The Great Canadian Book Challenge is taking the nation by storm. Today I officially toss my hat into the ring. Watch this site for frequent updates and reviews of Canadian books -- written by yours truly.
That's a scene in Writing-On-Stone provincial park, Alberta. It's the setting of my first novel, Leaving Wyoming. In addition, the park and its name are symbolic -- in many ways the coulee walls there are some of the earliest forms of Canadian Literature. Slightly less symbolic is the fact that the Milk River, which runs through the park, is a "backwater" of the Missouri-Mississippi river systems.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who scours the intertubes for mentions of my name. Feel free to use my review in whatever form you feel like. I did enjoy it quite a bit.
I am the author of three novels, Leaving Wyoming, Houdini's Shadow, and Drift. The first was listed in Bartley's Top Five in the Globe and Mail for best first fiction of 2005. Houdini's Shadow was later translated in to Spanish. My work has also appeared in magazines and journals across Canada, including ARC, CV2, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Prairie Fire, and Queen's Quarterly.
"Robillard's prose achieves a keen-edged grace that is almost mesmerizing....there is a knuckle-and-bone hardness to it....a restless, inventive sense of craft, a refusal to be tied down....As if in homage to the great escape artist himself, Robillard raises the tension in scene after nail-biting scene, packing his novel tight with danger. Between escapes, assaults, seductions, betrayals and further escapes, Houdini's Shadow presents itself as spectacle, just as surely as Houdini's own death-defying stunts did....Robillard, clearly a gifted storyteller, can at times make you wonder, with that old magician's dazzle, ‘Just how did he do that?’" – Globe and Mail
"Robillard is a confident storyteller, with an eye for detail and a cinematic approach to scene-setting. The novel’s portrayal of Montreal subculture is compellingly vivid, right down to the back alleys, seedy nightclubs, and shady characters." – Winnipeg Free Press
"Houdini’s Shadow is a fast, compact, noirish novel that proves its own contention that ‘there is always a chance for redemption, an opportunity to push back shadow, but it becomes more difficult with...each chance you let slip through your fingers.’ An old story – the only kind there is – told in a fresh way." – Steven Heighton, author of Afterlands
"With deftly-drawn characters and a plot that appears and disappears intriguingly, Robillard has performed a masterful sleight of hand." – Mark Frutkin, author of Fabrizio’s Return
"Robillard displays a fine knack for crafting evocative moments that effortlessly capture the essence of mystery .... [he] has the moves and the technique." – Corey Redekop, author of Shelf Monkey
"Author Leo Brent Robillard has created a complicated world built on a foundation of deceptions. Besides flashing illusions--tricks we might call magic--there's a complex playlist of characters involved in all manner of artifice. They use aliases and disguises and lay any number of false trails. There's gender-crossing and secret compartments and plenty of plain old trickery. And it's all served up in an atmosphere of steaminess--of several varieties.....As anyone who's studied magic knows, the art of illusion rests in the skill of the set-up. Robillard has done a fine job of drawing us in." – Prairie Fire Review of Books
"In this book, the historical and the fictional, the real and the illusory, come together in a performance one might call deceptive – in a good way." – Danforth Review
"...a sensory precision that only writing – spurring the reader’s inner creation – can achieve ... Robillard’s prose is assured ... vividly evoking the sprawling frontier landscape, the sweat and funk of fugitive men and their ruthlessly driven horses ... Leaving Wyoming is a case of the word transcending 1, 000 pictures." – Globe & Mail
"...ageless ... alluring ... adventurous ... recapturing the Wild West, while at the same time creating its own history – the story of Ewan "Wyoming" McGinnis." – The Charlatan
4 comments:
Glad to have you joining the challenge.
And I'm curious, where is that in your banner photo?
That's a scene in Writing-On-Stone provincial park, Alberta. It's the setting of my first novel, Leaving Wyoming. In addition, the park and its name are symbolic -- in many ways the coulee walls there are some of the earliest forms of Canadian Literature. Slightly less symbolic is the fact that the Milk River, which runs through the park, is a "backwater" of the Missouri-Mississippi river systems.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who scours the intertubes for mentions of my name. Feel free to use my review in whatever form you feel like. I did enjoy it quite a bit.
Ahh...We Few, We "Vain" and Happy Few, We Band of Brothers.
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