News/New Releases
Suburban Pornography and Other Stories
By Matthew Firth
Front&Centre co-editor and Black Bile Press founder Matthew Firth’s new book – Suburban Pornography and Other Stories – was published in October 2006. Positive reviews and praise have flooded in. To get caught up, check out the stuff below. You can buy Suburban Pornography in just about in any bookstore in Canada and order it elsewhere. Buy it and read it and find out if there is any substance to the rumour Firth is Canada’s answer to Charles Bukowski …
Review Excerpts
Starred review in the January/February 2007 Quill & Quire.
“The 17 stories in Suburban Pornography take a blowtorch to Canadian literature … Firth does what so few Canadian writers even attempt: he writes bravely about the way we live now, and for that he should be congratulated.”
Fiction book of the issue – broken pencil No. 34, Winter 2007
"Hard, gritty writing … No pretension, no bullshit.”
Praise in November/December 2006 This Magazine.
“Firth’s goal as a writer, it seems, is not to titillate so much as to unsettle.”
The Ottawa Citizen says:
"Firth's characters are often broken, working class folks who have very little to grab at in life except a dream — often that dream may not be more than casual sex or a case of beer."
Full reviews:
The Danforth Review
“Firth’s narratives of Canadian inner-city dwellers, low-end job workers and drifting men are darker, harder, perhaps more perverse or at least more directly sexualized than arguably any other fiction in Canadian history.”
http://www.danforthreview.com/reviews/fiction/harvey&firth.htm
Now Magazine
“ham-fisted, brutalist fiction”
http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2007-01-11/books_reviews2.php
laurahird.com
“Firth is a master of dialogue and gives an authentic voice to all of his characters. Though the stories are dark and often depressing, they also contain humour and at times great pathos.”
http://www.laurahird.com/newreview/suburbanpornography.html
Ottawa Xpress
“brutally honest snapshots”
Feature article in Verbicide: “Catching Up With Canada’s Charles Bukowski”
Interview with Firth about his new book:
Link to publisher’s (Anvil Press) fiction section (scroll down for Sub Porn info):
