RaveGlobe and Mail (CAN)Cusk writes in a postscript to the novel that it \'owes a debt\' to [Lorenzo in Taos], though that debt goes beyond mere inspiration. The most basic details from Luhan’s memoir are here, albeit in slightly altered form ... The most significant changes Cusk makes is in narrowing and focusing the story ... Though there is very little dialogue, the brief and swirlingly intense Second Place often feels, somewhat paradoxically, like a play in novel form. Very little \'action\' occurs ... [Cusk\'s] new novel’s narrow band of characters and slightly deracinated feel...means some loss of vividness, but Cusk is as brilliant as ever at revealing the tumult that occurs when people with varying strengths of personal will come into close contact with each other. Second Place is the kind of book that requires re-reading, but also rewards it.
Zadie Smith
RaveThe Toronto StarZadie Smith is definitely a hitchhiker. Her heart is in novel-writing. Thankfully, her intellect compensates. Feel Free, her new collection of essays, is filled with the sights and sounds of a highly intelligent writer thinking things through on the fly ... Like Smith’s previous collection, 2009’s Changing My Mind, her new book is a mix of memoir, criticism, and journalism-for-hire ... The voice in the various parts of Feel Free is inevitably sharp and vibrant, but also self-deprecating, even embarrassed, as if always on the verge of an apology ... It’s this endless questioning and comfort with ambiguity that unites Zadie Smith the occasional essayist with Zadie Smith the committed novelist. It’s also what makes Feel Free so satisfying: it’s a joy to watch her stick out her thumb again and again, knowing that each new destination will be rendered with the same mix of urbane wit and restless intelligence.
Phil Collins
PositiveThe Toronto StarOverall, Collins’s memoir is breezy and self-deprecating. When he lists his failures as a husband and father — especially in the final chapters, about a recent and near-fatal slide into alcoholism — he gets uncharacteristically serious. The book ends on a cautiously optimistic note, but with news of a loss Collins tries his best to shrug off: due to persistent nerve and back problems, he may never drum again. The next time 'In the Air Tonight' comes on the radio, pour one out for Phil.
Mark Haddon
RaveThe Toronto StarThe [title] story is a remarkable exercise in control, and in it Haddon displays an eerie ability to whisk his authorial eye from character to character, exposing each in turn with only a sentence or two. Haddon does this over and over in this unrelentingly intense and frequently jaw-dropping collection ... There are moments in this collection when the darkness feels almost wilful, as if Haddon is daring readers to keep going, right to the sticky end. The Pier Falls and Other Stories is not an easy read, but Haddon’s remarkable talent makes it worth it.
