Fiction
11: Best Canadian Stories
Edited by John Metcalf
Canadian fiction used to be all about angst on a farm. In recent years a crop of new writers has transformed the genre, which is now concerned with anaesthetized suburbs, seedy apartments and women who dye their hair the colour of toxic waste. Nowadays we’re looking for different qualities. In fact, we no longer look for the work of Canadian writers at all. We publish the work of writers, the best writers, writers like Terence Young with his sweet lyricism, Zsuzsi Gartner with her sparkling wit, Claire Tacon with her special darkness and the new work of Laura Boudreau and many others. Best Canadian Stories is now 41 years old. Buy a copy and read it.
8.5 by 5.5 by 143 pages, cover by James Ensor
$39.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1369 3
$19.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1370 9
ISSN 0703 9476
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Contributors: Laura Boudreau, Steven Heighton, Terence Young, Colette Maitland, Mark Anthony Jarman, Clark Blaise, Shaena Lambert, Claire Tacon, Rebecca Rosenblum, Zsuzsi Gartner
“The arrival, late in the fall each year, of this Oberon collection is always cause for fanfare”—Quill & Quire.
“A literary institution”—Ottawa Citizen.
Coming Attractions 11
Edited by Mark Anthony Jarman
 | Here are three new writers, all talented, topical and intelligent. Marina Harris was born in America and now lives in Indian Harbour, Nova Scotia. Her cubist stories tell of suicides and families falling from the sky. Sandy Bonny, who lives in Saskatoon, has a powerful, assured voice. She writes with verve about bodies dumped in the Badlands and the beauty of embryos and mathematics. Claire Tacon has been short-listed for the Bronwen Wallace Award and the Playboy College Fiction Contest. A novel will appear next year.
8.5 by 5.5 by 109 pages
$39.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1371 6
$19.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1372 3
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New writers who first appeared in Coming Attractions include Rohinton Mistry, Frances Itani, Peter Behrens, Lisa Moore, Dennis Bock, Neil Smith, Diane Schoemperlen, Timothy Taylor, Bonnie Burnard, Sharon Butala, Steven Heighton, Mary Swan, Caroline Adderson, Rebecca Rosenblum, Gayla Reid, Alexander MacLeod.
“Reading Coming Attractions is like test-driving the year’s new cars”—London Free Press.
“Coming Attractions is a who’s who of our best young writers”—The Fiddlehead.
Killing McGee
David Helwig
In the dark at the end of winter, a shot is heard. A famous public figure lies dead. The murder haunts a Canadian historian as he reflects on the ruinous state of his own life. Only fierce honesty and a wry sense of humour keep him going. A beautiful student vanishes. Snow and cold threaten. But he finds that he can reinvent history and perhaps his own life. David Helwig has written a superbly lovely story, a tale touched by beauty in a world otherwise driven by cold and darkness.
8.5 by 5.5 by 58 pages, cover by George Loewen
$38.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1373 0
$18.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1375 4
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David Helwig is the author of more than thirty books of fiction and poetry. Born in Toronto, he taught for many years at Queen’s University and now lives in PEI, where he was named poet laureate. In 1971 he founded the anthology series Best Canadian Stories. In 2007 he was awarded the Matt Cohen Prize for lifetime achievement, and in 2009 he was named to the Order of Canada.
“A clever, engaging premise…Helwig has a marvelous, comedic aptitude for description”—Quill & Quire.
The Son
F.G. Paci
 | F.G. Paci began the story of Marco Trecroci in a novel called Black Blood, which came out under our imprint in 1991. The story is always essentially the same. An immigrant family leaves Italy (in this case) and settles in the Sault, where the conflict between young and old begins, the old defending their past and their language, the young claiming the right to be young, to be Canadian. In the present work, time has passed and Marco has become a father himself. The story of father and son starts when the child takes his first steps and ends when he becomes a man. Paci lived much of this story himself. He too grew up in the Sault, where he played hockey. He now lives in Toronto.
8.5 by 5.5 by 208 pages, cover by Chery Holmes
$42.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1376 1
$21.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1377 8
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F.G. Paci was born in Italy and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. He lives in Toronto, where he taught high school for many years. The Son is his thirteenth published novel.
Dominant Traits
Eric Freeze
When Eric Freeze was still in graduate school, his teacher advised him to write about what hurt him most. “Fiction,” Freeze agreed, “needs a white-hot centre.” In the present collection he examines his native Alberta, using his imagination to make the statements he wants to make. We find unusual people in unusual situations. Their bewilderment hints at the dark truth that sometimes there are no answers. And yet these are hopeful stories, stories of quiet triumph. “There is hope,” Freeze is saying, “for anyone who accepts the challenge of living, for anyone who stays the course.”
8.5 by 5.5 by 154 pages, cover by P.C.J. Kendall
$39.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1380 8
$19.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1381 5
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Eric Freeze was born in Saskatoon and raised in southern Alberta. His stories, essays, and translations have appeared in a number of journals, including Boston Review, Prairie Fire, The Southern Review, Fiddlehead and New Ohio Review. He currently teaches creative writing at Wabash College in Indiana where he lives with his wife and three young children.
Poetry
Games of Chance
Gerard Beirne
 | The distinction between art and science is man-made, like language and words. The best we can hope to do, it seems, is to redefine both. Games of Chance tosses words like knucklebones into the air, while seeking to predict the outcome. The results are deception and random revelation. Gerard Beirne studied mathematics and engineering, and in the present collection seeks to reconcile art and science with spirituality.
8.5 by 5.5 by 112 pages
$38.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1378 5
$18.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1379 2
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Gerard Beirne was born in 1962, completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University in 1992, and now lives in Fredericton, NB. He is the author of two novels, The Eskimo in the Net and Turtle, a collection of poems, Digging My Own Grave, several stories, a CD and a play for chamber orchestra. He has won a number of awards, including Hennessey’s New Writer of the Year.
“A mind-twisting look at logic and its limitations in words, poetry and life...a clever compendium of the relational aspects of human existence”—Saint John Telegraph-Journal.
“Beirne has woven complex and beautiful poetry”—Anna Livia Review
Coming Home
Don Gutteridge
The trademarks of a poem by Don Gutteridge are simplicity and clarity of vision. It’s these things that give his poems the ethereal quality of a classical ode. The poems all speak of his love for his family and for the friends he’s made during a long and fruitful life. Reading them, we realize that we too will grow old and old is just this way. Gutteridge shows us that while life may be sad, there’s an abiding beauty in the sadness. “More than most,” he once said, “I’ve had my say.”
8.5 by 5.5 by 64 pages
$38.95 (cloth) ISBN 978 0 7780 1382 2
$18.95 (paper) ISBN 978 0 7780 1383 9
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Don Gutteridge is best known as a poet. He began with books about such Canadian heroes as Louis Riel and Samuel Hearne. Then he wrote a book about the legendary Indian chief known as Tecumseh. Later still, he wrote about his own childhood in Lambton County. His last books have had as their central subject the life of the poet as grandfather. For many years Don Gutteridge has lived in London.
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