What do you think?
Saudade
360 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2026
About the author
Thomas Trofimuk
12 books53 followers• As a writer, he’s published poetry, short-fiction, and novels.
• His first novel, The 52nd Poem, explores the remnants of a love affair as a man sends a poem a week to his lover over the period of a year. The book went on to win a few awards including the 2003 Alberta Novel of the Year and the City of Edmonton Book Prize.
• A second novel, Doubting Yourself to the Bone, is set in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and has received high praise from critics – including being named as one of the top 100 must read books for 2006 by the Globe & Mail.
• In 2009, Thomas’ third novel, Waiting for Columbus, burst onto the international stage, with a Canadian (McClelland & Stewart) and US (Knopf-Doubleday) release. In 2010, the book was released in the UK (Picador), and was published in Serbia, Brazil, Poland, China, and Quebec. The book was also released as an audio book. Waiting for Columbus won the City of Edmonton Book Prize, was a nominee for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, it was a Richard and Judy Book Club (UK) pick for fall 2010 and was picked as one of Richard and Judy’s 100 Books of the decade.
• Waiting for Columbus has been optioned for film. Rumours are swirling right now about the possibility of Nicholas Cage playing “Columbus” in the movie.
• This is All a Lie, his fourth (published) novel, gathered stellar reviews across Canada, including a starred review in Quill & Quire, and being named as a top 100 book of 2017 in the National Post.
• Trofimuk is a founding father of Edmonton’s Raving Poets movement, which was an open-stage poetry event held in a bar, with the poets backed up by the Raving Poets Band. He played piano (badly but with gusto) in the Raving Poets band.
• He is a frequent teacher at YouthWrite (http://www.youthwrite.com/), a camp for kids who love to write, and he sits on the board of the YouthWrite Society Canada.
• He also irregularly blogs on his website: “Writer, Gardener, Failed Buddhist.” (www.thomastrofimuk.com)
• Trofimuk has recently taken up kayaking. He loves maps, and charts. He really likes new sheets. He’s a huge fan of single malt whisky. He has been known to smoke cigars. If you offer him wine, he’ll very likely accept.
• He was a “dance dad,” which means he knows more about dance than he ever thought he’d know, and he did a lot of driving back and forth from Shelly’s Dance Studio. He has grown to love dance, and in fact, there’s a dancer in the latest novel, called The Elephant on Karlův Bridge.
• The Elephant on Karlův Bridge, set in Prague, Czech Republic, in which a five-ton African elephant is one of the main characters, is slated for an August 15, 2022 release.
Here's a short and sweet version:
Thomas Trofimuk is a writer of poetry and fiction. He’s published in literary magazines across the country, and on CBC radio. His first novel, The 52nd Poem won the George Bugnet Novel of the Year Award and the City of Edmonton Book Prize at the 2003 Alberta Book Awards. His second novel, the critically acclaimed Doubting Yourself to the Bone, was named as one of the Globe and Mail’s top 100 must-read books for 2006. His third book, Waiting for Columbus, was released in August 2009 in the US, Canada, the UK, Serbia, Poland, Brazil, China and Quebec. Waiting for Columbus won the City of Edmonton Book Prize, was a nominee for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, it was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick for fall 2010 and was picked as one of Richard and Judy’s 100 Books of the decade. A fourth novel, This is All a Lie was released in 2017 to critical acclaim. The Elephant on Karlův Bridge is set to be released Aug, 2022. Thomas writes on a regular basis for his own website; “writer, gardener, failed Buddhist” at www.thomastrofimuk.com. He lives (and writes) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
• His first novel, The 52nd Poem, explores the remnants of a love affair as a man sends a poem a week to his lover over the period of a year. The book went on to win a few awards including the 2003 Alberta Novel of the Year and the City of Edmonton Book Prize.
• A second novel, Doubting Yourself to the Bone, is set in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and has received high praise from critics – including being named as one of the top 100 must read books for 2006 by the Globe & Mail.
• In 2009, Thomas’ third novel, Waiting for Columbus, burst onto the international stage, with a Canadian (McClelland & Stewart) and US (Knopf-Doubleday) release. In 2010, the book was released in the UK (Picador), and was published in Serbia, Brazil, Poland, China, and Quebec. The book was also released as an audio book. Waiting for Columbus won the City of Edmonton Book Prize, was a nominee for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, it was a Richard and Judy Book Club (UK) pick for fall 2010 and was picked as one of Richard and Judy’s 100 Books of the decade.
• Waiting for Columbus has been optioned for film. Rumours are swirling right now about the possibility of Nicholas Cage playing “Columbus” in the movie.
• This is All a Lie, his fourth (published) novel, gathered stellar reviews across Canada, including a starred review in Quill & Quire, and being named as a top 100 book of 2017 in the National Post.
• Trofimuk is a founding father of Edmonton’s Raving Poets movement, which was an open-stage poetry event held in a bar, with the poets backed up by the Raving Poets Band. He played piano (badly but with gusto) in the Raving Poets band.
• He is a frequent teacher at YouthWrite (http://www.youthwrite.com/), a camp for kids who love to write, and he sits on the board of the YouthWrite Society Canada.
• He also irregularly blogs on his website: “Writer, Gardener, Failed Buddhist.” (www.thomastrofimuk.com)
• Trofimuk has recently taken up kayaking. He loves maps, and charts. He really likes new sheets. He’s a huge fan of single malt whisky. He has been known to smoke cigars. If you offer him wine, he’ll very likely accept.
• He was a “dance dad,” which means he knows more about dance than he ever thought he’d know, and he did a lot of driving back and forth from Shelly’s Dance Studio. He has grown to love dance, and in fact, there’s a dancer in the latest novel, called The Elephant on Karlův Bridge.
• The Elephant on Karlův Bridge, set in Prague, Czech Republic, in which a five-ton African elephant is one of the main characters, is slated for an August 15, 2022 release.
Here's a short and sweet version:
Thomas Trofimuk is a writer of poetry and fiction. He’s published in literary magazines across the country, and on CBC radio. His first novel, The 52nd Poem won the George Bugnet Novel of the Year Award and the City of Edmonton Book Prize at the 2003 Alberta Book Awards. His second novel, the critically acclaimed Doubting Yourself to the Bone, was named as one of the Globe and Mail’s top 100 must-read books for 2006. His third book, Waiting for Columbus, was released in August 2009 in the US, Canada, the UK, Serbia, Poland, Brazil, China and Quebec. Waiting for Columbus won the City of Edmonton Book Prize, was a nominee for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, it was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick for fall 2010 and was picked as one of Richard and Judy’s 100 Books of the decade. A fourth novel, This is All a Lie was released in 2017 to critical acclaim. The Elephant on Karlův Bridge is set to be released Aug, 2022. Thomas writes on a regular basis for his own website; “writer, gardener, failed Buddhist” at www.thomastrofimuk.com. He lives (and writes) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 17, 2026
This is a novel about the fear of death, of loss and longing, of aimless searching.
Wait, wait! Don’t leave! This is not the sort of tedious, depressing literary novel about death and dying that only a literature professor could love. This one is a surprisingly great.
It is a puzzle novel. A mystery, but not really the who done-it-kind. More existential, but in a fun way. And, just under the surface, there is this wry humour: our hero pictures death is a woman who has issues with doorknobs, which is why she’s always hovering outside. (Freud had issues with doorknobs, but I’m not sure whether that’s an allusion here or just a coincidence.) The novel is not ha-ha, laugh-out-loud funny—not Death from a Terry Pratchett novel—but there is an absurdist element that had me smiling throughout the book.
And clever! I highlight the clever bits in books, lines I wish to come back to because they are so insightful or so well written that I need to study or deconstruct them at length—but I can’t stop now because the story is pulling me forward and reflection will have to wait. I’ve highlighted hundreds of lines in this one. So much insight! So many memorable lines! One cannot go a chapter, or even a few pages, without encountering something memorably quotable.
Stylistically, Saudade is a tour de force. Trofimuk use of description, of the economical use of miniscule details as the driving force in the mystery is unlike anything I have previously encountered. Whereas literary writers often lose the forest for too detailed attention to the trees, or get so bogged down in the beauty of the writing they lose narrative, Trofimuk’s plot is primarily driven by an almost absurdist attention to meaningless details. The whole point of the book might be the need to be in the moment, to pay attention to everything, to notice, experience, and appreciate every detail of the now.
The mystery starts when our protagonist’s attention wanders for a second from the story his wife is telling him, and when he looks back up, she has vanished. The central conceit is that one can escape death if one hides inside a story so convoluted, so filled with digressions, that death gets distracted and follows the wrong trail. It is exactly such a tale his wife is telling our hero when she disappears, and the resulting thriller is the most convoluted, twisted, blind alley, clue- and red-herring-filled mystery any protagonist could ask for. So . . . every detail—that this character is wearing red shoes or that one is balding—may be a clue, or completely irrelevant, but everything is worthy of one’s attention. As his wife says of the story she’s telling him when she disappears:
“Honey, I want you to pay very close attention to this story. It’s Important that you remember it. Every detail. Every half-truth. Every name. Even the characters who have no name.”
But then, also,
“I am not for a second suggesting there are parts of this story that are more important than others, but this next part is more important than the rest.”
These are not the normal clues and red herrings of some routine who-done-it, but a master class in choosing which details strike the protagonist’s eye, without overloading the reader in narrative-clogging description. Again, the nearly random nature of what is observed is kind of the whole point: everything in the now is important, even when it’s not remotely relevant, because the now is all we ever get in life—so pay attention.
But also: as the title signifies, the novel is really about the nostalgic longing for what’s been lost, for people and events that have become a part of who we are, but which can never be recaptured. A longing nostalgia is an inevitable part of who we are, including all the little bits we barely noticed when they were happening. Through his idiosyncratic selection of details to highlight, Trofimuk evokes our lived experience of the infinite minutia—both remembered and forgotten—that make up each moment of the now.
The convoluted plot, the surreal adventures, the odd segues all give the novel something of a dream-like structure. Like Philip K. Dick at his best, Trofimuk challenges our construction of reality while dispensing useful insights on how to cope with a universe of infinitely branching choices.
There’s a cinematic ambience to the book that made it feel like I was watching a M. Night Shyamalan movie. Like Sixth Sense, when I got to the end, the entire gestalt cube flipped, and I was sure Trofimuk must have cheated. When I went back to check, however, I had to concede Trofimuk had laid everything out from the earliest pages. This is not just another who-done-it reveal; this is a fundamental shift in how one looks at death, love, and the meaning of life. This is a book that has something to say, but instead of telling or showing the reader, makes them experience the entire epiphany for themselves.
Best book I have read this year, and a serious contender for top five of the decade. Unreservedly recommended.
This review originally appeared in the Ottawa Review of Books, June 15, 2026.
[Edit: I handed the book to my daughter, who read the first page and guessed the ending. So...your mileage may vary. :-)}
Wait, wait! Don’t leave! This is not the sort of tedious, depressing literary novel about death and dying that only a literature professor could love. This one is a surprisingly great.
It is a puzzle novel. A mystery, but not really the who done-it-kind. More existential, but in a fun way. And, just under the surface, there is this wry humour: our hero pictures death is a woman who has issues with doorknobs, which is why she’s always hovering outside. (Freud had issues with doorknobs, but I’m not sure whether that’s an allusion here or just a coincidence.) The novel is not ha-ha, laugh-out-loud funny—not Death from a Terry Pratchett novel—but there is an absurdist element that had me smiling throughout the book.
And clever! I highlight the clever bits in books, lines I wish to come back to because they are so insightful or so well written that I need to study or deconstruct them at length—but I can’t stop now because the story is pulling me forward and reflection will have to wait. I’ve highlighted hundreds of lines in this one. So much insight! So many memorable lines! One cannot go a chapter, or even a few pages, without encountering something memorably quotable.
Stylistically, Saudade is a tour de force. Trofimuk use of description, of the economical use of miniscule details as the driving force in the mystery is unlike anything I have previously encountered. Whereas literary writers often lose the forest for too detailed attention to the trees, or get so bogged down in the beauty of the writing they lose narrative, Trofimuk’s plot is primarily driven by an almost absurdist attention to meaningless details. The whole point of the book might be the need to be in the moment, to pay attention to everything, to notice, experience, and appreciate every detail of the now.
The mystery starts when our protagonist’s attention wanders for a second from the story his wife is telling him, and when he looks back up, she has vanished. The central conceit is that one can escape death if one hides inside a story so convoluted, so filled with digressions, that death gets distracted and follows the wrong trail. It is exactly such a tale his wife is telling our hero when she disappears, and the resulting thriller is the most convoluted, twisted, blind alley, clue- and red-herring-filled mystery any protagonist could ask for. So . . . every detail—that this character is wearing red shoes or that one is balding—may be a clue, or completely irrelevant, but everything is worthy of one’s attention. As his wife says of the story she’s telling him when she disappears:
“Honey, I want you to pay very close attention to this story. It’s Important that you remember it. Every detail. Every half-truth. Every name. Even the characters who have no name.”
But then, also,
“I am not for a second suggesting there are parts of this story that are more important than others, but this next part is more important than the rest.”
These are not the normal clues and red herrings of some routine who-done-it, but a master class in choosing which details strike the protagonist’s eye, without overloading the reader in narrative-clogging description. Again, the nearly random nature of what is observed is kind of the whole point: everything in the now is important, even when it’s not remotely relevant, because the now is all we ever get in life—so pay attention.
But also: as the title signifies, the novel is really about the nostalgic longing for what’s been lost, for people and events that have become a part of who we are, but which can never be recaptured. A longing nostalgia is an inevitable part of who we are, including all the little bits we barely noticed when they were happening. Through his idiosyncratic selection of details to highlight, Trofimuk evokes our lived experience of the infinite minutia—both remembered and forgotten—that make up each moment of the now.
The convoluted plot, the surreal adventures, the odd segues all give the novel something of a dream-like structure. Like Philip K. Dick at his best, Trofimuk challenges our construction of reality while dispensing useful insights on how to cope with a universe of infinitely branching choices.
There’s a cinematic ambience to the book that made it feel like I was watching a M. Night Shyamalan movie. Like Sixth Sense, when I got to the end, the entire gestalt cube flipped, and I was sure Trofimuk must have cheated. When I went back to check, however, I had to concede Trofimuk had laid everything out from the earliest pages. This is not just another who-done-it reveal; this is a fundamental shift in how one looks at death, love, and the meaning of life. This is a book that has something to say, but instead of telling or showing the reader, makes them experience the entire epiphany for themselves.
Best book I have read this year, and a serious contender for top five of the decade. Unreservedly recommended.
This review originally appeared in the Ottawa Review of Books, June 15, 2026.
[Edit: I handed the book to my daughter, who read the first page and guessed the ending. So...your mileage may vary. :-)}
June 15, 2026
Gosh I have mixed feelings on this one. I really wanted to like it but this book seemed insistent on delivering the most infuriating, nonsensical, borderline misogynistic lines of dialogue and plot points, but then, just when I’m about to DNF it, it draws me back in with something super cool and thought-provoking. Every single female character in the book seems to throw herself at the MC, whom of course declines because he’s just such a good guy (I wouldn’t be surprised if he was some sort of self-insert of the author). Not just that, but the book constantly needs to remind you how much A) the main couple is just super duper quirky and different B) this book is VERY deep and intellectual and finally C) Bruce is a beautiful angel man. At the same time, there were a number of kids that I enjoyed. The descriptions in this book were beautiful, the author I think would write some great poetry. In addition to that, I thought the main idea of storytelling and a twisting, complex story leading the narrative was really well done. I just couldn’t get over some of the more glaring issues.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley, Thomas Trofimuk and NeWest Press for the ARC.
A challenging, thought-provoking tale of a man named Bruce who has an irrational fear of death.
You follow Bruce, who lost his wife while she was mid-story, on an adventure across the world in search of her. Bruce meets many interesting characters along the way, who provide him with clues through their stories. You will feel confused, frustrated, even sad for Bruce throughout this novel. But, you will also see the pure love he has for his wife, Pilar, and it really warms your heart.
Saudade, definition: A melancholic longing or nostalgic yearning for something or someone absent, often with a bittersweet mix of sadness for the loss and happiness for the memory, implying the beloved thing might never return.
A challenging, thought-provoking tale of a man named Bruce who has an irrational fear of death.
You follow Bruce, who lost his wife while she was mid-story, on an adventure across the world in search of her. Bruce meets many interesting characters along the way, who provide him with clues through their stories. You will feel confused, frustrated, even sad for Bruce throughout this novel. But, you will also see the pure love he has for his wife, Pilar, and it really warms your heart.
Saudade, definition: A melancholic longing or nostalgic yearning for something or someone absent, often with a bittersweet mix of sadness for the loss and happiness for the memory, implying the beloved thing might never return.
March 22, 2026
Saudade by Thomas Trofimuk is a meditative, emotionally rich journey that follows Bruce—a man haunted by his fear of death and the unfinished story of his late wife, Pilar. What unfolds is less of a traditional quest and more of a wandering, almost dreamlike search across places and people, each encounter offering fragments, clues, and quiet revelations.
This isn’t a fast-paced novel—it asks you to slow down. At times, it’s disorienting, even frustrating, but that feels intentional. You sit with Bruce in his uncertainty, his sorrow, and his deep, unwavering love. And that love? It lingers long after the final page.
The writing is soft yet weighty, introspective without being distant, and full of quiet emotional depth.
This isn’t a fast-paced novel—it asks you to slow down. At times, it’s disorienting, even frustrating, but that feels intentional. You sit with Bruce in his uncertainty, his sorrow, and his deep, unwavering love. And that love? It lingers long after the final page.
The writing is soft yet weighty, introspective without being distant, and full of quiet emotional depth.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The writing is lyrical and immersive, and the story is at turns whimsical and poignant. What choices do we make based on the stories we tell about ourselves, or the stories told to us by others?
Bruce is trying to solve the mystery of his missing wife, Pilar, by following clues she left him in a story, and it takes him on an international journey with an interesting cast of characters. However, this is not a thriller — it becomes clear to the reader what's going on pretty early in the story. It's a beautiful exploration of love and longing, with a dose of existential dread.
Saudade would be a great pick for a book club that enjoys literary fiction. The emotional depth combined with the "digressions" would make for a really rich discussion.
4.5 stars rounded up
Bruce is trying to solve the mystery of his missing wife, Pilar, by following clues she left him in a story, and it takes him on an international journey with an interesting cast of characters. However, this is not a thriller — it becomes clear to the reader what's going on pretty early in the story. It's a beautiful exploration of love and longing, with a dose of existential dread.
Saudade would be a great pick for a book club that enjoys literary fiction. The emotional depth combined with the "digressions" would make for a really rich discussion.
4.5 stars rounded up
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Ohhh, this book said, “You wanted light reading?” and then handed me existential dread wrapped in poetry.
Saudade is quiet. Lyrical. Heavy in that slow, pressing-on-your-chest kind of way. It’s not here for plot twists and dramatic explosions it’s here to sit you down gently and make you feel every ounce of longing, memory, and melancholy.
And listen… the title does not lie. This book is dripping with saudade that deep, aching nostalgia for something (or someone) you can’t quite have anymore. It’s reflective, intimate, and almost painfully introspective. You don’t speed through this story. You drift through it.
Saudade is quiet. Lyrical. Heavy in that slow, pressing-on-your-chest kind of way. It’s not here for plot twists and dramatic explosions it’s here to sit you down gently and make you feel every ounce of longing, memory, and melancholy.
And listen… the title does not lie. This book is dripping with saudade that deep, aching nostalgia for something (or someone) you can’t quite have anymore. It’s reflective, intimate, and almost painfully introspective. You don’t speed through this story. You drift through it.
May 18, 2026
I wish I could come up with words to adequately describe this book. At the same time it is a puzzle, a mystery and a deep love story. I won't say any more...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews