Books
Beside Still Waters
McArthur & Company, 2009
This is a passionate love story, with its roots in Toronto and its resolution in the dark heart of contemporary Africa. Adam Waters’ search for the woman he loves, who has mysteriously disappeared from their hotel room, takes him from the casinos of Puerto Rico to war-torn Gabon and a leper colony deep in the African bush. Counterpointing Adam’s quest are his memories from boyhood, and of his father, wandering jazzman Sweet Web Waters; his experiences as a war correspondent; and the girl who becomes his lover, dancer Gabrielle. Callaghan confronts the pure joy that can be in sexuality and the evil that is inherent in the nature of growth itself, by combining the excitement of an adventure story with the exuberant love of language.
“The writing is humane. With a tiny detail, in one well-crafted scene (he is a master short story writer after all) Callagan offers a window into the souls of the wounded, damaged, even slightly deranged characters.” –Globe and Mail
Between TrainsMcArthur & Company, 2007
In BETWEEN TRAINS, a collection of stories, Barry Callaghan’s characters include gangsters and princes of the church; murderous children and survivors of concentration camps; farmers yearning for the rapture and idle rich learning to be feckless; a blues singer and a soldier who is a sniper. Callaghan’s stories are told in that stillness that is like the stillness of the hour between trains.
“Good and evil resonate with unbearable intensity in this universe.”– Philip Marchand, Toronto Star
“These stories are pearls…BETWEEN TRAINS, with its implications of waiting, of anxiety, and of expectation, is just what we have been waiting to declare: that this is his best book.” –Austin Clarke
“Between Trains succeeds the old-fashioned way, the way of Sherwood Anderson and Hemingway - a coupling of skilled technique and earnest thematic intention that will never go out of style for as long as people care about superior literature.” - - Ray Robertson, Books in Canada
“As with Hemingway there are depths of emotion rolling between the deceptively simple surface of Callaghan’s prose…a master of the short story form working at the top of his game.” –Quill and Quire
“For one shining moment the world is restrung for the good and out of this comes a brilliance on the order of BETWEEN TRAINS.” –Leon Rooke
“Barry Callaghan writes better prose than anybody I know.” –Joe Fiorito, Toronto Star
“Callaghan’s story, the ‘Drei Alter Kockers’ is a story that the great Isaac Babel would have been proud to have written.” –Norman Snider, Dead Ringers
“Barry Callaghan is–among other things–one of those wild-eyed, depth-defying explorers of the underground.” –Margaret Atwood
Raise You Five: Essays and Encounters 1964-2004 Volume OneMcArthur & Company, 2005
RAISE YOU FIVE is periodic writing about the most complex ideas, rendered in prose of utter ease and clarity–prose from a man who believes all writing, at its best, whether it is a book review or meditation on evil, is a kind of storytelling, and that storytelling is what keeps it alive.
“Literary criticism and cultural history of the highest order.” –Globe and Mail
“Callaghan has got a distinct voice, an unerring intuitive feel. He’s got a sort of muscular ‘music’–an incantation that always means more than it says.” –Joyce Carol Oates
“If Morley Callagan was the first Canadian writer to achieve a measure of international recognition, it has been his son’s peculiar genius to carve our a path, both in life and in letters, utterly his own.” –Saturday Night
Raise You Ten: Essays and Encounters 1964-2004 Volume Two
McArthur & Company, 2006
Unflinching before the harsh complexities of our time, RAISE YOU TEN, like Raise You Rive, is, as trumpeted by the Globe and Mail — “Literary criticism and cultural history of a high order, in turn joyous, acerbic, celebratory.”
“[Callaghan] recognizes the elements of fiction in every situation, and never completely seperates literature from life.” –Globe and Mail
“Some of the most engaging writing of its kind to be found anywhere in English Canada…a collection to put your stake on.” Toronto Star
“One of Canada’s pre-eminent persons of letters.” –Quill and Quire
“Callaghan is a man for all genres–poetry, fiction, non-fiction, drama, and translation. An honest gambler, he admits to a fondness for cards and horses: poker face, bluff, trump shot and gallop keep his prose varied and interesting at every turn.” –Books in Canada
Barrelhouse Kings A MemoirMcArthur & Company, 1998
BARRELHOUSE KINGS is a memoir about growing up with the writer Morley Callaghan.
A Kiss is Still a Kiss and other storiesLittle, Brown Canada, 1996
“…truly a marvelous and remarkable book–a sure and splendid read.” –The Montreal Gazette
“The stories in A KISS IS STILL A KISS exhibit Callaghan’s readiness to take his place in the front rank of Canadian fiction…his best ever.” –Toronto Star
“The sensibility that Callaghan articulates…is borne out by the effortless, almost profligate beauty of (the stories’) surfaces, and by their emotional intelligence and accuracy.” –Globe & Mail
“Callaghan has a talent for strikingly lively prose; the stories are often both salty and sensual.” –Books in Canada
“A KISS IS STILL A KISS is well-conceived and wonderfully executed.” –The Ottawa Citizen
“Callaghan’s writing is saturated with images, unusual and vivid.” –St. John’s Evening Telegram
“A writer of sophistication and elegance.” –Kitchener-Waterloo Record
When Things Get WorstLittle, Brown Canada, 1993
“Finely crafted…rich in folklore and black humour.” –Globe & Mail
“A tour de force that defines a time and a place with language alone.” –William Kennedy
“…a poetically phrased novel.” –St. John’s Evening Telegram
“…a wild tale of murder, suicide, spiritual obsessions and grinding poverty.” –Toronto Star
“A wonderful portrait of lovers and losers, drawn with a kind of tender fury.” –Christopher Hope
“Callaghan celebrates and luxuriates in language.” –Ottwaw Citizen
The Way the Angel Spreads her WingsLester and Orpen, 1989
The Way the Angel Spreads Her Wings is a powerful love story–and a quest that has its beginnings in the streets of Toronto in the forties and leads into the heart of Africa. Adam Waters, searching for Gabrielle O’Leary, discovers along the way many unexpected thruths about himself, his childhood, and the woman he seeks.
“A superb celebration of language and the novel.” –Ottawa Citizen
“As surprising as it is almost frighteningly good.” –Toronto Star
“A powerful, heartfelt novel from ones of Canada’s most important writers.” –Kingston Whig Standard
“Can anyone want more from a novel?” –Josef Skvorecky
The Black Queen Stories1982
Fourteen tales about people–the sensual, ambiguous relationship of people to each other and the world they live in; resonant tales about men and women reaching out to each other in their loneliness.
“The Black Queen Stories is finely controlled work, shot through with notes of puzzling beauty and piercing sadness.” –Macleans
“Gritty textured with a bitter tang that refreshes where sweetness would cloy…Callaghan has the rare ability of expressing the feeling of the inarticulate majority.” –Toronto Star
“…a rich variety of stories.” –Winnipeg Free Press
“Callaghan explores the inner lives of a memorable assortment of Torontonians with wit, boldness and compassion. His ear for the spoken language is acute; his eye for the telling gesture, precise. The Black Queen Stories is a must for all who are interested in the finest of contemporary North American writing.” –Joyce Carol Oates
You can purchase Barry’s books online at Chapters or Amazon.