Review of Notes for Monday

"McBeath’s story is a deceptively easy read. It’s witty, it’s caustic and, at 102 pages, it can be read in a single sitting. At the centre, however, are the big topics: aging, Alzheimer’s, and the contradictions of an honourable man with a very big mouth. These are things Howard knows about personally."

Kim Suvan, Fast Forward, April 1, 2010

Sardonic, wickedly funny and oddly poignant, Notes for Monday is a tragic-comedy in the tradition of King Lear. Against the frenzy of the ’88 winter Olympics and his sports obsessed wife’s dementia, the former king of corporate law, seventy-five-year-old Tommy McBeath, prepares for his five-minute exit speech from the domain he used to rule. Poised between corporate irrelevance and profound changes in his private life, McBeath turns his iconoclastic eye onto the changing world around him and his own shifting place in it.

Roberta Rees, author of Long After Fathers

"Set during Calgary’s heady days as host of the 1988 Winter Olympics, Barb Howard’s Notes for Monday has the feel of a time capsule. So does her portrayal of irascible corporate lawyer Tommy McBeath. She nails him. You will sympathize with him, or despise him, but you won’t forget him!"

John Ballem Q.C., author of A Victim of Convenience

Reviews of Whipstock

A glance at the cover of Barbara Howard's Whipstock delightfully signals the bawdy laughs within, a close-up profile of the conical taillights of a winged 1957 Pontiac, as obvious an allusion to a fine woman's bosom as ever was conceived on the gm assembly line. Whipstock rightfully belongs in the same proud picaresque line of western writing as Robert Kroetsch and Aritha van Herk, both of whose cheery blurbs grace the back cover.

Noreen Golfman (University of Toronto Quarterly)

Barb Howard's first novel pokes fun at the Alberta oil industry in a rollicking tale replete with a quirky cast of characters and an unconventional plot. Told in an understated voice, the story contains elements of magic realism achieved by the juxtaposition of the absurd and the mundane. This technique not only captures the reader's attention, but also helps to deliver an absorbing and entertaining satire.

Bev Greenberg (Herizons)

You've wondered about the oil patch and its secrets and shenanigans. Tune in. Barb Howard was there. She tells all, and keeps you laughing out loud while you listen...Oilmen, start to squirm. You are about to be whipstocked. For details read on.

Robert Kroetsch

In this marvelous tall tale, Barb Howard takes on Alberta's petro-chemical industry with a zest and irreverence that will have everyone climbing oil derricks. From doodlebugging to roughnecks, from gas pumps to gushers, this parable of pregnancy a petroleum is a comic tour de force.

Aritha van Herk