In his new novel After James, Canadian writer Michael Helm examines the meaning of existence, the inevitability of extinction, the role of technology in contemporary life — and the very nature of the novel itself. In “Alice After James,” Ali, a neuroscientist, flees her Vancouver home to a remote cabin to prepare to blow the whistle on her company, which is concealing side-effects during drug trials. As a storm approaches and her isolation mounts, she is drawn into a mystery concerning her neighbour, and the enigmatic woman who lives with him. The next, “Décor,” follows James, who is hired to find the identity of an anonymous online poet. At first James dismisses his employer’s notions that the poems are being written to him, about his daughter’s disappearance, until James discovers lines within the poetry that seem to refer to the death of his own parents in Turkey, near the Syrian border.

Source: thestar September 18, 2016 03:56 UTC