Home and Other Hiding Places by Jack Ellis

Ultimo Press, $32.99 pb, 311 pp

I have said this already in a recent review, but it is a special kind of novelist who can write about young characters yet still engage the adult reader. It’s also a special book that can handle the burden of what cover quotes are fond of labelling ‘warm-hearted’ or ‘big-hearted’ fiction. To me, such descriptions usually mean the kiss of death for credibility, but warm-heartedness is exactly what Jack Ellis’s Home and Other Hiding Places delivers, without lapsing into sentimentality.