One of the stories in The Art of Burglary is called “Still Life with Baby.” The reference is apt, given that an artist is clearly at work in this collection of short stories from local author Joan M. Baril. “Tiny snowflakes” of grain dust hang suspended in beams of sunlight. A teacher’s hair fans out from her head “like a caragana bush in a high wind.” Sentences are steeped in colour, from the red and blue flashes of a snow plough lighting up a morning to a hilltop in Mexico sun-touched with “apricot, rose, rust, dark-banded purple and gold.” Beneath the vivid line drawings, however, lurk darker themes: bootlegging, racism, hanging, gender inequality, and—in the collection’s most heartbreaking tale—the mystery of a murdered boy. It’s easy to see why this has become Entershine Bookshop’s top-selling title of 2024.
-Lynne Warnick
4.5/5
