylum where he cannot escape the confines of righteous authority or his own conscience. Cast of 1 woman and 5 men.
Bryden MacDonald’s most extreme venture into the world of the theatre to date: a play in which everything, and therefore nothing, is sacred. Cast of 3 women, 5 men and 1 transgendered person.
“Highly imaginative, vividly written play … ” —Saskatoon StarPhoenix ISBN 978-0-88922-533-6; $16.95 CAD / $14.95 USD rev. ©2005; 128 pp
“A carnivalesque expression of contemporary zeitgeist.”
ISBN 978-0-88922-408-7; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1999; 128 pp
The Death of René Lévesque
Doctor Thomas Neill Cream
David Fennario
(Mystery at McGill) David Fennario
An astonishingly profound and prophetic political drama that delivers the powerful and cathartic stillbirth of a nation, stripped of both pity and fear. Cast of 2 women and 4 men. “When a final analysis is made of 20th-century Canadian theatre, the most significant political playwright will undoubtedly be David Fennario.” —CBRA ISBN 978-0-88922-480-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2003; 72 pp
In 1876, Jack the Ripper, a.k.a. Canadian Dr. Cream, graduated from McGill’s Faculty of Medicine. Cast of 4 women and 6 men. Arthur Ellis Award Nominee, 1994. “Fennario’s in-your-face irreverence [is] ferociously funny.” —U of T Quarterly ISBN 978-0-88922-332-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1994; 112 pp
Democracy
Down Dangerous Passes Road
John Murrell
Michel Marc Bouchard
In the midst of the American Civil War, Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson discuss the past, the future, life, love and what it means to be human. Cast of 4 men.
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Alberta Writers’ Guild Prize Winner for Drama. “Even the simplest lines have a quiet eloquence … soft explosions of the heart.” —Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-921368-28-1; $10.95 CAD / $7.95 USD ©1991; 64 pp
—CBC
15 years after the death of their father, three brothers get together and drive out to the place where it happened: an old fishing spot on the river down Dangerous Passes Road. Cast of 3 men. Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2000. ISBN 978-0-88922-440-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2000; 96 pp
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The Driving Force
The East End Plays
Michel Tremblay Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Part 1 George F. Walker
The stormy and angst-filled relationship between Claude and his father Alex is compellingly played out with a cruel and disconsolate irony in an Alzheimer’s ward. Cast of 2 men.
Contains the Governor General’s Award-winning Criminals in Love (1984), Chalmers Award-winning Better Living (1986) and Escape from Happiness (1987). With an introduction by Jerry Wasserman.
“The text is as severe, intense and implacable as the reality of each character.” —CBC Radio-Canada
“One of theatre’s most important voices.”
ISBN 978-0-88922-530-5; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2005; 64 pp; 2nd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-413-1; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1999; 256 pp; 4th printing
La Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays
The East End Plays
Michel Tremblay
Part 2 George F. Walker
Translated by John Van Burek A collection of five short plays by Quebec’s best known playwright: La Duchesse de Langeais; Berthe; Johnny Mangano and His Astonishing Dogs; Surprise, Surprise; and Gloria Star. “The plight of the Duchesse mirrors the plight of a society.” —Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-104-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1976; 128 pp; 2nd printing
—Maclean’s
Contains Beautiful City, Love and Anger and Tough. “Walker writes with unprecedented directness … [His] characters think and feel out loud in a perpetual present-tense fever because life, and often more, is on the line.” —Village Voice ISBN 978-0-88922-404-9; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1999; 208 pp; 4th printing
The Dunsmuirs
The Ecstasy of Rita Joe
Alone at the Edge Rod Langley
George Ryga
The first play in this saga of one of Canada’s wealthiest and most ruthless families. Cast of 2 women and 6 men. “The story of the Dunsmuirs is a hell of a tale that’s got everything.” —Victoria Times-Colonist ISBN 978-0-88922-297-7; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1991; 104 pp
A lyric documentary about a young Indian girl who comes to the city only to die on Skid Row. Cast of 5 women and 15 men. Published in seven languages. “Scenes of shattering impact … and passages of a purity and intensity that catch you off guard and keep you there.” —Washington Post ISBN 978-0-88922-000-3; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©1970; 128 pp; 24th printing
The Dunsmuirs
En Pièces Détachées
A Promise Kept Rod Langley
Michel Tremblay
A dark family secret emerges in this second play about the wealthy and ill-fated Dunsmuir family. Cast of 3 women and 6 men.
The life of a lower-class family in East End Montreal. Cast of 4 women and 2 men.
Translated by Allan Van Meer
“The writing is tight and lively.” —Victoria Times-Colonist
“Tremblay courageously insists on the relevance and dilemma of neo-colonial French Canada.” —Books in Canada
ISBN 978-0-88922-304-2; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1992; 96 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-092-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1975; 112 pp; 2nd printing
Earshot
The Ends of the Earth
Morris Panych
Morris Panych
Doyle has a very funny problem: he hears too much. He can hear the most intimate details of the lives of everyone living in his apartment building. He blames his hypersensitive condition on a physical abnormality; but we’re not so certain. Cast of 1 man.
Panych’s brilliant tale reminds us all that fear can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Cast of 2 women and 3 men. Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 1994. “Panych’s witty script is full of laughs and packed with action.” —Globe & Mail
“A superbly mounted Panych attack.” —National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-444-5; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2001; 64 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-334-9; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1993; 144 pp; 2nd printing
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Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout
The Faraway Nearby
Tomson Highway
John Murrell
Based on the signing of the Laurier Memorial, this play is a ritualized retelling of how the Native Peoples of British Columbia lost their land, rights and language—in one of the most tragic cases of cultural genocide to emerge from the history of colonialism. Cast of 4 women.
Georgia O’Keeffe resigns herself to an old age spent alone in the auburn and tawny light of her beloved Faraway mountains, in the desert’s dangerous energies and its desolate beauty, until a stranger enters her life. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.
“The play is both laugh-out-loud funny and a precarious high-wire act … ” —Globe & Mail
“The writing is John Murrell at the top of his form, which is very high indeed. Tremendous stuff.” —CBC Radio
ISBN 978-0-88922-525-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2005; 96 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-921368-56-4; $10.95 CAD / $7.95 USD ©1995; 64 pp
Esker Mike and His Wife, Agiluk
Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass
Herschel Hardin
Tom Hendry
A classic tragedy about Inuit life and how it is affected by white settlers, priests and government officials. Cast of 6 women and 9 men.
A look at post-World War II Canada from a recent highschool graduate’s viewpoint. Cast of 2 women and 9 men.
“A fascinating, moving, and ultimately a very beautiful play.”
“Defines a uniquely Canadian experience that expands to the universal.” —Kootenay Reporter
—CBC
ISBN 978-0-88922-018-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1973; 96 pp; 4th printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-096-6; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1975; 128 pp
Espresso
15 Seconds
Lucia Frangione
François Archambault
Sexy, provocative and challenging, Espresso inverts the Catholic stereotypes of feminine sexuality to boldly examine their corresponding masculine sexual emblems of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.
Translated by Bobby Theodore
“Espresso is a high-quality blend of bitter, dark comedy and subtle literary complexities that packs a strong punch.” —Globe & Mail
Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2000.
ISBN 978-0-88922-495-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2004; 96 pp; 2nd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-427-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2000; 96 pp
The Execution
The Fighting Days
Marie-Claire Blais
Wendy Lill
Translated by David Lobdell Two school boys plot and enact the murder of a classmate. Cast of 3 women and 17 men.
The polarities of public and private lives, and issues of racism and pacifism in the suffragette movement. Cast of 3 women and 1 man.
“A brilliant play about the maturation of evil.” —CHQM
“An unusually insightful investigation of social conscience.” —Arts Manitoba
ISBN 978-0-88922-103-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1976; 104 pp; 3rd printing
A young female advertising copy writer, her pro-sports-fan ex-boyfriend, a Gen-X welfare-bum loser and his brother with cerebral palsy. Cast of 1 woman and 3 men.
“Funny, thought-provoking, poignant, and often dark … ” —CBRA
ISBN 978-0-88922-226-7; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1985; 96 pp; 4th printing
The Fairies Are Thirsty
For Home and Country
Denise Boucher
Leanna Brodie
Translated by Alan Brown
The rise of an urban and radicalized feminist agenda in the latter part of the 20th century leads to a head-on collision with its much more conservative, rural roots in the Women’s Institute, founded in 1897. Cast of 16 women and 3 men.
Three women—a housewife, a whore and the Virgin Mary—fight to break out of the stereotypes in which they have been imprisoned for years. Cast of 3 women. “A powerful script and an important play.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-200-7; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1982; 64 pp; 4th printing
“The play’s generosity of spirit equals that of the Women’s Institutes that are its subject.” —Ric Knowles ISBN 978-0-88922-508-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2004; 128 pp
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For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again
Gideon’s Blues
Michel Tremblay
George Boyd
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
The profound humanity of Boyd’s characters reminds us that while neither drug abuse nor the breakdown of the traditional family is exclusive to the black community, racism accelerates their destructive effects in ghastly measures. Cast of 3 women and 4 men.
Tremblay offers glimpses of himself and his mother at five different stages of their lives together. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man. “In Quebec, a new Tremblay play is like a fresh tablet from Moses.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-389-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1998, 96 pp; 3rd printing
“Boyd’s writing is muscular, vigorous and commanding.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-496-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2004; 144 pp
Forever Yours, Marie-Lou
Girl in the Goldfish Bowl
Michel Tremblay
Morris Panych
Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco
It’s into the goldfish bowl of a dysfunctional family that the audience peers with acute recognition, hysterical laughter and an overwhelming sense of the creative healing power of the imagination. Cast of 3 women and 2 men.
Tremblay’s penetrating analysis of a Quebec family unit. Cast of 3 women and 1 man. “Brilliantly insightful, uncompromising drama.” —Detroit News
Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 2004.
“One of Tremblay’s infinitely hot and dense family dramas … ” —Globe & Mail
“An uncommon, quirky blend of humour and compassion … ” —National Post
ISBN 978-0-88922-349-3; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD rev. ©1994; 82 pp; 4th printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-481-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2003; 128 pp; 3rd printing
400 Kilometres
The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum
Drew Hayden Taylor
A Stage Play Based on the Novel by Sheldon Currie Wendy Lill
The third play in Taylor’s hilarious and heart-wrenching identity-politics trilogy. Janice Wirth, an urban professional who has discovered her roots as the Ojibway orphan Grace Wabung, is pregnant and must come to grips with the question of her true identity. Cast of 3 women and 2 men. “Sharply written … Warm and funny.” —Halifax Daily News ISBN 978-0-88922-517-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2005; 128 pp; 3rd printing
A story of the ill-fated love between a wandering musician social-idealist and a Cape Breton coal miner’s daughter. Cast of 2 women and 3 men. Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1996. “… a tender, romantic triumph over the genre … ” —Eye Weekly ISBN 978-0-88922-369-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1996; 128 pp; 6th printing
Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists
Goodnight Disgrace
Normand Chaurette
From his wheelchair in a nursing home, Conrad Aiken recalls his long, stormy relations with Malcolm Lowry. Cast of 3 women and 4 men.
Translated by Linda Gaboriau A dramatized inquiry in which five geologists are interrogated on the death of one of their colleagues in the Mekong Delta. Cast of 1 woman and 6 men.
Michael Mercer
“Knocked out by the richness of its language.” —Vancouver Sun
ISBN 978-0-88922-400-1; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1998; 96 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-238-0; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1986; 120 pp
Fronteras Americanas
The Great Wave of Civilization
American Borders Guillermo Verdecchia
Herschel Hardin
One man’s struggle to find a home between two cultures, exploding the images and constructs built up around Latinos and Latin America. Cast of 1 man. Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 1993. “Outrageous, funny, devastatingly witty.”
—CBC
ISBN 978-0-88922-383-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD rev. ©1997; 80 pp; 6th printing
The destruction of the people of the Blackfoot Confederacy by the liquor trade in Alberta and Montana. Cast of 5 women and 13 men. “A fable of genocide with conscience-raising fervour.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-106-2; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1976; 128 pp
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Halo
The Hope Slide Little Sister
Josh MacDonald When an image of Jesus appears on the side of a Tim Hortons restaurant, the town inhabitants are challenged to ask difficult questions about faith, life and love. Cast of 3 women and 4 men.
Joan MacLeod
Merritt Theatre Award Nominee for Best Play, 2004. “Halo successfully melds faith, drama and humour … very funny and quite moving.” —Halifax Daily News
“A gripping portrait of one woman’s search for meaning in the face of disillusionment and despair.” —Ottawa Citizen
ISBN 978-0-88922-469-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2002; 128 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-411-7; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1999; 128 pp
Heaven
Hosanna
George F. Walker
Michel Tremblay
Instantly recognizable multicultural characters play out their coincidental relationships in a park on the outskirts of a city. Cast of 2 women and 4 men.
Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco
“Leavened with Walker’s dizzying sense of humour. It is also shot through with hot anger at an uncaring society and with compassion for the disenfranchised and the spiritually maimed.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-429-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2000; 144 pp; 2nd printing
Two plays by Joan MacLeod: the Chalmers Award-winning The Hope Slide, and MacLeod’s first play for young audiences, Little Sister.
A play about illusions. Cast of 2 men. “Written by a real playwright who can write poetic prose, handle literary technique and create character.” —New York Post “Breathtakingly beautiful and layered with emotion and resonance.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-296-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD rev. ©1991; 88 pp; 5th printing
Hellfire Pass
The Impromptu of Outremont
A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part One Vittorio Rossi
Michel Tremblay
Silvio Rosato shows up at the house of his estranged father and meets the family he raised in Chicago after leaving Silvio in Italy 36 years ago. Cast of 3 women and 4 men. Winner of the 2006 Montreal English Critics’ Circle Award. “A powerful, memorable drama … ”
—Variety
Translated by John Van Burek Three sisters have an “impromptu” and re-examine their personal and social problems. Cast of 4 women. “A clear delineation of the problems faced by any colonial culture.” —Vancouver Province ISBN 978-0-88922-185-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1981; 96 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-564-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2007; 128 pp; photos
The Heretic
Impromptu on Nuns’ Island
John Murphy
Michel Tremblay
“If there is a God, why would He create us? If He’s perfect, all-knowing, there’s nothing he can gain from us.” Murphy’s play, centred around the playwright’s assumed persona of “Jesus Murphy,” opens up a discourse where creation interrogates religion; atheists engage believers; and secularists confront theists. Cast of 1 man.
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
“A scary, brave and ferocious attack on JudeoChristian religion and its doctrines.” —CBC
In an impromptu get-together in an opera diva’s Nuns’ Island penthouse, on the afternoon of her return from Paris, her celebrity mother and her idealistic daughter lie in wait for her. Cast of 3 women and 1 man. Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2002. ISBN 978-0-88922-470-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2002; 96 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-595-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2008; 64 pp
Homechild
In a World Created by a Drunken God
Joan MacLeod
Drew Hayden Taylor
Between 1860 and 1930, over 80,000 unaccompanied British children were “exported” to Canadian factories and farms, often exploited there as indentured child labourers. Cast of 5 women and 3 men.
A Canadian half-Native man is thrust into an absurd dilemma when he is asked to be tested for a possible kidney donation to his dying non-Native father, who abandoned him when he was two months old. Cast of 2 men.
“MacLeod has written a moving story of huge implications—what family, identity and personal history mean.” —CBC ISBN 978-0-88922-582-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2008; 128 pp
“[Presents] stellar characters struggling with hardcore moral questions … The presentation sure is masterful.” —Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-537-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2006; 128 pp; 3rd printing
Talonbooks
Drama Backlist / 41
In the Eyes of God
Joe Beef
Raul Sanchez Inglis
David Fennario
A vicious and unsparing look at the talent agencies that remake the Hollywood stars out of the willing clay of their own flesh. Cast of 3 women and 4 men.
Desperately poor immigrants find refuge in Montreal’s legendary barkeep, Joe Beef. Cast of 5 women and 5 men.
“[This] terrific play … is one of the most vicious exposes of Hollywood venality, misogyny and the social Darwinism that drives the star-making machinery that you’ll ever see.” —Vancouver Province
The United Steel Workers’ Union Pauline Julien Prize Winner, 1987. “An evening of political theatre with both guts and skill is a rare commodity these days.” —Montreal Gazette
ISBN 978-0-88922-561-9; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2007; 144 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-291-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1991; 104 pp
In the Eyes of Stone Dogs
The Lady Smith
Daniel Danis
Andrew Moodie
Translated by Linda Gaboriau Before fleeing her eccentric island community, Djouke is determined to discover the mystery of her paternity. Cast of 4 women and 5 men.
Rather than confront her husband when she sees him with another woman, a blues singer follows the woman and insinuates herself into the other woman’s life. Cast of 3 women and 1 man.
“A skillful blend of lyricism and cruelty, of the tragic and the poetic … ” —Voir
“No question, playwright Andrew Moodie has a gift for naturalism.” —Toronto Star
“Strange, haunting and unforgettable.” —Stage Directions
“Amusingly inventive.”
ISBN 978-0-88922-519-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2005; 96 pp
—Globe & Mail
ISBN 978-1-55331-002-0; $14.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2000; 72 pp
Jacob’s Wake
Lawrence & Holloman
Michael Cook
Morris Panych
A Maritime family’s tragedy, set in a raging storm. Cast of 2 women and 5 men.
Lawrence and Holloman, a hapless nerd and a loquacious salesman, meet by chance. From this fleetingly irritating and insignificant encounter comes a viciously murderous and incredulously bizarre plot. Cast of 2 men.
“A powerful play, deeply rooted in its regional context, but universal enough to appeal to an audience anywhere.” —Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-097-3; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©1975; 144 pp; 6th printing
“Lawrence & Holloman is slick stuff indeed.” —Toronto Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-392-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1998; 128 pp
Je me souviens
Legoland
Lorena Gale
Jacob Richmond
In this powerful dramatic monologue, Lorena Gale reconstructs for the audience her childhood and the experience of coming of age as an African Canadian in Montreal. Cast of 1 woman.
When Mom and Dad are busted for growing pot, Penny and Ezra Lamb embark on the wild road trip that comprises this vaudeville-inspired one-act play. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.
Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2002.
“Legoland is like a variety show version of South Park.” —Globe & Mail
“[This] intimate monologue is funny, feisty, heartfelt.” —Calgary Herald ISBN 978-0-88922-453-7; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2001; 96 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-610-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2009; 72 pp
Jitters
The Leisure Society
David French
François Archambault
A sophisticated backstage comedy. Cast of 3 women and 6 men.
Translated by Bobby Theodore
“Jitters is witty, affectionate, bitchy; bitterly touching. French handles a complicated idea with great sophistication.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-242-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD rev. ©1986; 176 pp; 4th printing
A dark and thoroughly contemporary comedy. Cast of 2 women and 2 men. “A vicious, erotically charged spectacle full of cynical disdain and gripping pathos.” —Montreal Gazette “A dark, twisted and brilliant take on modern marriage … ” —Calgary Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-531-2; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2005; 96 pp
42 / Drama Backlist
Talonbooks
Life Without Instruction
The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr
Sally Clark
Jovette Marchessault
A woman’s struggle for freedom, identity and dignity. Cast of 3 women and 5 men.
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
“Sally Clark’s great talents as a playwright are her seemingly effortless ability to shift from light to dark and her finely tuned understanding of life’s rich ambiguities.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-347-9; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1994; 168 pp; 5 b&w photos
Marchessault evokes the doubts, the trials and the joys of this singular existence. Cast of 3 women and 1 man. “A worthy trip home for one of Canada’s greatest painters.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-314-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1992; 104 pp; 2nd printing
A Line in the Sand
La Maison Suspendue
Guillermo Verdecchia & Marcus Youssef
Michel Tremblay
A young Palestinian is befriended, then tortured and murdered by Canadian soldiers during Operation Desert Storm. Cast of 3 to 5 men.
Translated by John Van Burek
Chalmers Best New Play Award Winner, 1997. “[A] powerful story …”
—CBRA
A rich, emotional, sweeping drama of anger and sorrow spanning three generations. Cast of 3 women, 4 men and 1 male child. Chalmers Award Winner, 1990. “A full and resounding resonance.”
ISBN 978-0-88922-375-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©1997; 128 pp; 2nd printing
—Theatrum
ISBN 978-0-88922-295-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1991; 104 pp
Listen to the Wind
Mambo Italiano
James Reaney
Steve Galluccio
Two stories intertwine and illuminate the relationship of life to its creative dream. Cast of 4 women, 4 men, 1 female child and 1 male child.
Outrageous pathos and hilarity is unleashed when Nino informs his very traditionally Italian parents that he is gay. A perfect balance of fast-paced comedy and poignant drama that explores family dynamics and the vast spaces between the old world and the new. Cast of 4 women and 3 men.
“Keeps reminding us that the way through our world of sickness and breakdown is play.” —Profiles in Canadian Drama ISBN 978-0-88922-002-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1972; 144 pp; 4th printing
“Manages to combine the sentimental, the silly and the sexy … ” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-494-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2004; 128 pp; 2nd printing
Local Boy Makes Good
Marcel Pursued by the Hounds
John Gray
Michel Tremblay
Three musicals by John Gray: 18 Wheels, Rock and Roll and Don Messer’s Jubilee.
Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco
Canadian Authors Association Drama Award Winner, 1988 (Rock and Roll). “John Gray is the most original artist working in the musical theatre in this country.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-248-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1987; 208 pp
How our “innocent” childhood games and fantasies come back to haunt us in adult life. Cast of 4 women and 1 adolescent male. “Tremblay’s grip on matters of the human heart is as precise, knowing and unforgiving as ever.” —Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-326-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1996; 80 pp; 2nd printing
Lost Souls and Missing Persons
Marion Bridge
Sally Clark
Daniel MacIvor
A comic, biting, surreal investigation of the question of self and identity in the North American middle-class. Cast of 9 women and 11 men.
Includes screenplay and stage play. Cast of 3 women.
“Essentially a serious story told in a tremendously comical way.” —Jerry Wasserman, CBC ISBN 978-0-88922-397-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1998; 128 pp
“In some ways, this moving drama, which tiptoes toward sentimentality without ever reaching it, is the most surprising play that [MacIvor’s] ever written. When was the last time you saw a drama about three distinct, complex women that had nothing to do with their relationships with men?” —New York Times ISBN 978-0-88922-552-7; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD rev. ©2006; 192 pp; 3rd printing
Talonbooks
Drama Backlist / 43
Memories of You
1949
Wendy Lill
David French
The life of Elizabeth Smart pivoted on a turbulent affair that produced four children and her one book. This is a portrayal of the book as a record of one great life lived. Cast of 4 women and 1 man.
Newfoundland joins Confederation in the continuing saga of the Mercer family. Cast of 6 women, 6 men and 2 male children.
“Beautifully written … its pleasure, its sensuality and its pain. A courageous and profoundly moving play … ” —Robert Enright, CBC
“Told with French’s warm humour and effortless command of stage convention.” —Globe & Mail
ISBN 978-0-88922-489-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD rev. ©2003; 96 pp
Chalmers Award Nominee, 1988.
ISBN 978-0-88922-266-3; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1989; 176 pp; 2nd printing
Miss Julie
The Noam Chomsky Lectures
August Strindberg
Daniel Brooks & Guillermo Verdecchia
An adaptation by David French
An innovative, multi-layered deconstruction of mass media and politics. Cast of 2 men.
A riveting adaptation of a theatre classic about an affair between the daughter of a count and the count’s manservant. Cast of 2 women and 1 man. “Direct, accessible and strangely contemporary, [this adaptation of] Miss Julie is a … blast of dramatic fresh air which retains its provocative power.” —Halifax Chronicle Herald
Chalmers Award Winner, 1992. Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1992. “A … sharp and funny ‘lecture’ on cultural politics and political culture.” —Now “An anti-imperialist primer.”
—Socialist Worker
ISBN 978-0-88922-549-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2006; 96 pp; 2nd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-405-6; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD rev. ©1997; 96 pp; 3rd printing
Modern Canadian Plays
Nothing to Lose
Volume I Edited by Jerry Wasserman
David Fennario
This fourth edition contains The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, Fortune and Men’s Eyes, Les Belles-Soeurs, Leaving Home, 1837: The Farmer’s Revolt, The St Nicholas Hotel, Zastrozzi, Billy Bishop Goes to War, Balconville, Doc, Drag Queens on Trial and The Occupation of Heather Rose. ISBN 978-0-88922-436-0; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD ©2000; 464 pp; 6th printing
Working-class survivors of the ’60s stage a workers’ sitdown strike. Cast of 9 men. “Restores one’s faith in theatre as a medium of continuing vitality and relevance.” —Southam News Service ISBN 978-0-88922-121-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1977; 144 pp; 2nd printing
Modern Canadian Plays
The Occupation of Heather Rose
Volume II Edited by Jerry Wasserman
Wendy Lill
This fourth edition contains Bordertown Café, Polygraph, Moo, The Orphan Muses, 7 Stories, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, Amigo’s Blue Guitar, Lion in the Streets, Never Swim Alone, Fronteras Americanas, Harlem Duet and Problem Child. ISBN 978-0-88922-437-7; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD ©2001; 408 pp; 6th printing
Young, naïve and inadequately trained nurse Heather Rose arrives in a remote Native community hoping to improve the lives of its residents, but ends up utterly disillusioned by the impotence of her interventions. Cast of 1 woman. “An achingly honest reminder of the naïvely enthusiastic attempts that each of us has made to wade bravely into unfamiliar territory.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-593-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2008; 64 pp; photos
Mom’s the Word
Omniscience
Linda A. Carson, Jill Daum, Alison Kelly, Robin Nichol, Barbara Pollard & Deborah Williams
Tim Carlson
Humorous stories, bittersweet monologues, poetic reflections and revelatory anecdotes about motherhood. Cast of 6 women. “I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to enjoy a show this much.” —Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-431-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2000; 112 pp; 2nd printing
The play begs the question of how many of our freedoms have been lost to the institutions engaged in surveillance “for our own protection.”Cast of 2 women and 3 men. “This assault on the modern media makes a clever stab at warning its audience of what’s to come on this crazy granite planet … ” —Vancouver Sun “Never less than intelligently provocative … ” —Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-562-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD © 2007; 96 pp; 2nd printing
44 / Drama Backlist
Talonbooks
On the Job
Past Perfect
David Fennario
Michel Tremblay
On Christmas Eve the workers in a Montreal shipping room get drunk and go on strike. Cast of 8 men.
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Chalmers Award Winner for Best Canadian Play, 1976. “Vibrates with the rough and ready energy of a street fight.” —Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-102-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1976; 112 pp; 4th printing
Unleashing the dark secret of her being, Albertine, one of Tremblay’s most unforgettable heroines, sets out to reconquer the beau she has lost to her younger sister. Cast of 3 women and 2 men. “The really scary, or beautiful, part is how much Albertine there is in every one of us.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-493-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2004; 96 pp
One Crack Out
Playing Bare
David French
Dominic Champagne
Charlie Evans, a pool shark, has two days to pay off a debt, or have his legs broken by a psychotic debt collector who is also having an affair with his wife. Cast of 2 women and 8 men.
Translated by Shelley Tepperman
“A definite winner that will be around for a long time.” —Ottawa Citizen
“It celebrates theatre by paying tribute to Godot, one of its most brilliant gems.” —Vancouver Sun
ISBN 978-0-88922-488-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2003; 96 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-335-6; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1993; 112 pp
Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth
The Power Plays
Drew Hayden Taylor
George F. Walker
The emotional struggle of a Native woman who was adopted by a white family to acknowledge her birth family. Cast of 2 women and 2 men.
First published as a trilogy in 1986, The Power Plays contains Gossip (1977), Filthy Rich (1979) and The Art of War (1983). These three plays showcase the development and the culmination of Walker’s film noir style.
James Buller Award for Playwright of the Year, 1997. Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, Small Theatre Division, 1996. “This is not just a great Native production. This is a great production. Period.” —CBC ISBN 978-0-88922-384-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1998; 112 pp; 6th printing
A mordant satire on the relation between theatre and life. Cast of 2 women and 4 men. Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1994.
“Walker has an eye for the ridiculous and an imagination that packs his plays with action.” —New York Times ISBN 978-0-88922-414-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1999; 208 pp
Other Schools of Thought
The Queens
Morris Panych
Normand Chaurette
Dramas that encourage adults to reflect on their past and young people to reflect on their future: Life Science, 2B WUT UR and Cost of Living.
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
“Cost of Living is a brilliant play about growing up.” —Globe & Mail
“This is a theatre of allusions, metaphysical playwriting of a literary richness which has yet to find its equal in Quebec drama.” —Le Devoir
ISBN 978-0-88922-346-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1994; 140 pp; b&w photos
The shifting passions and ambitions of six women drawn from Shakespeare’s theatre. Cast of 6 women.
ISBN 978-0-88922-403-2; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1998; 96 pp
Paradise by the River
The Real World?
Vittorio Rossi
Michel Tremblay
After Canada officially declares war with Italy, Romano, a recent immigrant, is arrested without charge in his own home. Cast of 2 women and 8 men.
Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco
“Tale of imprisoned Italians delivers explosive, full throttle energy … he succeeds at giving authentic voice to a specific community.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-393-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1998; 144 pp
A play within a play. A young playwright draws on his family as the raw material for his first work. Cast of 4 women and 3 men. “A virtuoso piece of writing by a master craftsman.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-260-1; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1988; 80 pp; 3rd printing
Talonbooks
Drama Backlist / 45
Remember Me
Saint Frances of Hollywood
Michel Tremblay
Sally Clark
Translated by John Stowe
The tragic life of Frances Farmer, the raucous, idealistic, non-conforming movie star of the ’30s and ’40s. Cast of 4 women and 4 men.
Two ex-lovers meet and compare and confess their fears and disillusionments. Cast of 2 men. “[Tremblay] has entered a new phase of his dramatic art.” —Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-219-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1984; 64 pp; 2nd printing
“It is this mix of fact and fantasy that Clark has captured so brilliantly and used to striking advantage … the effect is brutally chilling.” —Variety “A searing tragedy … ”
—Toronto Star
ISBN 978-0-88922-366-0; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1996; 200 pp
The Riddle of the World
Sainte-Carmen of the Main
David French
Michel Tremblay
A stockbroker and an ex-priest get together to console themselves after being abandoned by their mates and are forced to come to terms with their fragile natures as men. Cast of 3 women and 2 men.
Translated by John Van Burek
“French is one of Canada’s most acclaimed playwrights and an accomplished explorer of the power of memory.” —Quill & Quire
“An absolutely fascinating gesture by a powerful playwright.” —Globe & Mail
ISBN 978-0-88922-487-2; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2003; 66 pp
A play about cultural identity and cultural awakening based on a country and western singer of Montreal’s “The Main.” Cast of 4 women, 13 men and a chorus.
ISBN 978-0-88922-181-9; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1981; 80 pp; 4th printing
Rose
Sainte-Marie among the Hurons
Tomson Highway
James W. Nichol
A musical set on the Wasaychigan Hill Reserve in 1992. The battle for the future of the community builds to a shattering climax. Cast of 10 women and 7 men.
A play about the conscience of a priest during the disastrous mission the Jesuits made to the Huron Indians in the 17th century. Cast of 11 men.
“Tomson Highway has been a groundbreaking, foundational dramatist—the inaugural voice of a generation of First Nations playwrights in Canada.” —Canadian Literature
“The play has a burning sincerity … A fascinating glimpse of two totally different cultures.” —Ottawa Citizen
ISBN 978-0-88922-490-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2003; 160 pp; 2nd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-147-5; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1980; 80 pp; 2nd printing
George Ryga
Salt-Water Moon
The Other Plays George Ryga
David French
Edited by James Hoffman
The third book of the Mercer family saga. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.
“Hoffman provides an effective and multifaceted description for the student seeking a quick understanding of Ryga’s stature as a playwright.” —Canadian Literature
Winner of the Canadian Authors Association Drama Award, Dora Mavor Moore Award, Hollywood DramaLogue Critics Award and ACTRA Award.
ISBN 978-0-88922-500-8; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2004; 416 pp
“A gem of a play … affecting, funny and as evocative as a dream.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-257-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©1988; 88 pp; 6th printing
Saga of the Wet Hens
Schoolhouse
Jovette Marchessault
Leanna Brodie
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Full of warmth and poignant humour this drama set in a one-room schoolhouse evokes a way of life shared by generations of rural North Americans, exploring timeless themes of rejection, of compassion, of damage, of hope. Cast of 5 women and 7 men.
Four Quebec women writers meet at the centre of a fabulous vortex. Cast of 4 women. “Potent feminist literature.”
—Quill & Quire
“[Marchessault’s] fiction is lyrical and heartfelt, her drama literary, allusive, and absolutely original.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-213-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1983; 136 pp; 2nd printing
“A thoughtful … well-crafted … beautifully inspired piece … compelling and richly rural.” —Citizen ISBN 978-0-88922-571-8; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2007; 96 pp
46 / Drama Backlist
Talonbooks
The Seagull
Six Plays by Mavor Moore
Anton Chekhov
Mavor Moore
Translated by David French
In these theatre pieces stripped to the essentials of character sketches in quick, subtle lines, the emphasis is on the performer’s resources as an actor, rather than the externals of scene changes and stage contexts.
A revitalization of a Russian theatre classic. Cast of 5 women and 8 men. “Witty, while preserving the historical integrity of the characters … French’s effective translation should make this edition the favoured teaching and acting version in North America.” —Canadian Theatre Review ISBN 978-0-88922-324-0; $16.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1993; 112 pp; 4th printing
“One of the great men of Canadian drama.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-271-7; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1989; 208 pp
7 Stories
Soldier’s Heart
Morris Panych
David French
In this fast-paced, sophisticated and hilarious play, a man’s contemplation of suicide leads to a charming and surprising ending. Cast of 2 women and 3 men.
Esau Mercer, a veteran of the First World War, tries to persuade his alienated 16-year-old son, Jacob, not to leave. Slowly Esau’s devastating and unsparing account of what secrets lie in his soldier’s heart brings father and son together. Cast of 3 men.
Winner of 6 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards, 1989. “One of the best plays of the ’80s.”
—CBC
“Stunningly theatrical, endlessly witty and cruelly clear-headed.” —Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-281-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1990; 104 pp; 7th printing
“When it comes to playwriting, David French is perhaps … the most celebrated in English Canada.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-463-6; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2002; 96 pp; 2nd printing
The Shape of a Girl Jewel
Somewhere Else
Joan MacLeod
Contains Walker’s own selection of his early plays which matter; which for him have stood the test of time: Beyond Mozambique (1974), Zastrozzi (1977), Theatre of the Film Noir (1981) and Nothing Sacred (1988).
George F. Walker
The Shape of a Girl examines the code of silence and tacit complicity which surrounded the sensationalized murder of Reena Virk by school-aged bullies in 1997. Jewel is based on the real-life catastrophe of the sinking of the Ocean Ranger, an oil rig off the coast of Newfoundland, in 1982. ISBN 978-0-88922-460-5; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2002; 96 pp; 8th printing
“No other living playwright pushes the boundaries of comedy as far, with often stunning results.” —Chicago Sun Times ISBN 978-0-88922-402-5; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1999; 256 pp; 2nd printing
Silver Dagger
Song of the Say-Sayer
David French
Daniel Danis
French delivers a thriller guaranteed to have audiences perched on the edge of their seats. Cast of 4 women and 2 men.
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Arthur Ellis Award Nominee, 1994. “[A] meta-murder mystery.” —Canadian Theatre Review ISBN 978-0-88922-325-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1993; 136 pp
Three brothers strive to unite and care for their ailing sister after the death of their adoptive parents. Cast of 1 woman and 3 men. “At once sinister and hilariously funny, darkly ominous and positively hopeful … ” —Canadian Theatre Review ISBN 978-0-88922-419-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1999; 96 pp
Sisters
Studies in Motion
Wendy Lill
Kevin Kerr
A tough, uncompromising look at a convent-run Native residential school. The soul-destroying devastation caused by these institutions from the point of view of the nuns running the school. Cast of 4 women and 2 men.
Adultery, jealousy, murder and an abandoned child haunt the life of photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Cast of 5 women and 7 men.
“A moving theatrical experience.”
—Theatrum
ISBN 978-0-88922-289-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©1991; 96 pp; 4th printing
“A complex, thoughtfully layered script that makes us laugh and care about this deeply troubled man” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-592-3; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2008; 144 pp; photos
Talonbooks
Drama Backlist / 47
Suburban Motel
Tiln & Other Plays
George F. Walker
Michael Cook
Six plays that take place in the same hotel room: Problem Child, Criminal Genius, Risk Everything, Adult Entertainment, Featuring Loretta and The End of Civilization.
Three short plays by Cook: Tiln, Quiller and Therese’s Creed.
“We’re back in the strange world of George Walker, where humour and horror waltz drunkenly around in each other’s arms.” —Washington Post
“Evocative imagery, poignant character portrayal.” —Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-107-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1976; 112 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-412-4; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1999; 320 pp; 5th printing
The Tale of Teeka
Toronto, Mississippi
Michel Marc Bouchard
Joan MacLeod
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Drawing from MacLeod’s experience working with mentally handicapped adults and children, this play celebrates the personal challenges of both self-destruction and selfaffirmation so vital to the process of identity creation. Cast of 2 women and 2 men.
A play set in rural Quebec in the ’50s in which a battered child, Maurice, seeks refuge in a fantasy world. Cast of 1 man and 1 male child. “A play so achingly beautiful, restrained and moving that it clings to the heart and mind long after the last words are spoken.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-410-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1999; 64 pp
“See this play and fall in love.”
—Georgia Straight
ISBN 978-0-88922-583-1; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2008; 96 pp
Talking Bodies
The Trial of Judith K.
Larry Tremblay
Sally Clark
Translated by Sheila Fischman
Roughly based on Kafka’s The Trial, this black comedy transforms the lead character into a modern business woman who finds herself accused of an unknown crime. Cast of 4 women and 3 men.
A collection of Larry Tremblay’s four memorable solo performances for the stage: A Trick of Fate, Anatomy Lesson, The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi and Ogre. With an introduction by Jane M. Moss. “The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi is surely unique … This is a play that laments rather than preaches … ” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-445-2; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2001; 208 pp
“The futility of the individual before a dehumanizing bureaucracy has never been so funny.” —Toronto Tonight ISBN 978-0-88754-465-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1985; 122 pp
That Summer
The Trigger
David French
Carmen Aguirre
A woman returns to the cottage country of Ontario where, 32 years before, she vacationed with her family. Cast of 5 women and 2 men.
Based on the author’s own experience as a victim of the Paper Bag Rapist, The Trigger is a play written for anyone who has ever dealt with sexual violation and who continues to live with it at their core. Cast of 5 women.
“That Summer is a lyrical and beautifully constructed meditation on the passage of time and the transition from one generation to the next. David French is a playwright at the height of his powers.” —CBRA
“The Trigger is a knockout … intelligent, powerful, funny, horrific, theatrically stunning, and utterly free of victimology.” —Jerry Wasserman
ISBN 978-0-88922-439-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2000; 128 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-591-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2008; 64 pp
That Woman
Twenty Years at Play
Daniel Danis Translated by Linda Gaboriau
A New Play Centre Anthology Edited by Jerry Wasserman
The story of a woman sent away from her family by her brother the Bishop after she is found exploring her sexuality at age seventeen. Cast of 1 woman and 2 men.
This collection of eight of the finest plays produced by Vancouver’s New Play Centre marks the company’s 20th year.
“It is a tale of heartbreak spun out of an endless golden thread called hope.” —See Magazine
“Wasserman provides a fascinating history of the NPC … This book is essential.” —BCLA Reporter
ISBN 978-0-88922-399-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1998; 96 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-275-5; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1990; 346 pp
48 / Drama Backlist
Talonbooks
Two Plays
The Vic
George Woodcock
Leanna Brodie
This volume contains two uniquely Canadian stories of exile: The Island of Demons and Six Dry Cakes for the Hunted.
The Vic creates an ensemble of eight ethnically diverse women ranging in age from their teens to their fifties, each of them eager to claim the entitlement they feel their status as victim has “naturally” conferred upon them. Cast of 8 women.
“Voices from the past that haunt us still.” —Essays in Canadian Writing ISBN 978-0-88922-123-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1977; 112 pp
“Leanna Brodie has made a promising debut, and her best work here shows real talent.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-459-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2002; 128 pp; 2nd printing
2000
Vigil
Joan MacLeod
Morris Panych
The relationships of the young, the aging and the middleaged, and between urban life and nature at the end of the millennium. Cast of 3 women and 2 men.
An extremely self-centred and shallow person finds himself, through his own errors and inattentiveness, in a life-anddeath situation. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.
“2000 is a remarkable achievement.” —Canadian Book Review Annual
Winner of 3 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards,1995.
“Full of good insights … good lines.” —University of Toronto Quarterly
“A small masterpiece.”
ISBN 978-0-88922-373-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1997; 128 pp
“This is one Vigil well worth keeping.”
—Toronto Star —Globe & Mail
ISBN 987-0-88922-365-3; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©1996; 80 pp; 3rd printing
Unity (1918)
Waiting for the Parade
Kevin Kerr
John Murrell
In the fall of 1918, a world ravaged by four years of war was suddenly hit by a mysterious and deadly plague. As fear of the dreaded “Spanish” flu begins to fill the town of Unity with paranoia, drastic measures are taken. Cast of 6 women and 3 men.
Set in Calgary during World War II, five women work for the war effort while their men are away. Cast of 5 women. “Waiting for the Parade is an honest play that captures precisely the texture of ordinary hopes and despairs.” —Guardian
Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 2002. “[A] work of powerful and moving familiarity … “ —Globe & Mail
ISBN 978-0-88922-183-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1980; 112 pp; 11th printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-461-2; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2002; 128 pp; 6th printing
The Unnatural and Accidental Women
Walsh
Marie Clements
Sharon Pollock
A surrealist dramatization of a notorious 30-year murder case involving many mysterious deaths in the “Skid Row” area of Vancouver. Cast of 11 women and 2 men.
A historical documentary of Sitting Bull’s exile in Canada after the Montana massacre at Little Big Horn. Cast of 3 women and 11 men.
“A beautifully presented and acted play … ” —Raven’s Eye
“Undefinable magic that is the essence of art.” —Ottawa Citizen
“An impressive, powerful work.”
—Eye Weekly
ISBN 978-0-88922-521-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2005; 128 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-215-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD rev. ©1983; 136 pp; 12th printing
The Ventriloquist
Wanted
Larry Tremblay
Sally Clark
Translated by Keith Turnbull
Set during the Klondike gold rush, Wanted is a celebration of one woman’s determination to triumph over all who seek to possess her in a harsh social climate of chaos, opportunism, raw desire, greed and lust. Cast of 2 women and 4 men.
Theatre of innovation. Cast of 2 women and 2 men. “What lingers is a degree of delight at Tremblay’s ability not so much to weave a storyline as to unravel one with such finesse and beauty.” —Toronto Sun “This is the best new Quebec play in many years.” —CBC Radio-Canada
“[An] entirely original historical drama … an intriguing addition to Clark’s canon.” —Globe & Mail
ISBN 978-0-88922-536-7; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2006; 64 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-503-9; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2004; 160 pp
Talonbooks
Drama Backlist / 49
Warriors
What Lies Before Us
Michel Garneau
Morris Panych
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Two–time Governor General’s Award–winning playwright Panych has turned Waiting for Godot into a comedy while simultaneously heightening the profound existential questions it asks. Cast of 3 men.
Warriors enters the world of advertising where even if the product is war, it is still a product that can be sold. Cast of 2 men. “If you want a challenging piece of theatre prepare for Warriors.” —Calgary Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-282-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1989; 104 pp
Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2007. “Panych is … ambitious, talented, funny, feared, beloved … and altogether impossible to ignore.” —Toronto Life ISBN 978-0-88922-560-2; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2007; 96 pp
WASPS
Where the Blood Mixes
Sally Clark
Kevin Loring
A play about the elements of our constructed tribal identities: incest, fashion, fetishism, style, populist art, amateur psychobabble and a fascination with the other. Cast of 4 women and 2 men.
Can a person survive their past; can a people survive their history? Irreverently funny and brutally honest, this play about loss and redemption takes us to the bottom of a river, to the heart of a People. Cast of 2 women and 4 men.
“Clark skewers our nicey-nice apologist culture … It’s camp, it’s funny, and it’s nasty.” —Georgia Straight
Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 2009.
ISBN 978-0-88922-398-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1998; 128 pp
“Where the Blood Mixes … was the best of a stream of plays tackling [the Residential Schools’] disastrous legacy.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-608-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2009; 96 pp; 2nd printing
The Weekend Healer
Whereverville
Bryden MacDonald
Josh MacDonald
The disappearance of a young man acts as a catalyst for a drama that questions the nature of family and “traditional values.” Cast of 2 women and 1 man.
On the evening of Loam Bay’s vote on resettlement, schoolteacher Abby Shea, herself “from away,” must struggle with her own phantom attachment to the community before casting her deciding vote. Cast of 1 woman and 4 men.
“If Tennessee Williams were from the Maritimes and writing today, he’d sound a lot like Bryden MacDonald.” —Richard Ouzounian, CBC ISBN 978-0-88922-360-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1995; 128 pp
“Fresh and direct, with clear-eyed compassion and a surprising amount of humour.” —Halifax Daily News ISBN 978-0-88922-506-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2004; 96 pp
Westray
Willful Acts
The Long Way Home Chris O’Neill & Ken Schwartz
Margaret Hollingsworth
Although the Westray mine is dangerously mismanaged, a young father descends under the ground again to support his family. Cast of 2 women and 3 men.
An expanded and updated collection of Margaret Hollingsworth’s best known and most popular plays, including The Apple in the Eye, Everloving, Diving, Islands, War Babies and Commonwealth Games.
“Crisp, thoughtful, and entertaining, and every bit deserving of a standing ovation.” —Ottawa Citizen
Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1985 (War Babies).
ISBN 978-0-88922-491-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD rev. ©2004; 96 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-385-1; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1998; 256 pp
Whale Riding Weather
Written on Water
Bryden MacDonald
Michel Marc Bouchard
A faded old man finds his life slipping away from him along with his young male lover, who meets a new, younger man. Cast of 3 men.
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1994. “Powerfully written … ”
—Toronto Star
A group of seniors struggles to rescue and rewrite their memories when torrential rains wash away all records of their past. Cast of 3 women and 3 men.
“A roller-coaster ride of pain and humour and pathos and love … ” —Vancouver Sun
“A profound reflection on memory and on the act of writing … told with Michel Marc Bouchard’s characteristic humour and poetry.” —CBC
ISBN 978-0-88922-353-0; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1994; 128 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-492-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2004; 96 pp
50 / Poetry Backlist
Talonbooks
Amuse Bouche
Bread and Salt
Adeena Karasick
Renee Rodin
Mashing up the lexicon of war with post-industrial consumerism, haute cuisine, couture, language, Eros and desire, Karasick’s sixth book is at once dark and satirical, exuberant and amorously rigorous.
Bread and Salt—what you bring for luck to a new house— is a joyous affirmation of vision and courage in hard times.
“Her writing is an extraordinary tour de force in the new paraliterary initiative of ‘fiction/theory’ that blends various genres and revels in their ‘contamination.’” —CBRA
“Rodin uses the banal as a way to ground the text, weaving the everyday and the terrible together to create understanding.” —Hour ISBN 978-0-88922-367-7; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1996; 112 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-604-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2009; 108 pp; colour photos & illustrations
Aurora
Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh
Sharon Thesen
Fred Wah
Sharon Thesen’s poems express the pleasure and magic of a language fully engaging the world, rewarding the reader with daily moments transformed into visions of grace.
An important and enduring long poem from the “most poetical” of the TISH poets.
“In mind and heart and laughter, it’s a big book, full of surprises.” —Robin Blaser
“The impact is immediate, and the reader is able to experience Wah’s insight and respond to his graceful rhythmic tone.” —Windsor Star
ISBN 978-0-88910-471-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1995; 80 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-188-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©1981; 88 pp; 2nd printing
b leev abul char ak trs
Cartouches
bill bissett
Lola Lemire Tostevin
“Themes of love, lust and the degradation of nature’s order. bissett captures the loneliness of his characters and often the black humour that they reckon from their situations. His syntax at first seems like a wall to understanding but once on the other side the bricks become windows to a fantastic imagination.” —filling Station
The recent deaths of her father and several friends at the time of a trip to Egypt have led the author to write about the essential relation between language and death.
ISBN 978-0-88922-433-9; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2000; 144 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-355-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1995; 80 pp
Back to the War
The Centre
Frank Davey
Poems 1970–2000 Barry McKinnon
A careful archaeology of the catalogue of innocence assembled by a youthful imagination blossoming during World War II. “Davey has given us a rare album of verbal photographs … ” “A haunting poetic memoir … ”
—Arc
—abcbookworld.com
ISBN 978-0-88922-514-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2005; 128 pp; 2nd printing
“Lola Lemire Tostevin is an incisive, intelligent, and sharply observant writer … ” —Quarry “Lovely, nape-tingling work.”
—Books in Canada
“Barry McKinnon’s great skills as a poet make substantial all that living meets with and defines, and must finally accept willy-nilly … ” —Robert Creeley “His poems are a radical ‘placing’ of a poetics, but also an act of displacing language from civics … [McKinnon is] absolutely central to Canadian poetics.” —American Book Review ISBN 978-0-88922-497-1; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©2004; 192 pp
Blonds on Bikes
Change Room
George Bowering
Mark Cochrane
A composition of daily riffs during an autumn in Denmark and Italy; an album of verbal portraits by a husband and wife who see differently; and a series of tributes to other writers on special occasions.
The body is here fetishized by the creative power of desire to the point where the love of perfection crosses the boundaries of gender and polity.
“Bowering … can turn a reader’s head inside out with the turn of a phrase.” —Ottawa XPress ISBN 978-0-88922-381-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1997; 112 pp
“Mark Cochrane is a glorious writer.”
—Quill & Quire
“Cochrane’s blast-furnace intelligence … consumes everything in its path.” —BC Bookworld ISBN 978-0-88922-432-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2000; 144 pp
Talonbooks
Poetry Backlist / 51
The Commons
Dwell
Stephen Collis
Jeff Derksen
Tearing down (intellectual) property’s fencing, Collis’s poems demonstrate that what we call, in less inspired moments, “allusion,” “borrowing,” or even (pretentiously) “intertextuality” is just what poetry itself proves time and again: our languages are common. Shared. Un-enclosable.
An ironically revealing, humorous and analytic book.
ISBN 978-0-88922-580-0; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2008; 144 pp
“Language that’s resolute in its probe for meaningful co-ordinates.” —Fred Wah
Alberta Writers’ Guild Award Nominee, 1994. “[A] canny text, astute and sharp. This is a brilliant mind at work, dwelling in, dwelling on.” —Books in Canada
ISBN 978-0-88922-328-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1994; 112 pp
Cultural Mischief
Dyssemia Sleaze
A Practical Guide to Multiculturalism Frank Davey
Adeena Karasick
A collection of prose poems on the hyperbolic absurdities of multiculturalism in action.
Cf. SEMA, unit of meaning: i.e. Dyssemia: (flawed information reception) Sleaze / sli:z/ v. Rough with projecting fibres.
“Finally, what’s left is an irresistible, irrepressible read that’s bound to raise eyebrows.” —Monday Magazine
Bumbershoot Most Adventurous Publication Award Winner, 2000.
ISBN 978-0-88922-364-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1996; 144 pp
“Her most visually compelling, over-the-top collection to date.” —Publishers Weekly ISBN 978-0-88922-434-6; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2000; 96 pp; colour collages; 2nd printing
Dominican Moon
The Empress Has No Closure
Ken Norris
Adeena Karasick
Composed like a dark novel-in-verse, the second book in Norris’s travel trilogy is an unsettling story of the deficiencies of love steeped in a clash of cultures between the third world and the first.
The Empress Has No Closure contains, as a centre-piece, the “Alefbet Transfers,” a meditative, spacial explication of the 22 figures of the Hebrew alphabet.
“Ken Norris … has been hailed as Canada’s premier romantic poet.” —Toronto Star “One of the best poets of his generation.”
—Matrix
“All of it hums with intellectual energy, much of it is even funny.” —Books in Canada “An impressive deconstruction of language and meaning … ” —Canadian Literature
ISBN 978-0-88922-526-8; $17.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2005; 144 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-307-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1992; 100 pp; 2nd printing
Down Time
A Few Words Will Do
Jeff Derksen
Lionel Kearns
Proposes a social self that is able to recognize the ironies and restrictions we live in without returning to a garrison mentality.
When one person writes “this is what happened, this is what I know,” any reader stands in for the absent “I” or “eye” of that text. This inescapable process of language, preoccupies Kearns in these brief but concentrated pieces.
BC Book Prize Winner, 1991. “Wrenching intellectual and emotional dislocation that redefines the act of reading.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-278-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1990; 96 pp
“Lionel Kearns has been hovering over our poetry scene for years. Now we have his selected poems at last, and the bird has landed.” —George Bowering ISBN 978-0-88922-558-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD © 2007; 128 pp; illustrations
Dream Pool Essays
Fifty
Gil McElroy
Ken Norris
An active multiple streaming of apparently disparate sources: astronomy; theoretical cosmology and quantum physics; and the literary and visual arts.
Among its widely diverse poetic forms, the book constructs odes, elegies, sonnets and long poem sequences, as Norris travels from Maine to Santo Domingo, from Phnom Penh to Montreal, and from the shorelines of the Caribbean to the banks of the Mekong River.
Gerald Lampman Poetry Prize Nominee, 2002. “The expected subjects of faith, work, nature, solitude, and writing itself are represented with clarity and beauty.” —Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-454-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2001; 112 pp
“He is, in short, a poet, and a good one.” —Hiram Poetry Review ISBN 978-0-88922-479-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2003; 96 pp
52 / Poetry Backlist
Talonbooks
Five Star Planet
Ground Water
David W. McFadden
Colin Browne
This third volume in McFadden’s Terrafina Trilogy—which began with Gypsy Guitar and There’ll Be Another—is shaped by a wealth of poetic forms.
Investigates the elements of the spiritual topography of the 20th century and closely examines the conventional symbology passed on to the poet/map-maker by his ancestors.
“Two qualities … shine in all his works—a laser-like and sometimes uncomfortable honesty and his childlike sense of wonder.” —Windsor Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-468-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2002; 136 pp
BC Book Prize Finalist, 2003. Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 2002. “You are different after you have read this book.” —Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-465-0; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2002; 208 pp
fractal economies
Gypsy Guitar
derek beaulieu
David W. McFadden
beaulieu pushes the limits of poetry and poetics, challenging the status quo of the genre and the politics of language itself.
100 poems of love and betrayal—all presented in the unmistakable McFadden style.
“Never read a book of concrete poetry before? This might be the one to hook you.” —FFWD
“An exhilarating immersion in a uniquely bizarre and irrepressible imagination.” —Canadian Literature
“Represent[s] truly the best of beaulieu’s poetic practice.” —Prairie Fire Review of Books
Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 1988.
ISBN 978-0-88922-250-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1987; 112 pp; 3rd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-539-8; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2006; 96 pp
Genrecide
Hanging Fire
Adeena Karasick
Phyllis Webb
Explores through play and pun the intersection of multiple cultures, codes, idioms and constructs that have an impact on female identity.
Astonishingly beautiful entrances into the personae of lost companions who reappear, animated by a voice in love with the music of their speaking.
“Beautiful linguistic carnage … ”
“Few poets take us through the disasters of the world … with such exquisite moral precision.” —Rosemary Sullivan
“Bridging the genre gap … ” “Visually striking … ”
—Word —The Link
—Jewish Post and News
ISBN 978-0-88922-370-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1996; 96 pp; illustrations
ISBN 978-0-88910-391-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1990; 80 pp
gifts
harvest
rob mclennan
a book of signifiers rob mclennan
Unifying this book is the persona of the lover: as an intimate; as an interruption of the determinative self; as an unattainable weightlessness; and as the gravitational pull of the landscape itself. “rob mclennan is one of the best contemporary poets in Canada.” —Barry McKinnon ISBN 978-0-88922-605-0; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2009; 160 pp
What is harvested here are the signifiers for journeys: tickets, postcards, letters—recording unseemly haste, enforced idleness, losing one’s way, and sometimes finding it again. “For mclennan, there are no rules. His poetry defies convention or classification” —Room Magazine ISBN 978-0-88922-455-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2001; 128 pp
Going Home
Hotel Montreal
Ken Norris
New and Selected Poems Ken Norris
The whole manufactured unreality of our world falls away in these poems, leading us both toward and away from being “at home” in the present. “[Norris] is profoundly original, open and vulnerable, with a unique personal note that speaks to the heart of the reader.” —Poetry Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-573-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2007; 192 pp
Selections from 19 groundbreaking books of poetry that draw together the very best of Norris’s lyric poetry from a 25-year period, while offering the reader an indispensible panoramic view of the work of a poet at the height of his creative powers. “Unlock[s] a chrysalis of perplexity, awe, joy, and revelation … ” —Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-456-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2001; 160 pp
Talonbooks
Poetry Backlist / 53
The House That Hijack Built
Kerrisdale Elegies
Adeena Karasick
George Bowering
Explores the possibilities of meaning production when language is pushed to its limits of normative semantic patterns. Includes a homolinguistic “trans’elation” of the Sefer Yetzirah.
Bowering responds to Rilke’s Duino Elegies. In the intertextuality of these two great works can be found postmodern writing that is self-aware, where the other is discovered in the process of the writer writing.
“Perhaps the strangest, most irreverent and utterly shameless of possible responses to a tragedy, Karasick’s is also, finally, deeply and compellingly human.” —Publishers Weekly
“A lyricism that is spring-sweet and without boast or threat … Bowering has poured all his considerable power into one vessel, and he must be read.” —Globe & Mail
ISBN 978-0-88922-511-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2004; 128 pp; colour collages
ISBN 978-0-88922-590-9; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2008; 128 pp
I. Another. The Space Between
th last photo uv th human soul
Selected Poems Jamie Reid
bill bissett
“Jamie Reid’s later political writing packs a punch, often a dada-esque one … No topic falls beyond Reid’s scope … ” —BC Bookworld “[Reid] engages readers in a conversation, asking them always to try to make their neighbourhood, their city, their world a better place … ” —Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-512-1; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©2004; 192 pp
bill bissett has remained on a permanent world tour for over 30 years; he wrote this book while on a European reading circuit that included performances in London, Manchester, Cardiff, Dublin, Paris, Mainz, Trier and Berlin. “bissett … writes with savage wit and gravitates toward the lyric moment of spellbound wonder.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-322-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1993; 144 pp
th influenza uv logik
Last Scattering Surfaces
bill bissett
Gil McElroy
Canada’s most linguistically innovative poet takes on the “linear binary traps” of conventional logic, history and politics.
These poems map out zones of interaction which took place in the “surface of last scattering”—the first formation of matter in the universe.
“An important book … this is a sumptuous and satisfying sampling of beautifully crafted work.” —Books in Canada
ReLit Longlist, 2008.
ISBN 978-0-88922-357-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1995; 144 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-575-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2007; 128 pp
inkorrect thots
Limbo Road
bill bissett
Ken Norris
When bill bissett thinks “inkorrect thots” anything can happen.
Limbo Road—as divorce journal, meditation, travel poem—chronicles the search for the new beloved.
BC Book Prize Winner, 1993.
“I get a better sense, a tragic and painful sense, of the age we are living in than I do from the daily and nightly broadcasts of world news … profoundly original, open and vulnerable … speaks to the heart of the reader.” —Louis Dudek, Poetry Canada
“bissett could be our (Canadian, late 20th-century) answer to e.e. cummings.” —Whig Standard ISBN 978-0-88922-303-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1992; 136 pp; 2nd printing
“A master of the craft … [McElroy] is very, very intelligent and his ear is infallible.” —Arc
ISBN 978-0-88922-401-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1998; 160 pp
The Invisibility Exhibit
loving without being vulnrabul
Sachiko Murakami
bill bissett
Murakami’s first book of poetry, written in the political and emotional wake of Vancouver’s “Missing Women,” this project investigates the troubled relationship between a marginalized neighbourhood’s “invisible” populations and the city that surrounds them.
Poems that tell stories on many different levels: through sound, visual images, political insights, non-narrative fusion and linguistic music.
Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 2008. “An articulate and expertly rendered protest against the violence of erasure.” —Jon Paul Fiorentino ISBN 978-0-88922-579-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2008; 84 pp; 2nd printing
“Anybody who’s never heard [bissett] really ought to, because you’ll never think of poetry the same way after you hear him.” —Citylife ISBN 978-0-88922-372-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1997; 144 pp
54 / Poetry Backlist
Talonbooks
Mêmewars
bpNichol Comics
Adeena Karasick
bpNichol
Mêmewars is a book writing against itself.
Edited by Carl Peters
BC Book Prize Finalist, 1994.
Nichol’s comics (1960–1980) informed his work in other genres as well as the work of other writers.
“Mêmewars is electricity in language, eccentricity at its best … This book makes eye contact with she and with me. It reminds me how being a reader can be exciting.” —Nicole Brossard
“Nichol engages in visual wordplay and defies the conventional restraints of space and structure in comic books.” —National Post
ISBN 978-0-88922-344-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1994; 120 pp; 2nd printing
ISBN 978-0-88922-448-3; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2002; 320 pp
The Moustache
Noise from the Laundry
Memories of Greg Curnoe George Bowering
Weyman Chan
Bowering and Greg Curnoe became friends when their art was in its youth, and for 26 years they grew up parallel, inside each other’s work. “Documents a friendship through the kinship of the creative spirit.” —Kitchener-Waterloo Record ISBN 978-0-88910-457-0; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1993; 128 pp
Weyman Chan’s poems elaborate his singular and solitary work on the renaissance of the contemporary lyric form. Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 2008. Alberta Literary Awards Short List, 2009. “The deepest blues on prairie snow are Weyman Chan’s inks, his pen as precise and as elusive as the silken threads of a ‘tiny spider.’” —Sharon Proulx-Turner ISBN 978-0-88922-626-5; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD rev. ©2009; 104 pp
narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane
NonZero Definitions
bill bissett
Gil McElroy
Through narrative, non-narrative, sound, song, meditation, metaphysical, spiritual, political and visual poems, bissett explores the fragility and incompletion of all narratives.
The language of poetics emerges into the light of the purely formalist and luminous “definitions” of things and their movements as they engage in the ceaseless metamorphosis of replication in all of their endlessly unfolding possibilities.
“Touches on the great themes of humanity … in bissett’s inimitable way.” —Monday Magazine “bissett is one of the leading performance poets in Canada.” —Flak Magazine ISBN 978-0-88922-507-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2004; 144 pp
The New Long Poem Anthology Second Edition Edited by Sharon Thesen Features the work of Blaser, Bowering, Brand, Carson, Derksen, Dudek, Dewdney, Friesen, Hartog, Kiyooka, Kroetsch, Marlatt, McCaffery, McFadden, McKay, McKinnon, Mouré, Nichol, Ondaatje, Robertson, Stanley, Tostevin, Villemaire, Wah and Webb. ISBN 978-0-88922-438-4; $39.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©2001; 496 pp
“A master of the craft … [McElroy] is very, very intelligent and his ear is infallible … “ —Arc ISBN 978-0-88922-499-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2004; 128 pp
northern wild roses / deth interrupts th dansing bill bissett His rejection of the limiting conventions ofwritten language has allowed bissett to foreground the appearance of any linguistic event as a living performance. “[bissett’s] poetry addresses the limitless discussion of the boundaries between the personal and the political.” —National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-532-9; $17.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2005; 160 pp
News & Smoke
Pacific Windows
Selected Poems Sharon Thesen
Collected Poems of Roy K. Kiyooka Roy K. Kiyooka
“A compact and beautifully designed collection, nicely fleshed out with a broad selection of poems previously published only in journals and periodicals, not to mention its tantalizing sampling of new fare. Many will discover plenty to admire in News and Smoke.” —Toronto Star
Edited by Roy Miki
ISBN 978-0-88922-417-9; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1999; 160 pp
The most important poetic works of Kiyooka. Association for Asian American Studies Outstanding Book Award Winner, 1998. “All of Kiyooka’s writing … was made up of exquisite moments.” —Ottawa XPress ISBN 978-0-88922-378-3; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1997; 320 pp
Talonbooks
Poetry Backlist / 55
Pell Mell
The Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh
Robin Blaser
rob mclennan
Pell Mell, the middle voice, the syntax meeting its astonishments in its forward stride looking backwards, imagining an image nation where the heart is always torn, to pieces possessed by the other(s).
Thoroughly grounded in the media culture of television and film, mclennan’s language casts a deceptively familiar veil over the breadth and depth of reading which inform this work.
“Robin Blaser became a source for poetry’s authority beyond any simplifying place or time.” —Robert Creeley
Archibald Lampman Poetry Award Nominee, 2000.
ISBN 978-0-88922-601-2; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD rev. © 2009; 120 pp
“Just the right combination of details … carefully crafted, each line shifting the image slightly … ” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-424-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1999; 96 pp
peter among th towring boxes / text bites
scars on th seehors
bill bissett
bill bissett
bissett’s deliciously comic interrogation of the socio-political events towering around us like so many boxes we need constantly to imagine our way out of, is counterpoised in this collection by a recurring dream of a future locked in a global war.
bissett’s metric performs a kind of absence of narrative intent that lets everyone and everything speak for itself. As bissett puts it, “eye dont have 2 invent th world iumalredee in it.”
BC Book Prize Winner, 2003. “[bill bissett is] the shaman of Canadian poetry.” —Georgia Straight
“I find his work … very spiritual, very funny, and very astute.” —Alma Lee ISBN 978-0-88922-387-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1999; 160 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-464-3; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2002; 144 pp
Popular Narratives
Selected Poems
Frank Davey
The Arches Frank Davey
This book of prose poems strips down the codes and conventions that make up our society’s “popular narratives.” A revealing and witty, exploded view of our culture. “Risqué metaphors … scandalously unpoetic … a powerful alternative to the orthodoxy of poetic beauty.” —Smaro Kamboureli
Selections from seven of this important poet and editor’s long poems. “Possesses a concentrated power that is rarely evident.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-174-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1980; 112 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-285-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD; ©1991; 96 pp
Post-Prairie
Selected Poems
An Anthology of New Poetry Edited by Jon Paul Fiorentino & Robert Kroetsch
Beyond Even Faithful Legends bill bissett
25 individual talents come together in this groundbreaking collection for a rare literary event: the transition of a cultural identity primarily rooted in place to one that is rooted in a rapidly fragmenting, technology-based globalization.
“Represents a literary revolution.”
A definitive and comprehensive selection of bissett’s work. —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-172-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1980; 160 pp
ISBN 978-0-88922-523-7; $19.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2005; 160 pp
The Rap Canterbury Tales
Selected Poems
Baba Brinkman
Loki Is Buried at Smoky Creek Fred Wah
Hip-hop artist Brinkman resurrects Chaucer’s brilliant stories into visible and audible contemporary forms. “It’s a fun, crisp, non-literal translation of Chaucer’s work that, at its very best, captures the verve and stylized rhymes of its inspiration.” —Bloomsbury Review ISBN 978-0-88922-548-0; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2006; 352 pp; 3rd printing
Poems of landscape, language and memory from Wah’s earlier books. “Wah’s poems continually return us to the act of communion and the realization of our shared, not individual, life.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-177-2; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1980; 128 pp
56 / Poetry Backlist
Talonbooks
Selected Poems
The Singer’s Broken Throat
The Vision Tree Phyllis Webb
Des Walsh
Poetry distinguished by its attention to form and thought. Governor General’s Poetry Award Winner, 1982. “Phyllis Webb … is one of the finest poets now writing in Canada.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-202-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1982; 160 pp; 4th printing
Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland & Labrador Heritage and History Award Finalist, 2005. “Alternatively tender and bitter, this collection is at once a prayer for love’s endurance and a lament for a nation … ” —Fiddlehead “Walsh is, and always has been, Newfound-land’s poet.” —Sunday Independent ISBN 978-0-88922-478-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2003; 64 pp
Selected Writing
Sticks & Stones
As Elected bpNichol
George Bowering
Selections from visual poetry to translations by one of the most important poets in the 20th century writing in English. “bpNichol’s work is the most courageous body of work in Canadian literature.” —Frank Davey ISBN 978-0-88922-176-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1980; 144 pp
George Bowering’s first book of poetry. With a preface by Robert Creeley and original line drawings by Gordon Payne. “His feeling for form, for poetry as something made, is what gives his early pieces their ability to endure.” —Vancouver Province ISBN 978-0-88922-268-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1989; 64 pp
Selected Writing
sublingual
Net Work Daphne Marlatt
bill bissett
Poetry and prose with an instantaneous recognition of perceptions and thought. “Confronts political realities on the level in which they impinge upon people’s lives.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-175-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1980; 144 pp
sublingual is perhaps the most highly structured yet of bissett’s “textual visions.” Its first seven poems construct a Genesis, beginning with a poem of birth—our pre- or sublingual first breath, a phenomenological gesture of recognition, of both being and belonging, in and of the world. Following this short creation story, the book continues to unfold in luminous and lucid delight. ISBN 978-0-88922-589-3; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2008; 160 pp
Sentenced to Light
There’ll Be Another
Fred Wah
David W. McFadden
An astonishing series of unique collaborative image-text projects, Sentenced to Light privileges its poetic and formal textual space outside most of the images that are its original twins and offers the reader a glimpse of the dialectic of larger conversations, the unpredictable, improvisatory bavardage that whispers between words and pictures in an intrinsically poetic space.
Three books in one: Heavy-Hearted in Havana, Sex with a Sixteen Year Old and Anonymity Suite Part II.
ISBN 978-0-88922-577-0; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©2008; 160 pp; Colour photos & illustrations
“They are beautifully written and enjoyable to read.” —Quill & Quire “McFadden should be everybody’s favorite poet.” —Ottawa XPress ISBN 978-0-88922-361-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1995; 128 pp
The Shovel
This Tremor Love Is
Colin Browne
Daphne Marlatt
In this extraordinary book, Colin Browne inverts the traditional ways we define and privilege forms of the English language; self-expression becomes prosaic, the recording of history poetic.
This Tremor Love Is is a memory book—an album of love poems spanning twenty-five years, from Marlatt’s first writing of what was to become the opening section, A Lost Book, to its latest, most recent sequences.
ReLit Award Short List, 2008.
BC Book Prize Finalist, 2002.
“The epic sweep of pieces is impressive, at times rapturous. They are worth digging for.” —Quill & Quire
ReLit Award Nominee, 2002.
ISBN 978-0-88922-574-9; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2007; 192 pp; photos
ISBN 978-0-88922-450-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2001; 112 pp; 2nd printing
Talonbooks
Poetry Backlist / 57
ths is erth thees ar peopul
Vermeer’s Light
bill bissett
Poems 1996–2006 George Bowering
The quest in this latest fusion of song, sound, performance and visual poetry from bill bissett is for a human condition outside the perpetual terror of the 21st century.
“His poetry addresses the limitless discussion of the boundaries between the personal and the political.” —National Post
“Harrowing and heartbreaking, these pages walk the tightrope of sentiment without falling into sentimentality … [T]he volume is characterized by the terse honesty, purity of voice, and wry humour that are Bowering’s trademark … It’s a tour de force, and a window into the mind of one of Canada’s most significant poets.” —Quill & Quire
ISBN 978-0-88922-557-2; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD © 2007; 144 pp; illustrations
ISBN 978-0-88922-565-7; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD rev. © 2007; 224 pp
Transnational Muscle Cars
what’s left
Jeff Derksen
rob mclennan
“Plays ‘chicken’ with postmodernism, hurtling itself with its hard, glossy, and state-of-art body in a challenge to see who will swerve first.” —Sianne Ngai
Presents us with cues and clues to the poet’s compositional strategies.
ReLit Award Nominee, 2008.
“Accessible in themes, comfortably paced and motored by an anti-heroic punk sensibility … ” —Publishers Weekly ISBN 978-0-88922-473-5; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2003; 128 pp; 3rd printing
“mclennan works with a genuine verbal invention and his cultural ephemera laid out in pastiche make a strong impression.” —University of Toronto Quarterly “mclennan is one of the most promising voices of his generation … ” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-498-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2004; 144 pp
58 / Complete Booklist by Author
Talonbooks All books are published in trade paperback unless otherwise shown.
A
bissett, bill b leev abul char ak trs
Aguirre, Carmen The Trigger
Bourguignon, Stéphane 50 A Slight Case of Fatigue
978-0-88922-433-9; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
47 th influenza uv logik
978-0-88922-591-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
inkorrect thots
Angus, Ian
53
978-0-88922-357-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
53
978-0-88922-303-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
Carson, Linda A. et al. 30 Mom’s the Word
978-0-88922-596-1; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
Bowering, George And Other Stories
Caux, Patrick & Bernard Gilbert 25 EX MACHINA: Creating for the Stage 13 978-0-88922-617-3; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD 16
978-0-88922-451-3; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
Baseball Love Anarcho-Modernism: Toward a New th last photo uv th human soul 53 Critical Theory in Honour of Jerry 978-0-88922-529-9; $19.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Champagne, Dominic 978-0-88922-322-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Zaslove 16 Blonds on Bikes 50 Playing Bare loving without being vulnrabul 53 978-0-88922-457-5; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD
Archambault, François 15 Seconds
narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane 38
978-0-88922-427-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
The Leisure Society
978-0-88922-372-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
54
978-0-88922-507-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
43
978-0-88922-431-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
978-0-88922-381-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
Harry’s Fragments
27
978-0-88910-387-0; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD
Kerrisdale Elegies
Chan, Weyman
53 Hypoderm
978-0-88922-590-9; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD
44
978-0-88922-335-6; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
6
978-0-88922-637-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
41 northern wild roses / deth interrupts Noise from the Laundry 54 The Moustache: Memories of Greg th dansing 54 Curnoe 54 978-0-88922-626-5; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
978-0-88922-531-2; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
Arnason, David The Circus Performers’ Bar
978-0-88922-532-9; $17.95 CAD / $15.95 USD
978-0-88922-218-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
978-0-88922-464-3; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
The Happiest Man in the World and scars on th seehors Other Stories 27 978-0-88922-269-4; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD
The Pagan Wall
978-0-88910-457-0; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
peter among th towring boxes / text My Darling Nellie Grey 26 bites 55
29
978-0-88922-312-7; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
Arnett, Chris
55
978-0-88922-387-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
Selected Poems: Beyond Even Faithful Legends 55 978-0-88922-172-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
sublingual
56
3
978-0-88922-634-0; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD
The Rain Barrel
29
978-0-88922-345-5; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
Sticks & Stones
56
978-0-88922-268-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
Vermeer’s Light: Poems 1996–2006
57
Gideon’s Blues
39
Chaurette, Normand All the Verdis of Venice
32
978-0-88922-442-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
The Concise Köchel
35
978-0-88922-518-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists 39 978-0-88922-400-1; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
44 978-0-88922-565-7; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 978-0-88922-589-3; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD The Terror of the Coast: Land 978-0-88922-403-2; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ths is erth thees ar peopul 57 Boyd, George Alienation and Colonial War on Chekhov, Anton 978-0-88922-557-2; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Consecrated Ground Vancouver Island and the Gulf 35 The Seagull 46 Islands, 1849–1863 23 978-0-921368-91-5; $12.95 CAD / $10.95 USD 978-0-88922-318-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
Blais, Marie-Claire
American Notebooks: A Writer’s Journey
The Queens
978-0-88922-324-0; $16.95 CAD / $14.95 USD
Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand: Oral 978-0-88922-496-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Christensen, Bev 16 Traditions of the Hul’q’umi’num’ Too Good to Be True 23 978-0-88922-358-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Brinkman, Baba Coast Salish of Kuper Island and 978-0-88922-354-7; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD The Angel of Solitude 25 The Rap Canterbury Tales 55 Vancouver Island 23 978-0-88922-555-8; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD
978-0-88922-337-0; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
Dürer’s Angel
27
978-0-88922-111-6; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
B
The Execution
Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians under Allied Occupation, 1944–1950
Blaser, Robin Pell Mell 18
978-0-88922-567-1; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD
38
978-0-88922-508-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
Schoolhouse
45
978-0-88922-571-8; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD
55 The Vic
978-0-88922-601-2; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
Clark, Sally
Life Without Instruction
Brodie, Leanna
38 For Home and Country
978-0-88922-601-2; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
Bacque, James
978-0-88922-548-0; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD
48
978-0-88922-459-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
Boas, Franz
42
978-0-88922-347-9; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD
Lost Souls and Missing Persons
42
978-0-88922-397-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
Saint Frances of Hollywood
45
978-0-88922-366-0; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD
The Trial of Judith K.
47
978-0-88754-465-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
Brooks, Daniel & Guillermo Wanted 48 Indian Myths & Legends from the 978-0-88922-503-9; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Verdecchia North Pacific Coast of America: A 49 Timothy Findley and the Aesthetics of The Noam Chomsky Lectures 43 WASPS Translation of Franz Boas’ 978-0-88922-398-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Fascism: Intertextual Collaboration 978-0-88922-405-6; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Indianische Sagen von der Nordand Resistance 18 Clements, Marie Pacifischen Küste Amerikas 19 Browne, Colin 978-0-88922-386-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD 34 978-0-88922-553-4; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD Ground Water 52 Burning Vision Bailey, Anne Geddes
Barnholden, Michael
978-0-88922-465-0; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD
Bouchard, Michel Marc
978-0-88922-472-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
35 Circumstances Alter Photographs: The Shovel 56 Copper Thunderbird The Coronation Voyage 35 Captain James Peters’ Reports from 978-0-88922-568-8; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD 978-0-88922-574-9; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 978-0-88922-422-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD the War of 1885 13 The Unnatural and Accidental Down Dangerous Passes Road 36 Burns, Mary Cloth: 978-0-88922-621-0; $35.00 CAD / $35.00 USD Women 48 978-0-88922-440-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Shinny’s Girls and Other Stories 30 978-0-88922-521-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD beaulieu, derek The Tale of Teeka 47 978-0-88922-272-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Cochrane, Mark fractal economies 52 978-0-88922-410-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD 978-0-88922-539-8; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Written on Water Change Room 50 49 C How to Write 9 978-0-88922-432-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD 978-0-88922-492-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD 978-0-88922-629-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
Belford, Ken Decompositions
Boucher, Denise The Fairies Are Thirsty
4
978-0-88922-631-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
Collis, Stephen
Carlson, Tim 38 Diplomacy
978-0-88922-200-7; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD
36 The Commons
978-0-88922-611-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
Omniscience
43 On the Material
978-0-88922-562-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
51
978-0-88922-580-0; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
7
978-0-88922-632-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
Talonbooks
Complete Booklist by Author / 59
Phyllis Webb and the Common Good: Cultural Mischief 51 Enright, Robert French, David Poetry / Anarchy / Abstraction 24 978-0-88922-364-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Peregrinations: Conversations with Jitters 41 978-0-88922-559-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Popular Narratives 55 Contemporary Artists 20 978-0-88922-242-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD 978-0-88922-285-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD 978-0-921368-67-0; $24.95 CAD / $18.95 USD 1949 43 Conolly, L. W. Selected Poems: The Arches 55 978-0-88922-266-3; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Canadian Drama and the Critics 978-0-88922-174-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD One Crack Out 44 (Revised Edition) 17 F 978-0-88922-359-2; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD
Cook, Michael Jacob’s Wake
The Riddle of the World 45 Farrant, M.A.C. Paul Martin & Companies: Sixty 978-0-88922-487-2; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Theses on the Alegal Nature of Tax The Breakdown So Far 25 41 Salt-Water Moon 45 Havens 20 978-0-88922-556-5; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
978-0-88922-097-3; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD
Tiln & Other Plays
978-0-88922-488-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
Deneault, Alain
978-0-88922-538-1; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Darwin Alone in the Universe
47
978-0-88922-107-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
26
978-0-88922-471-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
Deneault, Alain et al.
978-0-88922-257-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
Silver Dagger
46
978-0-88922-325-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Down the Road to Eternity: New & Soldier’s Heart 46 Selected Fiction 14 Choice for the World’s Mining 978-0-88922-463-6; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Lasagna: The Man Behind the Mask 978-0-88922-615-9; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Industries 1 That Summer 47 19
Cross, Ronald & Hélène Sévigny
978-0-88922-635-7; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD
978-0-88922-348-6; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD
978-0-88922-439-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
Cambodia: A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow 25
Derksen, Jeff
Cryer, Beryl Mildred
Fawcett, Brian
Annihilated Time: Poetry and Other G Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand: Oral 978-0-88922-237-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Politics 16 Traditions of the Hul’q’umi’num’ 25 978-0-88922-612-8; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD Capital Tales Gagnon, Madeleine Coast Salish of Kuper Island and 978-0-88922-221-2; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Down Time 51 My Name Is Bosnia 29 Vancouver Island 23 978-0-88922-278-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD My Career with the Leafs & Other 978-0-88922-542-8; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 978-0-88922-555-8; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD Stories 29 Dwell 51 Women in a World at War: Seven 978-0-88922-199-4; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Culhane, Dara 978-0-88922-328-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Dispatches from the Front 24 The Secret Journal of Alexander An Error in Judgement: The Politics of Transnational Muscle Cars 57 978-0-88922-483-4; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Mackenzie 30 Medical Care in an Indian / White 978-0-88922-473-5; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD 978-0-88922-227-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Gale, Lorena Community 18 Desjardins, Martine Je me souviens 41 978-0-88922-246-5; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Fennario, David All That Glitters 25 978-0-88922-453-7; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD The Pleasure of the Crown: Balconville 33 978-0-88922-520-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Anthropology, Law and First 978-0-88922-145-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Galluccio, Steve A Covenant of Salt 26 Nations 21 Banana Boots 33 Mambo Italiano 42 978-0-88922-566-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD 978-0-88922-315-8; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD
Fairy Ring
27
978-0-88922-449-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
D
Deverell, Rex Boiler Room Suite
D’Acres, Lilia & Donald Luxton Lions Gate
978-0-88922-137-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
19
Cloth: 978-0-88922-416-2; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD
Douglas, Stan
Dalpé, Jean Marc
Vancouver Anthology
Scattered in a Rising Wind
Ducharme, Réjean Go Figure
Danis, Daniel
978-0-88922-419-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
That Woman
47
978-0-88922-399-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
978-0-88910-421-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
Davey, Frank
Durand, Monique
978-0-88922-217-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD
50
978-0-88922-514-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
Bardy Google
978-0-88922-291-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
Nothing to Lose
8
978-0-88922-636-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
Garrard, Jim
41 Cold Comfort 43
978-0-88922-121-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
35
978-0-88922-201-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
Glover, Douglas
44 Dog Attempts to Drown Man in Saskatoon 978-0-88922-102-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
Findley, Timothy 34
Pollock
Fiorentino, Jon Paul &
19
978-0-88922-586-2; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD
Robert Kroetsch
Fischer, Hervé
Strange Comfort: Essays on the Work of Malcolm Lowry 13 978-0-88922-618-0; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
Grace, Sherrill & Albert-Reiner Glaap
The Decline of the Hollywood Empire Performing National Identities: 18 International Perspectives on 978-0-88922-545-9; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Contemporary Canadian Theatre 20
Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story Frangione, Lucia of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture Cariboo Magi 22 978-0-88922-443-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD
Grace, Sherrill
978-0-88922-119-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon
978-0-88922-523-7; $19.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
E
26
978-0-88922-228-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
29 Post-Prairie: An Anthology of New 978-0-88922-535-0; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD Poetry 55
Margaret Atwood: A Feminist Poetics Ebtekar, Massoumeh with 16 Fred A. Reed Back to the War
978-0-88922-332-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
Can You See Me Yet? 13
978-0-88922-625-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
28
Garneau, Michel
49 Doctor Thomas Neill Cream (Mystery Warriors 978-0-88922-282-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD at McGill) 36
The Painter’s Wife
Daurio, Beverley Hell & Other Novels
27
Dumont, Gabriel
46 Gabriel Dumont Speaks
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On the Job
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Song of the Say-Sayer
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36
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60 / Complete Booklist by Author
Grace, Sherrill &
Talonbooks
Hogg, Robert
Kennedy, Dorothy & Randy
Leonoff, Cyril E.
An English Canadian Poetics Bouchard Vol. I: The Confederation Poets 18 Indian Myths & Legends from the Theatre and AutoBiography: Writing 978-0-88922-613-5; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD and Performing Lives in Theory and North Pacific Coast of America: A Practice 23 Hollingsworth, Margaret Translation of Franz Boas’ 1895 Edition of Indianische Sagen von 978-0-88922-540-4; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Willful Acts 49 der Nord-Pacifischen Küste 978-0-88922-385-1; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Gray, John Amerikas 19 Local Boy Makes Good 42 Homel, David 978-0-88922-553-4; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD
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Unity (1918)
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Kitagawa, Muriel Memories of You 43 Inglis, Raul Sanchez Re: Producing Women’s Dramatic This Is My Own 23 978-0-88922-489-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD History: The Politics of Playing in In the Eyes of God 41 43 Cloth: 978-0-88922-231-1; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD The Occupation of Heather Rose Toronto 21 978-0-88922-561-9; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
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J
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Where the Blood Mixes 49 16 Knickerbocker, Nancy 978-0-88922-608-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD 978-0-88922-106-2; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD 978-0-88922-423-0; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD No Plaster Saint: The Life of Mildred Osterhout Fahrni 20 Luxton, Donald Hendry, Tom Johnson, Chris 978-0-88922-452-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Building the West: The Early Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass 38 Essays on George F. Walker: Playing Architects of British Columbia 17 with Anxiety 18 Kröller, Eva-Marie 978-0-88922-096-6; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD 978-0-88922-554-1; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD 978-0-921368-82-3; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD George Bowering: Bright Circles of Hentsch, Thierry Colour 17 Empire of Desire: 978-0-88922-306-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD M The Abolition of Time 18 K The Great Wave of Civilization
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McCaffery, Steve & bpNichol
L Karasick, Adeena Truth or Death: The Quest for Rational Geomancy: The Kids of the Immortality in the Western Narrative Amuse Bouche 50 Book-Machine 21 Tradition 23 978-0-88922-604-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Lafond, Jean-Daniel & 978-0-88922-300-4; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD Fred A. Reed 978-0-88922-509-1; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD Dyssemia Sleaze 51 978-0-88922-434-6; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Conversations in Tehran 17 Macdonald, Bruce Highway, Tomson 24 The Empress Has No Closure 51 978-0-88922-550-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Vancouver: A Visual History Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout 38 978-0-88922-525-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
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Last Scattering Surfaces
Complete Booklist by Author / 61
53 Mother of the Grass
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NonZero Definitions
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56 This Tremor Love Is
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53 Earshot
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52 The Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories 978-0-88922-605-0; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD
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57 Beyond Recall
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20 Sainte-Marie among the Hurons 978-0-88922-582-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD The Medusa Head 45 978-0-88922-210-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD 40 978-0-88922-147-5; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD 31 978-0-88922-411-7; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD The Time Being 978-0-88922-374-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Norris, Ken The Shape of a Girl / Jewel 46 The Hope Slide / Little Sister
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2000
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51 Rebar, Kelly
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53
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51 Listen to the Wind
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52 Cloth: 978-0-88922-263-2; $39.95 CAD / $34.95 USD Going Home 26 Tracing the Paths: Reading =/ Writing 978-0-88922-573-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD
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39 Dominican Moon
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R
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62 / Complete Booklist by Author
Talonbooks
Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story In the Shadow of the Vulture 28 In a World Created by a Drunken God Bonjour, Là, Bonjour (Revised) 33 of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture 40 978-0-88922-233-5; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 978-0-88922-252-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD 22 George Ryga: The Other Plays 978-0-88922-537-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra 45 36 978-0-88922-443-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD 978-0-88922-500-8; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth 978-0-88922-184-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD 44 The Driving Force George Ryga: The Prairie Novels 30 37 Reid, Jamie I. Another. The Space Between: Selected Poems
978-0-88922-501-5; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
53
Summerland
978-0-88922-313-4; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD
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Aurora
41
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Robertson, Leslie A. &
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The New Long Poem Anthology (Second Edition)
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Dara Culhane
50
In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Schermbrucker, Bill Downtown Eastside Vancouver 19 Chameleon & Other Stories 978-0-88922-513-8; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
54
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34 News & Smoke: Selected Poems
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54
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Thomas, Audrey 26 Latakia
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The Duchess and the Commoner
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30 Thesen, Sharon
26
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La Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays
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En Pièces Détachées
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28 The First Quarter of the Moon
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27
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29 For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again 39 978-0-88922-389-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD 29 Motortherapy 29 Real Mothers Living by Stories: A Journey of 39 978-0-88922-191-8; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Forever Yours, Marie-Lou 978-0-88922-330-1; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Landscape and Memory 21 978-0-88922-349-3; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Songs My Mother Taught Me 30 978-0-88922-522-0; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Scobie, Stephen 27 978-0-88922-329-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD The Heart Laid Bare Nature Power: In the Spirit of an bpNichol: What History Teaches 20 978-0-88922-425-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Okanagan Storyteller 21 978-0-88922-220-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Tostevin, Lola Lemire Hosanna 40 978-0-88922-504-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Cartouches 50 978-0-88922-296-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Scott, Gail Write It on Your Heart: The Epic 978-0-88922-355-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD The Impromptu of Outremont 40 Heroine 28 World of an Okanagan Storyteller Tremblay, Larry 978-0-88922-185-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD 978-0-88922-415-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD 21 40 25 Impromptu on Nuns’ Island 28 The Bicycle Eater 978-0-88922-502-2; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Main Brides
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Wickwire
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50 Simons, Beverley 978-0-88922-367-7; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Crabdance
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Talking Bodies
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The Ventriloquist
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Suttles, Wayne Mile End 28 Carmela’s Table: A Carpenter’s Trilogy, 978-0-88922-467-4; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Coast Salish Essays 17 A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part Two 978-0-88922-212-0; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Tremblay, Michel 34 978-0-88922-594-7; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Albertine in Five Times (trans. Gaboriau) 32 Hellfire Pass: A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A T Chronicle in Three Plays, Part One 978-0-88922-627-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD 40 Tallman, Warren Albertine in Five Times (trans. Van 978-0-88922-564-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD In the Midst Burek & Glassco) 32 19 Paradise by the River 44 978-0-88922-234-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD 978-0-88922-308-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 978-0-88922-393-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Assorted Candies for the Theatre 32 Taylor, Drew Hayden
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alterNatives 36
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Theme for Diverse Instruments
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Rule, Jane Desert of the Heart
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33
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Ryga, George The Athabasca Ryga
The Buz’Gem Blues 25
978-0-88922-462-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
978-0-88922-276-2; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Fearless Warriors
The Ecstasy of Rita Joe
34
Bambi and Me
16
978-0-88922-380-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
Les Belles Soeurs (Revised)
978-0-88922-517-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
Past Perfect
44
978-0-88922-493-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
The Real World?
44
978-0-88922-260-1; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
The Red Notebook
29
978-0-88922-588-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD
Remember Me
45
978-0-88922-219-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
Sainte-Carmen of the Main
45
978-0-88922-181-9; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD
Some Night My Prince Will Come 30 978-0-88922-510-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
Birth of a Bookworm
31
978-0-88922-198-7; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD
31
978-0-88922-390-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD
16 Twelve Opening Acts
978-0-88922-476-6; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD
23
978-0-88922-466-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD
25 Tussman, Joseph
978-0-88922-543-5; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
The Blue Notebook
Hanging Angel
33 A Thing of Beauty
978-0-88922-302-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
14
978-0-88922-619-7; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD
Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies 27 17
37 978-0-88922-597-8; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 978-0-88922-000-3; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD 400 Kilometres 39
29
978-0-88922-435-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD
978-0-88922-572-5; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little
31 The Boy in the Treehouse / Girl Who The Black Notebook Loved Her Horses 34
978-0-88922-060-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD
42
978-0-88922-326-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
News from Édouard
978-0-88922-534-3; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
42
978-0-88922-295-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
48 Marcel Pursued by the Hounds
978-0-88922-536-7; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
The Carpenter: A Carpenter’s Trilogy, Strindberg, August Tremblay, Lise 43 A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part Three Miss Julie The Hunting Ground 34 978-0-88922-549-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
978-0-88922-470-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
47 La Maison Suspendue
978-0-88922-541-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
The Burden of Office: Agamemnon and Other Losers 17 978-0-88922-265-6; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD
Talonbooks
Complete Booklist by Author / 63
V
Watts, Charles & Edward Byrne The Recovery of the Public World
Vanderhaeghe, Guy Dancock’s Dance
36 Webb, Phyllis
978-0-88922-533-6; $16.95 CAD / $14.95 USD
Hanging Fire
Verdecchia, Guillermo Another Country / bloom
32 Selected Poems: The Vision Tree
39
The Chilliwacks and Their Neighbors 17 978-0-88922-255-7; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
978-0-88922-383-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
Verdecchia, Guillermo & Marcus Youssef A Line in the Sand
56
978-0-88922-202-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
26 Wells, Oliver N.
978-0-88922-391-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
Fronteras Americanas: American Borders
52
978-0-88910-391-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
978-0-88922-570-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
Citizen Suárez
21
978-0-88922-388-2; $39.95 CAD / $29.95 USD
Woodcock, George Two Plays
48
978-0-88922-123-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
42
978-0-88922-375-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
W
Y York, Annie, Richard Daly &
Wah, Fred Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh
Chris Arnett They Write Their Dreams on the Rock 50 Forever 23
978-0-88922-188-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
is a door
14
978-0-88922-620-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
Selected Poems: Loki Is Buried at Smoky Creek
56
978-0-88922-577-0; $29.95 CAD; $29.95 USD
Walker, George F. The East End Plays: Part 1
37
978-0-88922-413-1; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD
The East End Plays: Part 2
37
978-0-88922-404-9; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD
Heaven
40
978-0-88922-429-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD
The Power Plays
44
978-0-88922-414-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD
Somewhere Else
46
978-0-88922-402-5; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD
Suburban Motel
47
978-0-88922-412-4; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD
Walsh, Des Love and Savagery
14
978-0-88922-599-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
The Singer’s Broken Throat
56
978-0-88922-478-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD
Wasserman, Jerry Modern Canadian Plays: Volume I 43 978-0-88922-436-0; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD
Modern Canadian Plays: Volume II 43 978-0-88922-437-7; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD
Spectacle of Empire: Marc Lescarbot’s Theatre of Neptune in New France 22 978-0-88922-547-3; $21.95 CAD / $21.95 USD
Twenty Years at Play: A New Play Centre Anthology
Youssef, Marcus Adrift
55
978-0-88922-177-2; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD
Sentenced to Light
Cloth: 978-0-88922-331-8; $60.00 CAD / $40.00 USD
47
978-0-88922-275-5; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD
32
978-0-88922-585-5; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD
Youssef, Marcus, Guillermo Verdecchia & Camyar Chai The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil 32 978-0-88922-516-9; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD
64 / Complete Bookslist by Title
A ABC of Reading TRG, 16 Adrift, 32 Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil, The, 32 After Jack, 10 Albertine in Five Times (trans. Gaboriau), 32 Albertine in Five Times (trans. Van Burek & Glassco), 32 All Fall Down, 32 All That Glitters, 25 All the Verdis of Venice, 32 alterNatives, 32 American Notebooks, 16 Amigo’s Blue Guitar, 32 Amuse Bouche, 50 Anarcho-Modernism, 16 Anatolia Junction, 16 And Other Stories, 25 Angel of Solitude, The, 25 Annihilated Time, 16 Another Country / bloom, 32 Another Home Invasion, 15 Asian Skies, 5 Assorted Candies for the Theatre, 32 Athabasca Ryga, The, 25 Atwood, Margaret: A Feminist Poetics, 16 Aurora, 50
B b leev abul char ak trs, 50 Baby Blues, The, 33 Back to the War, 50 Balconville, 33 Baldwins, The, 25 Bambi and Me, 16 Banana Boots, 33 Bardy Google, 8 Baseball Love, 16 Belles Soeurs, Les, 33 Benevolence, 33 Berlin Blues, The, 33 Bethune, 33 Beyond Recall, 16 Bicycle Eater, The, 25 Billy Bishop Goes to War, 33 Birth of a Bookworm, 16 Black Notebook, The, 25 Blue Notebook, The, 14 Blonds on Bikes, 50 Boiler Room Suite, 33 Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies, 17 Bonjour, Là, Bonjour, 33 Bordertown Café, 34
Talonbooks
Bowering, George: Bright Circles of Colour, 17 Box Closet, The, 17 Boy in the Treehouse, The / Girl Who Loved Her Horses, 34 Bread and Salt, 50 Breakdown So Far, The, 25 Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh, 50 Bridges of Light, 17 Building the West, 17 Burden of Office, The, 17 Burning Vision, 34 Buz’Gem Blues, The, 34
C Cambodia, 25 Can You See Me Yet?, 34 Canadian Drama and the Critics, 17 Canadiens, Les, 34 Capital Tales, 25 Cariboo Magi, 34 Carmela’s Table, 34 Carpenter, The, 14 Cartouches, 50 Centre, The: Poems 1970–2000, 50 Chameleon & Other Stories, 26 Change Room, 50 Chilliwacks and Their Neighbors, The, 17 Chimera, 34 Circumstances Alter Photographs, 13 Circus Performers’ Bar, The, 26 Citizen Suárez, 26 Coast Salish Essays, 17 Cold Comfort, 35 Colours in the Dark, 35 Commons, The, 51 Concise Köchel, The, 35 Consecrated Ground, 35 Conversations in Tehran, 17 Copper Thunderbird, 35 Corker, 35 Coronation Voyage, The, 35 Covenant of Salt, A, 26 Crabdance, 35 Crimes and Mercies, 18 Cruel Tears, 35 Cul-de-sac, 35 Cultural Mischief, 51 Cyrano de Bergerac, 36
D Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra, 36 Dancock’s Dance, 36 Darwin Alone in the Universe, 26 Death in Vancouver, 26 Death of the Spider, 26
Death of René Lévesque, The, 36 Decline of the Hollywood Empire, The, 18 Decompositions, 4 Democracy, 36 Desert of the Heart, 26 Diplomacy, 36 Dishwashers, The, 36 Divinity Bash / nine lives, 36 Doctor Thomas Neill Cream, 36 Dog Attempts to Drown Man in Saskatoon, 26 Dominican Moon, 51 Down Dangerous Passes Road, 36 Down the Road to Eternity, 14 Down Time, 51 Dream Pool Essays, 51 Driving Force, The, 37 Duchess and the Commoner, The, 26 Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays, La, 37 Dumont, Gabriel, Speaks, 13 Dunsmuirs, The: Alone at the Edge, 37 Dunsmuirs, The: A Promise Kept, 37 Dürer’s Angel, 27 Dwell, 51 Dyssemia Sleaze, 51
E Earshot, 37 East End Plays, The: Part 1, 37 East End Plays, The: Part 2, 37 Ecstasy of Rita Joe, The, 37 Empress Has No Closure, The, 51 Empire of Desire, 18 En Pièces Détachées, 37 Ends of the Earth, The, 37 English Canadian Poetics, An, 18 Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout, 38 Error in Judgement, An, 18 Esker Mike & His Wife, Agiluk, 38 Essays on George F. Walker, 18 Espresso, 38 EX MACHINA, 13 Execution, The, 38
F Fairies Are Thirsty, The, 38 Fairy Ring, 27 Faraway Nearby, The, 38 Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant, The, 27 Fearless Warriors, 27 Few Words Will Do, A, 51 Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass, 38 15 Seconds, 38
Fifty, 51 Fighting Days, The, 38 Findley, Timothy, and the Aesthetics of Fascism, 18 First Quarter of the Moon, The, 27 Five Star Planet, 52 For Home and Country, 38 For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, 39 Forever Yours, Marie-Lou, 39 400 Kilometres, 39 fractal economies, 52 Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists, 39 Fronteras Americanas, 39
G Genrecide, 52 Get on Top, 27 Gideon’s Blues, 39 gifts, 52 Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, 39 Glace Bay Miners’ Museum, The, 39 Go Figure, 27 Going Home, 52 Goodnight Disgrace, 39 Great Lakes Suite, 18 Great Wave of Civilization, The, 39 griddle talk, 18 Ground Water, 52 Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend, A, 18 Gull, The, 15 Gypsy Guitar, 52
H Halo, 40 Hanging Fire, 52 Happiest Man in the World and Other Stories, The, 27 Harry’s Fragments, 27 harvest, 52 Heart Laid Bare, The, 27 Heaven, 40 Hell & Other Novels, 28 Hellfire Pass, 40 Heretic, The, 40 Heroine, 28 Homechild, 40 Hope Slide, The / Little Sister, 40 Hosanna, 40 Hotel Montreal, 52 House That Hijack Built, The, 53 How to Write, 9 Hunting Ground, The, 28 Hypoderm, 6
Talonbooks
Complete Booklist by Title / 65
I
M
I. Another. The Space Between, 53 Imperial Canada Inc., 1 Impromptu of Outremont, The, 40 Impromptu on Nuns’ Island, 40 In a World Created by a Drunken God, 40 In Plain Sight, 19 In the Company of Strangers, 19 In the Eyes of God, 41 In the Eyes of Stone Dogs, 41 In the Midst, 19 In the Shadow of the Vulture, 28 Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America, 19 influenza uv logik, th, 53 inkorrect thots, 53 Invisibility Exhibit, The, 53 is a door, 14
Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr, The, 42 Main Brides, 28 Maison Suspendue, La, 42 Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon Pollock, 19 Mambo Italiano, 42 Marcel Pursued by the Hounds, 42 Marion Bridge, 42 Martin, Paul, & Companies, 20 Meanwhile, 20 Medusa Head, The, 20 Mêmewars, 54 Memories of You, 43 Mile End, 28 Mimosa, 28 Miss Julie, 43 Modern Canadian Plays: Volume I, 43 Modern Canadian Plays: Volume II, 43 Mom’s the Word, 43 Mother of the Grass, 28 Motortherapy, 29 Moustache, The, 54 Mrs. Blood, 29 My Career with the Leafs & Other Stories, 29 My Darling Nellie Grey, 3 My Name Is Bosnia, 29
J Jacob’s Wake, 41 Je me souviens, 41 Jitters, 41 Joe Beef, 41 Justice in Our Time, 19
K Kerrisdale Elegies, 53
L Lady Smith, The, 41 Lasagna, 19 last photo uv th human soul, th, 53 Last Scattering Surfaces, 53 Latakia, 28 Lawrence & Holloman, 41 Legoland, 41 Leisure Society, The, 41 Life Without Instruction, 42 Like a Child of the Earth, 28 Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack, The, 2 Lily Briscoe, 19 Limbo Road, 53 Line in the Sand, A, 42 Lions Gate, 19 Listen to the Wind, 42 Local Boy Makes Good, 42 Lost in North America, 19 Lost Souls and Missing Persons, 42 Love and Savagery, 14 loving without being vulnrabul, 53 Ludwig & Mae, 15
N narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane, 54 New Long Poem Anthology, The (Second Edition), 54 News & Smoke, 54 News from Édouard, 29 Nichol, bp, Comics, 54 Nichol, bp: What History Teaches, 20 1949, 43 No Plaster Saint, 20 Noam Chomsky Lectures, The, 43 Noise from the Laundry, 54 NonZero Definitions, 54 northern wild roses / deth interrupts th dansing, 54 Nothing to Lose, 43
O Occupation of Heather Rose, The, 43 Olson, Charles, at the Harbor, 20 Omniscience, 43 On the Job, 44 On the Material, 7 One Crack Out, 44
Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth, 44 Other Schools of Thought, 44 Outsider Notes, 20
P Pacific Windows, 54 Pagan Wall, The, 29 Painter’s Wife, The, 29 Paradise by the River, 44 Past Perfect, 44 Pell Mell, 55 Peregrinations, 20 Performing National Identities, 20 Persian Postcards, 20 peter among th towring boxes / text bites, 55 Playing Bare, 44 Pleasure of the Crown, The, 21 Poet to Publisher, 21 Popular Narratives, 55 Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories, The, 21 Post-Prairie, 55 Power Plays, The, 44
Sainte-Carmen of the Main, 45 Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, 45 Salish People, The, Vol. I, 22 Salish People, The, Vol. II, 22 Salish People, The, Vol. III, 22 Salish People, The, Vol. IV, 22 Salonica Terminus, 22 Salt-Water Moon, 45 scars on th seehors, 55 Scattered in a Rising Wind, 30 School-Marm Tree, The, 30 Schoolhouse, 45 Seagull, The, 46 Secret Journal of Alexander Mackenzie, The, 30 Selected Poems: The Arches, 55 Selected Poems: Beyond Even Faithful Legends, 55 Selected Poems: Loki Is Buried at
Smoky Creek, 55 Selected Poems: The Vision Tree, 56 Selected Writing: As Elected, 56 Selected Writing: Net Work, 56 Sentenced to Light, 56 7 Stories, 46 Shape of a Girl, The / Jewel, 46 Shattered Images, 22 Q Shinny’s Girls and Other Stories, 30 Shovel, The, 56 Queens, The, 44 Signs of Literature, 22 Silver Dagger, 46 R Singer’s Broken Throat, The, 56 Sisters, 46 Rain Barrel, The, 29 Six Plays by Mavor Moore, 46 Rap Canterbury Tales, The, 55 Skydive, 12 Rational Geomancy, 21 Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands, 22 Re: Producing Women’s Dramatic Slight Case of Fatigue, A, 30 History, 21 Soldier’s Heart, 46 Real Mothers, 29 Some Night My Prince Will Come, 30 Real World?, The, 44 Somewhere Else, 46 Record of Writing, A, 21 Recovery of the Public World, The, 21 Song of the Say-Sayer, 46 Songs My Mother Taught Me, 30 Red Notebook, The, 29 Spectacle of Empire, 22 Remember Me, 45 Sticks & Stones, 56 Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh, Still Laughing, 15 The, 55 Strange Comfort, 13 Riddle of the World, The, 45 Robinson, Harry: Living by Stories, 21 Studies in Motion, 46 sublingual, 56 Robinson, Harry: Nature Power, 21 Suburban Motel, 47 Robinson, Harry: Write It on Your Summerland, 30 Heart, 21 Rose, 45 Ryga, George: The Other Plays, 45 T Ryga, George: The Prairie Novels, 30 Takeover in Tehran, 22 Tale of Teeka, The, 47 S Talking Bodies, 47 Tchipayuk, 30 Saga of the Wet Hens, 45 Terror of the Coast, The, 23 Saint Frances of Hollywood, 45
66 / Complete Bookslist by Title
That Summer, 47 That Woman, 47 Theatre and AutoBiography, 23 Theme for Diverse Instruments, 31 There’ll Be Another, 56 Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel, 31 They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever, 23 Thing of Beauty, A, 31 This Is My Own, 23 This Tremor Love Is, 56 ths is erth thees ar peopul, 57 Tiln & Other Plays, 47 Time Being, The, 31 Toronto, Mississippi, 47 Too Good to Be True, 23 Tracing the Paths, 23 Transmission Difficulties, 23 Transnational Muscle Cars, 57 Trees Are Lonely Company, 31 Trespassers, The, 11 Trial of Judith K., The, 47 Trigger, The, 47 Truth or Death, 23 Twelve Opening Acts, 23 Twenty Years at Play, 47 Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand, 23 Two Plays, 48 2000, 48
U Unity (1918), 48 Unnatural and Accidental Women, The, 48
V Vancouver: A Visual History, 24 Vancouver Anthology, 24 Ventriloquist, The, 48 Vermeer’s Light, 57 Vic, The, 48 Vigil, 48
W Waiting for the Parade, 48 Walsh, 48 Wanted, 48 Warriors, 49 WASPS, 49 Webb, Phyllis, and the Common Good, 24 Weekend Healer, The, 49 Westray, 49 Whale Riding Weather, 49 What Lies Before Us, 49
Talonbooks
what’s left, 57 Where the Blood Mixes, 49 Whereverville, 49 White Pebbles in the Dark Forests, 31 Willful Acts, 49 Women in a World at War, 24 Written on Water, 49
Talonbooks
Aronoff, Phyllis & Howard Scott A Slight Case of Fatigue, 30 My Name Is Bosnia, 29 Women in a World at War, 24
Barnholden, Michael Gabriel Dumont Speaks, 13
Bertz, Dietrich Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America, 19
Bishop, Neil B. Death of the Spider, 26
Brown, Alan The Fairies Are Thirsty, 38
Browning, Will Go Figure, 27
Claxton, Patricia Tchipayuk, 30
Fischman, Sheila Bambi and Me, 16 The Bicycle Eater, 25 Birth of a Bookworm, 16 The Black Notebook, 25 The Blue Notebook, 14 The Duchess and the Commoner, 26 The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant, 27 The First Quarter of the Moon, 27 The Heart Laid Bare, 27 News from Édouard, 29 The Painter’s Wife, 29 The Red Notebook, 29 Some Night My Prince Will Come, 30 Talking Bodies, 47 Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel, 31 A Thing of Beauty, 31 Twelve Opening Acts, 23
French, David
Index of Translators / 67
Impromptu on Nuns’ Island, 40 In the Eyes of Stone Dogs, 41 The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr, 42 Past Perfect, 44 The Queens, 44 Saga of the Wet Hens, 45 Scattered in a Rising Wind, 30 Song of the Say-Sayer, 46 The Tale of Teeka, 47 That Woman, 47 Warriors, 49 Written on Water, 49
Hodes, Laura The Angel of Solitude, 25
Klein, Yvonne M. Like a Child of the Earth, 28 Mother of the Grass, 28 White Pebbles in the Dark Forests, 31
Kroetsch, Neil EX MACHINA, 13
Lobdell, David Dürer’s Angel, 27 The Execution, 38
Mullins, Rhonda The Decline of the Hollywood Empire, 18 Paul Martin & Companies, 20
Murrell, John Cyrano de Bergerac, 36
Reed, Fred A. Empire of Desire, 18 Truth or Death, 23
Reed, Fred A. & David Homel All That Glitters, 25 The Baldwins, 25 A Covenant of Salt, 26 Fairy Ring, 27
Miss Julie, 43 The Seagull, 46
Reed, Fred A. & Robin Philpot
Gaboriau, Linda
Scott, Gail
Albertine in Five Times, 32 All the Verdis of Venice, 32 American Notebooks, 16 Assorted Candies for the Theatre, 32 Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies, 17 The Concise Köchel, 35 The Coronation Voyage, 35 Down Dangerous Passes Road, 36 The Driving Force, 37 For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, 39 Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists, 39 The Hunting Ground, 28
Mile End, 28
Imperial Canada Inc., 1
Stowe, John Remember Me, 45
Tepperman, Shelley Playing Bare, 44
Tepperman, Shelley & Ellen Warkentin Ludwig & Mae, 15
Theodore, Bobby 15 Seconds, 38 The Leisure Society, 41
Turnbull, Keith The Ventriloquist, 48
Van Burek, John Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra, 36 La Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays, 37 The Impromptu of Outremont, 40 La Maison Suspendue, 42 Sainte-Carmen of the Main, 45
Van Burek, John & Bill Glassco Albertine in Five Times, 32 Les Belles Soeurs, 33 Bonjour, Là, Bonjour, 33 Forever Yours, Marie-Lou, 39 Hosanna, 40 Marcel Pursued by the Hounds, 42 The Real World?, 44
Van Meer, Allan En Pièces Détachées, 37
Yoshihara, Toyoshi The Gull, 15
68 / Sales Representation and Ordering
North American Sales Representation
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Talonbooks
Sales Representation and Ordering / 69
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SCHOOLS AND EDUCATIONAL SALES Retail Discount Under $150.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10% Over $150.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30%
7
All books purchased from Publishers Group Canada may be returned to us for full credit, unless otherwise indicated, between 3 months (minimum) to 1 year (maximum) from the date of invoice. Permission to return is not required. Returns will be credited in full only if accompanied by an accurate packing slip which shows the following: invoice numbers and dates, ISBN and list price of the title, discounts and quantities of each title returned. “Returns” must be marked on the outside of the box. Please number the boxes. Books must be returned in re-saleable condition. Publishers Group Canada cannot accept books in unsaleable condition, whether shopworn, ink-priced, or sticker damaged (please remove any bookstoreplaced stickers). Revised editions: Whole copy returns will be accepted for up to 3 months after a new edition has been issued. Books ineligible for credit will be returned at the customer’s expense. Unacceptable returns are shipped in the same manner as new books. Publishers Group Canada does not accept returns sent freight collect. Publishers Group Canada is not responsible for any shipment sent by mail. Damaged books must be reported to customer service within 10 days of shipping date. If possible, books should be returned in the box in which they were shipped. If any obvious damage is visible on receipt of a shipment (e.g. crushed corners, torn boxes, damp, dirt) this information should be reported to the carrier (including Canada Post) immediately, as well as to Publishers Group Canada. Short shipments or errors must be reported within 10 days of invoice date. No cover returns.
For US trade terms and returns policy, please contact Northwestern University Press (see page 68).