Patrick deWitt’s The Librarianist is, as the novel’s title suggests, about a librarian. As the obscure word “librarianist” further suggests, working in a library can be more than just a job. It can be something of an art, a calling.
This fun, messy novel — a major departure for deWitt in both setting and subject matter — works backwards in…
Aaron Kreuter
Aaron Kreuter is the author of Shifting Baseline Syndrome, which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 2022.
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Aaron Kreuter
According to a recent version of the CBC’s language guide, “there is no modern country of Palestine,” and journalists working for the Mother Corp should “not refer to Palestine or show a map with Palestine as a country.” So when the contenders for the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize were announced, it was refreshing to see among them a work that acknowledged that very…
Imagine, if you will, that the small city of Terre Haute, Indiana, is home to a massive Dante-inspired theme park. The communities that surround the place are beyond depressing: closed storefronts, dilapidated houses, entire districts ravished by the opioid epidemic. But the structure itself is impressive, built from two retrofitted sports arenas connected by an underground…
Between 1980 and 1995, anonymous callers in New York could leave voice messages on an answering machine known as the Apology Line. The recorded regrets were fascinating and sometimes terrifying, from a woman who was sorry for being white, rich, and female to men who admitted to mugging and even murder. The Apology Project, the brainchild of the conceptual artist Allan…