August 2020 Reading Round-Up

Recent Canadian fiction has been the focus of my reading life this month, as part of my Shadow Giller jury project. Out of the 30 books I read in August, 18 were for the Shadow Giller. As usual in my monthly round-up, I will share brief reviews of the best. These include audiobooks, translated fiction, science writing, an award-winning children's novel, a graphic novel and lots of Canadian fiction. Five out of the thirteen books that are highlights this month are also eligible for the Giller, so you will find links to my longer reviews when you get to those in the list below.

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Audiobook (17.5 hr) read by Angus King

A gay boy with a tender love for his alcoholic mother comes of age amid poverty and high unemployment in 1980s Glasgow. Heartbreaking and gorgeous: the two main characters are unforgettable. If your library has Hoopla, it‘s a treat to hear the Scottish voices in the audiobook read by Angus King.

    New Year‘s in Scotland was a legendary two-day party. New Year‘s in Agnes‘s    Glasgow was endless. When they first came to Pit Head the boy had seen a house party that lasted for days. Agnes had still been drunk by the 6th.

    No day ever started well with six dozen raw chickens. And today, of all days, it was stealing the sweetness out of his daydreams.

La Bastarda by Trifonia Melibea Obono
Translated from Spanish by Lawrence Schimel

An amazing, eye-opening novella about a lesbian teen, Okomo, an orphan who lives with her grandparents in a traditional Fang settlement in Equatorial Guinea. Despite the odds being against her—same sex love is reviled by the villagers, and her family expects Okomo to bring them dowry wealth by attracting a husband—this story has a happy ending. 

    “Your uncle was never a normal child. Ever since he was little, he liked women‘s things: cooking, cleaning, smiling, and talking too much. Your mother‘s home was like a church altar it was so clean!”

    “What is a woman without a man? Dina is on the brink of old age—she is 18 years old and has no husband! And her family still has not benefited from her body.”

    The men left for the House of the Word to wait for the food, and the women went into one of the two kitchens depending on their place in the hierarchy of polygamous families. First wives went into my grandmother‘s kitchen, while second, third, fourth (and so on) wives went over to the kitchen of Osá‘s second wife. The two groups hated each other intensely.

The Beauty of the Death Cap by Catherine Dousteyssier-Khoze
Translated from French by Tina Kover

I was in exactly the right mood for dark, twisted humour in the voice of a fussy, delusional mushroom fanatic in the Auvergne region of France. Nikonor is tight lipped around people, but in his journal he eventually reveals all. The tale is delightfully outrageous and macabre.

    I was three and a half years old. Already highly advanced for my age, I understood even the finer points of mushroom-hunting perfectly, thanks to an illustrated book (Le Petit Mycologue, 1923 edition) presented to me by my father for my second birthday.

    I must absolutely be in full possession of my faculties—that is one of the reasons why I eat so many Portuguese sardines (sardines are excellent for mental acuteness, you know).

Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller
Audiobook (5 hr) read by the author

Bisexual science journalist Lulu Miller was searching for the secret to resilience when fish taxonomist and eugenics proponent David Starr Jordan caught her attention. His desire to turn chaos into order seemed to help him handle a series of setbacks and tragedies. Part biography, part memoir, part history, part murder mystery, this book is wholly fascinating. And there's an explanation for the title that really surprised me. A Publishers Weekly review calls it "frustratingly disjointed," but I enjoyed the audiobook so much that I listened to it twice in a row.

    The longer we examine our world the stranger it proves to be. Perhaps there will be a mother, waiting inside a person deemed unfit. Perhaps there will be medicine inside a weed. Salvation inside the kind of person you had discounted.

    Miller on the leading role the US played in eugenics ideology: “This was not a fringe movement. It crossed party lines. The first five presidents of the 20th century hailed its promise. Eugenics courses were taught at prestigious universities all across the country. […] In 1916 an American guy named Madison Grant published a eugenics book that a German guy named Hitler would later call his bible.”

Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie
Audiobook (7 hr) read by Cathleen McCarron

I bailed on two audiobooks in a row before settling on this luminous collection of essays. Archeological sites in Alaska and the Orkneys, a long ago trip to Tibet, family, health, the natural world: Kathleen Jamie writes about all of these things with a poetic precision I adore. Words like smur and blaeberries are performed in the audiobook with a proper Scottish accent by Cathleen McCarron.

    The landscape was astonishing. There was nothing I wanted to do more than sit quietly and look at it, come to terms with its vastness.

Upgrade Soul by Ezra Claytan Daniels
Graphic Novel

For their 45th wedding anniversary, a childless Black and Latina couple decide to undergo a biogenetic procedure that will restore their youth. In this outstanding science fiction novel told in comics format, selfish desires are counterbalanced by love and strong moral ethics. Don‘t make my mistake and put off reading this because the cover is creepy. The interior art is finely detailed and washed in somber hues.

“My dad made Slane blue because he knew he would never get away with writing a Black hero.”

Stand on the Sky by Erin Bow

Girl-power adventure set among the nomadic Kazakhs of Mongolia. I like the nuances of chosen family in this, and, of course, the indomitable 13-year-old girl named Aisulu who trains an eagle. The primary audience is children ages 9-13, but this Governor General Literary Award-winner would also be an engaging family read-aloud.

    In a land where girls are supposed to have hearts made of milk, Aisulu had a heart made of sky.

    And here is something that is hard but true: a place can be perfect, and still not be enough.

Rabbit Foot Bill by Helen Humphreys

A poetic novel based on a true story of friendship between a boy and a murderer in mid-twentieth century Saskatchewan. Link to full review.

Indians on Vacation by Thomas King

A funny novel about living with depression and despair. Link to full review.

Five Little Indians by Michelle Good

How do residential school survivors cope with the trauma they've experienced? In this heartbreaking, hopeful novel, Michelle Good brings five characters to life to answer that question. Link to full review.

Watching You Without Me by Lynn Coady

Suspenseful domestic drama. Link to full review.

Dominoes at the Crossroads by Kaie Kellough

Pieces of short fiction about Canadian identity as part of the African diaspora -- short stories, autobiographical fiction, science fiction, spy thriller, memoir, metafiction, history, historical fiction: whatever form this hybrid collection uses, by the end it has transformed into a novel. It's safe to call it outstanding. Link to full review.

Home Sickness by Chih-Ying Lay
Translated from Mandarin by Darryl Sterk

Ten insightful, melancholic stories set in contemporary Taiwan. Link to full review.

Tim Hortons in Canadian Literature: An Even Dozen

With all the CanLit reading I've been doing for the Shadow Giller project, I've come across a lot of references to Tim Hortons. To make it an even dozen, I'll start with a link to an online sugar cereal review by Canadian author Brian Francis. Did you know that there's a Tim Hortons breakfast cereal?

Sugar Cereal Taste Test will open in a new link here. Enjoy!

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When Neela finally broke her silence, Rukmini gasped again, unprepared for the bass of her vocals. Neela's voice was neither sweet nor raspy, tender nor sensual. Rukmini was reminded of her grandfather's death, and the two weeks her family had spent beside his hospital bed, waiting for him to pass. His room had smelled sour, despite the growing number of bouquets of not-quite-white-but not-quite-pink carnations fighting with the boxes of Timbits for table space. Listening to the sound of his laboured breathing and coughing fits made her wish she too would escape her own body. When she later described Neela's voice to Puna, she said that it sounded like the feeling of watching someone die, like witnessing every leaf on a deciduous tree change colour and fall as autumn transitioned into winter. 

(p 21)

-from The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya

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"Eternity," my mother's friend Angela said sternly, taking a sip of the Tim Hortons coffee she held in one hand as she pointed at me with the other. [...] "If anyone calls you a n----r, you break their fucking nose." She then proceeded to take my hand and show me the exact force I would need to accomplish this assault. I wasn't yet eleven.

_____

While working my first job on campus, helping first years with their internet in residence, one of the cleaners, a woman with a European accent, saw me wiping away sweat on a hot day. "Why are you sweating like that? You must be used to this weather where you're from."

And at a Tim Hortons in the winter of my final year, the cashier gave me the most pitiful glance. "You poor dear. It must be so hard adjusting to Canadian winters," she said, handing me my coffee.

"Well, no. I was born here," I replied.

"Oh! That's great! You speak English well."

-from They Said This Would Be Fun: Race, Campus Life, and Growing Up by Eternity Martis

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One night, Pierce skipped dessert and walked out of the mess tent to the crashing sound from a rocket's first impact, then heard the long drawn-out whine of the next incoming round. The second rocket streaked past and blasted the kitchen. Amid screams of the wounded, Pierce found his way back to the smoke-filled tent. There was blood, vomit, Red Bull cans, Tim Hortons paper cups, doughnut fragments and muffin wrappers.

"I shouldn't have skipped dessert," Pierce said.

_____

This is the second time he's called me "the best." If only I'd earned such praise for something other than handing over cash.

"Can I buy you dinner?" I ask. "There's a Tims just up the street."

-from Misconduct of the Heart by Cordelia Strobe

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It's Friday night, but it's not busy out. This is Winnipeg, and it's not late enough. The younger versions of my selves are jammed in the back of the car. There's someone in my trunk, laughing. I drive through a Tim Hortons and get two extra-large coffees and turn back. None of them want anything. (p 301)

-from Vanishing Monuments by John Elizabeth Stintzi

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2017 Spring/Summer Job Fair

(Sponsored by the Old Rat Creek Economic Development Department)

Come one, come all, and learn about all the employment opportunities in our booming town! Skilled and unskilled workers needed. Bring your resume and bring your friends. Interviews may be conducted on the spot. Booths will be set up at the town office on Saturday, May 5, from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. with HR representatives from the following companies:

- Ye Olde Rat Creeke Fudgery

- Old Rat Creek Best Western

- Owen and Felix's "Whitecaps North" Indoor Soccer training Academy

- Oh Canada, Eh? Maple Syrup and T-Shirts Retail Emporium

- Naomi's Next-to-Godliness Soap Company

- True North Performing Arts Centre

- Tim Hortons (formerly The Donut Hole)

- Canadian Tire (formerly Old Rat Creek Hardware)

And many more! The band Iron Glory (formerly Satan's Ballsack) will be playing gospel rock in the foyer of the town office all afternoon. ('The Pull of Old Rat Creek,' p 179)

______

He had a friend who'd been laid off from his job as an insurance adjuster and still showered and got dressed in a suit and tie for work every day. Larry took the crowded morning bus downtown and sat in Tim Hortons watching daytime TV or playing solitaire on his phone, then took the five o'clock bus home at the end of the day. Like a dead tree that refused to fall to the forest floor. His wife had no idea. Or maybe she did. Maybe she was just playing along to save Larry the embarrassment. ('Mycology,' p 196)

-from The Swan Suit by Katherine Fawcett

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Her mother always made weak coffee. Her parents should stop buying Maxwell House and get the good stuff. Maybe she'd make her mom stop at Tim Hortons the next time they were in Saskatoon or Edmonton and pick up a bag of good coffee. They might live out in the country, but they didn't have to act like backwoods hicks. (p 45)

_____

Gord had been to Starbucks a couple of times in Edmonton. He hadn't liked it. He said the coffee was overpriced and tasted burnt.

"Why would someone pay so much for a simple cup of coffee? Why not go to Timmy Ho's or a gas station? People just think it tastes better because they paid more and it's a fancy chain." (p 257)

-from Mad Cow by Alexis Kienlen

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Kelli liked pretty much anywhere she was taken. She enjoyed outings, full stop. Be they to the mall, the doctor's, Tim Hortons. (p 23)

_____

Kelli's thing was to dawdle. She liked a few hours' advance notice of any potential outing, to sit in her chair and think about the proposed destination, perhaps issue a few inquiries, before she would agree to heave herself to her feet and be helped on with her shoes. It wasn't that Kelli didn't like going out -- in fact the magic words Tim Hortons could get her very excited at the prospect indeed -- it was simply that Kelli would not be rushed. (p 186)

_____

Trevor showed up, stepping into the foyer before I could get to the door to open it for him, holding a mere six-pack of Alexander Keith's -- he was only staying the afternoon, after all -- and a box of Timbits with which to tempt Kelli down to the rec room to keep him company in front of the sports channel. (p 64)

-from Watching You Without Me by Lynn Coady

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He's thinking about Elaine's Tim Hortons coffee and maybe a slice of that chocolate loaf she buys from the Israeli bakery in between his place and hers. He's hoping the Sobeys office will try his cellphone when they decide to reach him. He gave them both numbers, home and cell. He's imagining the call coming in. How his phone will display the caller so he can be prepared before he answers. ('The Elaine Levine Club')

-from You Are Not What We Expected by Sidura Ludwig

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"There he is." She points to a man making his way down the street in wide, determined steps. The man's eyes are deep pits in his face. His grey hair flaps with each pace. He wears a long, stone-washed jean jacket that hangs open and floats out behind him like a cape.

"Who is he?"

"The Ambler. All day, he makes trips to Tim Hortons. He'll be back in about ten minutes with a cup. Then, in an hour or so, he ambles back." Maggie taps ash out the window, ignoring the ashtray. Nan would be ticked if she saw. (p 197)

_____

"I love people-watching," Jamie says. "It's like trying to figure out their secrets. Why do you think that guy walks back and forth to Tim's all day?"

"He's doing coffee runs for someone," Maureen says.

"But he only carries one coffee at a time," Imogene says. "I think they're for him."

"Maybe he has a crush on someone who works at Tim's," Jamie says. "He comes in to gaze upon them."

"If he lines up in front of them every day, maybe they'll notice him eventually," Imogene says. (p 213-214)

_____

She opens the glove compartment and locates some napkins. Her hands tremble as she unfolds them.

"You want another coffee?" he says. She nods. She just wants the car to stop. Jamie pulls into an Irving station. "Did I scare you?" he asks. "I scared you. I'm sorry. It's cause I'm right tough, see."

"Why do you keep a bat in your car?"

"It's good to have something just in case. I keep one under my bed too. Anyone breaks in -- pok." Jamie makes a swinging gesture. She pushes a smile into her cheeks.

"We can get a coffee in here or go to the Tim's on Torbay Road," he says.

"I'm okay," she says. "I wasn't really enjoying the last one. There's nowhere open to get a good one now."

"There's nowhere to get a good nothing, ever." He puts the car in drive. (p 195)

-from Some People's Children by Bridget Canning

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Among the food court's sticky tables, with the lunchtime thrum packing her ears, Mala found a spot and set down her shopping and milky Tim Hortons tea. The air was oversaturated with competing odours -- fast-food meat, battered fish, the sulphurous reek of stir-fried cabbage. Even a week ago, the smells would have triggered a reaction like two fingers prodding down her throat. But oh, the bliss of the second trimester, her nausea sailing away like a stretch of bad weather. (Ch 57)

-from Secret Lives of Mothers and Daughters by Anita Kushwaha

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How about you stop feeling sorry for yourself, Chip barks at me, and start kicking some ass. That'll make you feel better.

Sometimes when Eugene and the Other Demons gang up on me, I fight back. Blackbird Mavrias, I begin, First Nations photojournalist. Winner of a National Pictures of the Year award and an Aboriginal Achievement award.

That and a buck fifty will get you a cup of coffee at Timmy's, says Eugene. (p 101)

-from Indians on Vacation by Thomas King

To see my entire collection of Tim Hortons in Canadian Literature examples, click here.

The Union of Smokers by Paddy Scott

The Union of Smokers by Paddy Scott
Invisible Publishing, March 2020

A tale of trauma, a "theme essay," told in the singular bantering voice of a white twelve-year-old boy, Kaspar Pine, who might be on his deathbed.

        One nice thing about living a short life: it's gonna be pretty much all highlight.

The story is set in 1960s fictional Quinton, Ontario, on the day the town's major employer, a creosote factory, shuts down.

        People don't like to talk about occupational hazards around here, especially if they're dependent on the source of the hazard for survival. If you worked at Quinton's creosote plant you'd know what I mean. Its hazards leaked all over the place, up to the moment earlier today when it closed for good because of all that leaking. Nobody in Quinton talked about the creosote hazards either, because that's the sort of conversation that got you fired, even if the creosote made you sick.

Since he was six, Kaspar has lived on a farm with his grandparents. Being continually grateful for their kindness to him, he behaves well when he's at home. When he's elsewhere, he admits to being "a well-rehearsed asshole." I found his voice irritating, even while having some sympathy for him. 

        Hardly anybody in town ever smiled at me, and if they did, I knew they meant it as a caution light: You're entering dangerous territory.

The cover illustration, showing a chicken with its head cut off, is a warning. There's a lot of gross unpleasantness in this novel: talk (and throwing around) of dead canaries, of knackers and how they go about their job of killing animals, and of Kaspar's passion for smoking the cigarette butts that he collects.

        [...] most things, not just cigarettes, should have filters on them. Drowned dads, cancer diagnosis, factory closings, canaries... What if all that unpleasantness slipped through charcoal-activated, menthol-flavoured felts of alternative possibilities first -- Heaven, or Medicare, or UIC -- and came out the other side with hints of hope? I've smoked roll-yer-owns and I've smoked things I'd found between the cracks in sidewalks, and no matter how crusty they'd gotten, even a sidewalk smoke with a filter doesn't come close to the eye-watering experience of a rollie.

All of Kaspar's "declarative-in-essay-form sonofabitch"-ness and wisecracking tends to obscure the important underlying narrative, which is about the terrible things that parents do to their children. And maybe that is part of the author's point: that children who have been traumatized might be annoying and unpredictable. 

I tend to like novels like this, with a distinctive narrative voice, and a combination of humour and tragedy. The Union of Smokers misses the mark. It's okay, but too over-the-top. I didn't find Kaspar to be a believable character. Humour is a tricky genre. This might be perfect for another reader looking for a jokey approach to serious topics like environmental degradation and child welfare.

Giller chances: LOW

This post is part of a series. I'm on the Shadow Giller jury this year, so I'm reading as many qualifying Canadian titles as possible in order to come up with my own longlist prediction before the official one that will be announced on September 8, 2020. To see my other reviews that are a part of this project, click on the Shadow Giller tag. Also, please visit our Shadowing the Best of CanLit website to see what the rest of the Shadow Giller jury are up to. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Some People's Children by Bridget Canning

Some People's Children by Bridget Canning
Breakwater Books, May 2020

A fatherless girl's coming of age story set in Newfoundland.

Is this a novel primarily for teens or adults? The Scotiabank Giller prize rules disqualify YA (Young Adult) titles, so that question was one that I asked of my YA book group when we discussed this title yesterday. I agree with our general assessment: it's an adult novel with crossover appeal to older teens.

Imogene Tubbs is 12 when the novel opens in 1986, living with her grandmother in the tiny settlement of St Felix in the western part of the island of Newfoundland. It's an 11-hour journey by bus from there to the provincial capital, St John's. Imogene's mother Maggie is in Ontario; her promises to have her daughter join her have not been kept so far. Everyone in town suspects they know who Imogene's father is, a terrible man named Cecil Jesso, although Maggie denies this and the prologue scene shows otherwise.

The story spans about a decade of Imogene's life, into her early adulthood. It's a clear-eyed and compassionate look at adolescence and the search for identity. The characterizations have nuance. The sense of small town claustrophobia, the landscape and weather are all vividly portrayed. 

        There's always some kind of wind in St Felix's. Sometimes a cold wind off the water to spoil a warm summer day. Or a Wreckhouse blast that gouges the breath from your mouth and tries to suffocate you right out in the open.

Imogene has been sheltered from the larger world, which she mainly knows through books. Readers who were bookish children will understand her need to bring three books along on a bus journey.

        That night, Imogene goes to bed early so she can read Harriet the Spy. She likes how Ole Golly takes Harriet for egg creams. She doesn't know what egg creams are, but imagines it's what people in New York eat all the time, like vanilla cake batter you can drink.

Newfoundland English appears now and then, such as "b'y" at the end of sentences; Tipp's Eve (December 23); "now the once;" "a bit drove;" and Jiggs' dinner.

        She's never been able to get excited about Jiggs.' Boil out all the nutrients and salt it like it might come back to life and haunt you.

One of the reasons that this novel doesn't fall into the YA category is its absence of prudishness. The characters take a pragmatic approach to sexual intercourse and underage drinking. When Imogene's grandmother is out of earshot, profanity abounds. In this passage, Imogene is attending university and her friend Jamie describes his older brothers to her:

        "They're bastards. They really are. Just because someone's related to you, doesn't mean you have to like them. And Eric is a dirty fucker. He's the kind of guy who would show up at your house when you're having a party and steal your CDs."
        "That's fucking vile."
        "Nasty behaviour. That stuff's an investment, especially if you had to buy the bands you already have on tape over again."

Mental health is an important issue, addressed with sensitivity.

        The days get shorter and darker and Maggie follows suit.

1980s popular culture finds its way into the smallest of Canadian communities. And teenage hormonal angst is pretty much the same everywhere. 

        He has started spiking the front of his hair with gel that makes his fleecy blond fringe dark and geometrical. This new hair irritates Imogene and she feels guilty for her irritation which is also irritating. Liam can do whatever he wants with his appearance. But it annoys her that he didn't ask her opinion on his spiky hair, like she will just go along with whatever stupid decision he makes.

Imogene learns to forge her own path forward. Some People's Children is a rewarding read for anyone who loves character-based novels with a strong sense of place.

Giller chances: MEDIUM 

This post is part of a series. I'm on the Shadow Giller jury this year, so I'm reading as many qualifying Canadian titles as possible in order to come up with my own longlist prediction before the official one that will be announced on September 8, 2020. To see my other reviews that are a part of this project, click on the Shadow Giller tag. Also, please visit our Shadowing the Best of CanLit website to see what the rest of the Shadow Giller jury are up to. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown

Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown

Penguin Random House, December 2019

Audiobook (10 hours) narrated by Jorjeana Marie and Mozhan Marno

Reasons why I enjoyed this feminist dual-timeline novel with a cunning plot:

- Two fascinating women in their respective timelines: contemporary and 1950s

- For their joint ties to an old cookbook

- For the inclusion of recipes

- For the author's exploration of gender roles in patriarchy, and dishonesty in marital relationships

- For the dark undertones, and spooky happenings that might be either supernatural or have rational explanations (they are left up to the individual reader's interpretation)

        She liked how smoking changed her voice, made it a little huskier and certainly more interesting when she sang. Nellie had a beautiful voice, though sadly the only time she used her gift was at church, or in the bath, or to coax out flower petals. Filters promised to remove throat irritation, as her doctor and the magazine advertisements told her, and Nellie wanted no part of that.

        Picking a piece of errant tobacco off her tongue, Nellie stopped at the "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" column in the magazine and scanned the three points of view: the husband's, the wife's and the therapist's. The husband, Gordon, was overwhelmed with his financial responsibilities and irritated that his wife continued to spend money on things like expensive steak for dinner, clearly not aware of his stress. The wife, Doris, felt ignored by her husband and his silent treatment and would cook him this expensive steak to try to make him happy. Nellie shifted in her chair, crossed her legs, and drew deeply on her cigarette, imagining what advice she would offer this couple who had been marinating in marriage for more than a decade. One, she'd tell the wife to quit cooking for a week and see how that helped her husband's stress. Two, she'd suggest to the husband that he might try talking to his wife rather than expect her to read his mind.

        She quickly scanned the therapist's advice, which amounted to Doris should know her expensive dinners were only making things worse for poor, worried Gordon, and therefore for her as well; Gordon should not be expected to have to tell Doris how he's feeling... she should just know. The way any good  wife would.

        Nellie -- who had been Mrs Richard Murdoch for barely a year -- snorted.

Giller chances: MEDIUM - because, after the clever balance beam performance, there's wobble in the landing.

This post is part of a series. I'm on the Shadow Giller jury this year, so I'm reading as many qualifying Canadian titles as possible in order to come up with my own longlist prediction before the official one that will be announced on September 8, 2020. To see my other reviews that are a part of this project, click on the Shadow Giller tag. Also, please visit our Shadowing the Best of CanLit website to see what the rest of the Shadow Giller jury are up to. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Ridgerunner by Gil Adamson

Ridgerunner by Gil Adamson
House of Anansi, May 2020

A literary historical novel with the propulsion and atmosphere of a western.

I loved Gil Adamson's Outlander (2007), in which a 19-year-old white woman, Mary Boulton, is on the run from the law across the 1903 Canadian West, so I was delighted to learn that her new novel is a follow-up to Mary's story. In Ridgerunner, it's 1917 and Mary has recently died. Her widowed husband William Moreland and her son Jack Boulton are the main characters. There's also an ensemble of colourful secondary characters, including Sampson Beaver. Formerly a US marshall from Oklahoma, Sampson is now an old man living in seclusion in the mountains, and the nearest neighbour to William and Jack.

        Sampson took off his hat, turned his face up to the moon, and closed his eyes like a man sunbathing. Perhaps, he thought, we are toughest when we are young, and life wears us down; we become increasingly tender with age. 

Jack is indeed tough and capable at twelve, living on his own in the wilderness while his father is on the run, blowing up banks and stealing money so that his son will have choices instead of living in poverty. Everyone seems to struggle with their mental health, including Sister Beatrice, the nun who initially took charge of Jack after his mother died. Her inherited family house is in Banff, but town life didn't suit the boy.

        But a small town is a living engine run on talk, innumerable bees grumbling in their paper cells. Jack heard it everywhere he went. Gossip, opinionation, conjecture, speculation, debate.

Gil Adamson's prose is a pleasure. She evokes time and place beautifully. This is the kind of story where you can really sink into the atmosphere. Most of the story takes place in the Rocky Mountains near Banff and Lake Louise, but Moreland travels far. The following passage is an example of his experience of the prairies:

        But the prairie had puzzled him; the way you could walk for hours and seem not to advance. All around him were roads that ran so long and straight between wintering fields of unknown crops they seemed to vanish over the curve of the earth. He saw a ranching truck in the distance heralded by nothing but a soundless dust plume leaning with the wind. He watched it go, wondering where the driver was headed. Ranches, feed barns, maybe a killing house, where someone was making money on wartime bully beef. To the truck's right, a tiny fist of terrible weather hung over the land, so corralled by the miles it would never make it to where Moreland stood. How beautiful to watch weather work at a distance, without the slightest need to decide what that weather would mean to you. Rain, snow, lightning, it was happening to someone else.

Remote as the setting is, the outside world encroaches. Young men are scarce, having gone off to fight in the war in Europe. Hundreds of civilians deemed "enemy aliens" are imprisoned in internment camps at Castle Mountain and Banff, where Jack sees them being used as forced labour.

Moral ethics, loyalty, the class divide, motherhood, and father-son relationships are some of the issues that provoke thought. Overall, the plot and pacing make this a page-turner. It's intelligent and very readable.

Giller chances: MEDIUM HIGH - As enjoyable and well-written as Ridgerunner is, I don't see a larger truth, something that would lift this into award territory. I guess what I mean is that I didn't feel changed after reading this.

This post is part of a series. I'm on the Shadow Giller jury this year, so I'm reading as many qualifying Canadian titles as possible in order to come up with my own longlist prediction before the official one that will be announced on September 8, 2020. To see my other reviews that are a part of this project, click on the Shadow Giller tag. Also, please visit our Shadowing the Best of CanLit website to see what the rest of the Shadow Giller jury are up to. Thanks for visiting my blog.

The Swan Suit by Katherine Fawcett

The Swan Suit: Stories by Katherine Fawcett
Douglas & McIntyre, March 2020

A fresh and imaginative collection of short stories, bursting with humour and magic. 

Each story has surprises. 'The Virgin and the Troll' is a feminist retelling of Rumplestiltskin. A pig starts a wolf broth business in 'Ham.' The devil gets distracted at a daycare in 'The Devil and Miss Nora.' In 'Mycology,' the firing of a longterm employee brings a whole new perspective to the term ‘deadwood.‘ In 'Happy,' a married couple negotiate differing sexual needs:

        By their third decade of marriage, sex simply didn't seem worth the effort. Like cooking risotto, she saw it as a messy nuisance with results that didn't justify all the stirring.

Katherine Fawcett's playful wordsmithing is evident in the following passages, which are from two of the three interconnected stories about a witch.

        The place is a disaster. Witches are terrible housekeepers and this one is also a hoarder. There are bags of bones and boxes of buttons. Food scraps and beeswax. Birch bark and bike parts. Crumpled silk and rotting milk. Under floorboards are mushrooms; in the drawer, a dead duck. As for the grimoire? Alas, no luck. ('Mary Wonderful's New Grimoire')

        One way for a witch to amuse herself, when the usual avenues of entertainment have been exhausted, is to have a child. [...] Everyone knows having a baby can be very, very good for getting a lady out of a rut, for breaking up routine when life begins to feel same old, same old. ('The Maternal Instinct of Witches')

My favourite story is 'East O,' told from the perspective of an ovum.

        Conditions were crowded in East Ovary.
        Imagine a quarter million eggs, each tethered to the rubbery pod wall by her own personal follicle, all squeezed together into a space the size of the twist-off cap from a two-litre bottle of Canada Dry. Honestly, you couldn't swing a papillomavirus around in there without hitting someone in the corona radiata. But we didn't complain. We were evenly spaced and everyone got along fairly well. We avoided calling it "cramped," with its negative cultural stigma, and instead referred to our East O home as "cozy."

To anyone who protests that fantastical writing isn't worthy of serious consideration, I offer these words from Lloyd Alexander: "Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it." 

Giller chances: HIGH - This whole collection is delightful. It's going on my longlist and I hope the Giller judges feel the same way.

This post is part of a series. I'm on the Shadow Giller jury this year, so I'm reading as many qualifying Canadian titles as possible in order to come up with my own longlist prediction before the official one that will be announced on September 8, 2020. To see my other reviews that are a part of this project, click on the Shadow Giller tag. Also, please visit our Shadowing the Best of CanLit website to see what the rest of the Shadow Giller jury are up to. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Secret Lives of Mothers and Daughters by Anita Kushwaha

Secret Lives of Mothers and Daughters by Anita Kushwaha
HarperAvenue, January 2020

Shifting viewpoints reveal the lives of several South Asian Canadian women, linked through adoption.

I am always up for stories about women's lives, especially those that describe lives different from mine. I am also fond of narratives told from more than one perspective, so The Secret Lives of Mothers and Daughters seemed perfect for my tastes. The epigraph is from Jane Eyre, however, which raised a red flag. Jane Eyre is too gothic and too romantic for me. Many of you adore Jane Eyre, so keep your own tastes in mind as you read this review. The aspects that didn't work for me might be perfect for you.

Nandini and Prem Shukla adopt Asha when she is eight months old. They were given a letter for Asha that was written by her birth mother, but Nandini has an underlying jealousy of the birth mother and a fear of maternal inadequacy that prevents her from telling her daughter she was adopted. Asha is told the truth and given the letter on her 18th birthday. She doesn't take the news well.

        The awful sound of their daughter's weeping overtook the room. Nandini stared at Prem, bewildered, wondering how their close little family could have split into so many jagged, ill-fitting pieces.

Asha's birth mother is Mala Sharma. Mala is a PhD student and she's attracted to a white guy. Mala's mother Veena, meanwhile, is busy arranging for her to meet a suitable (i.e. South Asian) husband. The choices that immigrants make from day to day are well portrayed. Which traditions to keep or discard. How to balance fitting in to the larger settler Canadian society with family values and expectations. When one of Mala's friends asks what's troubling her, she considers how best to explain.

        Mala paused. She often encountered confusion, if not disdain, from her non-Indian friends -- although less so if they were also children of immigrants -- when she tried to explain to them certain realities of hr life, which many deemed insupportable. She tended to fail at impressing the importance of respect over rebellion. The group over the individual. Responsibility over want.

Mala starts keeping secrets from the people she loves. It doesn't go well.

        Like a strip of tape being slowly pulled away from a wall, Mala felt herself split in two, the way she always felt whenever she told lies, her true self sinking below to safety while her other self pushed through her pores like a numb second skin.

Anita Kushwaha's writing relies heavily on metaphor and simile. "A monster of grief tried to scratch its way out through her skin." Here's a passage from newly-widowed Veena Sharma's point of view:

        She woke as sprawled as a starfish. Sunken by a leaden feeling, she pictured her husband, Pavan, frowning down on her, clothed in white shrouds and wreathed in pale light. She heard his deep voice, whispering in her ear like a waft through the feathery leaves of a tamarind tree: "You've forgotten me already, champakali." A sudden chill ran through her like a trickle of melting ice along her spine.

There are three white characters in the novel, all named for trees: Willow, Rowan and Ash. I kind of like that: it gives me the idea that white Canadians are like a forest. The brown characters shine as they take turns on centre stage. While the melodramatic style is too theatrical for my taste, I enjoyed getting to know Asha, Nandini, Mala and Veena.

Giller chances: LOW 

This post is part of a series. I'm on the Shadow Giller jury this year, so I'm reading as many qualifying Canadian titles as possible in order to come up with my own longlist prediction before the official one that will be announced on September 8, 2020. To see my other reviews that are a part of this project, click on the Shadow Giller tag. Also, please visit our Shadowing the Best of CanLit website to see what the rest of the Shadow Giller jury are up to. Thanks for visiting my blog. 

Rabbit Foot Bill by Helen Humphreys

Rabbit Foot Bill by Helen Humphreys
HarperCollins, August 2020

A poetic novel based on a true story of friendship between a boy and a murderer in mid-twentieth century Saskatchewan.

The characters in Rabbit Foot Bill are the kind at which Helen Humphreys excels in bringing to life: emotionally distant loners, scarred by trauma. Leonard tells the story that begins in 1947, when Bill, a man his father's age, is living in a sort of cave he's carved for himself into the side of a hill, far outside of town. Leonard is twelve, son of the stationmaster in tiny Canwood, Saskatchewan. Leonard and Bill have a special bond, and the boy spends as much time with him as possible, avoiding bullies at school.

        The next day at school I try to keep well away from the group of boys who are always beating on me for reasons I never understand. It's raining, so I must be hit. We're doing sums in arithmetic, so I must be hit. The sky is a certain shade of blue, so I must be hit.

After witnessing Bill commit an act of violence, Leonard doesn't see him again for a dozen years. In the meantime, Leonard becomes a psychiatrist and takes a position at the Weyburn Mental Hospital, where scientifically dubious experiments with LSD are underway. There are 1,800 patients in the facility, including Leonard's old friend Bill. Something bad seems bound to happen.

Humphreys is one of my very favourite, must-read-everything-she-writes authors. Her writing has a quiet melancholic power, and her language use thrills my word-loving soul. Her stories are grounded in the natural world and her flawed characters are deserving of grace. Whatever place and time, I feel myself sink into her descriptions of setting.

        Supper is cold beef and potato salad. Father doesn't like talk at meals, so we sit there in the cool of the kitchen with the night noise of the prairie outside and the rattle of knives and forks against our plates. My parents won't be finding out about my missing school until tomorrow, so tonight I am safe and I sink into the calm waters of this, into our quiet supper in the kitchen, followed by my mother and I listening to the radio in the parlour and father sitting on the porch, smoking. I don't call it happiness, but looking back now I think it was a sort of happiness; that shelter is a kind of happiness.

 A novel like Rabbit Foot Bill is many things, including shelter, escape, and a window on truth about the human condition.

Giller prediction: MEDIUM HIGH - Much as I love it, I think this will be on the periphery of the longlist, bumped out by flashier novels. But I hope I'm wrong.

NOTE: I'm grateful to HarperCollins for providing a review copy.

This post is part of a series. I'm on the Shadow Giller jury this year, so I'm reading as many qualifying Canadian titles as possible in order to come up with my own longlist prediction before the official one that will be announced on September 8, 2020. To see my other reviews that are a part of this project, click on the Shadow Giller tag. Also, please visit our Shadowing the Best of CanLit website to see what the rest of the Shadow Giller jury are up to. Thanks for visiting my blog. 

Indians on Vacation by Thomas King

Indians on Vacation by Thomas King
HarperCollins, August 2020

A funny novel about living with depression and despair.

Mimi Bull Shield, from the Blackfoot Nation in Alberta, and her husband Blackbird Mavrias, who is of Greek and Cherokee descent, travel to Europe in search of Mimi's uncle's medicine bundle. Why her Uncle Leroy ended up in Europe is a story in itself, plus there's a whole lot more going on in this hilarious novel. So much that, by the end, my heart was broken.

But let's back up to the beginning, to when Bird and Mimi have newly arrived in Prague. He is grumpy, she is full of optimism and excitement.

        I'm sweaty and sticky. My ears are still popping from the descent into Vaclav Havel. My sinuses ache. My stomach is upset. My mouth is a sewer. I roll over and bury my face in a pillow. Mimi snuggles down beside me with no regard for my distress.
        "My god," she whispers, "can it get any better?"

Years of living together have given this mismatched pair a warm understanding of each other's strengths and weaknesses. Their relationship feels as real as the characters themselves. Their differences are a gold mine of humour.

        Mimi came home from her weekly jaunt to the thrift stores. She has a circuit that she works, much like a trapper on a trapline. 
        [...]
        For me, thrift stores are in the same category as the garbage bins behind fast-food joints. For Mimi, they're gold mines just waiting to be quarried.

It is clear from the opening chapter that something more than a reluctance to travel is bothering Bird. When they encounter an encampment of Syrian refugees, his despair comes to the forefront.

        "Are you depressed again?"
        "Just tired."
        "It's the refugees, isn't it?" says Mimi. "You don't like seeing children in distress."
        I can't imagine that anyone likes to see anyone in distress, but as soon as I think this, I remind myself that I'm wrong. For the most part, no one much cares what happens to other people, just so long as it doesn't happen to them. We have the capacity for compassion. We simply don't practise it to any degree.
        It's more an ideal that we hang on a wall where it's easy to see and almost impossible to reach.

The narrative flows back and forth in time. The present-day sections begin: "So we're in Prague," giving readers a rhythm that's easy to follow. There are no easy answers, however. As Mimi says: "The problem with human beings is that we can describe what we do. We just can't explain why."

Giller chances: HIGH - Thomas King is at the top of his storytelling game.

NOTE: I'm grateful to HarperCollins for providing a review copy.

This post is part of a series. I'm on the Shadow Giller jury this year, so I'm reading as many qualifying Canadian titles as possible in order to come up with my own longlist prediction before the official one that will be announced on September 8, 2020. To see my other reviews that are a part of this project, click on the Shadow Giller tag. Also, please visit our Shadowing the Best of CanLit website to see what the rest of the Shadow Giller jury are up to. Thanks for visiting my blog. 

Swimmers in Winter by Faye Guenther

Swimmers in Winter by Faye Guenther
Invisible Publishing, August 2020

This collection contains three pairs of astute stories about Canadian lesbians, the first one starting in the 1940s and the final one taking place sometime in our future.

In the title story, lesbian women live an underground life in Toronto, constantly in fear of exposure and arrest, because homosexuality is illegal. It's told in first person by Florence, a promiscuous musician and songwriter who sometimes longs for the company of her ex-girlfriend, a singer named Magda. The next story, 'Fight or Flight,' takes place about 55 years later, in the voice of Magda as an old woman. She looks back on her youth, a time when she took care to guard her heart. 

        But no one could own me. That was what I promised myself every night, on and off the stage. I was my own keeper, my own maker, and it would always be that way.
        Life has its own current, though. No matter your will, there's the rush and the undertow. The truth is that I'm not a swimmer. If I learned how to stay afloat, it was only because I knew what drowning felt like.

The second pair of stories follow women working blue collar jobs, in restaurants and as a security guard. Secrets confound their romantic entanglements. As in the other pieces in this book, the characterizations are vivid. The way exterior forces influence their interior lives is palpable.

The final diptych begins with 'Opened Fire,' about a soldier returning from Afghanistan. Carmen has PTSD and struggles with re-entry into civilian life. Canadian laws have changed since the settings of earlier stories in this book, but lesbians still aren't widely accepted in in the small town where Carmen grew up. When Carmen and a new friend from her running group decide to go on a first date, they choose a bar that they hope will feel welcoming. Carmen's brother tells her:

        "Of the four in town, it's probably the best one. It had one of those rainbow flags in the window for a weekend in June, last year. I mean up on the Friday evening, and down by Sunday night, but still."

There's a passage in 'Opened Fire' that reminded me of what it was like when I temporarily couldn't read because of anxiety during the first couple of months of the COVID-19 pandemic this year.

        Carmen loved the way Aurora peered at a book like it held a mystery, like it gave her some comfort. Carmen missed that for herself. She missed being able to concentrate on words and a make-believe world without the memories pummelling down, without images leaping in her mind, scrambling her vision and making her forget what she'd just read. Books and reading were a luxury, gifts she wanted back. She wanted her life back.

The final story, 'Flood Lands,' takes place in a post-apocalyptic future landscape. While each of the paired stories have links, I found the connections between the final two the most pleasing of all: a flood; a baby; literacy; and two women named Carmen (the second is the first Carmen's great-great-niece), who get around on two wheels.

I enjoyed all of these for their character studies and the way they covered a spectrum of queer women across a century of time. The format is also structurally appealing; I don't remember ever reading sets of diptychs before. 

Giller chances: MEDIUM LOW - It's a promising first collection. I hope to see more stories or a novel from Faye Guenther in the future.

NOTE: I'm grateful to Invisible Publishing for providing a review copy.

This post is part of a series. I'm on the Shadow Giller jury this year, so I'm reading as many qualifying Canadian titles as possible in order to come up with my own longlist prediction before the official one that will be announced on September 8, 2020. To see my other reviews that are a part of this project, click on the Shadow Giller tag. Also, please visit our Shadowing the Best of CanLit website to see what the rest of the Shadow Giller jury are up to. Thanks for visiting my blog.

The Ghost in the House by Sara O'Leary

The Ghost in the House by Sara O'Leary

Doubleday Canada, July 2020

In this brief, amusing and romantic novel about grief and letting go, Fay haunts her husband Alec after she dies in their Vancouver home.

Alec can't see Fay.

        He looks straight through me. I wonder how many times I've used that expression without truly understanding how wretched it could feel.

Fay does a lot of memory surfing. In the following passage, she relives meeting Alec for the first time, in a pub in Montreal:

        My eye is drawn to a man on the far side of the room sitting at a table by himself. He's older than me, I think, and he's handsome. There's something distinguished about him, but also a little rugged. His dark curly hair looks like it's trying to escape his head. His beard is dark, reddish, and full. He's reading an old, cloth-bound book. I can see the gold lettering on the cover. The Gist of Swedenborg.

Based on this description, plus a few other clues, I assume that these characters are White. The reference to Emanuel Swedenborg, a mystic who had visions of a spiritual world, dovetails neatly with the novel's premise. 

Fay has many regrets, thinking that she has squandered her days.

        How did I go through  my life and make all these decisions without realizing they were decisions? Why did nothing ever feel final? Until now. All my choices have been made.

While I wouldn't describe myself as entirely unsentimental, romance tends to make me gag. There's a lot of yearning for physical intimacy in this book, and those parts didn't work for me. This description of being married didn't either:

        I came to realize that I really did like being married. I liked the idea that we had chosen each other. That as improbable as it all might seem, all the days before we met had been leading up to that one day that was the start of our life together.

Since Fay's death, Alec has remarried and has a 13-year-old stepdaughter, Dee. ("The only good thing about being thirteen is that unlike being dead, it doesn't last.") At the start, Fay is totally self-absorbed, but she changes over the course of the story. Much of the credit has to do with her interactions with Dee, who is the first to see Fay as a ghost.

        I am in Dee's room. I leave Frankenstein on her nightstand. I took it from Alec's study, so perhaps she will think it came from him. That doesn't really matter. What matters is that Mary Shelley will help her more through her dark days than any twee tween nonsense about the sexy undead.

        Does the fact that Mary Shelley was nineteen when she wrote Frankenstein make her a young-adult author? I open the book and read: "Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world."

        A torrent of light. I have broken the natural laws by my return. And there are, as always, consequences.

"Till death do us part" from the dead spouse's point of view gives this novel a unique twist. It's bound to provoke rumination on mortality, the loved one's we've lost, our fears of being forgotten, and about being our best selves.

Giller chances: LOW - It's wispy. The content is conducive to discussion, so this would be a good pick for a book club looking for something light.

This post is part of a series. I'm on the Shadow Giller jury this year, so I'm reading as many qualifying Canadian titles as possible in order to come up with my own longlist prediction before the official one that will be announced on September 8, 2020. To see my other reviews that are a part of this project, click on the Shadow Giller tag. Also, please visit our Shadowing the Best of CanLit website to see what the rest of the Shadow Giller jury are up to. Thanks for visiting my blog.