In Bois’ novel, a man’s employment in an Ontario lumber mill takes him down a dark path.

Scott Douglas lives in Espanola, a small town with a depressed economy. He’s somewhat depressed, himself; he has a poor body image, drinks too much, and battles constantly with his wife, Pam. His life brightens when Scribbly Press offers him a four-novel contract and he also gets a job at Redwood Sawmill as a security guard. But when Pam and their young son, Jake, die in a car accident, Scott is left with nothing but his work life. At the sawmill, his main task is cleaning and making hourly checks on the furnace room, also known as the Konus. His co-workers include April Deville, who spends a night in Scott’s bed after a drunken night out, and Jean-Claude, who resembles an old rat and is the senior security guard. Jean-Claude is hated and feared for his write-ups, which often get employees fired. The bickering of millwright Bob Kovalchuk and apprentice Marty Burns initially seems comical but quickly turns sour. One day, Scott’s job takes an unexpected turn when he’s knocked unconscious and framed for a murder he didn’t commit, leading to a lengthy revenge plot. Bois develops the sawmill as an intriguing setting over the course of this novel. The narrative has several distractingly repetitive moments, however, as when Pam mulls over home expenses and then reiterates those same expenses in a letter. Banal dialogue often goes on for multiple pages without appreciably furthering the plot, and characters’ motivations are often unclear; for example, April very abruptly loses interest in Scott, and Jean-Claude comes off as either pure evil or as someone who merely wants extra shifts. Overall, Scott’s downward spiral might have been more compelling if his few good qualities, such as his love of writing and his relationship with his son, were better developed.

A novel with an offbeat setting, hampered by thinly written characters.

Bois’ poetry collection follows writers’ creative processes.

The book begins with a meditation on the trials of putting words to paper—an endeavor that involves “mining the human heart, / not once but numerous times” (So Long As the Words Come Through”). A speaker tells of how they disregard their subpar writings, trusting that “a near future piece / will cancel out the last” (“And That’s That”). In a Charles Bukowski–esque piece titled “Not a Damn Thing,” the speaker proclaims, “So long as I’ve got a drink, / Ink, and a loose leaf, / Muses seduce me profusely”; in other poems, speakers note that they neither “reminisce nor rewind” (“Take a Seat”) and have “words / for all regrets” (“Frets”). Writer’s block is rare for another speaker: “Over time he’s learned to accept rejection, not strive for perfection, and trust in the process he projects his voice with.” As the book progresses, Bois paints a picture of a washed-up divorced man who fantasizes about “an eternal menage a trois” (“Maybe It’s This Way?”). Near the end, a speaker seems to reach a place of acceptance, declaring, “Know this, nothing lasts forever. Nothing” (“Nothing Lasts”). Over the course of the book, Bois experiments with poem length and format, making for a varied reading experience, and the speakers’ ongoing wrestling matches with their muses may be relatable to other writers. The poems offer up occasional insights, such as “We must bring our own gamble to this thing called life. Without gamble, we are nothing but wandering ghosts.” However, the book is so self-referential that readers may struggle to connect with the various speakers; a series of self-congratulatory poems, for instance, read like imagined review blurbs. Others awkwardly state the obvious: “Recently jilted lovers often want a quick fix to put an end to their loneliness.” The use of the third-person perspective throughout further distances the speakers from the reader.

A set of highfalutin but sometimes-engaging works.

The new volume from Bois (Murdering the Third, 2015, etc.), a Canadian poet, lives up to its title; it comprises nearly 750 pages of lyrics, acrostic poetry, one-liners, and inspirational quotations.

Bois has a need to write—as a release from pain, as a distraction from “stressors” in life (so noted in a poem titled “Blessed Curse”), and as a means of shouting when real life accepts only quiet conversation. The short-lined, imaginative entries play with sound and enjoy puns. The speaker who deems himself a “crass and cocky word jockey,” for example, can rename his life “insurance” policy an “endurance” policy. The flip tone and slant rhymes can be fun, though rehashings of sexual urges become abrasive. Subtlety is lacking in many lines about the “wondrous play things” of women. “Oh labia majora, oh labia minora / You’re my life source; / the very driving force,” for one instance, falls short of an ode, despite the repeated exclamation and rhyme. “Surprise!” rehearses the same territory: “You were like a fun-filled surprise bag, / I was so wild-eyed that I began to drool.” A great deal of emotion does register in these pages, connecting to a handful of themes: the pulls of eros/thanatos, the domestications of married life, violence in narrative and language, and desire for literary recognition. A raging intensity seems, at times, to fuel writerly inspiration: “I’ll write with a passion so strong it extinguishes that which I hate.” The speaker, a self-proclaimed “word prick,” holds nothing back as he “shanks bodies of blank pages / Bleeds out black rivers.” In some of the later poems, words in all caps—expletives and others—insist that in poetry, everything is condoned and possible. Would that the quieter moments could resonate more noticeably, as in the haunting song of “The River: My Bride,” where the “black, watery tomb” is a “velvety friend.”

An overfull outpouring of unchecked verbiage.