The Next Chapter22:05Some of the best books of 2024
Antonio Michael Downing and CBC Books producers Ryan B. Patrick and Talia Kliot discuss some of their favourite books to come out this year, including The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard, Code Noir by Canisa Lubrin, A Way to Be Happy by Caroline Adderson and more.
At the end of each year, CBC Books curates the eagerly-awaited lists of the best Canadian books of the year across all genres to inspire your reading list.
From a forbidden love story to a rewriting of an American classic, CBC Books senior producer Ryan B. Patrick and associate producer Talia Kliot shared some of their favourite books of 2024 with Antonio Michael Downing, guest host of The Next Chapter. Downing, in turn, also discussed the three books that “really hit him this year.”
In Batshit Seven, Glen “Glue” Wu has a general apathy toward his return to Hong Kong from Toronto. As a lacklustre, weed smoking, hungover ESL teacher, Glue watches passively as Hong Kong falls into conflict around him. He cares only for his sister, who is trying to marry rich, and for both an on-and-off-again relationship and the memory of a Canadian connection now lost. Government control hardens, thrusting Glue into a journey that ultimately ends in violence.
Batshit Seven won the 2024 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction prize.
Ryan B. Patrick says: “It really looks at late-stage capitalism. It looks at life, it looks at anxiety, and what it means to be human — a racialized human — in the world in terms of what one needs to do to get by in life.”
The Other Valley follows the story of Odile Ozanne, who lives in a town with a magical valley. To the East, the town exists 20 years forward in time. To the West, it’s 20 years behind. Odile seeks to join the Conseil, who decides which of the town’s residents may cross the border into the valley to see departed loved ones. When she recognizes two mourners by accident, Odile realizes they have travelled from the future to see someone Odile knows in her present — setting off a chain of events that change the course of several lives.
Talia Kliot says: “These questions of ‘What would you do differently if you had the option to do things differently? What’s the best way to get closure and how does that work?’ It really stuck with me.”
Annie Carpenter’s life was upended by colonialism, the Indian Act and the residential school system. For 80 years, her family tried to find out what happened to her. Now, journalist and filmmaker Tanya Talaga is telling her great-great grandmother’s story in her new book and documentary series, The Knowing.
Antonio Michael Downing says: “[It’s] instant Canadian canon — Tanya Talaga — high-key national treasure.”
In Jean Marc Ah-Sen’s novel Kilworthy Tanner, Jonno is a young writer looking to make waves in the literary world.
When he meets legendary author Kilworthy Tanner at a party, he’s shocked when she takes an interest in him — and the two fall into a complicated relationship that blurs the lines between mentorship and an affair.
Ryan B. Patrick says: “It ponders big questions like ‘What does it mean to be a mentor? What does it mean to be a mentee?’ And it’s very bohemian, experimental and it navigates this kind of mainstream versus avant-garde divide that I really enjoyed.”
Following two Michif sisters, lyn and June, real ones examines what happens when their estranged and white mother gets called out as a pretendian, someone who’s not Indigenous pretending to be so. Going by the name Raven Bearclaw, she’s seen success for her art that draws on Indigenous style. As the media hones in on the story, the sisters, whose childhood trauma manifests in different ways, are pulled into their mother’s web of lies and the painful past resurfaces. real ones was longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize.
Talia Kliot says: “It’s also such a beautiful portrait of sisterhood, and the way the different sisters react to the way that they were brought up, and how they come together and what really helps them solidify their identity.”
A Way to Be Happy is a short story collection that follows various characters as they try to find happiness. Ranging from mundane to extraordinary, the stories feature everything from a pair of addicts robbing parties to fund their sobriety to a Russian hitman dealing with an illness and reliving his past.
Antonio Michael Downing says: “I thought they were some of the most masterful displays of craft in a book of Canadian fiction this year.”
The Code Noir, or the Black Code, was a set of 59 articles decreed by Louis XVI in 1685 which regulated ownership of slaves in all French colonies. In her debut fiction work, Canisia Lubrin reflects on these codes to examine the legacy of enslavement and colonization — and the inherent power of Black resistance.
Ryan B. Patrick says: “This book has 59 loosely-connected stories or fragments that kind of defy time and space as they look at what it means to be Black in this world.”
In What I Know About You, Tarek is on the right path: he’ll be a doctor like his father, marry and have children. But when he falls for his patient’s son, Ali, his life is turned upside-down as he realizes his sexuality against a backdrop of political turmoil in 1960s Cairo. In the 2000s, Tarek is now a doctor in Montreal. When someone begins to write to him and about him, the past that he’s been trying to forget comes back to haunt him.
Talia Kliot says: “It’s a really powerful love story and a really interesting look into families, structure and gender roles, and what you keep hidden and what you tell people.”
There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension is a collection of ruminations on the meaning of success, who is perceived to deserve it and the concept of role models all through the lens of basketball in the 1990s.
Through themes of comfort, hope and solidarity, Abdurraqib paints the rich history of the golden era of basketball through a personal telling of his own experience with the sport growing up.
Antonio Michael Downing says: “What he does is this magic trick of how we do memory and place and nostalgia and and just an absolute beautiful triumph of style and substance.”
James by Percival Everett
James is a daring reworking of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. By taking on Mark Twain’s classic about the wayward Southern boy Huck and the enslaved Jim, Everett tells the story from the latter’s perspective. It follows Jim who is going to be sold to a man in New Orleans as he escapes and figures out what to do. When he meets Huck Finn who has faked his death, the two embark on a journey down the Mississippi River toward the Free States.
Ryan B. Patrick says: “It’s a master class in terms of updating a classic text, and it gives agency to Jim on his quest for freedom, his quest to learn more and his quest for identity. It’s a really cool demonstration of the sheer range of what a novel can do and accomplish.”
Colored Television by Danzy Senna
In Colored Television, Jane is optimistic that her life will finally take a positive turn. Not only is she on sabbatical and has time to work on her second novel, she gets to do it while house-sitting on the hills of Los Angeles — enjoying a year of luxury with her family, and stability and success seem within reach.
However, things don’t unfold as planned and Jane looks to Hollywood. After securing a meeting with a producer, they begin to work on a project that’s the “Jackie Robinson of biracial comedies.” Things seem to be falling into place for Jane — until it doesn’t.
Talia Kliot says: “It talks about all kinds of interesting things like class, race, disability. It’s set against a backdrop of Hollywood, but there’s the glamour and then there’s the not-so glamorous side.”
Ryan B. Patrick, Talia Kliot and Antonio Michael Downing’s comments have been edited for length and clarity.
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