Daniel Gawthrop, Author at Daniel Gawthrop

Teenage wasteland, Y2K bromance

Post published:September 10, 2023

Book review by Daniel Gawthrop posted on British Columbia Review on September 10, 2023 New Millennium Boyz By Alex Kazemi New York: Permuted Press, 2023 $37 / 9781637583913 In some ways, Brad Seela is a typical seventeen-year-old white boy coasting through an apathetic life in the suburban North America of 1999: bored with school, indifferent about the future, disillusioned with his yuppie parents, susceptible to peer pressure, vulnerable to excessive drug use, and constantly horny.…

Stuck in the middle with you

Post published:August 27, 2023

Book review by Daniel Gawthrop posted on British Columbia Review on August 27, 2023 Almost Brown: A Mixed Race Family Memoir by Charlotte Gill Toronto: Penguin RandomHouse, 2023 $36 hardcover / 9780735243033 The author of various fiction and narrative non-fiction titles, including the tree-planting memoir Eating Dirt, Sunshine Coast-based Charlotte Gill is a gifted storyteller. Her new memoir explores how the author’s self-image and sense of the world were shaped her family’s experience of multiple…

A Trickster for our times

Post published:June 21, 2023

Book review essay by Daniel Gawthrop posted on British Columbia Review on June 21, 2023 Trickster Trilogy by Eden Robinson Son of a Trickster Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2017. $21.00 / 9780345810793 Trickster Drift Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2018. $21.00 / 9780735273443 Return of the Trickster Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2021. $21.00 / 9780735273474 * I’ve never been a big fan of magical realism in fiction. While I get what it’s trying…

Double Karma

Post published:May 9, 2023

Curiosity about his father’s homeland sends American photographer Min Lin to Burma to immerse himself in its culture and build his portfolio. But it’s 1988 and pro-democracy activists are trying to overthrow the military regime. Min gets caught up in the movement after falling in love with one of its leaders. When she’s arrested, Min flees to the jungle and, joining the rebels, comes face-to-face on the battlefield with a Burmese army captain who looks…

Blood, soil, and memory

Post published:March 21, 2023

Book review by Daniel Gawthrop posted on The British Columbia Review on February 15, 2023. We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (McClelland & Stewart), 2022 $24.95 / 9780771047244 * Over the past six decades, as the People’s Republic of China has turned its brutal invasion and occupation of Tibet into the permanent subjugation of an entire population, generations of Tibetans have experienced profound upheaval and loss from…