'Toy Gun' continues the exploration of character and fate on the streets of Vancouver that began with the novel 'Stupid Crimes' (1992) and continued in 'Krekshuns' (1995). Written in the style of the "hard-boiled" detective thriller, 'Toy Gun' is very much a literary treatment of contemporary life in one of the world's most densely populated urban …

Longlisted for the ReLit Award (2006)

Going to New Orleans is the story of Lewis King, a jazz trumpet player who lands a gig in the Big Easy. King is a genius on cornet, but his private life is emotionally, morally, and financially bankrupt. He’s a heavy drinker and compulsive sexual manipulator, prone to paranoid fits of violent rage. His girlfri …

'The Dreamlife of Bridges' is the debut novel from Vancouver writer Robert Strandquist. Leo is a middle-aged, divorced handyman capable of mending almost anything outside of himself. The denial of his son's death, and his inability to deal with his own pain, has rendered his life fractured and untenable. June is a single mom struggling in the bottl …

Finalist, ReLit Award

Amazon.ca's 50 Essential Canadian Books selection

First published in 1997 to much critical acclaim, Salvage King, Ya! is a novel firmly rooted in Canada’s favourite national pastime—hockey. Critics have called Salvage King, Ya! “the great Canadian novel,” and a “postmodern Canadian classic.” Drinkwater, Jarman’s n …

Meet Finnigan Heller, drifter: reclusive, abrasive, and clairvoyant. He's also been struck by lightning more times than you've had hot dinners. It happens in every town he passes through. But is he following the weather or is the weather following him? Heller's bizarre "gift" has him on the run from a scientist, a Canadian Intelligence agent, and a …

'Socket' tells the gripping tale of Ronald Percy, an international aid worker who travels to Ethiopia to assist with an irrigation project for the African Development Organization. Upon arrival, he is unable to locate his agents or company representatives, and soon finds himself enmeshed in a web of bureaucracy and state corruption. 'Socket' was se …

'The Beautiful Dead End' is a visceral crime thriller that takes the reader on an existential journey to the "other side" and almost back again. In a bizarre, shadowy interzone populated by disturbing characters, our anti-hero confronts the dark secrets of his past, and comes face to face with the consequences of having lived an unexamined life.

Fin …

Winner, 3-Day Novel-Writing Contest (1999)

Winner, Inaugural ReLit Award (2001)

Salacious, funny, and painfully emotive, Skin is a provocative and ruminative parable about our deep-rooted urge to ostracize the freakish and shun the disfigured among us. An unconventional love story, Bowman probes the surface to reveal deeper, more lingering impulses c …

Finalist, City of Vancouver Book Prize

A blackly comic new novel from Vancouver author Grant Buday, based on his eight glorious years working in a mass production bakery. Dickensian in magnitude, White Lung is a sardonic portrait of B.C.’s racial conflicts and chaotic economy.

Praise for White Lung:

"a rollicking black comedy of errors with a host o …

'Touched' renders the emotional and intellectual implosion experienced by Jade King, a young university student. This debut novel challenges the social stigma attached to such altered states and traces the effects of physical violation and psychic trauma. Lundgren encourages a critical examination of current psychiatric labels and treatments throug …

Meet Jack Minyard, a nice, liberal, milk-drinking, hockey-playing white-bread Canuck from Saskatoon who's stuck down in Memphis, Tennessee workin' for a security company and moonlighting as a private dick. 'Ruby, Ruby' is a soft-boiled murder mystery that follows the trail of our expatriate Canuck as he tries to sleuth out the answers to a puzzling …

'The Underwood' is a poignant tale of a parentless twenty-one-year-old pianist who lands the job of lounge entertainer in a once glorious and elegant establishment. Enter the young Foster Lutz, and the hotel-including the lives of its inhabitants-is set for a spell of splendour and rejuvenation. A loss-of-innocence novel set in an atmosphere pervad …

'Body Speaking Words' is a novel about-what else-writing a novel in three days, at the same time offering insights into family, friendship, growing up female, and delighting in strange foods; a poignant, funny and sexy account of one woman's attempt to understand what drives us to document the essential stories of our lives.

Winner of the 1995 3-Day …

This feat represents the first and only shared prize of publication for the 3-Day Novel Contest. One, a nightmarish vision of a land in decline, the other, a finely crafted tale of family history and the effects of the past on the present, rich in mood and evocative in its language.

Joint winners of the 1993 3-Day Novel-Writing Contest

'A Circle of Birds' is an impressionistic, finely wrought tale of lost memory, tangled history, despair and discovery. It is a journey through much Canadian and world history; a mind-melting descent into mental illness, a sordid yarn of death and twisted love.

"This is a surprising tour-de-force, and its author should be praised for it; his vision i …