Fiction Notes

Fay Myrtle's life begins with her mother and siblings near a Jamaican plantation in Joyce Palmer's Greenwichtown. She goes to live in the city of the book's title with Flo—an older sister she has never met—who turns out to be a source of constant trouble. Fay grows up surrounded by poverty, violence and misery, attending school and later giving birth to twins—but she is forced to leave the country to find work in order to support her children. Palmer's writing is spare and unflinching; while her plot is relentlessly grim, she does offer a glimmer of hope at the end. Agent, Jean Naggar. (St. Martin's, $23.95 272p ISBN 0-312-26597-2)

The Insolent Boy, the debut novel from Canadian author and filmmaker John Stiles, certainly is aptly titled. It follows the turbulent life of narrator Selwyn Davis from toddlerhood to early middle age. A talented, intelligent but deeply antisocial boy, he is nurtured by adoptive parents in rural Nova Scotia. After a doomed romance, he leaves home and falls in with a rock band that takes him around the world—including a stint in a Japanese prison. Though the book's second half feels a bit rushed, Selwyn is a memorable (if not exactly lovable) protagonist, and Stiles tells his grimly comic story with wit and heart. (Insomniac Press, $14.95 189p ISBN 1-895837-04-9)

Lynnette D'anna (fool's bells, etc.) continues to peer into dark corners of the human psyche in vixen, but her themes have lost most of their power to shock. The title character is plagued by memories of her abusive mother and obsessed with her sadomasochistic lover, Ruby. But she is also competing with Ruby's brother, Adam, for her affections. After the incestuous couple commits what appears to be a murder-suicide, the kinkfest shifts gears and becomes a mystery, but the impressionistic narrative is so disjointed that it's hard to tell the difference. The audience for this is going to be very small indeed. (Insomniac Press, $15.95 188p ISBN 1-895837-00-6)