Talonbooks Fall 2010 Catalogue by Talonbooks

Fall 2010 TALONBOOKS

Talonbooks Awards and Prizes, Recent Highlights 2010 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize: Fred Wah, is a door (Winner)

2009 Acorn-Plantos Award: Weyman Chan, Noise from the Laundry (Finalist) Ann Saddlemyer Award: Sherrill Grace, Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon Pollock (Winner) CBC Canada Reads: Michel Tremblay, The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant, translated by Sheila Fischman (Finalist)

Contents 1 16 19 28 35 54 62 68 71 72 73

New Releases & Previously Announced Recent Releases Non-fiction Backlist Fiction Backlist Drama Backlist Poetry Backlist Index of Complete Booklist by Author Index of Complete Booklist by Title Index of Translators Sales Representation and Ordering Canadian Trade Terms and Return Policy

Governor General’s Award, Drama: Kevin Loring, Where the Blood Mixes (Winner) Governor General’s Award, Drama: Joan MacLeod, Another Home Invasion (Finalist) Governor General’s Award, Translation: Thierry Hentsch, Empire of Desire, translated by Fred A. Reed (Finalist) Governor General’s Award, Translation: Stéphane Bourguignon, A Slight Case of Fatigue, translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott (Finalist) Jessie Richardson Award, Outstanding Original Script: Kevin Loring, Where the Blood Mixes (Winner) Jessie Richardson Award, Sydney Risk Prize for Outstanding Original Script by an Emerging Playwright: Kevin Loring, Where the Blood Mixes (Winner) Libris Award, Small Press Publisher of the Year: Talonbooks (Finalist)

Head Office: Post Office Box 2076 Vancouver, BC V6B 3S3 phone: (604) 444-4889 fax: (604) 444-4119 info@talonbooks.com www.talonbooks.com Receiving: 278 East 1st Avenue Vancouver, BC V5T 1A6 phone: (604) 444-4889

Editorial Office: 6828 Alberni Street Powell River, BC V8A 2B5 phone: (604) 485-5801 fax: (604) 485-5802 edit@talonbooks.com

Talonbooks

ReLit Award, Poetry: Fred Wah, Sentenced to Light (Finalist)

2008 Governor General’s Award, Poetry: Sachiko Murakami, The Invisibility Exhibit (Finalist)

G.S.T. is not included in Canadian prices quoted in this catalogue. G.S.T. # 88535-3235

Governor General’s Award, Poetry: Weyman Chan, Noise from the Laundry (Finalist)

All information in this catalogue is subject to change without notice.

Governor General’s Award, Drama: Marie Clements, Copper Thunderbird (Finalist) ReLit Award, Poetry: Colin Browne, The Shovel (Finalist)

2007 Governor General’s Award, Translation: Hervé Fischer, The Decline of the Hollywood Empire, translated by Rhonda Mullins (Finalist) Governor General’s Award, Drama: Morris Panych, What Lies Before Us (Finalist) Grey Campbell Award: Karl Siegler (Publisher, Talonbooks) (Winner)

2006 Governor General’s Award, Translation: Michel Tremblay, Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies, translated by Linda Gaboriau (Finalist) Governor General’s Award, Drama: Drew Hayden Taylor, In a World Created by a Drunken God (Finalist) Governor General’s Award, Translation: Larry Tremblay, The Bicycle Eater, translated by Sheila Fischman (Finalist)

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts; the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program; and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit for our publishing activities.

Talonbooks

New Releases / 1

The Edward Curtis Project A Modern Picture Story Marie Clements & Rita Leistner

Two-time Governor General’s Award-nominee Marie Clements is an acclaimed Métis performer, playwright and director whose work has been presented on stages across Canada, the United States and Europe. She is the founder of urban ink productions, a Vancouver-based First Nations production company that creates, develops and produces Aboriginal and multicultural works of theatre, dance, music, film and video. Clements writes, or, perhaps more accurately, composes, with an urbane, incisive and sophisticated intellect; her refined artistry is deeply rooted in the particulars of her place, time and history. In 2003, as an independent photographer unable to get a military embed, Rita Leistner walked from Turkey to Iraq with Kurdish smugglers. That summer, she brought home some of the first photographs of Iraqi detainees, which would be published world-wide. Leistner went on to publish feature stories and photographs on subjects including American Cavalry soldiers, women patients at Baghdad’s al Rashad Psychiatric Hospital, gravediggers during the 2004 Siege of Najaf and fighters of the Mahdi Army in magazines such as Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone and The Walrus.

ISBN 978-0-88922-642-5 Drama / Photography 6.75 x 9.75; 160 pp; Trade paper; French flaps; Photos $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD September

Edward Curtis saw his job as that of creating a photographic record of “the vanishing race of the North American Indian.” His work therefore became as much a projection of colonial attitudes upon aboriginal peoples as it was an authentic record of their lives. The Edward Curtis Project began when the Presentation House Theatre commissioned Marie Clements to write a play that would stage the issues raised by Curtis’ monumental but controversial achievement—to dramatize not only the creation of his twenty-volume photographic and ethnographic epic and the enormous commitment, unwavering vision, sacrifice, poverty and ultimate disappointment it represented for the photographer, but also the devastating legacy that his often misrepresentative and imposed vision had on the lives of the people he touched. Upon receiving the commission, Marie Clements immediately asked photojournalist Rita Leistner to create a parallel photographic investigation of Curtis’ work—to question the practice of documentary photography with the very medium under scrutiny. After two years of retracing Curtis’ footsteps, travelling to First Nations communities throughout North America, Clements finally felt that between them: “We were making our own pictures out of our own beliefs and they were adding up. We were inside the lies and beauty of history, of gender and class, we were making a case for the future.” This collaborative work of two artists, to take Curtis’ photographs to heart and to see who and what might live inside them today, resulted in a profoundly moving new drama by Marie Clements, and a spectacular contemporary photo exhibit by Rita Leistner. Published together here, they illustrate the trauma that the notion of a “vanishing race” has inflicted on an entire people, and celebrate the triumph of a future in which North American First Nations communities “are everywhere and it is beautiful.” “Witnessing has its costs, its collateral damage. Artists run the risk of vicarious traumatization, but being forced to look is a far different act than forcing a look.” —plankmagazine.com

Marie Clements’ Burning Vision, Copper Thunderbird and The Unnatural and Accidental Woman are also available from Talonbooks.

2 / New Releases

Talonbooks

NEWS Postcards from the Four Directions Drew Hayden Taylor

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

ISBN 978-0-88922-643-2 Non-fiction / Essays 5.5 x 8.5; 144 pp; Trade paper $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD September

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 globetrotting adventures, always on the lookout for the NEWS about aboriginal peoples around the world. Organized around the thematics suggested by the four cardinal directions central to the Ojibwa peoples—East for beginnings and youth; South for journeys both physical and spiritual; West for maturity and responsibility; and North for contemplation and wisdom; these communiqués are sent not so much to instruct as they are to delight. Never without a healthy dose of irony, humour and often unabashed laughter, these “postcards” offer their readers unexpected insights into the intense and often hilarious complexities of our new multicultural reality. Throughout his travels, Taylor has discovered that the four cardinal points are central to most First Nations’ teachings concerning the landscape and how to live on it to survive, build families and communities, create cultures and develop notions of spirituality and identity. This is not, however, a seamless or even necessarily recognizable paradigm from place to place throughout North America, and there is plenty of room for doubt, misunderstandings and unintentional social faux pas even among and between aboriginal peoples themselves. One of the great discoveries of this collection is that each of our First Nations boasts its own traditions—go a hundred miles in any direction and you are no longer on certain ground with respect to the meanings, attributes, even the colours definitive of these cardinal points of the social compass. “Drew Hayden Taylor has a deft touch for mixing comedy and commentary in an entertaining … form of social satire.” —Vancouver Sun

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

Talonbooks

New Releases / 3

Subject to Change Renee Rodin

Writer, visual artist and cultural worker Renee Rodin was born and raised in Montreal. Spending a year in London, England, after graduating from Sir George Williams University with a degree in psychology and sociology, she returned to Vancouver, Canada, in the 1960s. In the 1980s she founded the bookstore R2B2 and ran its regular readings series for eight years. She was literary coordinator of the Western Front from 1992 to 1994. Her writing has appeared in numerous periodicals, and her visual work, generally photographic, has been displayed widely. Her piece in the exhibition Fear of Others—Art Against Racism toured North America in 1990. Rodin is the author of a book of prose poems Bread and Salt (Talonbooks) and a chapbook Ready for Freddy (Nomados). Rodin’s essays, poems and book reviews have appeared in such publications as the Capilano Review, West Coast Line, FRONT magazine, Canadian Women’s Studies and the Vancouver Review.

Composed of stories that sketch the resonant heights and depths of an autobiography, Subject to Change is a series of portraits along the road of a life well-lived. Each story is an articulate, intelligent, passionate record of how an encounter with a significant “other,” be it a parent, a lover, a neighbour, a child, a grandchild, a politician or a friend, has changed and shaped the humanity, character and community—the “subject”—of the writer. These are masterfully crafted stories: attentive to detail; conscious of the fact that our eccentricities often mask precisely what is authentic in our lives; and aware that a finely honed empathy is as likely to cause exhilaration as to cause pain. It is precisely this uncompromising empathy of Rodin’s voice that lends a sense of profound drama to the lives of the “ordinary characters” she reveals in these stories—a voice that knows how to take a measure of those characters on their own terms, to let them speak for themselves and to report on what both shakes us to the core and transports us to a place where we seem larger than ourselves. Renee Rodin has said that: “Throughout my life I’ve had the privilege of peace and have never seen, unless in the media, the ravages of war, what people have had to live with, or die because of.” Subject to Change reminds us that the most vital moments of recognition in our lives come from those with whom we share our hopes and dreams. It is Rodin’s masterful ability to show the reader that things we usually think of as too ordinary to talk about or too extraordinary to be able to communicate to others are often the most formative elements of our social lives that make this book such a great read. “The intensity, care and wit that Renee Rodin brought to years of cultural and other activisms is now honed into a distinctive voice—funny, relaxed, passionately intelligent, deeply attentive to reality.” —Stan Persky

Renee Rodin’s Bread and Salt is also available from Talonbooks.

ISBN 978-0-88922-644-9 Fiction / Short Stories 5.5 x 8.5; 160 pp; Trade paper $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD October

4 / New Releases

Talonbooks

Piercing Larry Tremblay Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Larry Tremblay is a writer, director, actor and specialist in Kathakali, an elaborate dance theatre form which he has studied on numerous trips to India. He has published twenty books as a playwright, poet, novelist and essayist. His plays, premiered for the most part in Montreal, have also been produced, often in translation, in Italy, France, Belgium, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and Scotland. One of Quebec’s most versatile writers, Tremblay currently teaches acting at l’École supérieure de théâtre de l’Université du Québec à Montréal, where he received his MA in Drama in 1983. In 2006 Tremblay was awarded the Canada Council Victor-Martyn-Lynch-Staunton Prize for his contribution to the theatre. Governor General’s Award-nominee Linda Gaboriau has been active in Canadian and Québécois theatre for over twenty years as a critic, journalist, broadcaster and dramaturge. Her critically acclaimed translations of more than fifty plays include the works of some of Francophone Canada’s most prominent writers, including Michel Tremblay, Jean-Marc Dalpé and Daniel Danis.

ISBN 978-0-88922-645-6 Fiction / Short Stories 5.5 x 8.5; 144 pp; Trade paper $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD October

In “The Hatchet” a literature professor arrives at the door of one of his students in the middle of the night. On his way he has stumbled (with a flask of whiskey) through the pouring rain, stopping in a city park to vandalize the statue of an angel, tormented by the image of his life’s work, ninety-seven poems he has left behind in flames in his apartment. The student has turned in an assignment (which the professor has brought along in his briefcase): a carefully wrapped hatchet. In “Piercing” a teenage runaway, Marie-Hélène, seeks to escape the mediocrity of her small-town family life, only to end up in a very different kind of urban “family,” a cult of dominance and body piercing presided over by Kevin, the maimed and orphaned son of a millionaire. They live in a church converted into luxury condos, with a strange ageless and toothless woman who plays guardian to him and his test-tube son Raphael: a twentyyear-old computer nerd working on an MA thesis on securitization. In “Anna on the Letter C” a lonely, virginal typist transcribing the “c” words for a dictionary project lives just blocks away from the church where Rasputin-like Kevin holds court. But her world is not inhabited by the angels and demons of “Piercing.” Taking pity on a middle-aged stalker (a seedy, sweating chain-smoker, retired from his job as a projectionist in soft-core porn cinemas), she invites him to her apartment for tea. As they sit, awkwardly making conversation, she confesses that she is a virgin. Her feelings for him waver between repulsion and compassion. His desire for her is palpable as heat lightning flashes in the summer night. “What lingers is a degree of delight at Tremblay’s ability not so much to weave a storyline as to unravel one with such finesse …” —Toronto Sun

Larry Tremblay’s Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre, The Bicycle Eater, Talking Bodies and The Ventriloquist are also available from Talonbooks.

Talonbooks

New Releases / 5

The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky Karen X. Tulchinsky

Karen X. Tulchinsky is the award-winning author of Love Ruins Everything (Press Gang Publishers), a novel which was named one of the top ten books of 1998 by the Bay Area Reporter and has been translated into German and French; its sequel, Love and Other Ruins (Polestar); and In Her Nature (Women’s Press), a collection of short fiction which won the 1996 VanCity Book Prize. Her screenplays have been short-listed in the Praxis Screenwriting competition and the Los Angeles-based Chesterfield Film Company Writer’s Project. She is a graduate of the prestigious Canadian Film Centre’s Professional Screenwriting Programme, where she wrote two feature-length screenplays and a short film, Straight in the Face, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival and was broadcast on Showcase TV. Tulchinksy has written for numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Vancouver Sun, Georgia Straight, Now Magazine, Xtra West, Canadian Screenwriter and the National Post, and has taught creative writing at Langara College and Screenwriting at the UBC Writing Centre.

ISBN 978-0-88922-646-3 Fiction / Novel 5.5 x 8.5; 496 pp; Trade paper $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD September

In 2003, a mild-mannered historian named Moses Lapinsky jots down notes for a biography. It is to tell the tale of his father Sonny, a famous JewishCanadian boxer. As Moses buries himself in his research, he is transported back in time to the pivotal events of his father’s life. So begins the first of the five sections of the novel, each narrated by a different third person. Crammed with humour, sorrow, folly, bravery and the richness of the everyday, Tulchinsky traces the remarkable fortunes of generations of the Lapinsky family, bringing life to the character of an entire community. August 1933: a sweltering Toronto night. At Christie Pits Park, during the ninth inning of an amateur-league softball game, four youths unfurl a white sheet emblazoned with a large black Swastika, lift their arms and shout, “Heil Hitler!” Within seconds, a group of Jewish youths charge in a struggle to capture the flag, setting off a four-hour race riot (the largest ever to occur, before or since, in Toronto), involving fifteen thousand people and injuring hundreds. The riot at Christie Pits Park was the culmination of weeks of political and racial tension. Tulchinsky has re-created this and other defining historical moments in vivid detail, taking us inside the life of one immigrant Jewish family. We trace the fortunes of the Lapinskys—in particular the four sons—from the pivotal moment of the riots, through the years of the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and all its attendant social tensions, World War II, into the post-war era that began to emerge in the early 1950s. A stunning, engaging and moving fictional treatment of a defining moment for a family, a city, a nation and a continent struggling with ideas of freedom, tolerance and identity in a world broken by war. “Karen X. Tulchinsky’s latest novel might be considered old-fashioned in the very best sense; it’s got lots of heart.” —National Post “A highly entertaining, well-written and worthwhile piece of work.” —Toronto Sun

6 / New Releases

Talonbooks

time bill bissett

Born on Billy the Kid’s birthday—November 23, 1939—and raised in Halifax, bill bissett really did run away from home to join a circus when he was seventeen, arriving in Vancouver in 1958. In the 1960s, bissett garnered international attention as a pre-eminent figure of the counter-culture movement in Canada and the U.K. In 1964, bissett founded blewointment press, which published the works of bpNichol and Steve McCaffery, among others. A pioneer of sound, visual and performance poetry— eschewing the artificial hierarchies of meaning and the privileging of things (“proper” nouns) over actions imposed on language by capital letters; the metric limitations imposed on the possibilities of expression by punctuation; and the illusion of formal transparency imposed on the written word by standard (rather than phonetic) spelling— bissett composes his poems as scripts for pure performance and has consistently worked to extend the boundaries of language and visual image, honing a synthesis of the two in the medium of concrete poetry. Canada’s first Poet Laureate George Bowering has called bissett “a sound poet through whom spirit talks, and a primary political force for our shared good.”

ISBN 978-0-88922-653-1 Poetry 6 x 9; 160 pp; Trade paper $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD September

bill bissett, who recently celebrated his seventieth birthday, remains even in his “biblical years” Canada’s most exciting, innovative pioneer in the field of the written, spoken, performed, illustrated and sculpted word. No one over the past half century comes close to what bissett has accomplished in pushing the boundaries of language beyond what was imagined in the mid-twentieth century as their furthest possible horizon, and what is most ast onishing is that he is still the vanguard of that movement in the “language arts” not just in Canada, but around the world today. As a way of introducing new readers to the non-hierarchical orthography, syntax and breath-determined metric and cadence so essential to the construction of meaning in the performancescores of his narrative poetry, Talon asked bissett to tell his readers in his own inimitable and “raging” way what his latest book is “about”: time is reelee abt how evreething is fleeting n how we deel with that n how deeplee we undrstand that awareness th jewels shine as our undrstandings th layrs n openings apertures n iris lens in or not n how manee narrativs reveel our paradoxikul n continualee shifting minds n all th dimensyuns byond narrativ as well a storee is what time is it what time is it 4 ourselvs n our specees n how timeless th breth uv th galaxee n oftn ourselvs tho agen fleeting lyrik song chant philosophikal theologikul prsonal propheseez vizual n tanguld tangos our dances thru ths dimensyun lerning th binaree n wanting n hoping 2 b unlerning th binaree with th invisibul dansrs in th ancient n now glistning ball room n th 4tune tellrs shuffuling theyr decks how we yern 4 n letting go uv our games finding love n th chancs 4 savin th environment n our selvs —bill bissett “His poetry addresses the limitless discussion of the boundaries between the personal and the political.” —National Post

bill bissett’s b leev abul char ak trs, th influenza uv logik, inkorrect thots, th last photo uv th human soul, loving without being vulnrabul, narrativ enigma/ rumours uv hurricane, northern wild roses/deth interrupts the dansing, peter among th towring boxes/text bites, scars on the seehors, Selected Poems: Beyond Even Faithful Legends, sublingual and ths is erth thees ar peopul are also available from Talonbooks.

Talonbooks

New Releases / 7

The Collected Books of Artie Gold Artie Gold Compiled and edited by Ken Norris & Endre Farkas

Although not born in Montreal, Artie Gold, grew up in Outremont and became a Montreal legend. Along with Ken Norris and Endre Farkas, he was one of the three original editors of Véhicule Press, though he considered himself the “disassociate” editor. His work came to prominence in the 1970s and was collected in key anthologies of the period, as well as in his own books. Ken Norris was born in New York City in 1951. He immigrated to Canada in the early 1970s and quickly also became part of Montreal’s infamous Véhicule circle. One of Canada’s most prolific poets, Norris has always given his readers subtly capricious and edgy poetry that reveals unanticipated possibilities and explores new horizons. He is the author of two dozen books and chapbooks of poetry, and is the editor of eight anthologies of poetry and poetics. Endre Farkas is a poet and playwright who has published nine books of poetry, most recently In The Worshipful Company of Skinners (J. Gordon Shillingford Publishers). His work has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, Slovenian and Turkish. He has edited anthologies, produced records and has worked with artists to create the theatre of poetry, and has given readings and performances across Canada, Europe and Chile.

ISBN 978-0-88922-652-4 Poetry 6 x 9; 304 pp; Trade paper $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD September

Artie Gold wrote. And although he published only eight books, they were just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Artie was always writing— on his manual Underwood, on the back of cigarette packs, on napkins, on the wall, on postcards to himself and to the rest of the world. He also sketched, sketches of the moment, the moment of a moment, like his poems, whose phrases and unsentimental melancholia left a permanent impression on your mind and in your heart. He and his poems made you realize that poetry, contrary to popular opinion, did matter. Artie Gold was a poet who was sure of what he was. He paid rent in Fort Poetry. He had such breadth in his poems that he could leave you breathless and wondering “how did he do that?” There was a Bach-like complexity mixed with a Rube Goldberg playfulness in his poems. His poems were city flowers growing between the cracks of this concrete island at the strangest and most arresting angles. —Endre Farkas Born in 1947 in Brockville, Ontario, Artie Gold appeared like a supernova within the constellation of Montreal Anglophone poets in the late 1960s. Intensely devoted to poetry, having already discovered the work of Frank O’Hara, John Wieners and Jack Spicer in his teens, six books of his poems were published in each of the years 1974–79. Daunted by asthma, complicated by rapidly proliferating allergies and emphysema, he increasingly retreated from the world. At the urging of his friends, a Selected Poems was published in 1992, but only one further book appeared in print in 2003. Artie left the world on St. Valentine’s Day, 2007. His eight published books of poetry collected here shine like a beacon of Northern Lights across the literary landscape of the late twentieth century. “… 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

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

8 / New Releases

Talonbooks

Muthologos Lectures and Interviews, Revised Second Edition Charles Olson Edited by Ralph Maud

Charles Olson (1910–1970) was a giant of a man in physical stature, critical and intellectual range, and imaginative power. His masterwork, The Maximus Poems, stands beside Ezra Pound’s The Cantos as one of the two great American long poems of the twentieth century— indeed, it can be seen as a democratic and relativist response to Pound’s fascist and absolutist manifesto. His boundless energy, penetrating curiosity and limitless dedication to his craft made Olson and his work the syncretic centre of the evolving discourse of mid-twentiethcentury poetics in English. Ralph Maud is Emeritus Professor of English and Associate of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University. Founder of the Charles Olson Literary Society, Maud is the author of Charles Olson Reading (1996) and the editor of The Selected Letters of Charles Olson (2000). He has edited much of Dylan Thomas’ work, including The Notebook Poems 1930–1934 and The Broadcasts, and is co-editor, with Walford Davies, of Dylan Thomas: The Collected Poems, 1934–1953 and Under Milk Wood.

ISBN 978-0-88922-639-5 Non-fiction / Literary Criticism 6 x 9; 496 pp; Trade paper; Photos $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD July

Charles Olson’s insistence that the public value of any articulation is inseparable from the particulars of the time and place of its origins resulted in the proprioceptive methodology of his composition—in his speech and his writing, in both poetry and prose. Olson did not “lecture”—he “talked.” His encyclopedic knowledge of the subjects that interested him engaged in a manner always as surprising to himself as to his listeners. This element of discovery was to him a true measure of what is authentic in language, and it exhibits itself most in the impromptu exchanges of which Muthologos is mainly composed. Olson once defined “Muthologos” as “what is said about what is said,” which encompasses a breadth of discourse that would define the near and far range of where the poet’s mind went in a lifetime’s intent to go places. In this new compilation of Charles Olson’s transcribed lectures and interviews, we finally get all of what is preserved of a life of talk, allowing Muthologos to stand, along with The Maximus Poems, Collected Poems, Collected Prose and Selected Letters as one of the “standard texts” of this great poet’s oeuvre. Ralph Maud’s second edition of Muthologos, some thirty years after George Butterick’s first, adds several new items: “At Goddard College, April 1962”; a second Vancouver 1963 discussion, “Duende, Muse, and Angel”; a short addition to the “BBC Interview”; a second “On Black Mountain”; and a further hour of Olson’s conversation with Herb Kenny. In addition, all the available tapes of these talks and interviews have been listened to again, and many of their previous transcription errors have been corrected. Textual notes to each piece identify these corrections, and also reveal the provenance of the tapes and the particular way in which each transcription was created. Praise for Maud’s Charles Olson at the Harbor: “Maud depicts [Olson] ‘functioning remarkably as a public poet, a poet thinking on his feet, and being absolutely delightful.’” —Pacific Rim Review of Books

Ralph Maud’s A Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend, Charles Olson at the Harbor, Poet to Publisher: Charles Olson’s Correspondence with Donald Allen, The Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories and Transmission Difficulties: Franz Boas and Tsimshian Mythology are also available from Talonbooks.

Talonbooks

Previously Announced / 9

Imperial Canada Inc. Legal Haven of Choice for the World’s Mining Industries Alain Deneault, with Delphine Abadie, Mathieu Denis, Patrick Ducharme, Charles Ficner, David Gill & William Sacher Translated by Fred A. Reed & Robin Philpot

Alain Deneault was born in the Outaouais region of Québec. He completed a research-doctorate at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin and the Université de Paris 8, at which he received his PhD in philosophy under the direction of Jacques Rancière. Deneault’s research and writing practices are diverse and often collaborative, focusing on how international financial and legal agreements increasingly foster the interests of “stateless” transnational corporations over those of nation-states and the interests of their human communities. International journalist and literary translator Fred A. Reed is a three-time winner of the Governor General’s Award for translation. He has translated major works by Thierry Hentsch and many of Québec’s leading authors, as well as by Nikos Kazantzakis and other modern Greek writers. He lives in Montreal. Montreal-based author and translator Robin Philpot attained degrees in history and literature from the University of Toronto, taught English and history in Africa, and pursued a career in Québec politics. He sparked public controversy with the online release of his book Rwanda 1994: Colonialism Dies Hard.

ISBN 978-0-88922-635-7 Non-fiction / International Trade 5.5 x 8.5; 320 pp; Trade paper $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD November

Imperial Canada Inc. sets out to ask a simple question: why is Canada home to more than 70% of the world’s mining companies? Created by the British North America Act of 1867, Canada, rather than turning away from its colonial past, actively embraced, appropriated and perpetuated the imperial ambitions of its mother country. Two years later, it took possession of Rupert’s Land—all of the land draining into Hudson Bay—and the North West Territories from the Hudson’s Bay Company, three million square miles of resources, and set about its nation-building enterprise of extending its Dominion “from sea to sea.” This Canadian imperial heritage continues to offer the extractive sector worldwide a customized trading environment that supports speculation, enables capital flows to finance questionable projects abroad, pursues a proactive diplomacy which successfully promotes this sector to international institutions, opens fiscal pipelines to Caribbean tax havens, provides government subsidies and most especially, offers a politicized legal haven from litigation. Traditionally rooted in Canadian law, the right to reputation effectively supersedes freedom of expression and the public’s right to information. Hence, Canadian “bodies corporate,” i.e. Canadian-based corporations, can sue for “libel” any and all persons or legal entities that quote documents or generate analyses of their corporate practices that they do not approve of. Even foreign academics have become hesitant about presenting their work in Canada for fear of such prosecution. The authors of Imperial Canada Inc., all respected scholars in their fields, meticulously research four factors that contribute to the answer to this question: Québec’s and Ontario’s mining codes; the history of the Toronto Stock Exchange; Canada’s involvement with Caribbean tax havens; and, finally, Canada’s official role of promoting itself to international institutions governing the world’s mining sector. Praise for Deneault’s Paul Martin & Companies: Sixty Theses on the Alegal Nature of Tax Havens: “Here is a political book that does not rest with the satisfaction of having revealed certain secrecies, but persists in getting to the bottom of things … An essential read which goes beyond the scope of strict policy.” —Le Libraire

Alain Deneault’s Paul Martin & Companies is also available from Talonbooks.

10 / New Releases

Talonbooks

The Satchmo’ Suite Hans Böggild & Doug Innis

Nova Soctia-born Hans Böggild is a playwright, dramaturg, director, editor and actor who has had a fortyyear career in Canadian theatre, including a position as artistic producer at the innovative Eastern Front Theatre in Dartmouth. He was also Special Research Fellow in Playwriting at the Yale Drama School, one of America’s leading centres for new play development. Böggild holds a BA from Dalhousie University and a Master’s degree in directing from the University of Alberta. Born and raised in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Doug Innis has played as a multi-instrumentalist musician with scores of well-known musicians, including Lonnie Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Bruce Cockburn and Leon Redbone. As a composer he has scored and performed in numerous theatrical, dance and musical productions including Paul Ledoux’s Fire and Michael Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter. He has worked as an actor in many films including The Last Detail and in the recent Canadian film Camilla by Deppa Metha. On stage his numerous acting roles include Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy and Duvalier in George Boyd’s Gideon’s Blues.

ISBN 978-0-88922-648-7 Drama 5.5 x 8.5; 128 pp; Trade paper $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD August

Hubert Clements is a black cellist on tour with a symphony orchestra. Their guest soloist is injured and the conductor asks Clements to stand in. After wrestling with an extremely difficult passage in the performance piece, Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello, Clements finally resorts to improvising his way through the score, which earns him a stinging rebuke from the conductor, who disdainfully calls him “Satchmo’.” Humiliated, Clements returns to his hotel room, where try as he might he cannot master the piece. Unwittingly invoking the ghost of Louis Armstrong, the highly mythologized spirit of “the father of jazz himself,” Satchmo’ challenges Clements’ prejudiced view of him as an amateur and an “Uncle Tom.” Gradually, the lives of the characters intertwine and begin to play off each other as issues of class, hope, courage, family and race emerge in a lively and powerful struggle between what we remember, and how we remember it. In the end, of course, the drama resolves with Clements’ beautiful rendition of the Bach piece. The play ultimately explores the polarities of existence—between the head and the heart, between logic and intuition, between insecurity and faith, between the present and the past, and between the personal and the public, and it is Hubert and Louis who embody these concepts for the audience. Finally, it’s a play about dealing with life’s struggles, having the courage to face one’s demons, and then having the faith to go on and be the best you can be. Originally written as a highly successful one-person show, the play has evolved over the years into an ensemble piece with a cast of five. Full of great jazz and classical music, but using none of Satchmo’s own compositions, the play incorporates nine original jazz songs, co-written by the author-musicians, into the action. “An irresistible meeting of music and drama, The Satchmo’ Suite really swings.” —Montreal Gazette

Talonbooks

New Releases / 11

The Refugee Hotel Carmen Aguirre

Studio 58 graduate Carmen Aguirre is a Vancouver-based theatre artist who has worked extensively in North and South America. She has written and co-written fifteen plays. As an actor, Aguirre has sixty film, TV and stage credits, including a lead role in the independent feature Quinceañera, winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, an Independent Spirit award, GLAAD awards and various People’s Choice awards at festivals around the world. As a stage actor, Aguirre has worked with a host of acclaimed Vancouver theatre companies. Aguirre was the founder and director of the Latino Theatre Group, was playwrightin-residence at the Vancouver Playhouse from 2000 to 2002, was playwright-in-residence at Touchstone Theatre in 2004, and facilitates Theatre of the Oppressed workshops around the province. Aguirre is currently playwright-in-residence at Victoria’s Belfry Theatre, where she is developing a new play called The Tina Modotti Project. Something Fierce, a memoir about her militancy in the underground Movement of the Revolutionary Left during the Pinochet dicatatorship in Chile, will be published in 2011.

ISBN 978-0-88922-650-0 Drama 5.5 x 8.5; 104 pp; Trade paper $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD August

Two events gave birth to this play: the 1998 arrest of Augusto Pinochet by the Spanish courts and the 1995 death of Aguirre’s uncle, who drank himself to death on Vancouver’s skid row, never living to make a victorious return to his country. It has taken decades of silence for Aguirre to understand and come to terms with her family’s experience as refugees and exiles: “The few times we spoke about it to other people, we were accused of being pathological liars and being crazy,” she says of those years. “We learned never to talk about what was happening in Chile. From the moment when I told some classmates very matter-of-factly in grade two that my stepfather and some of my family members had just come out of a concentration camp that was the national soccer stadium, I was Crazy Carmen.” Laid bare in the fictionalized autobiographical details of The Refugee Hotel are the universal truths the victims and survivors of political oppression continue to experience everywhere: the terror of persecution, arrest and torture; the exhausted elation of escape; the trauma of learning to live again with the losses, betrayals and agonies of the past; the irrational guilt of the survivor—even the tragedy of surviving the nightmares of the past only to have them return to challenge any hope of a future. Set in a run-down hotel in 1974, only months after the start of the infamous Pinochet regime, eight Chilean refugees struggle, at times haplessly, at times profoundly, to decide if fleeing their homeland means they have abandoned their friends and responsibilities or not. More than a dark comedy about a group of Chilean refugees who arrive in Vancouver after Pinochet’s coup, this play is Carmen Aguirre’s attempt to give voice to refugee communities from all corners of the globe. “A humorous and heartbreaking look at life in exile.” —Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles

Carmen Aguirre’s The Trigger is also available from Talonbooks.

12 / New Releases

Talonbooks

Beating the Bushes Steven Bush

Steven Bush has over forty years of experience in professional theatre, as an actor on stage and radio, director and teacher. He is a former member of George Luscombe’s left-wing Toronto Workshop Productions, co-founder of Mixed Company Theatre and former artistic director of Great Canadian Theatre Company. Bush is the co-author of Available Targets and Life on the Line, acclaimed works that give voice to his outrage at the injustices of contemporary society, but are mediated by humour, playfulness and sophisticated theatricality. He is currently senior lecturer in drama at the University Toronto and occasional visiting lecturer at the University of Guelph.

Steven Bush is a man on a mission—to confront the skeletons in his family closet. Did his very own cousins rule a country that, even today, after electing its first African American president, still seems bent on world domination? What can he, a distant relation of the “Bushes” (so the story goes), do to end the madness and redeem the family name? Ever since the bloodless coup that felled the Republic (the controversial American election of 2000), Steven Bush has been hard at work to prove— or disprove—his blood ties to those bad Bushes in the White House. Drawing on documents related to the Iran Contra scandal and other drugs, money, guns and oil shenanigans of the CIA, as well as bizarre stories from Bush ancestral lore, he presents the American Empire created by George Bush Sr. and George Bush Jr. as a clear and present danger to us all. Steven Bush’s one-man standup comedy, rant, political protest and call for the war-crimes trials of both George H.W. and George W. Bush is a brash theatrical tour de force that dares his audiences to accompany him on a personal quest for evidence of honesty, decency and complicity in a world of damning facts and murky conspiracy theories. Meticulously researched, including two pages of bibliography and twenty pages of footnotes to substantiate every wild allegation made during the show, and with a Postscript to the Reader that asks some sticky questions of America’s newest president, Barack Obama, this may well not be an attempt to flush the “Bushes” from their cover at all, but rather what Bembo Davies calls in his Afterword “an installation of self ” in a world gone mad—an installation that asks what “we the people” are going to do about regaining our collective sanity. “The breadth of Steven’s talent as a theatre practitioner is quite simply remarkable. He has the uncommon gift of artistry and intellect … What is most exciting is that his work appears to come from a different place than that of most other theatre artists.” —Djanet Sears “Spalding Gray meets Noam Chomsky, this is less satire than entertaining polemic, leavened by memoir … Bush’s broadside does have its lighter moments.” —Globe & Mail

ISBN 978-0-88922-647-0 Drama 5.5 x 8.5; 160 pp; Trade paper $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD August

Talonbooks

New Releases / 13

Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre Larry Tremblay Translated by Chantal Bilodeau

Larry Tremblay is a writer, director, actor and specialist in Kathakali, an elaborate dance theatre form which he has studied on numerous trips to India. He has published twenty books as a playwright, poet, novelist and essayist. His plays, premiered for the most part in Montreal, have also been produced, often in translation, in Italy, France, Belgium, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and Scotland. One of Quebec’s most versatile writers, Tremblay currently teaches acting at l’École supérieure de théâtre de l’Université du Québec à Montréal, where he received his MA in Drama in 1983. In 2006 Tremblay was awarded the Canada Council Victor-Martyn-Lynch-Staunton Prize for his contribution to the theatre. New York-based Chantal Bilodeau is a playwright and literary translator originally from Montreal. Her plays include Pleasure & Pain, The Motherline, Tagged, as well as several shorts that have been presented by theatres across the country. Her translations include plays by contemporary playwrights Larry Tremblay, Koffi Kwahulé and Mohamed Kacimi. Her essays about theatre have been published in Contemporary Theatre Review (UK) and UBU European Stages (France).

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

John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. Inside that theatre today, Ranger Powell of the U.S. Parks Service takes crowds of tourists, the curious and the ghoulish through a stepby-step description of the assassination. Underneath the box where Lincoln was shot, he describes the plot of the comedy Lincoln watched that night, Our American Cousin, as being “kind of like the Beverly Hillbillies.” Scratch the surface of any story and underneath you will find layer upon layer of fiction masquerading as fact. The play’s main character, Mark Killman—a feared but much admired director—draws inspiration from Abraham Lincoln’s assassination to stage the schizophrenia of America. He hires two actors to play Laurel and Hardy. Both are to re-enact the assassination, while he himself plays the iconic role of Abraham Lincoln as a wax figure. The script is frequently self-referential, building on each of these “retakes” with further allusions to itself, telling the same story many times over in different voices from different points of view. Tremblay quite explicitly stages elements of literary theory with this play, including references to Jean Baudrillard’s concept of the simulacra and the “desert of the real,” concepts first popularized by the movie The Matrix—the idea that in our post-modern world, the imitator has become more relevant than the imitated, and that the virtual worlds we construct are becoming more “real” to us than the real world. Absurd, hilarious and haunting, Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre is an unforgettable mystery that asks the question: How can we ever know who we are and what is true when the world we know is shifting beneath us? Its answer is simple: John Wilkes Booth was the first American star—the actor who kidnapped reality to transform it into theatre. “… explores the wellsprings of psychic and social violence.” —Canadian Encyclopedia

Larry Tremblay’s The Bicycle Eater, Piercing, Talking Bodies and The Ventriloquist are also available from Talonbooks.

14 / New Releases

Talonbooks

The Madonna Painter Michel Marc Bouchard Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Quebec playwright Michel Marc Bouchard made his professional debut in 1983. Since then he has written some twenty-five plays, and has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including le Prix Journal de Montréal, Prix du Cercle de critiques de l’Outaouais, the Governor General’s Award, the Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Chalmers Award for Outstanding New Play. The Vancouver productions of Lilies (1993) and The Orphan Muses (1995) also garnered nine Jesse Richardson Theatre Awards. Translated into nine languages, his bold and visionary works have represented Canada in major festivals around the world and been produced by theatres on four continents. An Officer of the Order of Canada, Bouchard has taught theatre at the University of Ottawa and Université du Québec, and has coached young playwrights at the National Theatre School of Canada. Governor General’s Award-nominee Linda Gaboriau has been active in Canadian and Québécois theatre for over twenty years as a critic, journalist, broadcaster and dramaturge. Her critically acclaimed translations of more than fifty plays include the works of some of Francophone Canada’s most prominent writers, including Michel Tremblay, Jean-Marc Dalpé and Daniel Danis.

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

At the end of the First World War, to protect his village from the Spanish flu epidemic brought home by returning soldiers, a young priest recently arrived in the Parish of Lac St-Jean commissions a wandering Italian painter to decorate the walls of the local church with a fresco dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The painter is to choose, among four local women all named Mary, a model for his work. The presence of the foreign artist, his choice of a local virgin to serve as a model, and the frighteningly strange nature of his work will upset the lives and change the fate of the entire community. The town’s doctor, meanwhile, has his own prescription for what is ailing the villagers. As superstition collides with desire, The Madonna Painter unmasks a bouquet of lies disguised as a fable. Loosely inspired by the events surrounding the creation of the fresco that still adorns the nave of the church in Saint-Coeur de Marie, the author’s native village, the language of the play is not that of its current inhabitants. Bouchard’s characters simply echo the medieval beliefs that coloured the imagination and shaped the destiny of all Québécois, especially those living in its many rural townships until very recently, and inspire this story with their gossip about their neighbours, foreigners and the mythical marital spats between God and Satan. That fresco depicting the Virgin Mary’s ascension was the author’s first encounter with art, with a foreigner and with lies, and Michel Marc Bouchard has said: “In order to portray that fresco, I became a liar and the people from my village became saints and martyrs, artists and models, lovers and misanthropes. I presented their legends the way a flea market hawker displays sacred objects that have been stolen and disguised for resale.” “An unforgettable play.”

—Globe & Mail

“Bouchard puts human nature under the scalpel and a terrible beauty is born.” —Toronto Star

Michel Marc Bouchard’s The Coronation Voyage, Down Dangerous Passes Road, The Tale of Teeka and Written on Water are also available from Talonbooks.

Talonbooks

New Releases / 15

With Bated Breath Bryden MacDonald

Bryden MacDonald was born in Glace Bay on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. He currently resides in Montreal where he is a playwright, director and performer. His play The Weekend Healer (1995) premiered at Toronto’s Factory Theatre in 1994. His first published play, Whale Riding Weather (Talonbooks), was short-listed for the Governor General’s Award for Drama in 1994, received a Jessie award for the best production in Vancouver in 1992 and was nominated for both the Chalmers and Dora Mavor Moore Awards. He is the creator of theatrical interpretations of the words and music of Leonard Cohen (Sincerely, A Friend), Carol Pope/Rough Trade (Shaking the Foundations) and Joni Mitchell (When All the Slaves are Free). He coaches students at the National Theatre School in Montreal.

With Bated Breath asks questions about memory—how and why it plays such a prominent role in our lives: how time affects it, how it fractures, how we often reinvent it depending on the situation—and why it is that certain things stay with us with a blistering clarity, while the shadows of other people and events simply slip away, only to reveal themselves again later in our lives when we least expect them. This is the provocative tale of Willy, a troubled but charismatic gay kid who flees Cape Breton Island for Montreal with hopes of forgetting a newly broken heart by starting a new life in the big city. There, hopelessly awkward and naïve, caught up 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, and soon goes missing without a trace. Willy, in one way or another, has had a profound effect on the lives of the people he has touched. As rumours fly, secrets explode and reality blurs with fantasy, he is both remembered and reinvented by each of the play’s characters in their own way. Though Willy’s self-appointed, new-found and worldly-wise mentor had cautioned him, “There’s nothing safe. We’re never safe. If you ever thought you were, you were in denial,” it’s too late for this dreamer who ignored the best advice he ever got from those who cared for him: “You just don’t find a soul mate—you have to invent them. Cuz love at first sight sure don’t last.” What lasts at the end of the day is memory—the necessary tale we tell ourselves to both make sense of our past and to give ourselves hope for a future without having to lose those we have loved.

“Quite stunning … full of one-liners and dark poetry.”

—Daniel MacIvor

Bryden MacDonald’s Divinity Bash/nine lives, The Weekend Healer and Whale Riding Weather are also available from Talonbooks.

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

16 / Recent Releases

Talonbooks

The Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack Dorothy Kennedy & Randy Bouchard

Randy Bouchard and Dorothy Kennedy were privileged to meet Charlie Mack early in their ethnographic field work. Born on the Mount Currie Reserve in 1899, Charlie Mack was a fascinating character—a font of wisdom, his way of life exemplifying the living world of the Lil’wat people. Returning to Charlie Mack’s world in 1990, Kennedy and Bouchard discover his worldview encompasses a moral code; information about the environment; and the self-evident truths of his cultural history—an interweaving of myth, history and experience, deeply rooted in a sense of place. Praise for Kennedy & Bouchard’s Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands: “An excellent portrait of these people.”

—Canadian Book Review Annual

ISBN 978-0-88922-640-1; Non-fiction; 6.75 x 9.75; 240 pp; Trade paper; Photos & maps; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

My Darling Nellie Grey George Bowering

In December, 2005, stalled on a novel he was writing, George Bowering thought he needed a challenge, so he made a New Year’s resolution: write a poem for every day of 2006. The result of this uncompromising personal and formal discipline is one of the most fascinating books of poetry ever written. Throughout, the poet assumes the guises of a lifetime, reeling in and out over the gravel of a stream alive with recognitions, as all of the events of an imagined life become simultaneously present in their exquisite voices. “One of Canadian literature’s chief mockers and iconoclasts.”

—Vancouver Sun

ISBN 978-0-88922-634-0; Poetry; 6 x 9; 416 pp; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD

Decompositions Ken Belford

For much of his life, Ken Belford lived in the north, in the pristine region of the headwaters of the Nass River. His careful (de)compositions disclose the land as a complex living organism, articulate the names of it, see the whole of it, beginning at the edge of the rancher’s or the farmer’s field, wherever that boundary is, and look back at “civilization” with a vision and a voice that is unique and new, while his self-taught language foregrounds a consciousness informed by the latest recognitions of science and technology. “Belford is a delight. [His poems] read with the kind of inevitability of image and rhythm that makes other poets grit their teeth with envy.” —Margaret Atwood ISBN 978-0-88922-631-9; Poetry; 6 x 9; 96 pp; Trade paper; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Asian Skies Ken Norris

Asian Skies is the third book of Ken Norris’ travel trilogy, where he searches for the spiritual “inside passage,” the illusory transcendence of “a passage to India” from the post-industrial world, setting out for that most foreign of shores to the West: Asia—a world of glittering wealth, precious spice, exotic religiosity, tyrannical rule, mysterious ritual and deadly storm—a world of temptation where what was loved easily becomes hated, what was benign appears threatening, what was dangerous seeks embrace, what was worshipped evokes disdain, what was past is future. “He is, in short, a poet, and a good one. The world he inhabits is a geographically, politically, and emotionally extensive one in which he is entirely comfortable in his own skin, and therefore able to register the surrounding phenomena exactly.” —Hiram Poetry Review ISBN 978-0-88922-633-3; Poetry; 6 x 9; 128 pp; Trade paper; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Talonbooks

Recent Releases / 17

hypoderm notes to myself Weyman Chan

We live in an age of anxiety—the drills of our Nietzschean will to power are getting under the earth’s green skin. Drawing on molecular biology and Chinese, Mayan and Egyptian mythologies, hypoderm is a storehouse of antidotes in which the words: “What monster taught Adam / to see a bird and say the word” echo Blake; “the name that can be named is not the real name” recall Milton; and “shouldn’t the final / translation of any word in any language / be silence” invoke the teachings of Buddha. “Weyman Chan’s hypoderm graphs the geometry of the everyday: he maps the borders and the fence; the lines between friends and family, between forgive and forget.” —derek beaulieu ISBN 978-0-88922-637-1; Poetry; 6 x 9; 96 pp; Trade paper; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

On the Material Stephen Collis

On the Material’s first section, “4x4” reminds us: “After all we made money out of matter here … As 4x4s cool and ping mud covered in double garages”; its second section, “I Fought the Lyric and the Lyric Won” is a triumph of the desire to express over the desire to possess; and in its third section, “Gail’s Books,” the poet reads his way back into the elemental heart of absence and loss, and recovers the materiality of a sister lost to cancer—her house and possessions erased by fire. “On the Material is a fine, smart book, indeed. But it is the concluding section, ‘Gail’s Books,’ that I will read again and again, for that section is a profound testing of the ability of an innovative poetry (and innovative poet) to address the most urgent and emotional of subjects, the death of the poet’s sister.” —Hank Lazer ISBN 978-0-88922-632-6; Poetry; 6 x 9; 128 pp; Trade paper; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Bardy Google Frank Davey

For thousands of years, formal compositional “rules” have shaped the language of poetry, creating “meaning” through the interplay between these culturally determined aesthetic prerequisites imposed on its syntax, and the “other” intelligence of the poet pushing against these constraints. Bardy Google reinvents these formal boundaries within the frame of our wired world. With only one hidden exception, this book was constructed through 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. “Davey has often been seen as a ‘poet’s poet,’ employing his precise craftsmanship and theoretical intelligence. But his poetry … could well speak to a much wider audience.” —Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-636-4; Poetry; 6 x 9; 80 pp; Trade paper; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

How to Write derek beaulieu

Ezra Pound asserted that poets should “make it new.” By “it” he meant “the literary tradition.” This assertion was by no means original, much less post-modern: John Donne, for example, had argued centuries earlier that: “all mankind is of one author, and is one volume.” Containing ten pieces of conceptual prose ranging from the purely appropriated through the entirely recomposed—texts from the anonymous to the famous—beaulieu here shamelessly samples Lawrence Sterne, Agatha Christie, Bob Kane, Roy Lichtenstein and every piece of text within one block of his home. “derek beaulieu consistently produces some of the most baffling, oblique, unreadable—and ultimately, on reflection, absolutely logical and necessary—works of conceptual poetry now being written.” —Craig Dworkin ISBN 978-0-88922-629-6; Non-fiction; 4.25 x 7; 72 pp; Trade paper; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

18 / Recent Releases

Talonbooks

After Jack Garry Thomas Morse

Jack Spicer, the barroom soothsayer of the “Berkeley Renaissance,” forged a new kind of poetry with Robert Duncan and Robin Blaser in the decade 1945–1955, grounded in their “queer genealogy” of Arthur Rimbaud, Federico García Lorca and other gay writers. Not merely an homage to Jack Spicer, but also a tribute to his Orphic conception of the serial poem, After Jack is a palimpsestuous attempt to achieve the dark art of nekuia, to dial in his poetic transmissions, and to divine the polyphony of Federico García Lorca and Jack Spicer as their voices interweave, transform, and become inexorably entangled with a fresh, peculiar, and disturbingly profane authorial voice. “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 ISBN 978-0-88922-630-2; Poetry; 6 x 9; 184 pp; Trade paper; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

The Trespassers Morris Panych

Fifteen-year-old Lowell is no average teenager—and his grandfather, Hardy, no conventional role model. Lowell’s born-again mother, Cash, begins to wonder just how far into forbidden territory has Lowell actually ventured when inspector Milton shows up to investigate a mysterious murder. Finally, Lowell’s skill at shaping the truth to protect himself and his family is put to the ultimate test: shall he plea bargain, or stick to the truth as he understands it? Hardy had once reminded him, “There’s something in between lying and not lying. It’s called a story.” “Charming and, this being Panych, funny.”

—National Post

ISBN 978-0-88922-628-9; Drama; 5.5 x 8.5; 96 pp; Trade paper; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Skydive Kevin Kerr

Two brothers reconnect after many years of separation to fulfill a life-long ambition to go skydiving. Yet we realize that something is being subverted as we watch this high-stakes adventure occur in the final seconds of a daring adventure gone horribly wrong. Commissioned by Realwheels, a Vancouver-based theatre company, Skydive is written for one able-bodied and one differently abled actor. Its sophisticated staging technology allows the performers to create the illusion of flight and freefall, a metaphor for the power of dream and imagination that lifts us above our individual physicalities. “Skydive into the giddy realms of really innovative theatre.”

—Vancouver Sun

ISBN 978-0-88922-638-8; Drama; 5.5 x 8.5; 96 pp; Trade paper; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

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

On Friday April 24, 1885, Captain James Peters took the world’s first battlefield photographs under fire at the battle of Fish Creek in the Canadian Northwest Territory of Saskatchewan. Developing over seventy additional glass plates for photos taken during the following battles at Duck Lake and Batoche, many of them while engaging the enemy, he was also an “embedded journalist” for the Quebec Morning Chronicle. His dispatches and photographs, presented here for the first time in their entirety, are a pioneering addition to the history of war correspondence and photography. ISBN 978-0-88922-621-0; Non-fiction; 8 x 10; 144 pp; Cloth; Photos; $35.00 CAD / $35.00 USD

Talonbooks

Non-fiction Backlist / 19

ABC of Reading TRG

Margaret Atwood

The New Canadian Criticism Series Peter Jaeger

A Feminist Poetics

Edited by Frank Davey

Frank Davey

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

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

The New Canadian Criticism Series

American Notebooks

Bambi and Me

A Writer’s Journey Marie-Claire Blais

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

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

An album of finely drawn literary portraits of writers, musicians, artists and social activists who influenced the life and work of Blais in the 1960s. “Marvelously constructed … beautifully cadenced character studies.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-358-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1996; 208 pp

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Anarcho-Modernism

Baseball Love

Toward a New Critical Theory in Honour of Jerry Zaslove Edited by Ian Angus

George Bowering

Essays exploring key issues of politics and aesthetics in honour of the founding director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University. “One cannot deny the generosity of spirit which permeates this text … ” —Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-457-5; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2001; 384 pp; photos

Bowering’s life in love and the game unfolds in a picaresque memoir of a road trip taken through the storied ballparks of the poet’s youthful dreams. “The indispensable George Bowering’s Baseball Love is a winning memoir cum love story, as Canada’s first poet laureate and his lady embark on a memorable— in every sense—baseball trope: the road trip.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-529-9; $19.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2006; 256 pp

Anatolia Junction

Beyond Recall

A Journey into Hidden Turkey Fred A. Reed

Mary Meigs

As Fred A. Reed travels through the Middle East, the Balkans and Asia Minor, he concludes that Turkey’s Islamists are reappropriating the culture and beliefs that 70 years of secular fundamentalism have been unable to eradicate.

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

“Succeeds in showing readers … that Islam is not a monolith, but ‘a rich and complex mosaic.’” —CBRA

Edited by Lise Weil

Lambda Literary Award for Biography Finalist, 2006. “Her real strengths are virtues of drama, colour … and passion that are distilled in succinct images.” —Globe & Mail

Annihilated Time

Birth of a Bookworm

Poetry and Other Politics Jeff Derksen

Michel Tremblay

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

A tour of books that inspired Tremblay’s imagination.

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Globe & Mail Top 100 Books, 2003. “Quebec’s most celebrated living writer.” —Guardian (UK) “Destined to become a classic.”

––Globe & Mail

20 / Non-fiction Backlist

Talonbooks

Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies

The Burden of Office

Michel Tremblay

Agamemnon and Other Losers Joseph Tussman

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

Lucid, original and ultimately wise, this book is as much a work of literature as it is of philosophy. “These stories are meant to delight as well as instruct.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-265-6; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1989; 168 pp; 2nd printing

George Bowering

Canadian Drama and the Critics

Bright Circles of Colour

Revised Edition Edited by L. W. Conolly

The New Canadian Criticism Series

Eva-Marie Kröller Edited by Frank Davey This first book-length study of Bowering explores the relationship between his work and the arts. “Perceptive, highly readable account of the avant-garde scene in Canada.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-306-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1992; 144 pp

This lively, updated assortment of critical deliberations on contemporary Canadian drama is an ideal companion text to Modern Canadian Plays Volumes I and II. “Fascinating, entertaining, and instructive.” —Max Wyman ISBN 978-0-88922-359-2; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD rev. ©1995; 384 pp

The Box Closet

The Chilliwacks and Their Neighbors

Mary Meigs

Oliver N. Wells

A narrative woven of her parents’ diaries and letters that integrates Meigs’s discoveries as a daughter and granddaughter.

Active ethnography through conversations, legends and articles. A naturalist’s guide to the Chilliwack Native people and their area.

“Meigs creates a work of considerable insight and beauty.” —Globe & Mail

“Useful for the diligent novice.”

Bridges of Light

Coast Salish Essays

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

Wayne Suttles

This illustrated biography of one of the last great blackand-white photographers of the Pacific Northwest is also an extraordinary photo art book. Printed on wood-free paper. City of Vancouver Heritage Award of Merit, 1999.

—BC Studies

A careful selection from the work of one of the foremost ethnographers of the Pacific Northwest. “A major contribution to the study of the Indians of the Northwest Coast.” —Pacific Northwest Quarterly ISBN 978-0-88922-212-0; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1987; 336 pp; photos, maps & illustrations; 4th printing

Building the West

Conversations in Tehran

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

Jean-Daniel Lafond & Fred A. Reed

This award-winning second edition tells the stories, discovers the hopes and aspirations, and celebrates the successes and accomplishments of the early architects of British Columbia.

Filmmaker Jean-Daniel Lafond and author Fred A. Reed document the fall of Mohammed Khatami’s reform movement through candid conversations with Iranian artists, journalists and political activists.

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

“A society like ours, which flirts almost unconsciously with the bullies of ‘political correctness’ … needs men, women, writers, journalists, intellectuals like Fred A. Reed.” —CBC Radio-Canada

Talonbooks

Non-fiction Backlist / 21

Crimes and Mercies

An Error in Judgement

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

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

More than 9 million Germans died from deliberate Allied starvation and expulsion policies after WWII. At the same time, a food-aid program saved an estimated 80 million.

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

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

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

The Decline of the Hollywood Empire

Essays on George F. Walker

Hervé Fischer

Playing with Anxiety Chris Johnson

Translated by Rhonda Mullins Heralds an inevitable move from 35 mm to digital distribution which will level the creative playing field between the towering Hollywood empire and marginalized independent artists and producers. Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2007. “AN ESSENTIAL READ. That sums up the importance —Le Canada français of Fischer’s book … ”

The first book-length examination of the work of Canada’s most-produced and internationally recognized playwright, George F. Walker, who has not only created a substantial body of work, but also impressed it all with his unique “Walkeresque” stamp. ISBN 978-0-921368-82-3; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1999; 272 pp

Gabriel Dumont Speaks

EX MACHINA

Revised, updated edition Gabriel Dumont

Creating for the Stage Patrick Caux & Bernard Gilbert

Translated by Michael Barnholden

Translated by Neil Kroetsch

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.

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

“Fascinating.”

—Quill & Quire

Empire of Desire The Abolition of Time Thierry Hentsch

Timothy Findley and the Aesthetics of Fascism Intertextual Collaboration and Resistance

Translated by Fred A. Reed

The New Canadian Criticism Series

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.

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

An English Canadian Poetics

Great Lakes Suite

Vol. 1—The Confederation Poets Edited by Robert Hogg

David W. McFadden

With an introduction by D.M.R. Bentley Essays on poetic theory written by Canadian poets from the late 19th century to 1918 that articulate the specific social, cultural and political circumstances under which their poetry was created.

Specially revised and edited, and for the first time in one complete volume, Great Lakes Suite includes A Trip Around Lake Ontario, A Trip Around Lake Erie and A Trip Around Lake Huron. “Consistently entertaining, consistently engaging.” —Toronto Star

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

“Some of the most fascinating writing being done in this country.” —Windsor Star

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griddle talk a yeer uv nill 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; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2009; 144 pp; photos and illustrations

Talonbooks

Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America A Translation of Franz Boas’ 1895 Edition of Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas Franz Boas Edited and annotated by Randy Bouchard & Dorothy Kennedy “The equal of any heroic literature you’ll ever read … —Vancouver Sun a stunning legacy.” ISBN 978-0-88922-553-4; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD rev. ©2006; photos; 704 pp; 2nd printing

A Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend

Justice in Our Time

Ralph Maud

The Japanese Canadian Redress Settlement Roy Miki & Cassandra Kobayashi

Boas, Teit, Hill-Tout, Barbeau, Swanton, Jenness, the luminaries of field research in British Columbia, are discussed, and their work in Indian folklore evaluated in this comprehensive survey of myth-collecting in B.C. “Important not for what it might tell us about Indian culture in the past, but for what these myths may tell us about our society. This book goes some way toward —Vancouver Sun that goal.”

How a community brought the issue of redress for the injustices of the 1940s to the forefront of public debate. “A powerful and moving testament to the successful —Globe & Mail efforts of the NAJC.” ISBN 978-0-88922-292-2; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1991; 160 pp; cloth; photos & illustrations

In Plain Sight

Lasagna

Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver Edited by Leslie A. Robertson & Dara Culhane

The Man Behind the Mask Ronald Cross & Hélène Sévigny

A remarkable collection of seven life stories from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, giving voice to women who are seldom heard on their own terms.

A biography of the most notorious of the 1990 Oka warriors.

City of Vancouver Book Award Finalist, 2005.

“The book’s 248 pages are, to put it simply, credible. Read this book—it will open your eyes too.” —Alberta Native News

In the Company of Strangers

Lily Briscoe

Mary Meigs

A Self-Portrait Mary Meigs

Based on the NFB production of The Company of Strangers, Meigs’s account of the film unfolds in an intricate meditation on time, old age and bonding. QSPELL Award Winner for Non-fiction, 1992. “Her book on the film is exquisitely attuned to the interplay between art and life.” —Boston Globe

A compelling autobiography about the exercise of will, friendships and dreaming. “A series of landscapes and life drawings, skillfully created.” —Humanities and Applied Arts French language rights sold to HMH Ltée.

In the Midst

Lions Gate

Warren Tallman

Lilia D’Acres & Donald Luxton

Warren Tallman was catalyst, shelter and anchor to a whole generation of writers and poets, from the beat generation poets to the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E school writers. In these pieces, Tallman introduces the reader to a world of literary companionship that shaped the language and thought of late 20th-century North America.

Like all great historic landmarks, the Lions Gate Bridge remains a source of powerful, sometimes illuminating, sometimes mysterious stories of the people and times which gave birth to it.

Winner of the Vancouver Heritage Award; BC Historical Federation Writing Competition; Heritage Society of BC Award; City of Vancouver Book Award, 2000; BC Book Prize Finalist, 2000. ISBN 978-0-88922-416-2; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1999; 160 pp; cloth; photos & illus.; 2nd printing

Talonbooks

Non-fiction Backlist / 23

Lost in North America

bpNichol

The Imaginary Canadian in the American Dream John Gray

What History Teaches

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

Edited by Frank Davey

The New Canadian Criticism Series

Stephen Scobie

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

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

Making Theatre

No Plaster Saint

A Life of Sharon Pollock Sherrill Grace

The Life of Mildred Osterhout Fahrni Nancy Knickerbocker

The story of Pollock’s life from her family roots in New Brunswick through her pioneering years as a Canadian playwright to the present as she continues to make theatre.

A crusading socialist and an absolute pacifist, Mildred Osterhout Fahrni walked with J. S. Woodsworth, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The extraordinary story of one of Canada’s pioneer peacemakers.

Winner Ann Saddlemyer Award, 2009. “Grace’s insightful exploration of … theatrical performance and the traces of Pollock’s successive reinventions of herself is unrivalled.” —Patricia Demers

Paul Martin & Companies

Charles Olson at the Harbor

Sixty Theses on the Alegal Nature of Tax Havens Alain Deneault

Ralph Maud

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

A repudiation of Tom Clark’s carelessly biased Charles Olson: The Allegory of a Poet’s Life, this diligently researched biography by longtime Olson scholar, friend and correspondent Ralph Maud redeems the reputation of one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century. “... a balanced and superbly rendered picture of one of America’s greatest poets.” —Peter Anastas ISBN 978-0-88922-576-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2008; 224 pp; photos & illustrations; 2nd printing

Meanwhile

Outsider Notes

The Critical Writings of bpNichol bpNichol

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

Edited by Roy Miki

The New Canadian Criticism Series

A thoughtful and provocative 30-year record of Nichol’s approaches to textual production.

Lynette Hunter

“Almost 15 years after his untimely death, Nichol is being recognized as a major Canadian literary figure.” —National Post

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

The Medusa Head

Peregrinations

Mary Meigs

Conversations with Contemporary Artists Robert Enright

A sensitive psychological portrait of a stormy three-way lesbian relationship. “An unsparing account of love, jealousy and hate.” —Toronto Star “Shaped with intelligence, honesty and humor.” —Ottawa Citizen French language rights sold to HMH Ltée. ISBN 978-0-88922-210-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1983; 160 pp; 3rd printing

Edited by Frank Davey

Informed and considered interviews with the most influential artists of our time. Enright takes us into the environments, both imaginative and actual, that have shaped their personal and artistic histories. “Marvellous interviews … the mind and the world of the artist flooded with light.” —Arthur Danto ISBN 978-0-921368-67-0; $24.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©1997; 352 pp

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Talonbooks

Performing National Identities

Rational Geomancy

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

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

A collection of 18 original essays on contemporary Canadian theatre by scholars and drama specialists in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary and Japan.

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

Persian Postcards

Re: Producing Women’s Dramatic History

Iran after Khomeini Fred A. Reed

The Politics of Playing in Toronto D. A. Hadfield

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

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

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

—Toronto Star

The Pleasure of the Crown

A Record of Writing

Anthropology, Law and First Nations Dara Culhane

An Annotated and Illustrated Bibliography of George Bowering Roy Miki

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

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

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

Gabriel Roy Prize Winner, Best Critical Book in English.

Poet to Publisher

The Recovery of the Public World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories

Harry Robinson: Living by Stories

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

A Journey of Landscape and Memory Harry Robinson

Henry W. Tate, who died in 1914, was an important Tsimshian informant to ethnographer Franz Boas. “Maud acts as restorer, stripping away attitudes and prosody to reveal the vitality of the original text.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-333-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1994; illustrations; 176 pp

Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire This third collection documents how the arrival of whites forever altered the Salish cultural landscape. “Whenever I need to be reminded that language is magic and that stories can change the world, I go to Robinson.” —Thomas King ISBN 978-0-88922-522-0; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2005; 288 pp; 3rd printing

Talonbooks

Non-fiction Backlist / 25

Harry Robinson: Nature Power

The Salish People

In the Spirit of an Okanagan Storyteller Harry Robinson Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire

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

Features tales of the shoo-MISH, or “nature helpers.”

Edited by Ralph Maud

BC Book Prize Winner, 1993. “Epic, mesmerizing tales by a great Okanagan storyteller that lift [one] eerily and movingly, into a different world.” —Michele Landsberg, Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-504-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD rev. ©2004; 272 pp

“The rescuing of unorthodox anthropology from the conspiracy of silence that academics have woven around it.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-151-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1978; 192 pp; photos, maps & illustrations

Harry Robinson: Write It on Your Heart

Salonica Terminus

The Epic World of an Okanagan Storyteller Harry Robinson

Travels into the Balkan Nightmare Fred A. Reed

Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire

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

BC Book Prize Finalist, 1990. “An important addition to Canadian literature … In reading Robinson, one is virtually forced to read the story out loud, thereby closing the circle, the oral becoming the written becoming the oral.” —Thomas King ISBN 978-0-88922-502-2; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD rev. ©2004; 320 pp; 2nd printing; photos

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

The Salish People

Shattered Images

Volume I: The Thompson and the Okanagan Charles Hill-Tout

The Rise of Militant Iconoclasm in Syria Fred A. Reed

Edited by Ralph Maud

Discusses all of the major Islamic faiths in its search for the origins of contemporary fundamentalist movements.

The first volume of a four-volume set rich in stories and factual information on the Salish people of the Pacific Northwest. ISBN 978-0-88922-148-2; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1978; 176 pp; photos, maps & illustrations; 2nd printing

“A striking intellectual travelogue … a useful contribution to the literature of interfaith dialogue.” —Globe & Mail Syrian language rights sold to Atlas, Damascus. Turkish language rights sold to Nesil, Istanbul. ISBN 978-0-88922-485-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2003; 260 pp; map

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

The Salish People

Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands

Volume III: The Mainland Halkomelem Charles Hill-Tout

Dorothy Kennedy & Randy Bouchard

Edited by Ralph Maud

The history and folkways of the Sliammon Coast Salish people of the northern Georgia Strait region.

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

“An excellent portrait of these people.” —Canadian Book Review Annual

26 / Non-fiction Backlist

Spectacle of Empire Marc Lescarbot’s Theatre of Neptune in New France Edited by Jerry Wasserman Arguably the first North American play, this edition includes the original French script, two English translations, Ben Jonson’s Masque of Blackness and an extensive historical and critical introduction.

Talonbooks

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

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

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

Strange Comfort

This Is My Own

Essays on the Work of Malcolm Lowry Sherrill Grace

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

Strange Comfort collects Grace’s best essays on writer Malcolm Lowry, exploring his most important themes: the role of the artist; the nightmare of history; the pressures of memory; the need to protect the garden of our world. “… transcend[s] the intellectual boundaries … in culture and the arts through cross-disciplinary collaboration.” —Canada Council ISBN 978-0-88922-618-0; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2009; 224 pp; photos

Edited by Roy Miki Letters written during the uprooting of the JapaneseCanadian community in late 1941. “This collection is skillfully woven together.” —Amerasia Review ISBN 978-0-88922-231-1; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1985; 304 pp; cloth; photos & illustrations; 2nd printing

Takeover in Tehran

Too Good to Be True

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

Alcan’s Kemano Completion Project Bev Christensen

as told to Fred A. Reed A revealing first-hand insider account by Iran’s first female vice president, Massoumeh Ebtekar, of the 1979 revolutionary student movement which captured the American Embassy in Tehran. ISBN 978-0-88922-443-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2000; 244 pp; photos; 2nd printing

Examines the question of who is to control North America’s vital water and power resources in the 21st century. BC Book Prize Finalist, 1996. “This is an essential story, and a fascinating one” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-354-7; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1995; 352 pp; photos & maps

The Terror of the Coast

Tracing the Paths

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

Reading =/ Writing The Martyrology Edited by Roy Miki

An extensively detailed reconstruction of the war between the First Nations and Vancouver Island’s colonial government. “A scholarly, yet compelling account of a neglected and shameful chapter in BC’s history.” —CBRA ISBN 978-0-88922-318-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1999; 382 pp; photos, maps & illustrations; 2nd printing

A wide spectrum of readings of bpNichol’s challenging and innovative long poem. “A stimulating companion to those reading, and rereading, Nichol’s quirky, honest, and experimental work.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-256-4; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©1988; 344 pp

Theatre and AutoBiography

Transmission Difficulties

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

Franz Boas and Tsimshian Mythology Ralph Maud

This groundbreaking exploration of an increasingly prominent interdisciplinary realm draws on a wide range of contemporary theorists and playwrights. The breadth of styles and performances discussed here is extraordinary. ISBN 978-0-88922-540-4; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2006; 352 pp; photos

Ralph Maud delves into the mystery of Boas’s alleged “translations” of the stories gathered by his chief Tsimshian informant, Henry Tate. “A useful contribution to BC anthropology.” —Victoria Times-Colonist

Talonbooks

Non-fiction Backlist / 27

Truth or Death

Vancouver Anthology

The Quest for Immortality in the Western Narrative Tradition Thierry Hentsch

Revised Second Edition Edited with a new afterword by Stan Douglas

QWF Translation Award Winner, 2005.

First published in 1991, this larger format, new edition coincides with a renewal of the Or Gallery’s mandate to incite and promote critical discourse both within and outside of the Vancouver art community.

“A work of great depth, magnificently written.” —Le Devoir

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

Twelve Opening Acts

Phyllis Webb and the Common Good

Michel Tremblay

Poetry / Anarchy / Abstraction

Translated by Fred A. Reed Governor General’s Translation Award Winner, 2005.

Translated by Sheila Fischman An account of Tremblay’s discovery of the theatre, from his first recognition at the age of six of how the imagination is actually a public construct, to his winning of a drama competition with his first play. Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2002. ISBN 978-0-88922-466-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©2002; 192 pp

Stephen Collis “As much about Webb as about the cultural and political milieu of her time, this book is necessary reading for anyone interested in Canadian poetry and the ethics of writing as criticism.” —Smaro Kamboureli ISBN 978-0-88922-559-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2007; 228 pp; photos

Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand

Women in a World at War

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

Seven Dispatches from the Front Madeleine Gagnon

Compiled and edited by Chris Arnett

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

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

Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott

“An engrossing and delightful book.” —Georgia Straight

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

Vancouver A Visual History Bruce Macdonald This stunning full-colour historical atlas brings alive Vancouver’s first 14 decades. City of Vancouver Book Award Winner, 1993. BC Book Prize Finalist, 1993. “Bruce Macdonald breaks new ground with an impressive multi-disciplinary atlas.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-311-0; $60.00 CAD / $40.00 USD ©1992; 96 pp; cloth; photos, maps & illus.; 2nd printing

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Talonbooks

All That Glitters

The Bicycle Eater

Martine Desjardins

Larry Tremblay

Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel

Translated by Sheila Fischman

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

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2006.

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2005. “Compels and disturbs, leaving us with questions about chance and fate, love and war.” —Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-520-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2005; 160 pp

Governor General’s French Fiction Award Finalist, 2003. “There is something poetic about the way the narrative slips back and forth as easily as a dream, transcending the limits of linear thinking.” —Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-528-2; $19.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2005; 228 pp

And Other Stories

The Black Notebook

Edited by George Bowering

Michel Tremblay

Taking the theme of postmodernity one step further with 23 short stories edited by Canada’s first poet laureate: Alexis, Arnason, Atwood, Blaise, Bowering, Burnham, Cohen, Dorsey, Elliot, Farrant, Fawcett, Findley, Goto, Fraser, King, Laferrière, Mayr, Rooke, Schoemperlen, Thomas, Verdecchia and Watson.

Translated by Sheila Fischman

A young waitress recounts her trials and surprising allies in a lifelong battle against social stigma. “Emerges as a powerful character study, a social history—as always with Tremblay, the political content is there, but always as an organic element of the story … ” —Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-543-5; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2006; 224 pp

The Angel of Solitude

The Blue Notebook

Marie-Claire Blais

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Laura Hodes

Translated by Sheila Fischman

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

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

The Athabasca Ryga

The Breakdown So Far

George Ryga

M.A.C. Farrant

Edited by E. David Gregory

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

From his farm boy childhood to his struggles as a classconscious wage labourer, Ryga’s early work is offered in a collection of essays, short stories, plays and novels. “It makes you want to read and re-read everything the man ever wrote.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-276-2; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1990; 224 pp

ReLit Award Nominee, 2008. “Farrant is better at startling us with unnerving, often misanthropic, visions of everyday life than perhaps any other Canadian writer.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-556-5; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2007; 160 pp

The Baldwins

Cambodia

Serge Lamothe

A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow Brian Fawcett

Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel Set in the post-apocalyptic future, this is a novel of fragments that represents contemporary prose at its most daring and experimental. “Serge Lamothe’s novel falls under the sign of utter creative freedom and is filled with word and language play, evocative imagery and poetic moods.” —Le Devoir ISBN 978-0-88922-544-2; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2006; 96 pp

Investigative fictions that examine the intentions of the information revolution. “Cambodia is urgent, blunt, difficult—and vitally necessary.” —Canadian Forum Italian translation rights sold to BLU Edizioni. ISBN 978-0-88922-237-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1986; 208 pp; 7th printing

Talonbooks

Fiction Backlist / 29

Capital Tales

Darwin Alone in the Universe

Brian Fawcett

M.A.C. Farrant

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

A brilliant collection of satirical short stories.

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

—Publishers Weekly

Chameleon & Other Stories

Death in Vancouver

Bill Schermbrucker

Garry Thomas Morse

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

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

“Morse’s particular genius is his ability to deliver pitch perfect equivalences of whatever he touches or touches him … not mere impressions or impersonations but rather powerful transversals that combine with but do not displace.” —LINE Magazine ISBN 978-0-88922-607-4; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2009; 320 pp

The Circus Performers’ Bar

Death of the Spider

David Arnason

Michèle Mailhot

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

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

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. ISBN 978-0-88922-298-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1991; 64 pp

Citizen Suárez

Desert of the Heart

Guillermo Verdecchia

Jane Rule

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

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

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

“Cool, clear-eyed, compassionate and unsentimental.” —Margaret Laurence, Globe & Mail

“Humorous and strongly political … ” —Vancouver Magazine

“An intelligent and utterly believable novel.” —Joyce Carol Oates

A Covenant of Salt

Dog Attempts to Drown Man in Saskatoon

Martine Desjardins

Douglas Glover

Translated by Fred A. Reed and David Homel “Mining from the past, Desjardins extracts treasures without ‘getting caught,’ and surfaces like a breath of fresh air. A Covenant of Salt marries literary traditions in a sleek gothic ceremony, silvery salt sprinkled like confetti and the Saint Lawrence coursing through.” —Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-566-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2007; 160 pp

Urbane, stylish and slightly off-beat stories that touch on the lives of a wide variety of people. “Glover is preoccupied with the complicated interweavings of good and evil, and he juggles language superbly.” —Globe & Mail “Glover … seeks to combine a metaphysical approach and style with the nitty-gritty details of daily life. It works.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-228-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1985; 128 pp

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Talonbooks

Down the Road to Eternity

Fearless Warriors

M.A.C. Farrant

Revised Second Edition Drew Hayden Taylor

Satiric and philosophical in approach, indelibly marked by wit, humour, irony, playfulness, a blend of parody and science fiction, irreverent analysis and comic existentialism, these stories celebrate the literary imagination as an antidote to the stranglehold the popular media now has on the public’s imagination.

By degrees dramatic, shocking, tender, affirmative and tragic, each of these stories takes on a different cliché of inter-racial and inter-cultural relations, all of them suffused with the incomparable wit, generous humour, critical edge and profound emotional empathy of a master story-teller.

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

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

The Duchess and the Commoner

The First Quarter of the Moon

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Sheila Fischman

This third volume in the Chronicles of the Plateau MontRoyal—an epic series of novels which imagines the lives of the characters of Tremblay’s plays—deals with an explicitly gay thematic: Tremblay’s metaphor for the Québécois desire for a more glamorous identity on the world stage.

The fifth novel in the Chronicles of the Plateau Mont-Royal juxtaposes the childhood experiences of the fat woman’s son and his gifted cousin. “Touching and extra-real.”

Dürer’s Angel

Get on Top

Marie-Claire Blais

David Homel

Translated by David Lobdell

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

A novel of Pauline Archange’s desire to translate the events of her life into words. “A writer who stands head and shoulders above her contemporaries.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-111-6; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1976; 112 pp; 2nd printing

—Quill & Quire

Fairy Ring

Go Figure

Martine Desjardins

Réjean Ducharme

Translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel

Translated by Will Browning

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

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

Governor General’s Translation Award Winner, 2001.

Governor General’s French Fiction Award Finalist, 1994.

“Fairy Ring sets up familiar targets, tilts at them with wonderful panache and scores weirdly compelling hits.” —Globe & Mail

“Boasts complex flavours that are so savoury and sustaining you may be compelled to go back for seconds …” —Montreal Review of Books

The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant Michel Tremblay

The Happiest Man in the World and Other Stories

Translated by Sheila Fischman

David Arnason

Tremblay’s first novel is an affectionate and funny chronicle of the lives of a family in its community.

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

CBC ”Canada Reads” Finalist, 2009. “A comic tour de force covering one day in the life of a Montreal street.” —University of Toronto Quarterly ISBN 978-0-88922-190-1; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1981; 256 pp; 9th printing

“A wonderful book.”

—Globe & Mail

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Fiction Backlist / 31

Harry’s Fragments

In the Shadow of the Vulture

A Novel of International Puzzlement George Bowering

George Ryga

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

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

The Heart Laid Bare

Latakia

Michel Tremblay

Audrey Thomas

Translated by Sheila Fischman

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

A fusty academic has fallen in love with a young actor who works as a salesman while waiting for his big break; however, the academic must learn to make room in his life for the actor’s four-year-old son. “Simply written, but highly topical and touching tale.” —London Times

Hell & Other Novels

Like a Child of the Earth

Beverley Daurio

Jovette Marchessault

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

Translated by Yvonne M. Klein

“Wonderfully evocative images … well worth reading.” —Quill & Quire “Poetic in their brevity and chilling in their intensity.” —Aritha van Herk ISBN 978-0-88910-421-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1990; 160 pp

The first volume of Jovette Marchessault’s autobiographical trilogy. Prix France-Québec Winner, 1976. “The most profound glimpse into a native Canadian woman’s imaginative experience.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-261-8; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1988; 176 pp

Heroine

Main Brides

Gail Scott

A woman tries to negotiate her personal passage from Quebec’s politically turbulent ’70s to the threatening bleakness of the ’80s.

The portrait of a woman who is facing the end of the century and creating a history of the present that lifts her out of fear.

“Each page steams with images, echoes, actions and reactions … a magnificent view of a woman’s perception of life, love and la belle province.” —Toronto Star

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

The Hunting Ground

Mile End

Lise Tremblay

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Translated by Gail Scott

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

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

“[Lise Tremblay presents] a fictional world in precise, lucid language of a simple, graceful fluidity. A world in which the spirit of being is laid bare.” —Le Devoir

Governor General’s French Fiction Award Winner, 1999.

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Talonbooks

Mimosa

My Name Is Bosnia

Bill Schermbrucker

Madeleine Gagnon

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

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

BC Book Prize Winner, 1988.

IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Longlist, 2007.

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

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

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

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

Mother of the Grass

News from Édouard

Jovette Marchessault

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Yvonne M. Klein

Translated by Sheila Fischman

The second volume of Marchessault’s turbulent autobiographical trilogy.

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

Translated by Phyllis Aronoff & Howard Scott

“Michel Tremblay’s long labour of love … is a lasting study of and tribute to his own working-class origins that should stand in time as a literary landmark.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-435-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2000; 224 pp; 2nd printing

Motortherapy

The Pagan Wall

Bill Schermbrucker

David Arnason

A frank and intensely personal book about human relationships.

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

“[Stories] stir and shift with deftly-rendered subtleties which at their best recall … Norman Levine and … Alice Munro.” —Quill & Quire “One of the best works of fiction of 1993.” —U of T Quarterly

Mrs. Blood

The Painter’s Wife

Audrey Thomas

Monique Durand

“Mrs. Blood wears her nerve ends outside her skin like an updated Katherine Mansfield heroine—and responds intensely to her external environment and to her subconscious. The effect is to create a vivid impression of a personality in crisis … A spectacular tour de force, this.” —New York Times Book Review

Translated by Sheila Fischman An extraordinary novel about art and passion inspired by the lives of two great artists, Evelyn Rowat and René Marcil. “Resonant, ethereal, poignant. Here is a novel of rare aesthetic intelligence.” —La Provence (France) “A delight!”

—Nuit blanche

My Career with the Leafs & Other Stories

The Rain Barrel

Brian Fawcett

George Bowering

Fawcett’s first book of stories examines growing up, and living, under the rules.

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

“Fawcett sings sweetly and sourly about growing up.” —Vancouver Sun

“Enough irony, subversion and playfulness for any postmodern fan.” —Books in Canada

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Fiction Backlist / 33

Real Mothers Audrey Thomas

The Secret Journal of Alexander Mackenzie

Short stories about mothers and the politics of the family.

Brian Fawcett

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

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

“A wonderful book.”

—Kootenay Reporter

The Red Notebook

Shinny’s Girls and Other Stories

Michel Tremblay

Mary Burns

Translated by Sheila Fischman

These stories all re-examine the myths of mother-daughter relationships, both in the classical sense of “myth” and in the modern sense of “myth” (lies about relationships).

The second in the Notebook trilogy follows Céline Poulin as she becomes hostess in a transvestite bordello. Tremblay celebrates how it is possible for Céline to embrace her difference and to flourish in solidarity with a community of others with transcendent eloquence and compassion. “Tremblay’s characters don’t merely exist, they live out —Globe & Mail complex, sprawling lives.”

George Ryga

A Slight Case of Fatigue

The Prairie Novels George Ryga

Stéphane Bourguignon

Edited by James Hoffman

Eddy is in existential crisis. He once had an enviable life, but now he’s separated from his wife, estranged from his son, and his garden’s grown wild—like the rest of his life. Written in multiple voices, with keen psychological insight, this examination of relationships and past wounds is filled with raucous warmth and humanity—and dark humour.

This collection includes Hungry Hills, Ballad of a Stonepicker and Night Desk. “…propelled by compassion and moral outrage, but also by a peculiar and personal awareness of the life and death of human cultures and the values they contain.” —Globe & Mail

Translated by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2009.

Scattered in a Rising Wind

Some Night My Prince Will Come

Jean Marc Dalpé

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Translated by Sheila Fischman

The rush of events in a small town apocalypse is recorded barely at the edge of syntax, with a participatory narrator scrambling to keep up with the unfolding perceptions within the others.

This urban epic of love and desire brings us a burlesque world of transgression and madness, where pleasures are far from simple, and love is somewhat less than pure. An evocative account of romantic adventure stamped with Tremblay’s signature wit and ironic humour.

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

The School-Marm Tree

Songs My Mother Taught Me

Howard O’Hagan

Audrey Thomas

A novel about mountains by one of Canada’s greatest writers on nature, depicting the “presence” in mountains and the heart’s desire to go beyond mountains.

Republished with a new introduction, this is Audrey Thomas’s classic coming-of-age novel about madness, loneliness, despair and escape.

“Testimony to O’Hagan’s intelligence as a novelist.” —Globe & Mail

“Traps in amber that strange distant decade of the Forties.” —George Woodcock, Maclean’s

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Summerland

A Thing of Beauty

George Ryga

Michel Tremblay

Edited by Ann Kujundzic

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Summerland presents largely unpublished selections from essays, short stories, plays, novels and poems that George Ryga wrote in Summerland, BC, from 1963 until his untimely death in 1987.

A coda to his great Chronicles of the Plateau Mont-Royal cycle of novels. Tremblay creates, with grace and tenderness, a fictionalized account of the death of his own mother.

Tchipayuk

The Time Being

or The Way of the Wolf Ronald Lavallée

Mary Meigs

Translated by Patricia Claxton A sweeping historical novel about the collision of Native and colonial cultures. Winner of the Prix Jules Verne, Prix Champlain and the Prix Riel. Nominated for the Governor General’s Translation Award, 1994. ISBN 978-0-88922-338-7: $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1994; 480 pp

An affair born of a correspondence with a distant admirer leads the lovers to an arranged meeting in Australia. “The reader is left with an elaboration of the impulse towards, and the slow collapse of, a love affair … Meigs has also left us in the company of two unforgettable women.” —Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-374-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1997; 160 pp

Theme for Diverse Instruments

Trees Are Lonely Company

Jane Rule

Howard O’Hagan

Jane Rule’s first collection of short stories.

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

Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel

White Pebbles in the Dark Forests

Michel Tremblay

Translated by Yvonne M. Klein

Translated by Sheila Fischman

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

In this second Plateau Mont-Royal novel, three schoolgirls live the mysteries of their rites of passage. “Includes some subtler melodies in counterpoint to the main theme of this symphonic masterpiece.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-198-7; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1996; 256 pp

Jovette Marchessault

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Adrift

All the Verdis of Venice

Marcus Youssef

Normand Chaurette

In this play inspired by the novel Adrift on the Nile, by Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, a group of urban Egyptian hipsters engages in debates about secularism and “fundamentalism” with tragic consequences.” Cast of 4 women and 6 men.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

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

Cast of 1 woman and 4 men. “Invites its audience to think about the nature of self and its socio-cultural construction, as well as the nature of fame, the role of cultural iconography, but doesn’t presuppose answers. The play is never didactic, and more enjoyable for it.” —Rain Taxi ISBN 978-0-88922-442-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2000; 112 pp

The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil

alterNatives

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

Native activists and environmentally concerned vegetarians are invited to a dinner party, where irreconcilable cultural differences clash over moose roast and vegetarian lasagna. Cast of 3 women and 3 men.

A hard-hitting and hilarious satire. Cast of 4 men.

Drew Hayden Taylor

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

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

Albertine in Five Times

Amigo’s Blue Guitar

Michel Tremblay

Joan MacLeod

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

A college student’s life changes when he chooses to sponsor a Salvadoran refugee as a class project. Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

Tremblay presents the powerful story of one woman, Albertine, at five different times in her life. Together, the five Albertines provide a moving portrait of an extraordinary “ordinary” woman in this Chalmers Awardwinning play. Cast of 6 women. “A remarkable play … The conception is brilliant.” —New Statesman

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

Albertine in Five Times

Another Country / bloom

Michel Tremblay

Guillermo Verdecchia

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

Two plays, on Argentina’s Dirty War of 1976–83, and on hope flowering in the midst of destruction, constitute an unsparing interrogation of a world perpetually at war.

The powerful story of one woman, Albertine, at five different times in her life. Cast of 6 women. “The right play at the right time … A story of life, told by Tremblay with immense compassion.” —Toronto Sun

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

All Fall Down

Another Home Invasion

Wendy Lill

Joan MacLeod

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

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

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1994. “Lill’s masterful, soberingly intelligent play … goes beyond its surface subject—pedophilia.” —Theatrum ISBN 978-0-88922-336-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1994; 128 pp

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Talonbooks

Assorted Candies for the Theatre

Benevolence

Michel Tremblay

Morris Panych

Translated by Linda Gaboriau An exquisite remembrance of childhood past in Montreal’s Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood, adapted and recrafted to the stage. Cast of 3 women and 4 men.

Full of excruciating twists of fate and malice, this dark comedy of “trading places” resonates with uncomfortable truths about how we see (or don’t see) the people we live with every day. Cast of 2 women and three men.

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

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

The Baby Blues

The Berlin Blues

Drew Hayden Taylor

A highly wrought farce of patrimony in a stifling, politically correct, post-colonial milieu of “fancy dancers” of every stripe on the pow wow trail. Cast of 3 women and 3 men.

Concluding Taylor’s Blues Quartet, German developers here show up on the “Otter Lake Reserve” proposing “OjibwayWorld,” a Native theme park designed to attract Europeans tourists to this destination resort. Cast of 3 women and 3 men.

“This can be taken as a funny series of events. Those hoping for something deeper can find allegories and —LA Splash metaphors running through history.” ISBN 978-0-88922-581-7; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2007; 96 pp; 3Rd printing

Balconville

Bethune

David Fennario

Rod Langley

The English and French working class get together on their balconies in Montreal. Cast of 3 women and 6 men.

A study of how one man’s vision may shape the world. Cast of 3 women and 6 men.

Chalmers Award Winner for Best Canadian Play, 1979.

“A portrait of an enormously complex man.” —Vancouver Sun

Banana Boots

Billy Bishop Goes to War

David Fennario

John Gray with Eric Peterson

A one-man-show/memoir in which Fennario recounts, with astonishing insight and wit, the phenomenon of taking his famous bilingual play, Balconville, to Belfast on a British/Canadian cultural mission. Cast of 1 man.

A musical about Canada’s famous World War I flying ace. Cast of 2 men.

Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 1982. “A delightful—and cunningly wrought—work of art.” —New Yorker “A superb mixture of laconic irony and white-knuckle tale-telling.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-196-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1982; 104 pp; 12th printing

Les Belles Soeurs

Boiler Room Suite

(Revised) Michel Tremblay

Rex Deverell

Michel Tremblay’s classic joual play. Cast of 15 women.

The broken lives and the heroic struggle for joy of two “tramps” in a hotel boiler room. Cast of 1 woman and 2 men.

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

Canadian Authors Association Drama Award Winner, 1978.

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

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Bonjour, Là, Bonjour

Can You See Me Yet?

(Revised) Michel Tremblay

Timothy Findley

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco A beloved brother returns to his family. Cast of 6 women and 2 men. “Theatre does not often touch the heart the way this —Globe & Mail succeeds in doing.” ISBN 978-0-88922-252-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD rev. ©1990; 92 pp; 3rd rev printing

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

Bordertown Café

Les Canadiens

Kelly Rebar

Rick Salutin

Young Jimmy faces a dilemma: embrace the hero of American popular myth as embodied by his father, or engage the task of building a different identity, embodied by his mother “on the Canadian side of nowhere.” Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

Introduction by Ken Dryden

“[A] humorous, human, touching and recognizable look at one family’s search for individual identity.” —Hamilton Spectator

A play about Quebec and Canada using hockey as a metaphor. Cast of 7 men. Chalmers Award Winner for Best Canadian Play, 1977. “An examination of the Canadiens has never been mastered so well.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-122-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©1977; 192 pp; 4th printing

The Boy in the Treehouse Girl Who Loved Her Horses

Cariboo Magi

Drew Hayden Taylor

Hilarious drama ensues when a bedraggled troupe of players heads into the wilds of the Cariboo to perform a Christmas pageant. Set in the gold rush era, Cariboo Magi is an unabashed celebration of the power of theatre to renew our lives and banish our cares. Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

Two plays about the process of children becoming adults and the nature of, and necessity for, rites of passage in all cultures. “[Taylor is] recognized as one of Canada’s ‘hottest’ young playwrights, and long recognized for his witty essays and journalism.” —World Literature Today ISBN 978-0-88922-441-4; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2000; 160 pp; 3rd printing

Lucia Frangione

Burning Vision

Carmela’s Table

Marie Clements

A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part Two Vittorio Rossi

Dene miners, radium painters and people of Hiroshima labour under the false sun of uranium which poisons their relationships to the earth and to each other. Cast of 5 women and 12 men. Canada-Japan Literary Award Winner, 2004. Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2003.

Italian war veteran Silvio now lives in Montreal with his new family and his mother. Deeply traumatized by his wartime experiences, Silvio’s gradual unravelling ultimately threatens to destroy his family. Cast of 3 women and 2 men.

“[A] brave new play that bombards the senses and fires up the mind.” —Globe & Mail

“Second time out, the volatile Rosato family still offers passion through familial drama.” —Variety.com

ISBN 978-0-88922-472-8; $17.95 CAD / $17

The Buz’Gem Blues

The Carpenter

Drew Hayden Taylor

A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part Three Vittorio Rossi

The third play in Taylor’s ongoing zany, often farcical examination of both Native and non-Native stereotypes in what is to become what he calls his “Blues Quartet.” Cast of 3 women and 3 men. “He skewers liberal and native stereotypes, preferring to deal on a more human level.” —Hamilton Examiner ISBN 978-0-88922-462-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2002; 128 pp; 3rd printing

This heart-wrenching but beautifully cathartic story of a family coming to grips with itself unfolds with unmistakably poignant honesty. Cast of 4 women and 5 men. “Rossi’s plays represent the heftiest addition to the Canadian dramatic canon since David French’s Mercer Cycle or George F. Walker’s East End Plays.” —CBC ISBN 978-0-88922-609-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2009; 128 pp; photos

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Talonbooks

Chimera

Copper Thunderbird

Wendy Lill

Marie Clements

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.

A multi-layered and visionary drama of a life wracked by both triumph and ordeal, based on the persona of famed Ojibwa artist Norval Morrisseau. Cast of 5 women and 4 men.

“The play comes at a propitious time.”

—The Scientist

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2008. “Marie Clements … is building a powerful reputation for her innovative approaches to … theatre on —Vancouver Sun aboriginal themes.” ISBN 978-0-88922-568-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2007; 84 pp; 2nd printing

Cold Comfort

Corker

Jim Garrard

Wendy Lill

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

Corker uses the familiar but difficult and treacherous 19thcentury device of representing the family as a microcosm of the nation state. Cast of 2 women and 4 men.

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

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

“Sheer genius!”

—Arts National, CBC Radio

Colours in the Dark

The Coronation Voyage

James Reaney

Michel Marc Bouchard

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

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Will a Montreal Mafioso sacrifice his young son for safe conduct to England? Cast of 6 women and 8 men. “Tackles the themes of sacrifice and forgiveness, the interpretation of history, the lost (i.e. sacrificed) generation, innocence, family and love.” —La Presse “Brilliant, artful, satirical.”

—CBC Radio

The Concise Köchel

Crabdance

Normand Chaurette

Beverley Simons

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

A woman manipulates the men in her life into assuming the stereotypical privatized roles of husband, lover, father and son. Cast of 1 woman and 3 men.

A lifetime’s devotion to the music of Mozart conceals a gruesome secret. Cast of 4 women. “The situation and dialogue are intriguing … The play may be difficult, but Chaurette’s unnerving climax should lead to heated and extended discussions in the lobby after the play is over.” —Stage Directions ISBN 978-0-88922-518-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2005; 96 pp

“An unusual and searing play about a woman caught in a cage of frustration and neglect … ” —Vancouver Sun “One of the most theatrical contemporary plays that I have ever read.” —Malcolm Black ISBN 978-0-88922-016-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1972; 128 pp; 6th printing

Consecrated Ground

Cruel Tears

George Boyd

Ken Mitchell

In 1965, Africville, the largest and oldest black community in Canada, was bulldozed into memory. What was lost to the politicians of Halifax was an inconvenience, an eyesore. What was lost to the people whose roots ran deep through the once-vibrant community was an entire way of life.

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

“Raw theatrical force … ”

—Halifax Daily News

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Drama Backlist / 39

Cul-de-sac

Democracy

Daniel MacIvor

John Murrell

Introduction by Daniel Brooks

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.

Written by one of Canada’s most influential postmodern playwrights, this dazzling one-man show is storytelling of the highest order. Siminovitch Prize in Theatre Finalist, 2005. Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2005. “Wickedly funny.”

Alberta Writers’ Guild Prize Winner for Drama. “Even the simplest lines have a quiet eloquence … —Quill & Quire soft explosions of the heart.”

—National Post

Cyrano de Bergerac

Diplomacy

Edmond Rostand

Tim Carlson

Translated by John Murrell An epic and heroic tale that has enchanted generations, in an English prose translation that is immanently readable and stageable. Cast of 5 women, 12 men and many minor characters.

Nominally about North American military involvement in Middle East wars, this graphic, conflict-fuelled drama scrutinizes the part the media plays in manufacturing our private reactions to foreign policy. Cast of 1 woman and 3 men.

“[Cyrano de Bergerac is a] brilliant … unforgettable … impressive achievement … ” —Edmonton Journal

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

Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra

The Dishwashers

Michel Tremblay

Morris Panych

Translated by John Van Burek

Haplessly determined to have his own miserable authority vindicated, chief dishwasher Dressler presides over the steam-choked basement of an upscale restaurant, tyrannizing his co-workers with his rants of pride of craft and Marxist rhetoric. Cast of 3 men.

Two interweaving monologues on the sacred and the profane. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man. “A hauntingly powerful evening of theatre.” —Vancouver Express ISBN 978-0-88922-184-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1981; 48 pp

Dancock’s Dance

Divinity Bash / nine lives

Guy Vanderhaeghe

Bryden MacDonald

Shell-shocked, judged unfit for society and haunted by the sins of war, Lieutenant John Carlyle Dancock finds himself committed to an insane asylum where he cannot escape the confines of righteous authority or his own conscience. Cast of 1 woman and 5 men.

Bryden MacDonald’s most extreme venture into the world of the theatre to date: a play in which everything, and therefore nothing, is sacred. Cast of 3 women, 5 men and 1 transgendered person.

“A carnivalesque expression of contemporary zeitgeist.”

The Death of René Lévesque

Doctor Thomas Neill Cream

David Fennario

(Mystery at McGill) David Fennario

An astonishingly profound and prophetic political drama that delivers the powerful and cathartic stillbirth of a nation, stripped of both pity and fear. Cast of 2 women and 4 men. “When a final analysis is made of 20th-century Canadian theatre, the most significant political playwright will undoubtedly be David Fennario.” —CBRA ISBN 978-0-88922-480-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2003; 72 pp

—CBC

In 1876, Jack the Ripper, a.k.a. Canadian Dr. Cream, graduated from McGill’s Faculty of Medicine. Cast of 4 women and 6 men. Arthur Ellis Award Nominee, 1994. “Fennario’s in-your-face irreverence [is] ferociously funny.” —U of T Quarterly ISBN 978-0-88922-332-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1994; 112 pp

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Talonbooks

Down Dangerous Passes Road

Earshot

Michel Marc Bouchard

Morris Panych

Translated by Linda Gaboriau 15 years after the death of their father, three brothers get together and drive out to the place where it happened: an old fishing spot on the river down Dangerous Passes Road. Cast of 3 men.

Doyle has a very funny problem: he hears too much. He can hear the most intimate details of the lives of everyone living in his apartment building. He blames his hypersensitive condition on a physical abnormality; but we’re not so certain. Cast of 1 man.

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2000.

“A superbly mounted Panych attack.” —National Post

The Driving Force

The East End Plays

Michel Tremblay Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Part 1 George F. Walker

The stormy and angst-filled relationship between Claude and his father Alex is compellingly played out with a cruel and disconsolate irony in an Alzheimer’s ward. Cast of 2 men.

Contains the Governor General’s Award-winning Criminals in Love (1984), Chalmers Award-winning Better Living (1986) and Escape from Happiness (1987). With an introduction by Jerry Wasserman.

“The text is as severe, intense and implacable as the reality of each character.” —CBC Radio-Canada

“One of theatre’s most important voices.”

La Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays

The East End Plays

Michel Tremblay

Part 2 George F. Walker

Translated by John Van Burek A collection of five short plays by Quebec’s best known playwright: La Duchesse de Langeais; Berthe; Johnny Mangano and His Astonishing Dogs; Surprise, Surprise; and Gloria Star. “The plight of the Duchesse mirrors the plight of a society.” —Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-104-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1976; 128 pp; 2nd printing

—Maclean’s

Contains Beautiful City, Love and Anger and Tough. “Walker writes with unprecedented directness … [His] characters think and feel out loud in a perpetual present-tense fever because life, and often more, is on the line.” —Village Voice ISBN 978-0-88922-404-9; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©1999; 208 pp; 4th printing

The Dunsmuirs

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe

Alone at the Edge Rod Langley

George Ryga

The first play in this saga of one of Canada’s wealthiest and most ruthless families. Cast of 2 women and 6 men. “The story of the Dunsmuirs is a hell of a tale that’s got everything.” —Victoria Times-Colonist ISBN 978-0-88922-297-7; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1991; 104 pp

A lyric documentary about a young Indian girl who comes to the city only to die on Skid Row. Cast of 5 women and 15 men. Published in seven languages. “Scenes of shattering impact … and passages of a purity and intensity that catch you off guard and keep you there.” —Washington Post ISBN 978-0-88922-000-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1970; 128 pp; 25th printing

The Dunsmuirs

En Pièces Détachées

A Promise Kept Rod Langley

Michel Tremblay

A dark family secret emerges in this second play about the wealthy and ill-fated Dunsmuir family. Cast of 3 women and 6 men.

The life of a lower-class family in East End Montreal. Cast of 4 women and 2 men.

Translated by Allan Van Meer

“The writing is tight and lively.” —Victoria Times-Colonist

“Tremblay courageously insists on the relevance and dilemma of neo-colonial French Canada.” —Books in Canada

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Drama Backlist / 41

The Ends of the Earth

The Fairies Are Thirsty

Morris Panych

Denise Boucher

Panych’s brilliant tale reminds us all that fear can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

Translated by Alan Brown

Three women—a housewife, a whore and the Virgin Mary—fight to break out of the stereotypes in which they have been imprisoned for years. Cast of 3 women. “A powerful script and an important play.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-200-7; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1982; 64 pp; 4th printing

Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout

The Faraway Nearby

Tomson Highway

John Murrell

Based on the signing of the Laurier Memorial, this play is a ritualized retelling of how the Native Peoples of British Columbia lost their land, rights and language—in one of the most tragic cases of cultural genocide to emerge from the history of colonialism. Cast of 4 women.

Georgia O’Keeffe resigns herself to an old age spent alone in the auburn and tawny light of her beloved Faraway mountains, in the desert’s dangerous energies and its desolate beauty, until a stranger enters her life. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.

“The play is both laugh-out-loud funny and a precarious high-wire act … ” —Globe & Mail

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

Esker Mike and His Wife, Agiluk

Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass

Herschel Hardin

Tom Hendry

A classic tragedy about Inuit life and how it is affected by white settlers, priests and government officials. Cast of 6 women and 9 men.

A look at post-World War II Canada from a recent highschool graduate’s viewpoint. Cast of 2 women and 9 men.

“A fascinating, moving, and ultimately a very beautiful play.”

“Defines a uniquely Canadian experience that expands to the universal.” —Kootenay Reporter

—CBC

Espresso

15 Seconds

Lucia Frangione

François Archambault

Sexy, provocative and challenging, Espresso inverts the Catholic stereotypes of feminine sexuality to boldly examine their corresponding masculine sexual emblems of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.

Translated by Bobby Theodore A young female advertising copy writer, her pro-sports-fan ex-boyfriend, a Gen-X welfare-bum loser and his brother with cerebral palsy. Cast of 1 woman and 3 men.

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

Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2000.

The Execution

The Fighting Days

Marie-Claire Blais

Wendy Lill

Translated by David Lobdell Two school boys plot and enact the murder of a classmate. Cast of 3 women and 17 men.

The polarities of public and private lives, and issues of racism and pacifism in the suffragette movement. Cast of 3 women and 1 man.

“A brilliant play about the maturation of evil.” —CHQM

“An unusually insightful investigation of social conscience.” —Arts Manitoba

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

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Talonbooks

For Home and Country

Fronteras Americanas

Leanna Brodie

American Borders Guillermo Verdecchia

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. “The play’s generosity of spirit equals that of the Women’s Institutes that are its subject.” —Ric Knowles ISBN 978-0-88922-508-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2004; 128 pp

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

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again

Gideon’s Blues

Michel Tremblay

George Boyd

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

The profound humanity of Boyd’s characters reminds us that while neither drug abuse nor the breakdown of the traditional family is exclusive to the black community, racism accelerates their destructive effects in ghastly measures. Cast of 3 women and 4 men.

Tremblay offers glimpses of himself and his mother at five different stages of their lives together. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man. “In Quebec, a new Tremblay play is like a fresh tablet from Moses.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-389-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1998, 96 pp; 3rd printing

Forever Yours, Marie-Lou

Girl in the Goldfish Bowl

Michel Tremblay

Morris Panych

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

It’s into the goldfish bowl of a dysfunctional family that the audience peers with acute recognition, hysterical laughter and an overwhelming sense of the creative healing power of the imagination. Cast of 3 women and 2 men.

Tremblay’s penetrating analysis of a Quebec family unit. Cast of 3 women and 1 man. “Brilliantly insightful, uncompromising drama.” —Detroit News

Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 2004.

“One of Tremblay’s infinitely hot and dense family dramas … ” —Globe & Mail

“An uncommon, quirky blend of humour and compassion … ” —National Post

400 Kilometres

The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum

Drew Hayden Taylor

A Stage Play Based on the Novel by Sheldon Currie Wendy Lill

The third play in Taylor’s hilarious and heart-wrenching identity-politics trilogy. Janice Wirth, an urban professional who has discovered her roots as the Ojibway orphan Grace Wabung, is pregnant and must come to grips with the question of her true identity. Cast of 3 women and 2 men. “Sharply written … Warm and funny.” —Halifax Daily News ISBN 978-0-88922-517-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2005; 128 pp; 3rd printing

A story of the ill-fated love between a wandering musician social-idealist and a Cape Breton coal miner’s daughter. Cast of 2 women and 3 men. Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1996. “… a tender, romantic triumph over the genre … ” —Eye Weekly ISBN 978-0-88922-369-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1996; 128 pp; 6th printing

Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists

Goodnight Disgrace

Normand Chaurette

From his wheelchair in a nursing home, Conrad Aiken recalls his long, stormy relations with Malcolm Lowry. Cast of 3 women and 4 men.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau 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 978-0-88922-400-1; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1998; 96 pp

Michael Mercer

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Drama Backlist / 43

The Great Wave of Civilization

The Heretic

Herschel Hardin

John Murphy

The destruction of the people of the Blackfoot Confederacy by the liquor trade in Alberta and Montana. Cast of 5 women and 13 men.

“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.

The Gull

Homechild

Daphne Marlatt

Joan MacLeod

With a Japanese translation by Toyoshi Yoshihara

Between 1860 and 1930, over 80,000 unaccompanied British children were “exported” to Canadian factories and farms, often exploited there as indentured child labourers. Cast of 5 women and 3 men.

The first Canadian play written and 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 and 3 men. Winner of the 2008 Uchimura Naoya Prize. “A masterpiece.”

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

—UNESCO

Halo

The Hope Slide Little Sister

Josh MacDonald When an image of Jesus appears on the side of a Tim Hortons restaurant, the town inhabitants are challenged to ask difficult questions about faith, life and love. Cast of 3 women and 4 men. Merritt Theatre Award Nominee for Best Play, 2004.

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

“Halo successfully melds faith, drama and humour … very funny and quite moving.” —Halifax Daily News

“A gripping portrait of one woman’s search for meaning in the face of disillusionment and despair.” —Ottawa Citizen

Heaven

Hosanna

George F. Walker

Michel Tremblay

Instantly recognizable multicultural characters play out their coincidental relationships in a park on the outskirts of a city. Cast of 2 women and 4 men.

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

“Leavened with Walker’s dizzying sense of humour. It is also shot through with hot anger at an uncaring society and with compassion for the disenfranchised and the spiritually maimed.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-429-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2000; 144 pp; 2nd printing

A play about illusions. Cast of 2 men. “Written by a real playwright who can write poetic prose, handle literary technique and create character.” —New York Post “Breathtakingly beautiful and layered with emotion and resonance.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-296-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD rev. ©1991; 88 pp; 5th printing

Hellfire Pass

The Impromptu of Outremont

A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part One Vittorio Rossi

Michel Tremblay

Silvio Rosato shows up at the house of his estranged father and meets the family he raised in Chicago after leaving Silvio in Italy 36 years ago. Cast of 3 women and 4 men. Winner of the 2006 Montreal English Critics’ Circle Award. “A powerful, memorable drama … ”

—Variety

Translated by John Van Burek Three sisters have an “impromptu” and re-examine their personal and social problems. Cast of 4 women. “A clear delineation of the problems faced by any colonial culture.” —Vancouver Province ISBN 978-0-88922-185-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1981; 96 pp; 3rd printing

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Talonbooks

Impromptu on Nuns’ Island

Je me souviens

Michel Tremblay

Lorena Gale

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

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.

In an impromptu get-together in an opera diva’s Nuns’ Island penthouse, on the afternoon of her return from Paris, her celebrity mother and her idealistic daughter lie in wait for her. Cast of 3 women and 1 man. Governor General’s Translation Award Finalist, 2002. ISBN 978-0-88922-470-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2002; 96 pp

In a World Created by a Drunken God

Jitters

Drew Hayden Taylor

David French

A Canadian half-Native man is thrust into an absurd dilemma when he is asked to be tested for a possible kidney donation to his dying non-Native father, who abandoned him when he was two months old. Cast of 2 men.

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

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

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

In the Eyes of God

Joe Beef

Raul Sanchez Inglis

David Fennario

A vicious and unsparing look at the talent agencies that remake the Hollywood stars out of the willing clay of their own flesh. Cast of 3 women and 4 men.

Desperately poor immigrants find refuge in Montreal’s legendary barkeep, Joe Beef. Cast of 5 women and 5 men. The United Steel Workers’ Union Pauline Julien Prize Winner, 1987.

“[This] terrific play … is one of the most vicious exposes of Hollywood venality, misogyny and the social Darwinism that drives the star-making machinery that you’ll ever see.” —Vancouver Province

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

In the Eyes of Stone Dogs

The Lady Smith

Daniel Danis

Andrew Moodie

Translated by Linda Gaboriau Before fleeing her eccentric island community, Djouke is determined to discover the mystery of her paternity. Cast of 4 women and 5 men.

Rather than confront her husband when she sees him with another woman, a blues singer follows the woman and insinuates herself into the other woman’s life. Cast of 3 women and 1 man.

“A skillful blend of lyricism and cruelty, of the tragic and the poetic … ” —Voir

“No question, playwright Andrew Moodie has a gift for naturalism.” —Toronto Star

“Strange, haunting and unforgettable.” —Stage Directions

“Amusingly inventive.”

—Globe & Mail

Jacob’s Wake

Lawrence & Holloman

Michael Cook

Morris Panych

A Maritime family’s tragedy, set in a raging storm. Cast of 2 women and 5 men.

Lawrence and Holloman, a hapless nerd and a loquacious salesman, meet by chance. From this fleetingly irritating and insignificant encounter comes a viciously murderous and incredulously bizarre plot. Cast of 2 men.

“A powerful play, deeply rooted in its regional context, but universal enough to appeal to an audience anywhere.” —Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-097-3; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©1975; 144 pp; 6th printing

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Legoland

Local Boy Makes Good

Jacob Richmond

John Gray

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.

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

“Legoland is like a variety show version of South —Globe & Mail Park.”

“John Gray is the most original artist working in the —Globe & Mail musical theatre in this country.”

The Leisure Society

Lost Souls and Missing Persons

François Archambault

Sally Clark

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

A comic, biting, surreal investigation of the question of self and identity in the North American middle-class. Cast of 9 women and 11 men.

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

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

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

Canadian Authors Association Drama Award Winner, 1988 (Rock and Roll).

Life Without Instruction

Ludwig & Mae

Sally Clark

Louis Patrick Leroux

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

Translated by Shelley Tepperman and Ellen Warkentin

“Sally Clark’s great talents as a playwright are her seemingly effortless ability to shift from light to dark and her finely tuned understanding of life’s rich ambiguities.” —Toronto Star

Three plays include: Embedded, which establishes Ludwig and Mae’s Strindbergian relationship; Apocalypse, a monodrama in which Ludwig stages his own suicidal ceremonial; and Redemption, Mae’s testimonial, where she finally comes into her own. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man. “audacious avant-garde spectacles …”

—Jane Moss

A Line in the Sand

The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr

Guillermo Verdecchia & Marcus Youssef

Jovette Marchessault

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

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Chalmers Best New Play Award Winner, 1997.

“A worthy trip home for one of Canada’s greatest painters.” —Globe & Mail

“[A] powerful story …”

—CBRA

Marchessault evokes the doubts, the trials and the joys of this singular existence. Cast of 3 women and 1 man.

Listen to the Wind

La Maison Suspendue

James Reaney

Michel Tremblay

Two stories intertwine and illuminate the relationship of life to its creative dream. Cast of 4 women, 4 men, 1 female child and 1 male child.

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

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

“A full and resounding resonance.”

Chalmers Award Winner, 1990. —Theatrum

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Talonbooks

Mambo Italiano

Modern Canadian Plays

Steve Galluccio

Volume I Edited by Jerry Wasserman

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. “Manages to combine the sentimental, the silly and the sexy … ” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-494-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2004; 128 pp; 2nd printing

This fourth edition contains The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, Fortune and Men’s Eyes, Les Belles-Soeurs, Leaving Home, 1837: The Farmer’s Revolt, The St Nicholas Hotel, Zastrozzi, Billy Bishop Goes to War, Balconville, Doc, Drag Queens on Trial and The Occupation of Heather Rose. ISBN 978-0-88922-436-0; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD ©2000; 464 pp; 6th printing

Marcel Pursued by the Hounds

Modern Canadian Plays

Michel Tremblay

Volume II Edited by Jerry Wasserman

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco How our “innocent” childhood games and fantasies come back to haunt us in adult life. Cast of 4 women and 1 adolescent male. “Tremblay’s grip on matters of the human heart is as precise, knowing and unforgiving as ever.” —Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-326-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1996; 80 pp; 2nd printing

This fourth edition contains Bordertown Café, Polygraph, Moo, The Orphan Muses, 7 Stories, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, Amigo’s Blue Guitar, Lion in the Streets, Never Swim Alone, Fronteras Americanas, Harlem Duet and Problem Child. ISBN 978-0-88922-437-7; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD ©2001; 408 pp; 6th printing

Marion Bridge

Mom’s the Word

Daniel MacIvor

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

Includes screenplay and stage play. Cast of 3 women. “In some ways, this moving drama, which tiptoes toward sentimentality without ever reaching it, is the most surprising play that [MacIvor’s] ever written. When was the last time you saw a drama about three distinct, complex women that had nothing to do with their relationships with men?” —New York Times ISBN 978-0-88922-552-7; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD rev. ©2006; 192 pp; 3rd printing

Humorous stories, bittersweet monologues, poetic reflections and revelatory anecdotes about motherhood. Cast of 6 women. “I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to enjoy a show this much.” —Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-431-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2000; 112 pp; 2nd printing

Memories of You

1949

Wendy Lill

David French

The life of Elizabeth Smart pivoted on a turbulent affair that produced four children and her one book. This is a portrayal of the book as a record of one great life lived. Cast of 4 women and 1 man.

Newfoundland joins Confederation in the continuing saga of the Mercer family. Cast of 6 women, 6 men and 2 male children.

“Beautifully written … its pleasure, its sensuality and its pain. A courageous and profoundly moving play … ” —Robert Enright, CBC

“Told with French’s warm humour and effortless command of stage convention.” —Globe & Mail

Chalmers Award Nominee, 1988.

Miss Julie

The Noam Chomsky Lectures

August Strindberg

Daniel Brooks & Guillermo Verdecchia

An adaptation by David French

An innovative, multi-layered deconstruction of mass media and politics. Cast of 2 men.

A riveting adaptation of a theatre classic about an affair between the daughter of a count and the count’s manservant. Cast of 2 women and 1 man. “Direct, accessible and strangely contemporary, [this adaptation of] Miss Julie is a … blast of dramatic fresh air which retains its provocative power.” —Halifax Chronicle Herald ISBN 978-0-88922-549-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2006; 96 pp; 2nd printing

Chalmers Award Winner, 1992. Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 1992. “A … sharp and funny ‘lecture’ on cultural politics and political culture.” —Now “An anti-imperialist primer.”

—Socialist Worker

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Drama Backlist / 47

Nothing to Lose

Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth

David Fennario

Drew Hayden Taylor

Working-class survivors of the ’60s stage a workers’ sitdown strike. Cast of 9 men.

The emotional struggle of a Native woman who was adopted by a white family to acknowledge her birth family. Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

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 —CBC great production. Period.” ISBN 978-0-88922-384-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1998; 112 pp; 6th printing

The Occupation of Heather Rose

Other Schools of Thought

Wendy Lill

Morris Panych

Young, naïve and inadequately trained nurse Heather Rose arrives in a remote Native community hoping to improve the lives of its residents, but ends up utterly disillusioned by the impotence of her interventions. Cast of 1 woman.

Dramas that encourage adults to reflect on their past and young people to reflect on their future: Life Science, 2B WUT UR and Cost of Living.

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

Omniscience

Paradise by the River

Tim Carlson

Vittorio Rossi

The play begs the question of how many of our freedoms have been lost to the institutions engaged in surveillance “for our own protection.”Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

After Canada officially declares war with Italy, Romano, a recent immigrant, is arrested without charge in his own home. Cast of 2 women and 8 men.

“This assault on the modern media makes a clever stab at warning its audience of what’s to come on this crazy granite planet … ” —Vancouver Sun

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

“Never less than intelligently provocative … ” —Georgia Straight

On the Job

Past Perfect

David Fennario

Michel Tremblay

On Christmas Eve the workers in a Montreal shipping room get drunk and go on strike. Cast of 8 men.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Chalmers Award Winner for Best Canadian Play, 1976. “Vibrates with the rough and ready energy of a street fight.” —Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-102-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1976; 112 pp; 4th printing

Unleashing the dark secret of her being, Albertine, one of Tremblay’s most unforgettable heroines, sets out to reconquer the beau she has lost to her younger sister. Cast of 3 women and 2 men. “The really scary, or beautiful, part is how much Albertine there is in every one of us.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-493-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2004; 96 pp

One Crack Out

Playing Bare

David French

Dominic Champagne

Charlie Evans, a pool shark, has two days to pay off a debt, or have his legs broken by a psychotic debt collector who is also having an affair with his wife. Cast of 2 women and 8 men.

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

“A definite winner that will be around for a long time.” —Ottawa Citizen

“It celebrates theatre by paying tribute to Godot, one of its most brilliant gems.” —Vancouver Sun

48 / Drama Backlist

Talonbooks

The Power Plays

Rose

George F. Walker

Tomson Highway

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.

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.

“Walker has an eye for the ridiculous and an imagination that packs his plays with action.” —New York Times

“Tomson Highway has been a groundbreaking, foundational dramatist—the inaugural voice of a generation of First Nations playwrights in Canada.” —Canadian Literature

The Queens

George Ryga

Normand Chaurette

The Other Plays George Ryga

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

Edited by James Hoffman

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

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

The Real World?

Saga of the Wet Hens

Michel Tremblay

Jovette Marchessault

Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

A play within a play. A young playwright draws on his family as the raw material for his first work. Cast of 4 women and 3 men.

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

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

“Potent feminist literature.”

—Quill & Quire

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

Remember Me

Saint Frances of Hollywood

Michel Tremblay

Sally Clark

Translated by John Stowe

The tragic life of Frances Farmer, the raucous, idealistic, non-conforming movie star of the ’30s and ’40s. Cast of 4 women and 4 men.

Two ex-lovers meet and compare and confess their fears and disillusionments. Cast of 2 men. “[Tremblay] has entered a new phase of his dramatic art.” —Canadian Literature ISBN 978-0-88922-219-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1984; 64 pp; 2nd printing

“It is this mix of fact and fantasy that Clark has captured so brilliantly and used to striking advantage … the effect is brutally chilling.” —Variety “A searing tragedy … ”

—Toronto Star

The Riddle of the World

Sainte-Carmen of the Main

David French

Michel Tremblay

A stockbroker and an ex-priest get together to console themselves after being abandoned by their mates and are forced to come to terms with their fragile natures as men. Cast of 3 women and 2 men.

Translated by John Van Burek

A play about cultural identity and cultural awakening based on a country and western singer of Montreal’s “The Main.” Cast of 4 women, 13 men and a chorus. “An absolutely fascinating gesture by a powerful playwright.” —Globe & Mail ISBN 978-0-88922-181-9; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©1981; 80 pp; 4th printing

Talonbooks

Drama Backlist / 49

Sainte-Marie among the Hurons

The Shape of a Girl Jewel

James W. Nichol 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.

Joan MacLeod

“The play has a burning sincerity … A fascinating glimpse of two totally different cultures.” —Ottawa Citizen

The Shape of a Girl examines the code of silence and tacit complicity which surrounded the sensationalized murder of Reena Virk by school-aged bullies in 1997. Jewel is based on the real-life catastrophe of the sinking of the Ocean Ranger, an oil rig off the coast of Newfoundland, in 1982.

Salt-Water Moon

Silver Dagger

David French

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

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

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

Schoolhouse

Sisters

Leanna Brodie

Wendy Lill

Full of warmth and poignant humour this drama set in a one-room schoolhouse evokes a way of life shared by generations of rural North Americans, exploring timeless themes of rejection, of compassion, of damage, of hope. Cast of 5 women and 7 men.

A tough, uncompromising look at a convent-run Native residential school. The soul-destroying devastation caused by these institutions from the point of view of the nuns running the school. Cast of 4 women and 2 men.

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

“A moving theatrical experience.”

—Theatrum

The Seagull

Six Plays by Mavor Moore

Anton Chekhov

Mavor Moore

Translated by David French

In these theatre pieces stripped to the essentials of character sketches in quick, subtle lines, the emphasis is on the performer’s resources as an actor, rather than the externals of scene changes and stage contexts.

A revitalization of a Russian theatre classic. Cast of 5 women and 8 men. “Witty, while preserving the historical integrity of the characters … French’s effective translation should make this edition the favoured teaching and acting version in North America.” —Canadian Theatre Review ISBN 978-0-88922-324-0; $16.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©1993; 112 pp; 4th printing

7 Stories

Soldier’s Heart

Morris Panych

David French

In this fast-paced, sophisticated and hilarious play, a man’s contemplation of suicide leads to a charming and surprising ending. Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

Esau Mercer, a veteran of the First World War, tries to persuade his alienated 16-year-old son, Jacob, not to leave. Slowly Esau’s devastating and unsparing account of what secrets lie in his soldier’s heart brings father and son together. Cast of 3 men.

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

—CBC

50 / Drama Backlist

Talonbooks

Somewhere Else

The Tale of Teeka

George F. Walker

Michel Marc Bouchard

Contains Walker’s own selection of his early plays which matter; which for him have stood the test of time: Beyond Mozambique (1974), Zastrozzi (1977), Theatre of the Film Noir (1981) and Nothing Sacred (1988).

Translated by Linda Gaboriau A play set in rural Quebec in the ’50s in which a battered child, Maurice, seeks refuge in a fantasy world. Cast of 1 man and 1 male child.

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

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

Song of the Say-Sayer

Talking Bodies

Daniel Danis

Larry Tremblay

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Translated by Sheila Fischman

Three brothers strive to unite and care for their ailing sister after the death of their adoptive parents. Cast of 1 woman and 3 men.

A collection of Larry Tremblay’s four memorable solo performances for the stage: A Trick of Fate, Anatomy Lesson, The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi and Ogre. With an introduction by Jane M. Moss.

Still Laughing

That Summer

Morris Panych

David French

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

A woman returns to the cottage country of Ontario where, 32 years before, she vacationed with her family. Cast of 5 women and 2 men.

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

“That Summer is a lyrical and beautifully constructed meditation on the passage of time and the transition from one generation to the next. David French is a playwright at the height of his powers.” —CBRA

Studies in Motion

That Woman

Kevin Kerr

Daniel Danis

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

Translated by Linda Gaboriau The story of a woman sent away from her family by her brother the Bishop after she is found exploring her sexuality at age seventeen. Cast of 1 woman and 2 men.

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

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

Suburban Motel

Tiln & Other Plays

George F. Walker

Michael Cook

Six plays that take place in the same hotel room: Problem Child, Criminal Genius, Risk Everything, Adult Entertainment, Featuring Loretta and The End of Civilization.

Three short plays by Cook: Tiln, Quiller and Therese’s Creed.

“We’re back in the strange world of George Walker, where humour and horror waltz drunkenly around in each other’s arms.” —Washington Post ISBN 978-0-88922-412-4; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©1999; 320 pp; 5th printing

Talonbooks

Drama Backlist / 51

Toronto, Mississippi

2000

Joan MacLeod

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.

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.

“See this play and fall in love.”

—Georgia Straight

The Trial of Judith K.

Unity (1918)

Sally Clark

Kevin Kerr

Roughly based on Kafka’s The Trial, this black comedy transforms the lead character into a modern business woman who finds herself accused of an unknown crime. Cast of 4 women and 3 men.

In the fall of 1918, a world ravaged by four years of war was suddenly hit by a mysterious and deadly plague. As fear of the dreaded “Spanish” flu begins to fill the town of Unity with paranoia, drastic measures are taken. Cast of 6 women and 3 men.

The Trigger

The Unnatural and Accidental Women

Carmen Aguirre

Marie Clements

Based on the author’s own experience as a victim of the Paper Bag Rapist, The Trigger is a play written for anyone who has ever dealt with sexual violation and who continues to live with it at their core. Cast of 5 women.

A surrealist dramatization of a notorious 30-year murder case involving many mysterious deaths in the “Skid Row” area of Vancouver. Cast of 11 women and 2 men.

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

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

—Eye Weekly

Twenty Years at Play

The Ventriloquist

A New Play Centre Anthology Edited by Jerry Wasserman

Larry Tremblay

This collection of eight of the finest plays produced by Vancouver’s New Play Centre marks the company’s 20th year.

Theatre of innovation. Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

Translated by Keith Turnbull

“What lingers is a degree of delight at Tremblay’s ability not so much to weave a storyline as to unravel one with such finesse and beauty.” —Toronto Sun “This is the best new Quebec play in many years.” —CBC Radio-Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-536-7; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2006; 64 pp

Two Plays

The Vic

George Woodcock

Leanna Brodie

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

The Vic creates an ensemble of eight ethnically diverse women ranging in age from their teens to their fifties, each of them eager to claim the entitlement they feel their status as victim has “naturally” conferred upon them. Cast of 8 women.

52 / Drama Backlist

Talonbooks

Vigil

WASPS

Morris Panych

Sally Clark

An extremely self-centred and shallow person finds himself, through his own errors and inattentiveness, in a life-anddeath situation. Cast of 1 woman and 1 man.

A play about the elements of our constructed tribal identities: incest, fashion, fetishism, style, populist art, amateur psychobabble and a fascination with the other. Cast of 4 women and 2 men.

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

—Toronto Star —Globe & Mail

Waiting for the Parade

The Weekend Healer

John Murrell

Bryden MacDonald

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

The disappearance of a young man acts as a catalyst for a drama that questions the nature of family and “traditional values.” Cast of 2 women and 1 man.

Walsh

Westray

Sharon Pollock

The Long Way Home Chris O’Neill & Ken Schwartz

A historical documentary of Sitting Bull’s exile in Canada after the Montana massacre at Little Big Horn. Cast of 3 women and 11 men. “Undefinable magic that is the essence of art.” —Ottawa Citizen ISBN 978-0-88922-215-1; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD rev. ©1983; 136 pp; 13th printing

Although the Westray mine is dangerously mismanaged, a young father descends under the ground again to support his family. Cast of 2 women and 3 men. “Crisp, thoughtful, and entertaining, and every bit deserving of a standing ovation.” —Ottawa Citizen ISBN 978-0-88922-491-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD rev. ©2004; 96 pp

Wanted

Whale Riding Weather

Sally Clark

Bryden MacDonald

Set during the Klondike gold rush, Wanted is a celebration of one woman’s determination to triumph over all who seek to possess her in a harsh social climate of chaos, opportunism, raw desire, greed and lust. Cast of 2 women and 4 men.

A faded old man finds his life slipping away from him along with his young male lover, who meets a new, younger man. Cast of 3 men.

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

—Toronto Star

Warriors

What Lies Before Us

Michel Garneau

Morris Panych

Translated by Linda Gaboriau

Two–time Governor General’s Award–winning playwright Panych has turned Waiting for Godot into a comedy while simultaneously heightening the profound existential questions it asks. Cast of 3 men.

Warriors enters the world of advertising where even if the product is war, it is still a product that can be sold. Cast of 2 men. “If you want a challenging piece of theatre prepare for Warriors.” —Calgary Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-282-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1989; 104 pp

Governor General’s Drama Award Finalist, 2007. “Panych is … ambitious, talented, funny, feared, beloved … and altogether impossible to ignore.” —Toronto Life ISBN 978-0-88922-560-2; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2007; 96 pp

Talonbooks

Drama Backlist / 53

Where the Blood Mixes

Willful Acts

Kevin Loring

Margaret Hollingsworth

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.

An expanded and updated collection of Margaret Hollingsworth’s best known and most popular plays, including The Apple in the Eye, Everloving, Diving, Islands, War Babies and Commonwealth Games.

Governor General’s Drama Award Winner, 2009.

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

“Where the Blood Mixes … was the best of a stream of plays tackling [the Residential Schools’] disastrous —Globe & Mail legacy.”

Whereverville

Written on Water

Josh MacDonald

Michel Marc Bouchard

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.

Translated by Linda Gaboriau 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.

“Fresh and direct, with clear-eyed compassion and a surprising amount of humour.” —Halifax Daily News

“A profound reflection on memory and on the act of writing … told with Michel Marc Bouchard’s characteristic humour and poetry.” —CBC

54 / Poetry Backlist

Talonbooks

Amuse Bouche

Bread and Salt

Adeena Karasick

Renee Rodin

Mashing up the lexicon of war with post-industrial consumerism, haute cuisine, couture, language, Eros and desire, Karasick’s sixth book is at once dark and satirical, exuberant and amorously rigorous.

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

“Her writing is an extraordinary tour de force in the new paraliterary initiative of ‘fiction/theory’ that blends various genres and revels in their ‘contamination.’” —CBRA

Aurora

Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh

Sharon Thesen

Fred Wah

Sharon Thesen’s poems express the pleasure and magic of a language fully engaging the world, rewarding the reader with daily moments transformed into visions of grace.

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

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

“The impact is immediate, and the reader is able to experience Wah’s insight and respond to his graceful rhythmic tone.” —Windsor Star

b leev abul char ak trs

Cartouches

bill bissett

Lola Lemire Tostevin

“Themes of love, lust and the degradation of nature’s order. bissett captures the loneliness of his characters and often the black humour that they reckon from their situations. His syntax at first seems like a wall to understanding but once on the other side the bricks become windows to a fantastic imagination.” —filling Station

The recent deaths of her father and several friends at the time of a trip to Egypt have led the author to write about the essential relation between language and death. “Lola Lemire Tostevin is an incisive, intelligent, and sharply observant writer … ” —Quarry “Lovely, nape-tingling work.”

—Books in Canada

Back to the War

The Centre

Frank Davey

Poems 1970–2000 Barry McKinnon

A careful archaeology of the catalogue of innocence assembled by a youthful imagination blossoming during World War II. “Davey has given us a rare album of verbal photographs … ” “A haunting poetic memoir … ”

—Arc

—abcbookworld.com

“Barry McKinnon’s great skills as a poet make substantial all that living meets with and defines, and must finally accept willy-nilly … ” —Robert Creeley “His poems are a radical ‘placing’ of a poetics, but also an act of displacing language from civics … [McKinnon is] absolutely central to Canadian poetics.” —American Book Review ISBN 978-0-88922-497-1; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD ©2004; 192 pp

Blonds on Bikes

Change Room

George Bowering

Mark Cochrane

A composition of daily riffs during an autumn in Denmark and Italy; an album of verbal portraits by a husband and wife who see differently; and a series of tributes to other writers on special occasions.

The body is here fetishized by the creative power of desire to the point where the love of perfection crosses the boundaries of gender and polity.

“Mark Cochrane is a glorious writer.”

—Quill & Quire

Talonbooks

Poetry Backlist / 55

The Commons

Dwell

Stephen Collis

Jeff Derksen

Tearing down (intellectual) property’s fencing, Collis’s poems demonstrate that what we call, in less inspired moments, “allusion,” “borrowing,” or even (pretentiously) “intertextuality” is just what poetry itself proves time and again: our languages are common. Shared. Un-enclosable. ISBN 978-0-88922-580-0; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2008; 144 pp

An ironically revealing, humorous and analytic book. Alberta Writers’ Guild Award Nominee, 1994. “[A] canny text, astute and sharp. This is a brilliant mind at work, dwelling in, dwelling on.” —Books in Canada “Language that’s resolute in its probe for meaningful —Fred Wah co-ordinates.” ISBN 978-0-88922-328-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1994; 112 pp

Cultural Mischief

Dyssemia Sleaze

A Practical Guide to Multiculturalism Frank Davey

Adeena Karasick

A collection of prose poems on the hyperbolic absurdities of multiculturalism in action.

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

“Finally, what’s left is an irresistible, irrepressible read that’s bound to raise eyebrows.” —Monday Magazine

Bumbershoot Most Adventurous Publication Award Winner, 2000.

Dominican Moon

The Empress Has No Closure

Ken Norris

Adeena Karasick

Composed like a dark novel-in-verse, the second book in Norris’s travel trilogy is an unsettling story of the deficiencies of love steeped in a clash of cultures between the third world and the first.

The Empress Has No Closure contains, as a centre-piece, the “Alefbet Transfers,” a meditative, spacial explication of the 22 figures of the Hebrew alphabet.

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

—Matrix

“All of it hums with intellectual energy, much of it is even funny.” —Books in Canada “An impressive deconstruction of language and meaning … ” —Canadian Literature

Down Time

A Few Words Will Do

Jeff Derksen

Lionel Kearns

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

When one person writes “this is what happened, this is what I know,” any reader stands in for the absent “I” or “eye” of that text. This inescapable process of language, preoccupies Kearns in these brief but concentrated pieces.

BC Book Prize Winner, 1991. “Wrenching intellectual and emotional dislocation that redefines the act of reading.” —Vancouver Sun ISBN 978-0-88922-278-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©1990; 96 pp; 2nd printing

“Lionel Kearns has been hovering over our poetry scene for years. Now we have his selected poems at last, and the bird has landed.” —George Bowering ISBN 978-0-88922-558-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD © 2007; 128 pp; illustrations

Dream Pool Essays

Fifty

Gil McElroy

Ken Norris

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

Among its widely diverse poetic forms, the book constructs odes, elegies, sonnets and long poem sequences, as Norris travels from Maine to Santo Domingo, from Phnom Penh to Montreal, and from the shorelines of the Caribbean to the banks of the Mekong River.

Gerald Lampman Poetry Prize Nominee, 2002. “The expected subjects of faith, work, nature, solitude, and writing itself are represented with clarity and beauty.” —Canadian Literature

“He is, in short, a poet, and a good one.” —Hiram Poetry Review

56 / Poetry Backlist

Talonbooks

Five Star Planet

Ground Water

David W. McFadden

Colin Browne

This third volume in McFadden’s Terrafina Trilogy—which began with Gypsy Guitar and There’ll Be Another—is shaped by a wealth of poetic forms.

Investigates the elements of the spiritual topography of the 20th century and closely examines the conventional symbology passed on to the poet/map-maker by his ancestors.

BC Book Prize Finalist, 2003. Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 2002. “You are different after you have read this book.” —Georgia Straight ISBN 978-0-88922-465-0; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD ©2002; 208 pp

fractal economies

Gypsy Guitar

derek beaulieu

David W. McFadden

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

100 poems of love and betrayal—all presented in the unmistakable McFadden style.

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

“An exhilarating immersion in a uniquely bizarre and —Canadian Literature irrepressible imagination.”

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

Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 1988.

Genrecide

Hanging Fire

Adeena Karasick

Phyllis Webb

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

Astonishingly beautiful entrances into the personae of lost companions who reappear, animated by a voice in love with the music of their speaking.

“Beautiful linguistic carnage … ”

“Few poets take us through the disasters of the world … with such exquisite moral precision.” —Rosemary Sullivan

“Bridging the genre gap … ” “Visually striking … ”

—Word —The Link

—Jewish Post and News

gifts

harvest

rob mclennan

a book of signifiers rob mclennan

Unifying this book is the persona of the lover: as an intimate; as an interruption of the determinative self; as an unattainable weightlessness; and as the gravitational pull of the landscape itself. “rob mclennan is one of the best contemporary poets in Canada.” —Barry McKinnon ISBN 978-0-88922-605-0; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2009; 160 pp

What is harvested here are the signifiers for journeys: tickets, postcards, letters—recording unseemly haste, enforced idleness, losing one’s way, and sometimes finding it again. “For mclennan, there are no rules. His poetry defies convention or classification” —Room Magazine ISBN 978-0-88922-455-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2001; 128 pp

Going Home

Hotel Montreal

Ken Norris

New and Selected Poems Ken Norris

The whole manufactured unreality of our world falls away in these poems, leading us both toward and away from being “at home” in the present. “[Norris] is profoundly original, open and vulnerable, with a unique personal note that speaks to the heart of the reader.” —Poetry Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-573-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2007; 192 pp

Selections from 19 groundbreaking books of poetry that draw together the very best of Norris’s lyric poetry from a 25-year period, while offering the reader an indispensible panoramic view of the work of a poet at the height of his creative powers. “Unlock[s] a chrysalis of perplexity, awe, joy, and revelation … ” —Montreal Review of Books ISBN 978-0-88922-456-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2001; 160 pp

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Poetry Backlist / 57

The House That Hijack Built

is a door

Adeena Karasick

Fred Wah

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.

is a door uses the poem’s ability for “suddenness” to subvert closure: the sudden question, the sudden turn, the sudden opening—writing that is generated from improvisation, compositional problem-solving, travel, investigation, collaborative events, documentary.

“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

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

I. Another. The Space Between

Kerrisdale Elegies

Selected Poems Jamie Reid

George Bowering

“Jamie Reid’s later political writing packs a punch, often a dada-esque one … No topic falls beyond Reid’s scope … ” —BC Bookworld

Bowering responds to Rilke’s Duino Elegies. In the intertextuality of these two great works can be found postmodern writing that is self-aware, where the other is discovered in the process of the writer writing.

“[Reid] engages readers in a conversation, asking them always to try to make their neighbourhood, their city, their world a better place … ” —Georgia Straight

“A lyricism that is spring-sweet and without boast or threat … Bowering has poured all his considerable power into one vessel, and he must be read.” —Globe & Mail

th influenza uv logik

th last photo uv th human soul

bill bissett

Canada’s most linguistically innovative poet takes on the “linear binary traps” of conventional logic, history and politics.

bill bissett has remained on a permanent world tour for over 30 years; he wrote this book while on a European reading circuit that included performances in London, Manchester, Cardiff, Dublin, Paris, Mainz, Trier and Berlin.

inkorrect thots

Last Scattering Surfaces

bill bissett

Gil McElroy

When bill bissett thinks “inkorrect thots” anything can happen.

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

The Invisibility Exhibit

Limbo Road

Sachiko Murakami

Ken Norris

Murakami’s first book of poetry, written in the political and emotional wake of Vancouver’s “Missing Women,” this project investigates the troubled relationship between a marginalized neighbourhood’s “invisible” populations and the city that surrounds them.

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

Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 2008. “An articulate and expertly rendered protest against the violence of erasure.” —Jon Paul Fiorentino ISBN 978-0-88922-579-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD ©2008; 84 pp; 2nd printing

“I get a better sense, a tragic and painful sense, of the age we are living in than I do from the daily and nightly broadcasts of world news … profoundly original, open and vulnerable … speaks to the heart of the reader.” —Louis Dudek, Poetry Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-401-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1998; 160 pp

58 / Poetry Backlist

Talonbooks

Love and Savagery

The New Long Poem Anthology

Des Walsh

Second Edition Edited by Sharon Thesen

This finely crafted book of poems, adapted to a feature film in 2009, is a sustained adoration of the beloved that echoes the work of the troubadours. The unnamed Irish woman of this collection leads the narrator on a spiritual quest from the streets of St. John’s to the seemingly impenetrable evergreen thickets of Ireland. “A collection to be read and re-read, pondered and savoured.” —Newfoundland Herald

Features the work of Blaser, Bowering, Brand, Carson, Derksen, Dudek, Dewdney, Friesen, Hartog, Kiyooka, Kroetsch, Marlatt, McCaffery, McFadden, McKay, McKinnon, Mouré, Nichol, Ondaatje, Robertson, Stanley, Tostevin, Villemaire, Wah and Webb. ISBN 978-0-88922-438-4; $39.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©2001; 496 pp

loving without being vulnrabul

News & Smoke

bill bissett

Selected Poems Sharon Thesen

Poems that tell stories on many different levels: through sound, visual images, political insights, non-narrative fusion and linguistic music. “Anybody who’s never heard [bissett] really ought to, because you’ll never think of poetry the same way after you hear him.” —Citylife ISBN 978-0-88922-372-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1997; 144 pp

“A compact and beautifully designed collection, nicely fleshed out with a broad selection of poems previously published only in journals and periodicals, not to mention its tantalizing sampling of new fare. Many will discover plenty to admire in News and Smoke.” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-417-9; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1999; 160 pp

Mêmewars

bpNichol Comics

Adeena Karasick

bpNichol

Mêmewars is a book writing against itself.

Edited by Carl Peters

BC Book Prize Finalist, 1994.

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

“Mêmewars is electricity in language, eccentricity at its best … This book makes eye contact with she and with me. It reminds me how being a reader can be exciting.” —Nicole Brossard

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

The Moustache

Noise from the Laundry

Memories of Greg Curnoe George Bowering

Weyman Chan

Bowering and Greg Curnoe became friends when their art was in its youth, and for 26 years they grew up parallel, inside each other’s work. “Documents a friendship through the kinship of the creative spirit.” —Kitchener-Waterloo Record ISBN 978-0-88910-457-0; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1993; 128 pp

Weyman Chan’s poems elaborate his singular and solitary work on the renaissance of the contemporary lyric form. Governor General’s Poetry Award Finalist, 2008. Alberta Literary Awards Short List, 2009. “The deepest blues on prairie snow are Weyman Chan’s inks, his pen as precise and as elusive as the silken threads of a ‘tiny spider.’” —Sharon Proulx-Turner ISBN 978-0-88922-626-5; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD rev. ©2009; 104 pp

narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane

NonZero Definitions

bill bissett

Gil McElroy

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

The language of poetics emerges into the light of the purely formalist and luminous “definitions” of things and their movements as they engage in the ceaseless metamorphosis of replication in all of their endlessly unfolding possibilities.

“Touches on the great themes of humanity … in bissett’s inimitable way.” —Monday Magazine “bissett is one of the leading performance poets in Canada.” —Flak Magazine ISBN 978-0-88922-507-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©2004; 144 pp

Talonbooks

Poetry Backlist / 59

northern wild roses / deth interrupts th dansing bill bissett His rejection of the limiting conventions ofwritten language has allowed bissett to foreground the appearance of any linguistic event as a living performance. “[bissett’s] poetry addresses the limitless discussion of the boundaries between the personal and the —National Post political.”

Post-Prairie An Anthology of New Poetry Edited by Jon Paul Fiorentino & Robert Kroetsch 25 individual talents come together in this groundbreaking collection for a rare literary event: the transition of a cultural identity primarily rooted in place to one that is rooted in a rapidly fragmenting, technology-based globalization.

Pacific Windows

The Rap Canterbury Tales

Collected Poems of Roy K. Kiyooka Roy K. Kiyooka

Baba Brinkman

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

Hip-hop artist Brinkman resurrects Chaucer’s brilliant stories into visible and audible contemporary forms. “It’s a fun, crisp, non-literal translation of Chaucer’s work that, at its very best, captures the verve and stylized rhymes of its inspiration.” —Bloomsbury Review ISBN 978-0-88922-548-0; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD ©2006; 352 pp; 3rd printing

Pell Mell

The Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh

Robin Blaser

rob mclennan

Pell Mell, the middle voice, the syntax meeting its astonishments in its forward stride looking backwards, imagining an image nation where the heart is always torn, to pieces possessed by the other(s).

Thoroughly grounded in the media culture of television and film, mclennan’s language casts a deceptively familiar veil over the breadth and depth of reading which inform this work.

“Robin Blaser became a source for poetry’s authority beyond any simplifying place or time.” —Robert Creeley

Archibald Lampman Poetry Award Nominee, 2000.

peter among th towring boxes / text bites

scars on th seehors

bill bissett

bissett’s deliciously comic interrogation of the socio-political events towering around us like so many boxes we need constantly to imagine our way out of, is counterpoised in this collection by a recurring dream of a future locked in a global war.

bissett’s metric performs a kind of absence of narrative intent that lets everyone and everything speak for itself. As bissett puts it, “eye dont have 2 invent th world iumalredee in it.”

BC Book Prize Winner, 2003. “[bill bissett is] the shaman of Canadian poetry.” —Georgia Straight

Popular Narratives

Selected Poems

Frank Davey

The Arches Frank Davey

This book of prose poems strips down the codes and conventions that make up our society’s “popular narratives.” A revealing and witty, exploded view of our culture. “Risqué metaphors … scandalously unpoetic … a powerful alternative to the orthodoxy of poetic beauty.” —Smaro Kamboureli ISBN 978-0-88922-285-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD; ©1991; 96 pp

Selections from seven of this important poet and editor’s long poems. “Possesses a concentrated power that is rarely evident.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-174-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1980; 112 pp

60 / Poetry Backlist

Talonbooks

Selected Poems

Sentenced to Light

Beyond Even Faithful Legends bill bissett

Fred Wah

An astonishing series of unique collaborative image-text projects, Sentenced to Light privileges its poetic and formal textual space outside most of the images that are its original twins and offers the reader a glimpse of the dialectic of larger conversations, the unpredictable, improvisatory bavardage that whispers between words and pictures in an intrinsically poetic space. ISBN 978-0-88922-577-0; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD ©2008; 160 pp; Colour photos & illustrations

Selected Poems

The Shovel

Loki Is Buried at Smoky Creek Fred Wah

Colin Browne

Poems of landscape, language and memory from Wah’s earlier books. “Wah’s poems continually return us to the act of communion and the realization of our shared, not individual, life.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-177-2; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©1980; 128 pp

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 Short List, 2008. “The epic sweep of pieces is impressive, at times rapturous. They are worth digging for.” —Quill & Quire ISBN 978-0-88922-574-9; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD ©2007; 192 pp; photos

Selected Poems

The Singer’s Broken Throat

The Vision Tree Phyllis Webb

Des Walsh

Poetry distinguished by its attention to form and thought. Governor General’s Poetry Award Winner, 1982. “Phyllis Webb … is one of the finest poets now writing in Canada.” —Books in Canada ISBN 978-0-88922-202-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©1982; 160 pp; 4th printing

Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland & Labrador Heritage and History Award Finalist, 2005. “Alternatively tender and bitter, this collection is at once a prayer for love’s endurance and a lament for a nation … ” —Fiddlehead “Walsh is, and always has been, Newfound-land’s poet.” —Sunday Independent ISBN 978-0-88922-478-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©2003; 64 pp

Selected Writing

Sticks & Stones

As Elected bpNichol

George Bowering

Selections from visual poetry to translations by one of the most important poets in the 20th century writing in English. “bpNichol’s work is the most courageous body of work in Canadian literature.” —Frank Davey ISBN 978-0-88922-176-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1980; 144 pp

George Bowering’s first book of poetry. With a preface by Robert Creeley and original line drawings by Gordon Payne. “His feeling for form, for poetry as something made, is what gives his early pieces their ability to endure.” —Vancouver Province ISBN 978-0-88922-268-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD ©1989; 64 pp

Selected Writing

sublingual

Net Work Daphne Marlatt

bill bissett

Poetry and prose with an instantaneous recognition of perceptions and thought. “Confronts political realities on the level in which they impinge upon people’s lives.” —Montreal Gazette ISBN 978-0-88922-175-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD ©1980; 144 pp

sublingual is perhaps the most highly structured yet of bissett’s “textual visions.” Its first seven poems construct a Genesis, beginning with a poem of birth—our pre- or sublingual first breath, a phenomenological gesture of recognition, of both being and belonging, in and of the world. Following this short creation story, the book continues to unfold in luminous and lucid delight. ISBN 978-0-88922-589-3; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD ©2008; 160 pp

Talonbooks

Poetry Backlist / 61

There’ll Be Another

Transnational Muscle Cars

David W. McFadden

Jeff Derksen

Three books in one: Heavy-Hearted in Havana, Sex with a Sixteen Year Old and Anonymity Suite Part II.

“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

“They are beautifully written and enjoyable to read.” —Quill & Quire “McFadden should be everybody’s favorite poet.” —Ottawa XPress

“Accessible in themes, comfortably paced and motored by an anti-heroic punk sensibility … ” —Publishers Weekly

This Tremor Love Is

Vermeer’s Light

Daphne Marlatt

Poems 1996–2006 George Bowering

This Tremor Love Is is a memory book—an album of love poems spanning twenty-five years, from Marlatt’s first writing of what was to become the opening section, A Lost Book, to its latest, most recent sequences. BC Book Prize Finalist, 2002. ReLit Award Nominee, 2002. ISBN 978-0-88922-450-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD ©2001; 112 pp; 2nd printing

“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 —Quill & Quire significant poets.” ISBN 978-0-88922-565-7; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD rev. © 2007; 224 pp

ths is erth thees ar peopul

what’s left

bill bissett

rob mclennan

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.

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

ReLit Award Nominee, 2008. “His poetry addresses the limitless discussion of the boundaries between the personal and the political.” —National Post ISBN 978-0-88922-557-2; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD © 2007; 144 pp; illustrations

“mclennan works with a genuine verbal invention and his cultural ephemera laid out in pastiche make a strong impression.” —University of Toronto Quarterly “mclennan is one of the most promising voices of his generation … ” —Toronto Star ISBN 978-0-88922-498-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD ©2004; 144 pp

62 / Complete Booklist by Author

Talonbooks All books are published in trade paperback unless otherwise shown.

Belford, Ken Decompositions

Aguirre, Carmen The Trigger

51 bissett, bill 11

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

Angus, Ian

b leev abul char ak trs

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

th influenza uv logik

Written on Water

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

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

Arnason, David The Circus Performers’ Bar

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

loving without being vulnrabul

Archambault, François

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

narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane

Beating the Bushes

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

978-0-88910-387-0; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

978-0-88922-464-3; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Kerrisdale Elegies

978-0-88922-312-7; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Selected Poems: Beyond Even Faithful

Curnoe

Legends

60 978-0-88910-457-0; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD 978-0-88922-172-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD My Darling Nellie Grey 16

The Terror of the Coast: Land sublingual 60 978-0-88922-634-0; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD Alienation and Colonial War on 978-0-88922-589-3; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD The Rain Barrel 32 Vancouver Island and the Gulf ths is erth thees ar peopul 61 978-0-88922-345-5; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Islands, 1849–1863 26 978-0-88922-557-2; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Sticks & Stones 60 978-0-88922-318-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD time 6 978-0-88922-268-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand: Oral 978-0-88922-653-1; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD Vermeer’s Light: Traditions of the Hul’q’umi’num’ Poems 1996–2006 61 Blais, Marie-Claire Coast Salish of Kuper Island and 978-0-88922-565-7; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Vancouver Island 27 American Notebooks: A Writer’s 978-0-88922-555-8; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

B Bacque, James Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians under Allied Occupation, 1944–1950

Carson, Linda A. et al.

Caux, Patrick & Bernard Gilbert EX MACHINA: Creating for the Stage

978-0-88922-103-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Blaser, Robin Pell Mell

Bailey, Anne Geddes

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

978-0-88922-553-4; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD

Cloth: 978-0-88922-621-0; $35.00 CAD / $35.00 USD

Böggild, Hans & Doug Innis

beaulieu, derek

The Satchmo’ Suite

fractal economies

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

How to Write

The Rap Canterbury Tales

978-0-88922-548-0; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Brodie, Leanna For Home and Country

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

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

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

Browne, Colin Ground Water

Bouchard, Michel Marc

Down Dangerous Passes Road

Verdecchia

The Noam Chomsky Lectures

978-0-88922-648-7; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

17 The Coronation Voyage

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

Dominic 47

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

Chan, Weyman Hypoderm

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

Noise from the Laundry

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

Chaurette, Normand All the Verdis of Venice

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

The Concise Köchel

978-0-88922-403-2; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Brinkman, Baba

Timothy Findley and the Aesthetics of 978-0-88922-508-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Fascism: Intertextual Collaboration Boas, Franz Schoolhouse 49 and Resistance 21 Indian Myths & Legends from the 978-0-88922-571-8; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD 978-0-88922-386-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD North Pacific Coast of America: A The Vic 51 Translation of Franz Boas’ Barnholden, Michael 978-0-88922-459-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Indianische Sagen von der NordCircumstances Alter Photographs: Pacifischen Küste Amerikas 22 Brooks, Daniel & Guillermo Captain James Peters’ Reports from the War of 1885

978-0-88922-617-3; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

978-0-88922-518-3; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD 19 Boyd, George Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read 978-0-88922-358-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Consecrated Ground 38 by Geologists 42 The Angel of Solitude 28 978-0-921368-91-5; $12.95 CAD / $10.95 USD 978-0-88922-400-1; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD 978-0-88922-337-0; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Gideon’s Blues 42 The Queens 48 Dürer’s Angel 30 978-0-88922-496-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

The Execution

978-0-88922-567-1; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

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

Journey

978-0-88922-111-6; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

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

19 Mom’s the Word

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

Harry’s Fragments

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

Omniscience

northern wild roses / deth interrupts 978-0-88922-529-9; $19.95 CAD / $17.95 USD th dansing 59 Blonds on Bikes 54 978-0-88922-532-9; $17.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

59 978-0-88922-269-4; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD scars on th seehors 978-0-88922-590-9; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD Champagne, 978-0-88922-387-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD The Moustache: Memories of Greg The Pagan Wall 32 Playing Bare

Arnett, Chris

978-0-88922-647-0; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

Carlson, Tim

Bowering, George

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

bites

Bush, Steven

33 Diplomacy

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

And Other Stories 58

978-0-88922-218-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD peter among th towring boxes / text

The Happiest Man in the World and Other Stories 30

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

57 Boucher, Denise

41 978-0-88922-357-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD The Fairies Are Thirsty 978-0-88922-200-7; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD inkorrect thots 57

978-0-88922-457-5; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

The Leisure Society

978-0-88922-492-6; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Anarcho-Modernism: Toward a New Critical Theory in Honour of Jerry 978-0-88922-303-5; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Bourguignon, Stéphane Zaslove 19 th last photo uv th human soul 57 A Slight Case of Fatigue

15 Seconds

14 Burns, Mary

978-0-88922-641-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Shinny’s Girls and Other Stories

50 978-0-88922-631-9; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD The Tale of Teeka 978-0-88922-410-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

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

The Refugee Hotel

The Madonna Painter 16

The Seagull

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

Christensen, Bev Too Good to Be True

978-0-88922-354-7; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Clark, Sally Life Without Instruction

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

Lost Souls and Missing Persons

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

Saint Frances of Hollywood

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

The Trial of Judith K.

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

56 Wanted

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

The Shovel

Chekhov, Anton

60 WASPS

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

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

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

Talonbooks

Complete Booklist by Author / 63

Clements, Marie Burning Vision

Dalpé, Jean Marc 37 Scattered in a Rising Wind

978-0-88922-472-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Copper Thunderbird

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

The Unnatural and Accidental Women

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

Clements, Marie & Rita Leistner The Edward Curtis Project: A Modern Picture Story 1 978-0-88922-642-5; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Cochrane, Mark Change Room

Collis, Stephen 55

Danis, Daniel

In the Eyes of Stone Dogs

44 Go Figure

Song of the Say-Sayer

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

That Woman

Dumont, Gabriel

Gabriel Dumont Speaks

Durand, Monique

Daurio, Beverley 31

The Painter’s Wife

Davey, Frank Margaret Atwood: A Feminist Poetics 19 978-0-88922-217-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

978-0-88922-359-2; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

The Decline of the Hollywood Empire 21

978-0-88922-545-9; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Ebtekar, Massoumeh with

Frangione, Lucia

Fred A. Reed

Cariboo Magi

978-0-88922-514-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story

978-0-88922-364-6; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

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

Fischer, Hervé

978-0-88922-527-5; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture 41 26 Espresso 978-0-88922-443-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

978-0-88922-495-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

French, David

Enright, Robert

59 Peregrinations: Conversations with Jitters 44 978-0-88922-285-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD 978-0-88922-242-7; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Contemporary Artists 23 Selected Poems: The Arches 59 46 978-0-921368-67-0; $24.95 CAD / $18.95 USD 1949 978-0-88922-174-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD

Deneault, Alain

Cook, Michael

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

One Crack Out

Paul Martin & Companies: Sixty Theses on the Alegal Nature of Tax Farrant, M.A.C. 978-0-88922-097-3; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD Havens 23 The Breakdown So Far Tiln & Other Plays 50 Jacob’s Wake

978-0-88922-535-0; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

Robert Kroetsch Post-Prairie: An Anthology of New Poetry 59

Popular Narratives

Conolly, L. W. Canadian Drama and the Critics (Revised Edition)

21 Fiorentino, Jon Paul &

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

978-0-88922-399-8; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Hell & Other Novels

30 Findley, Timothy

37 978-0-88922-482-7; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Can You See Me Yet? 978-0-88922-119-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

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On the Material

Nothing to Lose 27

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The Commons

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Darwin Alone in the Universe 29 Silver Dagger 49 978-0-88922-471-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of 978-0-88922-325-7; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Lasagna: The Man Behind the Mask Down the Road to Eternity: New & Choice for the World’s Mining Soldier’s Heart 49 22 Selected Fiction 30 Industries 9 978-0-88922-463-6; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

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Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand: Oral Cambodia: A Book for People Who Annihilated Time: Poetry and Other Traditions of the Hul’q’umi’num’ Find Television Too Slow 28 Politics 19 G Coast Salish of Kuper Island and 978-0-88922-237-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 978-0-88922-612-8; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD Vancouver Island 27 29 Down Time 55 Capital Tales Gagnon, Madeleine 978-0-88922-555-8; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD

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55 My Career with the Leafs & Other Stories

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36 Mambo Italiano

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Joe Beef

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64 / Complete Booklist by Author

Talonbooks

Garrard, Jim

Hentsch, Thierry

Lamothe, Serge

Cold Comfort

38 Empire of Desire: The Abolition of Time 978-0-88922-201-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

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Gold, Artie The Collected Books of Artie Gold

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Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout 41 Genrecide 48 The House That Hijack Built

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23 Hill-Tout, Charles

Mêmewars

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Grace, Sherrill &

57 Lavallée, Ronald

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The Salish People (ed. Ralph Maud) Kearns, Lionel Strange Comfort: Essays on the Work Vol. I: The Thompson and the of Malcolm Lowry 26 A Few Words Will Do Okanagan 25 978-0-88922-618-0; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

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Leonoff, Cyril E. Bridges of Light: Otto Landauer of Leonard Frank Photos, 1945–1980 20 Cloth: 978-0-88922-376-9; $39.95 CAD / $34.95 USD

Vol. II: The Squamish and the Lillooet Kennedy, Dorothy & Randy 25 Bouchard

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Rose

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978-0-88922-149-9; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Indian Myths & Legends from the Ludwig & Mae: Three Plays by Louis Performing National Identities: Patrick Leroux 45 Vol. III: The Mainland Halkomelem 25 International Perspectives on North Pacific Coast of America: A $19.95 $19.95 978-0-88922-623-4; CAD / USD 978-0-88922-150-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Contemporary Canadian Theatre 24 Translation of Franz Boas’ 1895 978-0-88922-475-9; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Vol. IV: The Sechelt and the SouthEdition of Indianische Sagen von Lill, Wendy Eastern Tribes of Vancouver Island der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Grace, Sherrill & All Fall Down 35 25 Amerikas 22

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Chimera 38 Theatre and AutoBiography: Writing Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack, The 16 Hogg, Robert 978-0-88922-569-5; $15.95 CAD / $15.95 USD and Performing Lives in Theory and 978-0-88922-640-1; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Corker 38 Practice 26 An English Canadian Poetics Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands 25 Vol. I: The Confederation Poets 21 978-0-88922-394-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD 978-0-88922-540-4; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Local Boy Makes Good

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Gray, John 45

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Hollingsworth, Margaret Willful Acts

The Fighting Days

Kerr, Kevin 53

Skydive

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18 The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum

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Gray, John with Eric Peterson Billy Bishop Goes to War

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Hughes, Kenneth James 36 Signs of Literature

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25 This Is My Own

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Hunter, Lynette

Outsider Notes

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Loring, Kevin Where the Blood Mixes

Kiyooka, Roy K.

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23 Pacific Windows: Collected Poems of Roy K. Kiyooka 59 Luxton, Donald 978-0-88922-378-3; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD Building the West: The Early Architects of British Columbia

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No Plaster Saint: The Life of Mildred Osterhout Fahrni 23

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Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass

In the Eyes of God

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Jaeger, Peter ABC of Reading TRG

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MacDonald, Bryden 20 Divinity Bash / nine lives

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Talonbooks

The Weekend Healer

Complete Booklist by Author / 65

52 Mailhot, Michèle

978-0-88922-360-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Death of the Spider

Whale Riding Weather

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With Bated Breath

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MacDonald, Josh Halo

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Fifty

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56 978-0-88922-298-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Cloth: 978-0-88922-263-2; $39.95 CAD / $34.95 USD Going Home 978-0-88922-573-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD Tracing the Paths: Reading =/ Writing

Malyon, Carol & bill bissett

griddle talk: a yeer uv bill n carol dewing brunch

The Martyrology

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Miki, Roy &

Limbo Road

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Marchessault, Jovette Like a Child of the Earth

26 Hotel Montreal: New and Selected Poems

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Whereverville

Miki, Roy 29 A Record of Writing

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31 Justice in Our Time: The Japanese Canadian Redress Settlement 22

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The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr Cloth: 978-0-88922-292-2; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD McElroy, Gil 45 Mitchell, Ken O’Hagan, Howard Dream Pool Essays 55 978-0-88922-314-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Cruel Tears 38 The School-Marm Tree 33 978-0-88922-454-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Mother of the Grass 32 978-0-88922-120-8; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD 978-0-88922-129-1; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Last Scattering Surfaces 57 978-0-88922-267-0; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Trees Are Lonely Company 34 Moodie, Andrew 978-0-88922-575-6; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Saga of the Wet Hens 48 978-0-88922-327-1; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 44 NonZero Definitions 58 978-0-88922-213-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD The Lady Smith 978-0-88922-499-5; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD White Pebbles in the Dark Forests

McFadden, David W. Five Star Planet

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O’Neill, Chris & Ken Schwartz Westray: The Long Way Home

Moore, Mavor Six Plays by Mavor Moore

56 Marlatt, Daphne

978-0-88922-468-1; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD The Gull

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Olson, Charles

Muthologos: Lectures and Interviews, 21 978-0-88922-616-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Morse, Garry Thomas Revised Second Edition 8 978-0-88922-382-0; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD Selected Writing: Net Work 60 After Jack 18 978-0-88922-639-5; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD Gypsy Guitar 56 978-0-88922-175-8; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD 978-0-88922-630-2; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 978-0-88922-250-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD This Tremor Love Is 61 Death in Vancouver 29 Great Lakes Suite

There’ll Be Another

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MacIvor, Daniel Cul-de-sac

Maud, Ralph

A Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and 39 Legend

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Marion Bridge

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McKinnon, Barry

Murakami, Sachiko The Invisibility Exhibit 22

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46 Charles Olson at the Harbor

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23 Murrell, John

P Panych, Morris Benevolence

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The Dishwashers

39 978-0-88922-524-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD 978-0-88922-576-3; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Democracy 978-0-921368-28-1; $10.95 CAD / $7.95 USD Earshot 40 Poet to Publisher: Charles Olson’s

41 978-0-88922-444-5; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Correspondence with Donald Allen The Faraway Nearby 978-0-921368-56-4; $10.95 CAD / $7.95 USD The Ends of the Earth 41 24 978-0-88922-497-1; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD 52 978-0-88922-334-9; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD 978-0-88922-486-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Waiting for the Parade 978-0-88922-183-3; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Girl in the Goldfish Bowl 42 mclennan, rob The Porcupine Hunter and Other 978-0-88922-481-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Stories 24 Murphy, John gifts 56 Lawrence & Holloman 44 978-0-88922-333-2; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD 978-0-88922-605-0; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD The Heretic 43 978-0-88922-392-9; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD harvest: a book of signifiers 56 Transmission Difficulties: Franz Boas 978-0-88922-595-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Other Schools of Thought 47 and Tsimshian Mythology 26 978-0-88922-455-1; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD The Centre: Poems 1970–2000

The Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh

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what’s left

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MacLeod, Joan

Beyond Recall

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19 Nichol, bp

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The Box Closet

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Still Laughing: Three Adaptations by Morris Panych 50

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Selected Writing: As Elected

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The Hope Slide / Little Sister

43 The Time Being

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2000

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Goodnight Disgrace

Nichol, James W.

34 Sainte-Marie among the Hurons

49 Mercer, Michael

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

Toronto, Mississippi

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49 Pollock, Sharon

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Norris, Ken 42 Asian Skies

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Dominican Moon

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66 / Complete Booklist by Author

Talonbooks

Rossi, Vittorio

Strindberg, August

The Bicycle Eater

978-0-88922-528-2; $19.95 CAD / $17.95 USD Carmela’s Table: A Carpenter’s Trilogy, Miss Julie 46 4 Reaney, James A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part Two 978-0-88922-549-7; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Piercing $18.95 $18.95 978-0-88922-645-6; CAD / USD 37 Colours in the Dark 38 Suttles, Wayne Talking Bodies 50 978-0-88922-594-7; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD 978-0-88922-001-0; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Coast Salish Essays 20 978-0-88922-445-2; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD Listen to the Wind 45 The Carpenter: A Carpenter’s Trilogy, 978-0-88922-212-0; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD A Chronicle in Three Plays, Part Three The Ventriloquist 51 978-0-88922-002-7; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD 37 978-0-88922-536-7; $15.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

Rebar, Kelly

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Tremblay, Lise 37 Hellfire Pass: A Carpenter’s Trilogy, A The Hunting Ground 31 978-0-88922-477-3; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Chronicle in Three Plays, Part One Tallman, Warren $15.95 978-0-88922-534-3; CAD / $13.95 USD 43 In the Midst Reed, Fred A. 22 Mile End 31 978-0-88922-564-0; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD 978-0-88922-308-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Anatolia Junction: A Journey into 978-0-88922-467-4; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD Paradise by the River 47 Hidden Turkey 19 Taylor, Drew Hayden Bordertown Café

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Persian Postcards: Iran after Khomeini Rostand, Edmond 24 Cyrano de Bergerac 978-0-88922-351-6; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

alterNatives

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39 The Baby Blues

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Salonica Terminus: Travels into the Balkan Nightmare 25 Rule, Jane 978-0-88922-368-4; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Desert of the Heart

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The Berlin Blues 29

36 36

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978-0-88922-301-1; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD The Boy in the Treehouse / Girl Who

Shattered Images: The Rise of Militant Iconoclasm in Syria 25 Theme for Diverse Instruments

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Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story Ryga, George of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture The Athabasca Ryga 26 978-0-88922-443-8; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Reid, Jamie

978-0-88922-441-4; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

The Buz’Gem Blues

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

28 Fearless Warriors

978-0-88922-276-2; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe

Loved Her Horses

978-0-88922-597-8; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

40 400 Kilometres

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

30 42

978-0-88922-517-6; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Tremblay, Michel

Albertine in Five Times (trans. Gaboriau)

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

Albertine in Five Times (trans. Van Burek & Glassco) 35 978-0-88922-234-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Assorted Candies for the Theatre

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

Bambi and Me

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

Les Belles Soeurs (Revised)

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

Birth of a Bookworm

978-0-88922-476-6; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

28 31 In a World Created by a Drunken God The Black Notebook 978-0-88922-543-5; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 57 978-0-88922-233-5; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD 44 The Blue Notebook 28 48 978-0-88922-512-1; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD George Ryga: The Other Plays 978-0-88922-537-4; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD In the Shadow of the Vulture

I. Another. The Space Between: Selected Poems

978-0-88922-500-8; $29.95 CAD / $24.95 USD NEWS: Postcards from the Four

Richmond, Jacob Legoland

978-0-88922-610-4; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

George Ryga: The Prairie Novels

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

Dara Culhane

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

In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver 22 978-0-88922-513-8; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

Thesen, Sharon Aurora

Salutin, Rick Les Canadiens

Robinson, Harry & Wendy

24 Chameleon & Other Stories

54 The Driving Force The Duchess and the Commoner 58

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

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

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

News & Smoke: Selected Poems

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

Plays

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

En Pièces Détachées 40 32 Thomas, Audrey 978-0-88922-092-8; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD 978-0-88922-254-0; $24.95 CAD / $19.95 USD Latakia 31 The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant Motortherapy 32 978-0-88922-167-3; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD 30 978-0-88922-330-1; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Mrs. Blood 32 Mimosa

978-0-88922-504-6; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Write It on Your Heart: The Epic World of an Okanagan Storyteller 25 Scobie, Stephen 978-0-88922-502-2; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD bpNichol: What History Teaches Bread and Salt

978-0-88922-438-4; $39.95 CAD / $29.95 USD La Duchesse de Langeais & Other

Schermbrucker, Bill

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

Rodin, Renee

37 The New Long Poem Anthology (Second Edition)

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

Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra

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

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

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

Wickwire

Nature Power: In the Spirit of an Okanagan Storyteller

978-0-88922-643-2; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD

978-0-88922-541-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD 34 Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth Bonjour, Là, Bonjour 37 978-0-88922-313-4; $34.95 CAD / $29.95 USD 47

Summerland

Robertson, Leslie A. &

Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory

Directions

978-0-88922-619-7; $24.95 CAD / $24.95 USD

Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies 2 20

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

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

54 Scott, Gail

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

Songs My Mother Taught Me

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

31 978-0-88922-367-7; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Heroine 978-0-88922-415-5; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD Subject to Change 3 31 978-0-88922-644-9; $18.95 CAD / $18.95 USD Main Brides 978-0-88910-456-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Tostevin, Lola Lemire Cartouches

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

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

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again 42 978-0-88922-389-9; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Forever Yours, Marie-Lou

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

31 978-0-88922-355-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD The Heart Laid Bare 978-0-88922-425-4; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Tremblay, Larry

Simons, Beverley Crabdance

Real Mothers

978-0-88922-190-1; $19.95 CAD / $19.95 USD

The First Quarter of the Moon

Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre

Hosanna 13

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

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

Talonbooks

The Impromptu of Outremont

Complete Booklist by Author / 67

43 is a door

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

57 Youssef, Marcus

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

35 44 Selected Poems: Loki Is Buried at 978-0-88922-585-5; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD Smoky Creek 60 978-0-88922-470-4; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD Youssef, Marcus, Guillermo 978-0-88922-177-2; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD La Maison Suspendue 45 Verdecchia & Camyar Chai 60 978-0-88922-295-3; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Sentenced to Light 978-0-88922-577-0; $29.95 CAD; $29.95 USD The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the Marcel Pursued by the Hounds 46 aXes of Evil 35 978-0-88922-326-4; $16.95 CAD / $12.95 USD Impromptu on Nuns’ Island

News from Édouard

978-0-88922-435-3; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Past Perfect

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

The Real World?

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

The Red Notebook

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

Remember Me

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

Sainte-Carmen of the Main

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

Some Night My Prince Will Come

Walker, George F.

The East End Plays: Part 1

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

The East End Plays: Part 2

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

Heaven

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

The Power Plays

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

Somewhere Else

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

Suburban Motel

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

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

Walsh, Des

Love and Savagery 58 Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel 34 978-0-88922-599-2; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD 978-0-88922-198-7; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD The Singer’s Broken Throat 60 A Thing of Beauty 34 978-0-88922-478-0; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD 978-0-88922-390-5; $19.95 CAD / $15.95 USD

Twelve Opening Acts

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

Tulchinsky, Karen X.

Wasserman, Jerry Modern Canadian Plays: Volume I 46 978-0-88922-436-0; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD

Modern Canadian Plays: Volume II 46

The Five Books of Moses Lapinksy

978-0-88922-437-7; $39.95 CAD / $39.95 USD

978-0-88922-646-3; $29.95 CAD / $29.95 USD Spectacle of Empire: Marc Lescarbot’s

Theatre of Neptune in New France 26

Tussman, Joseph The Burden of Office: Agamemnon and Other Losers 20 978-0-88922-265-6; $18.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

978-0-88922-547-3; $21.95 CAD / $21.95 USD

Twenty Years at Play: A New Play Centre Anthology

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

Watts, Charles & Edward Byrne The Recovery of the Public World

Vanderhaeghe, Guy Dancock’s Dance

978-0-88922-533-6; $16.95 CAD / $14.95 USD

Another Country / bloom

978-0-88922-570-1; $17.95 CAD / $17.95 USD

Citizen Suárez

Webb, Phyllis Hanging Fire

Verdecchia, Guillermo

978-0-88910-391-7; $15.95 CAD / $11.95 USD

Selected Poems: The Vision Tree

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

978-0-88922-391-2; $17.95 CAD / $13.95 USD

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

Wells, Oliver N.

The Chilliwacks and Their Neighbors 20

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

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

Fronteras Americanas: American Borders

Verdecchia, Guillermo & Marcus A Line in the Sand

Woodcock, George Two Plays

Youssef

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

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

Y W

York, Annie, Richard Daly &

Wah, Fred

Chris Arnett

54 They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever 26 978-0-88922-188-8; $16.95 CAD / $16.95 USD

Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh

Cloth: 978-0-88922-331-8; $60.00 CAD / $40.00 USD

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

68 / Complete Bookslist by Title

A ABC of Reading TRG, 19 Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre, 13 Adrift, 35 Adventures of Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil, The, 35 After Jack, 18 Albertine in Five Times (trans. Gaboriau), 35 Albertine in Five Times (trans. Van Burek & Glassco), 35 All Fall Down, 35 All That Glitters, 28 All the Verdis of Venice, 35 alterNatives, 35 American Notebooks, 19 Amigo’s Blue Guitar, 35 Amuse Bouche, 54 Anarcho-Modernism, 19 Anatolia Junction, 19 And Other Stories, 28 Angel of Solitude, The, 28 Annihilated Time, 19 Another Country / bloom, 35 Another Home Invasion, 35 Asian Skies, 16 Assorted Candies for the Theatre, 36 Athabasca Ryga, The, 28 Atwood, Margaret: A Feminist Poetics, 19 Aurora, 54

B b leev abul char ak trs, 54 Baby Blues, The, 36 Back to the War, 54 Balconville, 36 Baldwins, The, 28 Bambi and Me, 19 Banana Boots, 36 Bardy Google, 17 Baseball Love, 19 Beating the Bushes, 12 Belles Soeurs, Les, 36 Benevolence, 36 Berlin Blues, The, 36 Bethune, 36 Beyond Recall, 19 Bicycle Eater, The, 28 Billy Bishop Goes to War, 36 Birth of a Bookworm, 19 Black Notebook, The, 28 Blue Notebook, The, 28 Blonds on Bikes, 54 Boiler Room Suite, 36

Talonbooks

Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies, 20 Bonjour, Là, Bonjour, 37 Bordertown Café, 37 Bowering, George: Bright Circles of Colour, 20 Box Closet, The, 20 Boy in the Treehouse, The / Girl Who Loved Her Horses, 37 Bread and Salt, 54 Breakdown So Far, The, 28 Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh, 54 Bridges of Light, 20 Building the West, 20 Burden of Office, The, 20 Burning Vision, 37 Buz’Gem Blues, The, 37

C Cambodia, 28 Can You See Me Yet?, 37 Canadian Drama and the Critics, 20 Canadiens, Les, 37 Capital Tales, 29 Cariboo Magi, 37 Carmela’s Table, 37 Carpenter, The, 37 Cartouches, 54 Centre, The: Poems 1970–2000, 54 Chameleon & Other Stories, 29 Change Room, 54 Chilliwacks and Their Neighbors, The, 20 Chimera, 38 Circumstances Alter Photographs, 18 Circus Performers’ Bar, The, 29 Citizen Suárez, 29 Coast Salish Essays, 20 Cold Comfort, 38 Colours in the Dark, 38 Commons, The, 55 Concise Köchel, The, 38 Consecrated Ground, 38 Conversations in Tehran, 20 Copper Thunderbird, 38 Corker, 38 Coronation Voyage, The, 38 Covenant of Salt, A, 29 Crabdance, 38 Crimes and Mercies, 21 Cruel Tears, 38 Cul-de-sac, 39 Cultural Mischief, 55 Cyrano de Bergerac, 39

Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra, 39 Dancock’s Dance, 39 Darwin Alone in the Universe, 29 Death in Vancouver, 29 Death of the Spider, 29 Death of René Lévesque, The, 39 Decline of the Hollywood Empire, The, 21 Decompositions, 16 Democracy, 39 Desert of the Heart, 29 Diplomacy, 39 Dishwashers, The, 39 Divinity Bash / nine lives, 39 Doctor Thomas Neill Cream, 39 Dog Attempts to Drown Man in Saskatoon, 29 Dominican Moon, 55 Down Dangerous Passes Road, 40 Down the Road to Eternity, 30 Down Time, 55 Dream Pool Essays, 55 Driving Force, The, 40 Duchess and the Commoner, The, 30 Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays, La, 40 Dumont, Gabriel, Speaks, 21 Dunsmuirs, The: Alone at the Edge, 40 Dunsmuirs, The: A Promise Kept, 40 Dürer’s Angel, 30 Dwell, 55 Dyssemia Sleaze, 55

Fairies Are Thirsty, The, 41 Fairy Ring, 30 Faraway Nearby, The, 41 Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant, The, 30 Fearless Warriors, 30 Few Words Will Do, A, 55 Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass, 41 15 Seconds, 41 Fifty, 55 Fighting Days, The, 41 Findley, Timothy, and the Aesthetics of Fascism, 21 First Quarter of the Moon, The, 30 Five Books of Moses Lapinksy, The, 5 Five Star Planet, 56 For Home and Country, 42 For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, 42 Forever Yours, Marie-Lou, 42 400 Kilometres, 42 fractal economies, 56 Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists, 42 Fronteras Americanas, 42

G Genrecide, 56 Get on Top, 30 Gideon’s Blues, 42 gifts, 56 Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, 42 Glace Bay Miners’ Museum, The, 42 Go Figure, 30 Going Home, 56 Gold, Artie, The Collected Books of, 7 Goodnight Disgrace, 42 Great Lakes Suite, 21 Great Wave of Civilization, The, 43 griddle talk, 22 Ground Water, 56 Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend, A, 22 Gull, The, 43 Gypsy Guitar, 56

Earshot, 40 East End Plays, The: Part 1, 40 East End Plays, The: Part 2, 40 Ecstasy of Rita Joe, The, 40 Edward Curtis Project, The, 1 Empress Has No Closure, The, 55 Empire of Desire, 21 En Pièces Détachées, 40 Ends of the Earth, The, 41 English Canadian Poetics, An, 21 Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout, 41 Error in Judgement, An, 21 H Esker Mike & His Wife, Agiluk, 41 Halo, 43 Essays on George F. Walker, 21 Hanging Fire, 56 Espresso, 41 Happiest Man in the World and Other EX MACHINA, 21 Stories, The, 30 Execution, The, 41 Harry’s Fragments, 31 harvest, 56 Heart Laid Bare, The, 31 Heaven, 43

Talonbooks

Hell & Other Novels, 31 Hellfire Pass, 43 Heretic, The, 43 Heroine, 31 Homechild, 43 Hope Slide, The / Little Sister, 43 Hosanna, 43 Hotel Montreal, 56 House That Hijack Built, The, 57 How to Write, 17 Hunting Ground, The, 31 Hypoderm, 17

Complete Booklist by Title / 69

Lily Briscoe, 22 Limbo Road, 57 Line in the Sand, A, 45 Lions Gate, 22 Listen to the Wind, 45 Local Boy Makes Good, 45 Lost in North America, 23 Lost Souls and Missing Persons, 45 Love and Savagery, 58 loving without being vulnrabul, 58 Ludwig & Mae, 45

M I I. Another. The Space Between, 57 Imperial Canada Inc., 9 Impromptu of Outremont, The, 43 Impromptu on Nuns’ Island, 44 In a World Created by a Drunken God, 44 In Plain Sight, 22 In the Company of Strangers, 22 In the Eyes of God, 44 In the Eyes of Stone Dogs, 44 In the Midst, 22 In the Shadow of the Vulture, 31 Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America, 22 influenza uv logik, th, 57 inkorrect thots, 57 Invisibility Exhibit, The, 57 is a door, 57

J Jacob’s Wake, 44 Je me souviens, 44 Jitters, 44 Joe Beef, 44 Justice in Our Time, 22

K Kerrisdale Elegies, 57

L Lady Smith, The, 44 Lasagna, 22 last photo uv th human soul, th, 57 Last Scattering Surfaces, 57 Latakia, 31 Lawrence & Holloman, 44 Legoland, 45 Leisure Society, The, 45 Life Without Instruction, 45 Like a Child of the Earth, 31 Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack, The, 16

Madonna Painter, The, 14 Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr, The, 45 Main Brides, 31 Maison Suspendue, La, 45 Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon Pollock, 23 Mambo Italiano, 46 Marcel Pursued by the Hounds, 46 Marion Bridge, 46 Martin, Paul, & Companies, 23 Meanwhile, 23 Medusa Head, The, 23 Mêmewars, 58 Memories of You, 46 Mile End, 31 Mimosa, 32 Miss Julie, 46 Modern Canadian Plays: Volume I, 46 Modern Canadian Plays: Volume II, 46 Mom’s the Word, 46 Mother of the Grass, 32 Motortherapy, 32 Moustache, The, 58 Mrs. Blood, 32 Muthologos, 8 My Career with the Leafs & Other Stories, 32 My Darling Nellie Grey, 16 My Name Is Bosnia, 32

N narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane, 58 New Long Poem Anthology, The (Second Edition), 58 NEWS, 2 News & Smoke, 58 News from Édouard, 32 Nichol, bp, Comics, 58 Nichol, bp: What History Teaches, 23 1949, 46 No Plaster Saint, 23 Noam Chomsky Lectures, The, 46

Noise from the Laundry, 58 NonZero Definitions, 58 northern wild roses / deth interrupts th dansing, 59 Nothing to Lose, 47

O Occupation of Heather Rose, The, 47 Olson, Charles, at the Harbor, 23 Omniscience, 47 On the Job, 47 On the Material, 17 One Crack Out, 47 Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth, 47 Other Schools of Thought, 47 Outsider Notes, 23

Remember Me, 11 Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh, The, 59 Riddle of the World, The, 48 Robinson, Harry: Living by Stories, 24 Robinson, Harry: Nature Power, 25 Robinson, Harry: Write It on Your Heart, 25 Rose, 48 Ryga, George: The Other Plays, 48 Ryga, George: The Prairie Novels, 33

Saga of the Wet Hens, 48 Saint Frances of Hollywood, 48 Sainte-Carmen of the Main, 48 Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, 49 Salish People, The, Vol. I, 25 Salish People, The, Vol. II, 25 P Salish People, The, Vol. III, 25 Pacific Windows, 59 Salish People, The, Vol. IV, 25 Pagan Wall, The, 32 Salonica Terminus, 25 Painter’s Wife, The, 32 Salt-Water Moon, 49 Paradise by the River, 47 Satchmo’ Suite, The, 10 Past Perfect, 47 scars on th seehors, 59 Pell Mell, 59 Scattered in a Rising Wind, 33 Peregrinations, 23 School-Marm Tree, The, 33 Performing National Identities, 24 Schoolhouse, 49 Persian Postcards, 24 Seagull, The, 49 peter among th towring boxes / text Secret Journal of Alexander bites, 59 Mackenzie, The, 33 Piercing, 4 Selected Poems: The Arches, 59 Playing Bare, 47 Selected Poems: Beyond Even Pleasure of the Crown, The, 24 Faithful Legends, 60 Poet to Publisher, 24 Selected Poems: Loki Is Buried at Popular Narratives, 59 Smoky Creek, 60 Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories, Selected Poems: The Vision Tree, 60 The, 24 Selected Writing: As Elected, 60 Post-Prairie, 59 Selected Writing: Net Work, 60 Power Plays, The, 48 Sentenced to Light, 60 7 Stories, 49 Q Shape of a Girl, The / Jewel, 49 Shattered Images, 25 Queens, The, 48 Shinny’s Girls and Other Stories, 33 Shovel, The, 60 R Signs of Literature, 25 Silver Dagger, 49 Rain Barrel, The, 32 Singer’s Broken Throat, The, 60 Rap Canterbury Tales, The, 59 Sisters, 49 Rational Geomancy, 24 Six Plays by Mavor Moore, 49 Re: Producing Women’s Dramatic Skydive, 18 History, 24 Sliammon Life, Sliammon Lands, 25 Real Mothers, 33 Slight Case of Fatigue, A, 33 Real World?, The, 48 Soldier’s Heart, 49 Record of Writing, A, 24 Recovery of the Public World, The, 24 Some Night My Prince Will Come, 33 Somewhere Else, 50 Red Notebook, The, 33 Song of the Say-Sayer, 50 Refugee Hotel, The, 11

70 / Complete Bookslist by Title

Songs My Mother Taught Me, 33 Spectacle of Empire, 26 Sticks & Stones, 60 Still Laughing, 50 Strange Comfort, 26 Studies in Motion, 50 Subject to Change, 3 sublingual, 60 Suburban Motel, 50 Summerland, 34

Talonbooks

Vancouver Anthology, 27 Ventriloquist, The, 51 Vermeer’s Light, 61 Vic, The, 51 Vigil, 52

Waiting for the Parade, 52 Walsh, 52 Wanted, 52 Warriors, 52 T WASPS, 52 Takeover in Tehran, 26 Webb, Phyllis, and the Common Tale of Teeka, The, 50 Good, 27 Talking Bodies, 50 Weekend Healer, The, 52 Tchipayuk, 34 Westray, 52 Terror of the Coast, The, 26 Whale Riding Weather, 52 That Summer, 50 What Lies Before Us, 52 That Woman, 50 what’s left, 61 Theatre and AutoBiography, 26 Where the Blood Mixes, 53 Theme for Diverse Instruments, 34 Whereverville, 53 There’ll Be Another, 61 White Pebbles in the Dark Forests, 34 Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Willful Acts, 53 Hanging Angel, 34 With Bated Breath, 15 They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Women in a World at War, 27 Forever, 26 Written on Water, 53 Thing of Beauty, A, 34 This Is My Own, 26 This Tremor Love Is, 61 ths is erth thees ar peopul, 61 Tiln & Other Plays, 50 time, 6 Time Being, The, 34 Toronto, Mississippi, 51 Too Good to Be True, 26 Tracing the Paths, 26 Transmission Difficulties, 26 Transnational Muscle Cars, 61 Trees Are Lonely Company, 34 Trespassers, The, 18 Trial of Judith K., The, 51 Trigger, The, 51 Truth or Death, 27 Twelve Opening Acts, 27 Twenty Years at Play, 51 Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand, 27 Two Plays, 51 2000, 51

U Unity (1918), 51 Unnatural and Accidental Women, The, 51

V Vancouver: A Visual History, 27

Talonbooks

Aronoff, Phyllis & Howard Scott A Slight Case of Fatigue, 33 My Name Is Bosnia, 32 Women in a World at War, 27

Barnholden, Michael Gabriel Dumont Speaks, 21

Bertz, Dietrich Indian Myths & Legends from the North Pacific Coast of America, 22

Bilodeau, Chantal Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre, 13

Bishop, Neil B. Death of the Spider, 29

Brown, Alan The Fairies Are Thirsty, 41

Browning, Will Go Figure, 30

Claxton, Patricia Tchipayuk, 34

Fischman, Sheila Bambi and Me, 19 The Bicycle Eater, 28 Birth of a Bookworm, 19 The Black Notebook, 28 The Blue Notebook, 28 The Duchess and the Commoner, 30 The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant, 30 The First Quarter of the Moon, 30 The Heart Laid Bare, 31 News from Édouard, 32 The Painter’s Wife, 32 The Red Notebook, 33 Some Night My Prince Will Come, 33 Talking Bodies, 50 Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel, 34 A Thing of Beauty, 34 Twelve Opening Acts, 27

French, David Miss Julie, 46 The Seagull, 49

Gaboriau, Linda Albertine in Five Times, 35 All the Verdis of Venice, 35 American Notebooks, 19 Assorted Candies for the Theatre, 36 Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies, 20 The Concise Köchel, 38 The Coronation Voyage, 38 Down Dangerous Passes Road, 40 The Driving Force, 40

Index of Translators / 71

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, 42 Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists, 42 The Hunting Ground, 31 Impromptu on Nuns’ Island, 44 In the Eyes of Stone Dogs, 44 The Madonna Painter, 14 The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr, 45 Past Perfect, 47 Piercing, 4 The Queens, 48 Saga of the Wet Hens, 48 Scattered in a Rising Wind, 33 Song of the Say-Sayer, 50 The Tale of Teeka, 50 That Woman, 50 Warriors, 52 Written on Water, 53

Hodes, Laura The Angel of Solitude, 28

Klein, Yvonne M. Like a Child of the Earth, 31 Mother of the Grass, 32 White Pebbles in the Dark Forests, 34

Kroetsch, Neil EX MACHINA, 21

Lobdell, David Dürer’s Angel, 30 The Execution, 41

Mullins, Rhonda The Decline of the Hollywood Empire, 21 Paul Martin & Companies, 23

Murrell, John Cyrano de Bergerac, 39

Reed, Fred A. Empire of Desire, 21 Truth or Death, 27

Reed, Fred A. & David Homel All That Glitters, 28 The Baldwins, 28 A Covenant of Salt, 29 Fairy Ring, 30

Reed, Fred A. & Robin Philpot Imperial Canada Inc., 9

Scott, Gail Mile End, 31

Stowe, John Remember Me, 48

Tepperman, Shelley Playing Bare, 47

Tepperman, Shelley & Ellen Warkentin Ludwig & Mae, 45

Theodore, Bobby 15 Seconds, 41 The Leisure Society, 45

Turnbull, Keith The Ventriloquist, 51

Van Burek, John Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra, 39 La Duchesse de Langeais & Other Plays, 40 The Impromptu of Outremont, 43 La Maison Suspendue, 45 Sainte-Carmen of the Main, 48

Van Burek, John & Bill Glassco Albertine in Five Times, 35 Les Belles Soeurs, 36 Bonjour, Là, Bonjour, 37 Forever Yours, Marie-Lou, 42 Hosanna, 43 Marcel Pursued by the Hounds, 46 The Real World?, 48

Van Meer, Allan En Pièces Détachées, 40

Yoshihara, Toyoshi The Gull, 43

72 / Sales Representation and Ordering

North American Sales Representation

Talonbooks

How to Order

IN CANADA:

Publishers Group Canada

Publishers Group Canada 9050 Shaughnessy Street, Vancouver, BC V6P 6E5

Head Office 402–559 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M6G 1A9 tel: (416) 934-9900 · fax: (416) 934-1410 toll free: (800) 747-8147 www.pgcbooks.ca

Ordering toll free: tel: (800) 663-5714 · fax: (800) 565-3770 customerservice@raincoast.com

Sales in Ontario, Quebec & Atlantic Canada

Book Manager & Wordstock EDI tel: (604) 323-7138 · toll free: (800) 661-5450 Telebook SAN S1150871

Martin and Associates Sales Agency 594 Windermere Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M6S 3L8 tel: (416) 769-3947 · fax: (416) 769-5967 toll free: (866) 225-3439 memartin@interlog.com · margots@istar.ca Christa Yoshimoto 7 Beaumaris Court, Waterdown, Ontario L0R 2H6 tel: (905) 317-5056 · fax: (866) 431-9542 christayoshimoto@sympatico.ca Sales in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan & Manitoba Michael Reynolds and Associates 210–30 East 6th Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia V5T 1J4 tel: (604) 688-6918 · fax: (604) 687-4624 pubrep@telus.net Trent Olson 9–576 Osborne Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3L 2B5 tel: (204) 292-1631 · fax: (888) 821-8569 trentono@gmail.com Heather Parsons 406 13th Avenue NE, Calgary, Alberta T2E 1C2 tel: (403) 233-8771 · fax: (403) 233-8772 heather.parsons@shaw.ca

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

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

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

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

INDIVIDUAL ORDERS Talonbooks PO Box 2076, Vancouver, BC V6B 3S3 tel: (604) 444-4889 · fax: (604) 444-4119 info@talonbooks.com www.talonbooks.com For further details and to download an order form, please visit our website. Individual orders can also be placed by e-mail; send your request to info@talonbooks.com with the phrase “Book Order” in the subject line. Include the title(s) you wish, quantity, shipping address and payment information. G.S.T. is not included in Canadian prices quoted in this catalogue. G.S.T. # R88535-3235 All information in this catalogue is subject to change without notice.

Talonbooks

Sales Representation and Ordering / 73

CANADIAN TRADE TERMS TRADE DISCOUNT

CANADIAN RETURNS POLICY

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

Address for returns as for orders (see page 72). Returns must be properly packaged and prepaid. Credit for returned titles is subject to the following conditions:

Note: Talon, BookExpress, Raincoast and Publishers Group Canada can be combined to meet minimum requirements.

New & Recent Releases (single title discount) Quantity Discount 25–49 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42% 50–249 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43% 250–499 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44% 500–999 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45% 1000 + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46%

Backlist (single title discount) Quantity Discount 1–10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . see trade discount above 11 + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25%

LIBRARY DISCOUNT

Retail Discount Under $150.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20% Over $150.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40% 6

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

All books purchased from Publishers Group Canada may be returned to us for full credit, unless otherwise indicated, between 3 months (minimum) to 1 year (maximum) from the date of invoice. Permission to return is not required. Returns will be credited in full only if accompanied by an accurate packing slip which shows the following: invoice numbers and dates, ISBN and list price of the title, discounts and quantities of each title returned. “Returns” must be marked on the outside of the box. Please number the boxes. Books must be returned in re-saleable condition. Publishers Group Canada cannot accept books in unsaleable condition, whether shopworn, ink-priced, or sticker damaged (please remove any bookstoreplaced stickers). Revised editions: Whole copy returns will be accepted for up to 3 months after a new edition has been issued. Books ineligible for credit will be returned at the customer’s expense. Unacceptable returns are shipped in the same manner as new books. Publishers Group Canada does not accept returns sent freight collect. Publishers Group Canada is not responsible for any shipment sent by mail. Damaged books must be reported to customer service within 10 days of shipping date. If possible, books should be returned in the box in which they were shipped. If any obvious damage is visible on receipt of a shipment (e.g. crushed corners, torn boxes, damp, dirt) this information should be reported to the carrier (including Canada Post) immediately, as well as to Publishers Group Canada. Short shipments or errors must be reported within 10 days of invoice date. No cover returns.

For US trade terms and returns policy, please contact Northwestern University Press (see page 72).

Talonbooks PO 2076 Vancouver, British Columbia V6B 3S3 Canada www.talonbooks.com