Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic Kate Cayley, Householders (Biblioasis, 2021), 235 pp., $22.95. An exceptional volume of stories, Householders warrants applause—and readers, of course. Following How You Were Born (2014), Toronto’s Kate Cayley showcases virtuosic writing and captivating settings...
terra nullius: the inverted disposition of thingsin ordinary flux, logging roads and peri-urbanlawn ornaments replicated on the clouds’ nuclearpetals, I watch the patterns on her dress orbit myeyes, my face, my mouth, overlap with auxiliary species of our scape, a cosmic bodice, feminised and...
I. SUMMER My mother was a gardener. She saw something in nature—in dirt and bugs and effervescent flies—that I never have. Under light skies and bright weather, she’d kneel for hours in our mediocre garden, weeding and watering or whatever it is that gardeners do. I am now doing the same in my...
She lives in one place and one place only: the entrance to a bakery where she has conjured a swirling rainbow display of cupcakes she pictures herself at the counter her voice sweetens an octave for “two please” wheremid she conjures in the cashier’s fingers that plant the sticker on the box the...
Reviewed by Lucian Childs William di Canzio, Alec (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), 352 pp., $27.00 US. I’m a sucker for gay love stories. They’re a sensuous, sugary hit of pure emotion. William di Canzio’s Alec is not without problems—like its source material, E. M. Forster’s posthumously...
Your chef will be the first to saynot a muster of hair should remainas he timbers a fire, wide hands barb your fattened flesh. Thigh all manner of birds; you’re as light as a featherthick as a board. Resentful caretakersbreak their deer, unlacelegs, loosen fleshcleanly from each side of bone...
