Fiction 1

Letters in Canada 1992 With this issue of 'Letters in Canada' we would like to extend a welcome to three new contributors and to say farewell to their valued predecessors . Cecile Cloutier, winner of a 1986 Governor-General's Award for poetry, has taken on the Poesie section, replacing Andre Marquis. For almost a decade, Pierre Hebert has served as a reviewer for the Romans section, joined in 1988 by Janet M. Paterson. Together, they have provided engaging and thoughtful reviews of contemporary fiction. They are succeeded by Lori Saint-Martin, a well-known prose writer and critic. We also extend our thanks to Jerry Wasserman, who has provided penetrating and broad-ranging discussions of EngHsh-Canadian theatre since 1987. Richard Knowles, of the University of Guelph, now takes on this responsibility . With this issue, we also note the departure and extend OUI thanks to B.Z . Shek, who has maintained a close connection with the journal for approximately two decades, serving as an Associate Editor from 1976 to 1985 and once again from 1991 to the present. He has generously agreed to serve on the Editorial Board. A special issue entitled 'Cultural Representation and Quebec Society/Representation culturelle et societe quebecoise' is currently being organized in his honour under the joint editorship of Patricia Smart and Jacques Allard. Fiction 1 / T.L. CRAIG Rather than divide these thirty-six titles of first fiction into novels and short stories, I have employed three thematic categories. The first consists of a miscellany of Canadian topics; the second comprises six books focused on women and women's issues; and the third looks abroad.. travelling outside Canada to settings as distant as Nepal and Nigeria. This last area continues the trend of Canadian writers' interest in places other than Canada, sometimes reflecting back fragments of Canada. The second area demonstrates the continuing impetus of feminist writing in Canadian realism. In the first area there is the usual variety of interests and styles. UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 63, NUMBER I, FALL 1993 2 LETTERS rN CANADA 1992 fiction is un.Olf;tulg1.llSJhell. FICTION 3 The is just reading tedium. This is an out of one has the dear impression that here is someone and something wen worth and that Steffler is the writer to do it. The their very may Steffler as he THi"1.~Vt>l"i to trap Cartwright - himself a and a writer. Sundogs ITheytus, 218, is the first novel of First Nations writer Lee and a addition to the series of First Nations titles from Theytus Books in British Columbia. Maracle the perspective of a hN'enty-year-old her term papers/ is also '~rl"""''''''I1n.cr her the year Marianne falls in love for all around a Bildungsroman into a single year. Marianne rebirth as an her first T'lA"""H" '-' .... as 'the for personal and psychological are their weapons: 4 LEITERS IN CANADA 1992 violence, conquest by sword and musket, organized childthe school and the child welfare act, aD1Drehe!1of national alcohol PO'lso'mnlg hanging, language and cultural prohibition, total invalidation. And our weapons? We have but one: insistence on truth: novel doeS not to be fierce effort to counteract the lopsided Canadian of is not a nove): it is neither a Canadians should ralism, but for the of one's ~l·c::n,p.rn want their nationality recognized. Spin Dry 209, $19.95) is the first novel by who has a for some time now as a writer. This novel is a comic, updated version of Davies' The Manticore, but far more and set in idiom in Canadian suburbia. Like The Manticore, Dry moves in towards the that will solve the haH-framed question, at first slowly \Vith COl~Sl,aelrao then picking up speed towards the frantic and climax. The to a treatment, paralleled by a stolen cat's being forced into the same moves the plot inexorably on to the discovery, leaving the (and most other in her life. Further, Spin is a spoof of the Dick school readers, in somewhat same wry and humorous vein as The True of Dick and Jane: these MO with Sally and towards old revealing...