Description:
From the medical history to family history, Histories reveals an ensemble of voices--wry, philosophical, and romantic. Sympathetic minimalist portraits of the sick and dying are rendered in these dramas, spoken between clinicians.
Brief description:
Andrew Steinmetz is the author of a memoir, Wardlife: The Apprenticeship of a Young Writer as a Hospital Clerk and two collections of poetry, Histories and Hurt Thyself. Steinmetz's work has been shortlisted for the Edna Staebler Award, the Quebec Writers Federation (QWF) First Book Award, the Mavis Gallant Prize for non-fiction, and the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry. Presently Steinmetz is the editor of Esplanade Books, the fiction imprint at Véhicule Press. He lives in Ottawa.
Review Quotes:
"Charged with emotional freight, Steinmetz delivers. Steinmetz is heroically attempting what so few of his contemporaries dare: a divorce from prosaic rhythms and a heated affair with untested syntax." -Jana Prikryl, Literary Review of Canada
"...here is another astonishing poet emerging from Montréal. Who knows where Steinmetz is going, but I know it's not on a second-hand bookshelf." -Julie Genet, Hour
"The clinical jargon of Steinmetz's "medical histories" yields effects that are waggishly eccentric and sometimes quite moving." -Carmine Starnino, Montreal Review of Books