The title of Toronto author Nathan Whitlock's debut novel grounds us firmly in the quotidian. A week is an economic unit, the work week that defines the lives of the employed and which used to give a special meaning to the weekend. Each week is pretty much the same as any other.

There is no cycle, they simply repeat. As for the "this" . . . well, you know. The anagram suggests itself: A week of the same crap with seven different labels.

Manda, the novel's central character, is aware of this at least on a subconscious level:

Novel charts the desperate inner landscape of an ordinary group of Ontarians

The marketing material for Nathan Whitlock's A Week of This describes the novel as "bleak." That's true but more than that, it's ordinary. That's not a bad thing because it's actually what makes the novel unique.