Recent Canadian Novels

February 25, 2006 9:09 PM

Recent Canadian Lit. Recommendations?

I studied English lit. in Canada about 15 years ago (oh, my...). I enjoyed reading a lot of Canadian fiction while I was there. After returning to Japan, I turned to other interests and haven't been keeping up with the recent developments in Canadian lit. Please recommend some recent novels by Canadian authors that you thought were good.

1. I'm already familiar with the Big Names that appear on Can Lit 101 reading lists, such as Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, Hugh MacLennan, Michael Ondaatje, etc., so unless the book has been written in the last decade, I've probably already read it, or at least know about it.
2. Just novels, please, to keep the list manageable. (Though I wouldn't mind learning about a short story or poetry if you feel strongly about it...)

I'll read almost anything, but if my taste is important, from the authors listed above, I'd list The Watch That Ends the Night by MacLennan, almost everything by Ondaatje, and Fifth Business by Davies as favorites. Thanks all in advance!

posted by misozaki to Media & Arts (24 answers total)

I have no recommendations but noticed this while on the chicklit forums and thought it might help:

Canadian Women Authors
posted by meta87 at 9:27 PM on February 25, 2006

Wayson Choy, of Vancouver.

Yann Martel won the Booker for The Life of Pi

To cut this short (mostly because my memory is failing me) wikipedia has a big list.
posted by ashbury at 9:32 PM on February 25, 2006

I haven't read a lot of her stuff, but I loved Camilla Gibb's Mouthing the Words so much that I read it twice right in a row.
posted by jodic at 9:35 PM on February 25, 2006

No Great Mischief by Alistair Macleod is a great novel.
posted by repoman at 9:47 PM on February 25, 2006

Response by poster: Thank you all for the recommendations so far. I'm aware of the Wikipedia entry and other google-friendly lists, but so many to choose from! : ) I've come to rely on everyone's tastes here at AskMe, and was hoping people would cite personal favorites so I could narrow down my choices somewhat. Keep them coming, please!
posted by misozaki at 10:15 PM on February 25, 2006

If you scroll through the recent archives of BookNinja, you'll find he focuses quite a bit on Canadian fiction.
posted by BackwardsCity at 10:23 PM on February 25, 2006

They, not he. It's a group blog.
posted by BackwardsCity at 10:24 PM on February 25, 2006

I really enjoyed The Kinkajou by Trevor Ferguson - light with a hint of something cosmic.

I also enjoyed Eric McCormack's novels (not the actor from will and grace!) altho they are pretty weird.

Very hard to find but worth it if you can are books by J. Robert Janes. He does mystery books like no other - set in WWII in Paris, the team of a French detective and German Gestapo solve crimes. I realize that mystery genre is not for everybody, but it's worth checking out.
posted by ashbury at 10:55 PM on February 25, 2006

Guy Gavriel Kay (too lazy to link, sorry). I cannot recommend his books enough.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:07 AM on February 26, 2006

I enjoyed Thomas Wharton’s The Logogryph, which is billed as ‘a bibliography of imaginary books’ but is novelistic in places.
posted by misteraitch at 3:53 AM on February 26, 2006

The book came out about ten years ago, I think, so you may well know it - but Anne Michaels's Fugitive Pieces is beautiful and potent, very much in the vein of Ondaatje (but better than any one of his works). Not a page-turner, plot-wise, but really powerful.

Yann Martel's Life of Pi seconded - a fun, delicious, easy read about a boy on a raft with a tiger.

Alistair MacLeod's Island is a good and careful book, about Cape Breton and uh growing up.
posted by Marquis at 4:01 AM on February 26, 2006

Lisa Moore's Alligator is a wonderful novel set in St. John's, Newfoundland that was shortlisted for the Giller last year (though I prefer her collection of short stories, Open).
Mavis Gallant's My Heart Is Broken is a great collection of very down to earth, heart-touching, (im)perfect short stories. I haven't read any of her novels, but I suspect their are equally great.
I third the MacLeod recommendations. And well, since I am from Newfoundland, a couple more local authors, Joan Clarke (Latitudes of Melt) and Wayne Johnston (Colony Of Unrequited Dreams).
posted by RGD at 4:43 AM on February 26, 2006

The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M.G. Vassanji. Really enjoyed it.
posted by thejimp at 5:31 AM on February 26, 2006

Alice Munro's Runaway is a wonderful book. I know, it is short stories, but they are very well done.
posted by caddis at 5:46 AM on February 26, 2006

Anne Marie MacDonald's Fall On Your Knees is a great family saga set partly in Cape Breton, Anne Michaels' Fugitive Pieces is beautifully written, David Adams Richards' Mercy Among the Children is heartbreaking, and I second Wayson Choy and Allistair MacLeod's No Great Mischief.
posted by phoenixc at 6:56 AM on February 26, 2006

Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. I'm reading this now and its excellent. I also recommend The Diviners by Margaret Laurence and Douglas Coupland (except Hey Nostradamus - didn't appreciate that one). Enjoy!
posted by LunaticFringe at 8:15 AM on February 26, 2006

Confidence by Melanie Little
Simple Recipes by Madeleine Thien
The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke
Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden
Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai
The Romantic or The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy
The Wives of Bath by Susan Swan
The Lion in the Room Next Door by Merilyn Simmonds
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The Big Why by Michael Winter

I also second the recommendations of Camilla Gibb, Ann Marie Macdonald, Lisa Moore, and Margaret Atwood.
posted by meerkatty at 9:25 AM on February 26, 2006

Oryx and Crake? No no no no no. The book is terrible; her writing has gone even more downhill, there's threads running through it of her usual prurient attitude towards sex... God no. The book is absolute trash. Don't waste your time.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:21 AM on February 26, 2006

I'm also reading Oryx and Crake and I can't quite decide how I feel about it- definitely don't love it but I can't quite bring myself to put it back on the shelf- there's something captivating about it.
+1 for Life of Pi (Yann Martel) and Fall on Your Knees (A.M. MacDonald). Also Gail Anderson-Dargatz's books A Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe for Bees were both good. Not sure if she's written anything more recently.
posted by purplefiber at 2:40 PM on February 26, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks all! Now I have a reliable list of names and works to begin with. I won't mark best answer but I promise to make sure I get my hands on your recommendations.

Is it just coincidence that this list appears to lean towards more women authors? ...Not that it matters, I guess.

Margaret Atwood I have mixed feelings about in general, too; notice I didn't include her among my favorites when I asked the question. : ) But thanks for the little debate, I'm mildly interested in Oryx and Crake now!
posted by misozaki at 3:06 PM on February 26, 2006

A Perfect Night To Go To China by David Gilmour, which won the Governor General's Prize last year, was a very enjoyable read.
posted by rocket88 at 3:50 PM on February 26, 2006

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Anne Carson, probably the most popular experimental poet around. Likened to Munro, praised by Sontag and Harold Bloom, Carson writes a type of disruptive metaphysical poetry (influenced by her studies as a classics professor, Gertrude Stein, Paul Celan, and Virginia Woolf) that is surprisingly easy to read. Her forms are usually short and narrative and usually approach reader-identification-friendly issues, such as love.

beauty of the husband

Slate's take

Life of Towns

Interview
posted by kensanway at 10:06 PM on February 26, 2006

HA! by Gordon Sheppard is a documentary (which is to say it is not strictly nonfiction) book about the sequence of events leading up to french-canadian writer Hubert Aquin's suicide. I think it's awesome and I hadn't even heard of Hubert Aquin before I read it, so that shouldn't be a barrier to entry.
posted by juv3nal at 10:50 PM on February 26, 2006

Gordon Sheppard's site.
posted by juv3nal at 10:59 PM on February 26, 2006