~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*** For A Chance To Win A Copy of Migration Songs: Email your Mailing Address to chad@saltyink.com
or Leave Your Mailing Address as a Comment Below! ***

Free Book Contest Closes March 15th.

Big congrats to Invisible Publishing, top-notch designer by Megan Fildes, and Sydney Smith (artwork)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As much as I love good book design, we all know you can’t really judge a book by its cover. I thought it was a clever competition title and a fun way to showcase some books, but I’m glad, after a thousand votes, that Migration Songs won this competition, because as the cover suggests: this book is something different, and something good. It’s clear in the opening lines that Anna is an impressive writer, and her debut shows great promise. There is wit, humour, sadness, sincerity, compassion, and humanity in these pages. Most impressively, there is a true originality in her descriptions, they are fresh, informative, and distinctive; there is nothing dull about how she portrays things, and she provides handfuls of laugh-out-loud passages.

And watch this title reveal I believe the designer might have borrowed from:

“For so long, it was my parents’ story that gripped me, overshadowing my own. My life has always been merely a tendril off the vine of theirs, creeping toward the sunshine. It never bothered me to be a sideshow, an afterthought. But something calls to me from the future — a bird sound, like that of geese in flight, faint but insistent — a song of remembering, pushing out feathers I never knew were mine.”

We meet the story’s main character, Joan, as a 29 year old schoolbus-driving cough drop junky who’s cherry-flavoured Halls sooth her more than her shrink can. She’s moved back in with her parents. She’s anxious, lost, and looking for where she belongs.

“I was so nervous the first day when the kids piled in that I downed 3 Halls in 15 minutes, sucking at them until my cheeks ached, and my tongue went numb.” Feeling that the children were “too perishable to be transported in a rickety old bus with maroon vinyl seats by someone of my undependability.”

At its core you might call it a book about identity, a needing to know where you come from, a meditation on belonging. In fact, a good portion of the novel is a literal explanation of how Joan came to be: a 65-page-long retelling of her parents history and courtship “that was, of course, in the first days of their courtship before their hearts became deaf to one another. Before they were like two fish swimming in tanks side by side — they could see one another but, for all intents and purposes inhabited separate oceans.” While the 65-page dip into her parents’ story was arguably the strongest plotline in the novel, the writing really shines when Quon gets to Joan’s story, where she’ll just drop the occasional paragraph-long passage so remarkable that you stop and read it twice to marvel at the writing itself. She cuts characters out well too. “My father is Englishman with the black hair and blue eyes of an Irishman … he’s been in Canada since I was born but he still refuses to sing ‘Oh Canada’ or pledge allegiance to the queen — he’s anti-monarchy.” And “the fact that he even has a study in this day and age is a clue to what kind of man he is. Private. Retiring. Well-read. On special occasions, he smokes a cigar in there and the smooth scent of it creeps out from under the study floor. The aroma of my father’s absence.”

Again, tying into the design of the book, there are some well-worded bird analogies or metaphors woven throughout the whole novel, which allude to their sense of community or rituals that Joan doesn’t have. How she chooses to see and depict birds, at any given moment in the novel – trapped within a tree or flying free – seems to be a reflection of how she feels in that moment. Joan spends a great deal of time in some sort of fond jealousy of birds, in between the cough drop popping.

For a chance to win this story sad-funny story of a cough drop addict looking for her flock: email your mailing address to chad@saltyink.com or leave it as a comment below.