Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Full comments from the Oneline Reviews

Monday, September 5th, 2011

“This book changed me.

What’s so great about it? Well, it left me in tears, and kept me entranced for several hours while I greedily plowed through it. It’s the most unique thing I’ve ever read, and calling it a novel somehow seems wrong. It’s not structured like a novel, it doesn’t start or end like a novel. It starts rather slowly, actually, and when I went to pass on my tattered and tearstained copy to my partner, I almost wanted to tell him not to read the Prologue. Not because it’s poorly written or anything like that, but because it’s ‘normal’, and unlike the rest of the book. It’s written with a voice that’s simple and gentle, just a man talking about a girl he used to know.

Once you’re through the Prologue and start your journey through The Plight House, there’s no turning back. Don’t read this if you have to be somewhere, if you don’t have time to just give it the undivided attention it deserves. It’s like a guided meditation, it’s like a lucid dream primer, and it’s like a nightmare.

And it’s wonderful. Hrivnak has such a beautiful command of the language, and is undeterred in his creation of The Plight House. Some passages cause you to sink, like entering the ocean with your clothes on. Others are hopeful and uplifting, carrying the reader to heights of imagination and love. This book requires your cerebral and spiritual participation. Once you’ve read it, you will want to give it to anyone you love. Simply flawless.”

— THE ONELINE REVIEWS

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The Plight House on the Oneline Review website

Sunday, February 6th, 2011

“The writing unlikely & unique, bizarre with soft exposure strangeness, a zenith of literary bliss; Can-Lit is changed.”

— THE ONELINE REVIEWS

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“Inspiration for the rest of us”

Monday, January 10th, 2011

Blogger Carrie Carm has included The Plight House in her Monday column, Inspiration for the rest of us.

“This week’s inspiration is grief and strange beauty: Jason Hrivnak’s The Plight House, a stunning, deadly book. It’s just so sad and odd and gorgeous.

It is even pleasing as a physical object, all by itself. Published by Pedlar Press out of Toronto and with cover art by Tom Poirier — the book’s official website banner shows it off — it has high-quality, laid paper (with visible chain lines), and the layout of the book leaves plenty of negative space: a book design success.

The content itself is divine.”

— CARRIE CARM

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Dennis Cooper ♥ The Plight House

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

Dennis Cooper, author of transgressive classics Closer and Frisk, has included The Plight House (alongside works by Jean-Christophe Valtat and Pascal Quignard) in his recent blog entry “Three books I read recently and loved”.

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The Plight House featured at Blackberry Books

Monday, April 26th, 2010

“With this novel, Jason Hrivnak will reach inside you and pull your heart out. The unnamed narrator takes us on a deeply personal journey after learning of the suicide of his childhood best friend. This doesn’t read like a typical novel and therein lies its strength — Hrivnak doesn’t follow conventions of style or narrative and this allows him to reach new depths and heights of despair, hope, passion and pain.”

— MARY-ANN

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Globe and Mail review

Friday, March 5th, 2010

“Hrivnak succinctly posits a triple-barrelled theme: grief bound tightly with innocence and guilt … [He] is an elegant and often incisive prose stylist, skilled at image-making and intent on exploring difficult questions of personal and societal responsibility.”

— JIM BARTLEY

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Review on Dead Clothes Sing

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

“Heartbreak, horror, and impossibly brutal choices may all be yours in The Plight House. This first novel by Jason Hrivnak is like nothing I’ve ever read, and still troubles me.”

— CREFFIELD

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Lynn Crosbie review

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

“First Rule of The Plight House: everyone talk about The Plight House. Hrivnak writes like a crazy angel in this addictive, astonishing debut.”

— LYNN CROSBIE

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