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fiction 191 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 Goldstein, Jonathan. Lenny Bruce Is Dead. Coach House. 155. $17.95 Good, Matthew. At Last There Is Nothing Left to Say. Insomniac. 180. $19.95 Gordon, Charles. The Grim Pig. McClelland and Stewart. 256. $32.99 Howard, Barbara. Whipstock. NeWest. 197. $16.95 IbaƱez-Carrasco, Francisco. Flesh Wounds and Purple Flowers: The Cha Cha Years. Arsenal Pulp. 176. $13.95 Johnson, Harold. Billy Tinker. Thistledown. 63. $9.95 Kilbourne, Christina. Day of the Dog-Tooth Violets. 200. $17.76 Laird, Ross A. Grain of Truth: The Ancient Lessons of Craft. Macfarlane Walter and Ross. 187. $29.99 Little, Linda. Strong Hollow. Goose Lane. 280. $19.95 Millis, Chris. Small Apartments. Anvil. 124. $12.95. Muir, Fran. A Line below the Skin. Turnstone. 192. $18.95 Niedzviecki, Hal. Ditch. Random House Canada. 229. $24.95 Noble, Charles. Hearth Wild / post cardiac Banff. Thistledown. 266. $19.95 Perly, Susan. Love Street. Porcupine=s Quill. 208. $19.95 Peters, Sheila. Tending the Remnant Damage. Beach Holme. 160. $18.95 Redhill, Michael. Martin Sloane. Doubleday. 282. $29.95 Richler, Emma. Sister Crazy. Alfred A. Knopf Canada. 215. $29.95 Ruth, Elizabeth. Ten Good Seconds of Silence. Dundurn. 416. $19.99 Sawai, Gloria. A Song for Nettie Johnson. Coteau. 296. $18.95 Scala, Alexander. Dr. Swarthmore. Porcupine=s Quill. 136. $18.95 Stiles, John. The Insolent Boy. Insomniac. 189. $19.95 Watt, Kelly. Mad Dog. Doubleday. 197. $29.95 Wells, Jeff. Anxious Gravity. Dundurn. 320. $19.99 Womack, Craig S. Drowning in Fire. University of British Columbia Press. 280. $27.95 2 / SUSAN KNUTSON This year in fiction features several new editions of works by well-known Canadian authors Sinclair Ross, Bronwen Wallace, and P.K. Page. The most significant of these is the University of Alberta=s publication, as part of its cuRRents series in Canadian literature (edited by Jonathan Hart), of new editions of Sinclair Ross=s three later novels. For close to thirty years, Ross has been known and read for one work only, his 1941 novel As for Me and My House. Now that The Well (1958), Whir of Gold (1970), and Sawbones Memorial (1974) are available, we should expect a critical re-evaluation of Ross=s contribution to Canadian literature. The books are worth the attention , and if, as Nat Hardy claims in the introduction to Whir of Gold, Ross was >shunned by the Canadian literary establishment= because of his >inferior education ... his occupation, or perhaps even his homosexuality,= then a critical reassessment of his work is more than overdue. 192 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 The Well and Whir of Gold are companion pieces in several respects. Chris, the protagonist of The Well, has travelled from Montreal to the prairie town where the action is set. Inversely, Sonny, the protagonist of Whir of Gold, has left the prairie town where he grew up, and the novel is set in Montreal. Both men are struggling to create for themselves the kinds of futures they want and are able to imagine, but both are bitter about the difficulties life has thrown onto their paths. Both men have better relationships with horses than they do with people, and both become entangled in deeply flawed relationships with women who have seen more of life than they (Mad is a waitress and Sylvia a former waitress). Both men are victimized by smalltime criminals who take advantage of them and lure them into criminality. Fortunately, Chris manages at the eleventh hour to assert his higher self and to turn away from murder and a life on the lam. Sonny, on the other hand, is last seen going under, and while both novels are cynical in tone, Whir of Gold is almost unbearably negative. Ross is known for his portrayal of genteel prairie culture, with its hypocrisy and quiet desperation, and in his last work, Sawbones Memorial, he returns to that middle-class milieu. There is, however, nothing genteel about the societies portrayed in The Well and Whir of Gold, and the poor, working-class, or lumpen Canadians who populate these novels...

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