“I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart.” So begins The Virgin Cure, a novel set in the tenements of lower Manhattan in the year 1871.

As a young child, Moth’s father smiled, tipped his hat and walked away from her forever. The summer she turned twelve, her mother sold her as a servant to a wealthy woman, with no intention of ever seeing her again. These betrayals lead Moth to the wild, murky world of the Bowery, filled with house-thieves, pickpockets, beggars, sideshow freaks and prostitutes, where eventually she meets Miss Everett, the owner of a brothel simply known as “The Infant School.” Miss Everett caters to gentlemen who pay dearly for companions who are “willing and clean,” and the most desirable of them all are young virgins like Moth.

Through the friendship of Dr. Sadie, a female physician, Moth learns to question and observe the world around her, where her new friends are falling prey to the myth of the “virgin cure”–that deflowering a “fresh maid” can heal the incurable and tainted. She knows the law will not protect her, that polite society ignores her, and still she dreams of answering to no one but herself. There’s a high price for such independence, though, and no one knows that better than a girl from Chrystie Street.

From the publisher, Knopf Canada

The Virgin Cure is Moth’s story but narrated by Dr. Sadie after-the-fact and Dr. Sadie occasionally includes notes in the margin regarding current customs or beliefs. Dr. Sadie is based Ami McKay’s own great-great-grandmother (Dr. Sarah Fonda Mackintosh) who was one of the first graduates of The Women’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. McKay was researching her family history—trying to find out more about Dr. Mackintosh—when she encountered the stories of children living on the streets of New York’s Lower East Side, and the “lady doctors” who were committed to treating them.

McKay’s depiction of strong-willed female protagonists draws me to her writing. Even when the character seems to have little control over her fate, she never betrays her true self. This attribute was evident in The Birth House—contender for Canada Reads 2011–and part of the reason I really enjoyed it. McKay brings that strength of character to both Moth and Dr. Sadie in different ways.

The pace of the novel is meandering, but not directionless, and I felt drawn to Moth and her story. There is something about the seedy depths of New York, the deviant nature of an 1800s brothel, and the allure of a story based on truths such as the “virgin cure”. I will definitely be passing this novel along to my friends and family to read—similar to what I did with The Birth House.

The Virgin Cure will be on sale on Tuesday, October 25, 2011. Thanks to the publisher, Knopf Canada (an imprint of Random House of Canada) for sending me an advanced reader’s copy.

The Night Wanderer: A Native Gothic Novel by Drew Hayden Taylor is a YA coming-of-age story based in the late 90s on a fictional First Nations reserve in Ontario.

A sleepy native reserve. A troubled teen girl. A vampire returns home.

Nothing ever happens on the Otter Lake reservation. But when 16-year-old Tiffany discovers her father is renting out her room, she’s deeply upset. Sure, their guest is polite and keeps to himself, but he’s also a little creepy.

Little do Tiffany, her father, or even her astute Granny Ruth suspect the truth. The mysterious Pierre L’Errant is actually a vampire, returning to his tribal home after centuries spent in Europe. But Tiffany has other things on her mind: her new boyfriend is acting weird, disputes with her father are escalating, and her estranged mother is starting a new life with somebody else.

Fed up and heartsick, Tiffany threatens drastic measures and flees into the bush. There, in the midnight woods, a chilling encounter with L’Errant changes everything … for both of them.

From the publisher, Annick Press

After examining this novel very closely in my English Lit class, I’m a little apathetic about blogging a review. It’s difficult to change from the ‘critical literary analysis’ mindframe to a personal book review for my blog.

When I was reading the book, prior to lecture and tutorial, I kept scoffing at the text because it’s almost over-simplified for the audience. On the surface, the novel seems trivial and not a true “gothic” novel. At times I felt it was merely piggybacking on the supernatural romance genre that has taken off after Twilight.

However, the simplification of the situations and the language makes it a prime example for class study. I would definitely recommend a grade 6 or 7 class (age 11-12) to study this in conjunction with First Nations relations in Canada. Taylor deals with aspects of both teen and first nations culture regarding alcohol, smoking, race, suicide, relationships and drugs.

I wouldn’t recommend this to most adults, but I think Taylor introduces the topics in a way that fosters discussion and questioning of cultural norms. He also provides an interesting commentary on embracing your heritage and culture, and not forgetting where you came from.

Drew Hayden Taylor was approached by Annick Press to develop a novel for teens. He “has been directing documentaries, most notably Redskins, Tricksters and Puppy Stew, produced by the National Film Board of Canada” which inspired The Night Wanderer.

Patrick deWitt is being credited with “reinventing the Western genre”, however The Sisters Brothers didn’t really feel like a traditional Western to me. In fact, it didn’t have to take place in a Western setting at all—the horses, the guns, the journey were all just details surrounding the intriguing life of Eli and Charlie Sisters.

Narrated through the eyes of Eli—the heavyset, younger brother—the Sisters brothers are hired guns. They’re notorious killers and feared throughout the States—especially Charlie’s gun-slinging.

Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. Eli and Charlie Sisters can be counted on for that. Though Eli has never shared his brother’s penchant for whiskey and killing, he’s never known anything else. On the road to Warm’s gold-mining claim outside San Francisco — and from the back of his long-suffering one-eyed horse — Eli struggles to make sense of his life without abandoning the job he’s sworn to do.

DeWitt spins a violent, lustful, hung-over and humorous odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier. Doffing his hat to the classic Western, he then transforms it into a comic tour-de-force with an unforgettable narrative voice that captures all the absurdity, melancholy, and grit of the West — and of these two brothers, bound to each other by blood and scars and love.

From the publisher, House of Anansi Press

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The Little Shadows will be published on September 27, 2011 but is already receiving a ton of buzz (including the Giller longlist Reader’s Choice). And I have to say that the praise is well-warranted. Gentle prose, quiet plot, and enticing characters are all present in Endicott’s latest novel about three sisters beginning a career in vaudeville.

The Little Shadows revolves around three sisters in the world of vaudeville before and during the First World War. We follow the lives of all three in turn: Aurora, the eldest and most beautiful, who is sixteen when the book opens; thoughtful Clover, a year younger; and the youngest sister, joyous headstrong sprite Bella, who is thirteen.

The girls, overseen by their fond but barely coping Mama, are forced to make their living as a singing act after the untimely death of their father. They begin with little besides youth and hope, but Marina Endicott’s genius is to show how the three girls slowly and steadily evolve into true artists even as they navigate their way to adulthood among a cast of extraordinary characters – some of them charming charlatans, some of them unpredictable eccentrics, and some of them just ordinary-seeming humans with magical gifts.

From the publisher, Doubleday Canada (an imprint of Random House).

I was lucky to receive an ARC from the publisher and read The Little Shadows a few months ago. I was looking forward to it because I really enjoyed Marina Endicott’s novel, Good to a Fault—which was part of Canada Reads 2010—despite the meandering pace and introverted characters. Her writing has a power to it that goes beyond what’s put on the page—the character’s emotional journey is far greater than the plot of the novel.

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Fruit: A Novel About A Boy and His Nipples by Brian Francis is a heartfelt tale about 13-year-old Peter Paddington, who is overweight, gay, and unpopular. When his nipples poke out and start talking to him—with brutally honest opinions—he tries to shut them up by covering them with tape every morning. Unfortunately, his nipples seem to be the least of his problems. He’s going into high school, he’s very overweight, self-conscious about his body, and is uncertain about his sexuality.

What do you get when you cross the Virgin Mary with Brooke Shields, add a trash-talking beauty queen wannabe and throw in a couple of talking nipples? One of the most laugh-out-loud books you’ll read all year.

Peter Paddington is 13, overweight, the subject of his classmates’ ridicule, and the victim of too many bad movie-of-the-week storylines. When Peter’s nipples begin speaking to him one day and inform him of their diabolical plan to expose his secret desires to the world, Peter finds himself cornered in a world that seems to have no tolerance for difference.

Peter’s only solace is “The Bedtime Movies” — perfect-world fantasies that lull him to sleep every night. But when the lines between Peter’s fantasy world and his reality begin to blur, no one is safe from the depths of Peter’s imagination — especially Peter himself.

From the publisher, ECW Press

Brian Francis writes with honesty, humour and intelligence. He taps into the pre-teen mind and immediately brings you back to your own socially outcast years. It’s difficult to be Peter Paddington, and you really sympathize with him, even if you can’t relate.

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