Argo Bookshop -

Born in Montreal’s NDG borough, Kathryn Dawn O’Brien, now a certified hypnotherapist of San Fernando Valley and a multifaceted writer for stage, film, television and radio (among other forms) will be returning to her hometown to read at the Argo this Thursday, December 22nd @ 8PM from her novel, Murder Has a Memory, the debut installation in her Roberta Law Mystery series. Here’s the synopsis from O’Brien’s website:

“Hypnotherapist Roberta Law gets a fast pass to the twilight zone when a ten-year-old client, suffering from acute insomnia, appears to spontaneously regress into a past life and witness her own murder. In order to help her client, Roberta must turn detective and try to solve a crime that may prove to be nothing more than a child’s overactive imagination at work.

When the investigation leads her into the recluse world of folk-rock icon, Lori Taylor, whose recent reunion with her long-lost daughter seems to be the source of something much more sinister – Roberta is soon to discover that murder has a memory. . .”

Come on by the shop before the time of the reading if you’d like, make yourself comfortable and peruse our selection.

We’ll be selling a limited amount of copies of Kathryn’s book ($19.95 CAN), and she’ll be available to sign copies afterwards. Come get one while you can!

Hope to see you there!

If you need directions to the shop, or have any questions about the reading, don’t hesitate to call the shop at 514-931-3442

Jim Bartley of the Globe and Mail aptly wrote of Marko Sijan’s debut novel: “Out of the mud of teenage hope and desperation, [Marko Sijan] generates black diamonds.”

These ‘black diamonds’, gems of dark and elegiac humor, are the book’s five interconnected chapters, capturing five aggressive youths in the prime of their dreams and delusions. While the catalysts of their lives range from drugs and sex to power and ambitions, with anxiety hovering above it all, the book itself maintains authenticity through plausibility of voice and detail. Yes, there is intensity and urgency to Mongrel, but the text doesn’t peddle shock value, especially when one considers its framework: A parallactic and simultaneous catharsis in five separate lives set over the course of 12 hours in Windsor, Ontario.

As today’s turn-of-the-century youth aspire to culturally slip further and further from definition, it’s a novel like Marko’s that captures the spirit of this demographic: Its veneration of elders, its grapples with shunting old traditions and creating new ones, issues of vocation and social roles… As was said in the New York Times’ article ‘What is it about 20-somethings?’, it’s about feeling both elevated and trapped in a world of pure possibilities.

All this, topped with a pervasive ambivalence toward self and North American multiculturalist society as a whole. Sijan’s book is an odd contrast to what is the presumably contented view that Canadians culturally live in relative harmony with one another. While some may take that as a safe assumption, Mongrel‘s outsiders and immigrants (Jamaican, Quebecois, German-American and Serbian) demonstrate a different reality. Given the setting with Windsor’s proximity to Detroit, Michigan, one may infer some feeling that this is a conflicted environment composed of fringes, but really, in terms of just Canada, a peach can’t be without a bruise now and then.

I’d highly recommend Marko’s article ‘The Gutter Years” in Issue 81 of Canadian Notes and Queries, where he describes a nigh decade-long process of trying to get his book published in the first place.

…

“Marko Sijan co-wrote a script for a short film entitled Eva Meets Felix, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September of 1999. His poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in Maisonneuve, Canadian Notes & Queries, Branch and Encore magazines, and on the Parliamentary Poet Laureate website. Marko lives in Montreal.”

- JP

Hello everyone,

It is our regret to inform you all that the Argo Open Mic is cancelled for this month. While we’ve all appreciated the support individuals have shown for the events, and their eagerness to see another take place and to contribute to them, the holidays have made for a bad time to host such an endeavour. Students will be out of town, friends will be with family, and we three owners have engagements along the same lines. We hope you’ll understand. The next is concretely set for January 11th, 2012 @ 8PM. Speaking of which, poet Zach Wells will be coming into the store not long after!

On the upside, we’ll be beginning a newsletter for all those who wish to be kept in a closer loop than Facebook or regular visits to this here website can offer; news of the Featured Reader Series, the Argo Open Mic, readings from visiting authors, that sort of thing.
If you’ll be so kind as to use the Argo’s email, argobookshop [at] gmail [dot] com, and simply let us know you’d like to receive the newsletter on upcoming events, we’ll sign you up.

Thanks again to everyone for your support and attention!

Love,

The folks at the Argo