“The leopard may not be able to change its spots, but the chameleon sure can.” In Chameleon & Other Stories, Bill Schermbrucker takes as his central metaphor a creature who changes its colour to reflect and blend in with the environment, just as human beings are sometimes asked to change their colour to reflect and blend in, to protect themselv …

For one year in her life, Mary Meigs and her long-term lover and friend, Marie-Claire Blais, lived in a ménage à trois with the beautiful and powerful “Andrée.” After the end of their stormy three-way relationship, both Marie-Claire and Andrée, who are fiction writers, embodied their memories in novels. The Medusa Head comes from the third …

Cold Comfort: a play of love & bondage is the third in a quartet of plays that Jim Garrard calls “Bondage Plays for My Country.” The play could take place anywhere along the Trans-Canada Highway, but it happens to be set in Saskatchewan, the geographic centre of the country. There are three characters in the play: Dolores, a fifteen-year-old gi …

Brian Fawcett explores the connection between track and existentialism, pool and foolscap, tomato cans and the Knights of the Round Table. In the process, he becomes a horse, confronts the Red Menace and almost drowns himself. This book is for anyone who knows what it’s like to learn—literally and figuratively—the rules of the game.

Billy Bishop Goes to War ranks as one of Canada’s most successful and endearing musical dramas in history. The Governor General’s Award-winning musical documents the glorious World War I exploits of Canadian flying ace Billy Bishop.

According to the 19th-century historian Michelet, “Les fées” were women who would rather sing than pray. For this crime, they were punished by being imprisoned in containers that would be opened only at the end of time. In Les fées ont soif (The Fairies Are Thirsty) Denise Bocher takes this image and focuses on it. The Fairies Are Thirsty is …

This volume includes work selected from each of Phyllis Webb’s books of poetry published prior to 1982, including: Trio, Even Your Right Eye, The Sea Is Also a Garden, Naked Poems, Selected Poems 1954-1965, Wilson’s Bowl, Sunday Water, Thirteen Anti Ghazals and Talking.

Boas, Teit, Hill-Tout, Barbeau, Swanton, Jenness, the luminaries of field research in British Columbia, are discussed here in A Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend, and their work in Indian folklore evaluated. Other scholars, amateurs and Native informants of the past and present are given ample consideration, making this book a comprehensive surv …

In Sainte-Carmen of the Main, Carmen—a character who appeared previously in Forever Yours, Marie-Lou—returns to the Rodéo from Nashville, where she has been sent to “improve her technique” in yodelling. But not only does she improve her technique, she also begins to write her own songs whose lyrics speak directly to the people about their …

In Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra, Michel Tremblay examines the sacred and the profane—their similarities and differences; how they merge and become one another. The play consists of two interweaving monologues on religion and sex spoken by Manon (from Forever Yours, Marie-Lou) and Sandra (from Hosanna). In the end, both characters realize that th …

With the publication of this present edition, Talonbooks is pleased to make available to the reader the first complete version of Fred Wah’s Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh, the seventh book of poetry from one of the most important poets in North America today.

In Real Mothers, a collection of short stories, Audrey Thomas journeys to France, Greece and Africa; she also writes about Galiano Island, B.C., where she lived while these stories were taking shape. Real Mothers concerns itself with women who, in one way or another, are mothers; with mothers and daughters; with mothers and husbands—or lovers; an …

Taking as her alter-ego Lily Briscoe–the painter in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse–Mary Meigs paints a portrait of herself, her family and her friends in Lily Briscoe: A Self-Portrait, a book that is both autobiography and memoir. In it, she describes the three major decisions of her life: "not to marry, to be an artist" and to listen to he …

It is the glorious second day of May, 1942. The sun is drawing the damp from earth still heavy with the end of a long Quebec winter, the budding branches of the trees along rue Fabre and in Parc Lafontaine of the Plateau Mont Royal ache to release their leaves into the warm, clear air heralding the approach of summer.

Seven women in this raucous Fra …

Each year, the Beaugrand sisters meet for their sister Yvette’s birthday party—and to have a little “impromptu”—at which they lash out at each other’s personal failures and at the failure of society to support them in their opinions about the world. The four sisters represent the French-Canadian intelligentsia of the fifties, whose inte …

This volume includes work from each of Daphne Marlatt’s earlier books of poetry: Frames of a Story, leaf leaf/s, Rings, Vancouver Poems, Steveston and Our Lives; from the forthcoming What Matters; the prose work Zócalo; magazine selections from Imago and The Capilano Review and unpublished work.

This volume includes work selected from six of Frank Davey’s books of poetry—Weeds, Four Myths for Sam Perry, Griffon, Arcana, King of Swords and The Clallam—as well as the manuscript edition of his War Poems.

This volume includes work beginning with bpNichol’s visual poetry (progressing from the use of individual letters, to words, to distinct shapes on the page), moving through his sound poetry (in its written form) for one voice only, to poems which combine visual and traditional lyric qualities (leading to an excerpt from The Martyrology), and conc …

This volume represents the most definitive and comprehensive selection of bissett’s writing from the 1960s and 1970s, in voices “erotik, politikul, humorous, lyrikul, sound-vizual, narrative, meditative, konkreet, collage, nd song-chants.”

Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons is James W. Nichol’s play concerning the disastrous mission that the Jesuits made to the Huron Indians in the 17th century. The play is about the conscience of a priest who refuses to accept salvation of his soul through the destruction of a proud people.

Balconville is Canada's first bilingual play. Three families and Thibault, the neighbourhood rubbie, sit on their balconies in the heat of a Montreal summer. It is election time and Gaétan Bolduc is running for re-election for the Liberals. His broadcast truck roams the streets making election promises in English and in French, and playing the mus …

Waiting for the Parade is John Murrell’s play, set in Calgary during World War II, in which five women gather to work for the war effort while their men are away. Waiting for the Parade was first performed by Alberta Theatre Projects, Calgary. Subsequently, it has been performed by Northern Light Theatre, Edmonton; Bastion Theatre, Victoria; Tarr …

A brilliant and intense journey through a relationship, and through language and myth—as well as a literary journey spanning three continents.

Boiler Room Suite is Rex Deverell’s play about two Skid Row winos who have climbed into the boiler room of an abandoned hotel on the Prairies to seek refuge from winter and from the world, until it turns kinder. Aggie Rose is a former actress and Sprugg is a failed poet. Together they act out their fantasies, trying to bring “a little warmth, …

Charles Hill-Tout was born in England in 1858 and came to British Columbia in 1891. He was a pioneer settler at Abbotsford in the Fraser Valley, where he raised his family in a log cabin. He devoted many years of field work to his studies of the Salish and published in the scholarly periodicals of the day. He was honoured as president of the Anthro …

Charles Hill-Tout was born in England in 1858 and came to British Columbia in 1891. A pioneer settler at Abbotsford in the Fraser Valley, he devoted many years of fieldwork to his studies of the Salish and published in the scholarly periodicals of the day. He was honoured as president of the Anthropological Section of the Royal Society of Canada an …

Charles Hill-Tout was born in England in 1858 and came to British Columbia in 1891. A pioneer settler at Abbotsford in the Fraser Valley, he devoted many years studying the Salish and publishing in the scholarly periodicals of the day. He was honoured as president of the Anthropological Section of the Royal Society of Canada and as a fellow of the …

Charles Hill-Tout was born in England in 1858 and came to British Columbia in 1891. A pioneer settler at Abbotsford in the Fraser Valley, he devoted many years of fieldwork to his studies of the Salish and published in the scholarly periodicals of the day. He was honoured as president of the Anthropological Section of the Royal Society of Canada an …

Cruel Tears is one of the most original and inventive theatre pieces ever staged in Canada. Shakespeare buffs may see in the play certain intriguing parallels to Othello, but in Cruel Tears, the jealous hero is a Ukrainian truck driver from Saskatoon, not a moor of Venice. Described as a “country opera,” the play is written in the idiom of coun …

This volume contains two uniquely Canadian stories of exile. Whether portraying the romantic lovers in The Island of Demons, or the political revolutionary Gabriel Dumont in Six Dry Cakes for the Hunted, the plays are related by their underlying themes. From the earliest days of settlement in Canada, those who have adhered to their ties to colonial …

It is 1976. In a tavern in the Point Saint Charles working class district of Montreal, three friends gather on their lunch hour and reminisce about the past. They are survivors of a decade. One is Jerry Nines, a writer who has had some success, having written a novel and a hit play. The others are Jackie Robinson and Frank Saladini, old friends of …

In 1919, Howard O’Hagan went east to study law at McGill University. There, Stephen Leacock was one of his professors, and, with A.J.M. Smith, he edited the McGill Daily. Graduating in 1925 with a B.A. and a L.L.B., he came back west where, without being called to the bar, he practised law long enough to have one man thrown in jail and another re …

Les Canadiens begins on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 when a French-Canadian soldier throws his rifle to his son and it becomes a hockey stick. It ends in the Montreal Forum on the night of November 15, 1976, when Montreal Canadien fans turn a hockey game into an election victory rally for the indépendantiste Parti Québécois. In between, it is a …

The Execution is Marie-Claire Blais’s only play for the stage. Set in a boarding school, it tells the story of two schoolboys who plot the murder of one of their classmates and enact the crime. As a play, it is a study of innocence, evil and complicity, themes well-known to readers of Blais’s fiction.

This is Marie-Claire Blais’s third novel in the trilogy of Pauline Archange.

The Great Wave of Civilization is Herschel Hardin’s play about the destruction of the people of the Blackfoot Confederacy by the liquor trade in Montana and Alberta in the 19th century. Little Dog of the Northern Blackfoot tribe vs. Snookum Jim, free trader, I.G. Baker, merchant-prince of Fort Benton and the rest of the “great wave of civilizat …

It is Christmas Eve, 1970. In the shipping room of a Montreal dress factory, the workers get drunk and decide to go on strike.

“So many of the guys I knew on the street are gone dead or crazy, man. There’s no escape. This whole country is just one big factory, one big jail, Billy … Either you’re a good nigger or ya die. Know what I mean? … …

Three short plays by Michael Cook: Tiln, Quiller and Therese’s Creed.

In Tiln, two old men are caught in a personal power struggle. Using a lighthouse setting, Cook explores the modern man's dilemma in an uncaring world. Cast of 2 men.

In contrast, Quiller is a one-person play set in a Newfoundland outport. In this play, Cook creates a portrait of …

La Duchesse de Langeais and Other Plays is a collection of five short plays by Québec’s best known playwright, Michel Tremblay – “La Duchesse de Langeais,” “Berthe,” “Johnny Mangano and His Astonishing Dogs,” “Gloria Star” and “Surprise, Surprise.”

En Pièces Détachées is Michel Tremblay’s look at “The Main” in Montreal. The play concerns Hélène, a waitress who used to work in a bar called the Coconut Inn, but who now works slinging smoked meat in a joint on Papineau Street. She is married to Henri, who sits around all day watching Captain Cartoons on television. They live in a ten …

Set in landscapes which move from Detroit to China, Bethune is a study of how one man’s vision may shape the world. In this play, Rod Langley attempts to chronicle the journey of Dr. Norman Bethune toward his final destiny. Bethune premiered at the Globe Theatre in Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1974.

Jane Rule’s first collection of short stories, some of which were first published in The Ladder, the first nationally distributed lesbian publication in the United States. Jane Rule is also the author of Desert of the Heart and Memory Board.

In the sensual and tender “Middle Children,” two closeted young lesbians radiate the joy of their love …

“There I was just out of high school, all eager for the future, and there was the road to the future stretching out in front of me like fifteen miles of broken glass.”
Set in Winnipeg in August, 1945, Fifteen Miles of Broken Glass is Tom Hendry’s look at post-World War II Canada from a recent high-school graduate’s viewpoint. The play was co …

Jacob's Wake explores the relationship of a father, Winston, with his three sons, Wayne, a corrupt politician, Alonzo, a cynical business man, and Brad, a failed priest. It quickly moves from an apparently realistic family drama to nightmarish, expressionistic drama of 20th century failure as an approaching storm begins to dominate the stage. Once …

Esker Mike & His Wife, Agiluk is a social satire about Eskimo life in the Mackenzie River Delta and how it is affected by white settlers, priests and government officials. The play is also a tragic reflection on the role of women who are forced to bear children in a society that cannot afford to support them.

In a Perth County farmhouse some time during the 1930s, a boy named Owen decides to spend the summer putting on plays with the help of his cousins, his grown-up relatives and the neighbourhood children. One of the plays they put on is their adaptation of a Victorian novel, The Saga of Caresfoot Court. In James Reaney’s Listen to the Wind, we watc …

Crabdance is a tragicomedy in three acts in which a lonely, middle-aged woman plays elaborate, ritualistic games with three men whom she forces to play the roles of her son, her husband and her lover.

Rita Joe is a Native girl who leaves the reservation for the city, only to die on skid row as a victim of white men’s violence and paternalistic attitudes towards First Nations peoples. As perhaps the best-known contemporary Canadian play and a poetic drama of enormous theatrical power, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe had a major influence in awakening c …