Spirits in the Dark
H. Nigel Thomas

First published in Canada in 1993, Spirits in the Dark is a pioneering intersectional novel of the LGBTQ+ and Caribbean-Canadian experience that was far ahead of its time.

In his powerful debut novel, H. Nigel Thomas writes with compelling honesty about the confusing maze of societal pressures that paralyze Jerome Quashee while growing up in the Caribbean, and later on in his adult life. Jerome’s intelligence at first promises him a gateway out of the poverty his parents have known, but he must compete with privileged White boys for scholarships in a racist, classist culture. Spirits in the Dark is the story of a man who represses his emerging homosexuality, fearing that it will bring his family disgrace, as he wrestles with the guilt of knowing so little about his African heritage and the pressure to let go his ties to Black culture. Under the spiritual guidance of Pointer Francis, he undergoes a religious ritual to block all sensory links to the outside world in order to see clearly into his past and face his demons.

Letters From Montreal
Madi Haslam

Letters From Montreal documents the experiences of Montrealers past and present, creating a portrait of the storied city unlike any other. Drawn from the celebrated column in Maisonneuve magazine, this anthology features Canadian writers chronicling a quintessential part of local life. Narrated with the intimacy of journal entries, each letter bridges the playful and profound. In early dispatches, Melissa Bull ditches a boyfriend over pétanque in Parc Laurier; Sean Michaels watches Arcade Fire lose Battle of the Bands; Deborah Ostrovsky frets over the sublime sophistication of the Plateau’s French children. More recently, Ziya Jones spends a summer herding sheep through Parc du Pélican; Eva Crocker performs in a “fake orgasm choir” at the Rialto Theatre; and André Picard takes a pause from the pandemic by running up Mount Royal.

Edited by Maisonneuve editor-in-chief Madi Haslam, these letters buzz with a sense of possibility, surprise and transformation. They remind us that a city can’t quite be defined, that every person inside it interprets it anew.

Wolf Sonnets
R. P. LaRose

In his commanding poetry debut, Wolf Sonnets, R. P. LaRose undoes the sonnet's classical constraints, retooling the form for current political circumstances. Packed with family lore, these poems reflect on how deeply we can trust the terms we use to construct our identity. A proud citizen of the Métis Nation, LaRose even questions his right to identify as such: “I was made in someone else’s home,” he writes. Wolf Sonnets is verse obsessed with names, infinity, numbers, categories, and interconnectedness. Depicting his ancestors as wolves—symbols of survival and protection—LaRose bring fresh insight to his wider poetic project: castigating the inequality, greed, and racism inherent to colonialism.
Because
Andrew Steinmetz

An engrossing punk-rock novel about teenage daydreams and sibling dynamics

Teenage brothers Hombre and Transformer spend their days locked up in their suburban Montreal bedroom, writing songs and dreaming of stardom. Hombre, the younger one, is quiet, contemplative, and talented, a poet in the making. His older brother Transformer is stubborn, domineering, and secretly struggling with mental health issues. Their sequestered world is broken open one summer when their mother hires Spit, a girl from the local guitar shop, to help the boys improve their modest skills. But these good intentions set off a chain reaction with tragic consequences.

Set in the early 80s, in a local music scene brimming with post-punk ethos and a disdain for classic rock, Because is a wry and charming depiction of a sibling relationship founded on feverish angst, unspoken admiration, jealousy, and the pursuit of the greatest song they can write from their own room.

States of Emergency
Yoyo Comay

States of Emergency is a book-length poem about the apocalyptic present, written in a language whose meaning is liquid and full of slippage, always spilling out from its container. In Yoyo Comay’s hands, words roil, churn, and surge. By taking on different mood and modes, from the prophetic to the colloquial, he has created a form that is a constant unravelling—a leap of faith into intuitive meaning, a letting go into ongoingness. “I am catapulted into where I am,” he writes, “and the air concusses around me.”

Comay sees poetry as a visceral experience: a state of immanence, embodiment, emergence, emergency. This is poetry as diary and seismograph, an infinite scroll for the end of days. It is a debut like no other.

Press

On Redemption Ground:

Praise for From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People

On Durable Goods:
“In a world increasingly inundated by self-righteously thick poetry collections, by padded, obtuse abstractions, Durable Goods

On While Supplies Last:

Praise for Anita Lahey:

“Her poems are vividly imagined, technically and formally astute, and stylistically rich.”—Poetryreviews.ca

On Black and Blue:


News

MAY NEWSLETTER (click for link)
Véhicule Press is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and we're throwing a party! Please join us on Saturday, June 17 at 7 pm at the Casa d'Italia in Montreal for a wonderful evening featuring several of our writers, editors and collaborators. The event is free and open to all. We will be launching Michael Lista's The Human Scaleat Toronto's Monarch Tavern on Thursday, June 22. And we will be launching Andrew Steinmetz's novel Because in Ottawa at the Manx on June 10 and in Montreal at Ursa on June 14. And congratulations to Baharan Baniahmadi for winning the Blue Metropolis/Conseil des arts de Montréal 2023 New Contribution Literary Award for the novel Prophetess!

APRIL NEWSLETTER (click for link)
Join us Wednesday April 19 at La Petite Librairie Drawn & Quarterly for the launch of Dandelion Daughter by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, translated by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch. April is National Poetry Month and we are releasing our Spring 2023 poetry titles: While Supplies Last by Anita Lahey and The Four-Doored House by Pierre Nepveu, translated by Donald Winkler. And we welcome Michael Prior as Signal Editions poetry editor! Plus, congrats to Dimitri Nasrallah's Hotline for making it to Day 3 of CBC Canada Reads!

JANUARY NEWSLETTER (click for link)
We are thrilled to share the news that Dimitri Nasrallah's Hotline is a 2023 Canada Reads selection! His inspiring novel of perseverance will be championed by bhangra dancer, artist and educator Gurdeep Pandher during the great Canadian book debate held from March 27-30 on CBC TV, CBC Radio and CBC Books. Congratulations to all the finalists! Baharan Baniahmadi's allegorial novel Prophetess is the Toronto International Festival of Author's virtual book club selection for the March 8, 2023 session. Plus poetry readings: Kaie Kellough and Tawhida Tanya Evanson in Montreal and John Barton on Salt Spring Island!

DECEMBER NEWSLETTER (click for link)
Our Holiday Gift Guide is here! A short but sweet selection of Véhicule's bestsellers, award-winners, the ever-popular Montreal photo collection History Through Our Eyes and, for the vintage pulp fan, the latest Ricochet bundle! And if you're already looking ahead to spring, check out our Spring 2023 catalogue!NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER (click for link)
Congratulations! Iranian-Canadian author and actor Baharan Baniahmadi's Prophetess won the 2022 Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction at the Quebec Writers' Federation Literary Awards! Tawhida Tanya Evanson won the 2022 Blue Metropolis/ Conseil des arts de Montréal New Contribution Literary Prize for her novel Book of Wings! Véhicule will be at the Salon du livre de Montrél at booth #725 with the AELAQ and participating in several events and panels. And the Fall 2022 Montreal Review of Books is online chock-full of reviews and features!
Discover

Click here to see Kaie Kellough read from his QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Award winning book Dominoes at the Crossroads

Click here to listen to Rosalind Pepall's interview on CBC's All in a Weekend about Talking to a Portrait: Tales of an Art Curator.

In Periodicities’ fifth series of videos, Sadiqa de Meijer reads a few poems from her new book, The Outer Wards. Click here

Read “The Silence of A.M. Klein,” an incisive essay by our editor Carmine Starnino in the April issue of The New Criterion.



SODEC, Québec  Canada Council for the Arts Canadian Heritage
The Canada Council
Véhicule Press acknowledges the generous support of its publishing program from the Book Publishing Industry Development Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage, The Canada Council for the Arts, and the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles du Québec (SODEC).