Every story begins with something remembered. Whether it is a face, a sound, a place, or a single moment that refuses to fade, memory is where meaning takes root. In Robert Antrim Calwell’s trilogy, Evelyn, Robot Head, and Bones and Skull: The Book of Meditations, the very structure of these books uses remembrance to build its world, connecting crime, identity, and myth in ways that explore how the past continues to shape the living.

The journey begins with Evelyn, which revisits one of Canada’s most chilling historical crimes — the 1946 murder of John Dick in Hamilton, Ontario. On the surface, this book might appear to retell a true crime case, but Calwell’s focus is not on the crime itself. Instead, he builds the world of Evelyn out of memory: the city’s, the witnesses’, and the readers’. Through poetry and reflection, the author reconstructs not only the events surrounding the case but also the atmosphere that still lingers in Hamilton decades later.

Albion Falls, Mountain Brow Boulevard, and quiet neighbourhood streets become memory markers within the story. They are not just settings but living reminders of what happened there. The poems blend voices from the past — the victims, the accused, the onlookers — and invite readers to experience the haunting echo of history. In Evelyn, memory becomes a kind of landscape. It is where the city hides its guilt and where its ghosts still walk.

But memory, for Calwell, is not only about collective history. It is also deeply personal, and that becomes the focus of Robot Head. This book takes the concept of remembrance into a very different space where human emotion and technology intersect. When Tiara, a young woman at the center of the story survives a suicide attempt and undergoes an experimental surgery that replaces her head with a robotic one capable of holding her memories, the doctors in the story insist that Tiara’s painful memories must be transferred along with the good ones. If they are not, she will lose her sense of self. This idea speaks to the book’s central message: that healing requires remembering, not erasing.

Robot Head shows memory as both burden and salvation. Tiara cannot move forward without confronting the moments that once made her want to end her life, yet those same moments contain the seeds of her recovery. Through her, Calwell creates a world built on fragments of thought, emotion, and recollection — a world where remembering becomes the most human act of all.

The third book, Bones and Skull: The Book of Meditations, brings Calwell’s exploration of remembrance to a spiritual level. In Bones and Skull, Calwell introduces characters like the Weaver of Weaver’s Mountain and the Children of Teardrop Falls. Their stories are steeped in myth, yet their purpose is familiar: to keep the past alive through story. The Children’s chants, the Weaver’s rope, and the recurring images of bones and coffins all serve as vessels of memory. They remind readers that the past is never truly gone. It continues to weave itself into the present, just as the Weaver’s twine carries the memories of those who came before.

This book suggests that remembering is not only about looking backward but also about sustaining continuity. Each poem connects the living and the dead, the physical and the spiritual, through the act of recalling. In this way, Bones and Skull becomes a meditation on collective memory — the idea that stories, myths, and symbols allow humanity to keep meaning alive even after individual lives have ended.

Across all three books, Calwell shows that remembrance is the thread that connects justice, survival, and faith. In Evelyn, memory binds a community to its moral conscience. In Robot Head, it preserves identity and emotion in the face of despair. In Bones and Skull, it becomes the bridge between life and eternity. What begins as a murder case ends as a myth, and what ties them together is the persistence of memory.

Calwell’s worlds are built not from fantasy but from reflection. His writing asks readers to consider how much of who we are depends on what we choose to remember. Whether through historical events, emotional scars, or ancient stories, memory remains the foundation of understanding.

For readers drawn to books that explore how the past shapes every corner of the present, Robert Antrim Calwell’s trilogy offers a rare and meaningful experience. Each world he creates begins with remembrance that shows that to remember is not to dwell, but to live more deeply.

Head to Amazon to purchase your copies:

Evelyn: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DJTHJNCG. 

Robot Head: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DJH76L3D. 

Bones and Skull: The Book of Meditations: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DHQVBD9W.