The Beguiling

The Beguiling / Zsuzsi Gartner

Toronto: Hamish Hamilton, c2020

275 p.

This book has an intriguing premise: it moves backwards in time, starting at the end of the story and moving back to the beginning. Not only that, the main character is in the same position; she's moving forward but the world around her is going backward. The concept is almost too clever, though. 

Lucy's cousin Zoltan is in hospital after a freak accident at a party. Before he dies he confesses a dark secret to her. Somehow she becomes a magnet for dark confessions from random strangers after that. So a lot of the book consists of these stories of other lives. It's like a collection of short stories embedded into a wider narrative. It works but it's a little confusing and took me out of the larger story. 

Also, most of the stories -- as well as Zoltan and Lucy's own lives -- are weird. Like, oddball and unexpected, hard to parse at times. 

The structure of the narrative was a clever idea, but also confusing and discombobulating. It became too difficult to play along and try to figure out what was happening now, and now, and then. I gave up and skimmed to the end. 

I wanted to like this one, and I did finish it, but I just didn't connect with it. But if you want something mind-bending and literary, strange and unsettling, this just might be it. 

Radiant Shimmering Light

Radiant Shimmering Light / Sarah Selecky
Toronto: HarperAvenue, c2018.
358 p.

I read this book as soon as it was released -- I enjoyed Selecky's first book of short stories, and in this new one she is tackling a fascinating subject.

It's a furtherance to the story of Lilian Quick, a character in one of the stories from This Cake is for the Party. What has happened to Lilian? Well, she is still in Toronto, and in her early 40s, and she is muddling along painting pet portraits for people; her specialty is seeing and painting the pets' auras. Into this struggling artist life comes Lilian's cousin Florence, whom she hasn't seen in years. Florence is now going by the name of "Eleven", and running a large and financially successful women's empowerment lifestyle brand. Think a mix of Oprah &Tony Robbins with some multilevel marketing thrown in.

Eleven invites Lilian to become a part of her office staff, only for Lilian's benefit of course. So Lilian up and moves to New York, becomes involved in this work, and starts making money. Lots and lots of money.

She also becomes more fit, more confident, and has a fling -- which unfortunately doesn't end the way she had imagined.

This novel is all about empowerment, the commercialization of spirituality, and the tension between being successful and being true to yourself. Selecky has said she didn't intend this as satire, and it does read a little uncomfortably at times -- is the author being disingenous or gently satirizing these kind of organizations? I'd hope there is a balance there.

Lilian is an interesting character, too. Slightly naive, slightly more 'small town' than Eleven despite living in Toronto. She has connections and friends (and possibly more than a friend) in Toronto - should she give them up to become a guru of sorts, or remain committed to her own path as a pet portraitist?

It's a fascinating conundrum, all the more so because Selecky does not indicate to us which path is "better" for Lilian. There is no authorial hint as to her own opinion, and the ending is quite ambiguous. Lilian could choose either way in the final pages, and there seem to be possibilities for either one to work out.

Because of this noncommittal narrative, this would be a great book club book -- there are so many potential threads to follow. Nothing ends up set in stone, and there could be solid arguments for many outcomes. I think the story is really timely in theme, and in style. There's lots of reference to Instagram, branding, sales, etc. that roots it firmly in its 2016 setting (Selecky says she had to decide on a year and stick with it as online life is changing so fast). Sometimes the 2016 tags are inserted a little clunkily, and sometimes big things that you'd think would be mentioned in a book set in America in 2016 were glossed over.

Still, I read this very quickly, and really enjoyed the way it feels modern, timely, relevant, and yet is also a thoughtful and engaging novel. Definitely a must read for those who enjoy contemporary fiction.

Also: I went to a local book event when this book was launching, and most coincidentally (although Eleven might ask if things are ever really a coincidence...) I had made a dress that matched the cover perfectly - in another literary sewing challenge. So of course I had to wear it!

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Readalikes:

This seems to mirror, somewhat, Kerry Clare's Mitzi Bytes in the look at online life and how our public personas can take over. Both books also offer a thoughtful examination of female life in our modern era.

Flush: a mystery

Flush: an environmental mystery / Sky Curtis
Toronto: Inanna, c2017.
260 p.

This is a mystery novel that's light on the mystery even though there is a murder; it's more interested in the way the crime changes the life of garden/lifestyle journalist Robin MacFarland.

After Robin is given the chance to cover a press conference by a hydro-energy company alongside her more hard-hitting colleague, she feels like her career is picking up. Coincidentally she also meets up for coffee with the company spokesperson a day later, after connecting on an online dating site.

Then he turns up dead.

Robin tries to figure out what is going on, hoping to be promoted to the crime desk via this story. She partners up with her best work friend Cindy (the actual crime reported) and gets up to all sorts of stake-out, suspect interrogation, investigative shenanigans. 

She finds that although it doesn't come naturally, she's getting better at it... and her sense of intuition about people's characters & motivation is second to none. She makes some key guesses that end up leading to the solution, and that nearly get her killed. 

It's a unique mystery, ranging all over its Toronto setting and incorporating both the world of journalism and police investigators. Robin is a middle-aged, stolid woman with a drinking problem, looking for love via online dating sites. She has body image issues and a bit of trauma from her married years. Yet she is a loyal friend and a curious person overall.

For me, though, this was a very light novel. I didn't really warm to Robin, partly because of her body issues. Right near the very beginning of the novel she is moaning about how fat and dumpy and ugly and old she is. It's a really over the top, lengthy rant. At the end of this dirge, she states how tall and how heavy she actually is in fact, and surprise, she is exactly the same size as me. So forgive me if I was annoyed with her from the start! Also, I can understand someone's unhappy but she is almost ridiculously fixated on her size and her drinking problem, which she never actually does anything about until the end of the book, when she just up and decides she will reduce her alcohol consumption. Oh if only it were that easy.

There were a few red herrings in the book that went nowhere, and a few revelations that would have helped the reader solve the mystery earlier if they'd been seeded in a bit sooner. So while it's not a perfect book, nor a perfect mystery, it did have some interesting side characters and a very complete Toronto setting. Worth reading for those aspects. 

Basic Black with Pearls

Basic Black with Pearls / Helen Weinzweig
Toronto: Anansi, 2015, c1980.
144 p.

This is another of a string of 70s novels I've just finished; while this was published in 1980 originally, it holds a strong 70s feel similar to many other women's novels of the time. At least Canadian women's novels.

The main character, Shirley Kaszenbowski, nee Silverberg, takes us on a surreal trip across Toronto, revisiting her past as a Jewish immigrant in the Spadina-Dundas area. This revealing trip back into the uneasy postwar years is rather incidental -- Shirley is following clues left for her by her sometime lover, secret agent Coenraad, hoping to find him for a tryst. But does he even really exist, or is he Shirley's invention? We're not sure, but her drive to escape the routine of her numb middle-class married life could mean either is true.

The writing style is fluid; the key to it is following Shirley's thoughts, with no firm reliance on straightforward chronology or realist descriptions. Yet the sense of place comes through clearly -- Toronto really leaps to life. Weinzweig's look at a woman who is restless and ready to break out after a long stretch of marriage to a dull and controlling husband reminds me of Constance Beresford-Howe's The Book of Eve, set around the same time but in Montreal. 

Weinzweig is much less tethered to everyday detail than Beresford-Howe, and the initial set-up of Shirley's international man of mystery spy lover already makes this book much more strange and unsettling from the start. But they are ruminating on some of the same questions of women's agency and the need to seize one's own life, questions that were top of mind in the 70s, it seems. 

If you can comfortably read a story that will discombobulate and confuse you at times, that will poke at your expectations of a wifely character, that will throw you around in time a bit, this is the one to pick up. Weinzweig is a fascinating new-to-me author who only wrote two novels and one short story collection, and thanks to Anansi is now republished and ready to be rediscovered. Her own life was just as interesting as her fiction, and I'm happy to have picked this novel up in a recent sale, alongside of Irina Kovalyova's Specimen, another great Anansi discovery. 

Margaret Laurence's Diviners

The Diviners / Margaret Laurence
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, c1974.
382 p.

I put off reading this book for years, thinking it was going to be a dull, good-for-you classic. I'm not sure why, as I absolutely loved Laurence's novel The Stone Angel when I read it years ago. In any case, I couldn't have been more wrong about this one.

This a story that feels fresh and modern in the way that it plays with structure and form. It asks questions concerning a woman's independence and her role as wife, mother, person. I found Laurence's method of telling the story through sections separated out as memories, inside memories, writings and so forth really fascinating. The story shifts in time like a person talking, retelling their life in back and forth fragments. Yet it's completely coherent and builds narrative tension.

Morag Gunn is from the small town of Manawaka; orphaned at age four, she is raised by the town refuse collector and his wife. Her main goal is to get out of town as soon as possible. She succeeds in leaving to go to university, and through a circuitous route, including a relatively brief marriage, ends up with one daughter and a house in the Ontario countryside, from whence she tells her story.

And she tells it, full of sensory details and clever writing, as suits the writer Morag has become. She compares moments from all over her life and reflects on her prickly nature, including being totally honest about what she's done right and wrong over the years. She's a strong, complex, completely real character with a thoroughly active internal life.

This is a Canadian classic that has the whiff of the 70s about it, in its focus on a woman's life and her struggle for individuation, and in the elements of identity, both personal and national, that arise again and again. But it's also modern and relevant and just really, really interesting to read now.

Highly recommend this one.

Birds Art Life

Birds Art Life: a Year of Observation / Kyo Maclear  
Toronto: Doubleday, c2017.
272 p.

Kyo Maclear was feeling disconnected, overwhelmed. Anxious about her own career and purpose, her stress is compounded by her father's terminal illness. As a writer, she was looking for something to engage with, something that would give her a sense of purpose, a project. She found it when she discovered a local musician who was equally a dedicated urban birder. She decided to follow him around for a year and see what she could learn. 

And this small book consisting of her thoughts and meditations around this project was the result. It's a memoir of the "one year in a life" sort, so many of which exist now. But this is not an eager, do as much as you can in a year and become a better person kind of book. It's dreamy, it's circular and fragmentary. Maclear learns to really see birds; by which, she really learns to see the small particularities of the world, to identify and name what exists around her, grounding herself in a place - even if it's an urban place in which she hadn't expected to find so much natural life.

She also finds that the habit of birding brings a state of mind that might be called meditative, or mindful. The birders she encounters think nothing of sitting perfectly still for hours, in order to spot one particular bird or get just the right photo. The expanses of time in which they sit, visibly doing 'nothing', amaze her; it's so different from the habit of guilt about not being continually productive that she has been suffering from. This slowing of the pace of life is soothing, allowing her to rest, to reflect, and to write again. 

Of course, as she slows and learns to observe birds, her observations in other parts of life grow sharper as well. She relays stories about her family - her husband, sons and father - and remembers her early life. All this in brief and poetic 'chapters', really more like sections rather than neatly tied up chapters, more like the pace of thought. Perhaps it's better thought of as an extended essay. 

I've read some of Maclear's adult fiction (ie: The Letter Opener) as well as being a big fan of her children's books, and this book is something different again. It has the hallmarks of dreaminess and introspection that I've enjoyed in her other work, though; I found it just as satisfying as her novels. 

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Further Reading

Readers of Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk may find some similarities in the theme of fathers, birds, and finding solace in the small things of the natural world. Mary Oliver's recent collection of essays, Upstream, similarly hints that the solution to life's expectations and anxieties lies in observing the natural world.

Kay's Lucky Coin Variety

Kay's Lucky Coin Variety / Ann Y.K. Choi
Toronto:  Touchstone, c2016.
288 p.

I read this a while ago now, but didn't review it at that point. Between the time that I finished this and today, I've also discovered the CBC tv series Kim's Convenience, also about a family from Korea who runs a convenience store in Toronto. That, however, being a tv show, is a bit lighter and less intense than this book. I loved the show, and have to admit that I thought of Janet, the daughter in Kim's Convenience, when I revisited Mary in this novel. 

Mary, or Yu-Rhee, is a teenager in the 80s, when her family (parents, one brother) have moved to Toronto from South Korea and are trying to make a better life for their children with their convenience store. Mary and her brother Josh experience many of the issues that new immigrants face; the clash between parental values and those of the new social groups the children are forming; high expectations of achievement; racism, whether subtle or not; and the fact of having to work very hard to solidify a new life. 

Through the store, Mary meets many locals -- ranging from prostitutes to families to other store owners -- and this means the reader gets an overview of 1988 Toronto, in both its ethnic and socioeconomic diversity. Being a teenager, Mary has difficulty relating to her parents. She finds understanding in a high school English teacher who she has a crush on (and who is a weak, snivelling, taking-advantage kind of character who I despised).  But when she finally gets to university, she finds a teacher who truly inspires her to take ownership of her own life, and her own story. Mary's path is as much about writing as it is about surviving.

Unfortunately, while the premise is strong, and there was much to enjoy, I also found the writing style a bit dry and expository. I wasn't drawn into Mary's very eventful life as much as I'd expected, finding there was perhaps a bit too much "event" packed into a bit too little story. The book starts fairly reasonably, a family story that promises an emotional journey. Then all sorts of things start happening; accidents, attacks, quickly souring relationships, bad behaviour leading to disgrace, violence -- it started to feel as if Kay's Lucky Coin was a misnomer of a name, like the letters "Un" had fallen off the sign somehow.

Nevertheless, I still thought that this was a pretty solid story overall about a Korean experience that I'd like to hear more about. I'll be interested in what Ann Choi does next. 

Hidden Keys

The Hidden Keys / Andre Alexis 
 Toronto: Coach House, c2016.
 232 p.

This is Book 4 of Alexis' planned 5 book set of connected stories. I've read all of them except the very first one, which I keep meaning to go back to -- he's said that they are each written in a different style, playing with genre & philosophical themes.

He's also said that The Hidden Keys was inspired by Treasure Island -- that classic search/adventure story. This book is also about a hidden treasure, and an intrepid treasure hunter, Tancred Palmieri. 

Tancred is a professional thief, and in his meanderings around his Toronto neighbourhood he meets up with Willow Azarian, a very wealthy woman with a heroin addiction. Willow is the youngest daughter of the wealthy Azarian family, and its patriarch has died and left each of his five children a gift, one that is particularly meaningful to them. But Willow is convinced that each of the five gifts, seen together, would provide clues to a bigger treasure. Her father was fond of puzzles and so this makes sense to her. Unfortunately, she is both semi-estranged from her siblings, and treated with condescension and suspicion because of her addictions and history of obsessions over various ideas. So she can't get her hands on everyone's particular gifts: enter Tancred.

Alongside of Willow's Japanese screen, Tancred goes on a quest to steal a painting that plays music, an aquavit bottle, a framed poem, and a model of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. Willow plans on decoding the secret messages contained therein; but as it turns out Tancred is left to do most of the deciphering. He encounters an artist, an old man who made most of the original pieces and has also puzzled over the particularity of each one. And Tancred must also deal with the local drug dealer, a young albino named "Nigger" Colby and his sidekick, Sigismund "Freud" Luxemburg, an oversized psychopath, both of whom feel entitled to lay claim to Willow's hidden fortune as well. 

There are riddles, strange encounters, odd places Tancred has to go, and surrounding all of the story there is Toronto. Alexis has traced a map of Toronto with his storytelling, and even if you aren't from there, you will feel very familiar with the neighbourhood when you're through.

There are indeed some hidden keys, both literal and metaphorical, in this story, and there is a treasure to be found. Tancred is an interesting, multifaceted character who manages to live both an honourable and a criminal life, at the same time. Some of the other characters -- Willow, the two drug dealers, artist Alexander von Wurfel, Tancred's friend Olivier, for example -- are also well-drawn and individual. Alexis is a confident writer who is clearly in control of his characters and setting in each of the books I've read thus far. 

I could see the Treasure Island inspiration in it, as well as a fleeting cameo by Majnoun from his previous hit novel Fifteen Dogs (nice touch). This was a quick-moving and entertaining novel that I read all in one sitting, and would definitely recommend if you can stand a little bit of violence and a large dash of ambiguity about motivations and morals.

I look forward to Book 5!

The Keys of my Prison

The Keys of My Prison / Frances Shelley Wees  
Montreal: Vehicule Press, 2016, c1956.
187 p.

I thought I was done catching up with the mystery books I've been reading, after last month's string of reviews, but then I found just one more. This book, from the Ricochet series by Vehicule Press, was given to me by a friend and fellow Margaret Millar aficionado, Brian Busby -- who also happens to be the editor for this line.  

He recommended it as a readalike for the Margaret Millar fan. It does measure up, but only to a point; Wees doesn't quite reach the heights of cleverness and style that Millar does. But she's definitely writing in the same tradition, with an emphasis on relationships and psychology at the heart of this mystery. And it is a good one.

It begins with a crisis: Rafe Jonason is in a car crash -- he's in a coma at the hospital, with his devoted wife Julie keeping watch over him. But when he finally awakes, his first question to her is "Who the hell are you?"

Rafe has turned into another person, more of a Hyde than a Jekyll -- he's coarse, short-tempered, drinking a lot where he'd originally been abstemious, and confused about his comfortable Rosedale life that he's been living for the past 15 or so years. Julie's father had trusted Rafe, a distant relative, and invited him into their lives years before -- Julie had fallen for him, married him, and they now have a toddler son. Rafe is about to take over the family business, when the accident interferes. 

But when Rafe finally regains his memory, he still seems to be not quite the man he once was. Julie's suspicions can't be totally contained, and with the help of a police psychologist, the threads of this situation are slowly untangled....or perhaps, are uncovered as even more tangled than was first apparent. 

It's a layered story, with many possibilities to explain the dilemma. I kept changing my mind about what I thought was happening; as new information was revealed I had to adapt my solution. But the story was well-paced, with not too much information being given out at once or withheld unnecessarily. The main characters were well-drawn, and I liked some of the more minor characters a lot, like Julie's very Scottish Aunt Edie. This is definitely one to look out for if you do like women's writing from midcentury. Thanks to Brian for introducing me to her work!

The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder

The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder / Rachel McMillan
Toronto: Harvest House, c2016.
222 p.

"In 1910 Toronto, while other bachelor girls perfect their domestic skills and find husbands, two friends perfect their sleuthing skills and find a murderer."

I think this publisher's blurb really says it all. It summarizes just what it is about this novel that makes it so much fun to read.

Merinda and Jem are roommates in 1910 Toronto, which is unusual enough. But Merinda is also obsessed with Sherlock Holmes (her spiritual doppelganger) and starts advertising herself as a detective. Jem gets pulled along, as Merinda's Watson, as they start investigating how and why young Irish women are dying across the city.  

Of course, being young women, they are limited as to where they can go and what they can do -- so they become masters of disguise (one of the funniest scenes is when poor Jem is dressed as a man and supposed to be staking out a theatre, and runs into a journalist). They also develop partnerships with said journalist, Ray DeLuca, as well as police constable Jasper Forth, who have to fight their own prejudices in the face of Merinda and Jem's fortitude and competency. 

The tone of this novel is light; it's a bit campy, a bit ahistorical, but completely enjoyable. Toronto is a great setting for this series, as its very straightlaced reputation is a nice contrast with the underbelly, the hidden criminal life which Jem and Merinda find themselves investigating. I think this series has legs - the characters have lots of room for growth, the storylines hold a multitude of possibilities, and the crimes are nefarious but not gory. This is a campy cozy, if there is such a thing. And it is delightful. I look forward to reading the next entry in the series, A Lesson in Love and Murder. 

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Further Reading:

Anyone who likes Victorian/Edwardian era Toronto & mysteries told with a light hand will surely enjoy Maureen Jennings' Murdoch Mysteries -- and of course the immensely popular tv series based on these books.


Janet Kellough's Thaddeus Lewis mysteries are set a little further back, in the 1840s/50s, but also explore Toronto and beyond in early Ontario. They also feature an unusual detective -- a saddlebag preacher.