Ah, Fall. With leisurely, cool days and cosy evenings spent curled up with a good book. Joanne Bury, a Redbridge resident and author of the award-winning A Parent’s Perspective column in the early 90s, a former NDP candidate and an alumnus of York University’s department of theatre, reviews a few books she thinks are worth your time. Go local with your literary appetite and try one of these tomes on for size.

Ex-Cottagers in Love
Author J.M. Kearns has much in common with David Moore, the central character of his first novel ex-Cottagers in Love. Kearns grew up in Guelph while Moore grew up in Calvan, a city that reminded me of Guelph.
Both Kearns and Moore live and work in the US, in the case of Moore it’s as a paralegal at a huge law fi rm in Los Angeles. Both write and sing their own songs with author Kearns living and working at it in Nashville and Moore, having lost out on that dream as a living, still trying to fi nd how to effectively market his songs on cassette.
In ex-Cottagers in Love, David Moore and his three siblings grew up with a family cottage. The novel is set in 1988, four years after the property was sold. David’s sister Susan is renting a cottage on the same island, and wants her brother and his girlfriend, co-worker Maggie, to join her family for a week. This will be everyone’s fi rst trip back since selling the old cottage, and the American Maggie’s first-ever trip to a cottage.
After the cottage visit, things start to unravel —then David’s father has a stroke. He regains his power of speech and the family gathers. While all this is going on, David’s nephew George, a preacher’s kid, leaves the jocks and starts to hang out with a classmate who’s into more diverse adolescent behaviour. Sibling angst about the selling of the cottage weaves through the narrative. In the end, the old man doesn’t make it and George runs back to the cottage, stealing a canoe — which happens to be the old family canoe stolen during their cottage visit — for the last leg.
I don’t want to say much more about how the story is resolved. There are several other plot lines but it is George and his story that, to me, are most disturbing. He is either the victim of supreme stupidity or senseless violence — the likes of which has no place in Muskoka. I know bad things happen to people everywhere, but this level of violence reminds me more of an American murder mystery.
My girls went to school with Bracebridge boys for several years, and knew many more socially. I can’t imagine any of them capable of this behaviour. Having the father of one of the Bracebridge ‘bad boys’ drive to Calvan to apologize to George’s family is just goofy.
This book reminds me of Gilles Blunt’s novels. They take place in Algonquin Bay, which is North Bay. He has also been living and writing in the States for years and the level of violence in his books, set in the present, is really off-putting. Maybe that’s just me.
As a cottage read, I imagine other cottagers or ex-cottagers will enjoy diving into this book. Those of us who have raised children in a Muskoka town will recognize the ‘urban cottager’ attitude to Muskoka in this book. It felt very familiar to me.
Key Porter Books, paperback, $19.95

Napoleon’s Everyday Gourmet Cooking
On Saturday mornings, I attend the “church of fi shing” – a series of fi shing shows from 6:30 to 10:30 a.m. The last show is Fishing the Flats and it always ends with a fi sh dish created and barbecued by Ted Reader. He leaves me wanting barbecue.
Now, thanks to Napoleon’s Everyday Gourmet Cooking, I can try and do at home some of what he does on TV. I have only had this cookbook a short time, so I’ll admit I’ve just skimmed the surface. But, I’m so excited. Reader has included everything I need to try and match his feats.
He starts with the recipes for his rubs, marinades and barbecue sauces. The following 13 chapters are fi lled with recipes using all these wonderful fl avors. I live at the cottage year-round and we barbecue a lot. I’m going to be keeping Ted Reader close at hand for the next few months and try one or two meals a week. And, I’ll keep watching on Saturday mornings. Napoleon’s Everyday Gourmet Cooking
Key Porter Books, hardcover, $40