news | Monday February 10, 2014

Is Something Missing from Canada Reads?

J.S. Porter thinks so. And he thinks that something is M.A.C. Farrant’s book, The Strange Truth About Us – just a little book that the Globe and Mail selected as one of the Top 23 Canadian Fiction Books of 2012.

Porter writes that The Strange Truth About Us is

a novel, a memoir, a prose poem, a reading list, a note book, a book of quotations, a manifesto. It’s a work of intellectual speculation on what the world is going to look like in a few years.

The future is on our mind. That’s one reason Atwood’s The Year of the Flood has to be the favourite going into the Canada Reads debate. Another reason is that Stephen Lewis [who will argue for Atwood] is a very skilled and experienced debater.

Farrant’s book would give Atwood a run for the applause. It’s experimental, brave, daring, unusual, brilliant.

Ditto Porter. We’d love to see this book in the ring, getting well-deserved attention!

Read Porter’s commentary in full on InRetro Magazine.