Loading…

love in a dry land

by Dennis Cooley

love in a dry land is an absolute delight.

Pale Grey dot

by Don Miasek

[A] cracking fusion of cyberpunk and space opera!

A Road Map for Finding Wild Horses

by Trisia Eddy Woods

[E]xactly what the world needs right now.

The Twistical Nature of Spoons

by Patti Grayson

A chance encounter. A family secret. Lives bound together and torn apart.

Bounty

by Jason Pchajek

In the future all will be steel and sun!

  • 0
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
Once Removed

Once Removed

ISBN: 9780888017093
$21.95

Timothy Heppner is a frustrated ghostwriter struggling to make ends meet in Edenfeld, a small Mennonite community bulldozing its way towards modernity—if it’s old, it has to go!

A member of the Preservation Society but desperate to keep his job with the mayor’s Parks and “Wreck” department, Timothy finds himself in an awkward position when he is hired to write an updated version of the town’s history book. Fuelled by warring loyalties, the threat of personal bankruptcy, and a good deal of fried bologna, Timothy must find his own voice to tell the one story that could make—or break—him.

Honest and laugh-out-loud funny, Once Removed explores the real costs of “progress” in this new Canadian classic.

Awards and Honours
  • Winner of the 2021 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book
  • Shortlisted for the Margaret McWilliams Award - Popular History

Praise

An affectionate pastiche of small-town Mennonite life, replete with duty, folly, irreverence, and joy.

—David Bergen

Hilarious as Schitt's Creek, sinister as Hitchcock, Once Removed gives us Timothy Heppner, the quintessential non-resistant Mennonite, in a comic tour de force that exposes the friction between progress and preservation, ethnic pride and ethnic embarrassment, commerce and heritage, truth and boosterism, and the coercion and acquiescence that is as real to the big city as to a small town.

-Armin Wiebe, Grandmother Laughing


Book Club Questions

1. Discuss the possible meaning(s) behind the title Once Removed.

2. Describe Timothy as a character. What are his strengths/weaknesses in light of the various challenges he faces throughout the book? What motivates him? What is his relationship with authority?

3. Describe what Edenfeld was like before BLT Wiens became mayor. What is it like now under BLT’s reign?

4. What does “progress” look like in your community? Does it come at the expense of the community’s history or is there a balance between the new and old? Is a “balance” even necessary? Why or why not?

5. Are there are specific buildings in your community that you’d like the see preserved in some way, and why?

6. How important/necessary do you think “progress” and “growth” are for rural communities?

7. Timothy’s ghostwriting projects are primarily those that record family histories. How important do you think it is to have this kind of information in writing? What other forms do family histories take? What form do they take in your own family?

8. References to food and baking abound throughout the novel. What role does food play in the culture of Edenfeld?

9. Randall has an obsession with Russian culture based on his understanding of the Mennonite diaspora of the 19th and early 20th century. Why do you think that is? What drives people to possess a fixation on our “roots”?

10. What function do the rumours about Elsie Dyck play in the psyches of Edenfeld’s residents?

11. Describe the novel’s attitude towards religion.

12. How does the use of satire throughout the novel shape your impression of Edenfeld, its residents, and the cultural standards?

13. On page 52-53, Timothy remarks: “Moving to the city is so twentieth century... Who would I be in the city? Just another hayseed from the country trying to seek fame and fortune on Henderson Highway.” Do you think it’s better to be a big fish in a little pond, or a little fish in a big pond?

  • 14. Timothy and Katie seem to enjoy a relatively harmonious marriage. What is it about their marriage that makes it “work”? What do you think are the keys to a successful marriage

Latest News

My Studio: Don Miasek

My Studio: Don Miasek

More details
3-2-1 Launch Interview: Don Miasek launches Pale Grey Dot

3-2-1 Launch Interview: Don Miasek launches Pale Grey Dot

More details
Quatrain Questions: Alice Major

Quatrain Questions: Alice Major

More details
In the Works: New Memoir by Daria Salamon & Rob Krause

In the Works: New Memoir by Daria Salamon & Rob Krause

More details

birdball500pxTurnstone Press Ltd.

206-100 Arthur Street

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

R3B 1H3

Newsletter

Thanks to our Funders

CCFA 28px

GovMB Logo28px

MAC 28px

wordmark Canada28px

Log in or Sign up