Bookends with Mattea Roach

Toronto’s most infamous women’s prison was meant to rehabilitate women … but its real history tells a much darker story. Heather Marshall dives headfirst into the Mercer Reformatory in her latest novel, Liberty Street. The book follows Emily Radcliffe, a 1960s journalist who goes undercover to expose the prison’s harsh conditions and abuse of inmates. Over 30 years later, after the prison’s closing, a detective revisits one of the its sinister mysteries … and these intertwining narratives tell a story of female resilience and strength. This week, Heather tells Mattea Roach about the history of the prison, the real journalists that inspired the story and what it means to be an “incorrigible” woman.

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Emma Donoghue boards a train destined for disaster

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If you had to tell a story to stay alive … what story would you tell? Jeanette Winterson’s new book, One Aladdin Two Lamps, is a nonfiction exploration of storytelling, culture, politics and the things that make us human. It’s based on the One Thousand and One Nights, the famous collection of Middle Eastern folk tales home to characters like Aladdin, Sinbad and Ali Baba. At the centre of it all is Scheherazade, a woman who tells a vengeful Sultan stories for 1001 nights to stop him from executing her. Like Scheherazade, Jeanette sees storytelling as a means of survival. In the book, she uses those tales to muse on the way that stories shape our identities and our lives … and how they’re a tool to better ourselves and the world around us.

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Zadie Smith never thought she’d tell this story
Ian McEwan has hope for humanity — here’s why

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What does it mean to come of age in a place where violence is a daily fact of life? Ashraf Zaghal’s debut novel, Seven Heavens Away, is about a Palestinian teen named Aziz. Like any teen, he’s growing up, working part-time and learning how to navigate love and loss … but he’s also living through escalating violence and unrest in Jerusalem. When Aziz's friend is killed, he grapples with grief and an uncertain future. While his involvement in Palestinian resistance efforts grows, he also starts to harbour feelings for a Jewish girl named Dafna. This week, Ashraf tells Mattea about being a teenager living through constant tragedy, the role of religion in the story and how it felt to return to Palestine while writing the novel.

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What happens to fiction in times of war?
V.V. Ganeshananthan: Exploring the complexity of Sri Lanka's civil war in her prize-winning novel, Brotherless Night

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What happens behind the closed doors of a strip club? Pole dancing, booming basslines … and in Nic Stone’s new novel, the chilling mystery of a missing exotic dancer. In Boom Town, the manager of a fictional Atlanta strip club sets out to find a missing dancer named Charm. The book offers a shadowy taste of Atlanta’s notorious adult entertainment scene … but it’s also a look into the lives of the regular women who live and dance in the city. This week, Nic joins Mattea Roach to talk about growing up in Atlanta, why strip clubs are cultural epicentres and writing her first novel for adults.

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Here’s what you have wrong about teen moms

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Can you inherit fury? Kagiso Lesego Molope’s new novel, We Inherit The Fire, follows a mother and daughter at the end of apartheid in South Africa. Kewame is a famous freedom fighter who is haunted by the trauma of apartheid and her time as a political prisoner. Her daughter Kelelo is a regular teenager who resists being defined by her mother’s heroics … but is struggling to connect with her mother at home. The two voices intertwine to tell a story about memory, history and the ways we inherit resilience and pain. This week, Kagiso tells Mattea about her own youth in South Africa, writing about motherhood and how Nelson Mandela’s grandchildren informed her characters.

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