I tore through this book in no time but didn’t
want it to end.
In Memoriam offers a look at the horrors of the trench warfare
of WWI through the eyes of two young British men who are high school chums and
very much in love with each other.
I was as much captivated by the depths of
their friendship as I was horrified by the violence that surrounded them. Not
an easy read at times with all the senseless deaths experienced by that
generation, but extremely moving in its depiction of the intensities of both
love and war.
I learned
in the acknowledgments that she wrote three unpublished manuscripts before this
one. A wonderful example of determination.
Author
Christopher Castellani stumbled onto quite the rich
playground when he first read about the life of Frank Merlo in a book he
found in a used bookstore.
The partner of Tennessee Williams for 15 years,
Merlo was a working-class New Jersey boy from an Italian family, and a war
hero, who also worked as the legendary playwright’s personal assistant during
the height of his career. Merlo, however, had creative aspirations of his own.
He wanted to be an actor.
Leading Men reimagines the pair’s life
together in a griping work of historical fiction. Set in the Italian Riviera in
the 1950s, the book pulls back the curtain on their tumultuous relationship,
the literary and film circles of 1950s Italy, and the burdens of fame.
An expansive yet intimate story of desire, artistic ambition, and fidelity, set in the glamorous literary and film circles of 1950s Italy
In July of 1953, at a glittering party thrown by Truman Capote in Portofino, Italy, Tennessee Williams and his longtime lover Frank Merlo meet Anja Blomgren, a mysterious young Swedish beauty and aspiring actress. Their encounter will go on to alter all of their lives.
Ten years later, Frank revisits the tempestuous events of that fateful summer from his deathbed in Manhattan, where he waits anxiously for Tennessee to visit him one final time. Anja, now legendary film…
The
first work of autofiction published in Quebec by a trans woman, Dandelion
Daughter, tells the story of a young trans girl growing up in Charlevoix, a
rural region in Canada, in the 1990s.
At one point in the novel, she writes: “During disasters,
people often bring the things that are most precious to them before leaving
their house to its fate.” The thing that Boulianne-Tremblay chooses to salvage – and honour –
in these pages is her childhood.
The book is filled with love, anger, and
confusion, but ultimately it is a story of hope. The dandelion metaphor is
beautiful. Often mowed down by eager gardeners, these flowers have second lives
when allowed to grow into adulthood.
The book won the prestigious Prix de Libraires in 2022.
Winner 2022, Prix des Libraires Rights for TV adaptation purchased by Zone 3 A runaway bestseller in QuEbec, where it has captured the hearts of readers and pushed trans-identity into the mainstream conversation, Dandelion Daughter is an intimate, courageous portrait of what it's like to grow up having been assigned the wrong sex at birth. Set against the windswept countryside of the remote Charlevoix region some five hours north of Montreal, Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay's autobiographical novel immortalizes her early years as an alienated boy trapped in a world of small-town values and her parents' dissolving marriage, through complex adolescent years of…
Twenty-eight-year-old
Will, a teacher living in Montreal, has spent the last few months recovering
from a breakup with his first serious boyfriend, Max. He has resumed his search
for companionship, but has he truly moved on?
Will’s mother Katherine – one of
the few people, perhaps the only one, who loves him unconditionally – is also in
recovery, from a bout with colon cancer that haunts her body and mind with the
possibility of relapse.
Having experienced heartbreak and fearful of tragedy,
Will must come to terms with the rule of impermanence: to see past lost
treasures and unwanted returns, to find hope and solace in the absolute
certainty of change.
