In his debut novel, poet Ian Williams experiments with structure to tell a classic love story

BY SUZANNE ALYSSA ANDREW

RACHEL IDZERDA

CAN A NOVEL reproduce itself? That’s the puzzle Ian Williams tackled seven years ago, when he began writing his debut novel. Reproduction (Random House Canada) is about Felicia and Edgar: the two characters meet in a hospital and go on to create an unconventional family. It’s a story about love and loss, and the novel’s structure plays with the titular concept.

Although he’s earned a reputation as a poet – including shortlist nods for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Award for his collection Personals – and teaches poetry as an assistant professor in the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia, Williams is no stranger to fiction. He won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award in 2011 for his short-story collection, Not Anyone’s Anything. His prose is often compared to Zadie Smith’s for its intelligence and cross-cultural fluency.