This fall will see two highly acclaimed authors go criminal for the first time. Two very different approaches to the genre by two very different writers have become highly anticipated fall books.
The Death of Donna Whelan by Michael Winter (Hamish Hamilton, Aug. 31, 2010)
St. John’s Book Launch!: August 30th at The Ship, 8-10 p.m.
As expected, Michael Winter’s Capote-esque venture into crime fiction isn’t straight forward. Known as one of the freshest voices in the country, multi-award-winning Michael Winter has a history of, and a knack for re-invigorating whatever genre he is working with. His crisp, detail-rich short fiction is modelled after by leagues of emerging writers, his 2000 journal-a-clef, This All Happened, is a lesson in creative and sentence-level writing: say it fresh, The Big Why turned historical fiction inside out, and his last novel, The Architects are Here boldly soars through many genres, effectively beating down the walls that trap most writers. More and more we’re hearing of terms like “literary mystery,” or “fictional memoir,” and it’s because of innovative, fearless, ambitious writers like Winter that Canadian fiction can evolve. Winter is responsible for a shift in CanLit towards a freedom in experimentation. Nowhere is this more evident than in his new novel, The Death of Donna Whelan, hitting shelves next week. Continuing with this groundbreaking trait of his, his latest book is a work of “documentary fiction.” The Death of Donna Whalen pieces together the actual transcripts and court testimonies of the real-life St. John’s based murder trial of Donna Whelan: a woman stabbed 31 times by, her friends and family felt, an abusive boyfriend. The course of justice “takes many unpredictable twists and turns before the truth is finally revealed,” and Winter “preserves the nuanced voice of each witness.” The Death of Donna Whelan, like his innovative 2000 breakout journal-a-clef novel, This All Happened, promises to be another unforgettable mark on the face of Canadian literature.
The Case Agaisnt Owen Williams by Allan Donaldson (Nimbus Publishing, Sept. 2010)
Fredericton Book Launch!: Sept 23, 7:00pm at Westminster Books.
The fall of 2010 also marks Allan Donaldson’s foray into crime fiction. His 2005 debut novel, MacLean, was a harrowing, literal day in the life of a shellshocked, alcoholic WWI veteran searching for booze and a birthday gift for his mother. It made the Globe and Mail state, “This book merits a media frenzy,” and that it did. It was also shortlisted for the prestigious Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Donaldson’s follow-up novel is a venture into “literary mystery.” The Case Against Owen Williams tells the story of Owen Williams, a quiet soldier stationed with a garrison of conscripted men dubbed “the Zombies,” who are unwilling to serve overseas. When a teenage girl is found dead in a gravel pit after a dance, Owen Williams was the last person reported to have seen her. What follows is a novel that “explores the circumstances of a wrongful conviction and the gaps in the justice system that allow it to flourish.”
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