The Island in Winter (Véhicule Press, 1999)
Finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry
The Island in Winter is Terence Young's fresh and broad take on the universe. With a wry sense of humour he chronicles his childhood, family, marriage and dreams. He explores the natural and symbolic landscape with a depth of vision that is surprising in a first book. --- Vehicle Press. The Island in Winter is a solid collection of poetry by Terence Young, whose subjects candidly explore family, fatherhood, and marriage, and are haunting with their honesty. The strong sense of narrative pulls the reader through several poems, and this same strength provides a satisfying union for the collection as a whole. --- Canadian Literature (Read reviews here.)
The Island in Winter is Terence Young's fresh and broad take on the universe. With a wry sense of humour he chronicles his childhood, family, marriage and dreams. He explores the natural and symbolic landscape with a depth of vision that is surprising in a first book. --- Vehicle Press. The Island in Winter is a solid collection of poetry by Terence Young, whose subjects candidly explore family, fatherhood, and marriage, and are haunting with their honesty. The strong sense of narrative pulls the reader through several poems, and this same strength provides a satisfying union for the collection as a whole. --- Canadian Literature (Read reviews here.)
Rhymes With Useless (Raincoast Books, 2000)
Finalist for the Danuta Gleed Short Story Prize
In these 13 stories Terence Young pulls into focus the characters and mannerisms of that hapless institution--the modern family. Simultaneously warm and chilling, Young's people shuffle between a muffled, confusing present and the laser-sharp dreamscape of memory: a man named Eustace (rhymes with useless) recalls getting his hair cut by Joni Mitchell; a single father obsesses about an impending bee invasion; a teacher testifies against colleagues accused of pedophilia; a German boy seeks vengeance against his wheelchair-bound father; a professor is credited with encouraging a former student's sex change. Young catches people squirming in all too human weakness, but he also, compassionately, suggests a way to atone. Rhymes with Useless counters regret with forgiveness, suppressed desires with unleashed lust and dislocation with homecoming. (Read reviews here.)
In these 13 stories Terence Young pulls into focus the characters and mannerisms of that hapless institution--the modern family. Simultaneously warm and chilling, Young's people shuffle between a muffled, confusing present and the laser-sharp dreamscape of memory: a man named Eustace (rhymes with useless) recalls getting his hair cut by Joni Mitchell; a single father obsesses about an impending bee invasion; a teacher testifies against colleagues accused of pedophilia; a German boy seeks vengeance against his wheelchair-bound father; a professor is credited with encouraging a former student's sex change. Young catches people squirming in all too human weakness, but he also, compassionately, suggests a way to atone. Rhymes with Useless counters regret with forgiveness, suppressed desires with unleashed lust and dislocation with homecoming. (Read reviews here.)
After Goodlake's (Raincoast Books, 2004)
Winner: City of Victoria Butler Book Prize, 2007
In a novel that reads like a cross between a male Anne Tyler and a West Coast Jonathan Franzen, Terence Young tunnels deep into the dark heart of the Goodlake family. The story centres around Fergus, the owner of the venerable family business, Goodlake’s Deli. Although happily married, Fergus is having an affair--a relationship that starts out carefree but eventually, like a slow-building earthquake, cracks the foundations of everything in his life. Young shows us how Fergus’ resulting crisis is by turns humorous, tragic and epic, involving not only his own story but also the story of generations in a family, a respected business, a town and the people who populate it. (Read reviews here.)
In a novel that reads like a cross between a male Anne Tyler and a West Coast Jonathan Franzen, Terence Young tunnels deep into the dark heart of the Goodlake family. The story centres around Fergus, the owner of the venerable family business, Goodlake’s Deli. Although happily married, Fergus is having an affair--a relationship that starts out carefree but eventually, like a slow-building earthquake, cracks the foundations of everything in his life. Young shows us how Fergus’ resulting crisis is by turns humorous, tragic and epic, involving not only his own story but also the story of generations in a family, a respected business, a town and the people who populate it. (Read reviews here.)
Moving Day (Signature Editions, 2006)
Finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and The City of Victoria Butler Book Prize
In Moving Day, his impressive second collection of poetry, Terence Young bookends the fantastical with a series of lingering glances into his rear-view mirror and a few knowing observations on the journey so far. His subjects are those of every day: love, marriage, children, the inevitability of change. Some poems touch on the dreamy qualities of memory, its tendency to slip into the magical, and still others turn a quirky eye onto child-rearing, education, home repair. In Young's spirited poetry, the world can be both a dear and deceptive place. His is a landscape of conjecture about what is really going on, about the kind of doubt that is at its strongest when we first wake up and our dreams are still with us. In his world, an ordinary house can rise from its foundations and float over the horizon, taking its awe-struck, astonished occupants with it. (Read reviews here.)
In Moving Day, his impressive second collection of poetry, Terence Young bookends the fantastical with a series of lingering glances into his rear-view mirror and a few knowing observations on the journey so far. His subjects are those of every day: love, marriage, children, the inevitability of change. Some poems touch on the dreamy qualities of memory, its tendency to slip into the magical, and still others turn a quirky eye onto child-rearing, education, home repair. In Young's spirited poetry, the world can be both a dear and deceptive place. His is a landscape of conjecture about what is really going on, about the kind of doubt that is at its strongest when we first wake up and our dreams are still with us. In his world, an ordinary house can rise from its foundations and float over the horizon, taking its awe-struck, astonished occupants with it. (Read reviews here.)
The End of the Ice Age (Biblioasis, 2010)
Terence Young’s second collection of short fiction, The End of the Ice Age, brings together thirteen tales of hardscrabble characters in their lonely orbits. Young’s writing is unadorned and precise, yet witty and unsentimental, and of striking psychological precision. These are stories of unfulfilled expectations, of infidelities – of the body and the mind and conscience – and the small though ultimately meaningful victories that allow us to withstand those greater losses. This could be Carver territory or Dennis Johnson country if it was not so obviously Young’s own world: bleak and dark, though ultimately moving and memorable: these are stories which will linger with you for a long time. (Read reviews here.)
Smithereens (Harbour Publishing, 2021)
In Smithereens, Terence Young ranges widely among forms, subjects, tones and moods, invoking the domestic world
of family and home, as well as the associated realms of work and play. He describes the simple pleasure of losing one’s
bearings and seeing the world anew in “Tender is the Night,” and in “The Bear” he records the near-magical appearance
at a summer cabin of a creature that hasn’t been seen in the area in over fifty years. The ironic benefits of a house fire,
the late-night sounds of a downtown alley, the smells of a summer morning in the Gulf islands—all of these serve as
vehicles for reminiscence, meditation and humour. Elsewhere in the collection, he summons an elegiac mood,
remembering in poems like “Surcease,” “Fern Island Candle,” “The Morning Mike Dies,” and “Gary” some of the friends
who have left his world. More than any of his previous books, though, Smithereens features poems that are playful, in which language is often associative, surprising and fun. It is a collection that will reward readers, whatever their temperament upon picking it up, and it will also invite them to return to its pages again and again.
of family and home, as well as the associated realms of work and play. He describes the simple pleasure of losing one’s
bearings and seeing the world anew in “Tender is the Night,” and in “The Bear” he records the near-magical appearance
at a summer cabin of a creature that hasn’t been seen in the area in over fifty years. The ironic benefits of a house fire,
the late-night sounds of a downtown alley, the smells of a summer morning in the Gulf islands—all of these serve as
vehicles for reminiscence, meditation and humour. Elsewhere in the collection, he summons an elegiac mood,
remembering in poems like “Surcease,” “Fern Island Candle,” “The Morning Mike Dies,” and “Gary” some of the friends
who have left his world. More than any of his previous books, though, Smithereens features poems that are playful, in which language is often associative, surprising and fun. It is a collection that will reward readers, whatever their temperament upon picking it up, and it will also invite them to return to its pages again and again.