Canadian author Liam Taliesin scores with his debut novel, Lithium Fire. In it, he develops a vision of Winnipeg, Canada in the year 1984. The Royal Albert Arms Hotel is the central setting in a seedy neighborhood in Winnipeg, a “dive now but had a reasonably comfortable bar which would be warm.” The worn-down hotel is itself a character that influences the novel’s human characters as well as providing them homes, jobs, and social interaction. It is the hub of a community of mostly creative, often troubled, misfits.
All the characters, ranging from art dealers, to desk clerks, waitresses, and barkeeps at the hotel, as well as an unusual stock of hotel customers and residents in Lithium Fire ring true to life, and the reader probably knows similar real-life folks. Scott Kostyk, a gallery owner and painter, is haunted by the fiery arson death of his ex-wife, but the tragedy invigorates his painting career. The eponymous Banjo Bob plays old folk songs on his banjo. The Bender family are brothers who perform illegal acts for fun and profit, including setting the fire that killed Kostiuk’s wife. Cowboy is the hotel’s front desk clerk, doorman, lobby manger, and bouncer who has more than a finger in the till. A Métis woman, Sarah Grant, is dealing with the sexual abuse of her eight-year-old daughter. These characters are trying to survive in a poverty-stricken, seedy neighbor that is sliding further into decline, all while dealing with significant other issues: addiction, racism, family trauma, sexual abuse, and mental health issues.
The prose is tight but with many well-constructed lines that I had to highlight such as “Punks swaggered around the pool table brandishing cue sticks like erections” and “Kostyk woke with a bad case of cubism”. While I have never been to Winnipeg, the descriptions seem accurate to me and certainly capture the essence of a particular time and place—even the bone-chilling winter cold.
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Lithium Fire (Bookland Press Inc., February 15, 2024) is available through:
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