I don’t usually review fiction in this space, but this week I’m making an exception. 

The University of King’s College Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Nonfiction has, to date, produced more than 50 published authors of creative nonfiction, most of which are listed here. Assuming each cohort comprises about 20 talented and experienced writers, as did the inaugural class of which I was a very lucky member, that means about a quarter of us have had the good fortune to hold a copy of our published work in our hands—an amazing success rate. 

Sadly, that means three-quarters of us are either still searching for a publisher (read excerpts of my as-yet-unpublished manuscript here) or, alas, have moved on. But moving on often leads to other successes. Starlit Simon, a member of the inaugural class, is working on her PhD as well as perfecting the traditional Indigenous craft of porcupine quill art. Moira Dann (class of 2016), whose MFA project about the mothers of confederation sounded fascinating to me, went on the publish Craigdarroch Castle in 21 Treasures (which I’ll write about for BC Day in August) and more recently Fat Camp Summer: Advice I Would Have Given My Parents. And Richard Levangie, another member of the inaugural cohort (class of 2015), went on to write the excellent middle-grade YA novel, Secrets of the Hotel Maisonneuve (Nevermore Press, 2020). 

Hotel Maisonneuve focuses on 13-year-old Jacob Jollimore, who is having the worst summer of his life. Then he finds a 100-year-old letter hidden in a bureau in the Edwardian hotel his parents are renovating, which sends him on a treasure hunt that would challenge even the great Sherlock Holmes. It’s a great plot, and I have no idea how Richard thought up the incredible puzzle clues.

But that’s not all that makes it a worthwhile read. Richard’s writing, replete with references to books like Lord of the Rings, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The King of Attolia, is also full of clever imagery, like “the minutes dripped by like a leaky faucet,” “paint stripper oozing from his pores,” and “[her] bruises were as purple as pansies.” The book even includes a haiku:

Jacob was so intent that he forgot where he was. An ancient woman crashed into his cart with almost-lethal force, but she didn’t apologize. No wonder everything was so heavily dented. Jacob decided to pay closer attention before someone sent him flying into the. Mangoes where he’d die a quick but horrible death, buried under hundreds of pounds of hard green fruit. 

Maybe that would be his epitaph. He composed a haiku.

Here rests the fool who

Could not solve hard puzzles

Crushed by rock-like fruit.

Not bad, but it needed work. 

One of the things I admire most about Richard is his ability to move on, not just from the creative nonfiction project he worked on for his MFA, but in life. As he writes about himself:

If I couldn’t be a hockey player in the NHL, I wanted to be a doctor. But when I was studying to be a doctor, I realized that what I really wanted to do was tell stories. As a journalist, it started with artists and artisans, and with food and wine, but then real life intervened in the form of a rare brain tumour that knocked me flat. For nearly two decades, I wrote nothing worthy.

When an unexpected respite from the pain took hold in 2012, two novels sprang into my head, waiting for me to write them. I cherished this rare gift, for it felt like Divine Intervention into a life that had forgotten what it was like be alive. I believe that the stories we tell offer us a chance to truly understand ourselves, and come to understand each other. It is a sacred gift, and I feel blessed. 

Not surprisingly, Richard recently inked a deal for his second novel, this time an adult fantasy called Red Tiger. Read an excerpt on his website. I have no doubt it will do well.

Other books to come from grads of the class of 2015:

Run, Hide, Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood, by Pauline Dakin.  

Just Jen: Thriving Through Multiple Sclerosis, by Jen Powley.

Fifteen Thousand Pieces: A Medical Examiner’s Journey Through Disaster, by Gina Leola Woolsey.

The Girl in the Woods, by Stacey May Fowles.*

(*This book was published, but it appears to have been pulled from sale.)

And coming soon:

No Such Thing: A True Story of “mild” Traumatic Brain Injury and My Twenty-Year (so far) Recovery, by Lynne Melcombe.