Martin Sloane - Softcover

When Martin Sloane, Toronto poet and playwright Michael Redhill's first novel, appeared in Canada, it made headlines for its decade-long gestation through 12 complete drafts. In an age when many blockbuster novels read as though they never saw an editor's pencil, Redhill's stamina and ruthless self-appraisal were enough to make him newsworthy. But all that attention to its composition raises a basic question about the book itself: was Martin Sloane worth all the effort? As it turns out, Redhill's debut is an intense, poetic evocation of the experience of time and place and the personality of a fictional Irish-Canadian collage artist, Martin Sloane, whose work, if not his life, resembles the nostalgic boxes built by the real-life artist Joseph Cornell. Told in the voice of his abandoned lover Jolene Iolas, the story explores the connection between Sloane's life and his art. Iolas, who had a relationship with the older Sloane in her youth, ends up following the cold trail of his life back to Dublin, where he lived as a boy before he was exiled by illness and first began to pack up his life in little boxes. Redhill has created a powerful meditation on life and memory, his work as a poet standing him in good stead. Even if some of the characters are not quite fully realised and the narrative transitions are at times a little rough, Martin Sloane proves that hard work pays off. Long live revision.--Robyn Gillam

"Martin Sloane is a deeply moving first novel that reveals human truths with grace and humour. Michael Redhill's portrait of the artist and the magnetic influence on those around him is profound and full of affection. It is a book of constant surprises." --Michael Ondaatje

"A complex and...satisfying novel. Redhill is a very good writer, with a wide-ranging mind and an elegant turn of phrase. He has a keen eye for physical and emotional detail, and he's housed his mystery in an engaging narrative structure...This is an engaging read, and a polished first time out for this poet turned novelist." --Bill Richardson, Quill & Quire

"Redhill's language is masterful; imagery and metaphor rise organically out of each event and picture...The pacing of his writing is marvellous, and conscious of the heaviness of history...Mild and beautiful on the surface, Martin Sloane has explosives buried quietly in its emotional landscape...Martin Sloane is a subtle and intimate novel that warns us how grey and empty life becomes when we settle for bad copies, for unsatisfying imitations of real things." --Globe and Mail

"Michael Redhill has laboured on a novel...since 1991 -- some 12 complete drafts. Virtue is rewarded with the appearance of Redhill's Martin Sloane." --Toronto Star

"I read a superb novel yesterday, the kind that makes you lousy company for hours afterwards -- because you want to mull over its details rather than be social, because you prefer its world to the one that, at dinner, you suddenly find yourself contending with. The novel is Martin Sloane...[I]f you care about voice, if you want to read a good novel more than about its author, then you'll want to read this book...The work that resulted from all [Redhill's] toil fills me with respect. This is an adult book -- one that shows the maturity of proper incubation. It is accomplished, considered, polished -- a novel of depth and many aspects. Martin Sloane makes you realize just how thin and fleeting most of what passes for good fiction is. Bravo, then, to Michael Redhill, the man who waited -- and who set his own high standards." --Noah Richler, National Post

"For a first novel...Martin Sloane is remarkably assured...Redhill's years of effort are apparent in more than his seamless prose. That craftsmanship, together with his understanding of his basoc human nature, allowed him to pull off a character like Jolene...What the book is about is a truth human beings are loath to admit, that in the end we are alone" --Brian Bethune, Maclean's

"This is the talent of the artist, to make us see what exists around the obvious. Escher did it with ink; Michael Redhill, Toronto writer, does too, in his way...[a] careful, accomplished novel." --Georgia Straight

"The prose is balanced and graceful. In a book about the creation and appreciation of simple, idiosyncratic and fragile art, the reader expects no less...A love for words and an editorial eye make for a story with all the riddles and unspoken intensity of a carefully designed poem. Or a wooden box with a doll inside...Martin Sloane is delicate and artful. Handle with care." --Todd Babiak, Edmonton Journal