Reviews
"Reading Calder is to move through the world barefoot over asphalt, grass, sand and water. This is sensual, insightful writing."​
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Michael Turner, author of
Hard Core Logo
"In glittering language, Hannah Calder's Hester in Sunlight pulls readers through the thought patterns of a contemporary writer, of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and of his character Hester Prynne. Beautiful and fascinating, it's a wholly fresh take on The Scarlet Letter and its long reach. A book with a mind of its own."
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Alix Hawley, author of
All True Not a Lie in It
The Scarlet Letter...provides a kind of basis for Hester in Sunlight... But Calder moves far beyond a retelling or reinterpretation into metafiction territory by creating a self-conscious narrator who tells her own family story while imagining Hester’s life.
​The result is a profoundly complicated novel about writing novels, especially novels without plots.​
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Candace Fertile
The British Columbia Review
"Piranesi’s Figures explores the psychological ruins of at least two marriages and one attempt at child-rearing. Calder contorts novelistic conventions, sexual practices, and family dynamics."
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Jaiden Dembo
ABC Bookworld
"Daringly innovative story telling... Piranesi's Figures is a work of serious literary ambition and substantial achievement."
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Tom Sandborn,
The Vancouver Sun
"This book was a revelation...Piranesi's Figures is heavy on meta-narrative, to a lesser extent capital "S" Surrealism, also sex, and empathy for those who can't live easily in the world.... These are all brave things for a novel written and published in Canada in the 21st Century so far..."
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Patrik Sampler, author of
The Ocean Container and Naked Defiance.
The narrator’s personal revelations interweave with Hawthorne’s creation: they are immediate, interesting, and relatable; however, they demote Hester and Co. to subordinates of the writer and her anxiety. Strangely, when cleared of the weighty name in its title, Hester in Sunlight feels unencumbered. And riveting as a result.​
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Josef Grubisic
Quill and Quire
"More House is a fusion, a collage, a bold endeavor of a literary work, a 'new' novel if you like."
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Anakana Schofield author of
Malarky and
Bina: A Novel in Warnings