Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl the Cowboy, by Gary Barwin (Knopf Canada) A cowboy named Motl? That phrase alone sets the tone for Hamilton’s Gary Barwin in his latest boundary-pushing book; it riffs off classic westerns in Barwin’s signature pun-laden style. The very funny book takes place after the 1941 Nazi invasion of Lithuania and is set amidst the very serious topic of the Holocaust. Now, 20 years later, “Life After Death” is the sequel to that book, with Winter just released from prison. “Constant Nobody” (Goose Lane), described as a “literary thriller,” takes place a few hundred years later, with the Spanish Civil War and Soviet Russia during the Stalinist purges as the background.

Source: thestar March 14, 2021 09:56 UTC