Notwithstanding the reference to Pluto in the title, this novel is NOT speculative fiction. It is the debut literary novel of fellow Montréaler Christopher DiRaddo.

One of the things that I never predicted about becoming a writer was that I would end up having less time and mental energy to read. Reading has been one of my great loves since I was a small child. After launching my own first novel — Cycling to Asylum — this spring, I figured that I would now have more time to read again. I was sadly mistaken. Not only don’t I have time to read, I hardly have time to write! It’s just marketing, marketing, marketing. This is especially a shame because I am more aware now of the literary world and keep hearing about great new novels that are coming out. One of those novels was The Geography of Pluto.

My review of The Geography of Pluto was published in the online supplement to Matrix Magazine. I will give you the first paragraph as a teaser, but you can read the rest on their site:

The Geography of Pluto by Christopher DiRaddo
Cormorant Books (2014)

Read by Su J. Sokol

The surface terrain of The Geography of Pluto, Christopher DiRaddo’s debut novel, is a deceptively familiar landscape. Will, the main character, is gay, Italian, a geography teacher, and the only son of a devoted mother. He seeks connection in his life, suffers loss, and gains understanding of himself and the world. We even have a kind of “boy meets boy, boy loses boy, boy finds boy” plot device.

Yet, despite these ordinary trappings, this is not your run-of-the mill novel….

Read the rest here.