Sarah Milroy: Rebecca Belmore’s searing vision $6.50 Vol. 26, No. 6 July/August 2018 CHARLES FORAN & CHRIS HEDGES The collapse of America GRAHAM FRASER Ground zero of the language wars ANDY LAMEY Anti-appropriation’s capitalist logic PLUS SUMMER FICTION REVIEWS EMILY M. KEELER on peak autofiction ALEX GOOD on short stories and the New Weird ANNE KINGSTON on Patrick deWitt and luxe lit CARLEIGH BAKER on Richard Wagamese’s literary legacy SaRAH WEINMAN on Iain Reid’s uncanny valley Publications Mail Agreement #40032362. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to LRC, Circulation Dept. 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Led by the famous Harriet Tubman, Rebecca evades her captors on foot, by steamship, even hidden inside a coffin, aided by compassionate abolitionists. 978-1-55380-514-4 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-515-1 (EBOOK) 164 pp $11.95 Available at your favourite bookstore J Distributed by PGC/Raincoast www.ronsdalepress.com Literary Review of Canada 340 King Street East, 2nd Floor Toronto ON M5A 1K8 email: [email protected] reviewcanada.ca Charitable number: 848431490RR0001 To donate, visit reviewcanada.ca/support Vol. 26, No. 6 • July/August 2018 EDITOR IN CHIEF Sarmishta Subramanian [email protected] ASSISTANT EDITOR 2 The Collapse of America 20 Past Trauma Bardia Sinaee Charles Foran in conversation Richard Wagamese, and an Indigenous resurgence ASSOCIATE EDITOR with Chris Hedges Starlight by Richard Wagamese and Why Beth Haddon Indigenous Literatures Matter by Daniel POETRY EDITOR 4 Whereas the Word Whereas Heath Justice Moira MacDougall A poem Carleigh Baker COPY EDITOR Layli Long Soldier Patricia Treble 22 You Look Like I Feel CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 5 Plain Language A poem Mohamed Huque, Andy Lamey, Molly The first murmurs of a constitutional debate Natalie Shapero Peacock, Robin Roger, Judy Stoffman that lasted three decades PROOFREADERS Panser le Canada by Valérie Lapointe-Gagnon 23 Field of Vision Suzanne Mantha, Heather Schultz, Graham Fraser Space, time, and the marriage continuum Tyler Willis Foe by Iain Reid ART DIRECTOR 7 The Great Administrator Sarah Weinman Rachel Tennenhouse Rescuing America’s least loved president ADVERTISING/SALES Hoover by Kenneth Whyte 25 God and Monsters Michael Wile Christopher Moore The unbearable brightness of Stephen King [email protected] America’s Dark Theologian by Douglas E. 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We acknowledge the financial Funding Acknowledgements We acknowledge the assistance support of the Government of the OMDC Magazine Fund, of Canada through the an initiative of Ontario Media Canada Periodical Fund of Development Corporation. the Department of Canadian Heritage. an Ontario government agency un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario July/August 2018 reviewcanada.ca 1 INTErviEW The Collapse of America Charles Foran in conversation with Chris Hedges ong before Donald Trump its roots in the destruction of radical was dreaming of a White movements, the corporatization of LHouse with gold walls, back the two major political parties, and when the world’s hugest Twitter the disemboweling of the economy account was in its infancy, promoting by the military, which began immedi- a blustery businessman’s appear- ately after World War Two. So it spans ances on late-night television, the several decades. American journalist and author Chris Foran: A dimension of the book Hedges was already lamenting the that is true to your work, but still may collapse of his country. As Americans surprise some readers, is that you are celebrated their first black president, very committed to reportage, very Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning committed to sitting down with lots reporter as well as a Presbyterian of different people in lots of different minister, published 2009’s Empire of circumstances. What does that do for Illusion: The End of Literacy and the your thinking, those encounters with Triumph of Spectacle. His follow-up, direct personal experiences? Why Wages of Rebellion (2015), laid out do you value so much talking to the inevitability of revolt in the age people about what’s been going on in of the Occupy movement and Arab their lives? Spring. His books skirt traditional left Hedges: Because I’m a reporter. and right divisions, bringing a clear There is only one way to understand eye and righteous rage to his nation’s the zeitgeist of any society or cul- political and social ills. In the latest, ture, and that’s stepping out into it America: The Farewell Tour, as befits and listening. No matter how pre- the times, his arguments have taken scient or intelligent you may be, you on a fevered urgency. carry assumptions which are often, As a novelist, critic, and, for the when pitted against reality, wrong.