Downriver

Kelly’s prose memoir and his short story not only have the authentic feel for childhood and all its arbitrary shaping family forces, but a true feeling for the neighbourhoods in which he was born and raised.

We are born with the impermanence of our mortal frailty: The writer, the poet or storyteller, would speak beyond the grave, and he would speak about his mortal frailty to tell his readers, as M.T. Kelly does here, not only of the sorrow of impermanence but of the joys beyond our frailty.

“He gives much of cruelty and violation a compelling force.” —Canadian Book Review Annual

“Kelly’s passion brings him close to love.” —Globe and Mail