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Wow, did I ever write more concise reviews in 2008!
In that spirit, I don’t have much to add after this second reading. I’m teaching this to my Grade 12 English class of adult Aboriginal learners. We spend a lot of time reading texts by/about Indigenous people and issues, such as Indian Horse. I wanted to expose them to a slice of Canadian identity (Francophone culture) they haven’t encountered…
Normally when I love a book, I inhale it, reading it so quickly that it’s gone before I realize how much I should cherish this unique experience of reading it for the first time. It took me a little longer than normal to read The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, enough that I started to savour it. Each brief, cleverly-named chapter was a small episode in the life of Nouschka Tremblay. And it was…
Heather O’Neill wormed her way into my brain with Lullabies for Little Criminals. I missed The Lonely Hearts Hotel when it first came out, but when I saw she has a new book coming out soon, I finally learned about this one and jumped on borrowing it from my library. Also set in Montréal, albeit decades prior to Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Lonely Hearts Hotel echoes motifs from O’Neill’s earlier work. Once…
Once again Heather O’Neill proves her ability to cut deep. When We Lost Our Heads is an invigorating, frustrating, dark, beautiful, terrible tragedy. As much as I loved Lullabies for Little Criminals, I think if I went back and reread the book for a third time I would be more critical of it now—both because I’m older and because O’Neill’s writing has improved since then. When We Lost Our Heads displays a mastery over…