On the night table: Robert Everett-Green

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/09/2017 (2939 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Author, In a Wide Country

A novel can bring you into intimate contact with a character you’d normally take pains to avoid. I recently finished Irish-Canadian writer Anakana Schofield’s Martin John, in which Schofield takes a deep dive into the mind of a deluded loner who enjoys holding his urine and exposing himself to women. It’s an uncomfortable read, though often quite funny, and sometimes reminiscent of Schofield’s Irish literary forebears, including Samuel Beckett and Flann O’Brien. My current non-fiction reading is Chelsea Vowel’s Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada. Vowel, a Métis lawyer and activist from Lac-Ste. Anne, Alta., offers a crash course in the various ways Indigenous peoples relate to issues of culture, identity and justice. She also explodes many commonly held myths while writing in a clear and accessible style. Canada would be a better place if every Canadian would read this book.