Lenore Rowntree has followed her brilliant but almost entirely unnoticed linked collection, Dovetail Joint and other stories (Quadra Books 2015) with a first novel, Cluck (Thistledown $19.95), in which we follow the life of a socially awkward man, Henry, as he attempts to navigate through Kitsilano burdened by his mother's bipolar illness and his own sexual repression. He's a radio junkie, an obsessive romantic and a chronic outsider. It was a finalist in The Great BC Novel Contest. Her play The Woods at Tender Creek was produced at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre in 2010. Her short stories and poetry have been published in several Canadian literary journals; her poetry was included in the anthology Best Canadian Poetry 2010.

In Rowntree’s third book of fiction, See You Later Maybe Never (Now or Never Publishing $19.95) a childless woman, Vanessa, nearing sixty confronts her past, unsuccessful love life and being forced out of her high fashion career. Vanessa leaves Toronto for a retreat to a holistic campus. She recalls playing as a young girl while her parents’ marriage disintegrated, crushes she had at school and secretly falling for one of her students as a young teacher in training. Eventually, Vanessa connects with her 103-year-old Aunt Marion who continues to find ways to make life more interesting. There’s disappointment, fun, humour and intelligence in this look at what it means to be seen as “old.”

Rowntree grew up in Toronto, then moved to Vancouver where she practiced law, and taught at the university and high school level. She began painting and exhibiting in the 1990s.

BOOKS:

Hidden Lives: Coming Out on Mental Illness (Brindle & Glass, 2012) co-editor with Andrew Boden. Foreword by Gabor Mate, MD. $24.95 978-1-926972-96-1

Dovetail Joint and other stories (Quadra Books, 2015)

Cluck (Thistledown, 2016) $19.95 978-1-77187-108-2

See You Later Maybe Never (Now or Never Publishing, 2022) $19.95  9781989689400

[BCBW 2022]