The Seaboard Review of Books: June 23, 2025
Volume 2, Issue 24
In this issue:
Melanie Jackson reviews DOBRYD, Ian Colford attempts to explain Oliver Bell and the Infinite Multiverse in a few hundred words, an Indigenous colouring book is checked out by Bryn Robinson, and Lisa Timpf reviews a collection of essays revolving around Bruce Meyer.
Also, Michael Greenstein reviews another John Reibentanz poetry collection, Emily Weedon turns her critical writer’s eye on The Exclusion Zone, a cozy mystery is reviewed by Heather McBriarty and Laura Patterson looks over two photographic books by Steve Shafke of abandoned graveyards and roads in Nova Scotia.
Review of the Week
DOBRYD by Ann Charney
Brave, but scary, new world: Ann Charney’s riveting girlhood memoir of life in post-WW II Poland
Other Reviews
Fiction
Oliver Bell and the Infinite Multiverse by Jake Swan
It takes a special kind of imaginative superpower to create an entirely original universe, populate it with quirky, one-of-a-kind characters who seem to belong naturally to that world, and to do so both persuasively and entertainingly. Jake Swan accomplishes this feat in his madcap romp of a novel,
A Dark Death by Alice Fitzpatrick
Retired teacher-turned-novelist Kate Galway enjoys life on her tranquil little island off the Welsh coast. The arrival of a psychic conman investigating the island’s long-abandoned manor house, and an archaeological dig that could be the Roman find of the century, adds a hint of spice to an otherwise quiet summer. The discovery of a body, laid out in a …
The Exclusion Zone by Alexis Von Konigslow
Alexis Von Konigslow’s novel The Exclusion Zone takes readers to the blighted area of Chernobyl, in the much-studied aftermath of the nuclear disaster which up heaved hundreds of thousands and rerouted history for plants, animals, humans, and governments. It could have been even worse. The disaster is one of the most defining testaments to the ability o…
Non-Fiction
Inspired: A Roy Henry Vickers Colouring Book
In celebrated artist Roy Henry Vickers’ colouring book, the “reader” is provided with 42 outlines of his iconic works to easily find their own inspiration.
Bruce Meyer: Essays on His Works Edited by Ben Berman Ghan
Bruce Meyer has written or edited more than 70 books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction over a long and distinguished teaching and writing career. Bruce Meyer: Essays on His Works, edited by Ben Berman Ghan, includes 14 essays that provide a multi-faceted look at Meyer’s works and his contributions to the Canadian literary scene.
The Dead Die Twice and This River Was Once a Road by Steve Skafte
I was a kid who grew up in the woods, wandering the old hauling roads and railway beds, finding hidden family graveyards long forgotten, which is why Steve Skafte’s books have called to me. The Dead Die Twice: Abandoned Cemeteries of Nova Scotia and
Poetry
No poetry review this week, but here’s an excerpt (by kind permission) from Olga Stein’s new collection, Love Songs: Prayers to Gods, Not Men available from AOS Publishing.
Love and Death in the Multiverse
Quantum physics posits multiple worlds
lines them up, per theory,
so they unfold in parallel
without touching. Everettian enthusiast
holds court, enraptured, smiles,
blethers on volubly apropos the premise:
multiverse, its scores of worlds,
with variations on us in each.
Intriguing, sure. I nod, doubtful.
Still, I’m willing to muse—not on the math,
but over what’s real or unreal.
Yesterday, or possibly last week,
I saw a photo of the NGC 6302.
Its dying star formed two wings,
accretions of a giant nebula,
composed of multicoloured clusters.
Beauteous in its pelerine of stellar gas and dust,
this celestial marvel looked to me
like two universes converging in a kiss.
Le bisou, I think, glancing sideways,
try to picture us in alternate universes:
Short-lived flickers in infinite time;
perhaps, parts in a story staged over and over.
If we die here, do we die elsewhere?
It might be fair to say our endings are synched.
Then again, it could work like chain reactions,
inducing slow implosions. Terminal illness?
That would make cancer the antimatter.
I wonder, What happens when we love in one world?
Do the powers of attraction hold
between two particles in every universe?
Or are we drawn together by chance
here only, not multiversally?
Then wouldn’t we be stray elements
whose valencies are varied,
and whose fusion would depend fully
on the vagaries of fate?
Michael Greenstein Reviews:
Hot Takes: Brief Notes on Books Present & Past
(Note: clicking on the underlined link takes you to the book’s publisher page or Amazon.ca for more information or for purchasing purposes)
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad, McClelland and Stewart, 2025
In One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad applies sublime poetic prose, edgy self-deprecating humour and penetrating critique, as much to the description of an eighteen-month-old child with a bullet hole in its forehead, as to quietly dismantling the hypocrisy of Western liberalism. More memoir than exposé, this book explores themes like the language of humanitarian concern behind which liberal democracies hide, and the idea of fear as currency—the disparity in its exchange rate, and what gets legitimized and perpetrated in the name of that fear. El Akkad lays bare his own complicity: a life full of awards and accolades, courtesy of his adopted countries, Canada, and the US. He never uses his depictions of the horrors in Gaza that open each chapter as dogmatic hammers. Rather, he extends a gentle hand and invites the reader to join him in this brutal and deeply disappointing place. There is no solution offered. The reader is left sitting in the knowledge and discomfort of what El Akkad has exposed about systems and about our own unavoidable collusion and detachment. (See Aviva Rubin’s full review here.)
Book News
If you would like to have your book event (or any other bookish news) shared in our Monday emails, please contact James at editor[at]theseaboardreview.ca!
Emily Weedon’s Drunk Fiction Event:
Melanie Jackson
Did you know? Melanie Jackson is the editor of WestWords, The Writers’ Union of Canada newsletter highlighting the latest from their BC/Yukon members. You can see the entire newsletter here.
Lisa Timpf
Lisa had a poem titled “Last Stand at the Coffee Shop” published in Solstitia Issue 3, Coffeeshop!AU, published June 2025. Information link for the book is here: https://www.patreon.com/fictionfanspod/shop/solstitia-issue-3-1825862
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Thanks for reading this issue of The Seaboard Review of Books!
James M. Fisher, editor-in-chief
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