the englishman's boy is part western, and part early hollywood tale, exploring how we interpret civilization and savagery in our personal thoughts and action, and how that is reflected in the rest of society. it does so by recounting two stories: one of the titular character, drifting through the...
I have so much to say about this book but I don't know how much I'll be able to articulate clearly, because I'm in a weird emotional spot due to the book and other things happening...This is the first Vanderhaeghe I've read, and I have to read more, because he is absolutely brilliant (I seriously...
“21 May 1993 To Dad —with much loveon your birthday from Lizzie ttOXO”Inscribed with blue ink on flyleaf of Guy Vanderhaeghe’s book of short stories, “Things as They Are?”I bought it at the TC book sale, 18 years later, for just $2. It pains me, well perhaps pain is a bit strong. I feel per...
I finished this several days ago and I’m still trying to decide if everything fit together. The story is largely set in Saskatchewan in 1959, with flashbacks to Vera’s childhood and life after she left home at the age of seventeen. Now in her mid- to late-30s she has a 12-year-old son, Daniel, wh...
I was going to give this four stars, but fuck it. I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I was going to. In high school, I read Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Englishman's Boy. I hated that book with a fucking passion - pedestrian writing, pedestrian plotting, pedestrian everything. (Even now, many yea...
