Talonbooks Spring 2011 by Talonbooks

Talonbooks New Releases 1

Nuri Does Not Exist Sadru Jetha

Sadru Jetha was born and raised in Zanzibar under British rule. Studying law at Dublin University and philosophy at the University of London, he practised law in Tanzania; lectured in the philosophy of law in England; and immigrated to Canada in the 1980s. His work has been published in various literary magazines, anthologized in Due West, and broadcast on CBC’s Alberta Anthology. Nuri Does Not Exist is Jetha’s first book.

ISBN 978-0-88922-655-5 Fiction 5.5 x 8.5; 192 pp; Trade paper $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD March

Zanzibar, an island set like a jewel in the Indian Ocean off the coast of east Africa is rich in cultural heritage: inhabited since the last Ice Age; birthplace of Kiswahili, the purest form of the Swahili language group; its original hunter-gatherer culture overlaid with Indian, Arab, Persian, Portuguese and finally British colonial and mercantile influences; and achieving its semi-autonomous independence from both Britain and Tanzania in the bloody revolutions of 1963–64; it remains the quintessential example of the fabled “Spice Islands.” Within a swirl of profoundly different but concurrent beliefs and prejudices that seems only nominally Islam, Nuri is born and comes of age in the bosom of his multicultural family and its community. As far back as he can remember, he knows that Nuri is not his real name. His grandmother told him as a child that his real name was hidden, to protect him from the evil spirits that lurk everywhere in search of identities to do their awful bidding. As Nuri grows older, the diction of the stories changes: from the naïve voice of childhood through the self-conscious worries of adolescence; the wonder of his discovery of reading and writing; the heavily accented “BBC English” of the senior schoolboy, its rhythms and diction in the clearly enunciated syntax of the defensive gesture; to the polite reserve of the professional classes of the “naturalized” Canadian immigrant. In this collection of beautifully crafted, spare, concise and refreshingly understated stories, we accompany Nuri on his quest to understand how servitude transcends slavery; fealty transcends servitude; and community transcends fealty. Amid a sea of dystopian world literatures haunted by the fractious claims of identity politics, Nuri Does Not Exist is an astonishingly charming collection of linked short stories that engages us with the utterly believable innocence of its Utopian vision.

2 Talonbooks New Releases

Other Losses An Investigation into the Mass Deaths of German Prisoners at the Hands of the French and Americans after World War II

James Bacque

Novelist, publisher and editor James Bacque was educated at Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto, where he studied history and philosophy. He discovered the facts revealed by Other Losses while researching the life of French Resistance hero Raoul Laporterie, who saved over 1,600 refugees from Hitler’s death camps. Bacque was the founding partner and president of new press book publishers from 1969 to 1975. He also worked as a reporter for the Stratford Beacon-Herald; as assistant editor for Saturday Night and Canadian Homes; and as an editor for Macmillan of Canada and Seal Books. Bacque was the subject of a 1990 BBC documentary and was also featured in four TV documentaries in France, Germany and Canada. He has appeared on CBC’s The Journal, the CBS Evening News and Good Morning America. Bacque has given readings and lectures across Canada and Europe, and his articles have been published in many magazines and anthologies, including Saturday Night, Books in Canada and the Globe & Mail.

Other Losses caused an international scandal when first published in 1989 by revealing that Allied Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower’s policies caused the death of some 1,000,000 German captives in American and French internment camps through disease, starvation and exposure from 1944 to 1949, as a direct result of the policies of the western Allies, who, with the Soviets, ruled as the Military Occupation Government over partitioned Germany from May 1945 until 1949. An attempted book-length disputation of Other Losses, Eisenhower and the German POWs: Facts Against Falsehood (Ambrose & Günter, ed.) was published in 1992, featuring essays by British, American and German revisionist historians. However, that same year Bacque flew to Moscow to examine the newly-opened KGB archives, where he found meticulously and exhaustively documented new proof that almost one million German POWs had indeed died in those Western camps. One of the historians who supports Bacque’s work is Colonel Ernest F. Fisher, 101st Airborne Division, who in 1945 took part in investigations into allegations of misconduct by U.S. troops in Germany and later became a senior historian with the United States Army. In the foreword to the book he states: “Starting in April 1945, the United States Army and the French Army casually annihilated about one million [German] men, most of them in American camps … Eisenhower’s hatred, passed through the lens of a compliant military bureaucracy, produced the horror of death camps unequalled by anything in American military history … How did this enormous war crime come to light? The first clues were uncovered in 1986 by the author James Bacque and his assistant.” This updated third edition of Other Losses exists not to accuse, but to remind us that no country can claim an inherent innocence of or exemption from the cruelties of war. “Stunning …” “A hornet’s nest …”

—Time —Globe & Mail

James Bacque’s Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation, 1944–1950 is also available from Talonbooks. ISBN 978-0-88922-665-4 Non-fiction / History 5.5 x 8.5; 320 pp; Trade paper; Photos $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD May

Talonbooks New Releases 3

textual vishyuns image and text in the work of bill bissett

Carl Peters

Carl Peters holds an MA in interdisciplinary studies from York University and PhD in English literature from Simon Fraser University; his thesis and dissertation both focused on bpNichol, Kabbalah and the practice of the sacred. He has published in various journals, including Rampike, Open Letter, West Coast Line and Arc, and edited bpNichol Comics. His curatorial projects include a series of exhibitions on bill bissett, Gertrude Stein and bp Nichol, which drew on archival material from Special Collections at SFU. Dr. Peters currently teaches poetics and avant-garde art at the University of the Fraser Valley. He is working on an annotated book-length study of Gertrude Stein.

Although internationally recognized as a pioneer of visual, concrete, sound and performance poetry, few people recognize bill bissett’s work in the visual arts to be of equal aesthetic importance. While his drawings, paintings, collages and three-dimensional assemblages were the subject of a 1984 Vancouver Art Gallery solo exhibition, Fires in th tempul, despite bissett’s substantial and ongoing contributions to the practice of the avant-garde tradition in art, very little critical work exists on his poetry, and almost no theoretical discourse exists on his visual work. In textual vishyuns, Carl Peters attributes this to the fact that bissett’s entire body of work consists of an integrated aesthetic praxis of “the whole art”; that his drawings, paintings, collages and assemblages challenge artistic conventions of visual language in the same way that his poetry challenges linguistic conventions of syntax and grammar to escape the strictures of Western modes of binary and hierarchical thought and perception. With a focus on the technique of “the continuous line”; the related and carefully constructed ambiguity of the figure/ground relationship; and his technique of “molecular dissolve” to allow his subject and its environment to escape the frames and margins of representational art; Peters argues that in bissett’s artistic practice all things breathe because all things exist in the immediacy of the moment, which is, as well, spatial. Drawing primarily from statements and manifestos of aesthetic theory by practitioners of the major modernist movements of impressionism, cubism, fauvism, surrealism and abstract expressionism in the visual arts; the poetics of Gertrude Stein, William Burroughs, Charles Olson and bpNichol; and the experimental films of Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, David Lynch and David Cronenberg, here, finally, is a book that locates bissett’s textual and visual artistic praxis within the larger context of the history, theory and practice of art. Carl Peters’s bpNichol Comics is also available from Talonbooks.

ISBN 978-0-88922-661-6 Non-fiction / Literary Criticism 6 x 9; 224 pp; Trade paper; Photos $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD May

4 Talonbooks New Releases

Triage Cecily Nicholson

Cecily Nicholson holds a BA in anthropology from the University of Western Ontario and an MA in international peace studies from Notre Dame. A Vancouver-based writer and community organizer, Nicholson coordinates the administration and funds of the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre and has worked with women of this community for the past ten years. She is a member of the VIVO Media Arts collective and No One Is Illegal, Vancouver collective. Triage is her first book.

ISBN 978-0-88922-657-9 Poetry 6 x 9; 96 pp; Trade paper $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD April

In a world where the corporate iron fist clad in the velvet glove of the state has appropriated all that is authentic and authoritative in language, there seems little left for us to say to each other. Yet against the determination of borders, capital, criminalization and violence, stigmatized bodies also remember patterns, history, possibility and solidarity. Triage attempts an ordered, critical response to the surges of overlapping manufactured crises that perpetuate the conditions and symptoms of our public and private disentitlements. Drawing on the increasingly marginalized and criminalized language of protest and resistance, these poems present a polyvocal narrative of human communities struggling at the brutal margins of the neoliberalized state. Triage acknowledges and legitimizes dialogical practices of organizing for food, shelter, mobility, access and voice grounded in a global network of specific communities and movements. It addresses the resilience of people refusing disposability in these highly contested zones; articulates their commonalities in their struggle to take back the garish interventions of commercial language and enterprise in their lives. The routes to the urban centre from rural, suburban and reserve communities are shared experiences articulated by many of the poems’ characters—their displacement has concentrated and “naturalized” their entrenchment in the ghetto—turned habit and need into specific areas of surveillance, where low income means risk, focusing primarily on the particular conditions of women caught in the everyday grind at the mercy of the propertied. Accustomed to framing that simultaneously victimizes as it offers assistance, Triage acknowledges a powerful legacy of women’s creative resistance to everyday physical and systemic violence. It understands the costs and remembers the losses as it sorts through the rubble of language to salvage a redefinition of beauty and reify a meaningful aesthetics. After loss, hurt, survival and recovery, more is warranted, and more is coming.

Talonbooks New Releases 5

Discovery Passages Garry Thomas Morse

Grounded in the work of Arthur Rimbaud, Ezra Pound, Jack Spicer, Rainer Maria Rilke and his Native oral traditions, Garry Thomas Morse’s work has been featured in a variety of publications, including Canadian Literature, the Capilano Review, dANDelion, filling Station, memewar, West Coast Line and the Vancouver Review. Morse is the recipient of 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. Morse has had two books of poetry published by LINEbooks, Streams and Transversals for Orpheus, and one collection of fiction, Death in Vancouver published by Talonbooks. His current book of poetry, After Jack, is also available from Talonbooks. One of his most tempting bodies of work includes what he calls The Chaos! Quincunx, an arresting, outrageous and often farcical examination of the speculative fiction genre in the form of five tenuously connected novels.

ISBN 978-0-88922-660-9 Poetry 6 x 9; 96 pp; Trade paper $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD March

With breathtaking virtuosity, Garry Thomas Morse sets out to recover the appropriated, stolen and scattered world of his ancestral people from Alert Bay to Quadra Island to Vancouver, retracing Captain Vancouver’s original sailing route. These poems draw upon both written history and oral tradition to reflect all of the respective stories of the community, which vocally weave in and out of the dialogics of the text. A dramatic symphony of many voices, Discovery Passages uncovers the political, commercial, intellectual and cultural subtexts of the Native language ban, the potlatch ban and the confiscation and sale of Aboriginal artifacts to museums by Indian agents, and how these actions affected the lives of both Native and non-Native inhabitants of the region. This displacement of language and artifacts reverberated as a profound cultural disjuncture on a personal level for the author’s people, the Kwakwaka’wakw, as their family and tribal possessions became at once both museum artifacts and a continuation of the tradition of memory through another language. Morse’s continuous poetic dialogue of “discovery” and “recovery” reaches as far as the Lenape, the original Native inhabitants of Mannahatta in what is now known as New York, and on across the Atlantic in pursuit of the European roots of the “Voyages of Discovery” in the works of Sappho, Socrates, Virgil and Frazer’s The Golden Bough, only to reappear on the American continent to find their psychotic apotheosis in the poetry of Duncan Campbell Scott. With tales of Chiefs Billy Assu, Harry Assu and James Sewid; the family story “The Young Healer;” and transformed passages from Whitman, Pound, Williams and Bowering, Discovery Passages links Kwakwaka’wakw traditions of the past with contemporary poetic tradition in B.C. that encompasses the entire scope of relations between oral and vocal tradition, ancient ritual, historical contextuality and our continuing rites. “Discovery Passages is a vital cross-cultural work, urgent in both its anger and its celebration. Morse’s supple voice lifts off the page while the strippeddown quotes in the documentary poem are presented in all their damning evidence, no further comment necessary. His longer poem ‘Wak’es’ with its literary echoes, is the most ironically intelligent statement I’ve read on cultural theft.” —Daphne Marlatt

Garry Thomas Morse’s After Jack and Death in Vancouver are also available from Talonbooks.

6 Talonbooks New Releases

Glengarry rob mclennan

Ottawa-born rob mclennan is the author of nearly two dozen books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, including The Ottawa City Project (2007), Ottawa: The Unknown City (2008), subverting the lyric: essays (2008), the novella White (2007) and a compact of words (2007). His poetry, fiction and critical work have appeared in over two hundred journals and anthologies in fourteen countries and three languages. He is the editor and publisher of above / ground press and the long poem magazine STANZAS; the online journals Poetics.ca (with Stephen Brockwell); seventeen seconds: poetry and poetics and ottawater; and (with Jennifer Mulligan) the trade literary publishing house Chaudiere Books. In 1999 mclennan won the CAA/Air Canada Award for most promising writer (in any genre) in Canada under the age of thirty, and in 2003 he was shortlisted for the Verse Prize, run by Verse Press. In 2007–08 he was writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and is currently editing collections on and/or by John Newlove, George Bowering and Andrew Suknaski. He regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices about poetry and poetics at http://robmclennan.blogspot.com.

ISBN 978-0-88922-662-3 Poetry 6 x 9; 128 pp; Trade paper $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD April

Composed in three sections, Glengarry is a return in writing to the landscape of rob mclennan’s youth and a headlong rush into the fractures, slippages and buried surfaces of what the text leaves undisclosed to him. In “glengarry: open field (a postscripted journal)” the poet discovers that “the earth remembers every scratch & scar & step ever took, if you know where to look, how to ask in the way of assembling,” and to ask those questions of the emotional and physical landscapes of one’s youth is to discover that “history is written by everything that history forgets”; is “to half-open a story of what no longer exists”; to beg the question, “is this memory or romanticism”; to run the risk of becoming lost in the very attempt to reconstruct the elements of our past: “there is always the fear here of looking more back than ahead.” What mclennan finds on this quest is nothing more than “a portable violence of heritage & secrets.” What he discovers here, however, is that “we all live in imagined boundaries,” and that “if the story exists, i am living the language of it.” The short reprise to his memory poem, “whiskey jack,” leads mclennan to ask: “what am I filled with, this quiet / conspiratorial talk, this body / of open wilderness, painted trees / & a history that functions / without markers / save seasons.” Finally, in “avalanche,” the answer to mclennan’s rhetorical question, “where are you, heart?” appears in both its lyric and its epic voices: “the names of all my broken hearts are only names again” and “there is eventually a silence / there is history.” Amidst this “aesthetic of wonderful destruction” each new poem is “an illusion against destructive slide,” because “what else is human hope but momentarily borne.” “mclennan is a poet of place, always finding his voice out of the material of his surroundings, the continuity of its existence through history.” —Ottawa Xpress

rob mclennan’s gifts, harvest: a book of signifiers, The Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh and what’s left are also available from Talonbooks.

Talonbooks New Releases 7

Floating Up to Zero Ken Norris

Ken Norris was born in New York in 1951. He immigrated to Canada in the early 1970s and quickly became one of Montreal’s infamous Vehicule 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 the U.S., Canada and Asia.

In Floating Up to Zero, Ken Norris introduces us to “a traveller from an antique land,” though in this case that traveller’s story is not Shelley’s meditation on the vanity of ancient kings, but rather the poet’s meditation on the here and now, on the present moment, precariously balanced between a certain frozen past and an uncertain fluid future. Spanning a year in Norris’s life, the centre of this poetic journey finds the poet trapped in his house. It is mid-winter, the thermometer reads 35 degrees below zero, and he’s trying to dig his way out to the world, where the blizzards and the city snowplows seem to conspire to undo all the pathways shoveled, the driveways cleared. His physical isolation turns him inward: “Surprised when anybody sees me. I've lived in the obscurity of exile. And now am deemed too old for practically everything. I fade into the wallpaper, with only my senses alive. Little by little you become an object to the world, then a useless object the day you vanish from sight completely.” He should have read the stars in the book’s opening section more carefully: avoided the nostalgia for youth and lost loves; the illusion that we can vacation from our residential lease on life. Having “faded into the background, years ago,” as season followed season, the poet begins to understand that the present is not trapped by the shape of the past, but open to the infinite possibilities the world offers us if we let our past melt away: “How the wallpaper longs for what's in the room.” Meditative, incisive and light in their touch, these poems tell us: “The old star charts were perhaps a little out of date. That is, new stars had since been found, though sometimes they were only streetlights, mistaken.” “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

Ken Norris’s Asian Skies, Dominican Moon, Fifty, Going Home, Hotel Montreal and Limbo Road are also available from Talonbooks.

ISBN 978-0-88922-659-3 Poetry 6 x 9; 128 pp; Trade paper $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD April

8 Talonbooks New Releases

Consecrated Ground Revised Second Edition

George Boyd

Nova Scotia-born playwright George Boyd currently lives and works in Montreal. He has received numerous awards and accolades, including a Governor General’s Award nomination for Consecrated Ground. His acclaimed play Gideon’s Blues was adapted into a film in 2004.

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. But what was lost to the people whose roots ran deep through the once-vibrant community was an entire way of life. The hamlet's roots went back to the 1830s, when it began to be settled by descendants of the Black Loyalists, the Black Pioneers and others who fled the horrors of slavery in America for the relative freedom of Canada. Africville flourished for generations as a tight-knit agricultural settlement, and its people had every right to expect the public services available to all other citizens of the Halifax peninsula. Homeowners in Africville paid city taxes, but after years of being unfairly and ruthlessly denied even the most basic of modern conveniences, including electricity, running water, and a proper sewage system, which were readily available to all of the rest of the citizens of Halifax, the decision by city officials to locate the municipal dump a stone’s throw from Africville created a rat-infested, slum-like environment for the already beleaguered neighbourhood. Condemned as unsanitary, its residents were told to sell their homes if they could, before finally being evicted without compensation as the bulldozers moved in. The final injustice was that part of Africville was demolished to make way for an off-leash dog park; the rest of the land was used to build the approaches to the A. Murray MacKay Bridge. In Consecrated Ground, Nova Scotian playwright George Boyd retells the struggle of Africville’s residents to save their homes and their dignity. With tremendous wit and gravity, George Boyd takes us back to Africville on the verge of extinction, making us a gift of characters believable in their vulnerabilities, their courage and their outrage. “… raw theatrical force … Sharply drawn, warmly human, and ultimately very moving.” —Halifax Daily News

George Boyd’s Gideon’s Blues is also available from Talonbooks.

ISBN 978-0-88922-666-1 Drama 5.5 x 8.5; 96 pp; Trade paper $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD January

Talonbooks New Releases 9

And So It Goes George F. Walker

George F. Walker has been one of Canada’s most prolific and popular playwrights since his career in theatre began in the early 1970s. His first play, The Prince of Naples, premiered in 1972 at the newly opened Factory Theatre, a company that continues to produce his work. Walker’s often darkly comedic and satirical plays have been honoured with eight Chalmers Awards and five Dora Awards. His plays Criminals in Love and Nothing Sacred each won Governor General’s Awards for Drama, and met with great success when they toured New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago. His play Zastrozzi has had over 100 productions in the English-speaking world. Many of Walker’s plays have been translated into German, French, Hebrew, Turkish, Polish and Czech. After a ten-year absence, during which he mainly wrote for television, including the series This Is Wonderland, CBC’s The Newsroom and CBS’s Due South, Walker returned to the theatre in 2010 with And So It Goes. Walker is a Member of the Order of Canada.

Newly unemployed baby boomers Gwen and Ned appear to be completely different people: Gwen, a practical, down-to-earth Latin teacher; Ned, an impractical investment advisor constantly dreaming up new ventures for making money. But appearances can be deceiving, as their son Alex, who left home years ago, and their daughter Karen, recently diagnosed with schizophrenia, can attest. Unable to maintain the façade of their former middle-class lifestyle, Gwen and Ned search for a new life in vain, not realizing that they have become redundant—they speak dead languages. Both seek solace from the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut, but he can’t help them in a world where the former universals of language and commerce no longer exist as foils for his sardonic humanism. Of all the voices she hears, those of her parents have become least relevant to Karen, because they seem to her to be concerned only with what they feel about their daughter’s “condition,” and not with what she is experiencing within that condition. “I’m scared,” we hear Karen say as the play opens, and her fear is both justified and infectious. As the play progresses her parents discover to their horror that Karen has been living the life of a drug-addicted prostitute during her illness, lashing out at threats that aren’t there, but unable to defend herself against those that ultimately result in her brutal murder. And So It Goes, a title derived from Vonnegut’s signature observation on the vagaries of life, is not only an allegory of our post-literate, post9/11 lives, in which social order has collapsed, random violence is ubiquitous, “the authorities” have become hypocritically indifferent if not downright irrelevant to our security, and we have all become “scared,” but also a paean to the human will that carries each of us through our darkest hours. “Walker’s questions are, as always, more philosophical than political, and the answers are hidden far from sight in the dark corners and alleyways of the urban landscape … Oh—and did I mention it’s a comedy?” —Globe & Mail

George F. Walker’s The East End Plays: Part 1, The East End Plays: Part 2, Heaven, The Power Plays, Somewhere Else and Suburban Hotel are also available from Talonbooks. ISBN 978-0-88922-654-8 Drama 5.5 x 8.5; 128 pp; Trade paper $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD January

10 Talonbooks New Releases

BASH’d Chris Craddock & Nathan Cuckow

Chris Craddock is an Edmonton-based actor, producer and writer. His theatre work has been recognized with four Sterling Awards and two Dora Mavor Moore Awards, and his film Turnbuckle was nominated for two Ampia Awards. He is the proud recipient of the Enbridge Emerging Artist award, the Centennial Medal for his contribution to the Arts in Alberta, and the Alberta Book Award for his collection of plays for teens, Naked at School. Craddock graduated from the University of Alberta’s BFA Acting Program in 1996 and since then he has worked on stages all across Canada. Nathan Cuckow is an award-winning actor, producer, playwright and a co-artistic director of Edmonton’s critically acclaimed theatre company Kill Your Television. Born and raised in Calgary, Cuckow moved to New York City at the age of nineteen and studied at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Upon graduating, he worked as an administrator in the Education Outreach program for Tony Randall’s National Actors Theatre for the Broadway production of The Sunshine Boys. Cuckow returned to Canada in 1998 and has since then called Edmonton home. In 2007 he received, with Chris Craddock, the GLAAD Media award for Outstanding New York Theater (BASH’d).

ISBN 978-0-88922-656-2 Drama 5.5 x 8.5; 96 pp; Trade paper $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD February

When naïve small-town boy Dillon meets the sophisticated urban Jack in a gay bar, it’s love at first sight, and not just for a one-night stand either! While these star-crossed lovers manage to bring their initially dubious if not downright disowning families together in celebration of their marriage, their unblemished love certainly hasn’t changed the world—quite on the contrary. When Jack becomes the victim of a gaybashing, Dillon sets out on an indiscriminate rampage of revenge. Unfortunately, the straight men he takes on are neither particularly homophobic, nor are they exactly itching for a fight, and the scene quickly turns ugly, teetering on the verge of a slaughter of the innocent until the police intervene. Realizing too late that two wrongs don’t make a right, the lovers, wrapped in each other’s arms, die in a hail of bullets. Arriving in heaven, much to their contrite surprise, the creator fits the souls of these two Romeos with a set of wings and sends them on a mission of redemption. Condemned to wander the earth and tell their cautionary tale forever to whomever will listen, their angelic personae TBAG and FEMINEM have had no trouble enthralling wildly enthusiast audiences all over North America with the rap opera rhymes of this tragic tale ever since. While the goal of BASH’d is first and foremost to tell an engaging gay love story, it also flips the music industry’s gangsta stereotype of rap music on its head and returns it to its political roots—in this case to explore the dangers of the kind of attitudes that continue to condone and even encourage sexual discrimination of all kinds in our society. Not since Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner has a narrative poem inspired such empathy in the hearts and minds of its audience. “BASH’d, is furious, fast-moving, hip-hop entertainment! As one of the lyrics proclaims, ‘it’s Romeo meets Romeo,’ complete with an ample supply of scatological language, swaggering attitude and a keen, often hilarious sense of observation about gay life.” —Associated Press “Audiences should be impressed by the passion of its convictions … BASH’d shows its rage, its grief and its driven, heartfelt determination.” —New York Times

Talonbooks New Releases 11

Gordon 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 ninth among the ten best-selling plays in Canada, outselling the Coles version of Romeo & Juliet.

Gordon was always an odd little child, given his penchant for setting the neighbours’ sheds on fire with their pets locked inside, and his fascination with the funeral rituals at the church across the way. Homeschooled in the evenings within the bounds of a somewhat limited curriculum of drunken impromptu kitchen renovations and wife beatings in the resultant ruins by his father Gord, a man of troglodyte imagination and boundless determination for self-replication, his namesake son dedicates himself to these subjects with a kind of limitless and inarticulate awe. Something sinister and permanent involving the stairs to the basement seems to have happened to Gordon’s mother at a formative stage of his development, narrowing the scope of his education even further and leaving him at somewhat Oedipal loose ends. As the steel mill shuts down and everyone in town moves away, Gordon’s father urges him to attend an institution of higher learning. Educated by a legal system that provides him with free room and board in an institution dedicated solely to freshman tutorials in applied criminology conducted by its post-graduate students, Gordon’s vocabulary grows by leaps and bounds, as do his natural gifts for sociopathic rhetoric, fatuous rationalization and reductive logic. Upon graduation, Gordon sets out to build an innovative business with his former cellmate Carl. This ambition is not without its bloodyhanded transactions and awkward issues about where to file the evidence. Then there’s the question of what to do about the pregnant and vulnerably sullen Dierdre, who spends an unusual amount of time worrying about her nails and calculating the pathetic hourly wages that Gordon and Carl’s sins bring in. By accident or design, this dysfunctional trio on the lam breaks into Gord’s home, wherein they confront “the end of the line” and some very disturbing metaphors. “A beautifully dark and chillingly funny exploration of … the implications of bringing children into this world.” —Segal Centre for the Performing Arts

ISBN 978-0-88922-664-7 Drama 5.5 x 8.5; 128 pp; Trade paper $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD March

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, The Trespassers, Vigil and What Lies Before Us are also available from Talonbooks.

12 Talonbooks New Releases

Dead White Writer on the Floor Drew Hayden Taylor

Drew Hayden Taylor was born on the Curve Lake Reserve in Ontario. Hailed by the Montreal Gazette as “one of Canada’s leading Native dramatists,” Taylor is known for his incisive critique of Native and non-Native stereotypes with his signature wit and candour, and a storytelling style that consistently enthralls audiences worldwide. Over the last two decades, Taylor has been an awardwinning playwright (with over seventy productions of his work), a journalist/columnist (with a column that appears in five newspapers), a short-story writer, novelist, scriptwriter, librettist and collaborator on over twenty documentaries exploring the Native experience. Among Taylor’s many awards are: the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, Nominee (2005); James Buller Aboriginal Theatre Award for Playwright of the Year (1997) Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth; Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, Small Theatre Division (1996) Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth; and the Canada Council Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for Theatre (2009).

ISBN 978-0-88922-663-0 Drama 5.5 x 8.5; 112 pp; Trade paper $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD February

Dead White Writer on the Floor uses two literary conventions—theatre of the absurd and mystery novels—to create one of the funniest and thought-provoking plays ever about identity politics. In Act One, six “savages”; noble, innocent, ignorant, fearless, wise and gay, respectively; find themselves in a locked room with the body of a white writer, which they stash in a closet. None of them can figure out how he died or which of them might have killed him. They realize as they point fingers at each other, however, that they are all profoundly unhappy with their lives as they’ve been constructed over the past 400 years: Old Lodgeskins wants to know what it feels like to be a young man; Billy Jack wonders what spreading healing rather than pain would feel like; Injun Joe is desperate for an education; Kills Many Enemies is exhausted by his deadly seriousness and yearns for a sense of humour; Pocahontas seeks to feel respected as a woman rather than lusted after as a child sex object; and Tonto wants to “come out of the canyon” and be the one wearing the mask for a change. Gradually, they figure out that the latest iteration of Gutenberg’s invention buzzing like a beehive on the dead writer’s desk is actually a dream-catcher, which they can use to rewrite their lives in the image of their own inner beings. Imagine their surprise when they reappear in the same locked room in Act Two as Mike, Jim, Bill, John, Sally and Fred—attending an AA meeting and bickering among themselves about reserve politics, unmanageable family relationships and whether Bingo has a place in their new air-conditioned casino—and realize the white writer must still be very much alive in their community; his body in the closet is still warm! “Abstract theatre is not generally associated with comedy … but judging by the laughter issuing from the packed house at Magnus’ opening night of the show, it is also drop-dead hilarious.” —The Argus

Drew Hayden Taylor’s alterNatives, The Baby Blues, The Berlin Blues, The Boy in the Treehouse/Girl Who Loved Her Horses, The Buz’Gem Blues, Fearless Warriors, 400 Kilometres, In a World Created by a Drunken God, NEWS: Postcards from the Four Directions and Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth are also available from Talonbooks.

Talonbooks New Releases 13

Paradise Garden Lucia Frangione

Award-winning playwright and actress Lucia Frangione has emerged from Canada’s independent theatre scene to take her place as an important, young post-feminist voice on the lives of women in the post-modern world, boldly questioning the institutions of family, religion and sexual iconography. Her accessible and entertaining plays persist in furthering an intelligent female voice in the theatre, utilizing satire as a tool for critical thought, and tackling complex themes with wit and courage. She is the recipient of the 2006 and 1998 Gordon Armstrong Playwright Awards and won the Sydney Risk playwright award for Cariboo Magi in 2001. Espresso was nominated for seven Jessie awards, toured Western Canada in 2004 and was translated into Polish and performed for a year at Teatr Jeleniogórski in 2007. Her twenty plays have been produced by theatres such as the Belfry Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, Lambs Players San Diego, Ruby Slippers, Solo Collective, Chemainus Theatre and Prairie Theatre Exchange. She premiered two new plays in 2010: Paradise Garden at the Arts Club Theatre and Leave of Absence at Pacific Theatre. Her play Sanctuary is currently in development with co-writer and composer Aaron Krogman.

ISBN 978-0-88922-658-6 Drama 5.5 x 8.5; 128 pp; Trade paper $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD March

In the gold-rush era of the 1850s, the McKinnons settled on an island off the west coast of Canada, where the first thing they did was to turn this “wilderness” into an English country garden complete with vegetables, flowers, fruit trees and an elegant gazebo. After six generations, times and circumstances have changed, the family estate has been subdivided, the flowers have gone wild, the pear-tree has rotted and the heritage house has been carved up into a duplex, the property now divided in two by an ugly hedge. The McKinnons now live in one side of the property, while the other has been sold to an immigrant family recently arrived from Turkey. The heirs apparent to both families, Day McKinnon and Layla Zeki, fancy themselves to be sophisticated citizens of the world, tolerating with thinly disguised amusement their ancestors’ “outdated” formalities and rituals. So alienated are they that they spend much of their time only half-jokingly speaking of themselves in the third person. Yet Layla recognizes something fundamental and mysterious in the vestiges of the old garden: its tumbled and overgrown ruins remind her of the Paradise Garden of Judeo-Christian/Islamic tradition—its layout in the four cardinal directions, its allusions to the seasons and the elements, and its walls that surround a place of secret love. For Day, however, despite, or perhaps because of the fact that he has discovered a long-buried family secret, “The problem with being born into paradise is: eventually you inherit it. There’s something to be said for the bedlam of hell. Heaven is a lot of upkeep.” Abandoning their families for their careers, they are reunited years later having discovered that love is not just something that happens to us, but something that we must build by hand in the wilderness of our lives. “Playwright and actor Lucia Frangione enters risky emotional territory in Paradise Garden.” —Georgia Straight

Lucia Frangione’s Cariboo Magi and Espresso are also available from Talonbooks.

14 Talonbooks Recent Releases

The Edward Curtis Project A Modern Picture Story Marie Clements & Rita Leistner Edward Curtis saw his job as that of creating a photographic record of “the vanishing race of the North American Indian.” Thus his work became as much a projection of colonial attitudes upon aboriginal peoples as it was an authentic record of their lives. The Edward Curtis Project, a two-year collaboration to take Curtis’s photographs to heart and to see who and what might live inside them today, resulted in a profoundly moving drama by playwright Marie Clements, and a spectacular contemporary photo exhibit by photojournalist Rita Leistner. Published together in this volume, they illustrate the trauma the notion of a “vanishing race” has inflicted on an entire people, and celebrate the triumph of a future in which they have not, in fact, vanished. “A mutable performance that fixes into a single instant of Truth.”

—Globe & Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-642-5; Drama / Photography; 6.75 x 9.75; 160 pp; Trade paper; Colour photos; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

NEWS Postcards from the Four Directions Drew Hayden Taylor In this collection of short essays for the popular media, playwright, novelist and screenwriter Drew Hayden Taylor sends his readers fascinating and exotic postcards from his globetrotting adventures, always on the lookout for the NEWS about aboriginal peoples around the world. Organized around the thematics suggested by the four cardinal directions central to the Ojibwa peoples—East for beginnings and youth; South for journeys both physical and spiritual; West for maturity and responsibility; and North for contemplation and wisdom; these communiqués are sent not so much to instruct as they are to delight. “Drew Hayden Taylor has a deft touch for mixing comedy and commentary in an entertaining … form of social satire.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-643-2; Non-fiction; 5.5 x 8.5; 288 pp; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Subject to Change Renee Rodin Composed of stories that sketch the resonant heights and depths of an autobiography, Subject to Change is a series of self-portraits along the road of a life well-lived. Each story is an articulate, intelligent, passionate record of how an encounter with a significant “other,” be it a parent, a lover, a neighbour, a child, a grandchild, a politician or a friend, has changed and shaped the humanity, character and community—the “subject”—of the writer. What makes this book such a great read is Renee Rodin’s masterful ability to show the reader that things we usually think of as too ordinary to talk about or too extraordinary to be able to communicate to others are often the most formative elements of our social lives. “The intensity, care and wit that Renee Rodin brought to years of cultural and other activisms is now honed into a distinctive voice—funny, relaxed, passionately intelligent, deeply attentive to reality.” —Stan Persky ISBN 978-0-88922-644-9; Fiction; 5.5 x 8.5; 160 pp; Trade paper; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

Piercing Larry Tremblay

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Three tales spin a web of suspense, impending violence, and tragedy that haunt the sleek façade of a city. In “The Axe” a teacher of literature in drunken despair awakens and confronts one of his students with the term assignment he has submitted—an axe. In “Piercing” a teenage runaway seeks to escape her small-town family life, only to end up in a very different kind of urban “family,” a cult of dominance and body piercing. In “Anna on the Letter C” a lonely, virginal typist transcribing the “c” words for a dictionary project, takes pity on a middle-aged stalker and invites him to her apartment for tea and nasty surprises. “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 …” —Toronto Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-645-6; Fiction; 5.5 x 8.5; 128 pp; Trade paper; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Talonbooks Recent Releases 15

The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky Karen X. Tulchinsky August 1933: after weeks of tension, on a sweltering night at Christie Pits field, four youths unfurl a white sheet emblazoned with a large black swastika, lift their arms and shout, “Heil Hitler!” during a softball game. Within seconds, a group of Jewish youths charge in a struggle to capture the flag, setting off the largest race riot ever to occur in Toronto, involving fifteen thousand people and injuring hundreds. Tulchinsky takes us inside the life of one immigrant Jewish family, from this pivotal moment, through the war years and into the early 1950s, creating a stunning fictional statement of a defining moment for a family, a city and a continent struggling with ideas of freedom, tolerance and identity in a world broken by war. “Karen X. Tulchinsky’s latest novel might be considered old-fashioned in the very best sense; it’s got lots of heart.” —National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-646-3; Fiction; 5.5 x 8.5; 496 pp; Trade paper; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

time bill bissett time is reelee abt how evreething is fleeting n how we deel with that n how deeplee we undrstand that awareness th jewels shine as our undrstandings th layrs n openings apertures n iris lens in or not n how manee narrativs reveel our paradoxikul n continualee shifting minds … a storee is what time is it … 4 ourselvs n our specees n how timeless th breth uv th galaxee n oftn ourselvs tho agen fleeting lyrik song chant philosophikal theologikul prsonal propheseez vizual n tanguld tangos … with th invisibul dansrs … n th 4tune tellrs shuffuling theyr decks how we yern 4 n letting go uv our games finding love n th chancs 4 savin th environment n our selvs [bill bissett] “His poetry addresses the limitless discussion of the boundaries between the personal and the political.” —National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-653-1; Poetry; 6 x 9; 160 pp; Trade paper; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

The Collected Books of Artie Gold Artie Gold

Compiled and edited by Ken Norris & Endre Farkas

Artie Gold appeared like a supernova within the constellation of Montreal Anglophone poets in the late 1960s. Intensely devoted to poetry, having already discovered the work of Frank O’Hara, John Wieners and Jack Spicer in his teens, six books of his poems were published in each of the years 1974–79. Daunted by health problems, he increasingly retreated from the world. A Selected Poems was published in 1992, but only one further book appeared in print in 2003. Artie left the world on Valentine’s Day, 2007. His eight books of poetry collected here shine like a beacon of light across the literary landscape of the late twentieth century. “As Gould interprets Bach in a way that reveals something about the musical process, Gold interprets poets such as Spicer and O’Hara and ultimately himself, revealing something about the process of writing poetry, while subtly performing the act itself.” —Garry Thomas Morse ISBN 978-0-88922-652-4; Poetry; 6 x 9; 304 pp; Trade paper; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

Muthologos Lectures and Interviews (Revised Second Edition) Charles Olson

Edited by Ralph Maud

This newly expanded and edited second edition of Muthologos adds to George Butterick’s first 1980 edition: “At Goddard College, April 1962”; a second Vancouver 1963 discussion, “Duende, Muse, and Angel”; a short addition to the “BBC Interview”; a second “On Black Mountain”; a further hour of Olson’s conversation with Herb Kenny; and Olson’s interview with poet Phyllis Webb for CBC. “This new edition of Muthologos reiterates the intensity of attention that Olson brought to his final six years in the public performance of his immense poetic archaeology. These talks and interviews document the processual nature and intellectual hunger that situate his poetic imagination not only in the poem but in the range of perception that can be talked about ‘with some life.’” —Fred Wah ISBN 978-0-88922-639-5; Non-fiction; 6 x 9; 496 pp; Trade paper; Photos; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD

16 Talonbooks Recent Releases

Imperial Canada Inc. Legal Haven of Choice for the World’s Mining Industries Alain Deneault & William Sacher

Translated by Fred A. Reed & Robin Philpot

Created by an Act of the British Parliament in 1867, Canada, rather than turning away from its colonial past, actively embraced, appropriated and perpetuated the imperial ambitions of its mother country. 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 any risk of litigious recourse attempted by any community seriously affected by these industries. ISBN 978-0-88922-635-7; Non-fiction; 5.5 x 8.5; 320 pp; Trade paper; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

The Satchmo’ Suite Hans Böggild & Doug Innis A black cellist, on tour with a classical symphony orchestra, invokes the ghost of Louis Armstrong to help him with a difficult passage from Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello. The highly mythologized spirit of “the father of jazz himself” takes form in the cellist’s hotel room, where the lives of the characters intertwine and begin to play off each other, and issues of class, hope, courage, family and race emerge in a lively and powerful struggle between head and heart, intellect and intuition. Ultimately, the drama resolves with the cellist’s beautiful rendition of the Bach piece. Full of great jazz and classical music, but using none of Satchmo’s own compositions, the play incorporates nine original jazz songs, co-written by the author-musicians, into the action. “An irresistible meeting of music and drama, The Satchmo’ Suite really swings.”

—Montreal Gazette

ISBN 978-0-88922-648-7; Drama; 5.5 x 8.5; 80 pp; Trade paper; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

The Refugee Hotel Carmen Aguirre Laid bare in the fictionalized autobiographical details of The Refugee Hotel are the universal truths both the victims and the survivors of political oppression continue to experience everywhere: the terror of persecution, arrest, and torture; the exhausted elation of escape; the trauma of learning to live again with the losses, betrayals and agonies of the past; the irrational guilt of the survivor—even the tragedy of surviving the nightmares of the past only to have them return to challenge any hope of a future free of fear. More than a dark comedy about a group of Chilean refugees who arrive in Vancouver in 1974 after Pinochet’s coup, this play is Carmen Aguirre’s attempt to give voice to refugee communities from all corners of the globe. “A humorous and heartbreaking look at life in exile.”

—Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles

ISBN 978-0-88922-650-0; Drama; 5.5 x 8.5; 128 pp; Trade paper; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Beating the Bushes Steven Bush Steven Bush is a man on a mission—to confront the skeletons in his family closet. Did his very own cousins occupy the White House? What can he, a distant relation of the “Bushes” (so the story goes) do to end the madness and redeem the family name? Steven Bush’s one-man standup comedy, rant, political protest and call for the war-crimes trials of both George H.W. and George W. Bush is a brash theatrical tour de force that dares his audiences to accompany him on a personal quest for evidence of honesty, decency and complicity in a world of damning facts and murky conspiracy theories. “The breadth of Steven’s talent as a theatre practitioner is quite simply remarkable. He has the uncommon gift of artistry and intellect … What is most exciting is that his work appears to come from a different place than that of most other theatre artists.” —Djanet Sears ISBN 978-0-88922-647-0; Drama; 5.5 x 8.5; 160 pp; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

Talonbooks Recent Releases 17

Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre Larry Tremblay

Translated by Chantal Bilodeau

Scratch the surface of any story and underneath you will find layer upon layer of fiction masquerading as fact. Mark Killman—a feared but much admired director—draws inspiration from Abraham Lincoln’s assassination to stage the schizophrenia of America. He hires two actors to play Laurel and Hardy. Both are to re-enact the assassination, while he himself plays the iconic role of Abraham Lincoln as a wax figure. Absurd, hilarious and haunting, this play is an unforgettable mystery that asks the question: How can we ever know who we are and what is true when the world we know is shifting beneath us? Its answer is simple: John Wilkes Booth was the first American star—the actor who kidnapped reality to transform it into theatre. “… explores the wellsprings of psychic and social violence.”

—Canadian Encyclopedia

ISBN 978-0-88922-649-4; Drama; 5.5 x 8.5; 96 pp; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

The Madonna Painter Michel Marc Bouchard

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

At the end of the First World War, to protect his village from the Spanish flu epidemic brought home by returning soldiers, a young priest recently arrived in the Parish of Lac St-Jean commissions a wandering Italian painter to decorate the walls of the local church with a fresco dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The painter is to choose, among four local women all named Mary, a model for his work. The presence of the foreign artist, his choice of a local virgin to serve as a model, and the frighteningly strange nature of his work will upset the lives and change the fate of the entire community. As superstition collides with desire, The Madonna Painter unmasks a bouquet of lies disguised as a fable. “Bouchard puts human nature under the scalpel and a terrible beauty is born.”

—Toronto Star

ISBN 978-0-88922-641-8; Drama; 5.5 x 8.5; 96 pp; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

With Bated Breath Bryden MacDonald With Bated Breath is a poignant look at the disappearance of a shy, young gay man who leaves his community behind to start a new life in the city. There, awkward and naïve, and caught in the cynical and brutalizing economy of the city’s red light district, he retreats into a world of fantasy and anonymity. Though his selfappointed, newfound and worldly-wise mentor cautions him: “There’s nothing safe. We’re never safe. If you ever thought you were, you were in denial,” it’s too late for this dreamer who ignored the best advice he ever got from those who cared for him: “You just don’t find a soul mate—you have to invent them. Cuz love at first sight sure don’t last.” “Quite stunning … full of one-liners and dark poetry.”

—Daniel MacIvor

ISBN 978-0-88922-651-7; Drama; 5.5 x 8.5; 128 pp; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

My Darling Nellie Grey George Bowering

In December, 2005, stalled on a novel he was writing, George Bowering thought he needed a challenge, so he made a New Year’s resolution: write a poem for every day of 2006. The result of this uncompromising personal and formal discipline is one of the most fascinating books of poetry ever written. Throughout, the poet assumes the guises of a lifetime, reeling in and out over the gravel of a stream alive with recognitions, as all of the events of an imagined life become simultaneously present in their exquisite voices. “Ironically, Bowering's acumen for reading underlies the wide spectrum of his writing. His acute sense of language style and possibility, his ear for words and rhythms, shows a process for literary imagination that is open and generative, and so frequently provocative. I've always trusted how he reads writing and counted on his skills in both as evidence of a real poetics of attention.” —Fred Wah ISBN 978-0-88922-634-0; Poetry; 6 x 9; 416 pp; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD

18 Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist

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.

The New Canadian Criticism Series

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 —Books in Canada character studies.” ISBN 978-0-88922-358-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1996; 208 pp

Translated by Sheila Fischman

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

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.

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

Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist 19

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 ––Voir Candies …” “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

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 —Vancouver Sun scene in Canada.” 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.”

—BC Studies

Bridges of Light

Circumstances Alter Photographs

Otto Landauer of Leonard Frank Photos, 1945–1980 Cyril E. Leonoff

Captain James Peters’ Reports from the War of 1885 Michael Barnholden

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. City of Vancouver Heritage Award of Merit, 1999. ISBN 978-0-88922-376-9; $39.95 CAD / $34.95 USD ©1997; 208 pp; cloth; photos & illustrations

In April 1885, Captain James Peters of the North West Field Force, took the world’s first battlefield photographs under fire at the battle of Fish Creek. He exposed a total of 70 glass plates there and at subsequent battles at Duck Lake and Batoche. These astonishing photographs are presented together here, with an essay by Michael Barnholden. ISBN 978-0-88922-621-0; $35.00 CAD / $35.00 USD ©2009; 144 pp; cloth; photos

Building the West

Coast Salish Essays

The Early Architects of British Columbia (Revised and updated edition) Compiled and edited by Donald Luxton

Wayne Suttles A careful selection from the work of one of the foremost ethnographers of the Pacific Northwest.

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.

“A major contribution to the study of the Indians of the Northwest Coast.” —Pacific Northwest Quarterly

“For anyone who cares about the built environment, this book is a treasury—and a treasure.” —Vancouver Sun

20 Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist

Conversations in Tehran

An English Canadian Poetics

Jean-Daniel Lafond & Fred A. Reed

Vol. 1—The Confederation Poets Edited by Robert Hogg

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. “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 978-0-88922-550-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2006; 224 pp; photos

With an introduction by D.M.R. Bentley 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 —D.M.R. Bentley been more closely intertwined.” ISBN 978-0-88922-613-5; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©2009; 320 pp; photos

Crimes and Mercies

An Error in Judgement

The Fate of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation, 1944–1950 James Bacque

The Politics of Medical Care in an Indian /White Community Dara Culhane

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.

An analysis of the controversy surrounding the death of a Native child in Alert Bay, BC.

“A scholar of great courage and perseverance who deserves to be heard.” —Dr. Dwight D. Murphey

“Successfully forces the liberal white reader to look beyond totem poles and quaint Indian baskets to our common history.” —Vancouver Sun

The Decline of the Hollywood Empire

EX MACHINA

Hervé Fischer

Creating for the Stage Patrick Caux & Bernard Gilbert

Translated by Rhonda Mullins 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. Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2007. “AN ESSENTIAL READ. That sums up the importance of Fischer’s book …” —Le Canada français

Translated by Neil Kroetsch This full-colour book documents Robert Lepage’s dynamic creative arts company, Ex Machina, constantly on the move in search of new forms of storytelling. Its frenetic dynamism means the company must constantly move simultaneously between story draft and stagecraft as it invites audiences to witness its theatrical experiments.

Gabriel Dumont Speaks

Timothy Findley and the Aesthetics of Fascism

Revised, updated edition Gabriel Dumont

Intertextual Collaboration and Resistance

Translated by Michael Barnholden

The New Canadian Criticism Series

This judicious interpretation of Louis Riel’s adjutant general’s memoirs offers 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.

Anne Geddes Bailey

“Fascinating.”

—Quill & Quire

Edited by Frank Davey Investigates the troubling relationship between narrative meaning and representations of violence within Timothy Findley’s novels.

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

Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist 21

griddle talk

In the Midst

a yeer uv nill n carol dewing brunch Carol Malyon and bill bissett

Warren Tallman

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.

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.

A Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend Ralph Maud

Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America

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.

A Translation of Franz Boas’ 1895 Edition of Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas Franz Boas

“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

Edited and annotated by Randy Bouchard & Dorothy Kennedy “The equal of any heroic literature you’ll ever read … a stunning legacy.” —Vancouver Sun

How to Write

Justice in Our Time

derek beaulieu

The Japanese Canadian Redress Settlement Roy Miki & Cassandra Kobayashi

Containing ten pieces of conceptual prose ranging from the purely appropriated through the entirely recomposed, beaulieu here shamelessly samples Lawrence Sterne, Agatha Christie, Bob Kane, Roy Lichtenstein and every piece of text within one block of his home. “beaulieu produces some of the most baffling, oblique, unreadable—and absolutely logical and necessary— works of conceptual poetry.” —Craig Dworkin

How a community brought the issue of redress for the injustices of the 1940s to the forefront of public debate. “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

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

In the Company of Strangers

The Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack

Mary Meigs

Dorothy Kennedy & Randy Bouchard

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.

Socio-cultural anthropologist Dr. Dorothy Kennedy and ethnologist/linguist Randy Bouchard record and re-contextualize many Lil’wat stories as told to them by respected Lil’wat elder Charlie Mack over a two-decade period of friendship and ethnographic research.

QSPELL Award Winner for Non-fiction, 1992. “Her book on the film is exquisitely attuned to the interplay between art and life.” —Boston Globe ISBN 978-0-88922-294-6; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1991; 176 pp; photos; 4th printing

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Lily Briscoe

Meanwhile

A Self-Portrait Mary Meigs

The Critical Writings of bpNichol bpNichol

A compelling autobiography about the exercise of will, friendships and dreaming.

Edited by Roy Miki

“A series of landscapes and life drawings, skillfully created.” —Humanities and Applied Arts French language rights sold to HMH Ltée. ISBN 978-0-88922-195-6; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1981; 264 pp; photos; 3rd printing

A thoughtful and provocative 30-year record of Nichol’s approaches to textual production. “Almost 15 years after his untimely death, Nichol is being recognized as a major Canadian literary figure.” —National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-447-6; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©2002; photos & illustrations; 496 pp

Lions Gate

The Medusa Head

Lilia D’Acres & Donald Luxton

Mary Meigs

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.

A sensitive psychological portrait of a stormy three-way lesbian relationship.

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.

“Shaped with intelligence, honesty and humor.” —Ottawa Citizen

“An unsparing account of love, jealousy and hate.” —Toronto Star

Lost in North America

bpNichol

The Imaginary Canadian in the American Dream John Gray

What History Teaches

A personal, idiosyncratic tour of the collective work of art we call Canada.

Edited by Frank Davey

The New Canadian Criticism Series

Stephen Scobie

“More than just well written, entertaining and humorous, this book is also (gasp) moving.” —Montreal Gazette

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.

Making Theatre

No Plaster Saint

A Life of Sharon Pollock Sherrill Grace

The Life of Mildred Osterhout Fahrni Nancy Knickerbocker

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 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.

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

Paul Martin & Companies

Charles Olson at the Harbor

Sixty Theses on the Alegal Nature of Tax Havens Alain Deneault

Ralph Maud

Translated by Rhonda Mullins A piercing look at what it means when a Canadian prime minister puts his own private interests first. “Stands as an example and a rebuke to the watery discourse that passes for ‘political’ commentary in the anglophone press …“ —Geist ISBN 978-0-88922-538-1; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2006; 96 pp

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. “... a balanced and superbly rendered picture of one of America’s greatest poets.” —Peter Anastas ISBN 978-0-88922-576-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2008; 224 pp; photos & illustrations; 2nd printing

Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist 23

Outsider Notes

Poet to Publisher

Feminist Approaches to Nation State Ideology, Writers / Readers and Publishing

Charles Olson’s Correspondence with Donald Allen Edited by Ralph Maud

The New Canadian Criticism Series

Lynette Hunter

Documents Olson’s influence on The New American Poetry, Allen’s visionary and revolutionary anthology.

Edited by Frank Davey Tough-minded reappraisals of canonicity, modernism, postmodernism, marginality and post-coloniality in Canadian writing.

“The letters make fascinating reading for their commentary on writers … and literary issues from 1957 to 1969 …” —Canadian Literature

Peregrinations

The Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories

Conversations with Contemporary Artists Robert Enright

The Original Tsimshian Texts of Henry Tate Edited and annotated by Ralph Maud

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.

Henry W. Tate, who died in 1914, was an important Tsimshian informant to ethnographer Franz Boas.

Performing National Identities

Rational Geomancy

International Perspectives on Contemporary Canadian Theatre Edited by Sherrill Grace & Albert-Reiner Glaap

The Kids of the Book-Machine The Collected Research Reports of the Toronto Research Group, 1973–1982 Steve McCaffery & bpNichol

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.

Edited by Steve McCaffery Reports on translation, the-book-as-machine and the search for non-narrative prose.

Persian Postcards

Re: Producing Women’s Dramatic History

Iran after Khomeini Fred A. Reed

The Politics of Playing in Toronto D.A. Hadfield

“An excellent guide to the people, religion, politics and world view of modern Iran.” —Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin

Hadfield traces the process of creating a theatrical “success” and investigates how the politics involved influences what we perceive as “good” playwriting.

“Both accessible to the uninitiated and a valuable resource.” —Quill & Quire “Assumptions about Iran shattered.”

—Toronto Star

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.

“An extraordinary contribution to this field.” —Canadian Library Journal

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The Recovery of the Public World

The Salish People

Essays on Poetics in Honour of Robin Blaser Edited by Charles Watts & Edward Byrne

Volume II: The Squamish and the Lillooet Charles Hill-Tout

A collection of texts and talks which address the work of poet Robin Blaser.

Edited by Ralph Maud

“Poets and thinkers describe his work, assess his accomplishments and contribute reflections on the literary projects and subjects Blaser has helped to —Publishers Weekly construct.”

Includes the Origin Myth as recounted by a storyteller whose mother saw Captain Vancouver sail into Howe Sound in 1792. ISBN 978-0-88922-149-9; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1978; 176 pp; photos, maps & illustrations

Harry Robinson: Living by Stories

The Salish People

A Journey of Landscape and Memory Harry Robinson

Volume III: The Mainland Halkomelem Charles Hill-Tout

Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire

Edited by Ralph Maud

This third collection documents how the arrival of whites forever altered the Salish cultural landscape.

Stories of the people of the Fraser Valley from Vancouver to Chilliwack, with the earliest account of BC archaeological sites.

“Whenever I need to be reminded that language is magic and that stories can change the world, I go to —Thomas King Robinson.”

Harry Robinson: Nature Power

The Salish People

In the Spirit of an Okanagan Storyteller Harry Robinson

Volume IV: The Sechelt and the South-Eastern Tribes of Vancouver Island Charles Hill-Tout

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

Edited by Ralph Maud “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

Harry Robinson: Write It on Your Heart

Salonica Terminus

The Epic World of an Okanagan Storyteller Harry Robinson

Travels into the Balkan Nightmare Fred A. Reed

Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire

In his extensive travels in the Balkans, Reed encounters a landscape inscribed with a shocking testimony of ethnoracialist aspirations.

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

“The good and evil aspects of nationalism … [A] compassionate account of one of the world’s most difficult regions.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-368-4; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1996; 272 pp; photos & maps

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

Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist 25

Signs of Literature

The Terror of the Coast

Language, Ideology, and the Literary Text Kenneth James Hughes The history of language as a made thing—a linguistic and structuralist primer.

Land Alienation and Colonial War on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, 1849–1863 Chris Arnett

“It’s tough reading but worth a look if you’re into the study of words.” —Vancouver Province

An extensively detailed reconstruction of the war between the First Nations and Vancouver Island’s colonial government.

“A scholarly, yet compelling account of a neglected —CBRA and shameful chapter in BC’s history.” ISBN 978-0-88922-318-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1999; 382 pp; photos, maps & illustrations; 2nd printing

Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands

Theatre and AutoBiography

Dorothy Kennedy & Randy Bouchard

Writing and Performing LIves in Theory and Practice Edited by Sherrill Grace & Jerry Wasserman

The history and folkways of the Sliammon Coast Salish people of the northern Georgia Strait region. “An excellent portrait of these people.” —Canadian Book Review Annual ISBN 978-0-88922-211-3; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1983; 176 pp; photos & maps; 3rd printing

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

Spectacle of Empire Marc Lescarbot’s Theatre of Neptune in New France Edited by Jerry Wasserman 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.

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

“The French play by Lescarbot is a significant literary and cultural artifact …” —Dalhousie Review

“[A] combination of academic exposition and plainfolks narrative that entertains while it educates.” —Georgia Straight

Strange Comfort

This Is My Own

Essays on the Work of Malcolm Lowry Sherrill Grace

Letters to Wes and Other Writings on Japanese Canadians, 1941–1948 Muriel Kitagawa

Strange Comfort collects Grace’s best essays on writer Malcolm Lowry, exploring his most important themes: the role of the artist; the nightmare of history; the pressures of memory; the 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; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2009; 224 pp; photos

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

Takeover in Tehran

Too Good to Be True

The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture Massoumeh Ebtekar

Alcan’s Kemano Completion Project Bev Christensen

as told to Fred A. Reed 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 978-0-88922-443-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2000; 244 pp; photos; 2nd printing

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

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Tracing the Paths

Vancouver

Reading =/ Writing The Martyrology Edited by Roy Miki

A Visual History Bruce Macdonald

A wide spectrum of readings of bpNichol’s challenging and innovative long poem.

This stunning full-colour historical atlas brings alive Vancouver’s first 14 decades.

“A stimulating companion to those reading, and rereading, Nichol’s quirky, honest, and experimental work.” —Books in Canada

BC Book Prize Finalist, 1993.

City of Vancouver Book Award Winner, 1993. “Bruce Macdonald breaks new ground with an —Globe & Mail impressive multi-disciplinary atlas.” ISBN 978-0-88922-311-0; $60.00 CAD / $40.00 USD ©1992; 96 pp; cloth; photos, maps & illus.; 2nd printing

Transmission Difficulties

Vancouver Anthology

Franz Boas and Tsimshian Mythology Ralph Maud

Revised Second Edition Edited with a new afterword by Stan Douglas

Ralph Maud delves into the mystery of Boas’s alleged “translations” of the stories gathered by his chief Tsimshian informant, Henry Tate.

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.

“A useful contribution to BC anthropology.” —Victoria Times-Colonist

“Exactly the type of work that should be published by our own indigenous book industry.” —Vancouver Sun

Truth or Death

Essays on George F. Walker

The Quest for Immortality in the Western Narrative Tradition Thierry Hentsch

Playing with Anxiety Chris Johnson

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

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

Twelve Opening Acts

Phyllis Webb and the Common Good

Michel Tremblay

Poetry / Anarchy / Abstraction

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

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

Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand

Women in a World at War

Oral Traditions of the Hul’q’umi’num’ Coast Salish of Kuper Island and Vancouver Island Beryl Cryer

Seven Dispatches from the Front Madeleine Gagnon

Compiled and edited by Chris Arnett

Governor General’s French Non-Fiction Award Finalist, 2001.

A vital collection of writings collected during the Depression, first published in Victoria’s oldest newspaper.

Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott

“An engrossing and delightful book.” —Georgia Straight

“An extraordinary work … the book crosses borders of country, culture and language to touch fundamental truths in lyrical and haunting prose … ” —Quill & Quire

Talonbooks Fiction Backlist 27

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, 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; illustrations

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2006. 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

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 Blue Notebook

Marie-Claire Blais

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Laura Hodes

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Eight lesbian women strive to achieve an all-female utopia within which homophobia and their own pasts and differences are abolished.

In this third installment of the Notebook trilogy, Fine Dumas’ Boudoir is shut down and Céline must return to waitressing at the Sélect, where she meets a gorgeous musician and begins a sexual and loving relationship for the first time. As she has done twice before, Céline records the events and adventures of her life in a notebook, but now steps outside herself, using a narrator to tell her story.

The Athabasca Ryga

The Breakdown So Far

George Ryga

M.A.C. Farrant

Edited by E. David Gregory

Farrant continues her assault on the unaccountably disaffected and disillusioned of the Western world with her eighth volume of extremely short stories.

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

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 Baldwins

Cambodia

Serge Lamothe

A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow Brian Fawcett

Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel 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

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; 8th printing

28 Talonbooks Fiction Backlist

Capital Tales

Darwin Alone in the Universe

Brian Fawcett

M.A.C. Farrant

A collection of stories that form tough, uncompromising portraits of people discovering the illusions they live by.

A brilliant collection of satirical short stories.

“Farrant is better at startling us with unnerving, often misanthropic, visions of everyday life than perhaps any other Canadian writer.” —Globe & Mail “M.A.C. Farrant is a wonderful writer of domestic —Bill Richardson, CBC comedy.” “A brave iconoclast …”

—Publishers Weekly

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.

“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.

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

A Covenant of Salt

Dog Attempts to Drown Man in Saskatoon

Martine Desjardins

Douglas Glover

Translated by Fred A. Reed & 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

Talonbooks Fiction Backlist 29

Down the Road to Eternity

Fearless Warriors

M.A.C. Farrant

Revised Second Edition Drew Hayden Taylor

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 the popular media now has on the public’s imagination.

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.

“M.A.C. Farrant is a trapeze artist of the imagination, swinging over the existential void.” —BC Bookworld

“Taylor’s … stories will make you cringe, cry, and when you really need it, laugh a little.” —Windspeaker

The Duchess and the Commoner

The First Quarter of the Moon

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Sheila Fischman

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.

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. “Touching and extra-real.”

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

—Quill & Quire

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

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

30 Talonbooks Fiction Backlist

Harry’s Fragments

In the Shadow of the Vulture

A Novel of International Puzzlement George Bowering

George Ryga

In a parody of a thriller novel, Harry the Hack, newly recruited literary spy, follows a mystery woman seeking wisdom and sanity. “Deconstructs the sexy spy thriller in a clever pastiche of literary styles.” —Ottawa Citizen

Set in the desert at the Mexico-US border, this novel deals with the hope and despair of immigrant labourers. “A striking novel that wrestles with important and —Canadian Literature difficult problems.” ISBN 978-0-88922-233-5; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1985; 288 pp

The Heart Laid Bare

Latakia

Michel Tremblay

Audrey Thomas

Translated by Sheila Fischman

A brilliant and intense journey through a relationship, and through language and myth, spanning three continents.

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. “Simply written, but highly topical and touching tale.” —London Times

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

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

The Hunting Ground

Mile End

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.

Talonbooks Fiction Backlist 31

Mimosa

My Name Is Bosnia

Bill Schermbrucker

Madeleine Gagnon

An authentic re-creation through sweeping prose of an extraordinary life set against the turbulent backdrop of colonial Africa.

A young woman embarks upon an emotionally resonant journey in search of a peaceful new life.

BC Book Prize Winner, 1988.

IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Longlist, 2007.

“It’s an impressive debut … deceptively subtle and finely crafted.” —Globe & Mail

“Movingly captures the transformative effect of war on human consciousness …” —Publishers Weekly

“Intelligent, humane … universal and accessible.” —Quill & Quire

“In Gagnon’s deft hands the narrative is stirring but —Quill & Quire never maudlin.”

Mother of the Grass

News from Édouard

Jovette Marchessault

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Yvonne M. Klein

Translated by Sheila Fischman

The second volume of Marchessault’s turbulent autobiographical trilogy.

This fourth novel in the Chronicles of the Plateau MontRoyal follows Édouard, the fat woman’s brother-in-law, as he explores Paris.

Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott

“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

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

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!”

—Nuit blanche

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

32 Talonbooks Fiction Backlist

Real Mothers Audrey Thomas

The Secret Journal of Alexander Mackenzie

Short stories about mothers and the politics of the family.

Brian Fawcett

“These stories are for … anyone who admires a writer in masterly control of her material.” —Globe & Mail

An industrial biography that investigates personal myths and the great “machines” that drive the world to the abyss of development.

“A wonderful book.”

—Kootenay Reporter

The Red Notebook

Shinny’s Girls and Other Stories

Michel Tremblay

Mary Burns

Translated by Sheila Fischman

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).

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. “Tremblay’s characters don’t merely exist, they live out complex, sprawling lives.” —Globe & Mail

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.

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

Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2009.

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

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

Talonbooks Fiction Backlist 33

Summerland

A Thing of Beauty

George Ryga

Michel Tremblay

Edited by Ann Kujundzic

Translated by Sheila Fischman

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 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.

Tchipayuk

The Time Being

or The Way of the Wolf Ronald Lavallée

Mary Meigs

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

An affair born of a correspondence with a distant admirer leads the lovers to an arranged meeting in Australia. “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

Theme for Diverse Instruments

Trees Are Lonely Company

Jane Rule

Howard O’Hagan

Jane Rule’s first collection of short stories.

This collection of O’Hagan’s short fiction includes stories spanning the decades of his experience as mountain guide, gentleman adventurer and storyteller.

Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel

White Pebbles in the Dark Forests

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Yvonne M. Klein

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Volume three of Marchessault’s autobiographical trilogy: a reconciliation between women and men, children and parents, animals and humans.

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 ISBN 978-0-88922-198-7; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1996; 256 pp

Jovette Marchessault

34 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

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 —Rain Taxi enjoyable for it.” 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 —Vancouver Sun tries to enlighten …”

“Drew Hayden Taylor has a deft touch for mixing comedy and commentary in … social satire.” —Vancouver Sun

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

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

All Fall Down

Another Home Invasion

Wendy Lill

Joan MacLeod

A play about modern-day witch-hunting. Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

In this perceptively poignant play, the word “another” conveys both its meanings—something commonplace and something entirely different; MacLeod questions who the real perpetrators are of the heartless betrayal against the elderly Jean and her ailing husband. Cast of 1 woman.

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

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 35

Assorted Candies for the Theatre

Benevolence

Michel Tremblay

Morris Panych

Translated by Linda Gaboriau 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.

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 3 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

“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

The Baby Blues

The Berlin Blues

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.

“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; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2007; 96 pp; 3rd 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

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.

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

36 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

Bonjour, Là, Bonjour

Can You See Me Yet?

(Revised) Michel Tremblay

Timothy Findley

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

A search for sanctuary in an Ontario insane asylum in 1938. Cast of 7 women and 4 men. “Seems to me to be an astonishing work, richly textured, sombre, and yet possessing a relieving wit.” —Margaret Laurence ISBN 978-0-88922-119-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1977; 176 pp; 2nd printing

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 —Montreal Gazette mastered so well.” ISBN 978-0-88922-122-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©1977; 192 pp; 4th 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

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

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

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 37

Chimera

Corker

Wendy Lill

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.

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.

“The play comes at a propitious time.”

“Tough, compassionate and surprisingly funny.” —Sunday Daily News

—The Scientist

Cold Comfort

The Coronation Voyage

Jim Garrard

Michel Marc Bouchard

Set in Saskatchewan, the geographic centre of Canada, Cold Comfort depicts the complex relationship among three characters. Cast of 1 woman and 2 men.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

“A remarkable achievement … a solid and memorable show.” —Toronto Star

“Tackles the themes of sacrifice and forgiveness, the interpretation of history, the lost (i.e. sacrificed) generation, innocence, family and love.” —La Presse

“Sheer genius!”

—Arts National, CBC Radio

Will a Montreal Mafioso sacrifice his young son for safe conduct to England? Cast of 6 women and 8 men.

—CBC Radio

Colours in the Dark

Crabdance

James Reaney

Beverley Simons

A mosaic of experiences that form a childhood. Cast of 2 women, 2 men, 1 female child and 1 male child.

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.

“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

The Concise Köchel

Cruel Tears

Normand Chaurette

Ken Mitchell

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

An innovative “country opera” set in Saskatoon, with a captivating parallel to Shakespeare’s Othello. Cast of 5 women, 10 men and a band.

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

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.

Written by one of Canada’s most influential postmodern playwrights, this dazzling one-man show is storytelling of the highest order.

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.

“Wickedly funny.”

—National Post

38 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

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 … —Edmonton Journal impressive achievement …”

“It’s a rare thing—the well-argued blast of political —Globe & Mail outrage.

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

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.

“A carnivalesque expression of contemporary zeitgeist.”

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.

—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.

“Even the simplest lines have a quiet eloquence … soft explosions of the heart.” —Quill & Quire

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2000.

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 39

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 —CBC Radio-Canada reality of each character.”

“One of theatre’s most important voices.”

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 —Village Voice the line.” 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; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1970; 128 pp; 25th 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

Earshot

The Ends of the Earth

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

40 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

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 —Globe & Mail precarious high-wire act …”

“The writing is John Murrell at the top of his form, which is very high indeed. Tremendous stuff.” —CBC Radio

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 —Kootenay Reporter expands to the universal.”

—CBC

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 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.

“Espresso is a high-quality blend of bitter, dark comedy and subtle literary complexities that packs a strong punch.” —Globe & Mail

“Funny, thought-provoking, poignant, and often dark … ” —CBRA

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

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2000.

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

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 41

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 —Montreal Gazette from Moses.” ISBN 978-0-88922-389-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©1998, 96 pp; 4th printing

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

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

Michael Mercer

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.

“Knocked out by the richness of its language.” —Vancouver Sun

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

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

42 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

The Gull

Homechild

Daphne Marlatt

Joan MacLeod

With a Japanese translation by Toyoshi Yoshihara

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.

Performed in classical Noh style, The Gull, set in the aftermath of wartime Japanese-Canadian internment, dramatizes the historical link between the fishing village of Steveston, BC, and the coastal village of Mio, Japan. Cast of 1 woman, 4 men and a chorus. Winner of the 2008 Uchimura Naoya Prize. “A masterpiece.”

“MacLeod has written a moving story of huge implications—what family, identity and personal —CBC history mean.”

—UNESCO

The Hope Slide Little Sister

Halo 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. Merritt Theatre Award Nominee for Best Play, 2004.

Joan MacLeod Two plays by Joan MacLeod: the Chalmers Award-winning The Hope Slide, and MacLeod’s first play for young audiences, Little Sister.

“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

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.

A play about illusions. Cast of 2 men.

“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

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

“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

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

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

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 43

In a World Created by a Drunken God

Jitters

Drew Hayden Taylor

David French

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.

A sophisticated backstage comedy. Cast of 3 women and 6 men.

“[Presents] stellar characters struggling with hardcore moral questions … The presentation sure is masterful.” —Quill & Quire

“Jitters is witty, affectionate, bitchy; bitterly touching. French handles a complicated idea with great —Toronto Star sophistication.” ISBN 978-0-88922-242-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD rev. ©1986; 176 pp; 4th printing

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. The United Steel Workers’ Union Pauline Julien Prize Winner, 1987.

“[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

“An evening of political theatre with both guts and skill is a rare commodity these days.” —Montreal Gazette

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.”

—Globe & Mail

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

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

44 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

The Leisure Society

Lost Souls and Missing Persons

François Archambault

Sally Clark

Translated by Bobby Theodore A dark and thoroughly contemporary comedy. Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

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.

“A vicious, erotically charged spectacle full of cynical —Montreal Gazette disdain and gripping pathos.”

“Essentially a serious story told in a tremendously —Jerry Wasserman, CBC comical way.”

“A dark, twisted and brilliant take on modern marriage …” —Calgary Sun

Life Without Instruction

Ludwig & Mae

Sally Clark

Louis Patrick Leroux

A woman’s struggle for freedom, identity and dignity. Cast of 3 women and 5 men.

Translated by Shelley Tepperman & Ellen Warkentin

“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

Three plays include: 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 finally comes into her own. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man. “audacious avant-garde spectacles …”

—Jane Moss

A Line in the Sand

The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr

Guillermo Verdecchia & Marcus Youssef

Jovette Marchessault

A young Palestinian is befriended, then tortured and murdered by Canadian soldiers during Operation Desert Storm. Cast of 3 to 5 men.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Chalmers Best New Play Award Winner, 1997. “[A] powerful story …”

—CBRA

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

Listen to the Wind

La Maison Suspendue

James Reaney

Michel Tremblay

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.

Translated by John Van Burek A rich, emotional, sweeping drama of anger and sorrow spanning three generations. Cast of 3 women, 4 men and 1 male child.

“Keeps reminding us that the way through our world of sickness and breakdown is play.” —Profiles in Canadian Drama

“A full and resounding resonance.”

Local Boy Makes Good

Mambo Italiano

John Gray

Steve Galluccio

Three musicals by John Gray: 18 Wheels, Rock and Roll and Don Messer’s Jubilee.

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.

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

Chalmers Award Winner, 1990. —Theatrum

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 45

Marcel Pursued by the Hounds

Modern Canadian Plays

Michel Tremblay

Volume II Edited by Jerry Wasserman

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco 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

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

Marion Bridge

Mom’s the Word

Daniel MacIvor

Linda A. Carson, Jill Daum, Alison Kelly, Robin Nichol, Barbara Pollard & Deborah Williams

Includes screenplay and stage play. Cast of 3 women. “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

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 —Georgia Straight this much.” ISBN 978-0-88922-431-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2000; 112 pp; 2nd printing

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

Chalmers Award Nominee, 1988.

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

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

46 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

The Occupation of Heather Rose

Other Schools of Thought

Wendy Lill

Morris Panych

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.

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.

“An achingly honest reminder of the naïvely enthusiastic attempts that each of us has made to wade bravely into unfamiliar territory.” —Toronto Star

Omniscience

Paradise by the River

Tim Carlson

Vittorio Rossi

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.

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.

“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

“Tale of imprisoned Italians delivers explosive, full throttle energy … he succeeds at giving authentic voice to a specific community.” —Montreal Gazette

“Never less than intelligently provocative …” —Georgia Straight

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 mordant satire on the relation between theatre and life. Cast of 2 women and 4 men. Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1994.

“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

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

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 47

The Queens

George Ryga

Normand Chaurette

The Other Plays George Ryga

Translated by Linda Gaboriau The shifting passions and ambitions of six women drawn from Shakespeare’s theatre. Cast of 6 women.

Edited by James Hoffman

“This is a theatre of allusions, metaphysical playwriting of a literary richness which has yet to find —Le Devoir its equal in Quebec drama.”

“Hoffman provides an effective and multifaceted description for the student seeking a quick understanding of Ryga’s stature as a playwright.” —Canadian Literature

The Real World?

Saga of the Wet Hens

Michel Tremblay

Jovette Marchessault

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

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.

Four Quebec women writers meet at the centre of a fabulous vortex. Cast of 4 women.

“A virtuoso piece of writing by a master craftsman.” —Toronto Star

“Potent feminist literature.”

—Quill & Quire

“[Marchessault’s] fiction is lyrical and heartfelt, her drama literary, allusive, and absolutely original.” —Books in Canada

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

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

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. “An absolutely fascinating gesture by a powerful playwright.” —Globe & Mail 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

48 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

Salt-Water Moon

Silver Dagger

David French

The third book of the Mercer family saga. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.

French delivers a thriller guaranteed to have audiences perched on the edge of their seats. Cast of 4 women and 2 men.

Winner of the Canadian Authors Association Drama Award, Dora Mavor Moore Award, Hollywood DramaLogue Critics Award and ACTRA Award. “A gem of a play … affecting, funny and as evocative —Globe & Mail as a dream.”

Schoolhouse

Sisters

Leanna Brodie

Wendy Lill

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.

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.

“A thoughtful … well-crafted … beautifully inspired piece … compelling and richly rural.” —Citizen

“A moving theatrical experience.”

—Theatrum

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

7 Stories

Skydive

Morris Panych

Kevin Kerr

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.

Two brothers reconnect after many years of separation to fulfill a life-long ambition to go skydiving. Yet we realize that something is being subverted as we watch this highstakes adventure occur in the final seconds of a daring adventure gone horribly wrong. Written for one ablebodied and one differently-abled actor. Cast of 2 men.

Winner of 6 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards, 1989. “One of the best plays of the ’80s.”

—CBC

The Shape of a Girl Jewel

Soldier’s Heart

Joan MacLeod

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.

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

David French

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 49

Somewhere Else

The Tale of Teeka

George F. Walker

Michel Marc Bouchard

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).

Translated by Linda Gaboriau 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.

“No other living playwright pushes the boundaries of comedy as far, with often stunning results.” —Chicago Sun Times

“A play so achingly beautiful, restrained and moving that it clings to the heart and mind long after the last —Vancouver Sun words are spoken.”

Song of the Say-Sayer

Talking Bodies

Daniel Danis

Larry Tremblay

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Translated by Sheila Fischman

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.

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.

Still Laughing

That Summer

Morris Panych

David French

Just for laughs, Morris Panych updated three comedy classics from a century ago: Gogol’s The Government Inspector; Feydeau and Desvallières’ Hotel Peccadillo; and Schnitzler’s The Amorous Adventures of Anatol.

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.

“A summer without a deviceful staging by dauntless extrasensory Morris Panych is … wrong.” —Torontostage.com

“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

Studies in Motion

That Woman

Kevin Kerr

Daniel Danis

Adultery, jealousy, murder and an abandoned child haunt the life of photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Cast of 5 women and 7 men.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau 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.

“A complex, thoughtfully layered script that makes us laugh and care about this deeply troubled man.” —Globe & Mail

“It is a tale of heartbreak spun out of an endless golden thread called hope.” —See Magazine

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 ISBN 978-0-88922-412-4; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1999; 320 pp; 5th printing

50 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

Toronto, Mississippi

Two Plays

Joan MacLeod

George Woodcock

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.

This volume contains two uniquely Canadian stories of exile: The Island of Demons and Six Dry Cakes for the Hunted.

“See this play and fall in love.”

“Voices from the past that haunt us still.” —Essays in Canadian Writing

—Georgia Straight

The Trespassers

2000

Morris Panych

Joan MacLeod

Poignant, thought-provoking and sharply sardonic, The Trespassers focuses on the relationship between fifteenyear-old Lowell, and his grandfather, Hardy. Lowell is no average teenager and Hardy is no conventional role model—much to the consternation of Lowell’s born-again mother, Cash. Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

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.

The Trial of Judith K.

Unity (1918)

Sally Clark

Kevin Kerr

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.

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.

The Trigger

The Unnatural and Accidental Women

Carmen Aguirre

Marie Clements

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.

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.

“The Trigger is a knockout … intelligent, powerful, funny, horrific, theatrically stunning, and utterly free of victimology.” —Jerry Wasserman ISBN 978-0-88922-591-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2008; 64 pp

“A beautifully presented and acted play …” —Raven’s Eye “An impressive, powerful work.”

Twenty Years at Play

The Ventriloquist

A New Play Centre Anthology Edited by Jerry Wasserman

Larry Tremblay

This collection of eight of the finest plays produced by Vancouver’s New Play Centre marks the company’s 20th year. “Wasserman provides a fascinating history of the NPC … This book is essential.” —BCLA Reporter ISBN 978-0-88922-275-5; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1990; 346 pp

—Eye Weekly

Translated by Keith Turnbull 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 ISBN 978-0-88922-536-7; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2006; 64 pp

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 51

The Vic

Warriors

Leanna Brodie

Michel Garneau

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.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

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 —Calgary Sun for Warriors.” ISBN 978-0-88922-282-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1989; 104 pp

Vigil

WASPS

Morris Panych

Sally Clark

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.

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.

Winner of 3 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards,1995. “This is one Vigil well worth keeping.” “A small masterpiece.”

—Toronto Star —Globe & Mail

Waiting for the Parade

The Weekend Healer

John Murrell

Bryden MacDonald

Set in Calgary during World War II, five women work for the war effort while their men are away. Cast of 5 women.

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.

Walsh

Westray

Sharon Pollock

The Long Way Home Chris O’Neill & Ken Schwartz

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. “Undefinable magic that is the essence of art.” —Ottawa Citizen ISBN 978-0-88922-215-1; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD rev. ©1983; 136 pp; 13th printing

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. “Crisp, thoughtful, and entertaining, and every bit deserving of a standing ovation.” —Ottawa Citizen ISBN 978-0-88922-491-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD rev. ©2004; 96 pp

Wanted

Whale Riding Weather

Sally Clark

Bryden MacDonald

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.

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.

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1994. “Powerfully written …”

—Toronto Star

52 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

What Lies Before Us

Willful Acts

Morris Panych

Margaret Hollingsworth

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.

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.

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2007.

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1985 (War Babies).

“Panych is … ambitious, talented, funny, feared, beloved … and altogether impossible to ignore.” —Toronto Life

Where the Blood Mixes

Written on Water

Kevin Loring

Michel Marc Bouchard

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.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 2009. “Where the Blood Mixes … was the best of a stream of plays tackling [the Residential Schools’] disastrous —Globe & Mail legacy.” ISBN 978-0-88922-608-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2009; 96 pp; 2nd printing

Whereverville Josh MacDonald 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. “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

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 profound reflection on memory and on the act of writing … told with Michel Marc Bouchard’s —CBC characteristic humour and poetry.” ISBN 978-0-88922-492-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2004; 96 pp

Talonbooks Poetry Backlist 53

After Jack

Back to the War

Garry Thomas Morse

Frank Davey

An homage to poet Jack Spicer and a tribute to his concept of the serial poem, this bristling polyphony jostles the reader with dark undertones.

A careful archaeology of the catalogue of innocence assembled by a youthful imagination blossoming during World War II.

“In After Jack … translation crosses boundaries of space, time, culture and language, laying the common property of the poem bare—and gasping for air. Take —Stephen Collis a deep breath. Now dive back in.”

“Davey has given us a rare album of verbal photographs …”

“A haunting poetic memoir …”

—Arc

—abcbookworld.com

Amuse Bouche

Bardy Google

Adeena Karasick

Frank Davey

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.

Bardy Google reinvents poetry’s formal boundaries within the frame of our wired world. With only one hidden exception, this book was constructed through Frank Davey’s use of specifically devised Internet searches. Because the content of the Internet, and the search-engine priorities assigned to it change continuously, these texts are unique and unrepeatable.

“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 ISBN 978-0-88922-604-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2009; 108 pp; colour photos & illustrations

Asian Skies

Blonds on Bikes

Ken Norris

George Bowering

In this third book of Norris’ travel trilogy, he searches for the spiritual “inside passage,” the illusory transcendence of “a passage to India” from the post-industrial world, setting out for that most foreign of shores to the West: Asia.

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.

“In this series of poems, Norris … provides a crafty indictment against societal ills and imbalances without appearing on the surface to do so.” —Garry Thomas Morse

Aurora

Bread and Salt

Sharon Thesen

Renee Rodin

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.

Bread and Salt—what you bring for luck to a new house— is a joyous affirmation of vision and courage in hard times.

“In mind and heart and laughter, it’s a big book, full of surprises.” —Robin Blaser

“Rodin uses the banal as a way to ground the text, weaving the everyday and the terrible together to create understanding.” —Hour

b leev abul char ak trs

Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh

bill bissett

Fred Wah

“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

An important and enduring long poem from the “most poetical” of the TISH poets.

“The impact is immediate, and the reader is able to experience Wah’s insight and respond to his graceful rhythmic tone.” —Windsor Star ISBN 978-0-88922-188-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©1981; 88 pp; 2nd printing

54 Talonbooks Poetry Backlist

Cartouches

Decompositions

Lola Lemire Tostevin

Ken Belford

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.

Belford’s careful (de)compositions disclose the land as a complex living organism, articulate the names of it, see the whole of it, beginning at the edge of the rancher’s or the farmer’s field, and look back at “civilization” with a vision and a voice that is unique and new.

“Lola Lemire Tostevin is an incisive, intelligent, and —Quarry sharply observant writer …” “Lovely, nape-tingling work.”

—Books in Canada

“[Belford’s poems] read with the kind of inevitability of image and rhythm that makes other poets grit their teeth with envy.” —Margaret Atwood ISBN 978-0-88922-631-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2010; 96 pp

The Centre

Dominican Moon

Poems 1970–2000 Barry McKinnon

Ken Norris

“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

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. “Ken Norris … has been hailed as Canada’s premier romantic poet.” —Toronto Star “One of the best poets of his generation.”

—Matrix

Change Room

Down Time

Mark Cochrane

Jeff Derksen

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.

Proposes a social self that is able to recognize the ironies and restrictions we live in without returning to a garrison mentality.

“Mark Cochrane is a glorious writer.”

BC Book Prize Winner, 1991.

—Quill & Quire

“Cochrane’s blast-furnace intelligence … consumes everything in its path.” —BC Bookworld

“Wrenching intellectual and emotional dislocation that redefines the act of reading.” —Vancouver Sun

The Commons

Dream Pool Essays

Stephen Collis

Gil McElroy

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 active multiple streaming of apparently disparate sources: astronomy; theoretical cosmology and quantum physics; and the literary and visual arts.

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

Cultural Mischief

Dwell

A Practical Guide to Multiculturalism Frank Davey

Jeff Derksen

A collection of prose poems on the hyperbolic absurdities of multiculturalism in action. “Finally, what’s left is an irresistible, irrepressible read that’s bound to raise eyebrows.” —Monday Magazine ISBN 978-0-88922-364-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1996; 144 pp

An ironically revealing, humorous and analytic book. 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 “Language that’s resolute in its probe for meaningful co-ordinates.” —Fred Wah ISBN 978-0-88922-328-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1994; 112 pp

Talonbooks Poetry Backlist 55

Dyssemia Sleaze

fractal economies

Adeena Karasick

derek beaulieu

Cf. SEMA, unit of meaning: i.e. Dyssemia: (flawed information reception) Sleaze / sli:z/ v. Rough with projecting fibres.

beaulieu pushes the limits of poetry and poetics, challenging the status quo of the genre and the politics of language itself.

Bumbershoot Most Adventurous Publication Award Winner, 2000.

“Never read a book of concrete poetry before? This —FFWD might be the one to hook you.”

“Her most visually compelling, over-the-top —Publishers Weekly collection to date.”

“Represent[s] truly the best of beaulieu’s poetic practice.” —Prairie Fire Review of Books

The Empress Has No Closure

Genrecide

Adeena Karasick

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.

Explores through play and pun the intersection of multiple cultures, codes, idioms and constructs that have an impact on female identity.

“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 978-0-88922-307-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1992; 100 pp; 2nd printing

“Beautiful linguistic carnage …” “Bridging the genre gap …” “Visually striking … ”

—Word —The Link

—Jewish Post and News

A Few Words Will Do

gifts

Lionel Kearns

rob mclennan

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.

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.

“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

Fifty

Going Home

Ken Norris

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.

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.

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.

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

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Gypsy Guitar

hypoderm

David W. McFadden

notes to myself Weyman Chan

100 poems of love and betrayal—all presented in the unmistakable McFadden style. Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 1988. “An exhilarating immersion in a uniquely bizarre and irrepressible imagination.” —Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-250-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1987; 112 pp; 3rd printing

Chan’s idea for this book is simple—approach the world as metaphor, and it will come to you. hypoderm is a manifesto of intimations, observations and recognitions of mortality that get under the poet’s skin. “hypoderm … maps the borders and the fence; the lines between friends and family, between forgive —derek beaulieu and forget.” ISBN 978-0-88922-637-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2010; 96 pp

Hanging Fire

I. Another. The Space Between

Phyllis Webb

Selected Poems Jamie Reid

Astonishingly beautiful entrances into the personae of lost companions who reappear, animated by a voice in love with the music of their speaking. “Few poets take us through the disasters of the world … with such exquisite moral precision.” —Rosemary Sullivan ISBN 978-0-88910-391-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1990; 80 pp

“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

harvest

th influenza uv logik

a book of signifiers rob mclennan

bill bissett

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

Canada’s most linguistically innovative poet takes on the “linear binary traps” of conventional logic, history and politics. “An important book … this is a sumptuous and satisfying sampling of beautifully crafted work.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-357-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1995; 144 pp

Hotel Montreal

inkorrect thots

New and Selected Poems Ken Norris

bill bissett

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

When bill bissett thinks “inkorrect thots” anything can happen. BC Book Prize Winner, 1993. “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

The House That Hijack Built

The Invisibility Exhibit

Adeena Karasick

Sachiko Murakami

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.

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.

“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 ISBN 978-0-88922-511-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2004; 128 pp; colour collages

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

Talonbooks Poetry Backlist 57

is a door

Love and Savagery

Fred Wah

Des Walsh

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 improvisation, compositional problem-solving, travel, investigation, collaborative events, documentary.

This finely crafted book of poems, adapted to a feature film in 2009, is a sustained adoration of the beloved that echoes the work of the troubadours. The unnamed Irish woman of this collection leads the narrator on a spiritual quest from the streets of St. John’s to the seemingly impenetrable evergreen thickets of Ireland.

BC Book Prize Winner, 2010. “Without a doubt, [is a door] is a dazzler … thoughtful, —Globe & Mail playful and stunningly skillful.”

“A collection to be read and re-read, pondered and savoured.” —Newfoundland Herald

Kerrisdale Elegies

loving without being vulnrabul

George Bowering

bill bissett

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.

Poems that tell stories on many different levels: through sound, visual images, political insights, non-narrative fusion and linguistic music.

“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

th last photo uv th human soul

Mêmewars

bill bissett

Adeena Karasick

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.

Mêmewars is a book writing against itself.

BC Book Prize Finalist, 1994. “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 ISBN 978-0-88922-344-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1994; 120 pp; 2nd printing

Last Scattering Surfaces

The Moustache

Gil McElroy

Memories of Greg Curnoe George Bowering

These poems map out zones of interaction which took place in the “surface of last scattering”—the first formation of matter in the universe. ReLit Longlist, 2008.

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.

“A master of the craft … [McElroy] is very, very intelligent and his ear is infallible.” —Arc

“Documents a friendship through the kinship of the creative spirit.” —Kitchener-Waterloo Record

Limbo Road

narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane

Ken Norris

bill bissett

Limbo Road—as divorce journal, meditation, travel poem—chronicles the search for the new beloved.

Through narrative, non-narrative, sound, song, meditation, metaphysical, spiritual, political and visual poems, bissett explores the fragility and incompletion of all narratives.

“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 ISBN 978-0-88922-401-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1998; 160 pp

“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

58 Talonbooks Poetry Backlist

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

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 —National Post political.” ISBN 978-0-88922-532-9; $17.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2005; 160 pp

News & Smoke

On the Material

Selected Poems Sharon Thesen

Stephen Collis

“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 ISBN 978-0-88922-417-9; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1999; 160 pp

Structured in three parts, On the Material is a meditation on geography, socio-economics, the body and grief. “On the Material is a fine, smart book, indeed. But it is the concluding section, ‘Gail’s Books,’ that I will read again and again, for that section is a profound testing of the ability of an innovative poetry (and innovative poet) to address the most urgent and emotional of subjects, the death of the poet’s sister.” —Hank Lazer ISBN 978-0-88922-632-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2010; 128 pp

bpNichol Comics

Pacific Windows

bpNichol

Collected Poems of Roy K. Kiyooka Roy K. Kiyooka

Edited by Carl Peters Nichol’s comics (1960–1980) informed his work in other genres as well as the work of other writers.

Edited by Roy Miki

“Nichol engages in visual wordplay and defies the conventional restraints of space and structure in comic books.” —National Post

Association for Asian American Studies Outstanding Book Award Winner, 1998.

The most important poetic works of Kiyooka.

Noise from the Laundry

Pell Mell

Weyman Chan

Robin Blaser

Weyman Chan’s poems elaborate his singular and solitary work on the renaissance of the contemporary lyric form.

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).

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

NonZero Definitions

peter among th towring boxes / text bites

Gil McElroy

bill bissett

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.

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.

“A master of the craft … [McElroy] is very, very intelligent and his ear is infallible …” —Arc

BC Book Prize Winner, 2003.

Talonbooks Poetry Backlist 59

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 —Smaro Kamboureli beauty.”

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

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.”

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

The Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh

Selected Poems

rob mclennan

The Vision Tree Phyllis Webb

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.

Poetry distinguished by its attention to form and thought. Governor General’s Poetry Award Winner, 1982.

Archibald Lampman Poetry Award Nominee, 2000.

“Phyllis Webb … is one of the finest poets now writing in Canada.” —Books in Canada

“Just the right combination of details … carefully crafted, each line shifting the image slightly …” —Books in Canada

scars on th seehors

Selected Writing

bill bissett

As Elected bpNichol

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.”

Selections from visual poetry to translations by one of the most important poets in the 20th century writing in English.

“I find his work … very spiritual, very funny, and very astute.” —Alma Lee

“bpNichol’s work is the most courageous body of work in Canadian literature.” —Frank Davey

60 Talonbooks Poetry Backlist

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.

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.

The Singer’s Broken Throat

ths is erth thees ar peopul

Des Walsh

bill bissett

Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland & Labrador Heritage and History Award Finalist, 2005.

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.

“Alternatively tender and bitter, this collection is at once a prayer for love’s endurance and a lament for a nation …” —Fiddlehead

ReLit Award Nominee, 2008.

“Walsh is, and always has been, Newfound-land’s poet.” —Sunday Independent

“His poetry addresses the limitless discussion of the boundaries between the personal and the political.” —National Post

Sticks & Stones

Transnational Muscle Cars

George Bowering

Jeff Derksen

George Bowering’s first book of poetry. With a preface by Robert Creeley and original line drawings by Gordon Payne.

“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

Talonbooks Poetry Backlist 61

Vermeer’s Light

what’s left

Poems 1996–2006 George Bowering

rob mclennan

“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 978-0-88922-565-7; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD rev. © 2007; 224 pp

Presents us with cues and clues to the poet’s compositional strategies. “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

62 Talonbooks Complete Booklist by Author All books are published in trade paperback unless otherwise shown.

beaulieu, derek fractal economies

Aguirre, Carmen The Trigger

978-0-88922-539-8; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

50 How to Write

978-0-88922-591-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

The Refugee Hotel

Angus, Ian

Decompositions

978-0-88922-631-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Anarcho-Modernism: Toward a New bissett, bill Critical Theory in Honour of Jerry b leev abul char ak trs Zaslove 18 978-0-88922-457-5; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Archambault, François

40 inkorrect thots

978-0-88922-218-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

The Happiest Man in the World and Other Stories 29 978-0-88922-269-4; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

The Pagan Wall

978-0-88922-312-7; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Arnett, Chris

978-0-88922-372-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane

978-0-88922-507-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

17 49

Boucher, Denise

The Fairies Are Thirsty

978-0-88922-200-7; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Bourguignon, Stéphane

Bowering, George And Other Stories

Diplomacy

978-0-88922-381-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

978-0-88922-611-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Omniscience 27

978-0-88922-451-3; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Baseball Love

C Carlson, Tim

978-0-88922-596-1; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

978-0-88922-268-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

978-0-88922-653-1; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD Vermeer’s Light: Poems

1996–2006

Blais, Marie-Claire Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians under Allied Occupation, 1944–1950

978-0-88922-272-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

978-0-88922-562-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Carson, Linda A. et al. Mom’s the Word

978-0-88922-431-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Caux, Patrick & Bernard Gilbert

Harry’s Fragments 30 EX MACHINA: Creating for the peter among th towring boxes / text Stage 20 978-0-88910-387-0; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD bites 58 978-0-88922-617-3; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD Kerrisdale Elegies 57 978-0-88922-464-3; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

time

Bacque, James

Shinny’s Girls and Other Stories

52 Bush, Steven

The Terror of the Coast: Land 978-0-88922-590-9; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD scars on th seehors 59 Alienation and Colonial War on Vancouver Island and the Gulf 978-0-88922-387-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD The Moustache: Memories of Greg Curnoe 57 Islands, 1849–1863 25 Selected Poems: Beyond Even Faithful 978-0-88910-457-0; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD 978-0-88922-318-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Legends 59 17 Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand: Oral 978-0-88922-172-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD My Darling Nellie Grey 978-0-88922-634-0; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD Traditions of the Hul’q’umi’num’ sublingual 60 31 Coast Salish of Kuper Island and 978-0-88922-589-3; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD The Rain Barrel 978-0-88922-345-5; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Vancouver Island 26 ths is erth thees ar peopul 60 60 978-0-88922-555-8; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD 978-0-88922-557-2; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Sticks & Stones

Burns, Mary

16 978-0-88922-492-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Beating the Bushes 978-0-88922-647-0; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

978-0-88922-529-9; $19.95 CAD / $17.95 USD northern wild roses / deth interrupts 53 th dansing 58 Blonds on Bikes 978-0-88922-532-9; $17.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

978-0-88922-574-9; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

978-0-88922-410-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

57 A Slight Case of Fatigue

978-0-88922-322-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

loving without being vulnrabul

Arnason, David

978-0-88922-303-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

44 th last photo uv th human soul

978-0-88922-531-2; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

The Circus Performers’ Bar

978-0-88922-357-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

978-0-88922-427-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

The Leisure Society

978-0-88922-433-9; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

th influenza uv logik

The Tale of Teeka Written on Water

38 The Shovel

978-0-88922-641-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

978-0-88922-465-0; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

978-0-88922-440-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

The Madonna Painter 54

Browne, Colin 37 Ground Water

978-0-88922-422-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

21 Down Dangerous Passes Road

978-0-88922-629-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

16 Belford, Ken

978-0-88922-650-0; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

15 Seconds

Bouchard, Michel Marc 55 The Coronation Voyage

American Notebooks: A Writer’s Journey

978-0-88922-565-7; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Boyd, George

Champagne, Dominic Playing Bare

978-0-88922-335-6; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Chan, Weyman Hypoderm

978-0-88922-637-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Noise from the Laundry

978-0-88922-626-5; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Chaurette, Normand All the Verdis of Venice

978-0-88922-442-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

The Concise Köchel

978-0-88922-518-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

8 Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read 978-0-88922-358-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Consecrated Ground by Geologists 41 978-0-88922-666-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD 20 The Angel of Solitude 27 978-0-88922-400-1; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Gideon’s Blues 41 978-0-88922-567-1; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD 978-0-88922-337-0; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD 47 978-0-88922-496-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD The Queens Other Losses: An Investigation into Dürer’s Angel 29 978-0-88922-403-2; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD the Mass Deaths of German 978-0-88922-111-6; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Brinkman, Baba Prisoners at the Hands of the The Execution 40 The Rap Canterbury Tales 59 Chekhov, Anton French and Americans after World 978-0-88922-103-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD 978-0-88922-548-0; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD The Seagull War II 2 978-0-88922-665-4; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

Bailey, Anne Geddes

Blaser, Robin Pell Mell

Brodie, Leanna 58 For Home and Country

978-0-88922-601-2; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

40 Christensen, Bev

25 978-0-88922-508-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Too Good to Be True 978-0-88922-354-7; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Schoolhouse 48

Timothy Findley and the Aesthetics of Fascism: Intertextual Collaboration Boas, Franz 978-0-88922-571-8; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD and Resistance 20 Indian Myths & Legends from the The Vic 51 North Pacific Coast of America: A 978-0-88922-386-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD 978-0-88922-459-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Translation of Franz Boas’ Barnholden, Michael Indianische Sagen von der NordBrooks, Daniel & Guillermo Circumstances Alter Photographs: Pacifischen Küste Amerikas 21 Verdecchia Captain James Peters’ Reports from 978-0-88922-553-4; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD The Noam Chomsky Lectures 45 the War of 1885 19 Cloth: 978-0-88922-621-0; $35.00 CAD / $35.00 USD

Böggild, Hans & Doug Innis The Satchmo’ Suite

978-0-88922-405-6; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

978-0-88922-648-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

978-0-88922-324-0; $16.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

Clark, Sally Life Without Instruction

978-0-88922-347-9; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

Lost Souls and Missing Persons

978-0-88922-397-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Saint Frances of Hollywood

978-0-88922-366-0; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

The Trial of Judith K.

978-0-88754-465-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Talonbooks Complete Booklist by Author 63

Wanted

Deverell, Rex

978-0-88922-503-9; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

WASPS

Boiler Room Suite

51 D’Acres, Lilia & Donald Luxton

978-0-88922-398-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Lions Gate

Burning Vision

978-0-88922-568-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

The Unnatural and Accidental Women

978-0-88922-521-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Clements, Marie & Rita Leistner

Vancouver Anthology

Danis, Daniel

On the Job

978-0-88922-482-7; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Gabriel Dumont Speaks

Findley, Timothy Can You See Me Yet?

Cochrane, Mark

Fiorentino, Jon Paul &

Change Room

978-0-88922-432-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

Collis, Stephen

978-0-88910-421-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

Davey, Frank Margaret Atwood: A Feminist Poetics 18

978-0-88922-580-0; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

978-0-88922-217-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

On the Material

58 Back to the War

978-0-88922-632-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

978-0-88922-523-7; $19.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

The Commons

Robert Kroetsch

31 Post-Prairie: An Anthology of New Poetry 59 978-0-88922-535-0; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

Daurio, Beverley Hell & Other Novels

978-0-88922-119-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

The Edward Curtis Project: A Modern That Woman 49 Durand, Monique Picture Story 14 978-0-88922-399-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD The Painter’s Wife 978-0-88922-642-5; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

978-0-88922-102-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

978-0-88922-625-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

978-0-88922-419-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

978-0-88922-121-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

43 Dumont, Gabriel

978-0-88922-519-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Song of the Say-Sayer

26 Nothing to Lose

32 Ducharme, Réjean Go Figure

978-0-88922-291-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Cloth: 978-0-88922-614-2; $35.00 CAD / $35.00 USD

978-0-88922-484-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

50 In the Eyes of Stone Dogs

978-0-88922-332-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Joe Beef

22 Douglas, Stan

36 Dalpé, Jean Marc

978-0-88922-472-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Scattered in a Rising Wind

Copper Thunderbird

Doctor Thomas Neill Cream (Mystery at McGill) 38

978-0-88922-137-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Cloth: 978-0-88922-416-2; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

Clements, Marie

978-0-88922-514-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Fischer, Hervé

Ebtekar, Massoumeh with

The Decline of the Hollywood Empire 20 978-0-88922-545-9; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Fred A. Reed

Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story Frangione, Lucia of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture Cariboo Magi 36 25 978-0-88922-527-5; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

978-0-88922-443-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Espresso Phyllis Webb and the Common Good: Bardy Google 40 53 Poetry / Anarchy / Abstraction 26 978-0-88922-495-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD 978-0-88922-636-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Enright, Robert 978-0-88922-559-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Cultural Mischief Paradise Garden 13 54 Peregrinations: Conversations with 978-0-88922-658-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD 978-0-88922-364-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Contemporary Artists 23 Conolly, L. W. Popular Narratives 59 978-0-921368-67-0; $24.95 CAD / $18.95 USD French, David Canadian Drama and the Critics

(Revised Edition)

978-0-88922-285-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

59 978-0-88922-359-2; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Selected Poems: The Arches 978-0-88922-174-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Jitters

1949

Cook, Michael Jacob’s Wake

43 Deneault, Alain

978-0-88922-242-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

Farrant, M.A.C.

978-0-88922-266-3; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

46 The Breakdown So Far 27 One Crack Out 978-0-88922-488-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Theses on the Alegal Nature of Tax 978-0-88922-556-5; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD 47 Havens 22 Darwin Alone in the Universe 28 The Riddle of the World

978-0-88922-097-3; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD Paul Martin & Companies: Sixty

Tiln & Other Plays

978-0-88922-107-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Craddock, Chris &

978-0-88922-538-1; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

978-0-88922-487-2; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

978-0-88922-471-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

Salt-Water Moon 48 Deneault, Alain & William Sacher Down the Road to Eternity: New & Nathan Cuckow 978-0-88922-257-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Selected Fiction 29 Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of BASH’d 10 48 978-0-88922-615-9; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Silver Dagger Choice for the World’s Mining 978-0-88922-656-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD 978-0-88922-325-7; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD Industries 16 Fawcett, Brian Soldier’s Heart 48 Cross, Ronald & Hélène Sévigny 978-0-88922-635-7; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD Cambodia: A Book for People Who 978-0-88922-463-6; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Lasagna: The Man Behind the Mask Derksen, Jeff Find Television Too Slow 27 That Summer 49 21 978-0-88922-237-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Annihilated Time: Poetry and Other 978-0-88922-439-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD 978-0-88922-348-6; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Capital Tales 28 Politics 18

Cryer, Beryl Mildred

978-0-88922-612-8; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

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My Career with the Leafs & Other 54 Stories

Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand: Oral Down Time 31 978-0-88922-278-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Traditions of the Hul’q’umi’num’ 978-0-88922-199-4; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Gagnon, Madeleine Coast Salish of Kuper Island and Dwell 54 My Name Is Bosnia 31 The Secret Journal of Alexander Vancouver Island 26 978-0-88922-328-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Mackenzie 32 978-0-88922-542-8; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 978-0-88922-555-8; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD Transnational Muscle Cars 60 978-0-88922-227-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Women in a World at War: Seven 978-0-88922-473-5; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Culhane, Dara Dispatches from the Front 26 Fennario, David An Error in Judgement: The Politics of Desjardins, Martine 978-0-88922-483-4; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Balconville 35 Medical Care in an Indian / White All That Glitters 27 978-0-88922-145-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Gale, Lorena Community 20 978-0-88922-520-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD 43 Banana Boots 35 Je me souviens 978-0-88922-246-5; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD A Covenant of Salt 28 978-0-88922-453-7; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD 978-0-88922-396-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD The Pleasure of the Crown: 978-0-88922-566-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD The Death of René Lévesque 38 Anthropology, Law and First Galluccio, Steve Fairy Ring 29 978-0-88922-480-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Nations 23 978-0-88922-449-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Mambo Italiano 44 978-0-88922-315-8; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

978-0-88922-494-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

64 Talonbooks Complete Booklist by Author

Garneau, Michel

Hentsch, Thierry

Warriors

51 Empire of Desire: The Abolition of Time 978-0-88922-282-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Johnson, Chris

978-0-88922-587-9; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

Garrard, Jim

Truth or Death: The Quest for Cold Comfort 37 Immortality in the Western Narrative 978-0-88922-201-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Tradition 26

Glover, Douglas Dog Attempts to Drown Man in Saskatoon

978-0-88922-509-1; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD

Highway, Tomson 28

978-0-88922-228-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Gold, Artie

Fred A. Reed Conversations in Tehran

978-0-88922-550-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Lamothe, Serge

Karasick, Adeena Amuse Bouche

The Baldwins

978-0-88922-604-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 978-0-88922-525-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Dyssemia Sleaze 55

978-0-88922-544-2; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Langley, Rod

35 47 978-0-88922-434-6; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Bethune 978-0-88922-088-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD 978-0-88922-490-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD The Empress Has No Closure 55

Rose

978-0-88922-652-4; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Grace, Sherrill

978-0-88922-307-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD The Dunsmuirs: Alone at the Edge 39 978-0-88922-297-7; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD 55

Hill-Tout, Charles

Genrecide

The Salish People (ed. Ralph Maud) Vol. I: The Thompson and the 22 Okanagan

978-0-88922-586-2; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD

978-0-88922-148-2; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Strange Comfort: Essays on the Work Vol. II: The Squamish and the Lillooet of Malcolm Lowry 25 24 978-0-88922-618-0; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

978-0-88922-149-9; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

39 978-0-88922-370-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD The Dunsmuirs: A Promise Kept $16.95 $12.95 978-0-88922-304-2; CAD / USD The House That Hijack Built 56 978-0-88922-511-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Mêmewars

978-0-88922-150-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

Albert-Reiner Glaap Performing National Identities: International Perspectives on Contemporary Canadian Theatre 23 978-0-88922-475-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Grace, Sherrill &

Kearns, Lionel

Jerry Wasserman

978-0-88922-248-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

55 Bridges of Light: Otto Landauer of Leonard Frank Photos, 1945–1980 19

978-0-88922-558-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Homel, David Get on Top

Cloth: 978-0-88922-376-9; $39.95 CAD / $34.95 USD

Leroux, Louis Patrick Ludwig & Mae

Lill, Wendy All Fall Down

25 Corker

978-0-88922-394-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

The Fighting Days

Kerr, Kevin

978-0-88922-569-5; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

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The Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack 21 Chimera Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands

978-0-88922-623-4; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

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Gray, John

978-0-88922-338-7; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

Leonoff, Cyril E.

Vol. IV: The Sechelt and the SouthKennedy, Dorothy & Randy Eastern Tribes of Vancouver Island Bouchard 24 978-0-88922-151-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America: A Hogg, Robert Translation of Franz Boas’ 1895 An English Canadian Poetics Edition of Indianische Sagen von Vol. I: The Confederation Poets 20 der Nord-Pacifischen Küste 978-0-88922-613-5; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD Amerikas 21

Theatre and AutoBiography: Writing and Performing Lives in Theory and Hollingsworth, Margaret Practice 25 Willful Acts 978-0-88922-540-4; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Lavallée, Ronald

57 Tchipayuk: or The Way of the Wolf 33

978-0-88922-344-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Vol. III: The Mainland Halkomelem 24 A Few Words Will Do

Grace, Sherrill &

Local Boy Makes Good

978-0-921368-82-3; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout 40

The Collected Books of Artie Gold 15

Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon Pollock

Essays on George F. Walker: Playing 20 with Anxiety 26 Lafond, Jean-Daniel &

978-0-88922-226-7; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

978-0-7737-6048-6; $22.95 CAD / $18.95 USD Lost in North America: The Imaginary Skydive 48 The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum 41 Canadian in the American Dream Hughes, Kenneth James 978-0-88922-638-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD 978-0-88922-369-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD 22 Signs of Literature 49 25 Studies in Motion Memories of You 45 978-0-88922-350-9; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD 978-0-88922-236-6; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Gray, John with Eric Peterson Billy Bishop Goes to War

Hunter, Lynette 35 Outsider Notes

978-0-88922-196-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

978-0-88922-592-3; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

Unity (1918) 23

978-0-88922-363-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Hadfield, D.A.

Inglis, Raul Sanchez

Kitagawa, Muriel

Hardin, Herschel Esker Mike and His Wife, Agiluk The Great Wave of Civilization

978-0-88922-106-2; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Hendry, Tom Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass

978-0-88922-096-6; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Sisters

ABC of Reading TRG

978-0-88922-289-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Cloth: 978-0-88922-231-1; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Loring, Kevin

Kiyooka, Roy K.

Where the Blood Mixes

978-0-88922-378-3; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Knickerbocker, Nancy

Building the West: The Early Architects of British Columbia

978-0-88922-452-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

978-0-88922-554-1; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD

No Plaster Saint: The Life of Mildred Osterhout Fahrni 22

40 Jaeger, Peter

978-0-88922-018-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

978-0-88922-593-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

978-0-88922-608-1; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Pacific Windows: Collected Poems of Roy K. Kiyooka 58 Luxton, Donald 43

Re: Producing Women’s Dramatic In the Eyes of God History: The Politics of Playing in 978-0-88922-561-9; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Toronto 23 978-0-88922-563-3; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

978-0-88922-489-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

The Occupation of Heather Rose

978-0-88922-461-2; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

This Is My Own

Kröller, Eva-Marie

978-0-88922-423-0; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

Jetha, Sadru Nuri Does Not Exist

McCaffery, Steve & bpNichol George Bowering: Bright Circles of Colour 19 Rational Geomancy: The Kids of the Book-Machine 23 978-0-88922-306-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD 1

978-0-88922-655-5; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

978-0-88922-300-4; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

Talonbooks Complete Booklist by Author 65

Macdonald, Bruce Vancouver: A Visual History

Homechild 26

42 The Medusa Head

978-0-88922-582-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

22 Nichol, James W.

978-0-88922-210-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Sainte-Marie among the Hurons

42 The Time Being 33 Cloth: 978-0-88922-311-0; $60.00 CAD / $40.00 USD The Hope Slide / Little Sister 978-0-88922-411-7; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD 978-0-88922-374-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

MacDonald, Bryden

Divinity Bash / nine lives

978-0-88922-408-7; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

The Weekend Healer

978-0-88922-360-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Whale Riding Weather

978-0-88922-353-0; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

The Shape of a Girl / Jewel

978-0-88922-460-5; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Toronto, Mississippi

Mercer, Michael Goodnight Disgrace

50 Miki, Roy 978-0-88922-373-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD A Record of Writing

Nicholson, Cecily Triage

978-0-88922-238-0; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

978-0-88922-583-1; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

2000

978-0-88922-147-5; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

978-0-88922-657-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Norris, Ken Asian Skies

978-0-88922-633-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Cloth: 978-0-88922-263-2; $39.95 CAD / $34.95 USD Dominican Moon 54 Tracing the Paths: Reading =/ Writing 978-0-88922-526-8; $17.95 CAD / $15.95 USD 28 The Martyrology 26 Fifty 55 978-0-88922-298-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

17 Mailhot, Michèle 978-0-88922-651-7; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Death of the Spider

With Bated Breath

MacDonald, Josh

978-0-88922-256-4; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

42 Malyon, Carol & bill bissett 978-0-88922-469-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD griddle talk: a yeer uv bill n carol dewing brunch Whereverville 52 Halo

978-0-88922-506-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

978-0-88922-606-7; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

Marchessault, Jovette

McElroy, Gil Dream Pool Essays

54 Like a Child of the Earth

978-0-88922-454-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

978-0-88922-261-8; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

978-0-88922-659-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Cassandra Kobayashi Justice in Our Time: The Japanese Canadian Redress Settlement 21 Cloth: 978-0-88922-292-2; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

978-0-88922-479-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Floating Up to Zero

Miki, Roy &

Going Home

978-0-88922-573-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

Hotel Montreal: New and Selected Poems

Mitchell, Ken

978-0-88922-456-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

57 Cruel Tears 37 Limbo Road 57 The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr 978-0-88922-401-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD 978-0-88922-120-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD 44 978-0-88922-575-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Last Scattering Surfaces NonZero Definitions

978-0-88922-499-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Saga of the Wet Hens 55 20

978-0-88922-213-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

978-0-88922-468-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD White Pebbles in the Dark Forests

Great Lakes Suite

978-1-55331-002-0; $14.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

O’Hagan, Howard

Moore, Mavor

33 Six Plays by Mavor Moore

978-0-88922-271-7; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

978-0-88922-280-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

978-0-88922-382-0; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

Gypsy Guitar

Moodie, Andrew

31 The Lady Smith

978-0-88922-267-0; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

McFadden, David W. Five Star Planet

978-0-88922-314-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Mother of the Grass

The School-Marm Tree Trees Are Lonely Company

Morse, Garry Thomas

56 Marlatt, Daphne

978-0-88922-129-1; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

978-0-88922-327-1; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

53 O’Neill, Chris & Ken Schwartz 42 After Jack 978-0-88922-250-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD The Gull 978-0-88922-630-2; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 978-0-88922-616-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Westray: The Long Way Home 51 There’ll Be Another 60 28 60 Death in Vancouver 978-0-88922-361-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Selected Writing: Net Work 978-0-88922-607-4; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 978-0-88922-175-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

MacIvor, Daniel Cul-de-sac

This Tremor Love Is 37

60 Discovery Passages

45 Maud, Ralph 978-0-88922-552-7; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD A Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend

The Centre: Poems 1970–2000

The Invisibility Exhibit

54 Charles Olson at the Harbor

Murrell, John

22 Democracy

978-0-88922-576-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Poet to Publisher: Charles Olson’s The Faraway Nearby 40 Correspondence with Donald Allen 978-0-921368-56-4; $10.95 CAD / $7.95 USD gifts 55 23 Waiting for the Parade 51 978-0-88922-605-0; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD 978-0-88922-486-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD 978-0-88922-183-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Glengarry 6 The Porcupine Hunter and Other 978-0-88922-662-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Stories 23 Murphy, John harvest: a book of signifiers 56 42 978-0-88922-333-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD The Heretic 978-0-88922-455-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD 978-0-88922-595-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Transmission Difficulties: Franz Boas The Richard Brautigan and Tsimshian Mythology 26 Ahhhhhhhhhhh 59 978-0-88922-424-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Amigo’s Blue Guitar

978-0-88922-584-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

The Dishwashers

978-0-88922-524-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Earshot

978-0-88922-444-5; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

The Ends of the Earth

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Girl in the Goldfish Bowl

978-0-88922-481-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

978-0-88922-664-7; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

18 Nichol, bp Lawrence & Holloman 43 978-0-88922-505-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Meanwhile: The Critical Writings of 978-0-88922-392-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD bpNichol 22 The Box Closet 19 Other Schools of Thought 46 34

978-0-88922-371-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Another Home Invasion

Benevolence

Gordon

61 Meigs, Mary 978-0-88922-498-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Beyond Recall

what’s left

MacLeod, Joan

38 Panych, Morris

978-0-921368-28-1; $10.95 CAD / $7.95 USD

mclennan, rob

978-0-88922-430-8; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

978-0-88922-639-5; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD

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978-0-88922-189-5; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

978-0-88922-497-1; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

Revised Second Edition

Murakami, Sachiko

Marion Bridge

McKinnon, Barry

978-0-88922-660-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Muthologos: Lectures and Interviews,

978-0-88922-450-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

978-0-88922-515-2; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

978-0-88922-491-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

5 Olson, Charles

978-0-88922-622-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

978-0-88922-253-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

In the Company of Strangers

978-0-88922-294-6; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

Lily Briscoe: A Self-Portrait

978-0-88922-447-6; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

21 bpNichol Comics

978-0-88922-448-3; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

22 Selected Writing: As Elected

978-0-88922-195-6; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

58 59

978-0-88922-176-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

978-0-88922-346-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

7 Stories

978-0-88922-281-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

66 Talonbooks Complete Booklist by Author

Still Laughing: Three Adaptations by Robinson, Harry & Wendy Morris Panych 49 Wickwire

Schermbrucker, Bill Chameleon & Other Stories

978-0-88922-624-1; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

Trespassers, The

Living by Stories: A Journey of 50 Landscape and Memory

978-0-88922-628-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Vigil

978-0-88922-208-3; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

24 Mimosa

978-0-88922-560-2; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Write It on Your Heart: The Epic

World of an Okanagan Storyteller 24

Peters, Carl textual vishyuns: image and text in the work of bill bissett

978-0-88922-661-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

978-0-88922-367-7; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

14 978-0-88922-215-1; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD Subject to Change 978-0-88922-644-9; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

Reaney, James Colours in the Dark

978-0-88922-001-0; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

30 Songs My Mother Taught Me 30

Anatolia Junction: A Journey into Hidden Turkey

978-0-88922-564-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

978-0-88922-426-1; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Paradise by the River

19 Piercing

978-0-88922-212-0; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Persian Postcards: Iran after Khomeini Rostand, Edmond 23 Cyrano de Bergerac 978-0-88922-351-6; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

The Ventriloquist

Tallman, Warren

21 Tremblay, Lise

30 978-0-88922-308-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD The Hunting Ground 978-0-88922-534-3; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD 34

978-0-88922-485-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Mile End

978-0-88922-467-4; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

978-0-88922-428-5; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

The Baby Blues

35 Tremblay, Michel

978-0-88922-406-3; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Albertine in Five Times (trans.

35 978-0-88922-301-1; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD The Berlin Blues Shattered Images: The Rise of Militant 978-0-88922-581-7; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Theme for Diverse Instruments 33 Iconoclasm in Syria

978-0-88922-536-7; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

Taylor, Drew Hayden

978-0-88922-445-2; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

38 alterNatives

978-0-921368-43-4; $10.95 CAD / $7.95 USD

Salonica Terminus: Travels into the Rule, Jane Balkan Nightmare 24 Desert of the Heart 978-0-88922-368-4; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

978-0-88922-645-6; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

Talking Bodies

46 In the Midst

978-0-88922-393-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

978-0-88922-528-2; $19.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Bordertown Café

Reed, Fred A.

978-0-88922-649-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

978-0-88922-549-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD The Bicycle Eater

978-0-88922-609-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

36 Hellfire Pass: A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A 978-0-88922-477-3; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Chronicle in Three Plays, Part One 42

Tremblay, Larry Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre

Listen to the Wind

Rebar, Kelly

Tostevin, Lola Lemire 978-0-88922-355-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

978-0-88922-016-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

978-0-88922-594-7; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

978-0-88922-329-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Cartouches

Simons, Beverley

44 The Carpenter: A Carpenter’s Trilogy, Suttles, Wayne A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part Three 978-0-88922-002-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD 36 Coast Salish Essays

978-0-88922-191-8; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

978-0-88910-456-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Carmela’s Table: A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part Two Strindberg, August 36 Miss Julie 37

978-0-88922-319-6; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Real Mothers

978-0-88922-415-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

Crabdance

Rossi, Vittorio

22 Mrs. Blood

978-0-88922-220-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

Main Brides

978-0-88922-167-3; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

Scott, Gail Heroine

Rodin, Renee Bread and Salt

Pollock, Sharon Walsh

978-0-88922-502-2; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

bpNichol: What History Teaches

978-0-88922-417-9; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

51 Nature Power: In the Spirit of an Motortherapy 31 Thomas, Audrey 978-0-88922-365-3; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD 978-0-88922-330-1; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Latakia Okanagan Storyteller 24 What Lies Before Us 52 978-0-88922-504-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Scobie, Stephen

978-0-88922-438-4; $39.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

31 News & Smoke: Selected Poems

978-0-88922-254-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

978-0-88922-522-0; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

The New Long Poem Anthology (Second Edition)

Gaboriau)

978-0-88922-627-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Albertine in Five Times (trans. Van Burek & Glassco) 34

978-0-88922-462-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

978-0-88922-572-5; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

978-0-88922-060-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD The Boy in the Treehouse / Girl Who

Loved Her Horses

Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story Ryga, George 978-0-88922-234-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD 978-0-88922-441-4; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture The Athabasca Ryga 27 The Buz’Gem Blues 36 Assorted Candies for the Theatre 35 25 978-0-88922-276-2; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD 978-0-88922-443-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD The Ecstasy of Rita Joe

Reid, Jamie I. Another. The Space Between: Selected Poems

39 Dead White Writer on the Floor

978-0-88922-000-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

In the Shadow of the Vulture 56

12 Bambi and Me

978-0-88922-663-0; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

30 Fearless Warriors

29 Les Belles Soeurs (Revised)

978-0-88922-233-5; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

978-0-88922-380-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

978-0-88922-302-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

978-0-88922-597-8; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 47 400 Kilometres 18 978-0-88922-512-1; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD George Ryga: The Other Plays 41 Birth of a Bookworm 978-0-88922-500-8; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD 978-0-88922-476-6; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD 978-0-88922-517-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Richmond, Jacob

32 In a World Created by a Drunken God The Black Notebook 27 978-0-88922-543-5; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 43 978-0-88922-610-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Summerland 33 27 978-0-88922-537-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD The Blue Notebook 978-0-88922-313-4; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD NEWS: Postcards from the Four Robertson, Leslie A. & 978-0-88922-619-7; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Directions 14 Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies Dara Culhane 19 978-0-88922-643-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in S 978-0-88922-541-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth Downtown Eastside Vancouver 21 36 46 Bonjour, Là, Bonjour 978-0-88922-513-8; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Salutin, Rick Legoland

George Ryga: The Prairie Novels

978-0-88922-501-5; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Les Canadiens

978-0-88922-122-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

978-0-88922-384-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Thesen, Sharon Aurora

978-0-88922-252-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra 53

978-0-88910-471-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

978-0-88922-184-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

The Driving Force

978-0-88922-530-5; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

Talonbooks Complete Booklist by Author 67

The Duchess and the Commoner

Twenty Years at Play: A New Play Centre Anthology

978-0-88922-418-6; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

La Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays

39 Dancock’s Dance

978-0-88922-104-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

En Pièces Détachées

978-0-88922-092-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

978-0-88922-275-5; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Vanderhaeghe, Guy

38 Watts, Charles & Edward Byrne

978-0-88922-533-6; $16.95 CAD / $14.95 USD The Recovery of the Public World

978-0-88922-388-2; $39.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

Verdecchia, Guillermo

34 Webb, Phyllis The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant Another Country / bloom 978-0-88922-570-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Hanging Fire 29 56 28 978-0-88922-190-1; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Citizen Suárez 978-0-88910-391-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD The First Quarter of the Moon

978-0-88922-352-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again 41 978-0-88922-389-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Forever Yours, Marie-Lou

Fronteras Americanas: American Borders

978-0-88922-375-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Two Plays

978-0-88922-188-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

44 is a door

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Wah, Fred

42 Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh

978-0-88922-470-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

La Maison Suspendue

Woodcock, George 978-0-88922-123-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

978-0-88922-185-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Impromptu on Nuns’ Island

978-0-88922-255-7; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

978-0-88922-296-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

The Impromptu of Outremont

Wells, Oliver N.

Youssef A Line in the Sand

978-0-88922-202-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

The Chilliwacks and Their Neighbors 19

Verdecchia, Guillermo & Marcus

978-0-88922-425-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Hosanna

978-0-88922-383-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

978-0-88922-349-3; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

The Heart Laid Bare

978-0-88922-391-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Selected Poems: The Vision Tree

978-0-88922-620-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

York, Annie, Richard Daly & Chris Arnett They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever 25

45 Selected Poems: Loki Is Buried at Smoky Creek 59 Cloth: 978-0-88922-331-8; $60.00 CAD / $40.00 USD 978-0-88922-326-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD 978-0-88922-177-2; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Youssef, Marcus News from Édouard 31 60 Adrift 978-0-88922-435-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Sentenced to Light 34 978-0-88922-577-0; $29.95 CAD; $29.95 USD Past Perfect 46 978-0-88922-585-5; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Marcel Pursued by the Hounds

978-0-88922-493-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

The Real World?

978-0-88922-260-1; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

The Red Notebook

978-0-88922-588-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Remember Me

978-0-88922-219-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Sainte-Carmen of the Main

978-0-88922-181-9; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Some Night My Prince Will Come

978-0-88922-510-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

Walker, George F. And So It Goes

978-0-88922-198-7; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

978-0-88922-390-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Twelve Opening Acts

The East End Plays: Part 1

The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the 39 aXes of Evil 34

978-0-88922-413-1; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

The East End Plays: Part 2

978-0-88922-404-9; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Heaven

978-0-88922-429-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

The Power Plays

978-0-88922-414-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

978-0-88922-402-5; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Suburban Motel

978-0-88922-412-4; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

26 Walsh, Des

978-0-88922-466-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Love and Savagery

Tulchinsky, Karen X. The Five Books of Moses Lapinksy 15 978-0-88922-646-3; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

Tussman, Joseph The Burden of Office: Agamemnon and Other Losers 19 978-0-88922-265-6; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

Verdecchia & Camyar Chai

978-0-88922-654-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Somewhere Else Hanging Angel 33 A Thing of Beauty

Youssef, Marcus, Guillermo 9

978-0-88922-599-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

The Singer’s Broken Throat

978-0-88922-478-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Wasserman, Jerry Modern Canadian Plays: Volume I 45 978-0-88922-436-0; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD

Modern Canadian Plays: Volume II 45 978-0-88922-437-7; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD

Spectacle of Empire: Marc Lescarbot’s Theatre of Neptune in New France 25 978-0-88922-547-3; $21.95 CAD / $21.95 USD

978-0-88922-516-9; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

68 Talonbooks Complete Booklist by Title

A ABC of Reading TRG, 18 Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre, 17 Adrift, 34 Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil, The, 34 After Jack, 53 Albertine in Five Times (trans. Gaboriau), 34 Albertine in Five Times (trans. Van Burek & Glassco), 34 All Fall Down, 34 All That Glitters, 27 All the Verdis of Venice, 34 alterNatives, 34 American Notebooks, 18 Amigo’s Blue Guitar, 34 Amuse Bouche, 53 Anarcho-Modernism, 18 Anatolia Junction, 18 And Other Stories, 27 And So It Goes, 9 Angel of Solitude, The, 27 Annihilated Time, 18 Another Country / bloom, 34 Another Home Invasion, 34 Asian Skies, 53 Assorted Candies for the Theatre, 35 Athabasca Ryga, The, 27 Atwood, Margaret: A Feminist Poetics, 18 Aurora, 53

B b leev abul char ak trs, 53 Baby Blues, The, 35 Back to the War, 53 Balconville, 35 Baldwins, The, 27 Bambi and Me, 18 Banana Boots, 35 Bardy Google, 53 Baseball Love, 18 BASH’d, 10 Beating the Bushes, 16 Belles Soeurs, Les, 35 Benevolence, 35 Berlin Blues, The, 35 Bethune, 35 Beyond Recall, 18 Bicycle Eater, The, 27 Billy Bishop Goes to War, 35 Birth of a Bookworm, 18 Black Notebook, The, 27 Blue Notebook, The, 27 Blonds on Bikes, 53

Boiler Room Suite, 35 Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies, 19 Bonjour, Là, Bonjour, 36 Bordertown Café, 36 Bowering, George: Bright Circles of Colour, 19 Box Closet, The, 19 Boy in the Treehouse, The / Girl Who Loved Her Horses, 36 Bread and Salt, 53 Breakdown So Far, The, 27 Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh, 53 Bridges of Light, 19 Building the West, 19 Burden of Office, The, 19 Burning Vision, 36 Buz’Gem Blues, The, 36

C Cambodia, 27 Can You See Me Yet?, 36 Canadian Drama and the Critics, 19 Canadiens, Les, 36 Capital Tales, 28 Cariboo Magi, 36 Carmela’s Table, 36 Carpenter, The, 36 Cartouches, 54 Centre, The: Poems 1970–2000, 54 Chameleon & Other Stories, 28 Change Room, 54 Chilliwacks and Their Neighbors, The, 19 Chimera, 37 Circumstances Alter Photographs, 19 Circus Performers’ Bar, The, 28 Citizen Suárez, 28 Coast Salish Essays, 19 Cold Comfort, 37 Colours in the Dark, 37 Commons, The, 54 Concise Köchel, The, 37 Consecrated Ground, 8 Conversations in Tehran, 20 Copper Thunderbird, 37 Corker, 37 Coronation Voyage, The, 37 Covenant of Salt, A, 28 Crabdance, 37 Crimes and Mercies, 20 Cruel Tears, 37 Cul-de-sac, 37 Cultural Mischief, 54 Cyrano de Bergerac, 38

Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra, 38 Dancock’s Dance, 38 Darwin Alone in the Universe, 28 Dead White Writer on the Floor, 12 Death in Vancouver, 28 Death of the Spider, 28 Death of René Lévesque, The, 38 Decline of the Hollywood Empire, The, 20 Decompositions, 54 Democracy, 38 Desert of the Heart, 28 Diplomacy, 38 Discovery Passages, 5 Dishwashers, The, 38 Divinity Bash / nine lives, 38 Doctor Thomas Neill Cream, 38 Dog Attempts to Drown Man in Saskatoon, 28 Dominican Moon, 54 Down Dangerous Passes Road, 38 Down the Road to Eternity, 29 Down Time, 54 Dream Pool Essays, 54 Driving Force, The, 39 Duchess and the Commoner, The, 29 Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays, La, 39 Dumont, Gabriel, Speaks, 20 Dunsmuirs, The: Alone at the Edge, 39 Dunsmuirs, The: A Promise Kept, 39 Dürer’s Angel, 29 Dwell, 54 Dyssemia Sleaze, 55

Fairies Are Thirsty, The, 40 Fairy Ring, 29 Faraway Nearby, The, 40 Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant, The, 29 Fearless Warriors, 29 Few Words Will Do, A, 55 Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass, 40 15 Seconds, 40 Fifty, 55 Fighting Days, The, 40 Findley, Timothy, and the Aesthetics of Fascism, 20 First Quarter of the Moon, The, 29 Five Books of Moses Lapinksy, The, 15 Five Star Planet, 55 Floating up to Zero, 7 For Home and Country, 40 For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, 41 Forever Yours, Marie-Lou, 41 400 Kilometres, 41 fractal economies, 55 Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists, 41 Fronteras Americanas, 41

Genrecide, 55 Get on Top, 29 Gideon’s Blues, 41 gifts, 55 Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, 41 Glace Bay Miners’ Museum, The, 41 Glengarry, 6 Go Figure, 29 E Going Home, 55 Earshot, 39 Gold, Artie, The Collected Books of, East End Plays, The: Part 1, 39 15 East End Plays, The: Part 2, 39 Goodnight Disgrace, 41 Ecstasy of Rita Joe, The, 39 Gordon, 11 Edward Curtis Project, The, 14 Great Lakes Suite, 20 Empress Has No Closure, The, 55 Great Wave of Civilization, The, 41 Empire of Desire, 20 griddle talk, 21 En Pièces Détachées, 39 Ground Water, 55 Ends of the Earth, The, 39 Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and English Canadian Poetics, An, 20 Legend, A, 21 Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout, 40 Gull, The, 42 Error in Judgement, An, 20 Gypsy Guitar, 56 Esker Mike & His Wife, Agiluk, 40 Espresso, 40 H EX MACHINA, 20 Halo, 42 Execution, The, 40 Hanging Fire, 56 Happiest Man in the World and Other Stories, The, 29

Talonbooks Complete Booklist by Title 69

Harry’s Fragments, 30 harvest, 56 Heart Laid Bare, The, 30 Heaven, 42 Hell & Other Novels, 30 Hellfire Pass, 42 Heretic, The, 42 Heroine, 30 Homechild, 42 Hope Slide, The / Little Sister, 42 Hosanna, 42 Hotel Montreal, 56 House That Hijack Built, The, 56 How to Write, 21 Hunting Ground, The, 30 Hypoderm, 56

Leisure Society, The, 44 Life Without Instruction, 44 Like a Child of the Earth, 30 Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack, The, 21 Lily Briscoe, 22 Limbo Road, 57 Line in the Sand, A, 44 Lions Gate, 22 Listen to the Wind, 44 Local Boy Makes Good, 44 Lost in North America, 22 Lost Souls and Missing Persons, 44 Love and Savagery, 57 loving without being vulnrabul, 57 Ludwig & Mae, 44

M I I. Another. The Space Between, 56 Imperial Canada Inc., 16 Impromptu of Outremont, The, 42 Impromptu on Nuns’ Island, 42 In a World Created by a Drunken God, 43 In Plain Sight, 21 In the Company of Strangers, 21 In the Eyes of God, 43 In the Eyes of Stone Dogs, 43 In the Midst, 21 In the Shadow of the Vulture, 30 Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America, 21 influenza uv logik, th, 56 inkorrect thots, 56 Invisibility Exhibit, The, 56 is a door, 57

J Jacob’s Wake, 43 Je me souviens, 43 Jitters, 43 Joe Beef, 43 Justice in Our Time, 21

K Kerrisdale Elegies, 57

L Lady Smith, The, 43 Lasagna, 21 last photo uv th human soul, th, 57 Last Scattering Surfaces, 57 Latakia, 30 Lawrence & Holloman, 43 Legoland, 43

Nichol, bp: What History Teaches, 22 1949, 45 No Plaster Saint, 22 Noam Chomsky Lectures, The, 45 Noise from the Laundry, 58 NonZero Definitions, 58 northern wild roses / deth interrupts th dansing, 58 Nothing to Lose, 45 Nuri Does Not Exist, 1

O Occupation of Heather Rose, The, 46 Olson, Charles, at the Harbor, 22 Omniscience, 46 On the Job, 46 On the Material, 58 One Crack Out, 46 Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth, 46 Other Losses, 2 Other Schools of Thought, 46 Outsider Notes, 23

Madonna Painter, The, 17 Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr, The, 44 Main Brides, 30 Maison Suspendue, La, 44 Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon Pollock, 22 Mambo Italiano, 44 Marcel Pursued by the Hounds, 45 Marion Bridge, 45 Martin, Paul, & Companies, 22 Meanwhile, 22 Medusa Head, The, 22 Mêmewars, 57 Memories of You, 45 Mile End, 30 Mimosa, 31 Miss Julie, 45 Modern Canadian Plays: Volume I, 45 Modern Canadian Plays: Volume II, 45 Mom’s the Word, 45 Mother of the Grass, 31 Motortherapy, 31 Moustache, The, 57 Mrs. Blood, 31 Muthologos, 15 My Career with the Leafs & Other Stories, 31 My Darling Nellie Grey, 17 My Name Is Bosnia, 31

Pacific Windows, 58 Pagan Wall, The, 31 Painter’s Wife, The, 31 Paradise by the River, 46 Paradise Garden, 13 Past Perfect, 46 Pell Mell, 58 Peregrinations, 23 Performing National Identities, 23 Persian Postcards, 23 peter among th towring boxes / text bites, 58 Piercing, 14 Playing Bare, 46 Pleasure of the Crown, The, 23 Poet to Publisher, 23 Popular Narratives, 59 Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories, The, 23 Post-Prairie, 59 Power Plays, The, 46

narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane, 57 New Long Poem Anthology, The (Second Edition), 58 NEWS, 14 News & Smoke, 58 News from Édouard, 31 Nichol, bp, Comics, 58

Queens, The, 47

R Rain Barrel, The, 31 Rap Canterbury Tales, The, 59 Rational Geomancy, 23

Re: Producing Women’s Dramatic History, 23 Real Mothers, 32 Real World?, The, 47 Record of Writing, A, 23 Recovery of the Public World, The, 24 Red Notebook, The, 32 Refugee Hotel, The, 16 Remember Me, 47 Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh, The, 59 Riddle of the World, The, 47 Robinson, Harry: Living by Stories, 24 Robinson, Harry: Nature Power, 24 Robinson, Harry: Write It on Your Heart, 24 Rose, 47 Ryga, George: The Other Plays, 47 Ryga, George: The Prairie Novels, 32

S Saga of the Wet Hens, 47 Saint Frances of Hollywood, 47 Sainte-Carmen of the Main, 47 Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, 47 Salish People, The, Vol. I, 24 Salish People, The, Vol. II, 24 Salish People, The, Vol. III, 24 Salish People, The, Vol. IV, 24 Salonica Terminus, 24 Salt-Water Moon, 48 Satchmo’ Suite, The, 16 scars on th seehors, 59 Scattered in a Rising Wind, 32 School-Marm Tree, The, 32 Schoolhouse, 48 Seagull, The, 48 Secret Journal of Alexander Mackenzie, The, 32 Selected Poems: The Arches, 59 Selected Poems: Beyond Even Faithful Legends, 59 Selected Poems: Loki Is Buried at Smoky Creek, 59 Selected Poems: The Vision Tree, 59 Selected Writing: As Elected, 59 Selected Writing: Net Work, 60 Sentenced to Light, 60 7 Stories, 48 Shape of a Girl, The / Jewel, 48 Shattered Images, 24 Shinny’s Girls and Other Stories, 32 Shovel, The, 60 Signs of Literature, 25 Silver Dagger, 48 Singer’s Broken Throat, The, 60 Sisters, 48

70 Talonbooks Complete Booklist by Title

Six Plays by Mavor Moore, 48 Skydive, 48 Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands, 25 Slight Case of Fatigue, A, 32 Soldier’s Heart, 48 Some Night My Prince Will Come, 32 Somewhere Else, 49 Song of the Say-Sayer, 49 Songs My Mother Taught Me, 32 Spectacle of Empire, 25 Sticks & Stones, 60 Still Laughing, 49 Strange Comfort, 25 Studies in Motion, 49 Subject to Change, 14 sublingual, 60 Suburban Motel, 49 Summerland, 33

U Unity (1918), 50 Unnatural and Accidental Women, The, 50

V Vancouver: A Visual History, 26 Vancouver Anthology, 26 Ventriloquist, The, 50 Vermeer’s Light, 61 Vic, The, 51 Vigil, 51

Waiting for the Parade, 51 Walker, Essays on George F., 26 Walsh, 51 Wanted, 51 T Warriors, 51 Takeover in Tehran, 25 WASPS, 51 Tale of Teeka, The, 49 Webb, Phyllis, and the Common Talking Bodies, 49 Good, 26 Tchipayuk, 33 Weekend Healer, The, 51 Terror of the Coast, The, 25 Westray, 51 textual vishyuns, 3 Whale Riding Weather, 51 That Summer, 49 What Lies Before Us, 52 That Woman, 49 what’s left, 61 Theatre and AutoBiography, 25 Where the Blood Mixes, 52 Theme for Diverse Instruments, 33 Whereverville, 52 There’ll Be Another, 60 White Pebbles in the Dark Forests, 33 Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Willful Acts, 52 Hanging Angel, 33 With Bated Breath, 17 They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Women in a World at War, 26 Forever, 25 Written on Water, 52 Thing of Beauty, A, 33 This Is My Own, 25 This Tremor Love Is, 60 ths is erth thees ar peopul, 60 Tiln & Other Plays, 49 time, 15 Time Being, The, 33 Toronto, Mississippi, 50 Too Good to Be True, 25 Tracing the Paths, 26 Transmission Difficulties, 26 Transnational Muscle Cars, 60 Trees Are Lonely Company, 33 Trespassers, The, 50 Triage, 4 Trial of Judith K., The, 50 Trigger, The, 50 Truth or Death, 26 Twelve Opening Acts, 26 Twenty Years at Play, 50 Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand, 26 Two Plays, 50 2000, 50

Talonbooks Index of Translators 71

Aronoff, Phyllis & Howard Scott My Name Is Bosnia, 31 A Slight Case of Fatigue, 32 Women in a World at War, 26

Barnholden, Michael Gabriel Dumont Speaks, 20

Bertz, Dietrich Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America, 21

Bilodeau, Chantal Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre, 17

Bishop, Neil B. Death of the Spider, 28

Brown, Alan The Fairies Are Thirsty, 40

Browning, Will Go Figure, 29

Claxton, Patricia Tchipayuk, 33

Fischman, Sheila Bambi and Me, 18 The Bicycle Eater, 27 Birth of a Bookworm, 18 The Black Notebook, 27 The Blue Notebook, 27 The Duchess and the Commoner, 29 The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant, 29 The First Quarter of the Moon, 29 The Heart Laid Bare, 30 News from Édouard, 31 The Painter’s Wife, 31 The Red Notebook, 32 Some Night My Prince Will Come, 32 Talking Bodies, 49 Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel, 33 A Thing of Beauty, 33 Twelve Opening Acts, 26

French, David Miss Julie, 45 The Seagull, 48

Gaboriau, Linda Albertine in Five Times, 34 All the Verdis of Venice, 34 American Notebooks, 18 Assorted Candies for the Theatre, 35 Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies, 19 The Concise Köchel, 37 The Coronation Voyage, 37 Down Dangerous Passes Road, 38 The Driving Force, 39

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, 41 Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists, 41 The Hunting Ground, 30 Impromptu on Nuns’ Island, 42 In the Eyes of Stone Dogs, 43 The Madonna Painter, 17 The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr, 44 Past Perfect, 46 Piercing, 14 The Queens, 47 Saga of the Wet Hens, 47 Scattered in a Rising Wind, 32 Song of the Say-Sayer, 49 The Tale of Teeka, 49 That Woman, 49 Warriors, 51 Written on Water, 52

Hodes, Laura The Angel of Solitude, 27

Klein, Yvonne M. Like a Child of the Earth, 30 Mother of the Grass, 31 White Pebbles in the Dark Forests, 33

Kroetsch, Neil EX MACHINA, 20

Lobdell, David Dürer’s Angel, 29 The Execution, 40

Mullins, Rhonda The Decline of the Hollywood Empire, 20 Paul Martin & Companies, 22

Murrell, John Cyrano de Bergerac, 38

Reed, Fred A. Empire of Desire, 20 Truth or Death, 26

Reed, Fred A. & David Homel All That Glitters, 27 The Baldwins, 27 A Covenant of Salt, 28 Fairy Ring, 29

Reed, Fred A. & Robin Philpot Imperial Canada Inc., 16

Scott, Gail Mile End, 30

Stowe, John Remember Me, 47

Tepperman, Shelley Playing Bare, 46

Tepperman, Shelley & Ellen Warkentin Ludwig & Mae, 44

Theodore, Bobby 15 Seconds, 40 The Leisure Society, 44

Turnbull, Keith The Ventriloquist, 50

Van Burek, John Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra, 38 La Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays, 39 The Impromptu of Outremont, 42 La Maison Suspendue, 44 Sainte-Carmen of the Main, 47

Van Burek, John & Bill Glassco Albertine in Five Times, 34 Les Belles Soeurs, 35 Bonjour, Là, Bonjour, 36 Forever Yours, Marie-Lou, 41 Hosanna, 42 Marcel Pursued by the Hounds, 45 The Real World?, 47

Van Meer, Allan En Pièces Détachées, 39

Yoshihara, Toyoshi The Gull, 42

72 Talonbooks Sales Representation and Ordering

North American Sales Representation

How to Order

IN CANADA:

Publishers Group Canada

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Head Office 402–559 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M6G 1A9 tel: (416) 934-9900 · fax: (416) 934-1410 toll free: (800) 747-8147 www.pgcbooks.ca Sales in Atlantic Canada Lori Richardson Publishers Group Canada 402–559 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M6G 1A9 tel: (416) 934-9900 ext. 207 · fax: (416) 934-1410 lori@pgcbooks.ca Sales in Ontario & Quebec Martin and Associates Sales Agency 594 Windermere Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M6S 3L8 tel: (416) 769-3947 · fax: (416) 769-5967 toll free: (866) 225-3439 memartin@interlog.com · margots@istar.ca Christa Yoshimoto 7 Beaumaris Court, Waterdown, Ontario L0R 2H6 tel: (905) 317-5056 · fax: (866) 431-9542 christayoshimoto@sympatico.ca

Ordering toll free: tel: (800) 663-5714 · fax: (800) 565-3770 customerservice@raincoast.com Book Manager & Wordstock EDI tel: (604) 323-7138 · toll free: (800) 661-5450 Telebook SAN S1150871

IN THE USA: Northwestern University Press Chicago Distribution Center 11030 South Langley Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60628, USA tel: (773) 702-7000 · fax: (773) 702-7212 toll free: tel: (800) 621-2736 · fax: (800) 621-8476

IN THE UK, EUROPE, AFRICA, INDIA & MIDDLE EAST: The Eurospan Group 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU, England tel: +44 (0) 20-7240-0856 · fax: +44 (0) 20-7379-0609 orders@edspubs.co.uk

IN ASIA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND & THE PACIFIC ISLANDS:

Sales in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan & Manitoba Michael Reynolds and Associates 210–30 East 6th Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia V5T 1J4 tel: (604) 688-6918 · fax: (604) 687-4624 pubrep@telus.net

Royden Muranaka, East-West Export Books c/o University of Hawai’i Press 2840 Kolowalu Street, Honolulu, Hawai’i 96822 tel: (808) 956-8830 · fax: (808) 988-6052 eweb@hawaii.edu

Heather Parsons 406 13th Avenue NE, Calgary, Alberta T2E 1C2 tel: (403) 233-8771 · fax: (403) 233-8772 heather.parsons@shaw.ca

INDIVIDUAL ORDERS

IN THE USA: Northwestern University Press Sales Department 629 Noyes Street, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA tel: (847) 491-7420 · fax: (847) 491-8150 nupress@northwestern.edu www.nupress.northwestern.edu

Talonbooks PO Box 2076, Vancouver, British Columbia V6B 3S3 tel: (604) 444-4889 · toll-free: (888) 445-4176 fax: (604) 444-4119 info@talonbooks.com www.talonbooks.com Individual orders can be placed through the Talonbooks website or by calling our office directly at the numbers above. G.S.T. is not included in Canadian prices quoted in this catalogue. G.S.T. # R88535-3235 All information in this catalogue is subject to change without notice.

Talonbooks Sales Representation and Ordering 73

CANADIAN TRADE TERMS TRADE DISCOUNT

RETURNS POLICY FOR BOOKS

Retail Discount Under $150.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20% Over $150.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40%

1. All books purchased from us may be returned to us for full credit, unless otherwise indicated, between 3 months (min.) to 1 year (max.) from date of invoice. If a publisher should change distributors, notices will be placed in the appropriate trade journals regarding the shortened return period. Permission to return books is not required. 2. 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 title, discounts and quantities of each title returned. “Returns” must be marked on the outside of the box. Please number the boxes. 3. Books must be returned in re-saleable condition. We cannot accept books in unsaleable condition whether shop-worn, ink-priced, stickered or sticker-damaged. Out-dated annuals, titles for which we no longer have Canadian rights and books not purchased from us will not be accepted. 4. Travel guides and annuals: old editions are full-cover strippable for credit for 3 months after the publication date of a new edition (send full front and back covers). Current editions are not strippable and must be returned whole-copy. 5. Other revised editions: Whole copy returns will be accepted for up to 3 months after a new edition has been issued. 6. Books ineligible for credit will be returned at the customer’s expense. Unacceptable returns are shipped in the same manner as new books. 7. We cannot be responsible for goods either not received by us or damaged in transit. 8. BookExpress titles purchased from Raincoast are returnable up to six months from the invoice date and are subject to a 15% restocking fee. Invoice numbers must be quoted: a 5% penalty of the net total will be applied if invoice numbers are not provided. BookExpress Calendars are sold at a 40% discount and are nonreturnable (see BookExpress catalogue for more details). 9. We do not accept returns sent freight collect.

Note: Talon, BookExpress, Raincoast and Publishers Group Canada can be combined to meet minimum requirements. New & Recent Releases (single title discount) Quantity Discount 25–49 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42% 50–249 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43% 250–499 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44% 500–999 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45% 1000 + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46% Backlist (single title discount) Quantity Discount 1–10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . see trade discount above 11 + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25%

LIBRARY DISCOUNT Retail Discount Under $150.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20% Over $150.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40%

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATIONAL SALES Retail Discount Under $150.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10% Over $150.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30%

FREIGHT Booksellers and wholesalers whose shipments are valued at $400 net or more will receive free freight on ground shipments within Canada, as will those whose net purchases from Raincoast, Publishers Group Canada and BookExpress combined total at least $100,000 per year. Otherwise, all terms are FOB our warehouse. Customers may opt for a minimum value on backorder shipments to avoid higher shipping costs for single items. Call customer service for more details on this and also on our expedited shipping options.

CLAIMS

Customers who qualify may apply for prepaid or net following terms upon completing a credit application. New accounts will be opened on approval of credit. If you have any questions, contact the credit department.

Damaged books, short shipments or errors must be reported in writing to customer service within 20 days of receipt of shipment. Raincoast will not arrange to pick up damaged claims. Damaged books must be returned in full via a traceable method to ensure proof of delivery. Whole book returns only, no cover returns. Include a copy of the invoice with a description of the damage and a claim to credit the return shipping. For additional assistance please contact customer service at 1-800-663-5714.

CREDIT TERMS

ELECTRONIC AND ONLINE ORDERING

Payment is due at the end of the month following date of invoice (e.g., all June invoices are due on July 31). Overdue accounts are subject to an interest charge of 1.5% per month, 18% per annum.

If your store is using a system that can order electronically or if you would like to order online or check your orders online at our B2B website http://services.raincoast.com, or for information on electronic ordering, please call our customer service department.

NEW ACCOUNTS

SPECIAL ORDERS Titles not regularly stocked may be special ordered under our usual terms. Please allow 6–8 weeks for delivery. The Canadian price is based on cost at time of delivery and cannot be guaranteed at time of order.