Talonbooks 2017 catalogue

Talonbooks 50th Anniversary Catalogue

1967–2017

Talonbooks Awards and Prizes, Recent Highlights 2017 First Nation Communities READ – Periodical Marketers of Canada Aboriginal Literature award: Bev Sellars, Price Paid (Finalist) First Nation Communities READ – Periodical Marketers of Canada Aboriginal Literature award: Bev Sellars, They Called Me Number One (Finalist) George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature: Stephen Collis, Once In Blockadia (Finalist) Griffin Poetry Prize: Jordan Abel, Injun (Finalist) Patrick O’Neil Award (Best Collection of Plays): Louis Patrick Leroux, False Starts (Nominated)

Contents 1 14 26 28 38 48 72 85 88 95 96 97

Fall 2017 Spring 2017 Recent Releases Non-fiction Backlist Fiction Backlist Drama Backlist Poetry Backlist Index by Title Index by Author Ordering and Trade Terms Sales Representation and Ordering limited edition bill bissett print (found only in this catalogue; remove and save!)

Wellcome Book Prize: Maylis de Kerangal, Mend the Living (Winner)

2016 ABPBC Jim Douglas Publisher of the Year Award, Talonbooks (Winner) Governor General’s Literary Award, Poetry: Garry Thomas Morse, Prairie Harbour (Finalist) Man Booker International Prize: Maylis de Kerangal, Mend the Living (Long-listed)

Talonbooks 278 East 1st Avenue Vancouver, BC V5T 1A6 phone: (604) 444-4889 toll-free: (888) 445-4176 fax: (604) 444-4119 info@talonbooks.com www.talonbooks.com

GST is not included in Canadian prices quoted in this catalogue.

GST # R88535-3235 All information in this catalogue is subject to change without notice.

2015 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (BC Book Prizes): Cecily Nicholson, From the Poplars (Winner)

Talonbooks

Cole Foundation Prize for Translation, Quebec Writers’ Federation Awards: Madeleine Gagnon, As Always (Finalist) Edgerton Foundation New Play Award: Morris Panych, The Shoplifters (Winner) Governor General’s Literary Award, Drama: Bryden MacDonald, Odd Ducks (Finalist) Governor General’s Literary Award, Drama: Marcus Yousseff and James Long, Winners and Losers (Finalist)

On the cover: Spencer Williams Talon 50 collage, 2017 Made for Talonbooks’ 50th Anniversary of book publishing On the inside back cover:

2014

bill bissett

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (BC Book Prizes): Jordan Abel, The Place of Scraps (Winner)

acrylic, 24 x 36

calling, 2017 Photographer: Michael Cobb

Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize (BC Book Prizes): Bev Sellars, They Called Me Number One (Finalist) Burt Award for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Literature: Bev Sellars, They Called Me Number One (Third Prize) City of Victoria Butler Book Prize: M.A.C. Farrant, The World Afloat (Winner) George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature: Bev Sellars, They Called Me Number One (Winner) Gerald Lampert Memorial Award: Jordan Abel, The Place of Scraps (Finalist) Governor General’s Literary Award, Translation: Michel Marc Bouchard, Christina, The Girl King, translated by Linda Gaboriau (Finalist) Governor General’s Literary Award, Translation: Michel Nadeau, And Slowly Beauty, translated by Maureen Labonté (Finalist) Lambda Literary Award, Drama: Michel Marc Bouchard, Tom at the Farm, translated by Linda Gaboriau (Winner) Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award: bill bissett (Winner)

Talonbooks gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Talonbooks Fall 2017 1

Anima wajdi mouawad Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Wajdi Mouawad (born 1968) is a Lebanese-Canadian writer, actor, and director. He is most known for his work in the Canadian and French theatre. Born in Lebanon, Mouawad’s family left when he was eight following the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. He moved to Montreal in 1983 after living in France for five years. Mouawad is known for his politically engaged, moralistic theatre, which often revolves around family trauma, and for recurring stylistic tropes, such as having his actors shout all their lines. Since April 2016, Wajdi Mouawad is the director of the Théâtre national de la Colline in Paris.

Linda Gaboriau is an award-winning literary translator based in Montreal. Her translations of plays by Quebec’s most prominent playwrights have been published and produced across Canada and abroad. In her work as a literary manager and dramaturge, she has directed numerous translation residencies and international exchange projects. She was the founding director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. Gaboriau has twice won the Governor General’s Translation Award: in 1996, for Daniel Danis’s Stone and Ashes, and in 2010, for Wajdi Mouawad’s Forests.

She was named a Member of the Order of Canada in 2015.

Fiction August 5.5 × 8.5; 368 pp Trade paper; $19.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-003-9 ebook forthcoming

This award-winning novel by playwright Wajdi Mouawad is a thriller and a road novel – written in the North African storytelling tradition in which events unfold from an animal point of view.

The novel opens with the protagonist arriving home to find his wife brutally raped and murdered. Driven by grief and the need to find whoever did this – “I want to see his face, I want to know who he is” – the protagonist sets out on a desperate journey from Montreal to Indigenous Communities along the Canada–U.S. border, south through Civil War sites in the Midwest, to Animas, New Mexico. The furious odyssey awakens long-buried memories that make present circumstances even more painful.

This masterful novel is told in a bestiary of voices; more than fifty animals, birds, and insects, each with their own characterization and style of speaking, reveal the unflattering contrast between the human and the natural. Violent and dark, the novel nevertheless moves beyond the thriller genre to become a book of multiple levels, rich in symbolism and open to complex interpretation. While set in North America, Mouawad’s Lebanese roots suffuse the text, which becomes an examination of cultural influences and at the same time an excavation of childhood trauma and the legacy of war.

Anima has resonated with readers worldwide. It has been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, and Catalan. It won the Thyde Monnier Grand Prize from the Société des Gens de Lettres, the Mediterranean Prize, the Literary Prize for a Second Novel in Laval, the Golden Alga Award, the Phoenix Award (as part of the Beirut Spring Festival), and the Catalan Llibreter Prize for Foreign Novel, all in 2012 and 2013. In 2015, Anima won the Lire en Poche, a prize awarded annually in France in celebration of the paperback book. An elegant translation by Linda Gaboriau brings this celebrated novel to English readers.

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Zora, a Cruel Tale philippe arseneault Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel

Philippe Arseneault is a Quebec writer of unparalleled erudition and humour. A lawyer by training, he has branched out into journalism and now works as a copyeditor at La Presse. In February 2017, he released his second novel, Ma soeur chasseresse (My Sister Huntress), the provocative humour of which has already won it accolades. This is a writer to watch.

International journalist and award-winning literary translator Fred A. Reed is also a respected specialist on politics and religion in the Middle East and a three-time winner of the Governor General’s Translation Award, plus a nomination in 2009 for his translation of Thierry Hentsch’s Le temps aboli, Empire of Desire.

Award-winning author and literary translator David Homel also works as a journalist, editor, and screenwriter. His eleven novels to date have been translated into several languages and published around the world.

Fiction August 5.5 × 8.5; 392 pp Trade paper; $19.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-175-3

Arsenault’s Rabelaisian fantasy is a gothic tale of the macabre and the bizarre, of black magicians and alchemists, and of the life and times of Zora Marjanna Lavanko, the daughter of a brutish tripe-dresser who dies for love. This surreal novel is set in the murky fictional domain of the Fredavian Forest, in the very real province of Karelia, then a part of the Grand Duchy of Finland, in the closing years of the nineteenth century.

Many years of work brought forth this finely rendered fantasy. While some readers might be put off by the cruelty, violence, and mayhem of the text, those who persist will be rewarded with black humour and the fine display of a full range of human emotion. Rabelaisan certainly, but Zora is also inspired by the legends of the ancient Finns as well as other epic literary fantasies.

The English reader will feel that the text, deftly translated by Fred A. Reed and David Homel, carries overtones of Mervyn Peake. Despite this ornate style, the narrative has surprising pace, perhaps because the reader is busy trying to keep his or her jaw from hanging open.

The original French novel won the 2013 Robert-Cliche Prize, awarded to an author for a first novel (but not a first work).

Praise for the French novel “This book is a masterpiece, an immense pleasure in reading, and the highly worked, mastered work of a real writer. One enters in order not to leave, one takes delight in the gluttony, the violence, and the humour that mark each page.”

—Colette Lens, jury member, Robert-Cliche Prize

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Flat Willow Creek The Poems of Louis Riel, 1878–1883 Edited and translated by Michael Barnholden

Michael Barnholden lives in Roberts Creek on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, where he writes, paints, carves, photographs, and does a little too much physical labour.

Born In Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and raised in Toronto, he has lived in British Columbia since 1970 when he briefly attended Simon Fraser University. He has worked as a ranch hand, orchardist, youth worker, carpenter, publisher, editor, disability advocate, and, after returning to Simon Fraser University at age fifty-five to obtain a master’s degree in liberal studies, a sessional instructor and seminar leader at Emily Carr University. He was also educated at the Kootenay School of Writing, where he served in the collective starting in 1991. He co-edited Writing Class: The Kootenay School of Writing Anthology. His writing practice includes, but is not limited to, poetry, historical non-fiction, translation, and editing.

Non-fiction: Poetry November 5.5 × 8.5; 176 pp Trade paper; $19.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-176-0

In 1879, Louis Riel was elected chief of a band of Métis buffalo hunters who wintered at Flat Willow Creek in northwestern Montana Territory.

At the time, he was in exile from his beloved province of Manitoba, which Riel had helped to create through the Manitoba Act of 1870. His exile had begun in August 1870, following the arrival of armed forces to the Red River colony, when he had fled to the United States. Riel, fearing for his life – there was a five-thousand-dollar price on his head – could not take his duly elected seat in Parliament. He was formally banished from Canada in January 1875 for a period of five years. Riel’s exile was not only political but also social: single, far from home – his family and his people – he was unable to find employment, although talented and highly educated, because of his race. He left the eastern United States in early 1878 and headed for the final frontier in Montana.

The one thing Riel continuously did, from the age of fourteen when he started school in Montreal until shortly before his execution, was write poetry. Unfortunately, historians have dismissed most of his poems as “little more than doggerel,” insisting on a comparison of his work with that of Keats, an unreasonable comparison for a poet trained in the formal French style. This cultural difference may have turned many poets away from Riel’s work. While working on another project, translator and editor Michael Barnholden came across a previously unknown text by Riel: a poem written in the Regina jail just before his execution. As both a poet and historian, Barnholden saw something more. A careful reading of Riel’s poetic work revealed to him not only the 481-line masterpiece “To Sir John A.” but a sequence of poems written between 1878 and 1883, a period when Riel lived the traditional life of a Métis buffalo hunter. It is in these poems that Riel commits to print the intellectual and spiritual development of the concept of a “New Nation” for the Métis people.

Michael Barnholden’s Circumstances Alter Photographs and Gabriel Dumont Speaks are also available from Talonbooks.

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full-metal indigiqueer joshua whitehead

Joshua Whitehead is an Oji-Cree, Two-Spirit storyteller and academic from Peguis First Nation on Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba. He is currently working toward a Ph.D. in Indigenous literatures and cultures at the University of Calgary on Treaty 7 territory. In 2016, his poem “mihkokwaniy” won Canada’s History Award for Aboriginal Arts and Stories (for writers aged 19–29), which included a residency at the Banff Centre. He has been published widely in Canadian literary magazines such as Prairie Fire, EVENT, Arc Poetry Magazine, CV2, Red Rising Magazine, and Geez Magazine’s Decolonization issue. He is currently working on a non-fiction, critical manifesto and a young adult novel titled Jonny Appleseed, based on a short story that first appeared in the Malahat Review’s January 2017 Indigenous Perspectives issue. Follow him on Twitter @concrete_poet.

Poetry November 5.5 × 8.5; 128 pp Trade paper; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-187-6

This poetry collection focuses on a hybridized Indigiqueer Trickster character named Zoa who brings together the organic (the protozoan) and the technologic (the binaric) in order to re-beautify and re-member queer Indigeneity. This Trickster is a Two-Spirit / Indigiqueer invention that resurges in the apocalypse to haunt, atrophy, and to reclaim. Following oral tradition (à la Iktomi, Nanaboozho, Wovoka), Zoa infects, invades, and becomes a virus to canonical and popular works in order to re-centre Two-Spirit livelihoods. They fiercely take on the likes of Edmund Spenser, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and John Milton while also not forgetting contemporary pop culture figures such as Lana Del Rey, Grindr, and Peter Pan. Zoa world-builds a fourth-dimension, lives in the cyber space, and survives in NDN-time – they have learned to sing the skin back onto their bodies and remain #woke at the end of the world. “Do not read me as a vanished ndn,” they ask, “read me as a ghastly one.”

Full-Metal Indigiqueer is influenced by the works of Jordan Abel, Tanya Tagaq, Daniel Heath Justice, Claudia Rankine, Vivek Shraya, Qwo-Li Driskill, Leanne Simpson, Kent Monkman, and Donna Haraway.

It is a project of resurgence for Two-Spirit / Indigiqueer folk who have been ghosted in policy, page, tradition, and hi/story – the very lives of Two-Spirit / Indigiqueer youth are rarely mentioned (and even dispossessed in our very mandates for reconciliation), our lives are precarious but they too are precious. We find ourselves made spectral in settler and neocolonial Indigenous nationalisms – if reconciliation is a means of “burying the hatchet,” Zoa seeks to unearth the bones buried with those hatched scalps and perform a séance to ghost dance Indigiqueerness into existence. Zoa world-destroys in order to world-build a new space – they care little for reconciliation but rather aim to reterroritorialize space in literature, pop culture, and oral storytelling. This project follows in the tradition of the aforementioned authors who, Whitehead believes, utilize deconstruction as a means of decolonization. This is a sex-positive project that tirelessly works to create coalition between those who have, as Haraway once noted, “been injured, profoundly.”

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Intertidal The Collected Earlier Poems, 1968–2008

daphne marlatt Edited by Susan Holbrook

An early member of the avant-garde TISH group, which turned Canadian poetry for the first time to a focus on language, Marlatt’s career has spanned five decades and a range of formal styles and concerns.

Intertidal: The Collected Earlier Poems offers Marlatt’s perceptual and Vancouver-centric work of the 1970s, her feminist writing of the 1980s, and her later collaborative work. Intertidal collects a broad selection of this poet’s groundbreaking work, including poetry from sixteen published collections and a number of previously unpublished or uncollected poems. The volume includes poems and selections from: Daphne Marlatt was at the centre of the West Coast poetry movement of the 1960s, studying at the University of British Columbia and with many of Donald Allen’s New American Poets, most notably Robert Creeley and Robert Duncan. Her early literary associations with the loosely affiliated TISH group encouraged her non-conformist approach to language and form. Her unique disposition toward language shapes and is shaped by her commitment to exploring and honouring silenced histories and experiences. For her, writing has been a lifelong ethical project, deeply engaged with feminism, immigrant experiences, and ecological issues. Her innovations in the prose poem form have influenced an entire generation (and beyond) of Canadian poets.

Frames of a Story (1968) leaf leaf/s (1969) What Matters: Writing, 1968–1970 (1980) Vancouver Poems (1972) Our Lives (1972–1975) Steveston (1974) “Month of Hungry Ghosts” (1979) “A Lost Book” (1970s) “Here & There” (1981) How Hug a Stone (1983) Touch to My Tongue (1984) Salvage (1991) “small print” (1993) “Sea Shining Between,” “Impossible Portraiture,” “Tracing the Cut” (2002) “Generation, generations ...” (Coda to the 3rd edition of Steveston, 2001) Between Brush Strokes (2008)

Susan Holbrook, editor of this collection, is also a poet, a professor in the English department at the University of Windsor and chair of its creative writing program, and a preeminent critic of Marlatt’s work.

The later chapbook, Between Brush Strokes, is reproduced in full-colour facsimile. The collection includes an introduction by Susan Holbrook as well as a bibliography of the work of this West Coast, deconstructionist, lesbian, and feminist writer. Intertidal is the definitive oeuvre of Daphne Marlatt’s poetry exploring the city, feminism, and collaboration.

This is the third volume in a new series of collected works published

by Talonbooks. The first two are Peacock Blue: The Collected Poems of Phyllis Webb and Scree: The Collected Early Poems of Fred Wah, 1962–1991.

Poetry November 6 × 9; 648 pp Cloth; $49.95 CAN; $49.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-178-4

Please visit talonbooks.com for a complete listing of Daphne Marlatt’s available books.

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Reveries of a Solitary Biker catriona strang

Catriona Strang a founding member of the Institute for Domestic Research and former member of the Kootenay School of Writing collective, is the author of Low Fancy and co-author with the late Nancy Shaw of Busted, Cold Trip, and Light Sweet Crude. Her collection of poetic responses to Proust, Corked, was published in 2014. She frequently collaborates with composer Jacqueline Leggatt and clarinetist François Houle. Strang lives in Vancouver, where she and her two kids are active in the local home-learning community, and where she teaches at Simon Fraser University.

In 1776, at the age of sixty-four, an embittered Jean-Jacques Rousseau took to rambling. Feeling rejected, neglected, and condemned, he turned his back on the society in which he had never managed to feel at ease and found peace in wandering the fields outside Paris, noting interesting flora and fauna, and ruminating on his life and career. Rousseau jotted down his musings on playing cards he carried in his pocket; these notes would form the basis for his last book, Les rêveries du promeneur solitaire, translated as Reveries of the Solitary Walker (or A Solitary Walker).

Unfinished at his death and published posthumously in 1782, the Reveries reiterate and meditate upon many of Rousseau’s central themes: the joys of solitude, the corrupting influence of society, the fragility of happiness and of human relations, and the great, healing solace of nature (not to mention his obsession with enemies and persecution).

Like Rousseau, Strang too has taken to wandering, although on her bicycle, finding cycling particularly conducive to a slow, non-deliberate thinking, an almost subconscious contemplation.

Biking around Vancouver, she returned to several issues of lifelong interest, her own version of Rousseau’s obsessions: the difficulties of living an anti-capitalist life, the continued invisibility of much of women’s labour, the paradoxes of daily life, the nature and implications of calculations of value, and the complexities of sustainability. What is to be done, she wonders?

In homage to the playing-card origins of Rousseau’s Reveries, Strang’s Reveries of a Solitary Biker is divided into four suites, which she often performs with musical accompaniment by her frequent collaborator, clarinetist François Houle. Some of these musical scores are included in the book.

Praise for earlier work “From her early work, TEM and Low Fancy, through her collaboration with the late Nancy Shaw, with Corked Strang solidifies a unique position in Canadian poetry.”

– Jeff Derksen

Poetry November 5.5 × 9; 96 pp Trade paper; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-180-7

Catriona Strang’s Corked is also available from Talonbooks.

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Prison Industrial Complex Explodes mercedes eng

Mercedes Eng is a teacher and writer in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territory. She is the author of Mercenary English (CUE Books), which explores the potential of documentary poetics. Her work has appeared in West Coast Line, Canada and Beyond, The Capilano Review, and Geist. Much of her creative writing is grounded in struggles for social justice in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. In 2014 Eng wrote a series of articles on poetry and gentrification in Vancouver for Jacket2, Penn University’s online poetry magazine, and in 2012–2013, she wrote several articles for a community newspaper, The Downtown East. She has spoken at the DTES Writer’s Jamboree at Carnegie Community Centre (April 2011) and lectured on visual representations of the missing and murdered women of Vancouver at Simon Fraser University (March 2011).

Poetry November 5.5 × 8.5; 96 pp Trade paper; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-181-4

Combining text from government questionnaires and reports, lyric poetry, and photography, Prison Industrial Complex Explodes examines the possibility of a privatized prison system in Canada leading up to then Prime Minister Harper’s Conservative government passing the Anti-Terrorism Act, also known as Bill C-51. This legislation criminalizes Indigenous peoples’ attempts to protect their traditional and unceded territories from ecological destruction by classifying their actions as acts of terrorism. At the same time, it criminalizes refugees who, as victims of colonization and globalization, attempt to flee genocide and poverty yet are targeted as suspected terrorists. Simultaneously, the incarceration of Indigenous people, refugees, and people of colour is rapidly increasing and corporations eagerly court the government for private-public partnerships to fund the building of new prisons and detention centres.

Eng’s father was an addict who supported his habit by breaking the law. As a result, she spent her formative years acquiring intimate knowledge of the Canadian prison system through visitation rights.

The impetus for Prison Industrial Complex Explodes was the discovery of a cache of her father’s prison correspondence: letters from the federal government stating their intention to deport him because of his criminal record; letters from prison justice advocate Michael Jackson advising her father on deportation; letters from the RCMP regarding the theft of her father’s property, a gold necklace, while in transport to prison; letters from family members and friends; letters from Eng and her brother.

The cold formality of the government letters in accidental juxtaposition with the emotion of the personal letters struck a creative spark that led to the writing of the poems in this collection.

Praise for earlier work: “I situate Mercenary English in a diverse line of revolutionary poetics – including those of writers like M. NourbeSe Philip, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Kamau Brathwaite, Cecilia Vicuña, Heriberto Yépez, and Laura Elrick, to name just a few ... this weaponized English is a vulnerable and tender form of revolutionary poetics [that] erupt with insurrection ... redoubling this call with the courage to affirm: ‘my voice / it’s mine to find / when it comes / my call will make you deaf’.”

– Natalie Knight in The Capilano Review

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Wayside Sang cecily nicholson

Cecily Nicholson is the administrator of the artist-run centre Gallery Gachet and has worked since 2000 in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver, on Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories. She belongs to the Joint Effort prison abolitionist group and is a member of the Research Ethics Board for Emily Carr University. Nicholson is the author of Triage (2011) and From the Poplars (2014), winner of the 2015 Dorothy Livesay prize for poetry. She was appointed the 2017 Ellen and Warren Tallman writer-in-residence at Simon Fraser University.

Poetry November 5.5 × 8.5; 96 pp Trade paper; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-182-1

Wayside Sang concerns entwined migrations of Black-other diaspora coming to terms with fossil-fuel psyches in times of trauma and movement. This is a poetic account of economy travel on North American roadways, across the Peace and Ambassador bridges and through the Fleetway tunnel, above and beneath Great Lake rivers between nation states. Nicholson reimagines the trajectories of her birth father and his labour as it criss-crossed these borders in a study that engages the automobile object, its industry, roadways and hospitality, through and beyond the Great Lakes region.

Engaging a range of discursive fields to form the metrics of this project, she is interested in the intersection of various artistic practices and how being in relation to them can lend dimension to page- and textbased efforts. Consider Charles Campbell’s Transporter project, begun initially as a visual investigation of the phenomenon of forced migration, or Camille Turner’s various “sonic walks” which present narratives that explore the complexities of Black life in Canada amid a “landscape of forgetting” Black history, and Khari McClelland’s embrace of music as a “transportation device” uncovering the experiences of fugitive Blacks crossing into Canada.

This study is, in part, a matter of strengthening relations and being situated despite displacement. It is an effort to be relevant at a time of rebellion as Black networks, community, and aesthetics gain new qualities. The work is attentive to, entwined with, and influenced by Indigenous resurgence and poetics. It looks to Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, and Attawandaron presence and histories – to Indigenous memory as a constant to land, as constitutive elements of Nicholson’s poetic practice.

This book was once in the fields and frequented bars. It rolls out of factories onto roads travelling north across the border and returning again to some understanding of home. In it are passengers and possessions – travelling musicians – memories of the Caribbean – brothers determined by border crossings – daughters reassembled.

Cecily Nicholson’s From the Poplars and Triage are also available from Talonbooks.

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The Art of Building a Bunker adam lazarus & guillermo verdecchia

Adam Lazarus is “Toronto’s favourite nasty clown” (Toronto Star). He is an award-winning actor, director, and acting instructor.

Guillermo Verdecchia is a leading Canadian dramatist. He is a writer of drama, fiction, and film; a director, dramaturge, actor, and translator whose work has been seen and heard on stages, screens, and radios across the country and around the globe. The author or co-author of, among other works, The Noam Chomsky Lectures and Insomnia (with Daniel Brooks); Fronteras Americanas; The Terrible but Incomplete Journals of John D.; bloom; A Line in the Sand (with Marcus Youssef); and the controversial Adventures of Ali and Ali and the aXes of Evil (with Camyar Chai and Marcus Youssef).

He is a recipient of the Governor General’s Drama Award, a four-time winner of the Chalmers Canadian Play Award, a recipient of Dora and Jessie Awards, and recipient of sundry film festival awards for his film Crucero/Crossroads, based on Fronteras Americanas and made with Ramiro Puerta.

Drama September 5.5 × 8.5; 96 pp Trade paper; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-186-9

The Art of Building a Bunker is a dark, viciously funny story recounting a week in the life of your average Elvis as he endures mandatory workplace sensitivity training. Elvis struggles to meet the demands of Camerson, the sensitivity training leader, and to work with the group that surrounds him without revealing anything about what he really feels or believes.

His struggles culminate in a radical oration delivered on the last day of the course to the sensitivity group, workplace colleagues, as well as international luminaries of sensitivity like Nelson Mandela, Geddy Lee, and Malala Yousafzai.

Created for Toronto’s SummerWorks 2013, Verdecchia explained to Colin Thomas of the Georgia Straight the impulse behind Bunker: “We were just looking around the city and at the culture generally,” Verdecchia said – remember that Rob Ford was Toronto’s mayor at that time – “and there was a kind of incivility in the air, which I think is still there. It seems like it’s permissible to say things that you couldn’t say before, like ‘Fuck her right in the cunt,’ or whatever guys are saying on television.”

(Verdecchia is referring to the phenomenon that reporter Shauna Hunt very publicly challenged recently.) “There was also this incredible anger on the web, YouTube videos with people ranting about their situations or about Obama – a lot of Americans. They seemed like really disenfranchised folk who were stewing in their anger and fear. And that struck us as really interesting. Adam and I genuinely want to ask about what is permissible.”

Bunker is to be played by one virtuosic actor.

“The chuckles here are rarely easy or comforting, and sometimes the most unsettling ones are the most revealing.”

—NOW Magazine

Please visit talonbooks.com for a complete listing of Guillermo Verdecchia’s available books.

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After Class Parents Night and The Bigger Issue

george f. walker Introduction by Wesley Berger

George F. Walker is one of Canada’s most popular playwrights and the king of black comedy. Since beginning his career in the 1970s Walker has written more than thirty plays, most of them fast-paced tragicomedies that expose and satirize the selfishness and aggression of modern urban life. Walker’s awards and honours include the Order of Canada, two Governor General’s Drama Awards, five Dora Mavor Moore Awards, nine Chalmers Canadian Play Awards, and the Governor General’s lifetime achievement award.

He has been the subject of a volume of the series Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English, a collection of academic writing on his plays. Walker’s plays have been presented in more than seven hundred productions across Canada, the United States, and around the world; they have been translated into French, German, Hebrew, Turkish, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, and Japanese.

Okay, twerps! Sit your butts down and learn your three Rs: ranting, resisting, and respect.

In two new plays, Canada‘s king of black comedy takes on the failing education system. Both Parents Night and The Bigger Issue are set in public-school classrooms after hours and involve confrontations between stressed-out teachers and ticked-off parents. Both sympathize with embattled educators and evince Walker’s trademark understanding of poverty and the working classes. In both, Walker’s signature moves work: the audience feels simultaneously complicit in and righteously angry about injustice and inequity.

Parents Night finds grade-three teacher Nicole caught in the crossfire between John, an arrogant executive dad, and Rosie, a ballsy, low-income mom. Both are meeting with Nicole to express concerns for their children, but class warfare quickly erupts, and the kids’ behaviour turns out to be a reflection of their parents’ messed-up lives. A harried Nicole is dealing with troubles of her own, but she makes a brave attempt to discipline these overgrown brats.

The Bigger Issue covers the same ground but digs deeper. Suzy, a novice middle-school teacher, has been called onto the carpet by the principal, Irene, for physically accosting a violent student. But when the boy’s parents show up, it becomes clear that Jack and Maggie are a middle-class couple reduced to abject poverty; the real problem isn’t their son or the school but a dysfunctional society.

Together, Parents Night and The Bigger Issue comprise the first instalments in a projected play cycle similar to Walker’s famous Suburban Motel.

With an introduction by Toronto director Wesley Berger.

“Extremely funny and bitingly satirical.”

Drama September 6 × 9; 172 pp Trade paper; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US ISBN 978-0-88922-184-5

—Toronto Star

Please visit talonbooks.com for a complete listing of George F. Walker’s available books.

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Daisy sean devine

Sean Devine is a Canadian playwright, actor, and artistic director of Horseshoes and Hand Grenades Theatre. His most recent play Daisy premiered at Seattle’s ACT Theatre in 2016, where it received a Gregory Award nomination for Best New Play and a Broadway World Seattle Critic’s Choice Award for Best New Play. Originally commissioned

by NYC’s Ensemble Studio Theatre, Daisy has had public readings in Chicago, Toronto, and Ottawa. His first play Re: Union premiered in Vancouver in 2011, was published by Scirocco in 2013, and was presented at Ottawa’s Magnetic North Theatre Festival in 2015, where it won the Prix Rideau Award for Ottawa’s Best Production. Devine’s newest play, When There’s Nothing Left to Burn, was commissioned by the University of Lethbridge, where it will premiere in 2017. Devine ran for federal office as the NDP candidate for Nepean in the 2015 election.

Based on true events, Daisy is a political drama that presents the moment in TV history that ushered in the age of negative advertising and fundamentally changed how we elect our leaders. It also tells the more cynical tale of how a nation got led into war, distracted by the “packaging” of a seemingly peaceful U.S. president. Daisy explores the art and science of political manipulation, the forces at play on public consciousness in our mediated world, and the impact fear has had on our democracy.

Set during the 1964 U.S. presidential election, with brutal race riots erupting across America, the play takes place in the high-pressure advertising world of Madison Avenue: a group of “ad men” working for Lyndon Johnson unleash the most powerful political commercial ever conceived, the “Daisy” ad. War was the objective. Peace was the bait. Everyone got duped.

Thoroughly and painstakingly researched, Daisy’s characters are based on real-life figures who are icons in the advertising world, including Bill Bernbach, the creative pioneer who founded the Doyle Dane Bernbach agency, and Tony Schwartz, the eccentric “sound man” who forever revolutionized the science of communications. Mixing fact with fiction, the story’s protagonist is a conflicted idealist named Louise Brown, a brilliant copywriter who withholds a damning secret as she struggles against her ethics and her ambition.

Daisy is further example of Canadian playwright Sean Devine’s use of historic events to shine new light onto contemporary questions. The tools and impacts of “negative advertising” that were unleashed in 1964 have bored their way deeper and deeper into our television screens and our individual consciousness ever since. And as for the art of political deception and distraction, who knows how low we can go?

“All the science-y stuff and big ideas about the way the body responds to language and images makes Daisy more than just a particularly well-timed dive into the unfortunately relevant presidential compaigns of Johnson and Goldwater [in the 1960’s]” —The Stranger

Drama September 5.5 × 8.5; 160 pp Trade paper; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US ISBN 978-0-88922-185-2

12 Talonbooks Fall 2017

Forward The Second Play in the Arctic Cycle

chantal bilodeau Introduction by Tael Naess

Chantal Bilodeau is a playwright, translator, and research artist whose work focuses on the intersection of science, policy, culture, and climate change. She serves as the artistic director of The Arctic Cycle – an organization created to support the writing of eight plays that look at the social and environmental changes taking place in the eight countries of the Arctic circle – and is the founder of the blog Artists and Climate Change. She was a co-organizer of Climate Change Theatre Action, which presented one hundred events in twenty-six countries in support of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference. Her plays have been staged at theatres and universities in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Italy, and Norway. She was awarded the Woodward International Playwriting Prize and First Prize in the Earth Matters on Stage Ecodrama Festival and the Uprising National Playwriting Competition. She is the recipient of a Jerome Travel and Study Grant and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and has been in residence at Yaddo, MacDowell, the Banff Centre, and the National Theatre School of Canada.

Drama September 5.5 × 8.5; 96 pp Trade paper; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-0-88922-183-8

Forward was partly inspired by a ten-day sailing expedition around the Svalbard Archipelago, located halfway between Norway and the North Pole. Spanning a hundred years and thousands of kilometres from the sixtieth parallel north to the top of the world, Forward presents a poetic history of energy development in Norway, from the initial passion that drove explorer Fridtjof Nansen to the North Pole to the consequences of decades of our addiction to fossil fuels. Using a blend of theatre and electropop music, the play progresses backwards from 2013 to 1893 and zeroes in on close to forty characters whose day-to-day lives illustrate how the choices we make often have unintended consequences. Woven through this history is the passionate love affair between Nansen and sea ice, embodied as a character in the play. Expressing herself only through song, Ice, who has waited for millennia for the arrival of her lover, is bracing to meet her destiny. A relay race through time, where each generation passes the baton to the next, Forward takes a compassionate look at the legacies we leave behind and what we are willing to do for love.

Ultimately, Forward is about climate change. It’s a story about how an Arctic explorer unwittingly opened up the Arctic for development.

A story about people having good intentions that led to unintended consequences. A story about who we are in all our glorious imperfection. But Forward is also a story of hope. It is an invitation to collectively grieve for what we have lost, for what we continue to lose every day, so that we can forgive ourselves. It is a reminder that if we come together as a community, we will find a solution.

Forward is the second play of the Arctic Cycle, a series of eight plays that examine the impact of climate change on the eight countries of the Arctic circle. The play takes its title from Nansen’s ship Fram, which means “forward” in Norwegian.

With a foreword by Una Chaudhuri, a professor at New York University who studies the geography of drama, and an introduction by Tael Naess, a Norwegian writer and playwright.

Chantal Bilodeau’s Sila, the first play in the Arctic Cycle, is also available from Talonbooks.

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The Just albert camus Translated by Bobby Theodore Introduction by Frank Cox-O’Connell

Bobby Theodore is a screenwriter, playwright, and translator. He has worked on several TV series, including Murdoch Mysteries, Flashpoint, and Knuckleheads (an adaptation of the hit Québécois cartoon, Têtes à claques). He has also written episodes for the acclaimed CBC Radio drama, Afghanada. Nominated for a Governor General’s Translation Award in 200 for 15 Seconds by François Archambault, Theodore has now translated more than twenty plays from French to English. For the stage, Bobby co-created 300 Tapes (with Ame Henderson), a performance that premiered at the Theatre Centre in Toronto and at Alberta Theatre Project (ATP) in Calgary, and he’s currently working on Swallow, a play set in the drama-filled world of minor hockey. His translation of François Archambault’s You Will Remember Me premiered at ATP, won a Betty Mitchell Award for Outstanding New Play, and was produced across Canada and in the United States.

Bobby is the resident dramaturg and host of the Glassco Translation Residency in Tadoussac.

Drama September 5.5 × 8.5; 112 pp Trade paper; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US; CDN Rights only ISBN 978-1-77201-156-2 ebook forthcoming

Camus’s The Just (Les Justes) is a five-act play based on the true story of a group of Russian revolutionaries who assassinated Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in 1905. First produced in 1949, The Just is a significant, eerily resonant, moving, and highly theatrical work. With a humanist perspective, Camus delves into the hearts and minds of five idealists who each grapple with a heinous choice and ultimately commit murder, in the name of justice. Now, more than ever, the play provokes and reverberates with a troubling yet necessary line of inquiry. Do the ends justify the means? Is terrorism ever a viable choice? What is the true cost of resistance? What is the difference between a freedom fighter and a murderer?

What The Just makes so compelling and haunting is the way Camus uses clearly drawn characters to tell such an intimate yet horrific story. He completely understands and sympathizes with his characters but never apologizes for their actions. And although it was written more than fifty years ago and set in another era, The Just feels entirely contemporary and vital. In this play, Camus attempts to understand what it would require to take violent action and assassinate someone in power yet somehow maintain a sense of justice and morality. Is this even possible?

Bobby Theodore’s fresh, modern translation enhances the contemporaneity of the play. With an introduction by director Frank Cox-O’Connell.

“Bobby Theodore’s translation of The Just captures both the human essence of the characters, their inner conflicts as well as their philosophical idealism.”

—Marie-Louise Arsenault, on the CBC Radio-Canada program Plus on est de fous, plus on lit!

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FROM ORAL TO WRITTEN A Celebration of Indigenous Literature in Canada, 1980–2010

From Oral to Written A Celebration of Indigenous Literature in Canada 1980–2010

tomson highway

TOMSON HIGHWAY Cree playwright Tomson Highway was artistic director of Native Earth, Canada’s longest-running professional Indigenous theatre company, for much of the period under discussion and encouraged the production of work by some of the writers profiled in From Oral to Written. His bestknown publications are the plays The Rez Sisters, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, Rose, Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout, and The (Post) Mistress, as well as the best-selling novel Kiss of the Fur Queen. He writes in three languages: Cree (his mother tongue), French, and English.

As a classically trained pianist (who also composes music), he has studied with some of the finest teachers in Canada, most notably William Aide and Anton Kuerti.

Non-fiction: Literary Criticism July 6 x 9; 448 pp Trade paper; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US ISBN 978-77201-116-6 Cloth; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-188-3 ebook forthcoming

Indigenous Canadians tell their own stories, about their own people, in their own voice, from their own perspective. If as recently as forty years ago there was no recognizable body of work by Canadian writers, as recently as thirty years ago there was no Indigenous literature in this country.

Perhaps a few books had made a dent on the national consciousness: The Unjust Society by Harold Cardinal, Halfbreed by Maria Campbell, and the poetry of E. Pauline Johnson and even Louis Riel. Now, three decades later, Indigenous people have a literature that paints their lives in colours that are psychologically complex and enthralling. Indigenous Canadians have a literature that validates their experience, that gives them dignity, that tells them that they and their culture, their ideas, their languages, are important if not downright essential to the long-term survival of the planet.

Tomson Highway’s From Oral to Written is a study of Indigenous literature published in Canada between 1980 and 2010, a catalogue of amazing books that sparked the embers of a dormant voice. In the early 1980s, that voice rose up to overcome the major obstacle Indigenous people have as writers: they are not able to write in their own Indigenous languages, but have to write in the languages of the colonizer, languages that simply cannot capture the magic of Indigenous mythology, the wild insanity of Trickster thinking. From Oral to Written is the story of the Indigenous literary tradition, written – in multiple Indigenous languages, in French, and in English – by a brave, committed, hardworking, and inspired community of exceptional individuals – from the Haida Nation on Haida Gwaii to the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island.

Leading author Tomson Highway surveys the first wave of Indigenous writers published in Canada, highlighting the most gifted authors and the best stories they have told, offering non-Indigenous readers access to reconciliation and understanding, and at the same time engendering among Indigenous readers pride in a stellar body of work.

Please visit talonbooks.com for a complete listing of Tomson Highway’s available books.

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In Search of New Babylon dominique scali Translated by W. Donald Wilson

Dominique Scali is an author and journalist who is nostalgic for bygone eras she can experience only in her imagination.

The original French novel, À la recherche de New Babylon (La Peuplade, 2015), won the First Novel Award at the twenty-ninth Festival du Premier Roman, held in Chambéry, France (2016). It was also a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award (2015), the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal (2015), and the Prix des libraires du Québec (2016).

W. Donald Wilson holds a degree in modern languages from Trinity College, Dublin, where he also completed a Ph.D. in French literature. He has taught at universities in the West Indies and United Kingdom, and at the University of Waterloo. In 2011 and 2013, two of Wilson’s translations were long-listed for the Best Translated Book Award in the United States, and in 2013 he was a finalist for the FrenchAmerican Foundation translation prize.

In this atmospheric, post–Cormac McCarthy western novel, four dis-parate characters criss-cross the desert in pursuit of impossible ideals.

Along the way, these wily characters captivate and intrigue as they seek the American dream in the form of a lawless town in the 1860s.

Reverend Aaron is found lying unconscious on the dusty trail to a family farm somewhere in southern Utah. His hands have been severed at the wrists. He is carrying only a few Bibles and sermons. Is he a preacher or a thief?

It’s impossible to say who this stranger might be without understanding those who have brought him to this desert town: Charles Teasdale, a pugilist who hangs himself despite having escaped the noose nine times; Pearl Guthrie, a young saloon girl who marries the same man thirty times over; Russian Bill, an aristocrat turned rustler after killing a hundred innocent men; and an assortment of mercenaries who live on the fringe of mining towns in the American Southwest, where anything and everything is available, except what you are looking for.

All the main characters in this novel are invented, except one. All the towns are real, except for New Babylon. But if such a place were to be imagined, it would be a Wild West town where gunfights are fair play and the law bans only the lawman. It is a perilous place, where the beauty of the desert landscape takes your breath away with the same power as an open blade and a gash to the throat.

Praise for À la recherche de New Babylon: “The quality of your work is astounding. It is rare to come upon a first novel of such quality.” —Marie-Louise Arsenault, on the CBC Radio-Canada program Plus on est de fous, plus on lit!

“Astounding.”

“A titanic novel.”

Fiction: Literary March 5.5 × 8.5; 320 pp Trade paper; $19.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-124-1 ebook forthcoming

—Mario Cloutier, La Presse —Dominic Tardif, La Tribune

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A Crossing of Hearts michel tremblay Translated by Sheila Fischman Third novel in the Desrosiers Diaspora Series

Michel Tremblay is a writer of international stature and accomplishment. A seven-time recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, during his career Tremblay has received more than seventy-five prizes, citations, and honours, including nine Chalmers Awards. In 2011 he was honoured with the Révolution tranquille medal, from the Ministry of Culture of Quebec, awarded to artists, creators, and artisans who began their careers between 1960 and 1970 and who still have an influence in their fields of practice. In total, Tremblay has written twenty-seven plays and twenty-seven novels.

Born in Saskatchewan, Sheila Fischman was raised in Ontario and is a graduate of the University of Toronto. She is a founding member of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada and has also been a columnist for the Globe and Mail and the Montreal Gazette, a broadcaster with CBC Radio, and literary editor of the Montreal Star. She now devotes herself full time to literary translation, specializing in contemporary Quebec fiction, and has translated more than 125 Quebec novels by, among others, Michel Tremblay, Jacques Poulin, Anne Hébert, François Gravel, Marie-Claire Blais, and Roch Carrier.

Fiction March 5.5 × 8.5; 216 pp Trade paper; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-011-4 ebook forthcoming

A Crossing of Hearts continues Michel Tremblay’s Desrosiers Diaspora series of novels, a family saga set in Montreal during World War I. August 1915. Montreal is stifled by a heat wave while war rages in Europe. The three Desrosiers sisters – Tititte, Teena, and Maria – had been planning a whole week of vacation in the mountains, to do nothing but gossip, laugh, drink, and overeat while basking in the sun. Maria had decided to leave her children, Nana and Théo, in Montreal, in the care of a neighbour who gives her a hand when she needs it. Now Maria’s children come roaring into the kitchen, pink with pleasure, begging to come too.

“I keep telling you, Momma, we’ll be as quiet as little mice,” Nana assures her. “We’ll hardly take up any room. You won’t even know we’re there.”

Reluctantly, Maria takes her children along on the week-long trip to the Laurentians. As the reader views the journey through young Nana’s eyes, we come to understand the impoverished circumstances they leave behind in Montreal, only to find poverty ever more present in the country. Yet here it is surrounded by mountains, reflected in a lovely lake, and the blue sky gives them a moment of respite. It feels good to get out of town, and Tremblay’s writing remains so vivid that the reader imagines dipping into cool lake water along with the family. Significant encounters with rural relatives crystallize young Nana’s true feelings for her mother, as confidences and family secrets fuse day into night.

This third novel in Tremblay’s Desrosiers Diaspora series bursts with life as Nana, the young city girl, explores the natural world – and the enchanted forest of her inner, maturing self. The novel also further develops the character of Maria so that we understand her motivations more fully, and at the same time readers will recognize nods to the history of Quebec and the dynamics of the family under the strictures of the Catholic church.

Please visit talonbooks.com for a complete listing of Michel Tremblay’s available books.

Talonbooks Spring 2017 17

Legend michael blouin

Michael Blouin’s debut novel, Chase and Haven (Coach House Books, 2009), was a shortlisted nominee for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award in 2008 and won the ReLit Award for fiction in 2009. His poetry collection Wore Down Trust (Pedlar Press, 2011) won the Archibald Lampman Award in 2012. He has been published in many Canadian literary magazines, including Arc, Descant, Branch, Dragnet, The Antigonish Review, Event, Queens Quarterly, and The Fiddlehead, and has served as an adjudicator for the Ontario Arts Council, Ottawa Book Awards, Carleton University, and This Magazine.

In Michael Blouin’s Legend, narrative as we know it is torn apart only to be reconstructed piece by piece as the pages progress. Blouin weaves a history of Canadian modern art, Hollywood B movies, and RCMP police procedure in this genre-defying novel that is at once sensual and mind-bending.

Drawing from the lives of celebrities and stories from his personal life, Blouin creates parallel worlds featuring fictive characters who dwell in the artifice of successful stories, as well as the people who inhabit these roles, such as Clint Eastwood in The Eiger Sanction (1975) and the dead body in the Maysles brothers’ film Salesman (1969).

Blouin bends every storytelling trope with documentary techniques to include biographical tidbits and primary sources that lay claim to the conviction that imagination is no less real than so-called reality itself. In so doing, he creates an artistic trajectory of influence and collaboration, revealing a deeply personal relationship to his hometown.

Legend unravels the creative process and the construction of narrative itself without the burden of excessive meta-thinking. Blouin guides us through the lives he has known and encountered, including his own, to show us how we come to perceive the roles we play, the plot twists we grant our own lives, and just how much our communities – real and imagined – can shape us.

Praise for Chase and Haven: “[Blouin] creates vivid images using a storytelling format that bounces readers from one seemingly random memory to another ... each recollection revealed in the author’s beautifully lean and powerful voice.”

—Ottawa Citizen “With deftness and self-assurance, Michael Blouin has built an undeniable world in Chase and Haven. His crisp, Gowdy-like prose and cutting observations compel. Blouin knows what goes on inside of people, and between them – what is said, and what is unsaid. He is a storyteller to watch.”

—Emily Schultz, author of Joyland and Heaven Is Small

Fiction: Literary July 5.5 × 8.5; 224 pp Trade paper; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-128-9

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The Gorge: Selected Writing nancy shaw Edited by Catriona Strang

Nancy Shaw was an award-winning poet, scholar, art critic, and curator. Author of Affordable Tedium (1991) and Scoptocratic (1992), Shaw frequently collaborated with poet Catriona Strang, with whom she also co-authored two books of poetry: Busted (2001) and Cold Trip (2006).

Shaw received a Ph.D. in communications from McGill University in 2000 and held a post-doctoral fellowship at New York University. Her doctoral dissertation, “Modern Art, Media Pedagogy, Cultural Citizenship: The Museum of Modern Art’s Television Project, 1952–1955,” was judged as a superior work. Just prior to her death in 2007, she was engaged in new research on McLuhan and the visual arts.

During the 1980s in Vancouver, she was at the centre of interdisciplinary collaborations, contributing as a writer, artist, curator, and critic.

A founding member of the Institute for Domestic Research, and former member of the Kootenay School of Writing collective, Catriona Strang is the author of Low Fancy and co-author with the late Nancy Shaw of Busted, Cold Trip, and Light Sweet Crude.

Poetry April 6 × 9; 224 pp Trade paper; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-140-1

Nancy Shaw was an award-winning poet, scholar, and critic who was formative in shifting the ground of Canadian literature and poetics. She was a member of the influential Kootenay School of Writing (KSW) collective and Writing magazine, was an artist-in-residence at the Western Front in the 1980s, and served as a chair of the Vancouver New Music Society.

In a 1994 CBC interview with KSW poets Jeff Derksen, Lisa Robertson, Catriona Strang, and Shaw herself, Shelagh Rogers asked American poet Peter Gizzi to describe their work, and he said: “Their work is unbridled, valiant, and vivid. [Their] vocabulary [is] reinventing the present.”

Shaw’s work was rooted in the contemporary and deeply concerned with collaboration, the institutionalization of art, the potential of the epistolary form, and the breaking of poetic conventions by offering interdisciplinary perspectives.

In Vancouver Anthology: The Institutional Politics of Art, Shaw wrote that collaborations allowed her to “question notions of authorship and originality.” She collaborated with artists and musicians such as Eric Metcalfe and drew from popular music to write anthems and torch songs such as “Torch Song #6” in which she asserts: “ burst through my song / my watery one / my singular scrap.”

Edited by Catriona Strang, who co-authored Busted and Cold Trip with Shaw, The Gorge collects a range of Shaw’s prolific writing with a focus on her collaborations and poetry.

The Gorge: Selected Writing of Nancy Shaw resumes Talonbooks’ affordable and carefully curated Selected Writing series that began in the 1980s.

“The Gorge is dazzling, luring readers into an extraordinary collection ... My tongue plunders as I gobble her words, engorging on smart, funny, and wise poems of critical resistance and defiance.”

—Nicole Markotic

Talonbooks Spring 2017 19

An Honest Woman jónína kirton

Jónína Kirton is a Prairie-born Métis/Icelandic poet, author, and facilitator. She currently lives in Vancouver, on the unceded territory of the Salish people. Kirton graduated from Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio in 2007 and is a member of its advisory board as well as the liaison for its Indigenous advisory board. Kirton is also a member of the Room Magazine editorial board.

In 2016, Kirton received Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award for an Emerging Artist in the Literary Arts category.

Nominated by her mentor Betsy Warland, Kirton is excited to be Warland’s apprentice at the 2017 SFU Writer’s Studio.

Kirton also won first prize and two honourable mentions in the Royal City Literary Arts Society’s Write-on Contest in 2013, and an honourable mention in 2014 in the Burnaby Writers contest.

Kirton’s work has been featured in a number of anthologies and literary journals. Her first collection of poetry, page as bone – ink as blood was released to wide acclaim by Talonbooks in 2015.

Poetry April 6 × 9; 104 pp Trade paper; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-144-9

An Honest Woman by Jónína Kirton confronts us with beauty and ugliness in the wholesome riot that is sex, love, and marriage. From the perspective of a mixed-race woman, Kirton engages with Simone de Beauvoir and Donald Trump to unravel the norms of femininity and sexuality that continue to adhere today.

Kirton recalls her own upbringing, during which she was told to find a good husband who would “make an honest woman” out of her.

Exploring the lives of many women, including her mother, her contemporaries, and well-known sex-crime stories such as the case of Elisabeth Fritzl, Kirton mines the personal to loosen the grip of patriarchal and colonial impositions.

An Honest Woman explores the many ways the female body is shaped by questions that have been too politically charged to ask: What happens when a woman decides to take her sexuality into her own hands, dismissing cultural norms and the expectations of her parents? How is a young woman’s sexuality influenced when she is perceived as an “exotic” other? Can a woman reconnect with her Indigenous community by choosing Indigenous lovers?

Daring and tender in their honesty and wisdom, these poems challenge the perception of women’s bodies as glamorous and marketable commodities and imagine an embodied female experience that accommodates the role of creativity and a nurturing relationship with the land.

Praise for page as bone – ink as blood: “A Bildungsroman in verse … subtle, perceptive, and politically engaged.”

—Matrix “Kirton avoids outright confessional by raising the question of what voice is and can be, and does this as a poet … introducing the awareness of human fallibility and how ‘story’ is fraught, gives the writing authenticity and the writer welcome authority. Moments like this in writing are hard won and as such are to be treasured and sustained.”

—The Maynard

Jónína Kirton’s page as bone — ink as blood is also available from Talonbooks.

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Inspecting Nostalgia r. kolewe

R. Kolewe was born in Montreal. Educated in physics and engineering at the University of Toronto, he pursued a successful career in the software industry for many years, while living in a picturesque village in southwestern Ontario.

Always a reader, he began to devote his time to writing not long after returning to Toronto in 2007 and now writes full time. He also takes photographs. His work has appeared online at ditch, e-ratio, The Puritan, and (parenthetical), and he has been associated with the online magazine of Canadian poetics, influencysalon.ca. His first book, Afterletters, was published by BookThug in 2014.

Taking its title from a phrase in a pop-up ad, Inspecting Nostalgia is R. Kolewe’s second collection of poetry that brings together found text and fragments of various writers’ work with scraps from his own journals.

Kolewe’s concerns with “nostalgia,” derived from the Greek “nostos” (return) and “algos” (pain), forge poems that are charged with an intense yearning for that which has been lost. Heartbreak is tempered with Jacques Derrida’s essay on Immanuel Kant to create almost-sonnets and many tercets, and marginal notes brim with desire and memory to test the limits of the age-old matter of the lyric poem.

These poems have their multiplicity fixed on a certain trait that makes us human: an attachment to the past. By piecing together texts from disparate sources, they capture the kaleidoscopic influence of other voices without incongruity or disorientation. Kolewe perches on the threshold of the lyric and conceptual to allow the melody and jangle of influence to rest within us as we read, only to leave us changed and wanting as we try to catch up to the rhythm of the present.

Inspecting Nostalgia has all the lucent warmth and sting of heartbreak – roses, stars, and decay abound – subdued by a compositional technique that pilfers and forages the analytical and prosaic to create a cohesive work that is often elegiac and always evocative.

“With wild precision, Kolewe traces the dissolving rhythm of ephemerality to write of the ghostly past whose vanishing persists into the present – ‘No need to look back to lose you.’ Inspecting Nostalgia inhabits the intersecting temporalities that accrue within and around a life – those jostling times of the body, of memory, of history, of the stars – to create poems that startlingly discern the mind’s intricate, minimally perceptible movements as it falls into and out of time.”

—Julie Joosten “Precise and ruminative, Inspecting Nostalgia turns yearning to wonder.”

—Natalie Simpson

Poetry April 5.5 × 8.5; 160 pp Trade paper; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-132-6 ebook forthcoming

Talonbooks Spring 2017 21

Same Diff donato mancini

Donato Mancini makes visual and procedural poetry, bookworks, and visual art. His books and chapbooks include Snowline (2015), Buffet World (2011), Fact ‘N’ Value (2011), Hell Passport no.22 (2008), Æthel (2007), 58 Free Coffees (2006), and Ligatures (2005). Notable exhibitions of Mancini’s visual artworks have included exhibitions through Artspeak, Western Front, Gallery Atsui, Malaspina Printmakers Society, and CSA Group. He performed with Gabriel Saloman in their noisepoetry / noisecomedy / noisemusic ensemble in the 2013 LIVE! Biennale of performance art, and as part of Concrete Scores at Open Space. Mancini’s published critical writing includes work on the archive, time, and memory in Anamnesia: Unforgetting (2011), and a discourse analysis of poetry reviews in You Must Work Harder to Write Poetry of Excellence (2012). His previous full-length book, Loitersack (New Star, 2014), is a labyrinthine commonplace book where critical, theoretical, and paraliterary tendencies intersect in the forms of poetry, poetics, theory, theatre, laugh particles, and many, many questions. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of British Columbia.

Poetry March 6 × 7.5; 112 pp Trade paper; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-136-4

Same Diff by Donato Mancini meets at the intersection of contemporary poetry, art, and current politics. Influenced by documentary cinema such as the films of Frederic Wiseman, Dada poets, montage techniques, and a range of modern poets, Same Diff explores the way social and economic histories become imprinted within language itself.

The political and poetic melancholy of our moment is revealed in a long poem on climate change, particularly the disappearance of snow, while the real-life effects of fiscal austerity and poverty are voiced in fragments conveying social neuroses that stem from amplified, unfair competition for basic necessities.

The nonce forms of Same Diff draw attention to their construction and history using monotype fonts, speaking to the surfaces of words and paper, and diverging from a sole focus on meaning.

Each poem introduces a dominant motif that develops through repetition and incremental variations, sourcing language from newspapers, online sources, and overheard conversations to create an emotive effect, as felt in music.

“Lines are only the beginning of those objects drawn together in this book of splices and merges, convergences and recourses, findings and collectings, smatterings and casual smotherings … A book of thirty-five works that stands on top of itself, looking down upon itself, belly bulging, selfawareness, reconstructivism, both respectful of these realities and respectful of the reader. In fact, have I read such a polite and inviting work in all the other realms and moments of my life? … Same Diff is all about probability.

It is the regurgitation in postmodern complacency. It is mirroring, reflective, and dangerous. The poems here are, as mentioned, subtle. And yet they are jumbled. And yet they maintain agency. They demonstrate the craft of work that can reach heights without reliance upon spotlight, or even stage.

As works to be performed, I found myself recording myself reading these poems by myself, alone in a room that can be called a home, watching the network expand, watching the portal emerge … Getting to the end of Same Diff is not difficult, and making sense of it is not either.” —Yellow Rabbits

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Crees in the Caribbean drew hayden taylor

A heartwarming comedy about two middle-aged First Nations Elders, Evie and Cecil, on their very first trip out of the country. Evie and Cecil reminisce and bicker as they review a lifetime together.

CECIL So, what exactly are we going to do now that we’re here in Mexico?

Drew Hayden Taylor is one of Canada’s leading Indigenous dramatists. An Ojibway from the Curve Lake First Nation in Ontario, he is an award-winning playwright (with more than seventy productions under his belt), a journalist/columnist (appearing regularly in several Canadian newspapers and magazines), a short-story writer, a novelist, a television scriptwriter, and a contributor to more than seventeen documentaries exploring the Indigenous experience. Among Taylor’s many awards are the Canada Council Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for Theatre (2009); the Governor General’s Drama Award, Nominee (2006) for In a World Created by a Drunken God; the James Buller Aboriginal Theatre Award for Playwright of the Year (1997); and the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, Small Theatre Division (1996) for Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth.

Drama January 5.5 × 8.5; 136 pp Trade paper; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-148-7 ebook forthcoming

EVIE I’m so glad you asked. Supposedly there are some ancient Mayan ruins somewhere in the interior, not far from here. I thought that might be interesting.

CECIL If you want to look at an ancient, broken-down, Indian ruin, we can go visit your cousin.

Evie and Cecil are celebrating their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.

As a gift, their grown children send them on a second honeymoon – to a fabulous resort on the Caribbean coast of Mexico. The only problem is that neither have ever been out of the country, let alone off their Cree reserve. Each reacts to their new experiences differently, and something ominous seems to be bothering Cecil. Despite the sun, sand, and sea sparkling right outside the resort window, all Cecil seems to want to do is sit alone in his hotel room, idly flipping through TV channels, the curtains pulled tight. What is he worried about? Maybe there is more behind this trip than he has been told. The past, present, and future all pay the couple a visit as they acclimatize to the pleasures of Mexico – and spicy food. Mixed up in all the fun is their hotel housekeeper, Manuela. As they form a bond with this courteous young local, they help her navigate a troublesome situation in which she finds herself.

Cast of 1 man and 2 women.

Please visit talonbooks.com for a complete listing of Drew Hayden Taylor’s available books.

Talonbooks Spring 2017 23

Empire of the Son tetsuro shigematsu Preface by Donna Yamamoto

Tetsuro Shigematsu is a Canadian playwright, comedian, and radio broadcaster. Originally trained in the fine arts, he found a creative outlet writing for CBC Television’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Then, in 2004, he became the first person of colour to host a daily national radio program in Canada when he took over The Roundup on CBC Radio, for which he co-wrote and co-produced nearly a thousand hours of network programming. He has written and produced more than fifty pieces of radio drama as well as the feature film Yellow Fellas (2007). He is currently a Vanier scholar and Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia.

Follow him @tweetsuro or visit him at shiggy.com.

Empire of the Son is an original one-hander that blurs the boundaries between artistic disciplines and continents. It is a unique theatrical hybrid that combines cinematography with the raw immediacy of a performance piece intimately connected to real life in real time.

Through a series of audio interviews, playwright Tetsuro Shigetmatsu discovers vast worlds contained within his emotionally remote father – from the ashes of World War II and Hiroshima to swinging London in the 1960s and work in broadcasting at the BBC. As the playwright learns about how his own father was once a son, he realizes all the ways in which he himself needs to step up and become a better dad. This funny, poignant story of one immigrant family and their intergenerational conflicts reminds us that no matter how far we journey out into the world to find ourselves – across decades and continents – we never stop being our parents’ children. It is the story of two generations of CBC broadcasters and the radio silence between them.

Nominated for six Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards. Remount completely sold out in Vancouver and scheduled for productions across Canada in 2017.

Cast of 1 man.

“Empire of the Son is exquisite. It’s also painstakingly honest … the storytelling is poetic, associative – and often funny. I can’t say enough good things about Empire of the Son … one of the best shows of the year.”

—Georgia Straight “Artistic son has ambivalent relationship with distant, stern immigrant father. It’s a common subject, but BC’s Tetsuro Shigematsu breathes new life into it in Empire of the Son.” —NOW Toronto

Drama January 5.5 × 8.5; 80 pp Trade paper; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-104-3

24 Talonbooks Spring 2017

Messenger wendy lill Introduction by Mary Vingoe

Playwright and politician Wendy Lill has written extensively for radio, magazines, film, and television. Her work has received two ACTRA awards, a Golden Sheaf Award (for her film Ikwo), a Chalmers Award, a Gemini Award, a New York Festivals Radio Program and Promotion Award, and four nominations for the Governor General’s Drama Award (The Occupation of Heather Rose, All Fall Down, The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum, and Corker). Chimera, her first play since leaving politics, premiered at the Tarragon Theatre in 2007.

She created and was head writer for the award-winning CBC Radio series Backbencher.

Lill was born in Vancouver in 1950. She grew up in London, Ontario, then completed a B.A. in political science at Toronto’s York University in 1970. She worked for nearly a decade in Toronto while pursuing her passion for writing part-time, before accepting full-time work in Winnipeg as a writer for CBC Radio in 1979. In 1988, Lill moved to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, to continue to write for the theatre, as well as pursue her political ambitions. She is a co-founder of the Eastern Front Theatre Company in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia (1993), where she also served as a Member of Parliament between 1997 and 2004.

Drama April 5.5 × 8.5; 128 pp Trade paper; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-152-4 ebook forthcoming

As in Ibsen’s Enemy of the People, two brothers struggle for power and ideals each believes are right.

Set in the late nineteenth century in a coastal town in Norway, Enemy charts the journey of an idealistic and naive doctor who believes people will behave responsibly if given the facts, shown leadership, and pointed in the right direction. Instead, he discovers that, as individuals, we come with our own baggage, secrets, and self-interest that often defy and divert lofty goals. Ibsen explores the whole messy idea of democracy and how things change. Or don’t.

Messenger takes place in another country, Canada, and in another century but tackles similar themes. It is a memory play, set both in the present day and in 1990, when the Progressive Conservative government of the day, contrary to the public record, in fact set lofty goals of joining – if not leading – the world in tackling climate change. The mechanism by which that goal was lost is played out primarily between two brothers.

One brother, Peter, is the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, who wants to maintain political control and has many players and interests to juggle to keep his Prime Minister in office. The other brother, Thomas, is an idealist, a newly minted Cabinet minister who tries to show leadership and tell the truth about impending environmental crises and get the whole country on board with the rightness of his vision. The stakes are raised when strong family loyalties are tested by the crisis that ensues when Thomas refuses to back down from what he knows is right. A timely play in terms of environmental issues, full of lots of great political dirty tricks.

Cast of 3 men and 1 woman.

“Messenger is a worth addition to [Lill’s] line of dramas.”

—Kim McCaw “A stunning marriage of artistic excellence and disturbing social relevance.”

—Jennifer Overton

Please visit talonbooks.com for a complete listing of Wendy Lill’s available books.

Talonbooks Spring 2017 25

A Taste of Empire jovanni sy Introduction by Guillermo Verdecchia

Everything we eat tells a story. In A Taste of Empire, delectable samples from a real-time cooking demonstration offer food for thought about colonialism and the ethics of modern-day food systems.

“Food and Wine named him Chef of the Decade. In 2016 he was inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame. Recently Microsoft released the hit video game Maximo Cortés: Kitchen Gangsta. You’ve seen him on television. You’ve bought his bestselling cookbooks. Now for a limited engagement … it’s the Demon Chef, the Madman of the Kitchen, the Grand Master of Imperial Cuisine … Chef Maximo Cortés!”

Jovanni Sy is a playwright, director, actor, and the artistic director of Gateway Theatre in Richmond, British Columbia.

In 2010, Sy wrote and performed A Taste of Empire which was nominated for two Dora Mavor Moore Awards including Outstanding New Play. It was subsequently remounted by Vancouver’s Boca del Lupo Theatre. A Cantonese version of A Taste of Empire was translated and performed by Derek Chan (with Sy directing) in 2016.

Other writing credits include The Five Vengeances, a comic kung-fu adapation of The Revenger’s Tragedy, and the libretti to the chamber operas Haiku Moments and The Cellar Door. Sy is currently developing the play Nine Dragons, a detective story set in 1920s colonial Hong Kong.

Sy’s directing credits include God of Carnage, Antigone, and Blackbird (Theatre du Pif in Hong Kong), and Closer Than Ever, Valley Song, and Harvest (Gateway Theatre). In June 2015, he directed Clifford Cardinal’s award-winning play Stitch for Native Earth Performance Arts.

As an actor, Sy has performed with theatre companies across Canada and overseas.

The premise of the show is a once-in-a-lifetime cooking demonstration by Chef Maximo Cortés, the renowned inventor of his signature-style “Imperial Cuisine.” The audience excitedly awaits Chef Maximo’s arrival, relaxing with cocktails and complimentary hors d’oeuvres served to their seats. Suddenly their complacency is broken when Maximo’s amusing assistant, Jovanni, appears onstage. The celebrity chef is unavailable, but no worries: Jovanni, too, is an expert at preparing the traditional Filipino dish Rellenong Bangus (Stuffed Milkfish), and the audience follows along on a journey filled with humorous banter and a silky milkfish, sharp chef’s knife in Jovanni’s hand. As he cooks, he deconstructs the dish in humorous and surprising ways, serving up opinions on the European colonization of Asia, the state of modern agriculture, the ethics of food distribution and consumption – only a few of the ideas sampled in this engaging performance piece. When the actual fish dish is cooked and ready to eat, audience members are given tasting plates and even more food for thought. A Taste of Empire is truly a feast for the mind and palate.

We call it Iron Chef meets Guns, Germs, and Steel. Bon appetit!

Cast of 1 man.

“A Taste of Empire is a great success.”

Drama May 5.5 × 8.5; 96 pp Trade paper; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US ISBN 978-1-77201-160-9 ebook forthcoming

—Globe and Mail

Talonbooks Recent Releases 26

U Girl

The Days

meredith quartermain

Forecasts, Warnings, Advice

m.a.c. farrant

Award-winning author Meredith Quartermain’s second novel and seventh book, U Girl, is a coming-of-age story set at UBC and in Vancouver in 1972, a city crossed between love-in hip and forest-corp square.

“Quartermain has truly outdone herself this time. … This bildungsroman is an extraordinary new addition to Canadian literature …

Readers should prepare themselves for a tidal wave of emotion, reflection, and new perceptions when they dive into Quartermain’s latest masterpiece.”

—Ubyssey ISBN 978-1-77201-040-4; ebook also available Fiction; 240 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Let yourself be excited and delighted. Farrant’s artfully spare stories – averaging a couple of paragraphs each – offer enough food for thought (and mood) to keep you going for months. Dip in occasionally to be reminded of the strangeness of us, or read from beginning to end and immerse yourself in a slightly skewed version of reality.

“A beguiling, quirky delight … It is fully possible to discern serious intent behind the book’s gleeful riffling through cultural ephemera; the odd humor, off-center observations, and clever wordplay anchor the book.”

—Publishers Weekly ISBN 978-1-77201-007-7; ebook also available Fiction; 128 pp; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Reading Sveva

Once in Blockadia

daphne marlatt

stephen collis

Reading Sveva is award-winning poet Daphne Marlatt’s response to the life and paintings of Sveva Caetani, an Italian émigré who grew up in Vernon, British Columbia. Bringing her own perspective as an immigrant and as a woman, Marlatt illuminates the life of this forgotten female artist whose work is a testament to the struggle of the female artist, and the search for a sense of belonging.

“Everything that Marlatt has published is instinct with caring, intelligence and a feel for technical innovation.”

—Toronto Star ISBN 978-1-77201-016-9 Poetry; 88 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

In this collection of long and serial poems, Stephen Collis returns to the commons, and to his ongoing argument with romantic poet William Wordsworth, to rethink the relationship between human beings and the natural world in the Anthropocene Era. 2017 George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature (Shortlisted) “[Once in Blockadia] could easily be considered his strongest collection to date” —rob mclennan ISBN 978-1-77201-015-2 Poetry; 148 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

for love and autonomy

Friendly Fire

anahita jamali rad

danielle lafrance

Jamali Rad deals with the stuff of everyday life: work and sex, friendship and love. Her critical attention to the structure of these social relations creates a poetics of trial and failure, questioning the very “culture” responsible for its making as she forges a way for the possibility of radical resistance in language.

“Wildly smart, dark and funny … thick with theory.” —rob mclennan ISBN 978-1-77201-017-6 Poetry; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Comprising experimental poetry and prose, Friendly Fire interrogates the male subjective experience of war and the gendered implications of camaraderie or “brotherhood” while aligning the seriousness of a war target with the frivolities of gossip.

“An appropriately intelligent book that does not hold back for any person or anything. It rouses, coughs and spits in protest, defies and enlightens all the same.”

—Queen Mob’s Tea House ISBN 978-1-77201-018-3 Poetry; 128 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Talonbooks Recent Releases 27

Entering Time

The Envelope

The Fungus Man Platters of Charles Edenshaw

vittorio rossi

colin browne

Every good story is an origin story – and a mystery story – and in Entering Time: The Fungus Man Platters of Charles Edenshaw, Browne ranges through the fields of art history, literature, ethnology, and myth to discover a parallel history of modernism within one of the world’s most subtle and sophisticated artistic and literary cultures.

ISBN 978-1-77201-039-8 Non-fiction; 192 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Drawn from his own experiences, Vittorio Rossi’s new comedydrama exposes the bureaucratic institution that is the Canadian film industry, and we follow the character Michael Moretti, a veteran playwright, as he struggles to get his new play, Romeo’s Rise, turned into a movie. Cast of 5 men and 2 women.

“Hard-hitting on the one hand, sweet as sugar on the other, The Envelope left the impression of a well-baked, enjoyable piece of Italian pastry.”

—Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-1-77201-031-2; ebook forthcoming Drama; 112 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

False Starts

In a Blue Moon

A Subterfuge of Excellent Wit

lucia frangione

louis patrick leroux Translated by Alexander St-Laurent & Katia Grubisic

False Starts presents a series of determining moments between two people stuck reliving the same scene over and over, but in unexpected ways and in different genres (from diary to dramatic dialogue, film script to sound installation).

Cast of 1 man and 1 woman.

Nominated for the 2016/2017 Patrick O’Neil Award (Best Collection of Plays), awarded by the Canadian Association for Theatre Research (CATR) ISBN 978-1-77201-027-5 Drama; 144 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

When Frankie’s dad dies, her mom, Ava, can’t afford to live in the city anymore. The only asset they’re left with is a farmhouse situated on twenty acres of land far outside of town. Ava decides to move there and start an Ayurvedic clinic on the property, giving her precocious and grieving daughter a new start. One problem presents itself, though: a squatter who won’t leave.

Cast of 1 man and 2 women.

ISBN 978-1-77201-035-0; ebook forthcoming Drama; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

You Will Remember Me

Yours Forever, Marie-Lou

françois archambault

michel tremblay

Translated by Bobby Theodore

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Memory – personal, familial, and societal – is the central theme of this new play by Governor General’s award–winning playwright François Archambault. Translated by Bobby Theodore, this work follows a family’s struggle with dementia.

Cast of 2 men and 3 women.

“Archambault’s knack for combining painful tragedy with laughter is partly what lifts the play from being what he calls ‘a disease play’.”

—Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-1-77201-019-0; ebook forthcoming Drama; 112 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

In Linda Gaboriau’s new translation of this classic Michel Tremblay play, two sisters confront the memory of their parents’ death – and other long-buried memories and points of tension.

Cast of 1 man and 3 women ISBN 978-1-77201-023-7; ebook forthcoming Drama; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

28 Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist

ABC of Reading TRG

As Always

The New Canadian Criticism Series Peter Jaeger

Memoir of a Life in Writing Madeleine Gagnon

Examines the writings of Steve McCaffery and bpNichol, with a special focus on their collaborative work as the Toronto Research Group (TRG).

Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott Afterword by Maïr Verthuy

ISBN 978-0-88922-423-0 © 1999; 160 pp; Illustrations; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Madeleine Gagnon reflects on life at the centre of Quebec literary arts by re-examining the influences of her early life.

A central theme is Gagnon’s struggle for women’s equality and her refusal to be categorized by her gender.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything as beautiful and luminous as this book.”

—Manon Trépanier, CBC Radio-Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-896-2; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-897-9 © 2015; 336 pp; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

After Completion

Bambi and Me

The Later Letters of Charles Olson and Frances Boldereff

Michel Tremblay

Edited by Sharon Thesen and Ralph Maud

Autobiographical pieces about how movies shaped the life of young Michel Tremblay.

The highly influential, yet undisclosed, relationship between American poet Charles Olson and Frances Boldereff is further revealed in this second collection of extensive, often impassioned letters.

“This correspondence ... should surely bring about greater attention to the sharp interrelating of Joyce and Blake accomplished by Boldereff in her books” —Bookslut

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Governor General’s Translation Award Winner, 1998 “This translation captures the vigour and vinegar of the original.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-380-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-994-5 © 1998; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-706-4 © 2014; 304 pp; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

American Notebooks A Writer’s Journey Marie-Claire Blais Translated by Linda Gaboriau An album of finely drawn literary portraits of writers, musicians, artists, and social activists who influenced the life and work of Marie-Claire Blais in the 1960s.

“Marvelously constructed … beautifully cadenced character studies.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-358-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-964-8 © 1996; 208 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Anatolia Junction A Journey into Hidden Turkey Fred A. Reed 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.

“Succeeds in showing readers … that Islam is not a monolith, but ‘a rich and complex mosaic.’ ” —CBRA ISBN 978-0-88922-426-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-873-3 © 1999; 320 pp; Photos & maps; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Baseball Love George Bowering George 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 and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-529-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-798-9 © 2006; 256 pp; $19.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Battle of Batoche British Small Warfare and the Entrenched Métis Second Edition Walter Hildebrandt In this revised and expanded edition, the strategies of both sides are examined, and numerous maps and photographs describe in detail the fateful battle. Foreword by Jean Teillet, great-grandniece of Louis Riel.

ISBN 978-0-88922-693-7 © 2012; 144 pp; Photos, maps & illustrations $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Annihilated Time

Beyond Recall

Poetry and Other Politics Jeff Derksen

Mary Meigs

Essays that explore the ways in which poetry, visual art, and critical practices encounter “the long present neoliberal moment” of globalization’s imperialist agenda.

A beautiful memoir that reads like the most exquisitely crafted fiction.

“Derksen raises the question of what it means to make art in the present moment in a new and exciting way.”

—Sianne Ngai

“Her real strengths are virtues of drama, colour … and passion that are distilled in succinct images.”

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-612-8 © 2009; 304 pp; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-505-3 © 2005; 160 pp; Illustrations; 19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Edited by Lise Weil

Lambda Literary Award for Biography Finalist, 2006

Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist 29

Birth of a Bookworm

Canadian Drama and the Critics

Michel Tremblay

Revised Edition

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Edited by L.W. Conolly

From Hergé and the Brothers Grimm to Gabrielle Roy and Victor Hugo, a tour of books that inspired Michel Tremblay’s vast imagination.

This lively, updated assortment of critical deliberations on contemporary Canadian drama is an ideal companion text to Modern Canadian Plays, Volumes I and II.

Globe and Mail Top 100 Books, 2003

“Fascinating, entertaining, and instructive.”

—Max Wyman

“Quebec’s most celebrated living writer.”

“Destined to become a classic.”

—Guardian

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-476-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-967-9 © 2003; 192 pp; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies

ISBN 978-0-88922-359-2; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-869-8 © 1987, 1995; 384 pp; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Charles Olson at the Harbor

Michel Tremblay

Ralph Maud

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Repudiating Tom Clark’s carelessly biased Charles Olson: The Allegory of a Poet’s Life, this diligently researched biography by long-time Olson scholar, friend, and correspondent Ralph Maud redeems the reputation of one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century.

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2006 “The best of Tremblay can be found in these Assorted Candies.” —Voir “Tremblay’s knack for recalling and accessing his boyhood self is uncanny. Assorted Candies is short but sweet.”

—Montreal Review of Books

ISBN 978-0-88922-576-3 © 2008; 224 pp; Photos & illustrations; 2nd printing $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-541-1 © 2006; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Box Closet

The Chilliwacks and Their Neighbors

Mary Meigs

Oliver N. Wells

A narrative woven of her parents’ diaries and letters that integrates Mary 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 and Mail

“Useful for the diligent novice.”

ISBN 978-0-88922-253-3; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-970-9 © 1987; 224 pp; Photos; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

—BC Studies

ISBN 978-0-88922-255-7 © 1987; 228 pp; Photos, maps & illustrations; 3rd printing $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

bpNichol

Circumstances Alter Photographs

What History Teaches The New Canadian Criticism Series Stephen Scobie

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

Edited by Frank Davey

In April 1885, Captain James Peters 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 photographs are presented together here, with an essay by Michael Barnholden.

Scobie illuminates bpNichol’s relationship to Dadaism, contemporary French literary theory, and the writing of Gertrude Stein, positing a cogent argument for Nichol’s importance as a writer of fiction.

ISBN 978-0-88922-220-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-879-5 © 1984; 154 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Canada: A New Tax Haven How the Country That Shaped Caribbean Tax Havens Is Becoming One Itself Alain Deneault Translated by Catherine Browne In Canada: A New Tax Haven, Alain Deneault traces Canada’s relationship with Commonwealth Caribbean nations back through the last half of the twentieth century, arguing that the involvement of Canadian financiers in establishing and maintaining Caribbean tax havens has predisposed Canada to become a tax haven itself – a metamorphosis well under way.

“Alain Deneault has done this country a service ”

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-836-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-837-5 © 2015; 224 pp; Photos; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-621-0 © 2009; 144 pp; Cloth; Photos; $35.00 CAN / $35.00 US

Coast Salish Essays Wayne Suttles These essays have had a lasting impact on the study of the Northwest Coast, offering views on the prehistory of Northwestern North America to First Nations responses post-Contact.

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

—Pacific Northwest Quarterly ISBN 978-0-88922-212-0 © 1987; 336 pp; Photos, maps & illustrations; 4th printing $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

30 Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist

Cold Comfort

The Edward Curtis Project

Growing Up Cold War Gil McElroy

A Modern Picture Story Marie Clements & Rita Leistner

When his father died, award-winning poet and curator Gil McElroy was given a box of photographs that documented his father’s military career, which began in WWII and continued through to the end of the Cold War. Image by image, McElroy attempts to come to terms with the mysterious photographer, a man better understood by his military compatriots than by his own family.

Marie Clements’s play dramatizes the creation of Edward Curtis’s 20-volume photographic and ethnographic record of the “vanishing” North American Indian. It is presented here alongside Rita Leistner’s parallel investigation of Curtis’s work, which questions the practice of documentary photography with the very medium under scrutiny.

ISBN 978-0-88922-684-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-711-8 © 2012; 272 pp; Photos; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-642-5 © 2010; 160 pp; Colour photos $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Conversations in Tehran

Empire of Desire

Jean-Daniel Lafond & Fred A. Reed

The Abolition of Time Thierry Hentsch

Filmmaker Jean-Daniel Lafond and author Fred A. Reed document the fall of Mohammad Khatami’s reform movement through candid conversations.

“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; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-883-2 © 2006; 224 pp; Photos; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

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 © 2008; 336 pp; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Crimes and Mercies

An English Canadian Poetics

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

Vol. 1 – The Confederation Poets

More than nine million Germans died from deliberate Allied starvation and expulsion policies after WWII. At the same time, a food-aid program saved an estimated 800 million.

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.

ISBN 978-0-88922-567-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-769-9 © 2007; 320 pp; Photos, maps & illustrations; 3rd printing $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Edited by Robert Hogg With an introduction by D.M.R. Bentley

“Never before or since in Canada have poetry, poetics, environment, identity, and national distinctiveness been more closely intertwined.”

—D.M.R. Bentley ISBN 978-0-88922-613-5 © 2009; 320 pp; Photos; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

The Decline of the Hollywood Empire

An Error in Judgement

Hervé Fischer

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

Translated by Rhonda Mullins Heralds the inevitable move from 35mm to digital distribution, which has levelled the creative playing field between the towering Hollywood empire and marginalized independent artists and producers.

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2007 ISBN 978-0-88922-545-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-965-5 © 2006; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

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

“Successfully forces the liberal white reader to look beyond totem poles and quaint Indian baskets to common history.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-246-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-863-4 © 1987; 280 pp; Photos; 6th printing $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Dispatches from the Occupation

Essays on George F. Walker

A History of Change Stephen Collis

Playing with Anxiety Chris Johnson

In these essays, poet, critic, and activist Stephen Collis meditates on the idea of change as it moves through intellectual history, tracing its patterns and comparing its articulation across disciplines. He offers short “dispatches” from his involvement in the Occupy movement, and a prose poem examining the philosophical trope of Rome.

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 978-0-88922-695-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-720-0 © 2012; 256 pp; Photos; 16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

ISBN 978-0-921368-82-3; ebook also available © 1999; 272 pp; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist 31

A Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend

EX MACHINA

Ralph Maud

Creating for the Stage Patrick Caux & Bernard Gilbert 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 experiments with both theatre and film.

ISBN 978-0-88922-617-3 © 2009; 84 pp; French flaps; Colour photos $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Gabriel Dumont Speaks

“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.”

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-189-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-862-7 © 1982; 224 pp; Photos; 5th printing $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

How to Write derek beaulieu

Second Edition Gabriel Dumont Translated by Michael Barnholden 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.

“Fascinating.”

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 British Columbia.

—Quill & Quire

ISBN 978-0-88922-625-8 © 2003, 2009; 96 pp; Photos; 3rd printing $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Containing 10 pieces of conceptual prose ranging from the purely appropriated through the entirely recomposed, beaulieu samples Laurence Sterne, Roy Lichtenstein, Agatha Christie, and all the text within one block of his home.

W.O. Mitchell Literary Prize Finalist, 2011 “beaulieu produces some of the most baffling, oblique, unreadable – and absolutely logical and necessary – works of conceptual poetry.”

—Craig Dworkin ISBN 978-0-88922-629-6 © 2010; 72 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

George Bowering

Imperial Canada Inc.

Bright Circles of Colour The New Canadian Criticism Series Eva-Marie Kröller

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

Edited by Frank Davey

Translated by Fred A. Reed & Robin Philpot

This first book-length study of Bowering explores the relationship between his work and the arts.

Why is Canada home to more than 70 percent of the world’s mining companies? Canada’s imperial heritage continues to offer a politicized legal haven from litigious recourse attempted by any community seriously affected by these industries.

“Perceptive, highly readable account of the avant-garde scene in Canada.”

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-306-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-881-8 © 1992; 144 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-635-7; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-770-5 © 2012; 256 pp; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Great Lakes Suite

In Plain Sight

David W. McFadden

Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver

Specially revised and edited, and now in one complete volume, Great Lakes Suite includes the collective record of three trips: A Trip Around Lake Erie, A Trip Around Lake Huron, and A Trip Around Lake Ontario.

“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; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-963-1 © 1997; 416 pp; Illustrations; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

griddle talk a yeer uv bill n carol dewing brunch Carol Malyon and bill bissett 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.

ISBN 978-0-88922-606-7 © 2009; 144 pp; Photos and illustrations $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Edited by Leslie A. Robertson & Dara Culhane A remarkable collection of seven life stories from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, giving voice to women who are seldom heard on their own terms.

City of Vancouver Book Award Finalist, 2005 ISBN 978-0-88922-513-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-939-6 © 2005; 180 pp; map; 3rd printing $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

In the Company of Strangers Mary Meigs Based on the NFB production of The Company of Strangers, Meigs’s account of the film unfolds in an intricate meditation on time, old age, and bonding.

QSPELL Award for Non-fiction Winner, 1992 “Her book on the film is exquisitely attuned to the interplay between art and life.”

—Boston Globe ISBN 978-0-88922-294-6 © 1991; 176 pp; Photos; 4th printing $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

32 Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist

In the Midst

Lily Briscoe

Warren Tallman

A Self-Portrait Mary Meigs

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.

ISBN 978-0-88922-308-0 © 1992; Photos; 320 pp; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

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

“A series of landscapes and life drawings, skillfully created.”

—Humanities and Applied Arts ISBN 978-0-88922-195-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-971-6 © 1981; 264 pp; Photos; 3rd printing $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America

Lions Gate

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

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.

Edited and annotated by Randy Bouchard & Dorothy Kennedy; Translated by Dietrich Bertz

Winner of the Vancouver Heritage Award BC Historical Federation Writing Competition

“The equal of any heroic literature you’ll ever read … a stunning legacy.”

—Vancouver Sun

Heritage Society of BC Award

ISBN 978-0-88922-553-4 © 2002, 2006; Photos; 704 pp; 4th revised printing $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

Lilia D’Acres & Donald Luxton

City of Vancouver Book Award, 2000 BC Book Prize Finalist, 2000 ISBN 978-0-88922-416-2; $34.95 CAN / $29.95 US © 1999; 160 pp; Cloth; Photos & illustrations; 2nd printing

Justice in Our Time

Living by Stories

The Japanese Canadian Redress Settlement Roy Miki & Cassandra Kobayashi

A Journey of Landscape and Memory Harry Robinson

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

Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire

“A powerful and moving testament to the successful efforts of the NAJC.” —Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-292-2 © 1991; 160 pp; Cloth; Photos & illustrations $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

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

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

—Thomas King ISBN 978-0-88922-522-0; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-877-1 © 2005; 288 pp; 3rd printing; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Lasagna

Lost in North America

The Man Behind the Mask Ronald Cross & Hélène Sévigny

The Imaginary Canadian in the American Dream John MacLachlan Gray

A biography of the most notorious of the 1990 Oka warriors, leader of the Mohawk armed resistance.

“The book’s 248 pages are, to put it simply, credible.

Read this book – it will open your eyes too.”

—Alberta Native News ISBN 978-0-88922-348-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-867-2 © 1994; 248 pp; Photos; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

A personal, idiosyncratic tour of the collective work of art we call Canada. “The Global Village” is nothing more than Canadian culture writ large – and here is the guide to Canadian style. John MacLachlan Gray’s tour-de-force answer to Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes is full of wit, insight, and breathtaking discoveries about ourselves and the world.

Digital Only. E-ISBN 978-0-88922-868-9 © 2013; 208 pp (print count); $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack

Making Theatre

Dorothy Kennedy & Randy Bouchard

A Life of Sharon Pollock Sherrill Grace

Dorothy Kennedy and Randy Bouchard record and recontextualize 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.

“Kennedy and Bouchard act with subtlety as informative editors giving insight into their own development as ethnographers through the teachings of Charlie Mack.”

—Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-640-1 © 2010; 240 pp; Photos & maps; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

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.

Ann Saddlemyer Award Winner, 2009 “Grace’s insightful exploration of … theatrical performance and the traces of Pollock’s successive reinventions of herself is unrivalled.” —Patricia Demers ISBN 978-0-88922-586-2 © 2008; 480 pp; Photos; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist 33

Margaret Atwood

NEWS

A Feminist Poetics The New Canadian Criticism Series Frank Davey

Postcards from the Four Directions Drew Hayden Taylor

Davey reveals Margaret Atwood’s extraordinary facility with language as well as her mistrust of it, and offers a “glossary” of recurrent Atwood images and symbols that unveil the hidden level in her writing.

ISBN 978-0-88922-217-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-880-1 © 1984; 178 pp; 2nd printing; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

In this collection of short, humorous essays originally written for the popular media, playwright, novelist, and screenwriter Drew Hayden Taylor sends his readers fascinating and exotic postcards from his globe-trotting adventures, always on the lookout for the NEWS about Aboriginal peoples around the world.

ISBN 978-0-88922-643-2 © 2010; 288 pp; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

meanwhile

Other Losses

The Critical Writings of bpNichol bpNichol

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

Edited by Roy Miki 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

This third edition updates Bacque’s research into KGB archives, which meticulously documents proof that nearly one million German POWs died in U.S. and French camps between 1944 and 1949.

ISBN 978-0-88922-447-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-872-6 © 2002; Photos & illustrations; 496 pp $34.95 CAN / $29.95 US

“A hornet’s nest.”

The Medusa Head

Outsider Notes

Mary Meigs

Feminist Approaches to Nation State Ideology, Writers/Readers, and Publishing The New Canadian Criticism Series Lynette Hunter

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

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

—Toronto Star

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-665-4 © 2011; 392 pp; photos & maps; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

“Shaped with intelligence, honesty, and humor.”

—Ottawa Citizen

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

ISBN 978-0-88922-210-6 © 1983; 160 pp; 3rd printing; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-363-9 © 1996; 320 pp; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Muthologos

Paul Martin & Companies

Lectures and Interviews, Second Edition Charles Olson

Sixty Theses on the Alegal Nature of Tax Havens Alain Deneault

Edited by Ralph Maud Charles Olson once defined “muthologos” as “what is said about what is said.” Revised and expanded.

“Document[s] the processual nature and intellectual hunger that situate [Olson’s] poetic imagination not only in the poem but in the range of perception that can be talked about ‘with some life.’ ” —Fred Wah

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 978-0-88922-639-5 © 1979, 2010; 496 pp; Photos; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-538-1 © 2006; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Nature Power

Peregrinations

In the Spirit of an Okanagan Storyteller, Second Edition Harry Robinson

Conversations with Contemporary Artists Robert Enright

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.”

—Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-504-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-876-4 © 1992, 2004; 272 pp; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Informed and considered interviews with the most influential artists of our time. Enright takes us into the environments, both imaginative and actual, that have shaped their personal and artistic histories.

“Marvellous interviews … the mind and the world of the artist flooded with light.”

—Arthur Danto ISBN 978-0-921368-67-0 © 1997; 352 pp; $24.95 CAN / $18.95 US

34 Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist

Performing National Identities

The Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories

International Perspectives on Contemporary Canadian Theatre

The Original Tsimshian Texts of Henry Tate

Edited by Sherrill Grace & Albert-Reiner Glaap

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

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 and annotated by Ralph Maud

“Maud acts as restorer, stripping away attitudes and prosody to reveal the vitality of the original text.”

—Vancouver Sun

ISBN 978-0-88922-475-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-874-0 © 2003; 324 pp; Photos; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-333-2; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-865-8 © 1994; Illustrations; 176 pp; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Persian Postcards

Price Paid

Iran After Khomeini Fred A. Reed

The Fight for First Nations Survival Bev Sellars

“An excellent guide to the people, religion, politics, and world view of modern Iran.”

—Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin

Price Paid untangles truth from some of the myths about First Nations and addresses misconceptions still widely believed today.

“Both accessible to the uninitiated and a valuable resource.”

—Quill & Quire

“Stern without being pessimistic … readable yet datarich.”

—Broken Pencil

“Assumptions about Iran shattered.”

“[Sellars] tells Canada’s history from a perspective that has rarely been used before … This book is not a recommended read, it is a necessary read.”

—Pacific Rim Review of Books

—Toronto Star

ISBN 978-0-88922-351-6 © 1994; 288 pp; Photos; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-972-3 © 2016; 240 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Phyllis Webb and the Common Good

Rational Geomancy

Poetry / Anarchy / Abstraction Stephen Collis

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

“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; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-860-3 © 2007; 228 pp; Colour photos; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

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

ISBN 978-0-88922-300-4 © 1992; Photos & illustrations; 320 pp; 3rd printing $34.95 CAN / $34.95 US

The Pleasure of the Crown

Re: Producing Women’s Dramatic History

Anthropology, Law, and First Nations Dara Culhane

The Politics of Playing in Toronto D.A. Hadfield

An in-depth analysis of the 130-year history of the Aboriginal title issue in British Columbia, focusing in particular on the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en case.

By analyzing publicity materials, photos, programs, reviews, and box office and theatre records, D.A. Hadfield traces the process of creating a theatrical “success” and investigates how the politics involved influences what we perceive as “good” playwriting.

“Explores fundamental questions … The Pleasure of the Crown is a book that everyone interested in ‘justice for all’ will want to read.”

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-315-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-864-1 © 1998; 416 pp; map; 2nd printing $34.95 CAN / $29.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-563-3; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-968-6 © 2007; 288 pp; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Poet to Publisher

A Record of Writing

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

An Annotated and Illustrated Bibliography of George Bowering Roy Miki

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

Traces the development of former poet laureate Bowering’s many writings through four decades.

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

—Canadian Literature

Gabrielle Roy Prize Winner, Best Critical Book in English, 1990

ISBN 978-0-88922-486-5 © 2003; Illustrations; 192 pp; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-263-2 © 1990; 404 pp; Cloth; Photos & illustrations $39.95 CAN / $34.95 US

“An extraordinary contribution to this field.”

—Canadian Library Journal

Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist 35

The Recovery of the Public World

Salonica Terminus

Essays on Poetics in Honour of Robin Blaser

Travels into the Balkan Nightmare Fred A. Reed

Edited by Charles Watts & Edward Byrne A collection of texts and talks which address the work of poet Robin Blaser.

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

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

“The good and evil aspects of nationalism …

[A] compassionate account of one of the world’s most difficult regions.”

—Toronto Star

ISBN 978-0-88922-388-2 © 1999; 464 pp; Photos; $39.95 CAN / $29.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-368-4; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-990-7 © 1996; 272 pp; Photos & maps; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

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 denominations 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; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-885-6 © 1978; 176 pp; Photos, maps & illustrations; 2nd printing $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

“A striking intellectual travelogue … a useful contribution to the literature of interfaith dialogue.”

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-485-8; E-ISBN 978-0-89922-878-8 © 2003; 260 pp; map; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Salish People

Signs of Literature

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

Language, Ideology, and the Literary Text Kenneth James Hughes

Edited by Ralph Maud

The history of language as a made thing – a linguistic and structuralist primer.

Includes the Origin Myth as recounted by a storyteller whose mother saw Captain Vancouver sail into Howe Sound in 1792.

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

—Vancouver Province

ISBN 978-0-88922-149-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-886-3 © 1978; 176 pp; Photos, maps & illustrations $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-236-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-882-5 © 1986; 232 pp; Illustrations; 2nd printing $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The Salish People

Strange Comfort

Volume III: The Mainland Halkomelem Charles Hill-Tout

Essays on the Work of Malcolm Lowry Sherrill Grace

Edited by Ralph Maud

Strange Comfort collects Sherrill Grace’s best essays on Malcolm Lowry, exploring his most important themes: the role of the artist, the nightmare of history, the pressures of memory, and the need to protect the garden of our world.

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

ISBN 978-0-88922-150-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-887-0 © 1978; 176 pp; Photos, maps & illustrations $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

“Transcend[s] the intellectual boundaries … in culture and the arts through cross-disciplinary collaboration.”

—Canada Council ISBN 978-0-88922-618-0 © 2009; 224 pp; Photos; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The Salish People

Studies in Description

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

Reading Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons Carl Peters

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; 978-0-88922-888-7 © 1978; 192 pp; Photos, maps & illustrations $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Difficult writing has its way of illuminating the part of the world that counts. One such difficult text is Gertrude Stein’s highly experimental Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Rooms – long considered the single most groundbreaking literary work of twentieth-century art, literary criticism, and art history. Carl Peters offers a sustained reading of the 1914 edition, responding to the eccentric sounds and rhythms of this long prose-poem with annotations that bring understanding, in particular, to the composition’s syntax, which is noted for its defiance of conventional norms.

ISBN 978-0-88922-961-7 © 2015; 416 pp; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

36 Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist

Subject to Change

Theatre and AutoBiography

Renee Rodin

Writing and Performing Lives in Theory and Practice

Comprising 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.

“A delightful testament to the complexity of people and the many roles we play in our lifetimes.”

—Telegraph-Journal “Renee Rodin lives the life I would try to live if I had the time.”

—George Bowering ISBN 978-0-88922-644-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-966-2 © 2010; 160 pp; 2nd printing; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Edited by Sherrill Grace & Jerry Wasserman 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; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-993-8 © 2006; 352 pp; Photos; 2nd printing $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Takeover in Tehran

Then We Were One

The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture Massoumeh Ebtekar as told to Fred A. Reed

Fragments of Two Lives 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; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-991-4 © 2000; 244 pp; Photos; 2nd printing $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Shocked by his brother’s death from injuries sustained in the Vietnam War, Fred A. Reed sets out on a journey of personal discovery. By way of Iran in the aftermath of the Revolution, the Anatolian highlands of the mystic Said Nursi, and in pursuit of ancient and modern iconoclasts, he comes under the spell of Islam. In its embrace he find renewed brotherhood; in its discipline, liberation.

ISBN 978-0-88922-667-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-729-3 © 2011; 304 pp; Photos; 2nd printing $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Taking My Life

They Called Me Number One

Jane Rule

Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School Bev Sellars

Discovered among her papers as a handwritten manuscript, Jane Rule’s moving, witty memoir of the first two decades of her life probes in emotional and intellectual terms the philosophical questions that were to preoccupy her throughout her literary career. Afterword by Linda M. Morra.

In the first full-length memoir to be published out of St. Joseph’s Mission, Bev Sellars interweaves personal histories of her grandmother and her mother with her own.

Lambda Literary Award Finalist, 2012

George Ryga Award Winner, 2014

“A beautiful piece of dryly ironic writing, deeply thought out and intellectually honest.” —Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-673-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-728-6 © 2011; 288 pp; Photos; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The Terror of the Coast Land Alienation and Colonial War on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, 1849–1863 Chris Arnett 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 and shameful chapter in BC’s history.”

—CBRA ISBN 978-0-88922-318-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-866-5 © 1999; 384 pp; Photos, maps & illustrations; 4th printing $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

textual vishyuns image and text in the work of bill bissett Carl Peters Drawing on aesthetic manifestos, modern poetics, and film theory, Carl Peters locates bill bissett’s textual and visual work within the larger context of art history, criticism, and practice. “textual vishyuns is not only a book on bill bissett, but also a way of bringing modernist thought and vision together without taking either apart.”

—Jerry Zaslove ISBN 978-0-88922-661-6 © 2011; 224 pp; Colour photos; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Burt Award Third-Place Winner, 2014 BC Book Prize Finalist, 2014 ISBN 978-0-88922-741-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-742-2 © 2013; 256 pp; Photos; 9th printing $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever Rock Writings in the Stein River Valley of British Columbia Annie York, Richard Daly & Chris Arnett “An invaluable record … of a vanishing culture.”

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

—Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-331-8 © 1993; 320 pp; Cloth; Photos & illustrations $60.00 CAN / $40.00 US

This Is My Own Letters to Wes and Other Writings on Japanese Canadians, 1941–1948 Muriel Kitagawa Edited by Roy Miki Letters written following the uprooting of the JapaneseCanadian community in late 1941.

“This collection is skillfully woven together.”

—Amerasia Review ISBN 978-0-88922-231-1 © 1985; 304 pp; Cloth; Photos & illustrations; 2nd printing $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Talonbooks Non-fiction Backlist 37

Timothy Findley and the Aesthetics of Fascism Intertextual Collaboration and Resistance The New Canadian Criticism Series Anne Geddes Bailey Investigates the troubling relationship between narrative meaning and representations of violence within Timothy Findley’s novels.

ISBN 978-0-88922-386-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-870-1 © 1998; 256 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Truth or Death The Quest for Immortality in the Western Narrative Tradition Thierry Hentsch Translated by Fred A. Reed Governor General’s Translation Award Winner, 2005 QWF Translation Award Winner, 2005 “A work of great depth, magnificently written.”

—Le Devoir ISBN 978-0-88922-509-1 © 2004; 416 pp; 2nd printing; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

Too Good to Be True

Twelve Opening Acts

Alcan’s Kemano Completion Project Bev Christensen

Michel Tremblay Translated by Sheila Fischman

Examines the question of who is to control North America’s vital water and power resources in the 21st century.

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.

BC Book Prize Finalist, 1996 “This is an essential story, and a fascinating one.”

—Books in Canada

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2002.

ISBN 978-0-88922-354-7 © 1995; 352 pp; Photos & maps; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-466-7 © 2002; 192 pp; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Tracing the Lines

Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand

Reflections on Contemporary Poetics and Cultural Politics in Honour of Roy Miki

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

Edited by Maia Joseph, Christine Kim, Larissa Lai & Christopher Lee The two main areas of poet Roy Miki’s passionate work– social critique and poetics – inform each other in this collection of 26 essays, poems, and interviews marking a milestone in the life of an important public intellectual.

ISBN 978-0-88922-694-4 © 2013; 256 pp; Photos; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Tracing the Paths Reading ≠ Writing The Martyrology

Compiled and edited by Chris Arnett A vital collection of writings collected during the Depression, first published in Victoria’s oldest newspaper.

“An engrossing and delightful book.”

—Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-555-8 © 2007; 352 pp; Photos; 3rd printing $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

The United States of Wind Daniel Canty

Edited by Roy Miki

Translated by Oana Avasilichioaei

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

A gentle road book, a melancholy blue guide written in airy, associative prose, where images coalesce and dissipate, carried away through the outer and inner American landscape. Mixing the tropes of road narrative, poetic fabulation, and philosophical memoir, Daniel Canty reaches towards the horizon of memory, only to discover that, wherever memory may lead us, its images will be long gone when we get there and most probably were never even there at all.

ISBN 978-0-88922-942-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-943-3 © 2015; 192 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

“A stimulating companion to those reading, and rereading, Nichol’s quirky, honest, and experimental work.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-256-4 © 1988; 344 pp; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Transmission Difficulties

Vancouver

Franz Boas and Tsimshian Mythology Ralph Maud

A Visual History Bruce Macdonald

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

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

“A useful contribution to BC anthropology.”

—Victoria Times-Colonist

BC Book Prize Finalist, 1993

ISBN 978-0-88922-430-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-871-9 © 2000; 176 pp; Photos & illustrations $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

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

38 Talonbooks Non-fiction / Fiction Backlist

Vancouver Anthology

Against the Wind

Second Edition

Madeleine Gagnon

Edited by Stan Douglas

Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott

Essays on the institutional politics of art, from the 1991 lecture series Vancouver Anthology. Contributors include Marcia Crosby, Sara Diamond, Maria Insell, Robert Linsley, Robin Peck, Nancy Shaw, Keith Wallace, Scott Watson, Carol Williams, and William Wood. This redesigned edition includes a new afterword by Stan Douglas.

Through poetic letters and journal entries, the reader witnesses one man’s coming into being an artist, and out of the trauma he experienced as a young boy, when he was forced to defend his mother from violent sexual assault.

Alcuin Book Design Award Honourable Mention, 2011

“An intuitive novel, a spellbinding look into the mind of a man who is a son, an artist, a lover, and a father.”

—Toronto Star

ISBN 978-0-88922-614-2 © 1991, 2011; 320 pp; Cloth; Colour photos $35.00 CAN / $35.00 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-696-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-721-7 © 2012; 168 pp; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

The Visual Laboratory of Robert Lepage

All That Glitters

Ludovic Fouquet

Martine Desjardins

Translated by Rhonda Mullins

Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel

Lepage’s work has broken barriers in theatre, expanding the territory to include other forms of expression, including photography, cinema, and video. In The Visual Laboratory of Robert Lepage, Fouquet investigates Lepage’s body of work, from 1979 to present, identifying themes and exploring artistic practices that mark him as one of the most highly original creators today.

Haunted by the iron jealousy of their commanding officer, Dulac and Nell must risk everything to pursue their desires.

ISBN 978-0-88922-774-3 © 2013; 416 pp; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

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; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-805-4 © 2005; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Women in a World at War

And Other Stories

Seven Dispatches from the Front Madeleine Gagnon

Edited by George Bowering

Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott Governor General’s French Non-Fiction Award Finalist, 2001 “An extraordinary work … the book crosses borders of country, culture, and language to touch fundamental truths in lyrical and haunting prose.” —Quill & Quire

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, Fraser, Goto, King, Laferrière, Mayr, Rooke, Schoemperlen, Thomas, Verdecchia, and Watson.

ISBN 978-0-88922-451-3 © 2001; 320 pp; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-483-4; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-861-0 © 2003; 320 pp; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Write It on Your Heart

The Angel of Solitude

The Epic World of an Okanagan Storyteller Harry Robinson

Marie-Claire Blais Translated by Laura Hodes

Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire

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

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; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-875-7 © 1989, 2004; 320 pp; Photos; 3rd printing $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Writing the Okanagan

“The narrative voice is wise and fatalistic and full of religiosity.”

—Paragraph ISBN 978-0-88922-337-0 © 1993; 144 pp; 2nd printing; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

The Athabasca Ryga

George Bowering

George Ryga

He has been asked during his many visits to Okanagan bookstores over the years to publish a collection of his writing about the Valley. Writing the Okanagan draws on forty books Bowering has published since 1960 – poetry, fiction, history, and some forms he may have invented.

Edited by E. David Gregory

“Bowering is both highly skilled in the formal aspects of poetry and perfectly accessible to the average reader … A delightful collection that may inspire readers to seek out Bowering’s earlier work.”

—Booklist ISBN 978-0-88922-941-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-999-0 © 2015; 320 pp; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

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 © 1990; 224 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Talonbooks Fiction Backlist 39

The Baldwins

The Breakdown So Far

Serge Lamothe

M.A.C. Farrant

Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel

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

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; E-ISBN 978-0-89922-797-2 © 2006; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Bicycle Eater Larry Tremblay Translated by Sheila Fischman 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; ebook also available © 2005; 228 pp; $19.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Birth of a Bridge

ReLit Award Longlist, 2008 “If, as Nabokov advises, the monster of grim common sense must be ‘shot dead,’ then Farrant is, indeed, a crack shot.” —Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-556-5 © 2007; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Cambodia A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow Brian Fawcett Investigative fictions that examine the intentions of the information revolution.

“Cambodia is urgent, blunt, difficult – and vitally necessary.”

—Canadian Forum ISBN 978-0-88922-237-3 © 1986; 208 pp; 10th printing; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Capital Tales

Maylis de Kerangal

Brian Fawcett

Translated by Jessica Moore

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

From one of the most exciting novelists writing in France today comes Birth of a Bridge – the story of a handful of men and women of various backgrounds and classes, who assemble around the construction of a giant suspension bridge in a mythical and fantastic California.

Winner of the 2010 Franz-Hessel Prize, Médicis Prize

“Fawcett’s work expands into a well-earned and genuine visionary criticism of the deadly contradictions within society.”

—Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-221-2 © 1984; 204 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

“This delightful book’s unabashed idealism, combined with those playfully literary proper names, marks it as a kind of aspirational fairy tale.” —Wall Street Journal ISBN 978-0-88922-889-4; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-890-0 © 2014; 256 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Black Notebook

Chameleon & Other Stories

Michel Tremblay

Bill Schermbrucker

Translated by Sheila Fischman

A collection of short stories from the point of view of a young man growing up in Kenya during the time of Mau Mau.

In the first instalment of the Notebook triology, 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

“The year’s most ambitious work of short fiction and at the same time the most substantial.”

—Letters in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-208-3 © 1983; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-543-5; ebook also available © 2006; 224 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Blue Notebook

The Circus Performers’ Bar

Michel Tremblay

David Arnason

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Witty and formally innovative stories that examine social, political, and sexual assumptions with an ironic eye.

In this third instalment of the Notebook trilogy, Fine Dumas’s 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.

ISBN 978-0-88922-619-7 © 2009; 272 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

“This is clever, trenchant stuff, by a master of the art.”

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-218-2 © 1984; 160 pp; 2nd printing; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

40 Talonbooks Fiction Backlist

Citizen Suárez

Death in Vancouver

Guillermo Verdecchia

Garry Thomas Morse

Short stories about people travelling, wandering or lost between countries and languages – people caught between the impulse to flee and the desire to belong.

This brilliant collection of avant-garde fiction reveals edgy new voices that reflect the cultural simultaneity of our cosmopolitan everyday.

“At times hilarious, at times moving. A great read!”

—Ariel Dorfman

“Morse’s particular genius is his ability to deliver pitchperfect 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

“Humorous and strongly political.”

—Vancouver Magazine ISBN 978-0-88922-391-2 © 1998; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-607-4; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-796-5 © 2009; 320 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

A Covenant of Salt

Death of the Spider

Martine Desjardins

Michèle Mailhot

Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel

Translated by Neil B. Bishop Introduction by Marie-Claire Blais

“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; ebook also available © 2007; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-298-4 © 1991; 64 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Crossing the City

Desert of the Heart

A solitary woman’s interior journey of self-discovery.

Governor General’s French Fiction Award Winner for Le Passé Composé, 1990 Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 1992

Michel Tremblay

Jane Rule

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Two women meet and fall in love in Reno, Nevada. Set in the late 1950s, this classic of lesbian eroticism is Jane Rule’s first novel.

In the second novel in Tremblay’s Desrosiers Diaspora series, we meet Maria, the mother of Rheauna, as she leaves the city of Providence, Rhode Island, pregnant and without a husband, to join her brother and two sisters in Montreal.

Crossing the City takes place a year before but also a year after that of the previous novel, Crossing the Continent.

“The empathy and tenderness that Tremblay has for his characters is evident on every page.” —Le Devoir ISBN 978-0-88922-893-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-894-8 © 2011; 272 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Crossing the Continent

“Cool, clear-eyed, compassionate, and unsentimental.”

—Margaret Laurence, Globe and Mail “An intelligent and utterly believable novel.”

—Joyce Carol Oates ISBN 978-0-88922-301-1 © 1964, 1991; 224 pp; 6th printing $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Dog Attempts to Drown Man in Saskatoon

Michel Tremblay

Douglas Glover

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Urbane, stylish, and slightly offbeat stories that touch on the myth-making many of us call reality.

In this, the first of the Desrosiers Diaspora novels, which give the backstory to the characters of Tremblay’s Chronicles series, young Nana embarks on an epic train journey from her grandparents’ prairie farm to Montreal, when the mother who left her five years before calls her “home.”

“Glover is preoccupied with the complicated interweavings of good and evil, and he juggles language superbly.”

—Globe and Mail

“The empathy and tenderness that Tremblay has for his characters is evident on every page.” —Le Devoir

“Glover … seeks to combine a metaphysical approach and style with the nitty-gritty details of daily life.

It works.”

—Books in Canada

ISBN 978-0-88922-676-0; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-730-9 © 2011; 272 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-228-1 © 1985; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Darwin Alone in the Universe

Down the Road to Eternity

M.A.C. Farrant

M.A.C. Farrant

A brilliant collection of satirical short stories.

Indelibly marked by wit, humour, irony, playfulness, and a blend of parody and science fiction, these stories celebrate the literary imagination as an antidote to the popular media.

“Farrant is better at startling us with unnerving, often misanthropic, visions of everyday life than perhaps any other Canadian writer.”

—Globe and Mail “M.A.C. Farrant is a wonderful writer of domestic comedy.”

—Bill Richardson, CBC “A brave iconoclast.”

—Publishers Weekly

ISBN 978-0-88922-471-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-799-6 © 2003; 160 pp; Illustrations; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

“Short and sharp, wacky and wonderful.”

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

—BC Bookworld ISBN 978-0-88922-615-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-804-7 © 2009; 288 pp; Illustrations; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Talonbooks Fiction Backlist 41

The Duchess and the Commoner

The First Quarter of the Moon

Michel Tremblay

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Translated by Sheila Fischman

This third volume in the Chronicles of the Plateau Mont-Royal – 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.

ISBN 978-0-88922-418-6 © 1999; 256 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

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.

Dürer’s Angel

“Touching and extra-real.”

—Quill & Quire

ISBN 978-0-88922-352-3 © 1994; 240 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky

Marie-Claire Blais

Karen X. Tulchinsky

Translated by David Lobdell

This sweeping, epic novel takes us inside the life of one immigrant Jewish family, from the pivotal 1933 Toronto race riots 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 nation struggling with ideas of freedom, tolerance, and identity in a world broken by war.

This third novel in the trilogy of Pauline Archange expresses her desire to translate the events of her life into words.

“A writer who stands head and shoulders above her contemporaries.” —Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-111-6 © 1976; 112 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

“Old-fashioned in the very best sense; it’s got lots of heart.”

—National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-646-3; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-812-2 © 2010; 496 pp; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Fairy Ring

George Ryga

Martine Desjardins

The Prairie Novels

Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel

Edited by James Hoffman

A compulsively readable, beautiful, and dark novel of stormy relationships and all-consuming desires.

This collection includes Hungry Hills, Ballad of a Stonepicker, and Night Desk.

Governor General’s Translation Award Winner, 2001 “Fairy Ring sets up familiar targets, tilts at them with wonderful panache and scores weirdly compelling hits.” —Globe and Mail

“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 and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-449-0 © 2001; 224 pp; 2nd printing; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-501-5 © 2004; 320 pp; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant

Get on Top

Michel Tremblay

David Homel

Translated by Sheila Fischman

In this startlingly original and penetrating novel, the Messiah appears as a woman who shows up in rural America instead of Jerusalem, preaching moral licence, not repentance.

Tremblay’s first novel is an affectionate and funny chronicle of the lives of a family in Plateau Mont-Royal in the 1940s.

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; ebook also available © 1981; 256 pp; 9th printing; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

“His novels are acts of witnessing, and his characters carry the conscience of our times.” —Marie-Claire Blais ISBN 978-0-7737-6048-6 © 1999; 282 pp; $22.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Fearless Warriors

Go Figure

Second Edition Drew Hayden Taylor

Réjean Ducharme

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 incomparable wit, generosity, and humour.

A hauntingly beautiful tale of a Montreal couple alienated from each other after suffering the miscarriage of twins.

Translated by Will Browning

Governor General’s French Fiction Award Finalist, 1994

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

—Windspeaker

“Boasts complex flavours that are so savoury and sustaining you may be compelled to go back for seconds.”

—Montreal Review of Books

ISBN 978-0-88922-597-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-802-3 © 1998, 2008; 192 pp; 3rd printing; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-482-7; ebook also available © 2003; 256 pp; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 US

42 Talonbooks Fiction Backlist

The Happiest Man in the World and Other Stories

The Hunting Ground

David Arnason

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Lise Tremblay

A witty, articulate raconteur takes a hilarious yet compassionate look at the new male consciousness taking shape in a “post-feminist” world.

Remarkably engaging stories recounted by different residents of a northern Canadian village that face a gradual but devastating transformation.

“A wonderful book.”

“[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

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-269-4 © 1989; 164 pp; 2nd printing; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-534-3 © 2006; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Harry’s Fragments A Novel of International Puzzlement George Bowering 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 ISBN 978-0-88910-387-0 © 1990; 182 pp; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

I, Bartleby Meredith Quartermain In these quirkily imaginative short stories about writing and writers, the scrivener Quartermain (our “Bartleby”) goes her stubborn way haunted by Pauline Johnson, Malcolm Lowry, Robin Blaser, Daphne Marlatt, and a host of other literary forebears. Who is writing whom, these stories ask in their musing reflections – the writer or the written?

“Above all, it’s Meredith Quartermain’s dexterity in channelling lives and landscapes to explore the symptoms of our post-millennial malaise that make I, Bartleby both wickedly smart and fun to read.”

—Malahat Review ISBN 978-0-88922-918-1; E-ISBN 978-088922-919-8 © 2015; 128 pp; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

The Heart Laid Bare

In the Shadow of the Vulture

Michel Tremblay

George Ryga

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Set in the desert at the Mexico–U.S. border, this novel deals with the hope and despair of immigrant labourers.

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. This is Tremblay’s first novel to be inspired by experiences from his own life.

“A striking novel that wrestles with important and difficult problems.”

—Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-233-5 © 1985; 288 pp; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

“[A] simply written, but highly topical and touching tale.”

—London Times ISBN 978-0-88922-425-4; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-962-4 © 2002; 258 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Hell & Other Novels

Judith’s Sister

Beverley Daurio

Lise Tremblay

In these haunting, often chilling short stories, Daurio maps the subatomic space of contemporary alienation.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

“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 © 1990; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

In this moving coming-of-age novel set in the summer of 1968, a twelve-year-old girl contemplates with dread her impending high school enrolment.

“Explores the delicate passage from childhood to adolescence, that critical period in life which … often contains the seeds of the inevitable betrayals of friends, neighbourhood and social background.”

—Le Devoir ISBN 978-0-88922-677-7; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-732-3 © 2011; 128 pp; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

hungree throat

Kafka’s Hat

bill bissett

Patrice Martin

Written in his non-hierarchic, phonetic orthography, bill bissett’s second novel-poem, hungree throat, recounts the relationship of two men – one bold and unafraid, the other burdened by fear and terrible memories. In this uplifting “novel in meditaysyun” about love, in which we witness ten years of a shared life, we are reminded of the overlapping, sometimes conflicting multitude of “hungers” common to us all.

ISBN 978-0-88922-745-3 © 2013; 176 pp; Illustrations; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Translated by Chantal Bilodeau In Patrice Martin’s tip of the hat to the writing of Franz Kafka, we follow the comical misadventures of a bureaucrat – aptly named “P.”– as he embarks on the illustrious task of retrieving an important literary relic for his boss. P.’s earnest endeavours derail when he encounters the systematic difficulty in modern bureaucracies – as well as in some of the best 20th-century fiction – of getting things done.

ISBN 978-0-88922-743-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-744-6 © 2013; 144 pp; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Talonbooks Fiction Backlist 43

The Keeper’s Daughter

A Matter of Gravity

Rose and the Archipelago of Shifting Memories Jean-François Caron

Hélène Vachon

Translated by W. Donald Wilson Young Dorothea is appointed by the tourist bureau to direct a documentary film re-enacting life at a lighthouse off Quebec’s North Shore in the 1940s and ‘50s. The problem is that most of the memories of Rose Brouillard, the interview subject, are invented, not real. But, really, who cares whether it’s true? What matters here are the stories we tell.

This charming intrigue starts with an enigmatic manuscript that brings together two disparate characters. The first is an embalmer who, unable to look after the living, devotes himself to the dead. The other is an ailing concert pianist consorting with the ghosts of his past. Their tragic encounter is brilliantly illuminated by black humour and compassion.

“Jean-François Caron has given us one of the most accomplished novels of the season.”

—La Presse

“A beautiful, surprising novel that speaks with tenderness and dark humour.”

—La Semaine

ISBN 978-0-88922-920-4; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-921-1 © 2015; 160 pp; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-840-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-841-2 © 2014; 256 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

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

“An evocative fictional voice that is one of the most powerful in Canadian fiction.”

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-167-3 © 1979; 176 pp; 3rd printing; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott

Mend the Living Maylis de Kerangal Translated by Jessica Moore Taking place within exactly twenty-four hours, the novel traces the thrill of an early-morning winter surf session, the terrible accident that follows, and all the urgency and compassion of the hospital workers, and shock and grief of Simon’s family as they negotiate the question of organ donation.

Man Booker International Prize, Longlist, 2016 Wellcome Book Prize Winner, 2017 ISBN 978-0-88922-973-0; ebook also available © 2016; 224 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Like a Child of the Earth

Mile End

Jovette Marchessault

Lise Tremblay

Translated by Yvonne M. Klein

Translated by Gail Scott

The first volume of Jovette Marchessault’s turbulent autobiographical trilogy.

A chilling and masterful look at the interior landscapes of psychosis which mirror so perfectly the emptiness of the exterior surfaces they reflect.

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 © 1988; 176 pp; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Main Brides

Governor General’s French Fiction Award Winner, 1999 ISBN 978-0-88922-467-4 © 2002; 144 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Mimosa

Gail Scott

Bill Schermbrucker

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.

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

“Gail Scott has an extraordinary ability to compress scenic observations … into short, jewel-like notations.”

—Hugh Hood

BC Book Prize Winner, 1988

“Scott is one of the most gutsy writers around.”

—Globe and Mail

“Intelligent, humane … universal and accessible.”

—Quill & Quire

ISBN 978-0-88910-456-3 © 1993; 240 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Maleficium

“It’s an impressive debut … deceptively subtle and finely crafted.”

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-254-0 © 1988; 320 pp; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Minor Episodes / Major Ruckus

Martine Desjardins

Garry Thomas Morse

Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel

In tribute to surrealist narrative and film technique, Minor Episodes documents the serial adventures of Minor, ubiquitous “everymogul,” who embodies the economic 1 percent. Major Ruckus, a contrapuntal text parodying the speculative fiction genre, follows a frenzied struggle for time travel. Minor Episodes / Major Ruckus introduces The Chaos! Quincunx novel series.

In 19th-century Montreal, seven penitents afflicted with curious maladies confess their encounters with an enigmatic young woman in the Near East. Each man succumbs to a secret vice and suffers her punishments.

“Lust, greed, retribution, and shame – Maleficium reads like a flesh-bound catalogue of my favourite sins.”

—Jenn Farrell ISBN 978-0-88922-680-7; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-704-0 © 2012; 160 pp; 2nd printing; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-697-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-722-4 © 2012; 288 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

44 Talonbooks Fiction Backlist

Minor Expectations Garry Thomas Morse In this prequel to the Chaos! Quincunx series, our cheeky diva, Diminuenda, travels to Classical Greece, becoming the subject of the very painting she must steal, and from there on to Ancient Rome, Renaissance Florence, the realm of Louis XIV, and finally WWII Britain, each era offering the author opportunities to satirize literary genres and themes of the period.

My Career with the Leafs & Other Stories Brian Fawcett Fawcett’s first book of stories examines growing up, and learning – literally and figuratively – the rules of the game.

“Fawcett sings sweetly and sourly about growing up.”

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-199-4 © 1982; 192 pp; 2nd printing; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-891-7; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-892-4 © 2014; 232 pp / $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Miss Take Réjean Ducharme

My Name Is Bosnia Madeleine Gagnon

Translated by Will Browning

Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott

Teenagers Miles and Chateaugué have run away to Montreal, where they construct a chaste life for themselves. They form a suicide pact to preserve their fleeting innocence but their refusal of the adult world soon confronts physical need.

A young woman escapes the genocide in her homeland in search of a peaceful new life.

“To read Ducharme … is to get luxuriously lost in a chaotic mass of simultaneous, tangential, and sometimes conflicting ideas.”

—Rain Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-669-2; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-731-6 © 2011; 272 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Mother of the Grass Jovette Marchessault

IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Longlist, 2007 “Movingly captures the transformative effect of war on human consciousness.”

—Publishers Weekly “In Gagnon’s deft hands the narrative is stirring but never maudlin.”

—Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-542-8 © 2006; 256 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

News from Édouard 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 Mont-Royal follows Édouard, the Fat Woman’s brother-in-law, as he explores Paris.

“Has enlarged the dimensions of the autobiographical novel by introducing elements of myth and visionary experience.”

—Gloria Orenstein ISBN 978-0-88922-267-0 © 1989; 176 pp; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

“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 © 2000; 224 pp; 2nd printing; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Motortherapy Bill Schermbrucker A frank and intensely personal book about human relationships. “[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 ISBN 978-0-88922-330-1 © 1993; 176 pp; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Mrs. Blood Audrey Thomas “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 ISBN 978-0-88922-319-6 © 1970, 1992; 220 pp; 4th printing $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

novel bill bissett In this “novel with konnecting pomes n essays,” bill bissett interweaves fact and fiction – what is considered the conventionally real with the imagined – creating a narrative for the reader that is redolent with surprise and discovery.

“These essays are rich with information about bissett, but most importantly they revive and re-examine significant moments from his life and career. It is a must-read.”

—Broken Pencil ISBN 978-0-88922-671-5 © 2011; 176 pp; Illustrations; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Nuri Does Not Exist Sadru Jetha In these beautifully crafted and understated stories, Nuri comes of age on the fabled “spice island” of Zanzibar.

We accompany him on his quest to understand how servitude transcends slavery and fealty transcends servitude.

“A sharply intelligent and genuinely moving exploration of identity and displacement.”

—Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-655-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-773-6 © 2011; 152 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Talonbooks Fiction Backlist 45

The Obese Christ

Real Mothers

Larry Tremblay

Audrey Thomas

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Short stories about mothers and the politics of the family.

A brilliant exercise in unease and paranoia, The Obese Christ demonstrates Tremblay’s powerful ability to evoke dread and fear while immersing the reader in a warped and putrid world told from the narrarator’s sanctified point of view.

This novel situates itself squarely within the realm of Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, and Stephen King.

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

“This cinematographic novel advances with machine-like precision worthy of Hitchcock.” —Le Soleil

“Thomas demands more of her readers than most writers, but the rewards are much greater too.”

—Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-191-8 © 1981; 176 pp; 3rd printing; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-842-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-843-6 © 2014; 144 pp; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

The Pagan Wall

The Red Notebook

David Arnason

Michel Tremblay

Written in the tradition of Umberto Eco and Manuel Puig, The Pagan Wall is a first novel by one of Canada’s master storytellers.

Translated by Sheila Fischman

“If this is the overture, you can’t even imagine what he may eventually do for a finale.”

—John Moore ISBN 978-0-88922-312-7 © 1992; 304 pp; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The second novel in the Notebook trilogy follows midget 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 with transcendent eloquence and compassion.

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

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-588-6; ebook also available © 2008; 288 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Rogue Cells / Carbon Harbour

The Painter’s Wife Monique Durand

Garry Thomas Morse

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Rogue Cells / Carbon Harbour resumes the Chaos!

Quincunx novel series and presents two ironically dystopic visions of speculative future: a “First” nation at war with the mysterious territory Nutella, and a “green” world of aquaculture, bio-material, and grim labour conditions.

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

ReLit Award Shortlist, 2014

ISBN 978-0-88922-535-0; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-800-9 © 2006; 176 pp; 2nd printing; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-776-7; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-777-7 © 2013; 448 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Piercing

Running on Fumes

Larry Tremblay

Christian Guay-Poliquin

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Translated by Jacob Homel

Three tales spin a web of suspense, impending violence and tragedy that haunt the sleek façade of a city. The three stories in this volume are linked through a shared subtext – that in contemporary urban environments, the only way people break through alienation is through some form of violence.

When the electricity inexplicably goes out nationwide, the mundanities of life gradually shift to the rigours of survival.

In this post-apocalyptic setting, an unnamed mechanic jumps into his beat-up car and drives east, journeying 4,736 kilometres to reach his dying father.

ISBN 978-0-88922-645-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-801-6 © 2010; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

“An original story that incorporates contemporary concerns … unexpectedly topical.”

—Prairie Fire “A taut story of mental and civil collapse.”

—Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-975-4; ebook also available © 2016; 160 pp; $16.95 CAN / $14.95 US

The Rain Barrel

Scattered in a Rising Wind

George Bowering

Jean Marc Dalpé

Ten years in the making, these stories display Bowering’s meticulous attention to the details of his craft.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

“Enough irony, subversion, and playfulness for any postmodern fan.”

—Books in Canada “Bowering’s sure touch brings uncanny overtones even to tales that would seem in synopsis to be shaggy-dog stories.”

—Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-345-5 © 1994; 272 pp; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The rush of events in a small-town apocalypse is recorded barely at the edge of syntax, with a teeming imagination always just ahead of the ability to articulate.

Governor General’s French Fiction Award Winner, 2000 “An extraordinary book of excellent quality.”

—Adrienne Clarkson ISBN 978-0-88922-484-1 © 2003; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

46 Talonbooks Fiction Backlist

Songs My Mother Taught Me

The School-Marm Tree 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 and Mail

“Traps in amber that strange distant decade of the Forties.”

—George Woodcock, Macleans

“As basic and enduring a tale as a Greek tragedy.”

—Vancouver Province

ISBN 978-0-88922-329-5 © 1973, 1993; 210 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-129-1 © 1977; 256 pp; 2nd printing; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Secret Journal of Alexander Mackenzie

The Strange Truth About Us A Novel of Absence M.A.C. Farrant

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

BC Book Prize Finalist, 1986 “A wonderful book.”

—Kootenay Reporter

ISBN 978-0-88922-227-4 © 1985; 208 pp; 3rd printing; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

A three-part novel-length work of prose fragments, snippets, questions, and speculations, The Strange Truth About Us attempts to imagine a multitude of possible futures for our garrisoned Western world.

“M.A.C. Farrant is a master of the literary equivalent of a waking dream, creating subtle insurrections disguised as prose.”

—Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-668-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-734-7 © 2011; 216 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Shinny’s Girls and Other Stories Mary Burns These stories all re-examine the myths of mother-daughter relationships, both in the classical sense of “myth” and in the modern sense of “myth” (lies about relationships).

“An accomplished and memorable collection.”

—Katherine Govier “Blood bonds, Burns seems to be saying, are usually obscured by routine … and it takes a crisis … to force consciousness of those bonds.”

—Canadian Literature

Summerland George Ryga Edited by Ann Kujundzic Summerland presents largely unpublished selections from essays, short stories, plays, novels, and poems that George Ryga wrote in Summerland, British Columbia, from 1963 until his untimely death in 1987.

ISBN 978-0-88922-313-4 © 1992; 448 pp; $34.95 CAN / $29.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-272-4 © 1989; 208 pp; 2nd printing; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

A Slight Case of Fatigue

Tales of the Emperor

Stéphane Bourguignon

Jack Winter

Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott

Tales of the Emperor is based on the life of Qin Shi Huang (circa 260–210 BCE), the “First Emperor” – he who unified China, gave it his name, built the Great Wall, entombed an army of terra cotta soldiers, authored legalism, erased history, insinuated governance, and established paranoia as a national characteristic. There’s only one principal theme: you find the antiquity you look for, or, in the language of the book: “history is the study of the paintings of great events.”

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.

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2009 ISBN 978-0-88922-596-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-917-4 © 2008; 224 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-944-0; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-945-7 © 2015; 264 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Some Night My Prince Will Come

Tchipayuk

Michel Tremblay

or The Way of the Wolf Ronald Lavallée

Translated by Sheila Fischman 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.

ISBN 978-0-88922-510-7 © 2004; 192 pp; 3rd printing; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Translated by Patricia Claxton A sweeping historical novel about the collision of First Nation and colonial cultures.

Winner of the Prix Jules-Verne, Prix Champlain, and the Prix Riel Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 1994 ISBN 978-0-88922-338-7 © 1994; 480 pp; $34.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Talonbooks Fiction Backlist 47

Theme for Diverse Instruments Jane Rule Jane Rule’s first collection of short stories.

“Jane Rule’s work compares very well with the best fiction being written anywhere.”

—Globe and Mail “Rule weaves a delicate pattern … that culminates in a self-portrait which depicts a woman who has confronted sex, career, money, identity, etc., and emerged as a loving, honest person.”

—Canadian Literature

Turkana Boy Jean-François Beauchemin Translated by Jessica Moore In this contemplative novel-poem, we share in the inner world of a man grieving his lost young son. Through reference to the two-million-year-old remains of a boy unearthed in Kenya, Beauchemin addresses processes of memory and the long history of human evolution.

“Beauchemin’s writing falls on us like mist, like sorrow, slowly, in the nightfall of things.” —Radio Basse-Ville

ISBN 978-0-88922-060-7 © 1975; 192 pp; 5th printing; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-690-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-708-8 © 2012; 144 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel

White Pebbles in the Dark Forests Jovette Marchessault

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Yvonne M. Klein

Translatead by Sheila Fischman

The third novel in 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 © 1996; 256 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

A Thing of Beauty

“Rich in emotion in a series of visionary episodes.”

—Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-280-9 © 1990; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Wigrum

Michel Tremblay

Daniel Canty

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Translated by Oana Avasilichioaei

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.

In October 1944, Sebastian Wigrum absconds from his London flat. Very little is known about him, except his intense curiosity about the world and perhaps his disillusionment in love. The legacy of this man who lived to collect has left in his wake an inventory of some hundred objects, which shed light on the history of our time.

“Sheila Fischman’s sensitive translation is wonderfully assured.”

—Canadian Book Review Annual ISBN 978-0-88922-390-5 © 1998; 224 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Grafika Grand Prize Winner (Typography), 2012.

ISBN 978-0-88922-778-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-779-8 © 2013; 200 pp; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

The Time Being Mary Meigs 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 © 1997; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

The World Afloat Miniatures M.A.C. Farrant In this stunning collection of 75 miniature stories, M.A.C. Farrant displays her mastery of the absurd in flashes of narrative that get to the point – through the back window.

At once spirited and soothing, The World Afloat provides an antidote for the overstimulated and aging mind amidst a tumultuous, and at times alienating, 21st century terrain.

City of Victoria Butler Book Prize Winner, 2014 ISBN 978-0-88922-838-2; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-839-9 © 2014; 112 pp; $12.95 CAN / $12.95 US

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

“At their best these stories are as stark as anything Camus or Sartre wrote.”

—George Woodcock ISBN 978-0-88922-327-1 © 1993; 320 pp; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

48 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre

Ali & Ali

Larry Tremblay

The Deportation Hearings Caymar Chai, Guillermo Verdecchia & Marcus Youssef

Translated by Chantal Bilodeau A theatre director draws inspiration from Lincoln’s assassination to stage the schizophrenia of America. Absurd, hilarious, and haunting, this play asks the questions: How can we ever know who we are and what is true when the world we know is shifting beneath us? Cast of 3 men.

“Explores the wellsprings of psychic and social violence.”

—Canadian Encyclopedia ISBN 978-0-88922-649-4; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-815-3 © 2010; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Adrift

The sequel to the hilarious Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil, Youssef, Verdecchia, and Chai turn their idiosyncratic brand of post-identity satire to new global realities.

“Razor-sharp timing in a play loaded with controversy.”

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-782-8 / E-ISBN 978-0-88922-783-5 © 2013; 112 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

All Fall Down

Marcus Youssef

Wendy Lill

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.

A “Crucible-inspired” drama surrounding an inquiry into a doubtful molestation incident in a small-town daycare.

Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

“Adrift highlights the way we suffer the same losses over and over again, raining revenge on revenge. Our struggle, in essence, never changes.” —Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-585-5 © 2008; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

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 © 1994; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil

All the Verdis of Venice

A Divertimento for Warlords Marcus Youssef, Guillermo Verdecchia & Camyar Chai

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Normand Chaurette Cast of 1 woman and 4 men.

“[A] clever, cutting cabaret act … that entertains as it tries to enlighten.”

—Vancouver Sun

“Invites its audience to think about the nature of self and its socio-cultural construction, as well as the nature of fame, the role of cultural iconography, but doesn’t presuppose answers. The play is never didactic, and more enjoyable for it.”

—Rain Taxi

ISBN 978-0-88922-516-9 © 2005; 128 pp; 4th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-442-1 © 2000; 112 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Albertine in Five Times

alterNatives

This hard-hitting and hilarious satire inverts the clichés that define the geopolitics of the Middle East. Cast of 4 men.

A New Translation Michel Tremblay Translated by Linda Gaboriau 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 Award–winning play.

Cast of 6 women.

“A remarkable play … The conception is brilliant.”

—New Statesman

Drew Hayden Taylor 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.

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

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-428-5 © 2000; 144 pp; 9th printing; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-627-2 © 2009; 80 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Albertine in Five Times

Amigo’s Blue Guitar

Michel Tremblay

Joan MacLeod

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

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.

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 ISBN 978-0-88922-234-2 © 1986; 80 pp; 7th printing; ; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 1991 “Theatre of exceptional power … [A] subtle, often funny and ultimately moving play.” —Macleans ISBN 978-0-88922-371-4 © 1990, 1997; 96 pp; 3rd printing $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 49

And Slowly Beauty

The Baby Blues

Michel Nadeau

Drew Hayden Taylor

Translated by Maureen Labonté

A highly wrought farce of patrimony in a stifling, politically correct, post-colonial milieu of “fancy dancers” of every stripe on the powwow trail.

Cast of 3 women and 3 men.

Mr. Mann is a middle-aged businessman whose life consists of meetings, schedules, and an endless inbox of work. All of this changes after he attends a production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Having become obsessed with the story, Mann’s tightly constructed life begins to unravel. And Slowly Beauty is a drama that explores the way art can alter life.

Finalist for the Governor General’s Translation Award, 2014

“A rowdy and often moving journey off the highway and onto the dirt roads of memory.”

—NOW ISBN 978-0-88922-406-3 © 1999; 96 pp; 7th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-786-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-787-3 © 2013; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

And So It Goes

Balconville

George F. Walker

David Fennario

The parents of schizophrenic Karen discover her life as a drug-addicted prostitute and its threats both real and invisible. Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

Canada’s first bilingual play set on the balconies of Montreal. Cast of 3 women and 6 men.

“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 and Mail

“Balconville is a work of genius. It’s angry, bitter, cruel, and funny.”

—Globe and Mail

Chalmers Canadian Play Award Winner, 1979.

ISBN 978-0-88922-145-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-996-9 © 1980; 128 pp; 11th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-654-8 © 2010; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Another Country / bloom

Banana Boots

Guillermo Verdecchia

David Fennario

Two plays, one on Argentina’s Dirty War of 1976–1983, the other on hope flowering in the midst of destruction, constitute an unsparing interrogation of a world perpetually at war.

Another Country: Cast of 3 women and 2 men. bloom: Cast of 2 women and 4 men.

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 BritishCanadian cultural mission. Cast of 1 man.

“Verdecchia … know[s] how to modulate emotional tones beautifully … bloom is a poetic look at a world where hope must grow in sandy soil.”

—NOW

ISBN 978-0-88922-396-7 © 1998; 64 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

“Fennario is, to put it lightly, a phenomenon.”

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-570-1 © 2007; 144 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Another Home Invasion

BASH’d

Joan MacLeod

A Gay Rap Opera Chris Craddock & Nathan Cuckow

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, 2009 “A startling commentary on aging and elder care.”

—CBC ISBN 978-0-88922-622-7 © 2009; 64 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Assorted Candies for the Theatre

The angelic personae of a gay-bashing victim and his avenging lover enthrall audiences with the rap opera rhymes of their tragic tale. Cast of 2 men.

GLAAD Media Award, Outstanding N.Y. Theater, 2007 “BASH’d shows its rage, its grief and its driven, heartfelt determination.”

—New York Times ISBN 978-0-88922-656-2 © 2011; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Beating the Bushes

Michel Tremblay

Steven Bush

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Steven Bush is 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,” do to redeem the family name? This stand-up comedy, rant, political protest, and call to action is a brash theatrical tour de force. Cast of 1 man.

An exquisite remembrance of childhood past in Montreal’s Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood, adapted and re-crafted for the stage.

Cast of 3 women and 4 men.

“It’s vintage Tremblay (out-Prousting Proust), filled with primal privations and inspirations of awe, a family’s love and terrors … the whole enthralling works.”

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-572-5 © 2007; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

“This is less satire than entertaining polemic, leavened by memoir.”

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-647-0 © 2010; 160 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

50 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

Les Belles Soeurs Revised Edition Michel Tremblay Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco Raucous, reckless, and ribald, Les Belles Soeurs celebrates the working-class lives of a group of Montreal women.

Cast of 15 women.

“A tart but human satire on Canadian life and aspirations.”

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-302-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-809-2 © 1974, 1992; 112 pp; 11th printing $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Benevolence

Blue Box Carmen Aguirre Interweaving recollections of her impassioned revolutionary life in Chile with her fleeting attempts to sustain a volatile romantic relationship in Los Angeles, Carmen Aguirre’s one-woman show Blue Box explores the tensions between love for the political cause and love for another. As ever, Aguirre is assertive, sexy, and political, sharing the sacrifices of her life with humour and courage. Cast of 1 woman.

ISBN 978-0-88922-757-6 / E-ISBN 978-0-88922-758-3 © 2013; 64 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Boiler Room Suite

Morris Panych

Rex Deverell

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.

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 lethal mixture of black humour and social observation. When it comes to sparkling, erudite, bitchy dialogue, Panych, as a playwright, has few equals.”

—Toronto Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-584-8 © 2008; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Canadian Authors Association Drama Award Winner, 1978 “A beautiful tragicomic look at a couple of losers.”

—NBC ISBN 978-0-88922-137-6 © 1978; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Berlin Blues

Bolsheviki

Drew Hayden Taylor

A Dead Serious Comedy David Fennario

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 © 2007; 96 pp; 5th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

WWI veteran Rosie Rollins’s clattering, fast-paced recollection of life and death in the trenches debunks every sentimental notion of duty, heroism, and warfare.

Cast of 1 man.

“Bolsheviki is vintage Fennario, gritty, authentic, touching, replete with one-liners, never boring … making its radical-pacifist point while paying due respect to veterans.”

—Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-687-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-714-9 © 2012; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Bethune

Bonjour, Là, Bonjour

Second Edition Rod Langley

Revised Edition Michel Tremblay

Chronicles the life of Norman Bethune, a Canadian doctor who died a national hero in the Republic of China. In the 1930s, his socialist convictions took him to Spain, where he supported the resistance during the civil war, then to China, where he came to embody the “barefoot doctor” movement later upheld by Mao Zedong.

Cast of 3 women and 6 men.

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

ISBN 978-0-88922-858-0 © 1975, 2013; 128 pp; 2nd printing $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Billy Bishop Goes to War Second Edition John MacLachlan Gray with Eric Peterson A memory play about war, Billy Bishop documents the glorious exploits of World War I flying ace Billy Bishop. In this second edition of the Canadian musical theatre classic, war remains a terrible thing, but some men say it was the greatest time of their lives. Cast of 2 men.

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 and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-252-6 © 1982, 1990; 92 pp; 3rd printing; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Book of Esther Leanna Brodie With the help of a brash young hustler and a gay man who takes in street kids, 15-year-old runaway Esther confronts her conservative-Christian parents – farmers on the brink of financial ruin – and begins to find her way home.

Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

“Thirty years on, Billy Bishop still soars.”

—Globe & Mail

“The Book of Esther is filled with tenderness, heart, and humour. It is also an eloquent plea for understanding.”

—Sky Gilbert

ISBN 978-0-88922-689-0; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-716-3 © 1981, 2012; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-682-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-710-1 © 2012; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 51

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 ISBN 978-0-88922-477-3; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-937-2 © 2003; 128 pp; 3rd printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

A play that uses hockey and the “team to beat” as metaphors for the history of Quebec and Canada.

Cast of 7 men.

Chalmers Canadian Play Award Winner, 1978.

“An examination of the Canadiens has never been mastered so well.”

—Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-122-2 © 1977; 192 pp; 4th printing; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

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 region 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.

In The Boy in the Treehouse, Simon pursues a vision quest in an attempt to reclaim his mother’s Aboriginal heritage. Cast of 1 woman and 4 men. In Girl Who Loved Her Horses, a non-status girl finds people on the Reserve understand her remarkable talent and strong spirit more than those around her. Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

ISBN 978-0-88922-441-4 © 2000; 160 pp; 6th printing; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Burning Vision

Lucia Frangione

“A beautifully written tribute to the strength of the human spirit.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-527-5 © 2005; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Carmela’s Table

Marie Clements

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.

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.

Canada–Japan Literary Award Winner, 2004 Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2003

“Second time out, the volatile Rosato family still offers passion through familial drama.”

—Variety.com

“[A] brave new play that bombards the senses and fires up the mind.” —Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-594-7 © 2008; 128 pp; Photos; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-472-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-808-5 © 2003; 128 pp; 7th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Buz’Gem Blues

The Carpenter

Drew Hayden Taylor

Vittorio Rossi

The third play in Taylor’s ongoing zany, often farcical examination of both Native and non-Native stereotypes in what he calls his “Blues Quartet.”

Cast of 3 women and 3 men.

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.

“He skewers liberal and native stereotypes, preferring to deal on a more human level.”

—Hamilton Examiner ISBN 978-0-88922-462-9 © 2002; 128 pp; 3rd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Can You See Me Yet? Timothy Findley 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 © 1977; 176 pp; 2nd printing; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

“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 © 2009; 128 pp; Photos; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Cerulean Blue Drew Hayden Taylor Cerulean Blue is a comedic play about a struggling blues band invited to participate in a benefit concert for a First Nation community in conflict with governmental authorities.

The play was written for a large ensemble cast, which makes it ideal for musical theatre departments in high schools and colleges – every student can play a part.

Cast of 10 women and 10 men.

ISBN 978-0-88922-952-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-953-2 © 2015; 144 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

52 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

Chimera

Consecrated Ground

Wendy Lill

George Boyd

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.

In 1965, Africville, Canada’s largest and oldest black community was razed. What was lost to the politicians of Halifax was an inconvenience, an eyesore. What was lost to the people whose roots ran deep through the community was an entire way of life. Cast of 3 women and 4 men.

“The play comes at a propitious time.” —The Scientist

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2000

ISBN 978-0-88922-569-5; E-ISBN 978-0-89922-771-2 © 2007; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

“Consecrated Ground is the heir of fierce, vengeful, and epic activism.”

—George Elliott Clarke ISBN 978-0-88922-666-1 © 1999, 2011; 96 pp; 4th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Christina, The Girl King

Copper Thunderbird

Michel Marc Bouchard

Marie Clements

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

A multi-layered and visionary drama of a life wracked by both triumph and ordeal, based on the persona of famed Ojibway artist Norval Morrisseau.

Cast of 5 women and 4 men.

Sweden’s Queen Christina seeks to make her country the most sophisticated in Europe. But her personal aspirations – and her unconventional sexuality – put her profoundly at odds with her culture’s expectations.

Governor General’s French Drama Award Finalist, 2013 Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2014 ISBN 978-0-88922-898-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-899-3 © 2014, 96pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Cold Comfort

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2008 “Marie Clements … is building a powerful reputation for her innovative approaches to … theatre on aboriginal themes.”

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-568-8 © 2007; 84 pp; 3rd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Corker

Jim Garrard

Wendy Lill

The third in Garrard’s quartet of “bondage” plays explores the complex relationships among three characters at the geographic centre of Canada. Cast of 1 woman and 2 men.

Corker uses the familiar but difficult and treacherous 19thcentury device of representing the family as a microcosm of the nation state. Cast of 2 women and 4 men.

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

—Toronto Star

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1999

“Sheer genius!”

—Arts National, CBC Radio

“Tough, compassionate and surprisingly funny.”

—Sunday Daily News

ISBN 978-0-88922-201-4 © 1982; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-394-3 © 1998; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Colours in the Dark

The Coronation Voyage

James Reaney

Michel Marc Bouchard

A theatrical portrayal of the mosaic of experiences that form a childhood.

Cast of 2 women, 2 men, 1 girl, and 1 boy.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

“Both funny and touching … intriguingly original in its conception.”

—Quill & Quire

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

ISBN 978-0-88922-001-0 © 1969; 136 pp; 5th printing; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

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

“Brilliant, artful, satirical.”

—CBC Radio

ISBN 978-0-88922-422-3 © 1999; 128 pp; 3rd printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Concise Köchel

Crabdance

Normand Chaurette

Beverley Simons

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

A woman forces the men in her life into assuming the stereotypical privatized roles of husband, lover, father, and son. Cast of 1 woman and 3 men.

A lifetime’s devotion to the music of Mozart conceals a gruesome secret. Cast of 4 women.

“The situation and dialogue are intriguing … The play may be difficult, but Chaurette’s unnerving climax should lead to heated and extended discussions in the lobby after the play is over.”

—Stage Directions

“An unusual and searing play about a woman caught in a cage of frustration and neglect.” —Vancouver Sun

ISBN 978-0-88922-518-3 © 2005; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-016-4 © 1972; 128 pp; 7th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

“One of the most theatrical contemporary plays that I have ever read.”

—Malcolm Black

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 53

Cruel Tears

Dead Metaphor

Ken Mitchell

George F. Walker

An innovative “country opera” set in Saskatoon, with a captivating parallel to Shakespeare’s Othello.

Cast of 5 women, 10 men, and a band.

Dead Metaphor includes three new darkly comic plays each addressing in different ways a modern world of ambiguous morals and corruption: Dead Metaphor; The Burden of Self Awareness; and The Ravine.

“A unique and astonishing dramatic event.”

—Calgary Herald “A brilliantly original theatre piece.”

—Montreal Star

ISBN 978-0-88922-120-8 © 1977; 160 pp; 9th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Cul-de-sac

Praise for The Ravine: “a gritty, dark comedy … Brimming with timely political commentary” —Today Magazine ISBN 978-0-88922-928-0; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-929-7 © 2015; 208 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Dead White Writer on the Floor

Daniel MacIvor

Drew Hayden Taylor

Introduction by Daniel Brooks

A funny yet thought-provoking play about identity politics in which Pocahontas, Tonto, and other Aboriginal characters rewrite their stereotyped roles. Cast of 1 woman and 5 men.

Through this dazzling one-man show we understand that everyone’s story inevitably reflects the preconceptions they bring to its telling. Cast of 1 man.

Siminovitch Prize in Theatre Finalist, 2005 Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2005 “Wickedly funny.”

—National Post

ISBN 978-0-88922-515-2; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-807-8 © 2005; 80 pp; 3rd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Cyrano de Bergerac A Prose Translation Edmond Rostand Translated by John Murrell An epic and heroic tale that has enchanted generations, in an English prose translation that is eminently readable and stageable.

Cast of 5 women, 12 men, and many minor characters. “[Cyrano de Bergerac is a] brilliant … unforgettable … impressive achievement.”

—Edmonton Journal ISBN 978-0-88922-835-1; ebook also available © 1995; 208 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra

“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 ISBN 978-0-88922-663-0; ebook also available © 2011; 112 pp; 3rd printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Death of René Lévesque 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 © 2003; 72 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Democracy

Michel Tremblay

John Murrell

Translated by John Van Burek Two interweaving monologues on the sacred and the profane. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.

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.

“One of the best plays of Michel Tremblay.” —Fugues

Alberta Writers’ Guild Prize Winner for Drama

“A hauntingly powerful evening of theatre.”

—Vancouver Express

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

—Quill & Quire

ISBN 978-0-88922-184-0 © 1981; 48 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

ISBN 978-0-921368-28-1 © 1991; 64 pp; $10.95 CAN / $10.95 US

Dancock’s Dance

Diplomacy

Guy Vanderhaeghe

Tim Carlson

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.

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.

“Highly imaginative, vividly written play …”

—Saskatoon StarPhoenix

“It’s a rare thing – the well-argued blast of political outrage.”

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-533-6 © 1996, 2005; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $14.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-611-1 © 2009; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

54 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

The Dishwashers Morris Panych

The Driving Force Michel Tremblay

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.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

“Funny, sad, strange and uplifting, sometimes in the same breath.”

—Vancouver Sun

“The text is as severe, intense and implacable as the reality of each character.”

—CBC Radio-Canada

ISBN 978-0-88922-524-4 © 2005; 132 pp; 2nd printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-530-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-820-7 © 2005; 64 pp; 2nd printing; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

The Divine

La Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays

Michel Marc Bouchard

The stormy and angst-filled relationship between Claude and his father, Alex, is compellingly played out with cruel and disconsolate irony in an Alzheimer’s ward.

Cast of 2 men.

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Translated by John Van Burek

Quebec City, 1905. Two priests-to-be are ordered to deliver a cease-and-desist letter to a controversial visitor to their city: the legendary French actress, Sarah Bernhardt. The Divine was commissioned for the 2015 Shaw Festival in honour of George Bernard Shaw and everyone who loves the theatre, and in memory of Sarah Bernhardt, “the woman who dares to say everything that should be left unsaid.”

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.

“It’s [Bouchard’s] best work, and the most exciting new Canadian play in years.”

—National Post

“The plight of the Duchesse mirrors the plight of a society.”

—Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-104-8 © 1976; 128 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-958-7; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-959-4 © 2015; 160 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Divinity Bash / nine lives

The Dunsmuirs

Bryden MacDonald

Alone at the Edge Rod Langley

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.”

—CBC ISBN 978-0-88922-408-7 © 1999; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

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 © 1991; 104 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Doctor Thomas Neill Cream

The Dunsmuirs

(Mystery at McGill) David Fennario

A Promise Kept Rod Langley

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.

A dark family secret emerges in this second play about the wealthy and ill-fated Dunsmuir family.

Cast of 3 women and 6 men.

Arthur Ellis Award Nominee, 1994

“The writing is tight and lively.”

—Victoria Times-Colonist

“Fennario’s in-your-face irreverence [is] ferociously funny.”

—U of T Quarterly ISBN 978-0-88922-332-5 © 1994; 112 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Down Dangerous Passes Road

ISBN 978-0-88922-304-2 © 1992; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Earshot

Michel Marc Bouchard

Morris Panych

Translated by Linda Gaboriau Fifteen 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.

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 hyper-sensitive condition on a physical abnormality, but we’re not so certain. Cast of 1 man.

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2000

“A superbly mounted Panych attack.”

ISBN 978-0-88922-440-7 © 2000; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-444-5 © 2001; 64 pp; 2nd printing; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

—National Post

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 55

The East End Plays Part 1 George F. Walker Contains the Governor General’s Award–winning Criminals in Love (1984), Better Living (1986), and Escape from Happiness (1987). With an introduction by Jerry Wasserman.

The Ends of the Earth Morris Panych 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

“One of theatre’s most important voices.” —Macleans

“Panych’s witty script is full of laughs and packed with action.”

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-413-1 © 1999; 256 pp; 4th printing; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-334-9 © 1993; 144 pp; 2nd printing; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

The East End Plays

Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout

Part 2 George F. Walker Three plays exploring characters living in extremity include Beautiful City (1987), Love and Anger (1989), and Tough! (1993).

“Walker writes with unprecedented directness …

[His] characters think and feel out loud in a perpetual present-tense fever because life, and often more, is on the line.”

—Village Voice

Tomson Highway 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.

“The play is both laugh-out-loud funny and a precarious high-wire act.”

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-404-9 © 1999; 208 pp; 5th printing; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-525-1 © 2005; 96 pp; 6th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe

Esker Mike and His Wife, Agiluk

George Ryga

Herschel Hardin

A lyric documentary about a young Native girl who comes to the city only to die on Skid Row. Cast of 5 women and 15 men. Celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2017.

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.

“Scenes of shattering impact … and passages of a purity and intensity that catch you off guard and keep you there.”

—Washington Post

“A fascinating, moving, and ultimately a very beautiful play.”

—CBC

“It was – and remains – a play for all seasons and for all peoples.”

—Vancouver Province

“The play presents the different Eskimo attitude to human life and hence to human relationships.”

—Canadian Literature

ISBN 978-0-88922-000-3; ebook also available © 1970; 128 pp; 29th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-018-8 © 1973; 96 pp; 4th printing; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Edward Curtis Project

Espresso

A Modern Picture Story Marie Clements & Rita Leistner Marie Clements’s play dramatizes the creation of Edward Curtis’s 20-volume photographic and ethnographic record of the “vanishing” North American Indian. It is presented here alongside Rita Leistner’s parallel investigation of Curtis’s work, which questions the practice of documentary photography with the very medium under scrutiny. Features more than 100 colour photographs.

Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

Lucia Frangione 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.

“Espresso is a high-quality blend of bitter, dark comedy and subtle literary complexities that packs a strong punch.” —Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-495-7; ebook also available © 2004; 96 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-642-5 © 2010; 160 pp; Colour photos; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

En Pièces Détachées

The Execution

Michel Tremblay

Marie-Claire Blais

Translated by Allan Van Meer The life of a working-class family on “The Main” in East End Montreal. Cast of 4 women and 2 men

Translated by David Lobdell

“Tremblay courageously insists on the relevance and dilemma of neo-colonial French Canada.”

—Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-092-8 © 1975; 112 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Two school boys plot and enact the murder of a classmate.

Cast of 3 women and 17 men.

“A brilliant play about the maturation of evil.” —CHQM ISBN 978-0-88922-103-1 © 1976; 104 pp; 3rd printing; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

56 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

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 © 1982; 64 pp; 4th printing; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

“The play’s generosity of spirit equals that of the Women’s Institutes that are its subject.” —Ric Knowles ISBN 978-0-88922-508-4 © 2004; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

The Faraway Nearby

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again

John Murrell

Michel Tremblay

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.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

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

—CBC Radio ISBN 978-0-921368-56-4 © 1995; 64 pp; $10.95 CAN / $7.95 US

Tremblay offers glimpses of himself and his mother at five different stages of their lives together.

Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.

“In Quebec, a new Tremblay play is like a fresh tablet from Moses.”

—Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-389-9 © 1998; 96 pp; 4th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass

Forever Yours, Marie-Lou

Tom Hendry

Michel Tremblay

Set in Winnipeg in 1945, this CBC-commissioned work looks at postwar Canada through the eyes of a kid just out of high school. “There I was just out of high school, all eager for the future, and there was the road to the future stretching out in front of me like 15 miles of broken glass.”

Cast of 2 women and 9 men.

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

“Defines a uniquely Canadian experience that expands to the universal.”

—Kootenay Reporter

“One of Tremblay’s infinitely hot and dense family dramas.”

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-096-6 © 1975; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

15 Seconds François Archambault Translated by Bobby Theodore A young female advertising copywriter, her sports-fan exboyfriend, a Gen-X welfare-bum loser, and his brother with cerebral palsy. Cast of 1 woman and 3 men.

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2000 “Funny, thought-provoking, poignant, and often dark …”

—CBRA ISBN 978-0-88922-427-8 © 2000; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Fighting Days Wendy Lill

Raw and brutal, Tremblay’s penetrating analysis of a Quebec family unit remains one of the great plays of this country’s dramatic literature. Cast of 3 women and 1 man.

“Brilliantly insightful, uncompromising drama.”

—Detroit News

ISBN 978-0-88922-349-3; ebook also available © 1975, 1994; 80 pp; 7th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

400 Kilometres Drew Hayden Taylor 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 © 2005; 128 pp; 3rd printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists

The polarities of public and private lives, and issues of racism and pacifism in the suffragette movement.

Normand Chaurette

Cast of 3 women and 1 man.

“An unusually insightful investigation of social conscience.”

—Arts Manitoba

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.

ISBN 978-0-88922-226-7 © 1985; 96 pp; 4th printing; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-400-1 © 1998; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 57

Fronteras Americanas

The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum

American Borders Guillermo Verdecchia

A Stage Play Based on the Novel by Sheldon Currie Wendy Lill

One man’s struggle to find a home between two cultures, exploding the images and constructs built up around Latinos and Latin America. Cast of 1 man.

Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 1993 “Outrageous, funny, devastatingly witty.”

—CBC

ISBN 978-0-88922-383-7 © 1993; 1997; 80 pp; 8th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

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 © 1996; 128 pp; 8th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Fronteras Americanas American Borders Second Edition Guillermo Verdecchia Fuelled by equal parts outrage, intelligence, and wit, Fronteras Americanas revisits one man’s struggle to construct a home between two cultures, while exploding the images and constructs built up around Latinos and Latin America. Verdecchia twirls stereotypes and clichés, updates comparative histories, examines myths and mysticism, and provides lessons in language and dancing. Cast of 1 man.

God and the Indian Drew Hayden Taylor While panhandling outside a coffee shop, Johnny, a Cree woman, is shocked to see a face she recognizes from her childhood, which was spent in a residential school.

Desperate to hear him acknowledge what happened to her and other children at the school, Johnny follows Anglican Assistant Bishop George King to his office to confront him.

Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.

“A respectful treatment of one of the most painful chapters in Canadian history.”

—Georgia Straight

ISBN 978-0-88922-705-7; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-727-9 © 2012; 80 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-844-3; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-840-5 © 2014; 96 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

George Ryga

Goodnight Disgrace

The Other Plays

Michael Mercer

Edited by James Hoffman

From his wheelchair in a nursing home, Conrad Aiken recalls his long, stormy relations with Malcolm Lowry.

Cast of 3 women and 4 men.

Sixteen plays by George Ryga in one handsome volume.

“Hoffman [in his introduction] provides an effective and multifaceted description for the student seeking a quick understanding of Ryga’s stature as a playwright.”

—Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-500-8 © 2004; 416 pp; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Gideon’s Blues

“Knocked out by the richness of its language.”

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-238-0 © 1986; 120 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Gordon

George Boyd

Morris Panych

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.

Gordon and his former cellmate, Carl, break into Gordon’s family home, wherein they confront some very disturbing metaphors. Cast of 1 woman and 3 men.

“Boyd’s writing is muscular, vigorous, and commanding.”

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-496-4 © 2004; 144 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Girl in the Goldfish Bowl

“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; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-817-7 © 2011; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Great Wave of Civilization

Morris Panych

Herschel Hardin

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.

The Great Wave of Civilization is about the destruction of the people of the Blackfoot Confederacy by the 19th-century liquor trade in Montana and Alberta. Little Dog of the Northern Blackfoot tribe vs. Snookum Jim, free trader, I.G. Baker, merchant prince of Fort Benton, and the rest of the “great wave of civilization.”

Cast of 5 women and 13 men.

Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 2004 “An uncommon, quirky blend of humour and compassion.”

—National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-481-0 © 2003; 128 pp; 4th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

“A fable of genocide with conscience-raising fervour.”

—Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-106-2 © 1976; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

58 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

The Gull

Homechild

Daphne Marlatt

Joan MacLeod

With a Japanese translation by Toyoshi Yoshihara

Between 1860 and 1930, more than 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.

Uchimura Naoya Prize Winner, 2008

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

ISBN 978-0-88922-616-6 © 2009; 128 pp; Bilingual Japanese/English edition; Photos $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-582-4 © 2008; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Halo

The Hope Slide / Little Sister

Josh MacDonald

Joan MacLeod

When an image of Jesus appears on the wall 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.

In The Hope Slide, natural disaster becomes a metaphor for the AIDS crisis. Winner of a 1993 Chalmers Canadian Play Award. Cast of 1 woman.

Merritt Theatre Award Nominee for Best Play, 2004 “Halo successfully melds faith, drama and humour … very funny and quite moving.”

—Halifax Daily News ISBN 978-0-88922-469-8 © 2002; 128 pp; 5th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Little Sister, MacLeod’s first script for young audiences, tackles the issues of self-image, weight preoccupation, and eating disorders. Cast of 3 women and 2 men.

“A passionate and rich examination of the human condition’s precariousness.”

—Victoria Times-Colonist ISBN 978-0-88922-411-7 © 1999; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Heaven

Hosanna

George F. Walker

Third Edition 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.

“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; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-806-1 © 2000; 144 pp; 2nd printing; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco Claude’s illusions about himself are shattered when, painstakingly remade as his idol Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, he arrives at a party themed on “great women of history” and is mocked for his glamorous aspirations.

Written during the tumult of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, Tremblay’s political allegory about the authenticity of self still resonates. Cast of 2 men.

ISBN 978-0-88922-831-3; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-832-0 © 1984, 1991, 2013; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Hellfire Pass

The Impromptu of Outremont

A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part I 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.

Montreal English Critics’ Circle Award, Winner, 2006 “A powerful, memorable drama.”

—Variety

ISBN 978-0-88922-564-0 © 2007; 128 pp; Photos; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Heretic

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 © 1981; 96 pp; 3rd printing; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Impromptu on Nuns’ Island

John Murphy

Michel Tremblay

“If there is a God, why would He create us? If He’s perfect, all-knowing, there’s nothing he can gain from us.” Murphy’s play, centred around the playwright’s assumed persona of “Jesus Murphy,” opens up a discourse where creation interrogates religion, atheists engage believers, and secularists confront theists. Cast of 1 man.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

“A scary, brave and ferocious attack on Judeo-Christian religion and its doctrines.”

—CBC ISBN 978-0-88922-595-4 © 2008; 64 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

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 © 2002; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 59

In a World Created by a Drunken God

Inside the Seed

Drew Hayden Taylor

Jason Patrick Rothery

This play by one of Canada’s best-loved Native playwrights raises powerful questions that transcend issues of culture, race, and history, cutting to the ethical quick of what it means to be human in a chaotic world stripped of the comfortable security of identity politics. Cast of 2 men.

Winner of the 2015 Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding Original Script, Inside the Seed is a contemporary version of Oedipus Rex reimagined as a darkly comic political thriller.

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2006 ISBN 978-0-88922-537-4 © 2006; 128 pp; 4th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

“Inside the Seed has important subject matter wrapped up in a sexy stylish production. Its corporate machinations are compelling and a little frightening when you realize most of the plot points are based on real-life examples.”

—Charlebois Post ISBN 978-0-88922-986-0; ebook also available © 2016; 144 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

In Absentia

Jabber

Morris Panych

Marcus Youssef

Four seasons after her husband Tom’s disappearance, Colette remains emotionally paralyzed, isolated in a country cottage. She waits in anguish, not knowing whether he is dead or alive, but clinging to hope. Part mystery, part moving story of vanished love, In Absentia explores the notion of disappearance, articulated in very personal terms.

Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

High school, like no other social space, throws together people of all histories and backgrounds, and young people must decide what they believe in and how far they are willing to go to defend their beliefs. Jabber does its part to challenge appearances – and the judgments people make based on those appearances.

ISBN 978-0-88922-702-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-726-2 © 2012; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Best New Text, Montreal English Language Theatre Awards, 2013 One of the top 30 Plays of 2013, Stageworthy ISBN 978-0-88922-950-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-951-8 © 2015; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

In Piazza San Domenico

Jacob’s Wake

Steve Galluccio

Michael Cook

This comedy of misunderstandings that takes place in bustling 1952 Naples recounts how one broken engagement ripples throughout friends and family, affecting each of their lives in different ways.

Cast of 4 women and 4 men.

A Maritime family’s tragedy, set in a raging storm.

Cast of 2 women and 5 men.

“Three cheers for light-hearted entertainment! Billed as a romantic comedy inspired by Feydeau, Goldoni, and Sophia Loren, it bears the mark of all three, with a dash of trademark Galluccio.”

—Montreal Gazette

ISBN 978-0-88922-097-3 © 1975; 144 pp; 6th printing; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

“A powerful play, deeply rooted in its regional context, but universal enough to appeal to an audience anywhere.”

—Canadian Literature

ISBN 978-0-88922-674-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-733-0 © 2011; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

In the Eyes of God

Je me souviens

Raul Sanchez Inglis

Lorena Gale

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.

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.

“[This] terrific play … is one of the most vicious exposés of Hollywood venality, misogyny, and the social Darwinism that drives the star-making machinery that you’ll ever see.” —Vancouver Province

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2002

ISBN 978-0-88922-561-9 © 2007; 144 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

In the Eyes of Stone Dogs

“[This] intimate monologue is funny, feisty, heartfelt.”

—Calgary Herald ISBN 978-0-88922-453-7 © 2001; 96 pp; 4th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Jitters

Daniel Danis

David French

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

This sophisticated backstage comedy opens on the night of a preview of a new play. Within minutes, the audience is plunged into the world of the theatre, a world of loves and hates, easily bruised egos, contradictory interpretations of role and script – all complicated by crises and all magnified by opening night “jitters.”

Cast of 3 women and 6 men.

Before fleeing her eccentric island community, Djouke is determined to discover the mystery of her paternity.

Cast of 4 women and 5 men.

“A skillful blend of lyricism and cruelty, of the tragic and the poetic.” —Voir “Strange, haunting, and unforgettable.”

—Stage Directions ISBN 978-0-88922-519-0 © 2005; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

“Jitters is witty, affectionate, bitchy; bitterly touching.”

—Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-242-7 © 1980, 1986; 176 pp; 5th printing; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

60 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

Joe Beef

Legoland

David Fennario

Jacob Richmond

Desperately poor immigrants find refuge in Montreal’s legendary barkeep, Joe Beef.

Cast of 5 women and 5 men.

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.

The United Steel Workers’ Union Pauline Julien Prize Winner, 1987 “An evening of political theatre with both guts and skill is a rare commodity these days.”

—Montreal Gazette

“Legoland is like a variety show version of South Park.”

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-610-4 © 2009; 72 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-291-5 © 1991; 104 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

King of Thieves

The Leisure Society

George F. Walker

François Archambault

New York City, 1928. Master-thief Mac is coerced into joining an FBI sting operation against a cadre of corrupt financiers. Music, murder, and mayhem ensue, both at the speakeasy where criminals scheme and on Wall Street where bankers conspire. This trenchantly satirical play exposes the world of corporate crime and, like John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera which inspired it, examines criminal behaviour at all levels of society.

Cast of 5 women and 10 men.

Translated by Bobby Theodore

ISBN 978-0-88922-755-2; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-756-9 © 2013; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Lady Smith

A dark and thoroughly contemporary comedy.

Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

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

—Montreal Gazette “A dark, twisted, and brilliant take on modern marriage.”

—Calgary Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-531-2 © 2005; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Life Without Instruction

Andrew Moodie

Sally Clark

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 woman’s struggle for freedom, identity, and dignity.

Cast of 3 women and 5 men.

“No question, playwright Andrew Moodie has a gift for naturalism.”

—Toronto Star “Amusingly inventive.”

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-1-55331-002-0 © 2000; 72 pp; $14.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Lawrence & Holloman

“Sally Clark’s great talents as a playwright are her seemingly effortless ability to shift from light to dark and her finely tuned understanding of life’s rich ambiguities.”

—Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-347-9 © 1994; 168 pp; Photos; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

A Line in the Sand

Morris Panych

Guillermo Verdecchia & Marcus Youssef

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

“Lawrence & Holloman is slick stuff indeed.”

—Toronto Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-392-9 © 1998; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Leave of Absence

Chalmers Canadian Play Award Winner, 1997 “[A] powerful story.”

—CBRA

ISBN 978-0-88922-375-2; ebook also available © 1997; 128 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Listen to the Wind

Lucia Frangione

James Reaney

A small prairie community is blown apart when an audacious teenaged girl challenges long-held views of spirituality and sexuality. Suspected of being gay, she is tormented by her classmates. At the centre of this searing drama of bigotry and transcendence is the brutal dehumanization of the other – of both the bully and the victim.

Cast of 3 women and 2 men.

Two stories intertwine and illuminate the relationship of life to its creative dream.

Cast of 4 women, 4 men, 1 girl, and 1 boy.

ISBN 978-0-88922-753-8 / E-ISBN 978-0-88922-754-5 © 2013; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

“Keeps reminding us that the way through our world of sickness and breakdown is play.”

—Profiles in Canadian Drama ISBN 978-0-88922-002-7 © 1972; 144 pp; 4th printing; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 61

La Maison Suspendue

Local Boy Makes Good John MacLachlan Gray

Michel Tremblay

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

Translated by John Van Burek

Canadian Authors Association Drama Award Winner, 1988 (Rock and Roll), 1988

A rich, emotional, sweeping drama of anger and sorrow spanning three generations.

Cast of 3 women, 4 men, and 1 boy.

“John Gray is the most original artist working in the musical theatre in this country.”

—Globe and Mail

Chalmers Canadian Play Award Winner, 1990

ISBN 978-0-88922-248-9 © 1987; 208 pp; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-295-3 © 1991; 104 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Lost Souls and Missing Persons

Mambo Italiano

“A full and resounding resonance.” —Theatrum

Sally Clark

Steve Galluccio

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.

“Essentially a serious story told in a tremendously comical way.”

—Jerry Wasserman, CBC

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.

ISBN 978-0-88922-397-4 © 1998; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

“Manages to combine the sentimental, the silly and the sexy.”

—Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-494-0; ebook also available © 2004; 128 pp; 3rd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Marcel Pursued by the Hounds

Ludwig & Mae Louis Patrick Leroux

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Shelley Tepperman & Ellen Warkentin

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

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.

How our “innocent” childhood games and fantasies come back to haunt us in adult life.

Cast of 4 women and 1 adolescent male.

“Audacious avant-garde spectacles.”

ISBN 978-0-88922-326-4 © 1996; 80 pp; 3rd printing; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

—Jane Moss

ISBN 978-0-88922-623-4 © 2009; 224 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The Madonna Painter

“Tremblay’s grip on matters of the human heart is as precise, knowing, and unforgiving as ever.”

—Quill & Quire

Marion Bridge

Michel Marc Bouchard

Daniel MacIvor

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Includes screenplay and stage play. Cast of 3 women.

To protect his village from the Spanish flu epidemic, a young Quebec priest commissions a church fresco of the Virgin Mary by a wandering Italian painter. 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 upsets the lives and changes the fate of the entire community.

Cast of 4 women and 3 men.

“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 978-0-88922-641-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-818-4 © 2010; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr Jovette Marchessault Translated by Linda Gaboriau 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 and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-314-1 © 1992; 104 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-552-7 © 1999, 2006; 192 pp; 5th printing; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Memories of You Wendy Lill 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.

“Beautifully written … its pleasure, its sensuality and its pain. A courageous and profoundly moving play …”

—Robert Enright, CBC ISBN 978-0-88922-489-6 © 1989, 2003; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

62 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

Michel and Ti-Jean

Modern Canadian Plays

George Rideout

Volume II, Fifth Edition

In Michel & Ti-Jean, Rideout fashions a hypothetical 1969 meeting in a bar in St. Petersburg, Florida, between Quebec playwright Michel Tremblay and an individual whom he believes to be a truly great writer, the “beat” author Jack Kerouac. At the time of their meeting, Jack Kerouac is 47 years old; Michel Tremblay, 27. Cast of 2 men.

Edited by Jerry Wasserman

“An unexpected surprise, a daring, novel, audacious idea that actually works on stage.” —The Métropolitain

This fifth edition contains Polygraph; 7 Stories; Never Swim Alone; The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum; Counter Offence; Problem Child; Harlem Duet; Street of Blood; The Shape of a Girl; Tempting Providence; Scorched; The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil; Age of Arousal; BIOBOXES: Artifacting Human Experience; The Edward Curtis Project: A Modern Picture Story; and Kim’s Convenience.

ISBN 978-0-88922-902-0; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-903-7 © 2014; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-679-1 © 2013; 528 pp; $49.95 CAN / $49.95 US

Miss Julie

Mom’s the Word

August Strindberg An adaptation by David French A riveting adaptation of a theatre classic about an affair between the daughter of a count and the count’s man-servant.

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

Linda A. Carson, Jill Daum, Alison Kelly, Robin Nichol, Barbara Pollard & Deborah Williams Humorous stories, bittersweet monologues, poetic reflections and revelatory anecdotes about motherhood.

Cast of 6 women.

“I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to enjoy a show this much.”

—Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-431-5 © 2000; 112 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-549-7; ebook also available © 2006; 96 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Modern Canadian Plays

Moo

Volume I, Fourth Edition

Sally Clark

Edited by Jerry Wasserman

When the feisty and rebellious Moragh (Moo) MacDowell meets the intriguing Harry Parker, she decides nothing will ever separate them. Harry has been running ever since.

Cast of 5 women and 3 men.

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 © 2000; 464 pp; 7th printing; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

Modern Canadian Plays

Chalmers Canadian Play Award Winner, 1990 “Well written, laced with black humour, and filled with a host of sharply drawn characters.”

—Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88754-476-7 © 1984; 132 pp; 4th printing; $12.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Motherhouse

Volume II, Fourth Edition

David Fennario

Edited by Jerry Wasserman

This powerful drama gives a voice to the disillusioned working-class women employed at the British Munitions Factory in Verdun, Quebec, during World War I. Despite tension over the conscription issue, dedicated mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts assemble artillery shells to support the war effort. Meanwhile, their men die abroad and their children starve because of war profiteers.

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 © 2001; 408 pp; 7th printing; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

Modern Canadian Plays

ISBN 978-0-88922-848-1; E-ISBN 97-0-88922-849-8 © 2014; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Moss Park and Tough!

Volume I, Fifth Edition

George F. Walker

Edited by Jerry Wasserman

It’s been twenty years since the debut of Tough!, but in Moss Park only two years have passed in the lives of Tina and Bobby, the main characters. Of course the poverty trap, which grips them both, is ageless.

In Tough! young Tina summons her nineteen-year-old boyfriend Bobby to a tattered city playground. She’s got something to tell him. Bobby doesn’t know what he’s walking into. In fact, he’s been planning to break up, but the stakes quickly skyrocket when Tina reveals that she’s pregnant.

This fifth edition contains The Ecstasy of Rita Joe; Les Belles Soeurs; Leaving Home; Sticks and Stones (The Donnellys, Part One); Zastrozzi; Billy Bishop Goes to War; Balconville; Blood Relations; Drag Queens on Trial; Bordertown Café; Toronto, Mississippi; Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet); Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing; Lion in the Streets, and Life Without Instruction.

ISBN 978-0-88922-678-4 © 2012; 568 pp; 2nd printing; $49.95 CAN / $49.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-954-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-955-6 © 2015; 192 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 63

My TWP Plays

Odd Ducks

A Collection Including Ten Lost Years Jack Winter A selective anthology of Jack Winter’s plays written while he was the resident playwright of Toronto Workshop Productions, one of the first great experimental troupes of the alternative and experimental theatre movement. The collection and its extensive accompanying notes illuminate a two-decade period important in the evolution of contemporary Canadian theatre.

Bryden MacDonald Bryden MacDonald’s smart new comedy Odd Ducks tells the story of four forty-something eccentrics struggling to get out of their own way, trying to move on, all the while inventing drama with searing sarcasm to keep things light.

Cast of 2 men and 2 women.

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2015

“This is a really excellent addition to our understanding of the birth of our modern Canadian theatre.”

—Peter McKinnon, professor of Theatre, York University

“Odd Ducks is a tragedy that is essentially a comedy because really, without comedy, nothing can be taken seriously … The writing sizzles and sings … the play builds to a great finish.”

—Chronicle Herald

ISBN 978-0-88922-784-2; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-785-9 © 2013; 336 pp; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-934-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-935-8 © 2015; 128 pp ; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

1949

Omniscience

David French

Tim Carlson

Newfoundland joins Confederation in the continuing saga of the Mercer family.

Cast of 6 women, 6 men, and 2 boys.

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.

Chalmers Canadian Play Award Finalist, 1988 “Told with French’s warm humour and effortless command of stage convention.”

—Globe and Mail

“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

ISBN 978-0-88922-266-3 © 1989; 176 pp; 2nd printing; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

“Never less than intelligently provocative.”

—Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-562-6 © 2007; 96 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Noam Chomsky Lectures

On the Job

Daniel Brooks & Guillermo Verdecchia

David Fennario

An innovative, multi-layered deconstruction of mass media and politics.

Cast of 2 men.

On Christmas Eve the workers in a Montreal shipping room get drunk and go on strike. Cast of 8 men.

Chalmers Canadian Play Award Winner, 1992 Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1992

“Vibrates with the rough and ready energy of a street fight.”

—Quill & Quire

“A … sharp and funny ‘lecture’ on cultural politics and political culture.”

—NOW

ISBN 978-0-88922-102-4 © 1976; 112 pp; 5th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

“An anti-imperialist primer.”

Chalmers Canadian Play Award Winner, 1976

—Socialist Worker

ISBN 978-0-88922-405-6 © 1991, 1998; 96 pp; 4th printing; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Nothing to Lose

One Crack Out

David Fennario

David French

Working-class survivors of the 1960s stage a workers’ sit-down strike.

Cast of 9 men.

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.

“Restores one’s faith in theatre as a medium of continuing vitality and relevance.”

—Southam News Service ISBN 978-0-88922-121-5 © 1977; 144 pp; 2nd printing; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

The Occupation of Heather Rose

“A definite winner that will be around for a long time.”

—Ottawa Citizen ISBN 978-0-88922-488-9 © 2003; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth

Wendy Lill

Drew Hayden Taylor

Young, naive, 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.

A Native woman who was adopted by a white family struggles to acknowledge her birth family.

Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

“An achingly honest reminder of the naively enthusiastic attempts that each of us has made to wade bravely into unfamiliar territory.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-593-0 © 2008; 64 pp; Photos; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

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; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-803-0 © 1998; 112 pp; 10th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

64 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

Other Schools of Thought

The (Post) Mistress

Morris Panych

Tomson Highway

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.

Marie-Louise Painchaud has worked for thirty-one years as postmistress in Lovely, Ontario, a francophone village where she has come to know the lives of everyone in town and vicariously experience their loves, losses, and personal dramas. The (Post) Mistress is a rollicking, emotional rollercoaster ride in the form of a one-woman musical.

“Cost of Living is a brilliant play about growing up.”

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-346-2 © 1994; 140 pp; Photos; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

“The result is a kind of magical realism which expresses the universal aspects of his stories.”

—Macleans ISBN 978-0-88922-780-4; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-781-1 © 2013; 96 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Paradise by the River

The Power Plays

Vittorio Rossi

George F. Walker

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.

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.

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

—Montreal Gazette

“Walker has an eye for the ridiculous and an imagination that packs his plays with action.” —New York Times

ISBN 978-0-88922-393-6 © 1998; 144 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-414-8 © 1999; 208 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Paradise Garden

The Queens

Lucia Frangione

Normand Chaurette

The McKinnons have fallen on hard times and must sell half of their generations-old West Coast estate to a Turkish immigrant family. Cast of 1 woman and 4 men.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

“Playwright and actor Lucia Frangione enters risky emotional territory in Paradise Garden.”

—Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-658-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-821-4 © 2011; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Past Perfect

The shifting passions and ambitions of six women drawn from Shakespeare’s theatre.

Cast of 6 women.

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

—Le Devoir ISBN 978-0-88922-403-2 © 1998; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Real World?

Michel Tremblay

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

Unleashing the dark secret of her being, Albertine, one of Tremblay’s most unforgettable heroines, sets out to re-conquer the beau she has lost to her younger sister.

Cast of 3 women and 2 men.

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.

“The really scary, or beautiful, part is how much Albertine there is in every one of us.” —Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-493-3 © 2004; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Playing Bare

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

—Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-260-1 © 1988; 80 pp; 3rd printing; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Refugee Hotel

Dominic Champagne

Carmen Aguirre

Translated by Shelley Tepperman

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.

Cast of 5 women, 5 men, 1 girl, 1 boy, and 1 male dancer.

A mordant satire on the relation between theatre and life.

Cast of 2 women and 4 men.

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1994 “It celebrates theatre by paying tribute to Godot, one of its most brilliant gems.”

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-335-6 © 1993; 112 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

“A humorous and heartbreaking look at life in exile.”

—Mark Taper Forum ISBN 978-0-88922-650-0; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-822-1 © 2010; 128 pp; 2nd printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 65

Remember Me

The St. Leonard Chronicles

Michel Tremblay

Steve Galluccio

Translated by John Stowe 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 © 1984; 64 pp; 2nd printing; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

When a young Italian couple announces they are moving to the Anglo suburbs, it’s like they’ve committed a mortal sin against their traditional relatives. Ultimately floodgates open to other unspoken desires and revelations, turning conservative St. Leonard upside down.

“After Galluccio’s play Mambo Italiano became the most successful local English-language play from Montreal in almost half a century The St. Leonard Chronicles quickly became the second-most successful.”

—Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-930-3; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-931-0 © 2015; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Sainte-Carmen of the Main

The Riddle of the World 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.

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.

“French is one of Canada’s most acclaimed playwrights and an accomplished explorer of the power of memory.”

—Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-487-2 © 2003; 66 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Translated by John Van Burek

“An absolutely fascinating gesture by a powerful playwright.”

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-181-9 © 1981; 80 pp; 4th printing; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons

Rose Tomson Highway

James W. Nichol

A musical set on the Wasaychigan Hill Reserve in 1992. The battle for the future of the community builds to a shattering climax. Cast of 10 women and 7 men.

A play about the conscience of a priest during the disastrous mission the Jesuits made to the Huron Indians in the 17th century. Cast of 11 men.

“Tomson Highway has been a groundbreaking, foundational dramatist – the inaugural voice of a generation of First Nations playwrights in Canada.”

—Canadian Literature

“The play has a burning sincerity … A fascinating glimpse of two totally different cultures.”

—Ottawa Citizen

ISBN 978-0-88922-490-2 © 2003; 160 pp; 2nd printing; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-147-5 © 1980; 80 pp; 2nd printing; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Salt-Water Moon

Saga of the Wet Hens Jovette Marchessault

David French

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

The third book of the Mercer family saga.

Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.

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

“Potent feminist literature.”

—Quill & Quire

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

—Books in Canada

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

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-213-7 © 1983; 136 pp; 2nd printing; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-257-1 © 1988; 88 pp; 9th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Saint Frances of Hollywood

The Satchmo’ Suite

Sally Clark

Hans Böggild & Doug Innis

The tragic life of Frances Farmer, the raucous, idealistic, non-conforming movie star of the 1930s and 1940s.

Cast of 4 women and 4 men.

A black cellist 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.

Cast of 1 man.

“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.”

ISBN 978-0-88922-366-0 © 1996; 200 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

—Toronto Star

“An irresistible meeting of music and drama, The Satchmo’ Suite really swings.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-648-7 © 2010; 80 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

66 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

Sextet

Saucy Jack Sharon Pollock

Morris Panych

While a scholar and the nephew of Queen Victoria dance around the truth of the identity of Jack the Ripper, a hired London actress impersonates each of the seven murdered prostitutes. Cast of 1 woman and 3 men.

A dark and steamy comedy that explores the harmonies and dysfunctions of six sexually entangled musicians on an ill-fated winter tour. When a blizzard strands this sextet for an extra night, they have only their instruments, each other, and their secrets to keep them warm.

“Brings those hideously murdered women to such authentic life that we feel a stab of guilt.”

—Quill & Quire

“The best script Morris Panych has ever written.”

—Richard Ouzounian “Sextet is not just a wonderfully entertaining piece of theatre, it will make you think about love, sex, procreation, and music in ways you’ve never done before.”

—Toronto Star

ISBN 978-0-92136-841-0 © 1994; 64 pp; $10.95 CAN / $7.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-984-6; ebook also available © 2016; 152 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Schoolhouse

The Shape of a Girl / Jewel

Leanna Brodie

Joan MacLeod

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 thoughtful … well-crafted … beautifully inspired piece … compelling and richly rural.” —Ottawa Citizen ISBN 978-0-88922-571-8 © 2007; 96 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Shape of a Girl examines the code of silence and tacit complicity that surrounded the sensationalized murder of Reena Virk by school-aged bullies in 1997. Cast of 1 girl.

Jewel is based on the real-life catastrophe of the 1982 sinking of the Ocean Ranger, an oil rig off the coast of Newfoundland. Cast of 1 woman.

“Brilliant.”

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-460-5; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-691-3 © 2002; 96 pp; 12th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Seagull

The Shoplifters

Anton Chekhov

Morris Panych

Translated by David French

Alma’s a career shoplifter who prefers the “five-finger discount” over some lousy seniors’ deal, but her life of petty crime is halted suddenly by an overzealous rookie security guard. With its cast of oddball characters, Panych’s comedy offers biting observations about society’s haves and havenots and how much they might actually have in common.

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 © 1993; 112 pp; 5th printing; $16.95 CAN / $14.95 US

“The Shoplifters is a gem in a minor key, as a work of literature and a play.”

—The Georgetowner ISBN 978-0-88922-926-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-927-3 © 2015; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Seeds

Sila

Annabel Soutar

Chantal Bilodeau

Part courtroom drama, part political satire, Seeds shows farming and scientific communities in conflict, while at the same time penetrating the complex science of genetically modified crops. The play documents the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada showdown between Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser and biotech multinational Monsanto – a David-and-Goliath struggle.

Cast of 4 women and 3 men.

ISBN 978-0-88922-701-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-725-5 © 2012; 144 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

In Inuit mythology, “sila” means air, climate, or breath.

Bilodeau’s play of the same name examines the competing interests shaping the future of the Canadian Arctic and local Inuit population. Equal parts Inuit myth and contemporary Arctic policy, the play Sila features puppetry, spoken word poetry, and three different languages (English, French, and Inuktitut).

“Perhaps it is Bilodeau’s work as a playwright and also as a translator that make the words weave composition with meaning, and symbolism with precision to deliver parallel storylines that intersect at just the right points.”

—Canadian Theatre Review ISBN 978-0-88922-956-3; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-957-0 © 2015; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

7 Stories

Silver Dagger David French

Second Edition Morris Panych In this fast-paced, sophisticated, and darkly comical play, a man’s contemplation of suicide leads to a charming and surprising ending. Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

French delivers a thriller guaranteed to have audiences perched on the edge of their seats.

Cast of 4 women and 2 men.

Arthur Ellis Award Nominee, 1994

Winner of 6 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards, 1989

“[A] meta-murder mystery.” —Canadian Theatre Review

“One of the best plays of the ’80s.”

ISBN 978-0-88922-325-7 © 1993; 136 pp; 2nd printing; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

—CBC

“Stunningly theatrical, endlessly witty, and cruelly clear-headed.”

—Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-281-6; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-766-8 © 1990; 104 pp; 9th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 67

Song of the Say-Sayer

Sisters Wendy Lill

Daniel Danis

A tough, uncompromising look at a convent-run Native residential school and 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.

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 moving theatrical experience.”

—Theatrum

ISBN 978-0-88922-289-2 © 1991; 96 pp; 4th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Six Plays by Mavor Moore Mavor Moore 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.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

“At once sinister and hilariously funny, darkly ominous and positively hopeful.” —Canadian Theatre Review ISBN 978-0-88922-419-3 © 1999; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

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

“One of the great men of Canadian drama.”

—Books in Canada

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.

ISBN 978-0-88922-271-7 © 1989; 208 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

“The French play by Lescarbot is a significant literary and cultural artifact.”

—Dalhousie Review ISBN 978-0-88922-547-3; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-992-1 © 2006; 108 pp; Maps & illustrations; $21.95 CAN / $21.95 US

Skydive

Still Laughing

Kevin Kerr

Morris Panych

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 a highstakes manoevre occur in the final seconds of a daring adventure gone horribly wrong. Written for one able-bodied and one differently abled actor. Cast of 2 men.

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

“Skydive into the giddy realms of really innovative theatre.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-638-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-813-9 © 2010; 96 pp; Photos; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

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

—Torontostage.com ISBN 978-0-88922-624-1 © 2009; 320 pp; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Soldier’s Heart

Studies in Motion

David French

The Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge Second Edition Kevin Kerr

Esau Mercer, a veteran of WWI, 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.

“When it comes to playwriting, David French is perhaps … the most celebrated in English Canada.”

—Globe and Mail

Adultery, jealousy, murder, and an abandoned child haunt the life of pioneer photographer Eadweard Muybridge.

Cast of 5 women and 7 men.

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

—Globe and Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-463-6 © 2002; 96 pp; 4th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-810-8 © 2008, 2013; 144 pp; Photos; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Somewhere Else

Suburban Motel

George F. Walker

George F. Walker

Contains Walker’s own selection of his early plays that matter, that for him have stood the test of time: Beyond Mozambique (1974), Zastrozzi (1977), Theatre of the Film Noir (1981), and Nothing Sacred (1988).

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.

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

—Chicago Sun Times ISBN 978-0-88922-402-5 © 1999; 256 pp; 2nd printing; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

“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; ebook also available © 1997, 1999, 2006; 320 pp; 8th printing $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

68 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

The Tale of Teeka

Tiln & Other Plays

Michel Marc Bouchard

Michael Cook

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Three short plays by Cook: Tiln, Quiller, and Therese’s Creed.

A play set in rural Quebec in the 1950s in which a battered child, Maurice, seeks refuge in a fantasy world.

Cast of 1 man and 1 boy.

“Evocative imagery, poignant character portrayal.”

—Canadian Literature

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

ISBN 978-0-88922-107-9 © 1976; 112 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-410-0 © 1999; 64 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Talking Bodies

Tom at the Farm

Larry Tremblay

Michel Marc Bouchard

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

A collection of Larry Tremblay’s four memorable solo performances for the stage: A Trick of Fate, Anatomy Lesson, The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi, and Ogre. With an introduction by Jane M. Moss.

“The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi is surely unique … This is a play that laments rather than preaches.”

—Globe and Mail

As an unexpected guest at his lover’s funeral, Tom is blindsided by the man’s legacy of untruth. With the mother expecting a chain-smoking girlfriend, and the older brother determined to preserve a façade, Tom is coerced into participating in a savage game rooted in the rural family’s dark past.

Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

ISBN 978-0-88922-445-2 © 2001; 208 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-759-0; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-760-6 © 2013; 96 pp; 2nd printing; 16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Tear the Curtain!

Tombs of the Vanishing Indian

Jonathon Young & Kevin Kerr with Kim Collier

Marie Clements

Alex is a jaded theatre critic in a gritty film-noir rendition of 1930s Vancouver. When he falls for the screen siren Mila, he’s caught between two warring mob families – one controlling the city’s playhouses, the other its cinemas. At the dawn of the talkies, can Alex tear through the artifice of these art forms without losing his life?

Three young Native American sisters and their mother leave home as part of a 1950s government mandate to relocate reserve Indians to urban centres. As the women try to establish connections to a new land, each finds herself lost.

Cast of 4 women and 3 men.

“A brilliant fusion of two enduring art forms.”

—Globe and Mail

“A piece of theatrical anthropology about the determined survival of a people, not its demise.”

—Toronto Sun

ISBN 978-0-88922-904-4; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-905-1 © 2014; 160 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-686-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-713-2 © 2012; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

That Summer

Toronto, Mississippi

David French

Joan MacLeod

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.

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.

“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 ISBN 978-0-88922-439-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-969-3 © 2000; 128 pp; 3rd printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

That Woman

“See this play and fall in love.”

—Georgia Straight

ISBN 978-0-88922-583-1; ebook also available © 2008; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Trespassers

Daniel Danis

Morris Panych

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Poignant, thought-provoking and sharply sardonic, The Trespassers focuses on the relationship between 15-yearold 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 story of a woman sent away from her family by her brother the Bishop after she is found exploring her sexuality at age 17. Cast of 1 woman and 2 men.

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

—See Magazine ISBN 978-0-88922-399-8 © 1998; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

“Charming and, this being Panych, funny.”

—National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-628-9; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-819-1 © 2010; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 69

The Trial of Judith K. Sally Clark 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.

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1991 “The futility of the individual before a de humanizing bureaucracy has never been so funny.” —Toronto Tonight ISBN 978-0-88754-465-1 © 1985; 122 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

The Trigger Carmen Aguirre

Unity (1918) Kevin Kerr 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.

Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 2002 “[A] work of powerful and moving familiarity.”

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-461-2; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-814-6 © 2002; 128 pp; 10th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Unnatural and Accidental Women 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 woman and 2 men.

“The Trigger is a knockout … intelligent, powerful, funny, horrific, theatrically stunning, and utterly free of victimology.” —Jerry Wasserman

“A beautifully presented and acted play.” —Raven’s Eye

ISBN 978-0-88922-591-6 © 2008; 64 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Twenty Years at Play

“An impressive, powerful work.”

—Eye Weekly

ISBN 978-0-88922-521-3; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-767-5 © 2005; 128 pp; 6th printing; 17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Valley

A New Play Centre Anthology

Joan MacLeod

Edited by Jerry Wasserman

Inspired by the 2007 tasering death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport, The Valley dramatizes the often volatile relationship between law enforcement and people in the grip of mental illness. The play connects both sides of this relationship by portraying two families embattled with depression, each guided by good intentions but challenged by their own flawed humanity.

Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

This collection of eight of the finest plays produced by Vancouver’s New Play Centre marked 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 © 1990; 346 pp; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Two Plays

ISBN 978-0-88922-846-7; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-847-4 © 2014; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Ventriloquist

George Woodcock

Larry Tremblay

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

Translated by Keith Turnbull

“Voices from the past that haunt us still.”

—Essays in Canadian Writing

“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

ISBN 978-0-88922-123-9 © 1977; 112 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Theatre of innovation. Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

“This is the best new Quebec play in many years.”

—CBC Radio-Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-536-7 © 2006; 64 pp; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

2000

The Vic

Joan MacLeod

Leanna Brodie

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 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.

“2000 is a remarkable achievement.”

—Canadian Book Review Annual “Full of good insights … good lines.”

—University of Toronto Quarterly ISBN 978-0-88922-373-8 © 1997; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

“Leanna Brodie has made a promising debut, and her best work here shows real talent.”

—Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-459-9 © 2002; 128 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

70 Talonbooks Drama Backlist

Vigil

Warriors

Second Edition Morris Panych

Michel Garneau Translated by Linda Gaboriau

In Morris Panych’s classic black comedy, Kemp returns after 30 years to be with his aunt Grace on her death bed.

Problem is, she’s not dying fast enough. Callous Kemp uses acid wit to cover up his growing discomfort as the death watch stretches from days to months.

Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.

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.

“A small masterpiece.”

—Globe and Mail

“If you want a challenging piece of theatre prepare for Warriors.”

—Calgary Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-282-3 © 1989; 104 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-692-0; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-717-0 © 1996, 2012; 80 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Waiting for the Parade

WASPs

John Murrell

Sally Clark

Set in Calgary during WWII, five women work for the war effort while their men are away.

Cast of 5 women.

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.

“Waiting for the Parade is an honest play that captures precisely the texture of ordinary hopes and despairs.”

—Guardian

“Clark skewers our nicey-nice apologist culture … It’s camp, it’s funny, and it’s nasty.”

—Georgia Straight

ISBN 978-0-88922-183-3; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-995-2 © 1980; 112 pp; 12th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-398-1 © 1998; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Walsh

The Watershed

Sharon Pollock

Annabel Soutar

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.

Largely constructed from original interviews conducted by the playwright, The Watershed brings to the stage a multiplicity of ideological perspectives and conflicting visions for Canada’s natural resources, and its characters speak the words of real Canadians from all across the political spectrum.

“Undefinable magic that is the essence of art.”

—Ottawa Citizen ISBN 978-0-88922-215-1 © 1973, 1983; 136 pp; 14th printing; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

“Documentary theatre at a very high level … We need more political drama like this. We need more politics like this.“ —National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-988-4; ebook also available © 2016; 144 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Wanted

We the Family

Sally Clark

George F. Walker

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.

Canada’s master playwright applies his trademark black humour and incredibly crisp dialogue to the family and multiculturalism. We the Family follows the ripple effects within two culturally and racially divergent families when their children wed.

“[An] entirely original historical drama … an intriguing addition to Clark’s canon.”

—Globe and Mail

“If you have a taste for cynical and irreverent humour, death and depravity with a drum roll, this darkly comic culture clash will be right up your alley”

— Mooney on Theatre

ISBN 978-0-88922-503-9 © 2004; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-982-2; ebook also available © 2016; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

War Cantata / Child Object Larry Tremblay Translated by Keith Turnbull and Linda Gaboriau How far will humanity go in its quest for power? Why do we continually seek to annihilate each other through war?

Two new plays by award-winning playwright Larry Tremblay ask these questions and more about the place of the child in contemporary society. War Cantata: Cast of 7 actors.

Child Object: Cast of 3 actors.

“A great theatrical text that speaks to the mechanics of hatred: hard, visceral, and uncompromising.”

—Yves Rousseau, LeQuatrième.com ISBN 978-0-88922-906-8; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-907-5 © 2014; 144 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

The Weekend Healer Bryden MacDonald The disappearance of a young man acts as a catalyst for a drama that questions the nature of family and “traditional values.”

Cast of 2 women and 1 man.

“If Tennessee Williams were from the Maritimes and writing today, he’d sound a lot like Bryden MacDonald.”

—Richard Ouzounian, CBC ISBN 978-0-88922-360-8 © 1995; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Talonbooks Drama Backlist 71

Westray

Willful Acts Margaret Hollingsworth

The Long Way Home Chris O’Neill & Ken Schwartz Although the Westray mine is dangerously mismanaged, a young father descends under the ground again to support his family. Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

An expanded and updated collection of Margaret Hollingsworth’s best known and most popular plays, including The Apple in the Eye, Everloving, Diving, Islands, War Babies, and Commonwealth Games.

“Crisp, thoughtful, and entertaining, and every bit deserving of a standing ovation.”

—Ottawa Citizen

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

ISBN 978-0-88922-491-9 © 1994, 2004; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-385-1 © 1998; 256 pp; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Whale Riding Weather

Winners and Losers

Bryden MacDonald

Marcus Youssef & James Long

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.

Two friends pass the time together playing a made-up game in which they name people, places, or things and debate whether they are successful or not; in other words, winners or losers. Each friend seeks to defeat the other, and because one of these men grew up economically privileged, and the other did not, the competition very quickly adds up.

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

—Toronto Star

“A roller-coaster ride of pain and humour and pathos and love.”

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-353-0 © 1994; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

What Lies Before Us

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2015 ISBN 978-0-88922-932-7; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-933-4 © 2015; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

With Bated Breath

Morris Panych

Bryden MacDonald

Governor General’s Award–winning playwright Panych turns Waiting for Godot into a comedy while simultaneously heightening the profound existential questions it asks.

Cast of 3 men.

A poignant look at the disappearance of a shy, young gay man who starts a new life in the big city. Caught in the cynical and brutalizing cash economy of the city’s red-light district, he retreats ever further into a world of fantasy and anonymity.

Cast of 3 women and 3 men.

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2007 “Panych is … ambitious, talented, funny, feared, beloved … and altogether impossible to ignore.”

—Toronto Life ISBN 978-0-88922-560-2 © 2007; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Lambda Literary Award Finalist, 2011 “Quite stunning … full of one-liners and dark poetry.”

—Daniel MacIvor ISBN 978-0-88922-651-7; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-816-0 © 2010; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

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

“A profound reflection on memory and on the act of writing … told with Michel Marc Bouchard’s characteristic humour and poetry.”

—CBC

“Where the Blood Mixes … was the best of a stream of plays tackling [the Residential Schools’] disastrous legacy.”

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-608-1; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-768-2 © 2009; 96 pp; 6th printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

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 © 2004; 96 pp; 2nd printing; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

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.

ISBN 978-0-88922-492-6 © 2004; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

72 Talonbooks Poetry Backlist

After Jack

Aurora

Garry Thomas Morse

Sharon Thesen

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.

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.

“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 a deep breath. Now dive back in.”

—Stephen Collis

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

—Robin Blaser ISBN 978-0-88910-471-6 © 1995; 80 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-630-2 © 2010; 184 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

All Is Flesh

b leev abul char ak trs

Yannick Renaud

bill bissett

Translated by Hugh Hazelton

“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 ISBN 978-0-88922-433-9 © 2000; 144 pp; Illustrations; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

The first English translation of this acclaimed Québécois poet. Includes the book-length prose-poem collections Taxidermy and The Disappearance of Ideas. Afterword by Étienne Lalonde.

ISBN 978-0-88922-672-2; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-738-5 © 2011; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Amuse Bouche

Back to the War

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.

A careful archeology of the catalogue of innocence assembled by a youthful imagination blossoming during WWII.

“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 © 2009; 108 pp; Colour illustrations; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Asian Skies

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

“A haunting poetic memoir.”

—Arc

—abcbookworld.com

ISBN 978-0-88922-514-5 © 2005; 128 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Bardy Google

Ken Norris

Frank Davey

In this third book of Norris’s 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.

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.

“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 ISBN 978-0-88922-633-3 © 2010; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Assembling the Morrow

ISBN 978-0-88922-636-4 © 2010; 80 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Blonds on Bikes

Sandra Huber

George Bowering

What happens when the line of Berger’s wave (an EEG recording of brainwaves in sleep) turns into a line of poetry, an act of focused consciousness? Since words are essentially awake, sleep awakens beneath them. At the same time, poetry itself is forced to change, written not by the principles of ink or lead but electroencephalography.

Characteristic of Bowering’s other work, this book is largely made up of sequences. The longest one, the title poem, is a composition of daily riffs during an autumn in Denmark and Italy. “Pictures” is an album of verbal portraits by a husband and wife who see differently. There is a series of tributes to other writers on special occasions.

“Huber allows the emergent properties of sleep to be captured – the poem in the patterns is visible … a daring and relevant addition to the lineage of ‘the line’ in poetry.”

—subTerrain

“Bowering … can turn a reader’s head inside out with the turn of a phrase.”

—Ottawa XPress

ISBN 978-0-88922-910-5 © 2014; 144 pp; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-381-3 © 1997; 112 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Talonbooks Poetry Backlist 73

bpNichol Comics

Chinese Blue

bpNichol

Weyman Chan

Edited by Carl Peters

In Chinese Blue, the poet “character” sifts through the earth’s history of geological layering and forgetting, drawing upon ancient Chinese traditions that present diverse philosophical modes of being.

Nichol’s comics (1960–1980) informed not only his work in other genres but also the work of other writers.

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

—National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-448-3 © 2002; 320 pp; Illustrations; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

“Chan continues to write some of the edgiest lyrics in Canadian poetry, lyrics filled with science and music.”

—Prairie Fire ISBN 978-0-88922-681-4 © 2012; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Bread and Salt

The Collected Books of Artie Gold

Renee Rodin

Compiled & edited by Ken Norris & Endre Farkas

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

A collection of Artie Gold’s eight published books of poetry.

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

—Hour ISBN 978-0-88922-367-7 © 1996; 112 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

“Don’t come to these poems expecting to find a reference to the world, or a reference to Artie Gold’s world of feeling & perceptions. Be prepared to step into a world. The poem is, as Jack Spicer said to Lorca, ‘a collage of the real.’ ” —George Bowering ISBN 978-0-88922-652-4 © 2010; 304 pp; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Cartouches

The Commons

Lola Lemire Tostevin

Second Edition Stephen Collis

The deaths of her father and several friends at the time of a trip to Egypt lead the author to write about the essential relation between language and death.

“Lola Lemire Tostevin is an incisive, intelligent, and sharply observant writer.”

—Quarry “Lovely, nape-tingling work.”

—Books in Canada

ISBN 978-0-88922-355-4 © 1995; 80 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

By the 19th century, the majority of English common lands were enclosed, depriving communities of independence and self-sufficiency. Recurring peasant revolts failed to thwart “privatization”– but resistance spilled into Romanticism’s advocacy of a literary commons. Underground in poetry since then, the fight against enclosure resurfaces today amidst continuing accumulation and a renascent sense of the commons under globalization.

ISBN 978-0-88922-915-0; ebook also available © 2014; 152 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Centre

Coping with Emotions and Otters Dina Del Bucchia

Poems 1970–2000 Barry McKinnon “Barry McKinnon’s great skills as a poet make substantial all that living meets with and defines, and must finally accept willy-nilly.”

—Robert Creeley “His poems are a radical ‘placing’ of a poetics, but also an act of displacing language from civics … [McKinnon is] absolutely central to Canadian poetics.”

—American Book Review ISBN 978-0-88922-497-1 © 2004; 192 pp; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Change Room

Appropriating the template of the contemporary self-help book, with its neatly numbered and ordered rules on how to change and improve our lives, Dina Del Bucchia fashions this satirical and punchy guide for coming to terms our most difficult emotions.

“Subversive, sly, and hilarious … Del Bucchia deftly holds a comic mirror to our own awkward lives in this exciting, accomplished debut.”

—Marita Dachsel ISBN 978-0-88922-764-4 © 2013; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Corked

Mark Cochrane

Catriona Strang

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.

In an impressive display of poetic ingenuity, Strang “fabricates” her “own reality” in letters to Marcel Proust.

In this thoughtful response to Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, Proust himself serves not only as Strang’s addressee, but as harbour or mooring place for powerful and focused meditations on the female condition.

“Mark Cochrane is a glorious writer.”

—Quill & Quire

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

—BC Bookworld ISBN 978-0-88922-432-2 © 2000; 144 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

“From her early work, TEM and Low Fancy, through her collaboration with the late Nancy Shaw, with Corked Strang solidifies a unique position in Canadian poetry.”

—Jeff Derksen ISBN 978-0-88922-852-8 © 2014; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

74 Talonbooks Poetry Backlist

Cosmophilia

Dominican Moon

Rahat Kurd

Ken Norris

Cosmophilia translates multiple glittering facets of Muslim culture into, and reflects back from, the immediacy of embodied, urban Canadian experience. Allusive, playful, multilingual imagery inhabits long narrative meditations, free-form couplets, and the traditional ghazal, in elegiac or sharply satirical moods.

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.

“It’s a rich & rewarding first collection by a writer I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from.”

— Eclectic Ruckus

“One of the best poets of his generation.”

ISBN 978-0-88922-946-4; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-997-6 © 2015; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Cultural Mischief A Practical Guide to Multiculturalism Frank Davey 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 © 1996; 144 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Davie Street Translations Daniel Zomparelli

“Ken Norris … has been hailed as Canada’s premier romantic poet.”

—Toronto Star —Matrix

ISBN 978-0-88922-526-8 © 2005; 144 pp; $17.95 CAN / $15.95 US

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

BC Book Prize Winner, 1991 “Wrenching intellectual and emotional dislocation that redefines the act of reading.”

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-278-6 © 1990; 92 pp; 3rd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

DOWNVERSE Nikki Reimer

With versified musical machismo following the San Francisco Renaissance poets, Daniel Zomparelli’s witty, lively, documentary-style series of poems about gay male culture in Vancouver grapples with HIV fears, drug culture, porn fantasy, gay bashing, and online hookups.

In this arresting, quick-witted book, Nikki Reimer defamiliarizes the language of new media – hashtags, YouTube videos, insurance policies – to craft an ode to and elegy for Vancouver’s Gen Y and millennial angst. #insertdinosaurcolouringbookhere

“Zomparelli’s knowledge of place and community is profound, while his dedication to his own poetic vision is unwavering.”

—Rachel Rose

“Both a lament and an expression of frustration, DOWNVERSE perfectly captures the cynicism of a generation, but also represents a desire to find a pathway out of these mired conditions. ”

—Canadian Literature

ISBN 978-0-88922-683-8 © 2012; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-854-2 © 2014; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Decompositions Ken Belford Belford’s careful (de)compositions disclose the land as a complex living organism, articulate the names of it, see the whole of it, with a vision and voice that is unique and new.

BC Book Prize Finalist, 2011 “[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 © 2010; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

dream / arteries Phinder Dulai In his third poetry collection, dream / arteries, Phinder Dulai connects 376 passengers on the Komagata Maru with other New World settler migrants who traveled on the same ship throughout its 36-year history. Dulai demonstrates how the 1914 incident encapsulates a broader narrative of migration throughout the New World.

“Combined rhythmic discipline and a wide descriptive palette, wielded by a talented composer of word images; this would be the definition of anyone’s preferred reading.”

—Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-913-6 © 2014; 136 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Discovery Passages Garry Thomas Morse

Dream Pool Essays Gil McElroy

Garry Thomas Morse sets out to recover the appropriated, stolen, and scattered world of his ancestral Kwakwaka’wakw people, from Alert Bay to Quadra Island to Vancouver.

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

Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 2011

“The expected subjects of faith, work, nature, solitude, and writing itself are represented with clarity and beauty.”

—Canadian Literature

BC Book Prize Finalist, 2012 “A master of tonal balance, a virtuoso composer with an ear for epic contrast.”

—Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-660-9 © 2011; 128 pp; Colour photos; 2nd printing $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Gerald Lampert Memorial Award Finalist, 2002

ISBN 978-0-88922-454-4 © 2001; 112 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Talonbooks Poetry Backlist 75

Dwell

Five Star Planet

Jeff Derksen

David W. McFadden

An ironically revealing, humorous, and analytic book.

The poems in this third volume of McFadden’s Terrafina Trilogy – which began with Gypsy Guitar and There’ll Be Another – suggest the earth is an exotic way station, a hotel.

Alberta Writers’ Guild Award Finalist, 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 © 1993; 108 pp; 2nd printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Dyssemia Sleaze

“Two qualities … shine in all his works – a laserlike and sometimes uncomfortable honesty and his childlike sense of wonder.”

—Windsor Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-468-1 © 2002; 136 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Floating Up to Zero

Adeena Karasick

Ken Norris

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

Incisive and light in their touch, these poems meditate on the here and now: the present moment, precariously balanced between a certain frozen past and an uncertain fluid future.

Bumbershoot Most Adventurous Publication Award Winner, 2000 “Her most visually compelling, over-the-top collection to date.”

—Publishers Weekly ISBN 978-0-88922-434-6 © 2000; 96 pp; Colour illustrations; 2nd printing $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The Empress Has No Closure

“He is, in short, a poet, and a good one.”

—Hiram Poetry Review ISBN 978-0-88922-659-3 © 2011; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Fortified Castles

Adeena Karasick

ryan fitzpatrick

The Empress Has No Closure contains, as a centrepiece, the “Alefbet Transfers,” a meditative, spatial explication of the 22 figures of the Hebrew alphabet.

Starting with lyric statement as a point of interrogation, Fortified Castles asks what might cause retreat into the comforting walls of the self. Moving from a tickertape tableau of economic and environmental crisis to the difficulty of finding one another in the streets, these poems locate the Western subject between the ramparts it walks and the barricades it throws up.

“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 © 1992; 100 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

“It’s a pleasure to wind through its twists and blind alleys.” —THIS magazine ISBN 978-0-88922-909-9 © 2014; 112 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

A Few Words Will Do Lionel Kearns 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.

“Lionel Kearns has been hovering over our poetry scene for years. Now we have his selected poems at last, and the bird has landed.”

—George Bowering ISBN 978-0-88922-558-9 © 2007; 128 pp; Illustrations; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Fifty Ken Norris Among its widely diverse poetic forms, Fifty 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.

fractal economies derek beaulieu beaulieu pushes the limits of poetry and poetics, challe-nging the status quo of the genre and the politics of language itself.

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

—FFWD “Represent[s] truly the best of beaulieu’s poetic practice.”

—Prairie Fire ISBN 978-0-88922-539-8 © 2006; 96 pp; Illustrations; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

From the Poplars Cecily Nicholson

“He is, in short, a poet, and a good one.”

—Hiram Poetry Review

At one end of the North Arm of the Fraser River lies an uninhabited island. It is lush and unspoken, but storied.

From the Poplars is the poetic outcome of archival research and of listening to these stories – both old and new.

Present in efforts of decolonization, reconciliation, and land protection, this text tempers a silence that inevitably will be heard.

ISBN 978-0-88922-479-7 © 2003; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize Winner, 2015 (BC Book Prizes 2015) ISBN 978-0-88922-856-6 © 2015; 104 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

76 Talonbooks Poetry Backlist

Genrecide

Ground Water

Adeena Karasick

Colin Browne

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

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.

“Beautiful linguistic carnage.”

—Word

BC Book Prize Finalist, 2003

“Bridging the genre gap.”

—The Link

“Visually striking.”

—Jewish Post and News

ISBN 978-0-88922-370-7 © 1996; 96 pp; Illustrations; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Get Me Out of Here

Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 2002 “You are different after you have read this book.”

—Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-465-0 © 2002; 208 pp; Illustrations; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Gypsy Guitar

Sachiko Murakami

David W. McFadden

Why is it so difficult to stay present in the moment?

Murakami’s poems, written in response to her open call on the Internet, search airport departures and arrivals for a handhold on the fleeting present. Working within and wriggling out of the constraint of 14 lines, the poems explore how to stay when the mind is begging to leave.

100 poems of love and betrayal – all presented in the unmistakable McFadden style.

“Murakami’s mastery at the turn of phrase transcends the tangential, creating a collective expanse of poem branches that stem out from shared inspiration.”

—Rusty Toque

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 © 1987; 112 pp; 3rd printing; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-925-9 © 2015; 80 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

gifts rob mclennan Unifying this book is the persona of the lover: as an intimate; as an interruption of the determinative self; as an unattainable weightlessness; and as the gravitational pull of the landscape itself. “rob mclennan is one of the best contemporary poets in Canada.”

—Barry McKinnon ISBN 978-0-88922-605-0 © 2009; 160 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Glengarry

harvest a book of signifiers rob mclennan 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 © 2001; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

The Hatch

rob mclennan

Colin Browne

Glengarry is a memory book composed of three parts, in which each new poem appears as “an illusion against destructive slide,” because “what else is human hope but momentarily borne.”

The Hatch extends Browne’s formal engagement with the margins of the new documentary. Myth, history, and the present are contemporaneous in these poems; nothing is ever one thing, and nothing is itself for very long. In The Hatch there is a rhythmic and political urgency in which the exchange of forms is lightning quick.

“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 ISBN 978-0-88922-662-3 © 2011; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

“The diversity and dexterity are dazzling, the images stick, the phrasing causes slaps or shivers. … If you haven’t read Colin Browne, I urge you to.”

—The Bull Calf ISBN 978-0-88922-938-9 © 2015; 160 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Going Home

Hotel Montreal

Ken Norris

New and Selected Poems Ken Norris

The whole manufactured unreality of our world falls away in these poems, leading us both toward and away from being “at home” in the present. “[Norris] is profoundly original, open, and vulnerable, with a unique personal note that speaks to the heart of the reader.”

—Poetry Canada

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.

ISBN 978-0-88922-573-2 © 2007; 192 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

“Unlock[s] a chrysalis of perplexity, awe, joy, and revelation.”

—Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-456-8 © 2001; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Talonbooks Poetry Backlist 77

The House That Hijack Built

In the Dog House

Adeena Karasick

Wanda John-Kehewin

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.

Poet Wanda John-Kehewin combines elements of First Nations oral tradition with a style of dramatic narrative that originates from the earliest forms of storytelling yet keeps pace with the rhythms and undulations of contemporary Canadian poetry. Her poems ask us to acknowledge the deplorable conditions on First Nations reserves and to explore ameliorative processes of restorative justice.

“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 © 2004; 128 pp; Colour illustrations $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Human Tissue

“Her work is brave, brilliant, and relentless. Her voice deserves to be heard.”

—Garry Gottfriedson ISBN 978-0-88922-749-1 © 2013; 80 pp; 2nd printing; 16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

th influenza uv logik

Weyman Chan

bill bissett

These poems try to get along with each other – but can’t.

Alienation arises from all the failed language-registers of our technocratic society, which continue to defy our powers of decryption. What’s a monster to do? A recurring motif throughout the book is the overarching empty universal space surrounding life’s not-knowing. If we think too hard on it – why the statistical fluke that puts us here on this ball of dirt – we’ll have a stroke. Instead, read these poems.

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 © 1995; 144 pp; Illustrations; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-981-5 © 2016; 144 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

hypoderm notes to myself Weyman Chan 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.

Injun Jordan Abel Composed of text found in western novels published between 1840 and 1950 – the heyday of pulp publishing and a period of unfettered colonialism in North America – Injun then uses erasure, pastiche, and a focused poetics to create a visually striking response to the western genre.

“hypoderm … maps the borders and the fence; the lines between friends and family, between forgive and forget.”

—derek beaulieu

Griffin Poetry Prize Shortlist, 2017

ISBN 978-0-88922-637-1 © 2010; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-977-8 © 2016; 96 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

I. Another. The Space Between

inkorrect thots

Selected Poems Jamie Reid “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 © 2004; 192 pp; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Impeccable Regret

“Injun isn’t just good; it is singular and essential.”

—vallum

bill bissett 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 © 1992; 136 pp; Illustrations; 2nd printing $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Internodes

Judith Fitzgerald

Ken Belford

Introduction by Thomas Dilworth

The poetic language in Internodes traverses decades at the speed of a search query. In this 21st-century evolution of Marshall McLuhan’s coinage that “the medium is the message,” Belford’s text takes into account the nature of viral marketing and the impact of similar forms of social “trending” on our lives and our language, challenging linearity and order.

Impeccable Regret travels terrain demonstrating that, as a result of the so-called postmodern impulses driving poetic discourse, culture has replaced nature as humanity’s defining context; that, within the paradigm of the twenty-worst century, the recollection of natural environments seems anachronistic or oxymoronic.

“A fitting tribute to all those it recalls, & to the poet whose final offering it has become.” —Eclectic Ruckus ISBN 978-0-88922-949-5 © 2015; 80 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

“In Ken Belford’s poems, ‘The sentence is not limited to what happens.’ Internodes is a meditation linking language to the world.”

—Tsering Wangmo ISBN 978-0-88922-792-7; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-793-4 © 2013; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

78 Talonbooks Poetry Backlist

Limbinal

The Invisibility Exhibit Sachiko Murakami

Oana Avasilichioaei

Murakami’s first book of poetry was written in the political and emotional wake of Vancouver’s “Missing Women.”

It investigates the troubled relationship between a marginalized neighbourhood’s “invisible” populations and the city that surrounds them.

Here, linguistic limbs fold and migrate, a distant border politicks and trips over the horizon, a river overflows, floods, palimpsests another river, Arendt’s responsibility touches Deleuze’s fold, the body, changeable, restless, searches for resonances. And new translations of Paul Celan’s Romanian poems become a generative field of language that sprout other limbs and broach other thresholds.

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 © 2008; 84 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

“It takes courage to juxtapose one’s own writing with such giants [as Paul Celan and Nelly Sachs]. She carries it off honourably.”

—Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-924-2 © 2015; 136 pp; Colour photos; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Limbo Road

is a door Fred Wah

Ken Norris

Grounded in his encounter with the smashed and broken doors along the hurricane-devastated waterfront of Telchac Puerto on the Yucatàn Peninsula, Fred Wah’s prize-winning poetry watches both sides of the doorway – for the sudden question, the sudden turn, the sudden opening.

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

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

—Globe and Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-620-3 © 2009; 120 pp; 2nd printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

“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 © 1998; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Liquidities

Kerrisdale Elegies George Bowering Bowering responds to Rilke’s Duino Elegies. In the intertextuality of these two great works can be found post-modern writing that is self-aware, where the other is discovered in the process of the writer writing.

“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 and Mail

Vancouver Poems Then and Now Daphne Marlatt Liquidities gathers many of the poems from Marlatt’s Vancouver Poems, in some cases substantially revised, and follows them with “Liquidities,” a series of recent poems about Vancouver’s incessant transformations both on the ground and in urban imagining.

ISBN 978-0-88922-761-3 © 2013; 96 pp; Photos; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-590-9 © 2008; 128 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Love and Savagery

th last photo uv th human soul bill bissett

Des Walsh

bill bissett has remained on a permanent world tour for more than 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.

This finely crafted book of poems, adapted as 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.

“bissett … writes with savage wit and gravitates toward the lyric moment of spellbound wonder.”

—Books in Canada

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

—Newfoundland Herald

ISBN 978-0-88922-322-6 © 1993; 144 pp; Illustrations; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-599-2 © 1989, 2009; 56 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Last Scattering Surfaces

loving without being vulnrabul

Gil McElroy

bill bissett

These poems map out zones of interaction which took place in the “surface of last scattering” – the first formation of matter in the universe.

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

ReLit Award Longlist, 2008

“Anybody who’s never heard [bissett] really ought to, because you’ll never think of poetry the same way after you hear him.”

—Citylife

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

ISBN 978-0-88922-575-6 © 2007; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

—Arc

ISBN 978-0-88922-372-1 © 1997; 144 pp; Illustrations; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Talonbooks Poetry Backlist 79

Mêmewars

The New Long Poem Anthology

Adeena Karasick

Second Edition Edited by Sharon Thesen

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 © 1994; 120 pp; Illustrations; 2nd printing $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

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 © 1991, 2001; 496 pp; $39.95 CAN / $29.95 US

The Monument Cycles

News & Smoke

Mariner Janes

Selected Poems Sharon Thesen

Mariner Janes’s first book of poetry investigates our relation to monuments and works of public art: Why do we make these representations of people, history, and place? Written through the lens of history, geography, and a fear of memory, The Monument Cycles roams from meditations on DNA and remembrance, to transportation, nuclear weapons, and community, veering into societal invective.

“A poetry both simple and smart, direct and oblique, urgent and carefully pausing...”

—Stephen Collis ISBN 978-0-88910-751-4 © 2013; 88 pp; Photos; 16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Moustache Memories of Greg Curnoe George Bowering Bowering and Greg Curnoe became friends when their art was in its youth, and for 26 years they grew up parallel, inside each other’s work.

“Documents a friendship through the kinship of the creative spirit.”

—Kitchener-Waterloo Record ISBN 978-0-88910-457-0 © 1993; 128 pp; Photos; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

“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 & Smoke.”

—Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-417-9 © 1999; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

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

Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 2008 Alberta Literary Awards Shortlist, 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.’ ”

—Sharron Proulx-Turner ISBN 978-0-88922-626-5 © 2008, 2009; 104 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

My Darling Nellie Grey

NonZero Definitions

George Bowering

Gil McElroy

Stalled on a novel he was writing, Bowering thought he needed a challenge, so he made a New Year’s resolution: write a poem for every day of 2006, adhering to a different set of poetic conventions for each month. The result of this uncompromising personal and formal discipline is one of the most fascinating books of poetry ever written.

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.

BC Book Prize Finalist, 2011

“In NonZero Definitions, McElroy really hits his stride.”

—Toronto Review of Books

ISBN 978-0-88922-634-0 © 2010; 416 pp; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-499-5 © 2004; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane

northern wild roses / deth interrupts th dansing

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

“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 © 2004; 144 pp; Illustrations; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

bill bissett His rejection of the limiting conventions of written language has allowed bissett to foreground the appearance of any linguistic event as a living performance. “[bissett’s] poetry addresses the limitless discussion of the boundaries between the personal and the political.”

—National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-532-9 © 2005; 160 pp; Illustrations; $17.95 CAN / $15.95 US

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On the Material Stephen Collis Structured in three parts, On the Material is a meditation on geography, socio-economics, the body, and grief.

BC Book Prize Winner, 2011 “On the Material is a fine, smart book, indeed … a profound testing of the ability of an innovative poetry (and innovative poet) to address the most urgent and emotional of subjects.”

—Hank Lazer ISBN 978-0-88922-632-6 © 2010; 128 pp; 2nd printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

[OR] Brian Henderson [OR] might be a collection of cipher poems. Or not. Codes are hidden everywhere, sliding through the atmosphere, slipping into microwave towers, handheld devices, your Twitter account. Each poem gets read a few times, its code deciphered or ciphered back up. Each reader reads his or her own poem and encodes it for another. “[OR] is an extraordinary book, brilliant from the first particle trace to the last. A luminous meditative transcendence links it all together, playing deep chords in both mind and flesh.”

—Don Domanski ISBN 978-0-88922-908-2 © 2014; 144 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Ordinary Time

Peacock Blue The Collected Poems Phyllis Webb Edited by John F. Hulcoop Peacock Blue compiles in a single volume all of Webb’s published, unpublished, and uncollected works from a writing career that spanned fifty years.

“Surely, Peacock Blue is the literary event of the year.”

—Malahat Review ISBN 978-0-88922-912-9 (Cloth); $45.00 CAN / $45.00 US ISBN 978-0-88922-914-3 (Trade paper) © 2015; 512 pp; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Peace in Duress Janet Rogers Mohawk spoken-word artist Janet Marie Rogers’s newest collection pulses with the rhythms of the drum and the beat of the heart. Poems drawing on the language of the earth and inflected with the outspoken vocality of activism address the crises of modern “land wars” – environmental destruction, territorial disputes, and resource depletion.

This unique poetry wants to be spoken (aloud). “through her poetry and performances, people will begin to understand that ‘Peace’ with Indigenous Peoples of these lands was indeed wrought under duress. ” —Muskrat Magazine ISBN 978-0-88922-911-2 © 2014; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Pell Mell

Gil McElroy

Robin Blaser

These poems set out to give shape to time. The collection opens with childhood memories of impending Cold War Armageddon. The second section, counted on the Julian calendar, discovers that our movement through space gives time dimensionality. The last section works with the Anglican lectionary to make manifest the arc of a complete yearlong cycle of both “sacred” and “ordinary” time.

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).

ISBN 978-0-88922-675-3 © 2011; 128 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-601-2 © 1988, 2009; 120 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Pacific Windows

peter among th towring boxes / text bites

Collected Poems of Roy K. Kiyooka Roy K. Kiyooka Edited by Roy Miki The most important poetic works of Kiyooka.

Association for Asian American Studies Outstanding Book Award Winner, 1998 “All of Kiyooka’s writing … was made up of exquisite moments.”

—Ottawa XPress ISBN 978-0-88922-378-3 © 1997; 320 pp; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

page as bone – ink as blood

“Robin Blaser became a source for poetry’s authority beyond any simplifying place or time.”

—Robert Creeley

bill bissett bissett’s deliciously comic interrogation of the socio-political events towering around us like so many boxes we need constantly to imagine our way out of, is counterpoised in this collection by a recurring dream of a future locked in a global war.

BC Book Prize Winner, 2003 “[bill bissett is] the shaman of Canadian poetry.”

—Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-464-3 © 2002; 144 pp; Illustrations; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

The Place of Scraps

Jónína Kirton

Jordan Abel

Métis/Icelandic poet Jónína Kirton’s debut collection explores the unfurling of a woman of “mixed blood” who, now approaching 60 years old, looks back on pivotal events in her life. Kirton addresses the effects of childhood abuse, sexuality, marriage, ancestry, spirituality, and death.

Jordan Abel’s The Place of Scraps explores the relationship between First Nations cultures and ethnography. Marius Barbeau – an early-20th-century ethnographer who studied First Nations cultures, including Abel’s ancestral Nisga’a Nation – believed that First Nations cultures were about to disappear completely. Through poetic erasure techniques, Abel carves out new and unexpected understandings of Barbeau’s writing.

“Jónína Kirton’s memoir in verse could be an epic novel, a haunting ballad, a film noir. What it is: a visitation by ghosts and spirits, familial secrets, and retrieved historical mis-memories.”

—Betsy Warland ISBN 978-0-88922-923-5 © 2015; 80 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, 2014 (BC Book Prizes) ISBN 978-0-88922-788-0 © 2014; 272 pp; 3rd printing; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Talonbooks Poetry Backlist 81

Popular Narratives

The Rap Canterbury Tales

Frank Davey

Baba Brinkman

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.

Hip-hop artist Brinkman resurrects Chaucer’s brilliant stories into visible and audible contemporary forms.

“Risqué metaphors … scandalously unpoetic … a powerful alternative to the orthodoxy of poetic beauty.” —Smaro Kamboureli

“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 978-0-88922-285-4 © 1991; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-548-0 © 2006; 352 pp; Illustrations; 3rd printing $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Post-Prairie

Rebuild

An Anthology of New Poetry

Sachiko Murakami

Edited by Jon Paul Fiorentino & Robert Kroetsch

Sachiko Murakami approaches the urban centre through its inhabitants’ greatest passion: real estate, where the drive to own engages the practice of tearing down and rebuilding.

Twenty-five 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, technologybased globalization.

ISBN 978-0-88922-523-7 © 2005; 160 pp; $19.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Pound @ Guantánamo Poems Clint Burnham Throughout these poems is a meeting of obscene or politically charged material, as well as commentary on language usage under extreme circumstances of duress such as the Arab Spring. This is poetry written in conditions of wartime. The title implies an analogy between Ezra Pound, imprisoned at Pisa after World War II, and the inhabitants of the military or CIA prisons at Guantánamo Bay. ISBN 978-0-88922-979-2 © 2016; 112 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Prairie Harbour Garry Thomas Morse In this contrapuntal follow-up to Governor General’s Award finalist Discovery Passages, Morse traces multiple lines of his mixed ancestry. Set around the vigilantly maintained border/ lines that mark the relatively “unsung” decline of natural prairie life, this unromantic “wrecklogue” radiates outward from a new real-estate development in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 2016 “This ingenious masterpiece is Morse Code ransacking Brit Lit up to Dylan Thomas, but from the vantage point of Canuck redoubts, such as Fort Garry.”

—George Elliott Clarke ISBN 978-0-88922-940-2 © 2015; 176 pp; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

The Properties Colin Browne The poems in The Properties record encounters between desire and the repressed or suppressed interstices of social, economic, political, and unconscious forces. They’re alert to correspondences, attentive to the lines of force to which the poet’s family quietly assented in the contested place that is the northwest coast of North America.

“A major work from a poet writing at the peak of both outrage and love.” —Daphne Marlatt ISBN 978-0-88922-685-2 © 2012; 176 pp; Illustrations; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

“These are angry poems. Proud and angry. But smart and quirky, too, daring us to tear up our death pledge to real estate, and rethink our citizenship in scandalous cities.”

—Meredith Quartermain ISBN 978-0-88922-670-8 © 2011; 96 pp; 2nd printing; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh rob mclennan 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.

Archibald Lampman Award Finalist, 2000 “Just the right combination of details … carefully crafted, each line shifting the image slightly.”

—Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-424-7 © 1999; 96 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Rom Com Dina Del Bucchia & Daniel Zomparelli From the origin of the genre (It Happened One Night) to its contemporary expressions (Love Actually), the poems in Rom Com trace the attempt to deconstruct as well as engage in dialogue with romantic comedy films and the pop culture, celebrities, and tropes that have come to be associated with them.

Alcuin Awards for Book Design in Canada, Honourable Mention (2015) “Maybe more people would like poetry if it was always this smart and fun.” —Jonathan Ball, Winnipeg Free Press ISBN 978-0-88922-960-0; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-998-3 © 2015; 128 pp; Colour illustrations $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

scars on th seehors bill bissett 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 ium alredee in it.”

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

—Alma Lee ISBN 978-0-88922-387-5 © 1999; 160 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

82 Talonbooks Poetry Backlist

Scree

Selected Writing

The Collected Earlier Poems, 1962–1991 Fred Wah

As Elected bpNichol

Edited and introduced by Jeff Derksen

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

Fred Wah’s career has spanned six decades and a range of formal styles and preoccupations. Scree collects Wah’s concrete and sound poetry of the 1960s, his landscapecentric work of the 1970s, and his ethnicity-oriented poems of the 1980s – most of which is out of print.

“This is surely the best poetry book of the year!”

—Phil Hall, BookThug

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

—Frank Davey ISBN 978-0-88922-176-5 © 1980; 144 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-947-1 (Cloth); $49.95 CAN / $49.95 US ISBN 978-0-88922-948-8 (Trade Paper) © 2015; 648 pp; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Selected Poems The Arches Frank Davey

Selected Writing Net Work Daphne Marlatt

Selections from seven of this important poet and editor’s long poems.

Poetry and prose with an instantaneous recognition of perceptions and thought.

“Possesses a concentrated power that is rarely evident.”

—Montreal Gazette

“Confronts political realities on the level in which they impinge upon people’s lives.”

—Montreal Gazette

ISBN 978-0-88922-174-1 © 1980; 112 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-175-8 © 1980; 144 pp; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Selected Poems

Sentenced to Light

Beyond Even Faithful Legends bill bissett This volume represents the most definitive and comprehensive selection of bissett’s writing from the 1960s and 1970s, in voices “erotik, politikul, humorous, lyrikul, sound-vizual, narrative, meditative, konkreet, collage, nd song-chants.“ “Represents a literary revolution.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-172-7 © 1980; 160 pp; Illustrations; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Selected Poems Loki Is Buried at Smoky Creek Fred Wah 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 © 1980; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Selected Poems The Vision Tree Phyllis Webb

Fred Wah 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.

“One has the sense of Wah’s effort to catch inspiration in its everydayness and at its most raw and vital.”

—Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-577-0 © 2008; 160 pp; Colour photos & illustrations $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

The Shovel Colin Browne 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.

ReLit Award Shortlist, 2008 “The epic sweep of pieces is impressive, at times rapturous. They are worth digging for.” —Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-574-9 © 2007; 192 pp; Photos; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Singed Wings Lola Lemire Tostevin

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

—Books in Canada

Lola Lemire Tostevin’s Singed Wings peers into the interior world of Camille Claudel, whose intimate understanding of her subjects, from young girl to old woman, captured quite a different power. Tostevin allocates a place in which a writer facing her own aging process can take the experience to the limits by giving it new shapes in language.

ISBN 978-0-88922-202-1 © 1982; 160 pp; 4th printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

“Lola Lemire Tostevin is an incisive, intelligent, and sharply observant writer.”

—Quarry

Poetry distinguished by its attention to form and thought.

Governor General’s Poetry Award Winner, 1982

“Love, nape-tingling work.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-790-3 © 2013; 120 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Talonbooks Poetry Backlist 83

The Singer’s Broken Throat Des Walsh Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland & Labrador Heri-tage and History Award Finalist, 2005 “Alternatively tender and bitter, this collection is at once a prayer for love’s endurance and a lament for a nation.”

—Fiddlehead “Walsh is, and always has been, Newfoundland’s poet.”

—Sunday Independent ISBN 978-0-88922-478-0 © 2003; 64 pp; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Specks Second Edition Michael McClure Specks assumes the form of a blastula, offering a poetic model of embryonic development that arises from the cellular division known as “cleavage.”

Theogony / Works and Days Hesiod Translated by C.S. Morrissey Philosopher C.S. Morrissey adapts Hesiod’s two great works, Theogony and Works and Days, taking into account the poet’s essential meditative insights that paved the way for the subsequent achievements of Greek philosophy, most notably of Plato, and thereby gave shape to all of Western philosophy.

“Morrissey has brought fire and light to Hesiod’s work, and offered it to us with clarity and good humour, in the darkening air of our time.”

—vallum ISBN 978-0-88922-700-2; E-ISBN 978-0-88922-724-8 © 2013; 144 pp; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

There’ll Be Another David W. McFadden Three books in one: Heavy-Hearted in Havana, Sex with a Sixteen Year Old, and Anonymity Suite Part II. “They are beautifully written and enjoyable to read.”

—Quill & Quire

“McClure’s poetry is a blob of protoplasmic energy.”

—Allen Ginsberg

“McFadden should be everybody’s favorite poet.”

—Ottawa XPress

ISBN 978-0-88922-688-3 © 1985, 2012; 96 pp; Illustrations; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

ISBN 978-0-88922-361-5 © 1995; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Sticks & Stones

This Poem

George Bowering

Adeena Karasick

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

This Poem is an ironic investigation of contemporary culture and the technomedia-saturated world in which we are enmeshed. Composed in the style of Facebook updates and extended tweets, each section infuses itself with continuous shifting tones, styles, and commentary, which are in turn provocative, emotive, and deeply satiric.

“His feeling for form, for poetry as something made, is what gives his early pieces their ability to endure.”

—Vancouver Province ISBN 978-0-88922-268-7 © 1989; 64 pp; Illustrations; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

sublingual

ISBN 978-0-88922-699-9 © 2013; 112 pp; Colour illustrations; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

This Tremor Love Is

bill bissett

Daphne Marlatt

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 sub-lingual 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.

This Tremor Love Is is a memory book – an album of love poems spanning 25 years, from Marlatt’s first writing of what was to become the opening section, “A Lost Book”, to its latest, most recent sequences.

ISBN 978-0-88922-589-3 © 2008; 160 pp; Illustrations; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

th book bill bissett In this new collection of concrete poems, bissett writes “poemes uv greef transisyun n sumtimes joy byond binaree constraints if evreething goez what is aneething accepting nihilism lettr texting as an approach 2 heeling sorrow denial.”

“He paints with words and music, orchestrating the apparent randomness of creation with an ironic intelligence that leaps just as high off the page as it does on stage.”

—Pacific Rim Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-980-8 © 2016; 176 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

BC Book Prize Finalist, 2002 ReLit Award Longlist, 2002 ISBN 978-0-88922-450-6 © 2001; 112 pp; 2nd printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Thrum Natalie Simpson In these smart and often funny poems, Canada’s breakthrough poet Natalie Simpson expertly tugs and pulls at syntax, re-stitching a language that reveals the fallacy of description, while inviting startling insight.

“A collection to keep close by, to remind that wonders are still being worked in the world.”

—asssSachiko Murakami ISBN 978-0-88922-850-4 © 2014; 128 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

84 Talonbooks Poetry Backlists

Un/inhabited

ths is erth thees ar peopul bill bissett

Jordan Abel

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.

Un/inhabited questions the use of politically or racially charged language in 91 pulp western novels found on Project Gutenberg. Using a range of techniques, Abel investigates the complex relationship between language and land, including the ways that use and ownership affect both. This book presents Abel’s practice for the first time in a visual art context.

ReLit Award Longlist, 2008 “His poetry addresses the limitless discussion of the boundaries between the personal and the political.”

—National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-557-2 © 2007; 144 pp; Illustrations; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

One of 15 best CanLit covers of 2015 (CBC Books) One of the best 75 books of 2015 (CBC Books) ISBN 978-0-88922-922-8 © 2015; 240 pp; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Vermeer’s Light

time bill bissett In time, bissett explores the Heraclitean flux of life and fleeting nature of the universe and, specifically, love in the non-particular universal sense. time is a question and-answer period, asking how much time we have for our fellow humans and how much time we have for our planet, and how much time we have for our shared love.

The answer is, quite simply, so long as there is language, so long as there are words dancing in space, so long as there is time.

ISBN 978-0-88922-653-1 © 2010; 160 pp; Illustrations; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Poems 1996–2006 George Bowering “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 © 2006, 2007; 224 pp; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The Vestiges

To the Barricades Stephen Collis

Jeff Derksen

In To the Barricades we move back and forth between historical and contemporary scenes of revolt, shifting along the active seam between poetry and revolution. At once elegy for past revolutionary figures and a call for renewed struggle, this collection of “social lyrics” seeks to drive apathy from the field and to recover forgotten “radical ideas” in the midst of our current “amnesiac condition.”

The Vestiges moves across geography of the present linking historical moments when quarters of cities were squatted, when social change boiled and the future was up for grabs.

Covering a wide terrain of research, The Vestiges mine various texts, from craigslist “auto parts” sections to Jane Jacobs, Marx to Marcuse, and from historical accounts of cities to real estate promotions.

“We igonore Collis’s words at our own peril.”

“A masterful collection of long research poems ... In the end, Derksen puts the reader in the vestiges of hope.”

—Canadian Literature

—Arc

ISBN 978-0-88922-747-7 © 2013; 160 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Transnational Muscle Cars

ISBN 978-0-88922-794-1 © 2013; 144 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

what’s left

Jeff Derksen

rob mclennan

A withering critique of consumption and capital.

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

“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 “Accessible in themes, comfortably paced and motored by an anti-heroic punk sensibility.”

—Publishers Weekly ISBN 978-0-88922-473-5 © 2003; 128 pp; 3rd printing; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Triage Cecily Nicholson Triage documents the resilience of people refusing disposability on the brutal margins of society, and articulates commonalities in their struggle to resist interventions of commercial enterprise in their lives.

“This is the heart of Vancouver, beating bravely in the tent village, attesting to daily poverty, daily ingenuity.”

—Rita Wong ISBN 978-0-88922-657-9 © 2011; 96 pp; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

“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 © 2004; 144 pp; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Talonbooks Index by Title 85

Booklist Index by Title

A ABC of Reading TRG ������������������� 28 Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre ������������������������������ 48 Adrift ������������������������������������������ 48 Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil, The ���������������������� 48 After Class ��������������������������������� 10 After Completion ������������������������ 28 After Jack ���������������������������������� 72 Against the Wind ����������������������� 38 Albertine in Five Times (translated

by Gaboriau) ���������������������������� 48 Albertine in Five Times (translated

by Van Burek & Glassco) ���������� 48 Ali & Ali: The Deportation Hearings ��������������������������������������������� 48 All Fall Down ����������������������������� 48 All Is Flesh ���������������������������������� 72 All That Glitters ��������������������������� 38 All the Verdis of Venice �������������� 48 alterNatives �������������������������������� 48 American Notebooks ����������������� 28 Amigo’s Blue Guitar ������������������� 48 Amuse Bouche ��������������������������� 72 Anatolia Junction ����������������������� 28 An Honest Woman �������������������� 19 And Other Stories ����������������������� 38 And Slowly Beauty ��������������������� 49 And So It Goes ��������������������������� 49 Angel of Solitude, The ��������������� 38 Anima ������������������������������������������ 1 Annihilated Time ����������������������� 28 Another Country / bloom ����������� 49 Another Home Invasion ������������� 49 Art of Building a Bunker, The ������� 9 As Always ���������������������������������� 28 Asian Skies ��������������������������������� 72 Assembling the Morrow ������������� 72 Assorted Candies for the Theatre ������������������������������������������������ 49 Athabasca Ryga, The ����������������� 38 Aurora ��������������������������������������� 72

B b leev abul char ak trs ���������������� 72 Baby Blues, The �������������������������� 49 Back to the War ������������������������� 72 Balconville ���������������������������������� 49 Baldwins, The ���������������������������� 39 Bambi and Me ��������������������������� 28 Banana Boots ����������������������������� 49 Bardy Google ����������������������������� 72 Baseball Love ����������������������������� 28 BASH’d �������������������������������������� 49 Battle of Batoche, The ���������������� 28 Beating the Bushes �������������������� 49 Belles Soeurs, Les ����������������������� 50 Benevolence ������������������������������ 50 Berlin Blues, The ������������������������ 50 Bethune ������������������������������������� 50 Beyond Recall ���������������������������� 28 Bicycle Eater, The ����������������������� 39 Billy Bishop Goes to War, 2nd ed. ���������������������������������������������� 50 Birth of a Bookworm ������������������ 29 Birth of a Bridge ������������������������� 39 Black Notebook, The ������������������ 39 Blonds on Bikes �������������������������� 72 Blue Box ������������������������������������ 50 Blue Notebook, The ������������������� 39 Boiler Room Suite ���������������������� 50

Bolsheviki ����������������������������������� Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies ��������������������� Bonjour, Là, Bonjour ������������������ Book of Esther, The �������������������� Bordertown Café ����������������������� Box Closet, The �������������������������� Boy in the Treehouse, The / Girl Who Loved Her Horses ������ bpNichol Comics ������������������������ bpNichol: What History Teaches �� Bread and Salt ��������������������������� Breakdown So Far, The ��������������� Burning Vision ��������������������������� Buz’Gem Blues, The �������������������

50 29 50 50 51 29 51 73 29 73 39 51 51

C Cambodia ���������������������������������� 39 Can You See Me Yet? ���������������� 51 Canada, A New Tax Haven ��������� 29 Canadian Drama and the Critics �� 29 Canadiens, Les ��������������������������� 51 Capital Tales ������������������������������� 39 Cariboo Magi ����������������������������� 51 Carmela’s Table �������������������������� 51 Carpenter, The ��������������������������� 51 Cartouches �������������������������������� 73 Centre, The �������������������������������� 73 Cerulean Blue ���������������������������� 51 Chameleon & Other Stories �������� 39 Change Room ���������������������������� 73 Charles Olson at the Harbor ������� 29 Chilliwacks and Their Neighbors, The �������������������������������������������� 29 Chimera ������������������������������������� 52 Chinese Blue ������������������������������ 73 Christina, The Girl King �������������� 52 Circumstances Alter Photographs ������������������������������������������������ 29 Circus Performers’ Bar, The �������� 39 Citizen Suárez ���������������������������� 40 Coast Salish Essays ��������������������� 29 Cold Comfort ���������������������������� 52 Cold Comfort: Growing Up Cold War ��������������������������������� 30 Collected Books of Artie Gold, The ����������������������������������������������� 73 Colours in the Dark �������������������� 52 Commons, The, 2nd ed. ������������� 73 Concise Köchel, The ������������������� 52 Consecrated Ground 2nd ed ������ 52 Conversations in Tehran ������������� 30 Coping with Emotions and Otters ����������������������������������������������� 73 Copper Thunderbird ������������������ 52 Corked �������������������������������������� 73 Corker ��������������������������������������� 52 Coronation Voyage, The ������������ 52 Cosmophlia ������������������������������� 74 Covenant of Salt, A �������������������� 40 Crabdance ��������������������������������� 52 Crees in the Caribbean �������������� 22 Crimes and Mercies ������������������� 30 Crossing of Hearts, A ������������������ 16 Crossing the City ����������������������� 40 Crossing the Continent �������������� 40 Cruel Tears ��������������������������������� 53 Cul-de-sac ��������������������������������� 53 Cultural Mischief ������������������������� 74 Cyrano de Bergerac ������������������� 53

D

Daisy ������������������������������������������ Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra �� Dancock’s Dance ������������������������ Darwin Alone in the Universe ����� Davie Street Translations ������������ Days, The ����������������������������������� Dead Metaphor ������������������������� Dead White Writer on the Floor �� Death in Vancouver �������������������� Death of René Lévesque, The ����� Death of the Spider �������������������� Decline of the Hollywood Empire, The �������������������������������������������� Decompositions ������������������������� Democracy ��������������������������������� Desert of the Heart �������������������� Diplomacy ���������������������������������� Discovery Passages ��������������������� Dishwashers, The . ��������������������� Dispatches from the Occupation ��������������������������������������������� Divinity Bash / nine lives ������������� Divine, The; A Play for Sarah Bernhardt �������������������������������� Doctor Thomas Neill Cream ������� Dog Attempts to Drown Man in Saskatoon �������������������������������� Dominican Moon ����������������������� Down Dangerous Passes Road ��� Down the Road to Eternity ��������� Down Time �������������������������������� DOWNVERSE ����������������������������� dream / arteries �������������������������� Dream Pool Essays ��������������������� Driving Force, The ���������������������� Duchess and the Commoner, The ������������������������������������������������� Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays, La ����������������������������������� Dunsmuirs, The: Alone at the Edge ���������������������������������������� Dunsmuirs, The: A Promise Kept ���������������������������������������� Dürer’s Angel ����������������������������� Dwell ����������������������������������������� Dyssemia Sleaze �������������������������

11 53 53 40 74 26 53 53 40 53 40 30 74 53 40 53 74 54 30 54 54 54 40 74 54 40 74 74 74 74 54 41 54 54 54 41 75 75

E Earshot �������������������������������������� 54 East End Plays, The: Part I ����������� 55 East End Plays, The: Part II ���������� 55 Ecstasy of Rita Joe, The �������������� 55 Edward Curtis Project, The ���� 30, 55 Empire of Desire ������������������������ 30 Empire of the Son ���������������������� 23 Empress Has No Closure, The ����� 75 En Pièces Détachées ������������������� 55 Ends of the Earth, The ���������������� 55 English Canadian Poetics, An ����� 30 Entering Time ���������������������������� 27 Envelope, The ���������������������������� 27 Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout ���������������������������������������� 55 Error in Judgement, An �������������� 30 Esker Mike & His Wife, Agiluk ���� 55 Espresso ������������������������������������� 55 Essays on George F. Walker �������� 30 EX MACHINA ����������������������������� 31 Execution, The ��������������������������� 55

F Fairies Are Thirsty, The ���������������� 56 Fairy Ring ����������������������������������� 41 False Starts ��������������������������������� 27

Faraway Nearby, The ����������������� 56 Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant, The ������������������������������������������� 41 Fearless Warriors ����������������������� 41 Few Words Will Do, A ��������������� 75 Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass ���� 56 15 Seconds ������������������������������� 56 Fifty ������������������������������������������ 75 Fighting Days, The �������������������� 56 First Quarter of the Moon, The ��� 41 Five Books of Moses Lapinsky, The ����������������������������������������� 41 Five Star Planet ������������������������� 75 Flatwillow Creek ����������������������� 3 Floating Up to Zero ������������������� 75 For Home and Country ������������� 56 for love and autonomy �������������� 26 For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again ������������������������������������� 56 Forever Yours, Marie-Lou ���������� 56 Forward ������������������������������������ 12 Fortified Castles ������������������������ 75 400 Kilometres ������������������������� 56 fractal economies ���������������������� 75 Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read

by Geologists �������������������������� 56 From Oral to Written ������������������ 14 From the Poplars ����������������������� 75 Fronteras Americanas ���������������� 57 Fronteras Americanas, 2nd ed. ��� 57 full-metal indigiqueer ���������������� 4

G Gabriel Dumont Speaks ������������ 31 Genrecide ��������������������������������� 76 George Bowering ���������������������� 31 George Ryga: The Other Plays ��� 57 George Ryga: The Prairie Novels � 41 Get Me Out of Here ������������������ 76 Get on Top �������������������������������� 41 Gideon’s Blues �������������������������� 57 gifts ������������������������������������������ 76 Girl in the Goldfish Bowl ����������� 57 Glace Bay Miners’ Museum, The ��������������������������������������������� 57 Glengarry ���������������������������������� 76 Go Figure ���������������������������������� 41 God and the Indian ������������������� 57 Going Home ����������������������������� 76 Goodnight Disgrace ������������������ 57 Gordon ������������������������������������� 57 Gorge, The ������������������������������� 18 Great Lakes Suite ���������������������� 31 Great Wave of Civilization, The ��������������������������������������������� 57 griddle talk ������������������������������� 31 Ground Water ��������������������������� 76 Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend, A ������������������������������� 31 Gull, The ����������������������������������� 58 Gypsy Guitar ����������������������������� 76

H Halo ������������������������������������������ Happiest Man in the World and Other Stories, The ������������������� Harry’s Fragments ��������������������� harvest �������������������������������������� Hatch, The �������������������������������� Heart Laid Bare, The ������������������ Heaven ������������������������������������� Hell & Other Novels ������������������� Hellfire Pass ������������������������������ Heretic, The ������������������������������

58 42 42 76 76 42 58 42 58 58

86 Talonbooks Index by Title

Homechild ��������������������������������� 58 Honest Woman, An �������������������� 19 Hope Slide, The / Little Sister ������ 58 Hosanna ������������������������������������ 58 Hotel Montreal �������������������������� 76 House That Hijack Built, The ������� 77 How to Write ����������������������������� 31 Human Tissue ���������������������������� 77 hungree throat �������������������������� 42 Hunting Ground, The ����������������� 42 hypoderm ���������������������������������� 77

I I. Another. The Space Between �� 77 I, Bartleby ���������������������������������� 42 Impeccable Regret ��������������������� 77 Imperial Canada Inc. ������������������ 31 Impromptu of Outremont, The ��� 58 Impromptu on Nuns’ Island �������� 58 In a Blue Moon �������������������������� 27 In a World Created by a Drunken God ����������������������������������������� 59 In Absentia �������������������������������� 59 In Piazza San Domenico ������������� 59 In Plain Sight ������������������������������ 31 In Search of New Babylon ���������� 15 In the Company of Strangers ����� 31 In the Dog House ����������������������� 77 In the Eyes of God ��������������������� 59 In the Eyes of Stone Dogs ���������� 59 In the Midst ������������������������������� 32 In the Shadow of the Vulture ����� 42 Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America �������������������������������� 32 influenza uv logik, th ����������������� 77 Injun ������������������������������������������� 77 inkorrect thots ��������������������������� 77 Inside the Seed �������������������������� 59 Inspecting Nostalgia ������������������� 20 Internodes ��������������������������������� 77 Intertidal ������������������������������������ 5 Invisibility Exhibit, The ���������������� 78 is a door ������������������������������������ 78

J Jabber ���������������������������������������� 59 Jacob’s Wake ����������������������������� 59 Je me souviens ��������������������������� 59 Jitters ����������������������������������������� 59 Joe Beef ������������������������������������� 60 Judith’s Sister ����������������������������� 42 Just, The ������������������������������������� 13 Justice in Our Time �������������������� 32

K Kafka’s Hat �������������������������������� Keeper’s Daughter, The �������������� Kerrisdale Elegies ����������������������� King of Thieves ��������������������������

42 43 78 60

L Lady Smith, The ������������������������� 60 Lasagna ������������������������������������� 32 last photo uv th human soul, th �� 78 Last Scattering Surfaces ������������� 78 Latakia ��������������������������������������� 43 Lawrence & Holloman ���������������� 60 Leave of Absence ����������������������� 60 Legend ��������������������������������������� 17 Legoland ������������������������������������ 60 Leisure Society, The �������������������� 60

Life Without Instruction ������������� 60 Like a Child of the Earth ������������� 43 Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack, The ��������������������������������������������� 32 Lily Briscoe ��������������������������������� 32 Limbinal ������������������������������������� 78 Limbo Road ������������������������������� 78 Line in the Sand, A ��������������������� 60 Lions Gate �������������������������������� 32 Liquidities ���������������������������������� 78 Listen to the Wind ��������������������� 60 Living by Stories ������������������������� 32 Local Boy Makes Good ��������������� 61 Lost in North America ���������������� 32 Lost Souls and Missing Persons �� 61 Love and Savagery ��������������������� 78 loving without being vulnrabul ��� 78 Ludwig & Mae ��������������������������� 61

M Madonna Painter, The ���������������� 61 Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr, The ������������������������������������������ 61 Main Brides �������������������������������� 43 Maison Suspendue, La ��������������� 61 Making Theatre ������������������������� 32 Maleficium ��������������������������������� 43 Mambo Italiano ������������������������� 61 Marcel Pursued by the Hounds ��� 61 Margaret Atwood ���������������������� 33 Marion Bridge ���������������������������� 61 Matter of Gravity, A ������������������� 43 Meanwhile ��������������������������������� 33 Medusa Head, The ��������������������� 33 Mêmewars ��������������������������������� 79 Memories of You ����������������������� 61 Mend the Living ������������������������� 43 Messenger ��������������������������������� 24 Michel and Ti-Jean ��������������������� 62 Mile End ������������������������������������ 43 Mimosa ������������������������������������� 43 Minor Episodes / Major Ruckus �� 43 Minor Expectations �������������������� 44 Miss Julie ����������������������������������� 62 Miss Take ����������������������������������� 62 Modern Canadian Plays: Vol. I, 4th ed. ��������������������������� 62 Modern Canadian Plays: Vol. II, 4th ed. �������������������������� 62 Modern Canadian Plays: Vol. I, 5th ed. ��������������������������� 62 Modern Candian Plays Vol. ||, 5th ed. �������������������������� 62 Mom’s the Word ������������������������ 62 Moss Park & Tough! ������������������� 62 Monument Cycles, The �������������� 79 Moo ������������������������������������������ 62 Moss Park & Tough! ������������������� 62 Motherhouse ����������������������������� 62 Mother of the Grass ������������������� 44 Motortherapy ���������������������������� 44 Moustache, The ������������������������� 79 Mrs. Blood ��������������������������������� 44 Muthologos ������������������������������� 33 My Career with the Leafs & Other Stories ��������������������������������������� 44 My Darling Nellie Grey ��������������� 79 My Name Is Bosnia ��������������������� 44 MY TWP Plays ���������������������������� 63

N narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane ��������������������������������� 79

Nature Power ����������������������������� 33 New Long Poem Anthology, The ���������������������������������������������� 79 NEWS ���������������������������������������� 33 News & Smoke �������������������������� 79 News from Édouard ������������������� 44 1949 ����������������������������������������� 63 Noam Chomsky Lectures, The ���� 63 Noise from the Laundry �������������� 79 NonZero Definitions ������������������� 79 northern wild roses / deth interrupts th dansing ��������������� 79 Nothing to Lose ������������������������� 63 novel ����������������������������������������� 44 Nuri Does Not Exist �������������������� 44

O Obese Christ, The ���������������������� 45 Occupation of Heather Rose, The ���������������������������������������������� 63 Odd Ducks ��������������������������������� 63 Omniscience ������������������������������ 63 On the Job ��������������������������������� 63 On the Material ������������������������� 80 One Crack Out ��������������������������� 63 Once in Blockadia ���������������������� 26 Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth ���������������������������������������� 63 [OR] ������������������������������������������� 80 Ordinary Time ���������������������������� 80 Other Losses ������������������������������ 33 Other Schools of Thought ���������� 64 Outsider Notes ��������������������������� 33

P Pacific Windows ������������������������ 80 Pagan Wall, The ������������������������� 45 page as bone – ink as blood ������� 80 Painter’s Wife, The ��������������������� 45 Paradise by the River ������������������ 64 Paradise Garden ������������������������� 64 Past Perfect �������������������������������� 64 Paul Martin & Companies ���������� 33 Peace in Duress �������������������������� 80 Peacock Blue ������������������������������ 80 Pell Mell ������������������������������������� 80 Peregrinations ���������������������������� 33 Performing National Identities ���� 34 Persian Postcards ����������������������� 34 peter among th towring boxes / text bites ���������������������������������������� 80 Phyllis Webb and the Common Good ��������������������������������������� 34 Piercing �������������������������������������� 45 Place of Scraps, The ������������������� 80 Playing Bare ������������������������������� 64 Pleasure of the Crown, The �������� 34 Poet to Publisher ������������������������ 34 Popular Narratives ���������������������� 81 Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories, The ������������������������������������������ 34 (Post) Mistress, The �������������������� 64 Post-Prairie ��������������������������������� 80 Pound @ Guantánamo ��������������� 81 Power Plays, The ������������������������ 64 Prairie Harbour ��������������������������� 81 Price Paid ����������������������������������� 34 Prison Industrial Complex Exlodes ��������������������������������������������� 7 Properties, The ��������������������������� 81

Q Queens, The ������������������������������ 64

R Rain Barrel, The �������������������������� 45 Rap Canterbury Tales, The ���������� 81 Rational Geomancy �������������������� 34 Re: Producing Women’s Dramatic History ������������������������������������� 34 Reading Sveva ���������������������������� 26 Real Mothers ����������������������������� 45 Real World?, The ����������������������� 64 Rebuild �������������������������������������� 81 Record of Writing, A ������������������ 34 Recovery of the Public World, The ������������������������������������������ ... 35 Red Notebook, The �������������������� 45 Refugee Hotel, The �������������������� 64 Remember Me ��������������������������� 65 Reveries of a Solitary Biker ��������� 6 Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh, The ������������������������������������������ 81 Riddle of the World, The ������������ 65 Rogue Cells / Carbon Harbour ���� 45 Rom Com ���������������������������������� 81 Rose ������������������������������������������ 65 Running on Fumes ��������������������� 45

S Saga of the Wet Hens ���������������� 65 Saint Frances of Hollywood �������� 65 Sainte-Carmen of the Main �������� 65 Sainte-Marie among the Hurons �� 65 St. Leonard Chronicles, The �������� 65 Salish People, The; Vol. I ������������� 35 Salish People, The; Vol. II ������������ 35 Salish People, The; Vol. III ����������� 35 Salish People, The; Vol. IV ���������� 35 Salonica Terminus ���������������������� 35 Salt-Water Moon ����������������������� 65 Same Diff ����������������������������������� 21 Satchmo’ Suite, The ������������������� 65 Saucy Jack ��������������������������������� 66 scars on th seehors �������������������� 81 Scattered in a Rising Wind ��������� 45 Schoolhouse ������������������������������ 66 School-Marm Tree, The �������������� 46 Scree ����������������������������������������� 82 Seagull, The ������������������������������� 66 Secret Journal of Alexander Mackenzie, The ����������������������� 46 Seeds ����������������������������������������� 66 Selected Poems: The Arches ������� 82 Selected Poems: Beyond Even Faithful Legends ���������������������� 82 Selected Poems: Loki Is Buried at Smoky Creek ��������������������������� 82 Selected Poems: The Vision Tree �� 82 Selected Writing: As Elected ������� 82 Selected Writing: Net Work �������� 82 Sentenced to Light ��������������������� 82 7 Stories ������������������������������������ 66 Sextet ���������������������������������������� 66 Shape of a Girl, The / Jewel �������� 66 Shattered Images ����������������������� 35 Shinny’s Girls and Other Stories �� 46 Shoplifters ��������������������������������� 66 Shovel, The �������������������������������� 82 Signs of Literature ���������������������� 35 Sila �������������������������������������������� 66 Silver Dagger ����������������������������� 66 Singed Wings ���������������������������� 82 Singer’s Broken Throat, The �������� 83

Talonbooks Index by Title 87

Sisters ���������������������������������������� Six Plays by Mavor Moore ���������� Skydive �������������������������������������� Slight Case of Fatigue, A ������������ Soldier’s Heart ���������������������������� Some Night My Prince Will Come �������������������������������������� Somewhere Else ������������������������� Song of the Say-Sayer ���������������� Songs My Mother Taught Me ����� Specks ��������������������������������������� Spectacle of Empire ������������������� Sticks & Stones �������������������������� Still Laughing ����������������������������� Strange Comfort ������������������������ Strange Truth About Us, The ������ Studies in Description ����������������� Studies in Motion . ��������������������� Subject to Change ��������������������� sublingual ���������������������������������� Suburban Motel ������������������������� Summerland ������������������������������

67 67 67 46 67

Twelve Opening Acts ����������������� Twenty Years at Play ������������������� Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand �� Two Plays ����������������������������������� 2000 �����������������������������������������

46 67 67 46 83 67 83 67 35 46 35 67 36 83 67 46

U

T Takeover in Tehran ��������������������� 36 Taking My Life ����������������������������� 36 Tale of Teeka, The ���������������������� 68 Tales of the Emperor ������������������ 46 Talking Bodies ���������������������������� 68 Taste of Empire, A ���������������������� 25 Tchipayuk ����������������������������������� 46 Tear the Curtain! ������������������������ 68 Terror of the Coast, The ������������� 36 textual vishyuns ������������������������� 36 th book �������������������������������������� 83 That Summer ����������������������������� 68 That Woman ������������������������������ 68 Theatre and AutoBiography ������� 36 Theme for Diverse Instruments ��� 47 Then We Were One ������������������� 36 Theogony / Works and Days ������� 83 There’ll Be Another �������������������� 83 Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel ������������������������ 47 They Called Me Number One ����� 36 They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever ���������������������������� 36 Thing of Beauty, A ��������������������� 47 This Is My Own �������������������������� 36 This Poem ���������������������������������� 83 This Tremor Love Is ��������������������� 83 Thrum ���������������������������������������� 83 ths is erth thees ar peopul ���������� 84 Tiln & Other Plays ���������������������� 68 time ������������������������������������������� 84 Time Being, The ������������������������� 47 Timothy Findley and the Aesthetics of Fascism �������������������������������� 37 To the Barricades ������������������������ 84 Tom at the Farm ������������������������� 68 Tombs of the Vanishing Indian ��� 68 Too Good to Be True ������������������ 37 Toronto, Mississippi �������������������� 68 Tracing the Lines ������������������������ 37 Tracing the Paths ����������������������� 37 Transmission Difficulties ������������� 37 Transnational Muscle Cars ���������� 84 Trees Are Lonely Company ��������� 47 Trespassers, The ������������������������� 68 Triage ���������������������������������������� 84 Trial of Judith K., The ����������������� 69 Trigger, The �������������������������������� 69 Truth or Death ��������������������������� 37 Turkana Boy ������������������������������� 47

37 69 37 69 69

U Girl ����������������������������������������� 26 Un/inhabited ������������������������������ 84 United States of Wind, The �������� 37 Unity (1918) ������������������������������� 69 Unnatural and Accidental Women, The ������������������������������������������ 69

V Valley, The ��������������������������������� Vancouver ���������������������������������� Vancouver Anthology ����������������� Ventriloquist, The ����������������������� Vermeer’s Light �������������������������� Vestiges, The ������������������������������ Vic, The ������������������������������������� Vigil ������������������������������������������� Visual Laboratory of Robert Lepage, The �����������������������������

69 37 38 69 84 84 69 70 38

W Waiting for the Parade ��������������� 70 Walsh ���������������������������������������� 70 Wanted ������������������������������������� 70 War Cantata / Child Object �������� 70 Warriors ������������������������������������� 70 WASPs ��������������������������������������� 70 Watershed, The ������������������������� 20 Wayside Sang ������������������������������ 8 We the Family ���������������������������� 70 Weekend Healer, The ����������������� 70 Westray ������������������������������������� 71 Whale Riding Weather ��������������� 71 What Lies Before Us ������������������� 71 what’s left ���������������������������������� 84 Where the Blood Mixes �������������� 71 Whereverville ����������������������������� 71 White Pebbles in the Dark Forests ������������������������������������� 47 Wigrum ������������������������������������� 47 Willful Acts �������������������������������� 71 Winners and Losers �������������������� 71 With Bated Breath ��������������������� 71 Women in a World at War ��������� 38 World Afloat, The ���������������������� 47 Write It on Your Heart ���������������� 38 Writing the Okanagan ��������������� 38 Written on Water ����������������������� 71

Y You Will Remember Me ������������� 27 Yours Forever, Marie-Lou ������������ 27

Z Zora, a Cruel Tale ������������������������ 2

88 Talonbooks Index by Author

Index by Author All books are published in trade paperback unless otherwise indicated ISBNs refer to print editions.

Other Losses: An Investigation into the Mass Deaths of German Prisoners at the Hands of the French and Americans after World War II ������� 33 978-0-88922-665-4; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Bailey, Anne Geddes

A Abel, Jordan Injun ������������������������������������������� 77 978-0-88922-977-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Place of Scraps ����������������������� 80 978-0-88922-788-0; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Un/inhabited ��������������������������������� 84 978-0-88922-922-8; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Aguirre, Carmen Blue Box ���������������������������������������� 50 978-0-88922-757-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Refugee Hotel ������������������������� 64 978-0-88922-650-0; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Trigger ������������������������������������ 69 978-0-88922-591-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Archambault, François 15 Seconds ������������������������������������ 56 978-0-88922-427-8; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Leisure Society ������������������������� 60 978-0-88922-531-2; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

You Will Remember Me ����������������� 27 978-1-77201-019-0; $ 17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Arnason, David The Circus Performers’ Bar ������������ 39 978-0-88922-218-2; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

The Happiest Man in the World and Other Stories ������������������������������ 42 978-0-88922-269-4; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

The Pagan Wall ����������������������������� 45 978-0-88922-312-7; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Timothy Findley and the Aesthetics of Fascism: Intertextual Collaboration and Resistance ����������������������������� 37 978-0-88922-386-8; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Barnholden, Michael Circumstances Alter Photographs: Captain James Peters’ Reports from the War of 1885 �������������������������� 29 Cloth: 978-0-88922-621-0; $35.00 CAN / $35.00 US

Turkana Boy ����������������������������������� 47 978-0-88922-690-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

beaulieu, derek fractal economies �������������������������� 75 978-0-88922-539-8; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

How to Write ���������������������������������� 31 978-0-88922-629-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Belford, Ken Decompositions ����������������������������� 74 978-0-88922-631-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Internodes ������������������������������������� 77 978-0-88922-792-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Bilodeau, Chantal Forward:The Second Play in the Artic Cycle ����������������������������������� 12 978-0-88922-183-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Sila: The first play in the Arctic Cycle ���������������������������������� 66 978-0-88922-956-3; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

b leev abul char ak trs ��������������������� 72 978-0-88922-433-9; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US 978-0-88922-745-3; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

978-0-88922-318-9; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

th influenza uv logik ���������������������� 72

Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand: Oral Traditions of the Hul’q’umi’num’ Coast Salish of Kuper Island and Vancouver Island �������������������������� 37

978-0-88922-357-8; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

inkorrect thots ������������������������������ 72 978-0-88922-303-5; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

th last photo uv th human soul ������ 78 978-0-88922-322-6; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Arnett, Chris, Richard Daly & Annie York

loving without being vulnrabul ������� 78

They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever ��������������������������������������� 36

narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane ������������������������������������� 79

978-1-77201-175-3; $19.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Avasilichioaei, Oana Limbinal ����������������������������������������� 78 978-0-88922-924-2; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

978-0-88922-372-1; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians under Allied Occupation, 1944–1950 �������������� 30 978-0-88922-567-1; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

978-0-88922-606-7; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Blais, Marie-Claire American Notebooks: A Writer’s Journey ���������������������������������������� 28 978-0-88922-358-5; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Angel of Solitude �������������������� 38 978-0-88922-337-0; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Dürer’s Angel ��������������������������������� 41 978-0-88922-111-6; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US 978-0-88922-103-1; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

978-0-88922-671-5; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

peter among th towring boxes / text bites �������������������������������������������� 80

978-0-88922-387-5; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Selected Poems: Beyond Even Faithful Legends ��������������������������������������� 82 978-0-88922-172-7; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

sublingual �������������������������������������� 83 978-0-88922-589-3; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

th book ������������������������������������������ 83 978-0-88922-980-8 $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

978-0-88922-200-7; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

A Slight Case of Fatigue ����������������� 46 978-0-88922-596-1; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Bowering, George And Other Stories �������������������������� 38 978-0-88922-451-3; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Baseball Love ��������������������������������� 28 978-0-88922-529-9; $19.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Blonds on Bikes ������������������������������ 72 978-0-88922-381-3; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Harry’s Fragments �������������������������� 42 978-0-88910-387-0; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Kerrisdale Elegies ��������������������������� 78

Pell Mell ����������������������������������������� 80

978-0-88922-590-9; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

978-0-88922-601-2; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Moustache: Memories of Greg Curnoe ������������������������������� 79

Blouin, Michael Legend ������������������������������������������ 17 978-1-77201-128-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Boas, Franz Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America: A Translation of Franz Boas’ 1985 Edition of Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas ������������������������������������ 31 978-0-88922-553-4; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

Böggild, Hans & Doug Innis The Satchmo’ Suite ������������������������ 65 978-0-88922-648-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Boldereff, Frances & Charles Olson After Completion: The Later Letters of Charles Olson and Frances Boldereff �������������������������������������� 28 978-0-88922-706-4; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Bouchard, Michel Marc Christina, The Girl King ������������������ 52 978-0-88922-898-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Coronation Voyage ����������������� 52

978-0-88910-457-0; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

My Darling Nellie Grey ������������������� 79 978-0-88922-634-0; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

The Rain Barrel ������������������������������� 45 978-0-88922-345-5; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Sticks & Stones ������������������������������ 83 978-0-88922-268-7; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Vermeer’s Light: Poems 1996–2006 ���������������������������������� 84 978-0-88922-565-7; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Writing the Okanagan ������������������� 38 978-0-88922-941-9; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Boyd, George Consecrated Ground, 2nd ed. �������� 52 978-0-88922-666-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Gideon’s Blues ������������������������������� 57 978-0-88922-496-4; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Brinkman, Baba The Rap Canterbury Tales ��������������� 81 978-0-88922-548-0; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Brodie, Leanna The Book of Esther ������������������������� 50 978-0-88922-682-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-422-3; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

For Home and Country ������������������ 56

Divine, The: A Play for Sarah Bernhardt ������������������������������������ 54

Schoolhouse ���������������������������������� 66

978-0-88922-508-4; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

978-0-88922-958-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-571-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Down Dangerous Passes Road ������ 54

The Vic ������������������������������������������ 69

978-0-88922-440-7; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Madonna Painter ������������������� 461

northern wild roses / deth interrupts th dansing ����������������������������������� 79

scars on th seehors ������������������������ 81

Bacque, James

Bourguignon, Stéphane

978-0-88922-641-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-464-3; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

B

The Fairies Are Thirsty �������������������� 56

The Tale of Teeka ��������������������������� 68

novel ��������������������������������������������� 44

978-0-88922-640-1; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Boucher, Denise

griddle talk: a yeer uv bill n carol dewing brunch ���������������������������� 31

978-0-88922-507-7; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

978-0-88922-532-9; $17.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack ������������������������������������������� 32

bissett, bill & Carol Malyon

Blaser, Robin

hungree throat ������������������������������ 42

Zora, A Cruel Tale ��������������������������� 2

978-0-88922-653-1; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Beauchemin, Jean-François

The Terror of the Coast: Land Alienation and Colonial War on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, 1849–1863 ��������������������� 36

Arseneault, Philippe

time ����������������������������������������������� 84

The Execution �������������������������������� 55

bissett, bill

Cloth: 978-0-88922-331-8; $60.00 CAN / $40.00 US

978-0-88922-557-2; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Flat Willow Creek:The Poems of Louis Riel, 1878–1883 ������������������ 3

Arnett, Chris

978-0-88922-555-8; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

ths is erth thees ar peopul �������������� 84

978-0-88922-410-0; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Tom at the Farm ����������������������������� 68 978-0-88922-759-0; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Written on Water ��������������������������� 71 978-0-88922-492-6; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

978-0-88922-459-9; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Brooks, Daniel & Guillermo Verdecchia The Noam Chomsky Lectures ��������� 63 978-0-88922-405-6; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Browne, Colin Entering Time: The Fungus Man Platters of Charles Edenshaw ������� 27 978-1-77201-039-8; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Bouchard, Randy & Dorothy Kennedy

Ground Water �������������������������������� 76

Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America: A Translation of Franz Boas’ 1895 Edition of Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas ������������������������������������� 31

The Hatch �������������������������������������� 76

978-0-88922-553-4; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

978-0-88922-465-0; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US 978-0-88922-938-9; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

The Properties ������������������������������� 81 978-0-88922-685-2; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The Shovel ������������������������������������� 82 978-0-88922-574-9; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Burnham, Clint Pount @ Guantánamo ������������������� 81 978-0-88922-979-2; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Talonbooks Index by Author 89

Burns, Mary Shinny’s Girls and Other Stories ������ 46 978-0-88922-272-4; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Bush, Steven Beating the Bushes ������������������������ 49 978-0-88922-647-0; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Byrne, Edward & Charles Watts The Recovery of the Public World ��� 35 978-0-88922-388-2; $39.95 CAN / $29.95 US

The Queens ��������������������������������� 64 978-0-88922-403-2; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Chekhov, Anton

Camus, Albert The Just ����������������������������������������� 13 978-1-77201-156-2; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Canty, Daniel The United States of Wind: A Travelogue �������������������������������� 37

978-0-88922-324-0; $16.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Christensen, Bev Too Good to Be True ���������������������� 37

Cryer, Beryl Mildred Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand: Oral Traditions of the Hul’q’umi’num’ Coast Salish of Kuper Island and Vancouver Island �������������������������� 37

Lost Souls and Missing Persons ������ 61 978-0-88922-397-4; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US 978-0-88754-476-7; $12.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Saint Frances of Hollywood ������������ 65 978-0-88922-366-0; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Trial of Judith K. ���������������������� 69 Wanted ����������������������������������������� 70 978-0-88922-503-9; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

978-0-88922-562-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Caron, Jean-François Keeper’s Daughter, The ������������������ 43 978-0-88922-920-4; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

McCaffery, Steve & bpNichol Rational Geomancy: The Kids of the Book-Machine ����������������������������� 34

Carson, Linda A. et al.

Mom’s the Word ���������������������������� 62 978-0-88922-431-5; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Caux, Patrick & Bernard Gilbert EX MACHINA: Creating for the Stage ��������������������������������������������������� 31 978-0-88922-617-3; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Chai, Camyar, Guillermo Verdecchia & Marcus Youssef The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil ��������������������������������� . 48 978-0-88922-516-9; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Ali & Ali: The Deportation Hearings ��������������������������������������������������� 48 978-0-88922-782-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Champagne, Dominic Playing Bare ����������������������������������� 64 978-0-88922-335-6; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Chan, Weyman Chinese Blue ��������������������������������� 73 978-0-88922-681-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Human Tissue: a primer for Not Knowing ���������������������������������������� 77 978-0-88922-981-5; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

hypoderm �������������������������������������� 77 978-0-88922-637-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Noise from the Laundry ������������������ 79 978-0-88922-626-5; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Chaurette, Normand All the Verdis of Venice ������������������ 48 978-0-88922-442-1; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

The Concise Köchel ������������������������ 52

WASPs ������������������������������������������ . 70 978-0-88922-398-1; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Clements, Marie

Cuckow, Nathan & Chris Craddock BASH’d ������������������������������������������ 49 978-0-88922-656-2; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Culhane, Dara An Error in Judgement: The Politics of Medical Care in an Indian/ White Community ������������������������� 30 978-0-88922-246-5; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

978-0-88922-472-8; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Pleasure of the Crown: Anthropology, Law and First Nations ����������������������������������������� 34

Copper Thunderbird ���������������������� 52

978-0-88922-315-8; $34.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Burning Vision ������������������������������� 51

978-0-88922-568-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Tombs of the Vanishing Indian ������� 68 978-0-88922-686-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Unnatural and Accidental Women �������������������������������������� 69

Culhane, Dara & Leslie A. Robertson In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver ���� 31 978-0-88922-513-8; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

978-0-88922-521-3; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Clements, Marie & Rita Leistner The Edward Curtis Project: A Modern Picture Story ������������������������� 30, 55 978-0-88922-642-5; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Cochrane, Mark Change Room �������������������������������� 73 978-0-88922-432-2; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Collier, Kim, Jonathon Young, and Kevin Kerr Tear the Curtain! ���������������������������� 68 978-0-88922-904-4; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Collis, Stephen The Commons, 2nd ed. ����������������� 73 978-0-88922-580-0; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Dispatches from the Occupation: A History of Change �������������������� 30

D D’Acres, Lilia & Donald Luxton Lions Gate ������������������������������������� 32 Cloth: 978-0-88922-416-2; $34.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Dalpé, Jean Marc

Phyllis Webb and the CommonGood: Poetry / Anarchy / Abstraction ������ 34 978-0-88922-559-6; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

To the Barricades ���������������������������� 84 978-0-88922-747-7; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Daly, Richard, Chris Arnett & Annie York They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever ���������������������������������������� 36 Cloth: 978-0-88922-331-8; $60.00 CAN / $40.00 US

Danis, Daniel In the Eyes of Stone Dogs �������������� 59 978-0-88922-519-0; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

That Woman ��������������������������������� 68 978-0-88922-399-8; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Daurio, Beverley Hell & Other Novels ������������������������ 42 978-0-88910-421-1; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Davey, Frank Back to the War ����������������������������� 72 978-0-88922-514-5; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Bardy Google �������������������������������� 72

Canadian Drama and the Critics, Revised Edition ���������������������������� 29

Cultural Mischief ���������������������������� 74

Cook, Michael

978-0-88922-518-3; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read

by Geologists ������������������������������� 56

Tiln & Other Plays �������������������������� 68

978-0-88922-097-3; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US 978-0-88922-107-9; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

978-0-88922-909-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Deneault, Alain Canada: A New Tax Haven ������������� 29 978-0-88922-836-8; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Paul Martin & Companies: Sixty Theses on the Alegal Nature of Tax Havens ������������������������������������������ 3 978-0-88922-538-1; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Deneault, Alain & William Sacher Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Choice for the World’s Mining Industries ������������������������������������� 31 978-0-88922-635-7; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Derksen, Jeff Annihilated Time: Poetry and Other Politics ����������������������������������������� 28 978-0-88922-612-8; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Down Time ������������������������������������ 74 978-0-88922-278-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Dwell ��������������������������������������������� 75 978-0-88922-328-8; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Transnational Muscle Cars �������������� 84 978-0-88922-473-5; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Vestiges, The ���������������������������������� 84 978-0-88922-794-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

All That Glitters ������������������������������ 38 978-0-88922-520-6; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

A Covenant of Salt ������������������������� 40 978-0-88922-566-4; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Fairy Ring ��������������������������������������� 41 978-0-88922-449-0; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Conolly, L.W.

978-0-88922-359-2; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Rom Com ������������������������������������� 81

Maleficium ������������������������������������� 43

978-0-88922-419-3; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

978-1-77201-015-2; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

978-0-88922-764-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Del Bucchia, Dina & Daniel Zomparelli

978-0-88922-484-1; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Song of the Say-Sayer �������������������� 67

Once in Blockadia �������������������������� 26

Coping with Emotions and Otters ������������������������������������������ 73

Scattered in a Rising Wind ������������� 45

978-0-88922-695-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US 978-0-88922-632-6; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Del Bucchia, Dina

Desjardins, Martine

On the Material ����������������������������� 80

Jacob’s Wake ��������������������������������� 59

978-0-88922-400-1; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

978-0-88922-555-8; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Moo ���������������������������������������������� 62

978-0-88922-778-1; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Omniscience ���������������������������������� 63

978-0-88922-348-6; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Life Without Instruction ����������������� 60

Wigrum ����������������������������������������� 47

978-0-88922-611-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Lasagna: The Man Behind the Mask ��������������������������������������������������� 32

Clark, Sally

978-0-88754-465-1; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Diplomacy �������������������������������������� 53

978-0-88922-656-2; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Cross, Ronald & Hélène Sévigny

978-0-88922-354-7; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

978-0-88922-942-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Carlson, Tim

BASH’d ������������������������������������������ 49

The Seagull ������������������������������������ 66

978-0-88922-347-9; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

C

Craddock, Chris & Nathan Cuckow

978-0-88922-636-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US 978-0-88922-364-6; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Margaret Atwood: A Feminist Poetics ����������������������������������������� 33 978-0-88922-217-5; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Popular Narratives �������������������������� 81 978-0-88922-285-4; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Selected Poems: The Arches ����������� 82 978-0-88922-174-1; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

978-0-88922-680-7; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Deverell, Rex Boiler Room Suite �������������������������� 50 978-0-88922-137-6; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Devine, Sean Daisy ���������������������������������������������� 11 978-0-88922-185-2; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Douglas, Stan Vancouver Anthology, 2nd ed. ������� 38 Cloth: 978-0-88922-614-2; $35.00 CAN / $35.00 US

Ducharme, Réjean Go Figure ��������������������������������������� 41 978-0-88922-482-7; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Miss Take ��������������������������������������� 62 978-0-88922-669-2; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Dulai, Phinder dream / arteries ������������������������������ 74 978-0-88922-913-6; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Dumont, Gabriel Gabriel Dumont Speaks, 2nd ed. ��� 31 978-0-88922-625-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Durand, Monique The Painter’s Wife �������������������������� 45 978-0-88922-535-0; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

90 Talonbooks Index by Author

E Ebtekar, Massoumeh, with Fred A. Reed Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture ��������������������������������������������������� 36 978-0-88922-443-8; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Mercedes Eng Prison Industrial Complex Explodes �� 7 978-1-77201-181-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Fiorentino, Jon Paul & Robert Kroetsch Post-Prairie: An Anthology of New Poetry ������������������������������������������ 80 978-0-88922-523-7; $19.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Fischer, Hervé The Decline of the Hollywood Empire ����������������������������������������� 30 978-0-88922-545-9; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Fitzgerald, Judith

Enright, Robert

Impeccable Regret ������������������������� 77

Peregrinations: Conversations with Contemporary Artists �������������������� . 33

fitzpatrick, ryan

978-0-921368-67-0; $24.95 CAN / $18.95 US

F Farrant, M.A.C.

978-0-88922-949-5; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Fortifed Castles ������������������������������ 75

Darwin Alone in the Universe ��������� 40 978-0-88922-471-1; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

The Days: Forecasts, Warnings, Advice 978-1-77201-007-7; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Down the Road to Eternity: New & Selected Fiction ���������������������������� 54 978-0-88922-615-9; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The Strange Truth About Us: A Novel of Absence ���������������������������������� 46 978-0-88922-668-5; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The World Afloat: miniatures ��������� 47 978-0-88922-838-2; $12.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Fawcett, Brian Cambodia: A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow ��������������� 39 978-0-88922-237-3; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Capital Tales ����������������������������������� 34 978-0-88922-221-2; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

My Career with the Leafs & Other Stories ����������������������������������������� 44 978-0-88922-199-4; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

The Secret Journal of Alexander Mackenzie ����������������������������������� 46 978-0-88922-227-4; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Fennario, David Balconville �������������������������������������� 49 978-0-88922-145-1; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Bolsheviki: A Dead Serious Comedy ��������������������������������������������������� 36 978-0-88922-687-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Death of René Lévesque ���������� 53 978-0-88922-480-3; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Doctor Thomas Neill Cream (Mystery at McGill) ����������������������� 54 978-0-88922-332-5; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Joe Beef ����������������������������������������� 60 978-0-88922-291-5; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Motherhouse ��������������������������������� 62 978-0-88922-848-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Nothing to Lose ����������������������������� 63 978-0-88922-121-5; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

On the Job ������������������������������������� 63 978-0-88922-102-4; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Findley, Timothy Can You See Me Yet? �������������������� 51 978-0-88922-119-2; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

[OR] ����������������������������������������������� 80

978-0-88922-282-3; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

978-0-88922-908-2; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Garrard, Jim

Hendry, Tom

Cold Comfort �������������������������������� 52

Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass ��������� 56

978-0-88922-201-4; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Gilbert, Bernard & Patrick Caux EX MACHINA: Creating for the Stage ������������������������������������������� 31 978-0-88922-617-3; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Glaap, Albert-Reiner & SherrillGrace

978-0-88922-096-6; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Hentsch, Thierry Empire of Desire: The Abolition of Time ���������������������������������������� 30 978-0-88922-587-9; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Truth or Death: The Quest for Immortality in the Western Narrative Tradition ����������������������� 37 978-0-88922-509-1; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

Fouquet, Ludovic The Visual Laboratory of Robert Lepage ���������������������������������������� 38

Glover, Douglas

Highway, Tomson

Dog Attempts to Drown Man in Saskatoon ������������������������������������ 40

Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout ��������������������������������������������������� 55

978-0-88922-909-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-545-9; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Frangione, Lucia Cariboo Magi ��������������������������������� 51 978-0-88922-527-5; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

978-0-88922-475-9; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

978-0-88922-228-1; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Gold, Artie

978-0-88922-495-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Collected Books of Artie Gold ��������������������������������������������������� 73

In A Blue Moon ������������������������������ 27

978-0-88922-652-4; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Espresso ����������������������������������������� 55

978-1-77201-035-0; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Leave of Absence ��������������������������� 60

Grace, Sherrill

978-0-88922-753-8; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon Pollock ����������������������������������������� 32

Paradise Garden ����������������������������� 64

978-0-88922-586-2; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

978-0-88922-658-6; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Strange Comfort: Essays on the Work of Malcolm Lowry ������������������������ 35

French, David Jitters ��������������������������������������������� 59 978-0-88922-242-7; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

1949 ��������������������������������������������� 63 978-0-88922-266-3; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

One Crack Out ������������������������������� 63 978-0-88922-488-9; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Riddle of the World ����������������� 65 978-0-88922-487-2; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Salt-Water Moon ��������������������������� 65 978-0-88922-257-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Silver Dagger ��������������������������������� 66 978-0-88922-325-7; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Soldier’s Heart ��������������������������������� 67 978-0-88922-463-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

That Summer ��������������������������������� 68 978-0-88922-439-1; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Banana Boots ��������������������������������� 49 978-0-88922-396-7; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Henderson, Brian

Warriors ����������������������������������������� 70

Performing National Identities: International Perspectives on Contemporary Canadian Theatre ������������������ 34

The Breakdown So Far ������������������� 39 978-0-88922-556-5; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Garneau, Michel

978-0-88922-618-0; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Guay-Poliquin, Christian Running on Fumes ������������������������� 45 978-0-88922-975-4; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Grace, Sherrill & Albert-Reiner Glaap Performing National Identities: International Perspectives on Contemporary Canadian Theatre ������������������ 34 978-0-88922-475-9; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Grace, Sherrill & Jerry Wasserman Theatre and AutoBiography: Writing and Performing Lives in Theory and Practice ���������������������������������������� 36 978-0-88922-540-4; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Gray, John Maclachlan

G

Local Boy Makes Good ������������������� 61 978-0-88922-248-9; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Gagnon, Madeleine Against the Wind ��������������������������� 38 978-0-88922-696-8; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

As Always �������������������������������������� 28 978-0-88922-896-2; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

My Name Is Bosnia ������������������������� 44

978-0-88922-483-4; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Gale, Lorena Je me souviens ������������������������������� 59 978-0-88922-453-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Galluccio, Steve In Piazza San Domenico ����������������� 59 978-0-88922-674-6; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Mambo Italiano ����������������������������� 61 978-0-88922-494-0; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The St. Leonard Chronicles ������������� 65 978-0-88922-930-3; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Theogony / Works and Days ����������� 83 978-0-88922-700-2; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

978-0-88922-525-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

From Oral to Written: A Celebration of Indigenous Literature in Canada 1980–2010 ���������������������������������� 14 978-77201-116-6; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US Cloth; 978-1-77201-188-3; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

The (Post) Mistress ������������������������� 64 978-0-88922-780-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Rose ���������������������������������������������� 65 978-0-88922-490-2; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Hildebrandt, Walter The Battle of Batoche: British Small Warfare and the Entrenched Métis ������������������������������������������� 28 978-0-88922-693-7; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Hill-Tout, Charles The Salish People (ed. Ralph Maud) Vol. I: The Thompson and the Okanagan ����������������������������������� 35 978-0-88922-148-2; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Vol. II: The Squamish and the Lillooet ���������������������������������������� 35 978-0-88922-149-9; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Vol. III: The Mainland Halkomelem ��������������������������������������������������� 35 978-0-88922-150-5; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Vol. IV: The Sechelt and the South-Eastern Tribes of Vancouver Island ������������������������������������������� 35 978-0-88922-151-2; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Hogg, Robert

Gray, John MacLachlan, with Eric Peterson

An English Canadian Poetics Vol. I: The Confederation Poets ������������� 30

Billy Bishop Goes to War, 2nd ed. ��������������������������������������������������� 50

Hollingsworth, Margaret

978-0-88922-689-0; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

978-0-88922-542-8; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Women in a World at War: Seven Dispatches from the Front ������������ 38

Hesiod

978-0-88922-613-5; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Willful Acts ������������������������������������ 71 978-0-88922-385-1; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Homel, David

H Hadfield, D.A. Re: Producing Women’s Dramatic History: The Politics of Playing in Toronto ���������������������������������������� 34 978-0-88922-563-3; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Hardin, Herschel Esker Mike and His Wife, Agiluk ����� 55 978-0-88922-018-8; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Great Wave of Civilization ������� 57 978-0-88922-106-2; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Get on Top ������������������������������������� 41 978-0-7737-6048-6; $22.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Huber, Sandra Assembling the Morrow ����������������� 72 978-0-88922-910-5; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Hughes, Kenneth James Signs of Literature �������������������������� 35 978-0-88922-236-6; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Hunter, Lynette Outsider Notes ������������������������������� 33 978-0-88922-363-9; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Talonbooks Index by Author 91

I

Mend the Living ����������������������������� 43

Inglis, Raul Sanchez In the Eyes of God ������������������������� 59 978-0-88922-561-9; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Innis, Doug & Hans Böggild The Satchmo’ Suite ������������������������ 65 978-0-88922-648-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-973-0; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Kerr, Kevin Skydive ������������������������������������������ 67 978-0-88922-638-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Studies in Motion: The Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge ������������������� 67 978-0-88922-810-8; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Unity (1918) ����������������������������������� 69

J

978-0-88922-461-2; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Jaeger, Peter ABC of Reading TRG ���������������������� 28 978-0-88922-423-0; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Jamali Rad, Anahita for love and autonomy ������������������� 26 978-1-77201-017-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Janes, Mariner The Monument Cycles ������������������� 79 978-0-88922-751-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Jetha, Sadru Nuri Does Not Exist ������������������������ 44 978-0-88922-655-5; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

John-Kehewin, Wanda In the Dog House ��������������������������� 77 978-0-88922-749-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Johnson, Chris Essays on George F. Walker: Playing with Anxiety �������������������������������� 30 978-0-921368-82-3; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Joseph, Maia, et al.

Tracing the Lines: Reflections on Contemporary Poetics and Cultural Politics in Honour of Roy Miki ������ 37 978-0-88922-694-4; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

K Karasick, Adeena

Kerr, Kevin, Kim Collier & Jonathon Young Tear the Curtain! ���������������������������� 68 978-0-88922-904-4; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Kirton, Jónína An Honest Woman ������������������������ 19 978-1-77201-144-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

page as bone – ink as blood ����������� 80 978-0-88922-923-5; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Dyssemia Sleaze ����������������������������� 75 978-0-88922-434-6; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The Empress Has No Closure ���������� 75 978-0-88922-307-3; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Genrecide �������������������������������������� 76 978-0-88922-370-7; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Pacific Windows: Collected Poems of Roy K. Kiyooka ���������������������������� 80

Justice in Our Time: The Japanese Canadian Redress Settlement ������� 32 Cloth: 978-0-88922-292-2; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Kolewe, R. Inspecting Nostalgia ����������������������� 20 978-1-77201-132-6; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Kroetsch, Robert & Jon Paul Fiorentino Post-Prairie: An Anthology of New Poetry ������������������������������������������ 80 978-0-88922-523-7; $19.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Kröller, Eva-Marie George Bowering: Bright Circles of Colour ����������������������������������������� 31 978-0-88922-306-6; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Kurd, Rahat Cosmophilia ����������������������������������� 74 978-0-88922-946-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Mêmewars ������������������������������������� 79 978-0-88922-344-8; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

This Poem �������������������������������������� 83 978-0-88922-699-9; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Kearns, Lionel A Few Words Will Do ��������������������� 75 978-0-88922-558-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Kennedy, Dorothy & Randy Bouchard Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America: A Translation of Franz Boas’ 1895 Edition of Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas ������������������������������������� 32 978-0-88922-553-4; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

The Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack ��������������������������������������������������� 32 978-0-88922-640-1; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Kerangal, Maylis de Birth of a Bridge ����������������������������� 39 978-0-88922-889-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Lafond, Jean-Daniel & Fred A. Reed Conversations in Tehran ����������������� 30 978-0-88922-550-3; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

LaFrance, Danielle Friendly Fire ����������������������������������� 26 978-1-77201-018-3; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Lamothe, Serge The Baldwins ��������������������������������� 39 978-0-88922-544-2; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Langley, Rod Bethune ����������������������������������������� 50 978-0-88922-088-1; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Dunsmuirs: Alone at the Edge ��������������������������������������������������� 54 978-0-88922-297-7; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

The Dunsmuirs: A Promise Kept ��������������������������������������������������� 54 978-0-88922-304-2; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

978-0-88922-371-4; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Leistner, Rita & Marie Clements

Another Home Invasion ����������������� 49

The Edward Curtis Project: A Modern Picture Story �������������������������� 30, 55

Homechild ������������������������������������� 58

978-0-88922-642-5; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US Cloth: 978-0-88922-376-9; $39.95 CAN / $34.95 US

The Hope Slide / Little Sister ����������� 58

Leroux, Louis Patrick False Starts: A Subterfuge of Excellent Wit ���������������������������������������������� 27 978-1-77201-027-5; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Ludwig & Mae ������������������������������� 61 978-0-88922-623-4; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

978-0-88922-336-3; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Chimera ����������������������������������������� 52 978-0-88922-569-5; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Corker ������������������������������������������� 52 978-0-88922-394-3; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

The Fighting Days �������������������������� 56 978-0-88922-226-7; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum ��������������������������������������������������� 57 978-0-88922-369-1; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Memories of You ��������������������������� 61

978-0-88922-622-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US 978-0-88922-582-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US 978-0-88922-411-7; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

The Shape of a Girl / Jewel ������������� 66 978-0-88922-460-5; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Toronto, Mississippi ������������������������ 68 978-0-88922-583-1; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Valley �������������������������������������� 69 978-0-88922-846-7; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

2000 ��������������������������������������������� 69 978-0-88922-373-8; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

McCaffery, Steve & bpNichol Rational Geomancy: The Kids of theBook-Machine ������������������������ 34 978-0-88922-300-4; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

McClure, Michael Specks, 2nd ed. ����������������������������� 83 978-0-88922-688-3; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

McElroy, Gil Cold Comfort: Growing Up Cold War ������������������������������������� 30

978-0-88922-489-6; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

978-0-88922-684-5; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Messenger ������������������������������������� 24

Dream Pool Essays ������������������������� 74

978-1-77201-152-4; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

978-0-88922-454-4; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

The Occupation of Heather Rose ���� 63

Last Scattering Surfaces ����������������� 78

978-0-88922-593-0; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-575-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Sisters �������������������������������������������� 67

NonZero Definitions ����������������������� 79

978-0-88922-289-2; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Long, James & Marcus Youssef Winners and Losers ������������������������ 71 978-0-88922-932-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Loring, Kevin Where the Blood Mixes ������������������ 71 978-0-88922-608-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Luxton, Donald & Lilia D’Acres Lions Gate ������������������������������������� 32 Cloth: 978-0-88922-416-2; $34.95 CAN / $29.95 US

L

978-0-88922-552-7; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Amigo’s Blue Guitar ����������������������� 78

978-1-77201-186-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-378-3; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Kobayashi, Cassandra & Roy Miki

978-0-88922-515-2; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Marion Bridge �������������������������������� 61

The Art of Building a Bunker ���������� 9

All Fall Down ��������������������������������� 48

Kiyooka, Roy K.

Cul-de-sac ������������������������������������� 63

MacLeod, Joan

This Is My Own ������������������������������ 36 Cloth: 978-0-88922-231-1; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

MacIvor, Daniel

Lazarus, Adam & Guillermo Verdecchia

Lill, Wendy

The House That Hijack Built ������������ 77 978-0-88922-511-4; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

978-0-88922-338-7; $34.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Kitagawa, Muriel

Amuse Bouche ������������������������������� 72 978-0-88922-604-3; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Lavallée, Ronald Tchipayuk: or The Way of the Wolf ��������������������������������������������������� 46

978-0-88922-499-5; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Ordinary Time �������������������������������� 80 978-0-88922-675-3; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

McFadden, David W. Five Star Planet ����������������������������� 75 978-0-88922-468-1; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Great Lakes Suite ��������������������������� 31 978-0-88922-382-0; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Gypsy Guitar ���������������������������������� 76 978-0-88922-250-2; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

There’ll Be Another ������������������������ 83 978-0-88922-361-5; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

M

McKinnon, Barry

Macdonald, Bruce

The Centre: Poems 1970–2000 ������ 73

Vancouver: A Visual History ������������ 37 Cloth: 978-0-88922-311-0; $60.00 CAN / $40.00 US

MacDonald, Bryden Divinity Bash / nine lives ����������������� 54 978-0-88922-408-7; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Odd Ducks ������������������������������������� 63 978-0-88922-934-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Weekend Healer ���������������������� 70 978-0-88922-360-8; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Whale Riding Weather ������������������� 71

978-0-88922-497-1; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

mclennan, rob gifts ����������������������������������������������� 76 978-0-88922-605-0; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Glengarry ��������������������������������������� 76 978-0-88922-662-3; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

harvest: a book of signifiers ����������� 76 978-0-88922-455-1; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

The Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh ��������������������������� 81

978-0-88922-353-0; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

978-0-88922-424-7; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

With Bated Breath ������������������������� 71

what’s left �������������������������������������� 84

978-0-88922-651-7; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

978-0-88922-498-8; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

MacDonald, Josh

Mailhot, Michèle

Halo ����������������������������������������������� 58

Death of the Spider ������������������������ 40

978-0-88922-469-8; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Whereverville ��������������������������������� 71 978-0-88922-506-0; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

978-0-88922-298-4; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

92 Talonbooks Index by Author

Malyon, Carol & bill bissett

Miki, Roy

griddle talk: a yeer uv bill n carol dewing brunch ���������������������������� 31

A Record of Writing ����������������������� 34

978-0-88922-606-7; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Tracing the Paths: Reading ≠ Writing The Martyrology �������������������������� 37

Mancini, Donato Same Diff ��������������������������������������� 21 978-1-77201-136-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Marchessault, Jovette Like a Child of the Earth ����������������� 43 978-0-88922-261-8; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr ������������������������������������ 43 978-0-88922-314-1; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Cloth: 978-0-88922-263-2; $39.95 CAN / $34.95 US

Selected Writing: As Elected ����������� 82

978-0-88922-694-4; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Cassandra Kobayashi Justice in Our Time: The Japanese Canadian Redress Settlement ������� 19 Cloth: 978-0-88922-292-2; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Mitchell, Ken

Lawrence & Holloman ��������������������� 60

Rational Geomancy: The Kids of the Book-Machine ����������������������������� 34

Other Schools of Thought �������������� 64

Sainte-Marie among the Hurons ���� 65 978-0-88922-147-5; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Nicholson, Cecily Triage �������������������������������������������� 57 978-0-88922-657-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

From the Poplars ���������������������������� 75

Cruel Tears ������������������������������������� 53

978-0-88922-856-6; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-267-0; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

978-0-88922-120-8; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Wayside Sang �������������������������������� 8

978-0-88922-213-7; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Moodie, Andrew The Lady Smith ������������������������������ 60 978-1-55331-002-0; $14.95 CAN / $12.95 US

White Pebbles in the Dark Forests �� 47 978-0-88922-280-9; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Marlatt, Daphne 978-0-88922-616-6; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now ������������������������������������� 78 978-0-88922-761-3; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Intertidal: The Collected Earlier Poems, 1968–2008 ���������������������������������� 5 978-1-77201-178-4; $49.95 CAN; $49.95 US

Six Plays by Mavor Moore �������������� 67

Morse, Garry Thomas After Jack �������������������������������������� 72 978-0-88922-776-7; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US 978-0-88922-607-4; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US 978-0-88922-660-9; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Minor Episodes / Major Ruckus ������ 44

978-0-88922-175-8; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Minor Expectations ������������������������ 44

978-0-88922-450-6; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Martin, Patrice Kafka’s Hat ������������������������������������ 42

978-0-88922-697-5; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US 978-0-88922-891-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US 978-0-88922-940-2; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US 978-0-88922-776-7; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

978-0-88922-743-9; $12.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Maud, Ralph Charles Olson at the Harbor ����������� 29

Mouawad, Wajdi

978-0-88922-189-5; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Poet to Publisher: Charles Olson’s Correspondence with Donald Allen �������������������������������������������� 34 978-0-88922-486-5; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

The Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories ����������������������������������������� 34 978-0-88922-333-2; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Transmission Difficulties: Franz Boas and Tsimshian Mythology ������������� 37 978-0-88922-430-8; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Meigs, Mary Beyond Recall �������������������������������� 28

Get Me Out of Here ����������������������� 76 978-0-88922-925-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Invisibility Exhibit ��������������������� 78 978-0-88922-579-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Rebuild ������������������������������������������ 81 978-0-88922-776-7; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Murphy, John The Heretic ������������������������������������ 58 978-0-88922-595-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Murrell, John Democracy ������������������������������������� 53 978-0-921368-28-1; $10.95 CAN / $7.95 US

978-0-88922-183-3; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

978-0-88922-374-5; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Mercer, Michael Goodnight Disgrace ����������������������� 57 978-0-88922-238-0; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Fifty ����������������������������������������������� 75 978-0-88922-479-7; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Floating Up to Zero ������������������������ 75 978-0-88922-659-3; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Going Home �������������������������������� 76 978-0-88922-573-2; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Hotel Montreal: New and Selected Poems ����������������������������������������� 76 978-0-88922-456-8; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Limbo Road ����������������������������������� 78

978-0-88922-560-2; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Peters, Carl Studies in Description: Reading Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons ��� 35 978-0-88922-961-7; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

textual vishyuns: image and text in the work of bill bissett ����������������������� 36 978-0-88922-661-6; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Pollock, Sharon Saucy Jack ������������������������������������� 66 978-0-921368-41-0; $10.95 CAN / $7.95 US

Walsh �������������������������������������������� 70 978-0-88922-215-1; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

978-0-88922-401-8; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Q

O O’Hagan, Howard

Quartermain, Meredith

The School-Marm Tree ������������������� 46

I, Bartleby �������������������������������������� 42

O’Neill, Chris & Ken Schwartz Westray: The Long Way Home ������� 71 978-0-88922-491-9; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Olson, Charles Muthologos: Lectures and Interviews, 2nd ed. ���������������������������������������� 33 978-0-88922-639-5; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

Olson, Charles & Frances Boldereff After Completion: The Later Letters of Charles Olson and Frances Boldereff ������������������������� 28 978-0-88922-706-4; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Panych, Morris 978-0-88922-584-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Nadeau, Michel And Slowly Beauty ������������������������� 49 978-0-88922-786-6; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Nichol, bp

The Dishwashers ���������������������������� 54 978-0-88922-524-4; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Earshot ������������������������������������������ 54 978-0-88922-444-5; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Ends of the Earth ��������������������� 55

bpNichol Comics ���������������������������� 49

978-0-88922-334-9; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

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Girl in the Goldfish Bowl ���������������� 57

Meanwhile: The Critical Writings of bpNichol ���������������������������������� 33

978-0-88922-481-0; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-447-6; $34.95 CAN / $29.95 US

R Reaney, James Colours in the Dark ������������������������ 52 978-0-88922-001-0; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Listen to the Wind ������������������������� 60 978-0-88922-002-7; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Rebar, Kelly Bordertown Café ��������������������������� 51 978-0-88922-477-3; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Reed, Fred A. Anatolia Junction: A Journey into Hidden Turkey ������������������������������ 28 978-0-88922-426-1; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

P Benevolence ���������������������������������� 50

N

978-1-77201-040-4; 19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

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The Faraway Nearby ����������������������� 56

978-0-88922-253-3; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Time Being ����������������������������� 47

978-0-88922-526-8; $17.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Trees Are Lonely Company ������������� 47

In the Company of Strangers ��������� 31

978-0-88922-210-6; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Dominican Moon ��������������������������� 74

978-1-77201-003-9; $19.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Murakami, Sachiko

978-0-921368-56-4; $10.95 CAN / $10.95 US

978-0-88922-195-6; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

978-0-88922-692-0; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-918-1; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Waiting for the Parade ������������������� 70

The Medusa Head �������������������������� 33

978-0-88922-628-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Vigil, 2nd ed. ��������������������������������� 70

U Girl ��������������������������������������������� 26

978-0-88922-505-3; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Lily Briscoe: A Self-Portrait �������������� 32

978-0-88922-624-1; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Trespassers, The ����������������������������� 68

Anima ��������������������������������������������� 1

The Box Closet ������������������������������� 29

978-0-88922-294-6; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

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Still Laughing: Three Adaptations by Morris Panych ������������������������������ 67

978-0-88922-129-1; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

978-0-88922-576-3; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

A Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend ���������������������������������������� 31

978-0-88922-984-6; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Shoplifters ������������������������������� 66

What Lies Before Us ����������������������� 69

Prairie Harbour ����������������������������� 181 Rogue Cells / Carbon Harbour �������� 45

978-0-88922-281-6; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Sextet �������������������������������������������� 66

978-0-88922-633-3; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Death in Vancouver ������������������������ 40 Discovery Passages ������������������������� 74

978-0-88922-346-2; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

7 Stories ���������������������������������������� 66

Asian Skies ������������������������������������� 72

978-0-88922-271-7; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Reading Sveva �������������������������������� 26 Selected Writing: Net Work ������������ 82 This Tremor Love Is ������������������������� 83

978-1-77201-182-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Norris, Ken

Moore, Mavor

The Gull ����������������������������������������� 58

978-0-88922-392-9; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

978-0-88922-300-4; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Nichol, James W.

Mother of the Grass ����������������������� 44 Saga of the Wet Hens �������������������� 65

978-0-88922-702-6; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Nichol, bp & Steve McCaffery

978-0-88922-256-4; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Tracing the Lines ���������������������������� 37

In Absentia ������������������������������������ 59

978-0-88922-176-5; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Gordon ������������������������������������������ 59 978-0-88922-664-7; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Persian Postcards: Iran After Khomeini ������������������������������������� 34 978-0-88922-351-6; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Salonica Terminus: Travels into the Balkan Nightmare ������������������������ 35 978-0-88922-368-4; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Shattered Images: The Rise of Militant Iconoclasm in Syria ����������������������� 35 978-0-88922-485-8; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture ��� 36 978-0-88922-443-8; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Then We Were One: Fragments of Two Lives ������������������������������������� 36 978-0-88922-667-8; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Talonbooks Index by Author 93

Reed, Fred A. & Daniel Lafond Conversations in Tehran ��������������� 30

Taking My Life �������������������������������� 36

978-0-88922-550-3; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Theme for Diverse Instruments ������� 47

978-0-88922-673-9; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US 978-0-88922-060-7; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Reid, Jamie I. Another. The Space Between: Selected Poems ���������������������������� 77

Reimer, Nikki DOWNVERSE ��������������������������������� 74

Ryga, George The Athabasca Ryga ���������������������� 47 978-0-88922-276-2; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe ������������������� 55 978-0-88922-000-3; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

978-0-88922-854-2; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Renaud, Yannick All Is Flesh �������������������������������������� 72 978-0-88922-672-2; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Richmond, Jacob Legoland ���������������������������������������� 60 978-0-88922-610-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Rideout, George

George Ryga: The Other Plays �������� 57 978-0-88922-500-8; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

George Ryga: The Prairie Novels ����� 41 978-0-88922-501-5; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

In the Shadow of the Vulture ��������� 42 978-0-88922-233-5; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Summerland ���������������������������������� 46

Robertson, Leslie A. & Dara Culhane In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver ���� 31 978-0-88922-513-8; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Robinson, Harry & Wendy Wickwire Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory ��������������� 32 978-0-88922-522-0; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Nature Power: In the Spirit of an Okanagan Storyteller ������������������� 33 978-0-88922-504-6; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Sacher, William & Alain Deneault Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Choice for the World’s Mining Industries ������������������������������������� 31

978-0-88922-644-9; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Rogers, Janet Peace in Duress ������������������������������ 80 978-0-88922-911-2; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Rossi, Vittorio Carmela’s Table: A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part II ������������������������������������������� 51 978-0-88922-594-7; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Carpenter: A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part III ������������������������������������������ 51 978-0-88922-609-8; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

The Envelope ��������������������������������� 27 978-1-77201-031-2; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Hellfire Pass: A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part I �������������������������������������������� 58 978-0-88922-564-0; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Paradise by the River ���������������������� 64 978-0-88922-393-6; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Rostand, Edmond Cyrano de Bergerac ����������������������� 53

Inside the Seed ������������������������������ 59 978-0-88922-986-0; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Rule, Jane Desert of the Heart ������������������������ 40 978-0-88922-301-1; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Seeds ��������������������������������������������� 66 978-0-88922-701-9; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Strang, Catriona Corked ������������������������������������������ 73 978-0-88922-852-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Reveries of a Solitary Biker ������������� 6 978-1-77201-180-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Strindberg, August Miss Julie ��������������������������������������� 62 978-0-88922-549-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-212-0; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Sy Jovanni

In Search of New Babylon �������������� 15 978-1-77201-124-1; $19.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Schermbrucker, Bill 978-0-88922-208-3; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US 978-0-88922-254-0; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Motortherapy �������������������������������� 44 978-0-88922-330-1; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Schwartz, Ken & Chris O’Neill Westray: The Long Way Home ������� 71 978-0-88922-491-9; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Scobie, Stephen bpNichol: What History Teaches ����� 29 978-0-88922-220-5; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Scott, Gail Main Brides ������������������������������������ 43 978-0-88910-456-3; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Sellars, Bev

In the Midst ����������������������������������� 32 978-0-88922-308-0; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Taylor, Drew Hayden alterNatives ������������������������������������ 48 978-0-88922-428-5; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

The Baby Blues ������������������������������������ 978-0-88922-406-3; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Berlin Blues ����������������������������� 49 978-0-88922-581-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Boy in the Treehouse / Girl Who Loved Her Horses ������������������������� 50 978-0-88922-441-4; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

The Buz’Gem Blues ������������������������ 51 978-0-88922-462-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Cerulean Blue �������������������������������� 51 978-0-88922-952-5; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Crees in the Caribbean ������������������ 22 978-1-77201-148-7; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Dead White Writer on the Floor ����� 53 978-0-88922-663-0; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Fearless Warriors, 2nd ed. �������������� 41 978-0-88922-597-8; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

God and the Indian ������������������������ 57

Lasagna: The Man Behind the Mask ������������������������������������������� 32

Shaw, Nancy The Gorge: Selected Writing ���������� 18 978-1-77201-140-1; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

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In a World Created by a Drunken God ��������������������������������������������� 59 978-0-88922-537-4; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

NEWS: Postcards from the Four Directions ������������������������������������ 33 978-0-88922-643-2; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth �������������������������������������������� 63 978-0-88922-384-4; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Thesen, Sharon Aurora ������������������������������������������� 72

Shigematsu, Tetsuro Empire of the Son �������������������������� 23 978-1-77201-104-3; $ 16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Simons, Beverley Crabdance ������������������������������������� 52 978-0-88922-016-4; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

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Singed Wings �������������������������������� 32 978-0-88922-790-3; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Tremblay, Larry Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre ���������������������������������������� 48 978-0-88922-649-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Bicycle Eater ���������������������������� 39 978-0-88922-528-2; $19.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Obese Christ, The �������������������������� 45

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Sévigny, Hélène & Ronald Cross

Cartouches ������������������������������������ 73

Talking Bodies �������������������������������� 68

400 Kilometres ������������������������������ 56

978-0-88922-741-5; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

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Tostevin, Lola Lemire

978-0-88922-842-9; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Price Paid: The Fight for First Nations Survival ���������������������������������������� 34 They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School ������������������������ 56

978-0-88922-191-8; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Songs My Mother Taught Me ��������� 46

Piercing ������������������������������������������ 45

Tallman, Warren

Scali, Dominique

978-0-88922-319-6; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Real Mothers ��������������������������������� 45

978-1-77201-160-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

T

978-0-88922-122-2; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

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Mrs. Blood ������������������������������������� 44

A Taste of Empire ��������������������������� 25

Les Canadiens �������������������������������� 51

978-0-88922-835-1; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Rother, Jason Patrick

978-0-88922-988-4; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

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Mimosa ����������������������������������������� 43

Subject to Change ������������������������� 36

Watershed, The ����������������������������� 20

Salutin, Rick

978-0-88922-502-2; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

978-0-88922-367-7; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Soutar, Annabel

Coast Salish Essays ������������������������� 29

Chameleon & Other Stories ������������ 39

Bread and Salt ������������������������������� 73

Latakia ������������������������������������������� 43

978-0-88922-850-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Suttles, Wayne

S

Write It on Your Heart: The Epic World of an Okanagan Storyteller ���������� 38

Rodin, Renee

Thomas, Audrey

Thrum �������������������������������������������� 83

978-0-88922-313-4; $34.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Michel & Ti-Jean ���������������������������� 62 978-0-88922-902-0; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Simpson, Natalie

978-0-88910-471-6; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The New Long Poem Anthology, 2nd ed. ���������������������������������������� 79 978-0-88922-438-4; $39.95 CAN / $29.95 US

News & Smoke: Selected Poems ����� 79 978-0-88922-417-9; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

978-0-88922-445-2; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

The Ventriloquist ���������������������������� 69 978-0-88922-536-7; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

War Cantata / Child Object ������������ 70 978-0-88922-906-8; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Tremblay, Lise The Hunting Ground ���������������������� 42 978-0-88922-534-3; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Judith’s Sister ��������������������������������� 42 978-0-88922-677-7; $14.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Mile End ���������������������������������������� 43 978-0-88922-467-4; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Tremblay, Michel Albertine in Five Times (translated by Gaboriau) ������������������������������������ 48 978-0-88922-627-2; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Albertine in Five Times (translated by Van Burek & Glassco) ������������������� 48 978-0-88922-234-2; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Assorted Candies for the Theatre ��� 49 978-0-88922-572-5; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Bambi and Me ������������������������������� 28 978-0-88922-380-6; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Les Belles Soeurs ���������������������������� 50 978-0-88922-302-8; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Birth of a Bookworm ���������������������� 29 978-0-88922-476-6; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

The Black Notebook ����������������������� 39 978-0-88922-543-5; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The Blue Notebook ������������������������ 39 978-0-88922-619-7; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies ��������������������������������������� 29 978-0-88922-541-1; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Bonjour, Là, Bonjour ���������������������� 50 978-0-88922-252-6; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Crossing of Hearts, A ��������������������� 16 978-1-77201-011-4; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Crossing the City ��������������������������� 40 978-0-88922-893-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Crossing the Continent ������������������ 40 978-0-88922-676-0; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra ����� 53 978-0-88922-184-0; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Driving Force ��������������������������� 54 978-0-88922-530-5; $15.95 CAN / $13.95 US

94 Talonbooks Index by Author

The Duchess and the Commoner ��� 41 978-0-88922-418-6; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

La Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays �������������������������������������������� 54 978-0-88922-104-8; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

En Pièces Détachées ����������������������� 55 978-0-88922-092-8; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant �������������������������������������� 41 978-0-88922-190-1; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The First Quarter of the Moon �������� 41 978-0-88922-352-3; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again ������������������������������������������ 56 978-0-88922-389-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Forever Yours, Marie-Lou ��������������� 56 978-0-88922-349-3; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Heart Laid Bare ������������������������ 42 978-0-88922-425-4; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Hosanna, 3rd ed. �������������������������� 58 978-0-88922-831-3; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Impromptu of Outremont �������� 58

Fronteras Americanas: American Borders, 2nd ed. �������������������������� 57 978-0-88922-705-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Verdecchia, Guillermo & Daniel Brooks The Noam Chomsky Lectures ��������� 63

Verdecchia, Guillermo, Camyar Chai & Marcus Youssef The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil ���������������������������������� 48 978-0-88922-516-9; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Ali & Ali: The Deportation Hearings ��������������������������������������� 48 978-0-88922-782-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Guillermo Verdecchia & Adam Lazarus The Art of Building a Bunker ���������� 9 978-1-77201-186-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Verdecchia, Guillermo & Marcus Youssef A Line in the Sand �������������������������� 60

Impromptu on Nuns’ Island ������������ 58

978-0-88922-375-2; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-470-4; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US 978-0-88922-295-3; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Marcel Pursued by the Hounds �������� 61 978-0-88922-326-4; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

News from Édouard ����������������������� 44 978-0-88922-435-3; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Past Perfect ������������������������������������ 64 978-0-88922-493-3; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Real World? ���������������������������� 64 978-0-88922-260-1; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

The Red Notebook ������������������������� 45 978-0-88922-588-6; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Remember Me ������������������������������� 65 978-0-88922-219-9; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Sainte-Carmen of the Main ������������ 65 978-0-88922-181-9; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Some Night My Prince Will Come �� 46

Wah, Fred is a door ���������������������������������������� 78 978-0-88922-620-3; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Scree: The Collected Earlier Poems, 1962–1991 ���������������������������������� 82

978-0-88922-177-2; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

Sentenced to Light ������������������������� 82 978-0-88922-577-0; $29.95 CAN; $29.95 US

After Class: Parents Night and The Bigger Issue ��������������������������������� 10 978-0-88922-184-5; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US 978-0-88922-654-8; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US 978-0-88922-928-0; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The East End Plays: Part I ���������������� 55

978-0-88922-390-5; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

978-0-88922-413-1; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Twelve Opening Acts ��������������������� 37

The East End Plays: Part II ��������������� 55

978-0-88922-466-7; $18.95 CAN / $14.95 US

978-0-88922-404-9; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Yours Forever, Marie-Lou ���������������� 27

Heaven ������������������������������������������ 58 978-0-88922-429-2; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

King of Thieves ������������������������������ 60 978-0-88922-755-2; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Moss Park and Tough!: The Bobby and Tina Plays ������������������������������������� 62 978-0-88922-954-9; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

The Power Plays ����������������������������� 64 978-0-88922-414-8; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Matter of Gravity, A ����������������������� 43

Somewhere Else ����������������������������� 67

978-0-88922-840-5; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-402-5; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Vanderhaeghe, Guy Dancock’s Dance ���������������������������� 53 978-0-88922-533-6; $16.95 CAN / $14.95 US

Verdecchia, Guillermo Another Country / bloom ��������������� 49 978-0-88922-570-1; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Citizen Suárez �������������������������������� 40 978-0-88922-391-2; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

Fronteras Americanas: American Borders, 1st ed. ��������������������������� 57 978-0-88922-383-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Modern Candian PLays Vol. ||, 5th ed.

62 978-0-88922-679-1; $49.95 CAN / $49.95 US

Spectacle of Empire: Marc Lescarbot’s Theatre of Neptune in New France ��������������������������������������������������� 67

Tear the Curtain! ���������������������������� 68 978-0-88922-904-4; $18.95 CAN / $18.95 US

Youssef, Marcus Adrift ��������������������������������������������� 48 978-0-88922-585-5; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Jabber �������������������������������������������� 59 978-0-88922-950-1; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Youssef, Marcus & James Long Winners and Losers ������������������������ 71 978-0-88922-932-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95

Youssef, Marcus & Guillermo Verdecchia A Line in the Sand �������������������������� 60 978-0-88922-375-2; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-547-3; $21.95 CAN / $21.95 US

Twenty Years at Play: A New Play Centre Anthology ������������������������ 69 978-0-88922-275-5; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Wasserman, Jerry & Sherrill Grace Theatre and AutoBiography: Writing and Performing Lives in Theory and Practice ���������������������������������������� 36

Watts, Charles & Edward Byrne The Recovery of the Public World ��� 35 978-0-88922-388-2; $39.95 CAN / $29.95 US

Webb, Phyllis Peacock Blue ���������������������������������� 80

978-0-88922-202-1; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Wells, Oliver N. The Chilliwacks and Their Neighbors ���������������������������������������������������� 29 978-0-88922-255-7; $24.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Walker, George F.

978-0-88922-198-7; $19.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Vachon, Hélène

978-0-88922-437-7; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

Selected Poems: The Vision Tree ����� 82

A Thing of Beauty �������������������������� 47

V

Modern Canadian Plays Vol. II, 4th ed. ��������������������������������������������������� 62

978-0-88922-947-1; $49.95 CAN / $49.95 US

Dead Metaphor ����������������������������� 53

978-0-88922-646-3; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

978-0-88922-678-4; $49.95 CAN / $49.95 US

Selected Poems: Loki Is Buried at Smoky Creek ������������������������������� 82

Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel ���������������������������� 47

The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky �� 41

Modern Canadian Plays Vol. I, 5th ed. � ��������������������������������������������������� 62

Cloth: 978-0-88922-912-9; $45.00 CAN / $45.00 US

And So It Goes ������������������������������� 49

Tulchinsky, Karen X.

978-0-88922-436-0; $39.95 CAN / $39.95 US

Young, Jonathon, Kevin Kerr & Kim Collier

Youssef, Marcus, Camyar Chai & Guillermo Verdecchia The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil ���������������������������������� 48 978-0-88922-516-9; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Ali & Ali: The Deportation Hearings ��������������������������������������������������� 48 978-0-88922-782-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

978-0-88922-540-4; $29.95 CAN / $24.95 US

W

978-0-88922-510-7; $17.95 CAN / $13.95 US

978-1-77201-023-7; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Modern Canadian Plays: Vol. I, 4th ed. ��������������������������������������������������� 62

978-0-88922-405-6; $15.95 CAN / $15.95 US

978-0-88922-185-7; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

La Maison Suspendue �������������������� 61

Wasserman, Jerry

Suburban Motel ����������������������������� 67

Wickwire, Wendy & Harry Robinson Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory ��������������� 32 978-0-88922-522-0; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Nature Power: In the Spirit of an Okanagan Storyteller �������������������� 33 978-0-88922-504-6; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Write It on Your Heart: The Epic World of an Okanagan Storyteller ���������� 38 978-0-88922-502-2; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Winter, Jack My TWP Plays: A Collection Including Ten Lost Years ������������������������������ 63 978-0-88922-784-2; $24.95 CAN / $24.95 US

Tales of the Emperor ���������������������� 46 978-0-88922-944-0; $19.95 CAN / $19.95 US

Whitehead, Joshua full-metal indigiqueer ��������������������� 4 978-1-77201-187-6; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Woodcock, George Two Plays ��������������������������������������� 69 978-0-88922-123-9; $16.95 CAN / $12.95 US

978-0-88922-412-4; $29.95 CAN / $29.95 US

We the Family �������������������������������� 70 978-0-88922-982-2; $17.95 CAN / $17.95 US

Walsh, Des Love and Savagery ������������������������� 78 978-0-88922-599-2; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

The Singer’s Broken Throat ������������� 83 978-0-88922-478-0; $15.95 CAN / $11.95 US

Y York, Annie, Chris Arnett & Richard Daly They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever ���������������������������������������� 36 Cloth: 978-0-88922-331-8; $60.00 CAN / $40.00 US

Z Zomparelli, Daniel Davie Street Translations ���������������� 74 978-0-88922-683-8; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Zomparelli, Daniel & Dina Del Bucchia Rom Com �������������������������������������� 81 978-0-88922-909-9; $16.95 CAN / $16.95 US

Talonbooks Ordering and Trade Terms 95

Canadian Trade Terms CANADIAN TRADE DISCOUNT Retail

CANADIAN RETURNS POLICY Discount

Under $150.00 ................................................................................. 20% Over $150.00 ................................................................................... 40% Note: Talon, BookExpress, Raincoast, and Publishers Group Canada can be combined to meet minimum requirements.

New & Recent Releases (single title discount) Retail

Discount

25–49 ...............................................................................................

50–249 .............................................................................................

250–499 ...........................................................................................

500–999 ...........................................................................................

1000 + .............................................................................................

Backlist (single title discount) Quantity

42% 43% 44% 45% 46%

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%

CANADIAN 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 back-order shipments to avoid higher shipping costs for single items. Call customer service for more details on this and also on our expedited shipping options.

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. Outdated 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 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 6 months from the invoice date and are subject to a 15% restocking fee.

Invoice n ­ umbers 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 non-returnable (see BookExpress catalogue for more details).

9. We do not accept returns sent freight collect.

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 d ­ epartment.

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 to obtain information on electronic ordering, please call our customer service department at 1-800-663-5714.

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.

96 Talonbooks Sales Representation and Ordering

North American Sales Representation

Ordering Information

CANADA

CANADA

Publishers Group Canada 300–76 Stafford Street, Toronto, ON M6J 2S1 tel: (416) 934-9900 · fax: (416) 934-1410 toll free: (800) 747-8147 www.pgcbooks.ca

Raincoast Books (Publishers Group Canada) 2440 Viking Way, Richmond, BC V6V 1N2 toll free: tel: (800) 663-5714 · fax: (800) 565-3770 customerservice@raincoast.com

Sales in Atlantic Canada

Book Manager & Wordstock EDI

Jessica Rattray Michael Martin & Associates 3 – 135 Dowling Avenue, Toronto, ON M6K 3A9 tel: (416) 909-9266 · fax: (416) 769-5967 jessica@martinsalesagency.ca

tel: (604) 323-7138 · toll free: (800) 661-5450 Telebook: SAN S1150871

Sales in Ontario & Quebec Martin and Associates Sales Agency 594 Windermere Avenue, Toronto, ON M6S 3L8 tel: (416) 769-3947 · fax: (416) 769-5967 toll free: (866) 225-3439 michael@martinsalesagency.ca · margot@martinsalesagency.ca Jessica Rattray tel: (416) 909-9266 · fax: (416) 769-5967 jessica@martinsalesagency.com

Sales in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan & Manitoba Aydin Virani Aydin Virani Sales & Marketing 8038 – 211B Street, Langley, BC V2Y 0K3 tel: (604) 417-3660 · fax: (604) 371-3660 avbookrep@shaw.ca Kamini Stroyan 4389-206th Street, Langley, BC V3A 4Z8 tel: (604) 771-5436 · fax: (604) 371-3660 kstroyan@telus.net

USA Consortium Book Sales & Distribution 210 American Drive Jackson, TN 38301-5037 tel: (800) 283-3572 · fax: (800) 351-5073 orderentry@perseusbooks.com

Returns Perseus Distribution Services 193 Edwards Drive Jackson, TN 38301-5070 tel: (800) 343-4499

UNITED KINGDOM, IRELAND & EUROPE General Inquiries Moira McCann Perseus Books Group 69-70 Temple Chambers 3-7 Temple Avenue London, UK EC4Y tel: 020-7353-7771

Ordering Bill Bailey 16 Devon Square Newton Abbot Devon, UK TQ12 2HR tel: 01-626-331-079 info@billbaileypubreps.co.uk

AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND Rorie Bruce 737 Montrose Street, Winnipeg, MB R3M 3M5 tel: (204) 488-9481 rorbruce@mts.net

Libraries Margot Stokreef Toll Free: (866) 225-3439 Fax: (416) 769-5967 margot@martinsalesagency.ca

USA Consortium Book Sales & Distribution The Keg House 34 Thirteenth Avenue NE, Suite 101 Minneapolis, MN 55413-1007 toll free: (800) 283-3572 · local: (612) 746-2600 Fax: (612) 746-2606 Pubnet: SAN 631760X info@cbsd.com www.cbsd.com

Camilla Dorsch Scribo International, Sales & Marketing Equinox Centre, 18 Rodborough Road Frenchs Forest NSW, Australia 2086 tel: 02-9021-8179 camilla.dorsch@scribo.com

this

Talonbooks 278 East 1st Avenue Vancouver, BC Canada V5T 1A6 www.talonbooks.com Printed in Canada