In April of 2001, I was another young activist hopping on a bus bound for Quebec City, to be one of the thousands of bodies protesting the Summit of the Americas, where George W. Bush, Jean Chretien and other leaders were giddily preparing to give away our rights and sovereignty for corporate profits. I’d cut my political teeth at the protests against then-Premier Mike Harris’s socialism-for-the-rich, austerity-for-the-rest-agenda that had cropped up all around Toronto. I hadn’t realized that the rallies and marches I’d been attending were bush league compared to what I’d see in the capital of La Belle Province. There was beauty and chaos, hope and fear, melodious voices and shrill cries. Five thousand cannisters of tear gas were used to disperse protesters, creating clouds so thick they forced locals from their homes as they rolled through the historic streets like volcanic ash.
That pre-War-on-Terror-era of leftist activism is the backdrop of Jeff Miller’s debut novel, Temporary Palaces. It seems impossible to imagine now that a scrappy group of radicals might be able to enact some real change against governments under the thumb of Big Money, but that was the mindset then, and the mindset of Rob, the bass player of The Blank Tapes. Rob, aside from being a musician, was a pivotal member of a squatting movement, which in itself is activism with a punk rock flare.
The problem? How can you occupy an old building, squat there, and go on tour with your band? Ben, the front man of The Blank Tapes, and one of Rob’s lovers, has put much of his money and sweat into producing an album and organizing the tour to promote it. On the eve of the tour, it seems that the band is no longer Rob’s priority. Then there’s Alex, an artist and photographer, who, at various times, has found herself drawn to both Ben and Rob.
It’s not a love triangle in the traditional sense, partly, because each of these characters are artists or activists. They each have a passion that draws them away from each other. There’s a fascinating tension achieved when Ben’s desire to tour puts him at odds with Rob’s desire to lead a squat movement. Alex too must choose between her art and these men both pulled in different directions while following their passions.
The reader is transported a decade into the future and we see how the main characters have changed, how some have found success in the scenes they were just dipping their toes into ten years earlier. Others have found success in wildly different lines of work. Seemingly minor characters from the past have become crucial partners in these new endeavors. We also get to see how their attractions and passions have changed over time.
The real emotional substance of the book thrives in the quiet moments, the silence before and after the bangs.
The three-fold challenge of staying true to yourself, true to the person you love and true to your art or cause, impacts each of these characters differently. The ripples of these three characters’ actions spread out and, in turn, affect those around them and leading to wave interference as they brush up against each other’s. It is perhaps in the valleys between each ripple, not the peaks, that Miller does his best work. The real emotional substance of the book thrives in the quiet moments, the silence before and after the bangs.
A bittersweetness hangs over this book, loves lost, times the characters cannot claw back, but also dreams coming to fruition and missed connections circling back to form something meaningful. Miller’s plainspoken voice and precision with detail gives the book the feeling of a story told by a good friend over an overdue catch-up dinner. Temporary Palaces is an exploration of the transient attachments of youth, politics and art, and the concrete bonds formed between true friends and lovers.
JEFF MILLER is the author of the award-winning creative nonfiction collection Ghost Pine: All Stories True. His stories have appeared in several anthologies, and he frequently publishes criticism. Jeff holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and lives in Nova Scotia.
Publisher: House of Anansi Press (April 21, 2026)
Paperback 5.25″ x 8″ | 320 pages
ISBN: 9781487013004
Jeff Dupuis is a writer and editor living in Toronto. He is the author of The Creature X Mystery novels and numerous short stories, which have been published in The Ex-Puritan and The Temz Review among others. Jeff is the editor, alongside A.G. Pasquella, of the anthology Devouring Tomorrow: Fiction from the Future of Food, which will be published in 2025 by Dundurn Press.
