Reviewed by L Lois
becalming
by Aga Maksimowska
Rare Machines (imprint of Dundurn Press)
ISBN: 978-1-4597-5603-8, paperback), Aug 2026, 336 pages
Canada wants the world to know what we’re thinking about. (Hint: it’s all about the sex.) If the smash hit Heated Rivalry didn’t explore Canada’s libido enough for you, there’s a new book to tuck under your pillow. Toronto imprint, Rare Machines, recently released becalming from award-winning novelist, Aga Maksimowska.
Maksimowska disguises her sophomore romp as literary fiction and gets away with it. The book has characters we can relate to — from the over-sexed to the under-performing. There’s generational cynicism and heartbreaking betrayal, with a throughline of disappearing fathers and deceived mothers. Rounding out the cast is a sister who begs to fight, and a work-place fling threatening to undo the whole. But wouldn’t life be dull without them?
You’re a woman in this world. How can you not be political? (64)
The book explores facets of Canadian life through the immigrant lens. Caught between the allure of North American higher-education and the possibility of becoming a working artist, becalming revolves around the interior life of Gosia. What opens as angst turns into geo-zeitgeist realities, exposed on the personal-political level.
I suck my thumb, willing the little wound closed.
When one blames parenthood as faulty, what does pregnancy mean? Is every boyfriend faithful or suspect, at his core? Wait a minute — hold that avocado toast — is she faithful, or suspect? (6)
It’s not about me, but it’s a little about me. Me is all I really have. (72)
Maksimowska describes a lifetime of anchors thrown into rough seas. A childhood alone with parents working internationally. Relationships formed around father-figures who aren’t emotionally available. Bi-sexuality as a form of liberation. And the interior questioning that pits desire against infidelity.
This novel is for the reader who enjoys sex — but never stops thinking. Over three-hundred pages, it’s long enough to let you fall in love with Gosia’s quirks. Like her sister, you’ll be regularly annoyed. And like her long-time boyfriend, Peter, you’ll stick close because she’s seemingly without guile. Gosia’s a woman sailing under unpredictable winds.
His ability to produce multiple orgasms intimidated me. (109)
If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a third-culture kid gets into a Master of Fine Arts’ program in Canada, produces a novel, then wonders if living in Poland might be preferrable — this book ticks your boxes. The titillation is Canadian-tame, the plot aims for literary high, and there’s ice hockey culture thrown in for good measure. Millennial meets morality, with motherhood poking in to give a bit of advice. Along the way, adulting loses its luster, and men weave complicated patterns of sexual stoicism. It’s here that frustration and over-thinking threaten to becalm the whole.
I can be so exquisitely selfish sometimes. (215)
I’m not insane. (281)
Look for becalming on Amazon or through your favorite bookstore. Take it with you to the beach this weekend. Let Maksimowska lead you through her lofty literary ambitions with a plot that moves at a steady clip. The route’s full of dramatic twists and turns. Join the crew as the novelist lashes her heroine to the mast for questioning, revealing the complexity of mid-twenty-first century feminism — a racy adventure for the unsettled waters of our time.
…wind where there seems to be none, a way out of the doldrums. (7)
About the reviewer: L. Lois lives in an urban hermitage where trauma-informed themes flow during walks by the ocean. She is pivoting into her grandmother-era, figuring out why her bevy of adult children don’t have babies, while prioritizing writing, publication, and arts-related volunteerism. Her poems have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, The Brussels Review, Washington Square Review, Hanging Loose Magazine, Chiron Review, Poetry Breakfast, among other publications. L. Lois is an Associate Member of the League of Canadian Poets, is part of the editorial team at Quibble Lit, and freelances as a business feature writer and poetry workshop leader. A selection of her published work is linked at https://poeting.my.canva.site.