YOUR FREE GUIDE TO BOOKS & AUTHORS BC The BIG BOOKWORLD VOL. 34 • NO. 3 • Autumn 2020 league

CHRISTINA MYERS looks at body shapes.

#40010086

agreement

mail Plus-sized living

JILLIAN CHRISTMAS in a society that publication Courageous poems that favours thinness. matter and resonate. 3 Review page 7

LOGAN MACNAIR The story of a stutterer who ghostwrites for a politician. 29

EVELYN LAU Brave beautiful poetry photography about life with depression. 33 twinlens “An NDN love “ I’m gutted by story that will his brilliant mind.” stop you in — CHERIE DIMALINE, author of Empire of Wild and The Marrow Thieves your tracks.” —LEANNE BETASAMOSAKE SIMPSON “ Puts the reader at author of the centre of a deeply This Accident of Being Lost serious struggle—with language, with sexuality, with race and colonial Canada, and with love and joy and a life in art.” —SHEILA HETI, author of The youngest winner Motherhood and How Should a Person Be? of the Griffin Prize, Billy-Ray Belcourt is a critically acclaimed and award-winning author from the Driftpile Cree Nation, and Assistant Professor of Indigenous Creative Writing at UBC.

2 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 BC TOP PEOPLE So, a divorce SELLERS lawyer walks into a rabbi’s Monique Gray Smith & Julie Flett office… My Heart Fills With Happiness (Orca $10.95) ivorce lawyer Joey Evelyn Lau is looking to get a crash bar mitzvah Pineapple Express In October, (Anvil Press $18) course. He’s in his Jillian Christmas sixties and hasn’t Frédérick Lavoie D will be at the followed his religion Orwell in Cuba: How 1984 most of his life, and has not had his Came to Be Published Whistler Writers in Castro’s Twilight bar mitzvah. Having lied about this (Talonbooks $19.95) Festival and the omission all his life, he now needs Vancouver Writers to go through the procedure, and Iona Whishaw fast, for family reasons. A Match Made for Festival. Murder: A Lane Winslow Joey chooses Rabbi Michael Mystery (#7) Levitz-Sharon. Never having met (TouchWood $16.95) the person before, he barges into Susan Smith-Josephy the rabbi’s office without an ap- with Irene Bjerky pointment and waits, sitting in the Cataline: The Life of BC’s rabbi’s chair. When a young woman Legendary Packer walks in fresh from a jog, wearing (Caitlin Press $22.95) a baseball cap (it’s the rabbi), he Charles Ulrich doesn’t realize who it is. The Big Note: A Guide Joey: So what do you do here? to the Recordings of Michael: This and that . . . I’m Frank Zappa (New Star $45) the rabbi. So more this than that. Colleen MacDonald Joey: No. Let’s Go Biking: Michael: And you’re in my chair. Okanagan and Beyond INCANTATORY Joey: You’re Rabbi Levitz-Sha- (Sandhill Book ron? (pronounced Share-in.) Marketing $19.95) Michael: Rabbi Michael Levitz- Wendy Wickwire Sharon. (pronounced Sha-rown) At The Bridge: James Teit Like the prime minister. No relation. and an Anthropology Joey: But you’re— of Belonging ACTIVISM Michael: Not circumcised? (UBC Press $34.95) Joey: Young. I was thinking poken word ac- Jillian Christmas, who teaches young. tivist Jillian poetry through word play exercises It’s not a great start and at first Christmas’ and whose work often focusses on the rabbi doesn’t want to help with poems are ex- anti-oppression initiatives, has de- Joey’s seemingly insincere request. pressive of her veloped programs and workshops in But Joey eventually wins her over in Mark Leiren-Young’s comedic family history, partnership with Vancouver Opera, S new play, Bar Mitzvah Boy (Play- queer lineage, Wordplay, Brendan McLeod’s Trav- wrights Canada $17.95). As the two and “the political landscape of a elling Slam, CULTCH Mentorship get closer, they begin a series of racialized life.” and the Museum of Anthropology conversations on their faith, family In response to Jillian Christmas’ (UBC). and the importance of community.

978-0-36910-068-9 first book, The Gospel of Breaking Born and raised in Markham, t (Arsenal Pulp $14.95), novelist Da- Ontario, with lineage from Trinidad vid Chariandy described her spo- and Tobago, Christmas has served Vicki McLeod ken word texts as “incantatory and for six years as Artistic Director of You and the Internet of Things: A Practical Guide disarming, sensitive and cerebral, Verses Festival of Words. Her writ- to Understanding & fiercely defiant and courageously ing has appeared in Huffington Post, Integrating the IoT into Your Daily Life tender.” Matrix New Queer Writing (issue 98), (Self-Counsel Press $22.95) In an interview with Rob Taylor The Post Feminist Post, Plenitude Harriet Shugarman for Read Local, she said, “On the Magazine, Room and The Great Black How to Talk to Your Kids page, that immediate feedback is ab- North anthology edited by Valerie about Climate Change (New Society $17.99) sent, but there is still opportunity to Mason-John and Kevan Anthony create an arc, a flow that moves the Cameron. Roy Henry Vickers reader from one emotional landscape “I love hard as I know how,” she & Robert Budd to another. As for the applause, I writes in The Gospel of Breaking. Raven Squawk, Orca Squeak have an excellent imagination.” 9781551527970 Mark Leiren-Young (Harbour $9.95)

Richard Wagamese Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Annual subscription: $25 One Drum: Stories and Return undeliverable Canadian Ceremonies for a Planet BC addresses to: BC BookWorld, 926 West Indigenous Editor: Latash-Maurice Nahanee (D&M $18.95) 15th Ave., Vancouver, BC Canada V5Z 1R9 Contributing Editors: John Moore, Heidi Greco, BOOKWORLD Mark Forsythe, Caroline Woodward, Valerie We gratefully acknowledge the unobtrusive Marie Elliott Produced with the sponsorship of Green, Cherie Thiessen, Sage Birchwater. assistance of Canada Council, a continu- Gold in British Columbia: Autumn 2020 Pacific BookWorld News Society. Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. ous partner since 1988, and creativeBC, a Discovery to Confederation Volume 34 • Number 3 Publications Mail Registration No. 7800. provincial partner since 2014. BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics (Ronsdale $24.95) Publisher: Beverly Cramp Advertising & editorial: Consultants: Christine Rondeau, BC BookWorld, 926 West 15th Ave., Sharon Jackson, Kenneth Li The current topselling titles from major BC publishing companies, Editor/Production: Vancouver, BC Canada V5Z 1R9 Photographer: Laura Sawchuk In-Kind Supporters: in no particular order. David Lester Tel: 604-736-4011 Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Tara Twigg Simon Fraser University Library; [email protected] Deliveries: Ken Reid, Acculogix Vancouver Public Library; University of BC Library

3 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV bc bookword full page summer 2020_bc bookworld full page 21/08/20 2:42 PM Page 1

new and timeless Ekstasis titles from the deep well of the imagination

Sailing to Repairing the byzantium Replay 1943-1965 Hive MauReen tHoRPe StePHen SCobIe lInda RoGeRS ISBN 978-1-77171-384-9 ISBN 978-1-77171-394-8 ISBN 978-1-77171-303-0 Fiction 299 pages Poetry 92 pages Fiction 293 pages $25.95 $23.95 $25.95

lessons from the eleventh Venice Voicing Suicide Hour denISe deSautelS edIted by CaRolyn MaRIe SouaId ISBN 978-1-77171-370-2 danIel G SCott ISBN 978-1-77171-400-6 Poetry 90 pages ISBN 978-1-77171-376-4 Poetry 69 pages $23.95 Poetry Anthology 202 pages $23.95 $24.95

Swamped Morning bafflement ManolIS and timeless ISBN 978-1-77171-392-4 Puzzlement Fiction 276 pages J. J. SteInfeld $25.95 ISBN 978-1-77171-386-3 Poetry 135 pages $23.95

When Conditions Skookum Raven are Right HeatHeR Haley Randy KoHan ISBN 978-1-77171-390-0 ISBN 978-1-77171-398-6 Poetry 104 pages Poetry 96 pages $23.95 $23.95

Haiku in Canada In Praise of teRRy ann CaRteR Small Mistakes ISBN 978-1-77171-382-5 leSley CHoyCe Non-Fiction/Poetry ISBN 978-1-77171-388-7 170 pages Poetry 89 pages $23.95 $23.95

Quarters Sleep With Me to Measure the Janet VICKeRS fRanCeS PoPe World ISBN 978-1-77171-360-3 ISBN 978-1-77171-380-1 KaRen SHenfeld Poetry 84 pages Poetry 70 pages ISBN 978-1-77171-362-7 $23.95 $23.95 Poetry 56 pages $23.95

Songs of the Iotekha’ north Impromptu RobeRt lalonde deboRaH l. Kelly Jude neale ISBN 978-1-77171-366-5 ISBN 978-1-77171-364-1 ISBN 978-1-77171-358-0 Non-Fiction 111 pages Poetry 100 pages Poetry $24.95 $23.95 92 pages $23.95

Ekstasis Editions celebrating 38 years of publishing: a milestone for the imagination! EKSTASIS EDITIONS BOX 8474, MAIN POSTAL OUTLET, VICTORIA, BC, V8W 3S1 WWW.EKSTASISEDITIONS.COM WWW.CANADABOOKS.CA

4 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 PEOPLE Little-known

artists of B.C. Dave Butler went from Cranbrook to the n the first half of the 20th century, upwards of 16,000 artists lived Erongo Wilderness in Iand worked in B.C. yet other than west-central Namibia a handful of those who achieved ‘suc- to research his cess,’ there has been little documented third novel. evidence of the majority of the others. Art was made invisible by socioeco- nomic or political forces and also a lack photo of galleries. “Those artists that worked The crime of Rhino poaching

the system got recognition and those barber

that didn’t, disappeared from view,” jim says Mona Fertig of Mother Tongue retired forester and biologist, Dave Butler tery that includes pipelines, shadowy political machina- Publishing. of Cranbrook is a pathfinder in the new tions and a proposed ski area development for a remote field of eco-fiction. His mystery series valley. features a caustic-witted national park Now, In Rhino We Trust (Dundurn $14.95) Jenny A warden and conservationist named Willson has been seconded to work with an American Jenny Willson, who is trying to succeed colleague in Namibia where she gets involved in a case of in a largely male-dominated, politically-charged envi- rhino poaching, leading to connections to international ronment. crime syndicates. It could all culminate in deadly conse- In the first book, Full Curl, a Jenny Willson Mystery quences for would-be sleuths as well as wildlife. (Dundurn, 2017), she discovers that trophy animals are Butler is the director of sustainability for Canadian missing from Canada’s national parks. With the list of Mountain Holidays, a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geo- murder victims (both human and four-footed) growing, graphical Society and a winner of the Queen Elizabeth II Willson pursues the villains across the U.S. border. It Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. won the Arthur Ellis award for Best First Crime Novel Butler’s grandmother was a prolific writer in B.C. in Canada in 2018. newspapers from the 1940s to the 1970s, and his father The second book, set in Golden and Yoho National published a book of stories about Barnston Island in the Park, No Place for Wolverines (Dundurn, 2018) is a mys- Fraser River. 978-1-45974-087-7

Bullied schoolgirls, tormented artists t arie Clements’ based theatre company that latest play, Iron produces works by Indigenous Peggy (Talon- and diverse artists. As a Métis Mary Filer at Quebec’s Dawson College, books $16.95) performer and playwright, she 1946. She trained as a painter and employs magic has explored the politics of became a glass sculptor from the late M 1960s until her death in 2016. realism to span race, gender and class. multi-generations and link Clements’ plays include photo This spurred Fertig to publish a contemporary times to WWI Copper Thunderbird (Talon- series of books called The Unheralded (1914–1918). The story fol- books, 2007) about the tor-

Artists of BC that included stories on lows Peg, a young girl strug- mented life of Norval Mor- mackintosh Harry and Jessie Webb, Mildred Valley gling at boarding school while t risseau, the man generally

Thornton, Mary Filer, David Marshall, laird being bullied. Peg’s father is regarded as the Father of Con- and Mona Fertig’s father, George Fertig Marie Clements with a face painting in the absent and the school admin- temporary First Nations art. among others. style of Norval Morrisseau. istration is uninterested and Copper Thunderbird relates a Now thirteen of these forgotten art- unwilling to intervene. Faustian tale of the world-revered artist who became ists have been gathered into one book, The Pocket Guide to The Unheralded When Peg’s grandmother dies, an unexpected gift a Grand Shaman within the realm of Ojibwa cosmol- Artists of BC Series (Mother Tongue arrives—three antique cast iron soldiers that magically ogy while succumbing to the effects of family abuse, $24.95). Each artist’s life and work, from come to life in the form of Indigenous snipers from alcoholism and extreme poverty—including wanderings the early 1900s to the 1980s is sum- WWI. The soldiers teach Peg survival skills to take on on the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The marized. The goal is to tempt readers her bullies. result is a composite vision of a fractured life. to go back to the earlier books and read Iron Peggy was commissioned by the Vancouver The world premiere of Copper Thunderbird marked more fully about each of these artists, International Children’s Festival but would also appeal the first time Canada’s National Arts Centre in Ottawa all of whom created large bodies of work to adult readers. produced the work of a First Nations playwright on its during their lifetimes. 9781896949826 Marie Clements founded Urban Ink, a Vancouver- main stage. 9781772012538

5 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV “Short punchy blurb!” — Interesting Person REG SHERREN

A memoir

6 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 COVER REVIEW THE

BIG: Stories about Life in Plus-Sized Bodies on the topic of eugenics one day. Edited by Christina Myers Cameron asked whether or not it was “mor- (Caitlin Press $24.95) ally acceptable—even desirable—to detect so- BY BEVERLY CRAMP called ‘deficiencies’ during pregnancy?” After discussing the controversial topic s a young girl, Chris- of ‘designer babies’ Cameron went further, tina Myers got used B G wondering “if they had known how being fat to hearing people I would affect my life, would they have taken the describe her body opportunity to deselect ‘fat’ from the panel of shape as ‘solid.’ characteristics possessed by the little embryo She wasn’t intim- LEAGUE that was to be me?” idated or ashamed Cameron was shocked when her family an- A by such remarks – not swered they absolutely would, but understood initially. Twenty-six plus-sized people they knew that being fat had been a source “I was solid,” she says in BIG: Stories of a lot of pain to her growing up; that they about Life in Plus-Sized Bodies. “Strong tell the stories of how they navigate would have done what they could to protect and tall and built in a way that made me feel a society obsessed with thinness, her from that. capable of anything I wanted or needed to do. Cameron acknowledged that, “being fat had I was the girl who could reach the top shelf also shaped almost everything about me,” but Bruce, Christine, 7-year-old including some who developed and open jars and help teachers carry heavy added that her “sense of humour, compassion- boxes and outpace boys on the track and the important life skills while ate nature, radical politics and values would tennis court.” all be different, I was sure, if I hadn’t moved Myers says she felt ‘at home’ in her own growing up “big.” through the world as a fat person.” In the end, body although this wasn’t to last. Cameron embraced her body shape. “In a world in which controlling and per- Another contributor, Tracy Manrell dis- fecting our bodies is the most covers, while going through a important job, project, obsession sex change from female to male, and goal that a woman can have, how much difference there is it would have been impossible to between being overweight as a reach the end of childhood feel- woman and as a man. “Although ing as benign and neutral about I always observed that life as a a word like solid as I did in the big man seemed different than life beginning.” for big women, I was struck on a At first, Myers made jokes. new level just how different these “‘I’m sturdy,’ I’d say, usually with worlds are,” she says. “Women a wink or chuckle. ‘I’d have made and men have different definitions a great farm wife—big child-bear- of a fat body, I observe. Women ing hips, strong enough to pull a are much harder on themselves. plow, I’d just work hard all day A woman sees herself as fat when toting water and chopping wood.’ carrying an extra ten or even five It was a false front: a feigned pounds. A man with those same implication that I embraced my extra pounds (and more) sees it as body, under the guise of vague muscle or brawn on their bodies.” words and a dash of humour.” Manrell encounters a doctor A friend called her on it. “The who doesn’t like the word ‘fat’ way you say that is not kind to because she sees it as an insult yourself,” they said. “You don’t and won’t allow its use in her of- mean it in a good way.” fice. Manrell doesn’t agree. From that time on, Myers “The queer community is began to think about how words famous for reclaiming words affect people, their self-image, that have historically been used confidence and well-being. “So against us: queer, dyke, fag, tran- what words, then, should I use? ny. Used by the right people and What words should any of us use? in the right context, these words It is not an uncommon question carry their own positive power. these days, but the decision is And they are just words — adjec- ultimately so personal that I’m tives, descriptors. Frankly, there not convinced there is a right or was a long time when if someone best answer.” called me a fat dyke, I could say, While compiling the 26 stories Yes. Yes, I am. Fat and (for now) for reflections on the experiences a dyke. What’s your point? So, of ‘plus-size’ women (including when I call myself fat, I am not non-binary and trans people) in putting myself down. I am fat. I a society that values thinness, wear glasses. I have brown hair Myers opted to title her book, and a brown beard. I am trans- BIG—not fat, curvy, chubby, ‘ru- gender. And none of this is inher- benesque’ or even sturdy. ently bad.” “Big is a simple word, with Ultimately, the use of words is complicated implications,” she what drew Christina Myers to this says. book project. She says it is her The stories include expected hope that readers will ask ques- themes such as bullying, difficult Christina Myers tions about the way they think relationships, poor self-image and holds degrees in and talk about their own bodies challenging health care. And then journalism and and other people’s bodies, about

there are the unexpected stories, psychology fromt the world we live in and its les- Thompson Rivers photography

like that of Leyla Cameron who sons and obsessions, and about University and UBC. grew up in a straight-talking fam- the words we use and how they

ily of health professionals who got twinlens shape us. 9781773860213

7 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV LABOUR REVIEW

The slashburners who set controlled fires in the woods are a breed unto themselves. SLASH & BURN & LEARN

A crew inspects a spot fire during a slashburning job in the Bush River valley in southeastern B.C.

Slashburner: easier,” he recalls, “if I hadn’t been grueling work. Arduous labour requires Hot Times in the British Columbia barefoot.” large amounts of calories. “It took a lot Woods by Nick Raeside As a teenager in high school, he of energy to pack equipment up moun- (Harbour Publishing $24.95) volunteered to fight local wild fires. tainsides,” says Raeside, estimating he BY BEVERLY CRAMP This time he had footwear, he says, consumed close to ten thousand calo- “although it wasn’t entirely satisfac- ries a day. According to the U.S. Forest n Vancouver Is- tory, as they were plastic sandals.” Service, active firefighters consume at land, in 1938, a The sandals melted but a passion for least seven thousand calories per day. huge fire from fighting wildfires was ignited. It’s never safe. There was a constant sparks of log- Raeside did a variety of jobs until he danger that small, controlled burns ging machin- was hired by a company that provided would get away from their prescribed ery blackened contract forest fire control service. It boundaries and set fire to adjacent O nearly 75,000 was a rough calling but he stayed in stands of trees, something that the acres. Named the that line of work throughout the 1970s Forest Service calls an “escape” or Bloedel Fire, its size and spread were and ’80s. euphemistically an “overachievement.” caused by thousands of acres of slash His first training camp, near Golden, Unexpected winds or other bad that had accumulated after years of consisted of old buildings left over from weather could cause these escapes so logging. the Mica Dam project. He was the part of Raeside’s job was monitoring Thereafter, each autumn logging second person to arrive in the camp, the weather. As a foreman, if he had operators on the B.C. coast and Van- which meant he had the pick of the misgivings, he would cancel a burn, couver Island are obligated to dispose bunkhouse rooms. From earlier stays a difficult decision when expensive of their accumulations of logging slash at a logging camp on the coast, he knew equipment and workers were already photos by controlled burning, thus limiting the it was never advisable to inspect mat- deployed. chances of a major conflagration in the tresses too closely. “Sometimes, though, it was better to raeside woods next summer. In 1967, these Raeside remembers he had to write off the costs and give up for the regulations were extended to the rest search for light bulbs that still worked, nick day as opposed to lighting up and have A helitorch lighting slash in late of the province. which revealed the floors were littered a really expensive next few days if the afternoon in the Bush River Valley. A whole new vocation developed— with sand and old cigarette butts. The The block is in shadow, while the sun weather did turn out nasty.” that of the slashburner—as Nick ceilings were covered with fungus, is still shining on the mountain ridge. There were times when Raeside Raeside describes in his memoir, “peeling off in lumps and dropping onto found peculiar beauty in his work. Slashburner: Hot Times in the Brit- the mattress.” that the feather stuffing started falling Once, as he was leaving a fire that ish Columbia Woods. Eventually he would learn to rap- out,” says Raeside. “The company office proved too deadly to fight, he looked “While many firefighters greeted pel from helicopters. This was the way staff weren’t too thrilled by the fact that back to see a spruce tree go up in the arrival of cooler weather with relief crews were deployed onto fires burning I’d leave a trail of dirty feathers behind flames. “This one was unusual, though, as they looked forward to well-earned on inaccessible terrain. The training me when I walked through the building, in that a crimson flame wrapped days off,” says Raeside, “There were was unforgettable. “It was a one-way so I mended the damage with duct tape. around it in a spiral, looking much others who couldn’t wait for the fall flight,” he recalls. “The only way to get “Eventually the jacket got so soaked like the cellophane wrapping that’s slashburning program to begin. back to the ground was to slide down in diesel oil that it was too much even twisted around presentation bunches “Possibly it was the prospect of a the two-hundred-foot rope attached to for me. It was ritually burned at the of flowers.” few more weeks of employment that the side of the aircraft as it hovered end of one burning season, along with By the fall of 1989, Raeside’s days appealed to many, but there were a few above the airport runway.” the jersey and jeans I’d been wearing on steep terrain were taking their toll; who rather enjoyed the irony of being Safety measures were far from ex- concurrently.” an old hip injury was making every paid to set fires in the woods.” treme. Raeside found his first slash Staying in remote camps was part of mountainside climb difficult. He had Nick Raeside was firmly in the lat- burning jacket in the leftover trash in the job. A typical packed lunch included to give up slashburning and return to ter camp. a ‘crummy’ (the nickname for a large “canned beef hash, canned peaches, forest fire suppression on the coast. O vehicle used for transporting logging and Stoned Wheat Thins. Baker’s Semi- He eventually retired to Nanoose Bay, at the age of seven, nick raeside crews, referring to the general condition Sweet Chocolate might be present as where he says, “the only burning I put out his first bushfire near a holi- of its interior). an additional treat, unless some evil get to do now is the occasional pile of day cabin he was staying in, using a “The back [of the jacket] ended up bastard had earlier rifled the pack.” branches in the backyard.” wet burlap sack. “It might have been being burned through…with the result To this day, slashburning can be 978-1-55017-898-2

8 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV TOUCHWOOD EDITIONS | TOUCHWOODEDITIONS.COM

The E. J. Hughes Book of Boats Orphans of Empire Cedar and Salt A Year on the Wild Side Robert Amos Grant Buday Vancouver Island Recipes from Forest, Farm, A West Coast Naturalist's Almanac Field, and Sea Briony Penn This new collection from the official biographer “Meticulously researched and vividly DL Acken and Emily Lycopolus of E. J. Hughes brings together the artist’s drawn.” —Steven Price, author Finalist for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes coastal paintings for the appreciation of art Finalist for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes Three captivating stories spanning fifty A year-long commentary on the social and lovers and boat enthusiasts. Previous titles in years intertwine at the site of the historic More than 100 homegrown, modern recipes natural history of Vancouver Island that this series include E. J. Hughes Paints Vancouver New Brighton Hotel on the shores of celebrating the most treasured local also reveals the magic and humour of the Island and E. J. Hughes Paints British Columbia. Burrard Inlet. ingredients from Vancouver Island. natural world. $22 hc | $12.99 ebook $22 pb | $12.99 ebook $45 hc | $17.99 ebook $26 pb | $12.99 ebook

HERITAGE HOUSE | HERITAGEHOUSE.CA

Grandfathered Gilly the Ghillie Heard Amid the Guns Railway Nation Dispatches from the Trenches of More Chronicles of a West Coast Fishing Guide True Stories from the Western Front, 1914–1918 Tales of Canadian Pacific, the World’s Modern Grandparenthood David Giblin Jacqueline Larson Carmichael Greatest Travel System Ian Haysom David Laurence Jones The fun continues in this follow-up to A new take on the First World War is Folks of all ages will love this tribute to The Codfish Dream about a group of fishing revealed through photos, timelines, and A lively and nuanced portrait of an iconic 21st-century grandparenting. “A humourous, guides during the heyday of trophy salmon stories of men and women from diverse company and its role in the development of touching, and engaging meditation on what fishing in the early 1980s. backgrounds who answered the call to war. ocean, rail, and air travel in Canada. it means to be a grandfather.” —Terry Fallis $19.95 pb | $9.99 ebook $26.95 pb | $12.99 ebook $34.95 pb | $14.99 ebook $22.95 pb | $12.99 ebook

ROCKY MOUNTAIN BOOKS | RMBOOKS.COM

Takaya Paradise Won Following the Good River Stories from the Magic Canoe of Lone Wolf The Struggle to Create Gwaii Haanas The Life and Times of Wa'xaid Wa’xaid Cheryl Alexander National Park Reserve Briony Penn Cecil Paul Elizabeth May An enchanting look at the unique relationship The first major biography of Cecil Paul A new paperback edition of this BC between a solitary, island-dwelling wolf and a Details the epic struggle to stop logging (Wa’xaid), one of North America’s most bestseller, featuring the profound reflections wildlife photographer. in the unique global ecosystem referred prominent Indigenous leaders. and stories of Cecil Paul (Wa’xaid). to as “Canada’s Galapagos.” $30 pb | $15.99 ebook $38 hc | $19.99 ebook $25 pb | $12.99 ebook $25 pb | $12.99 ebook

ALL BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE FOR ORDER THROUGH HERITAGE GROUP DISTRIBUTION

1.800.665.3302 • [email protected] • hgdistribution.com

9 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

ENVIRONMENT REVIEW t

Hope Matters: SIGNS OF HEALING: (left) The Bikini atoll where H-bomb testing destroyed life in Census’ started and in 2017 China Why Changing the Way We the 1950s is now a healthy marine community; (top right) Giant anteaters have re- banned the ivory trade. Hope makes Think Is Critical to Solving the turned to northern Argentina; (bottom right) The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine you engage in trends that are achieving Environmental Crisis by Elin Kelsey (Greystone Books $22.95) (home to a thriving population of radioactive wolves) is a major wildlife sanctuary. meaningful results. Humans are not alone in showing BY JOHN GELLARD altruism towards other species. Hump- back whales defend seals by ganging up ast your mind back to against killer whales. Humpbacks do pre-COVID days when not eat seals, so what’s in it for them? the major crisis was Where do species get their resil- global warming. Man- ience? How can offspring acquire useful C made climate change new physical traits from their parents? was about to destroy The conventional wisdom in genetics human civilization by making our is that new traits cannot be passed planet uninhabitable. HOPE on without a random mutation in the “You have stolen my dreams and with its sleeves rolled up DNA sequence. “Epigenetics” does an my childhood,” said the Swedish teen end run here. “Gene expression” can activist Greta Thunberg of skolstrejk change without mutation. A zebra för klimatet (school strike for climate) finch calls to its chicks still inside the fame. “People are suffering. Entire eco- Advice on how to get from soul- eggs. In hot weather, chicks will hear systems are collapsing,” she famously the “hot call” and develop smaller heat- said at the United Nations. “We are in destroying despair to health-giving hope. resistant bodies. the beginning of a mass extinction, and We humans might take a lesson all you can talk about is money and have recovered from calamity, includ- life back into degraded ecosystems.” from epigenetics. We can improve our fairy tales of economic growth.” ing the Bikini atoll where H-bomb Giant anteaters have returned to north- health (mental and physical) and the “The environmental crisis is also a testing destroyed life in the 1950s. Now ern Argentina and wild bison to Roma- health of our yet unborn children by crisis of hope,” says Elin Kelsey, who we find healthy marine communities nia. Salmon have returned to the Elwah acquiring good habits—healthy food has been working on this issue since with “corals as big as cars.” Bikini is River in Washington after a decrepit and hopeful attitudes—and seeking out 2008, writing award-winning books, “radioactive and resilient.” dam was removed. Blue whales came people who share them. giving lectures and running work- We can help by recognizing this back to California. They help the fish “Everything is connected,” says Lil- shops. Now Kelsey shows in Hope Mat- resilience. The Chernobyl by fertilizing phytoplankton lian Howard of the Tlingit Nation. “Our ters, due out October 27, how to get Exclusion Zone, home to a which absorbs CO2 and ancestors are always with us.” from soul-destroying despair to health- thriving population of ra- produces oxygen. Now that we’ve gained the “sleeves giving hope—not a passive ‘Pollyanna’ dioactive wolves, is a major Monterey Bay in Califor- rolled-up” hope that matters, there’s a hope, but “hope with its sleeves rolled wildlife sanctuary. Sudbury, nia is a rewilding hotspot. huge amount of work to be done, par- up” that compels us to take community Ontario, once horribly pol- Once disgustingly polluted, ticularly here in B.C. Kelsey’s advice action and strive toward solutions. luted, is now “an interna- it is now a “world class cen- is to choose manageable, definable is- The COVID crisis has temporarily tional model of ecological ter of ocean conservation,” sues. Examples: help to save the Peace eclipsed the climate crisis. Has this recovery.” and home to great white River from the abominable Site C Dam; taken the wind out of Kelsey’s sails? Not only can we help na- sharks, which prefer seals to protect old growth forests from clear Certainly not! The principles of hope ture along, but we can also to people. cutting; or to save wild salmon from the she applies to the climate crisis will take the lead. Community Marine-protected areas blight of fish farms. Elin Kelsey also writes also be useful in solving the COVID organizers in Portland, Or- like the Mariana Trench If there’s a second edition of Hope books for children. crisis and then we can get back to egon “wanted to make Port- Marine National Monument, Matters, it might be worth adding a environmental issues. land a place where people would come 506,000 sq km in the west Pacific, con- chapter on the COVID crisis. Soul- Hope Matters is packed with ex- for the green lifestyle.” Like-minded serve fish and enhance fish populations saving hope is certainly needed there. amples of hope-driven action, stories people gathered there and now the city in the surrounding ocean. Land-based We must take care of each other. of nature’s resilience and satisfying is “one of the greenest cities in the U.S.” protected areas similarly enhance bio- However we proceed, we must learn advice about keeping our sanity in a Southern humpback whales have diversity. For example, the Indigenous to temper anger with hope and good crisis. So, let’s look at a few of the many recovered. Amur tigers in Siberia are Guardian Program that protects cari- humour. Hope Matters. Indeed, it does. solutions that appear as we turn away endangered but their population is bou migration in B.C. 9781771647779 from apocalyptic platitudes (“The earth increasing thanks to Vladimir Putin “A decade ago, I felt utter despair is dying”) or fatalistic mindsets (“I am who identifies with them. New bridges over the catastrophic rise in the mur- John Gellard’s articles have appeared in hopeless. It is hopeless”) and embrace across highways link the habitats of der rate of elephants,” Kelsey writes. the Globe and Mail and the Watershed dynamic hope. threatened species from tigers to grizzly The insatiable world demand for ivory Sentinel. He was once named Canada’s Nature has an astonishing capacity bears, elks to turtles. encouraged poaching in poor African “Best High School Teacher” in a Ma- for healing. Look for ecosystems that “Rewilding” introduces “native wild- countries. Then ‘The Great Elephant clean’s magazine poll.

10 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV Voices at the Intersection of Art, Science, and Activism

My Vancouver Dance History Story, Movement, Community peter dickinson Paper $37.95 384pp

“Peter Dickinson’s passion for dance is clear. He is to be commended for his astute close readings of choreography and … profiling individual dance artists Fighting for a Hand to Hold and their creative processes. Dickinson Confronting Medical Colonialism against has a talent for describing movement Indigenous Children in Canada in prose that is simultaneously erudite and accessible.” –Allana Lindgren, samir shaheen-hussain author of Renegade Bodies: Canadian Foreword by Cindy Blackstock, afterword Dance in the 1970s by Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel Cloth $29.95 360pp Watermelon Snow

Science, Art, and a Lone Polar Bear “A necessary and sobering read. Shaheen-Hussain lynne quarmby masterfully exposes the ways in which the logics Plants, People, and Places of settler colonialism and genocide are structurally Cloth $24.95 184pp The Roles of Ethnobotany and Ethno -

embedded into Canada’s healthcare system. He ecology in Indigenous Peoples’ Land “Take a trip to the top of the world illuminates how egregious racial violence takes Rights in Canada and Beyond through the eyes of an impassioned place – in plain sight – under the direction of a scientist who experiences the unique edited by nancy j. turner publicly funded institution that is broadly under- landscape first-hand and, as an activist, Cloth $49.95 554pp stood, by most Canadians, as a social good. The mourns the loss of a frozen world that book, meticulously researched, firmly centres once was. This is a must-read for anyone “Plants, People, and Places is a remarkably Canada’s medical system as a crucial site for concerned about the rapid changes eloquent and collaborative statement ongoing anti-colonial struggle.” –Robyn Maynard, taking place in the Arctic as it warms on an issue of fundamental importance author of Policing Black Lives: State Violence and the implications for the rest of to Indigenous people. It is intrinsically in Canada from Slavery to the Present the planet.” –Bob McDonald, host a work of art and reconciliation.” of CBC Radio’s Quirks & Quarks –Ken Coates, co-author of Land of the Midnight Sun: A History of the Yukon

M cG ILL-QU EEN’S UNIV ERSITY P RESS mqup.ca @McGillQueensUP

Talonbooks Fall 2020

Desire Path The Diary of Dukesang Wong

Taryn Hubbard A Voice from Gold Mountain

A debut poetry collection that grows from the impulse Dukesang Wong

to explore home in the suburb – in the intersections, Edited by David McIlwraith overlaps, and gaps between urban and rural. These Translated by Wanda Joy Hoe are walking poems and driving poems. Here is the only known first-person account by a Chinese Now Available; $16.95; Poetry worker on the famously treacherous parts of the transcontinental railway.

Forthcoming September 21; $18.95; Non-fiction

eat salt | Mégantic gaze at the ocean A Deadly Mix of Oil, Rail, and Avarice

Junie Désil Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny Translated by Donald Wilson eat salt | gaze at the ocean explores the themes of Black sovereignty, Haitian sovereignty, and Black In this fascinating piece of investigative journalism, lives, using the original Haitian zombie as a metaphor which unfolds like a thriller, Saint-Cerny reveals the inner for the condition and treatment of Black bodies. workings of the 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster. She uncovers how the disaster, far from being just an “error Forthcoming September 15; $17.95 CAD; Poetry of a faulty system,” was caused by powerful people and institutions distant from the town itself. Now Available; $24.95; Non-fiction

Music at the Heart of Thinking They Write Their Dream on the Rock Forever Improvisations 1–170 Rock Writings in the Stein River Valley of British Columbia Fred Wah Annie York, Richard Daly, and Chris Arnett Music at the Heart of Thinking is a life-long poem project from the Governor General`s Award–winning Nlaka’pamux Elder Annie York explains the red-ochre former parlimentary poet laureate. inscriptions written on the rocks and cliffs of the lower Stein Valley in British Columbia. This second, fully redesigned Now Available; $24.95; Poetry paperback edition of the book is lighter and more portable, and features site instructions for these cultural treasures. Now Available; $29.95; Non-fiction

11 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 New books by award-winning writers & stunning debut voices

Available at your local independent bookstore or online at caitlin-press.com Balancing Bountiful: Our Backs Warmed by the Sun: Hammer & Nail: What I Learned about Feminism from Memories of a Doukhobor Life Notes of a Journeywoman My Polygamist Grandmothers by Vera Malo�f by Kate Braid by Mary Jayne Blackmore

The Crooked Thing, stories Dispatches from Ray's Planet: Finding Heartstone: Small Courage: A Queer Memoir The Hammer of Witches, poems The Burden of Gravity, poems by Mary MacDonald A Journey through Autism A Taste of Wilderness of Finding Love and Conceiving by Kelly Rose P�lug-Back by Shannon McConnell by Claire Finlayson by Cathy Sosnowsky Family by Jane Byers

/caitlinbooks @caitlinpress Caitlin Press @caitlinpress.daggereditions

12 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 TRAVEL REVIEW

Bruce Kirkby’s Sky descriptions of butter lamps, rosary beads, chanting, maroon- robed monks, simple meals and monastic puja rituals make for

fascinating reading. Highs t

(clockwise left) Bruce, Christine, Bodi and Taj. (right) Bodi and his mother, Christine, below the Karsha Gompa, a thousand-year-old Buddhist monastery in the Zanskar valley.

Blue Sky Kingdom: faith and everyday kindness are fun- An Epic Family Journey to the damental. Heart of the Himalaya Led by their sons Bodi and Taj, by Bruce Kirkby who flow easily into local customs, the (D&M $34.95) family deepens its awareness through BY TREVOR CAROLAN classroom interactions with their nov- ice-monk students and the villagers. hen you’re destined Steadily, everyone loosens up. Sitting for “Little Tibet”— meditation helps overcome distrac- India’s northern- tions; there are mysterious healings, most region of funerals and one’s daily tsampa barley Ladakh with its flour needs grinding. mountain ham- Several times Kirkby introduces W lets set in thin oxy- detailed accounts of the parents’ ex- gen at 12,000 ft.— perience with their son Bodi’s autism, you’d better be ready: travelers hear the stress induced by it and a deeper regularly of those who check in, but layman’s explanation of Asberger’s photos

who don’t check out from the roman- Syndrome in particular, along with its place on the autism spectrum. We get ticized Shangri-la regions of the Kara- t kirkby koram Range. So why parents from an inside look at the various develop-

the Kootenays with two sons, Bodi, bruce mental challenges and situations in- aged seven and Taj, three, would want Bodi leaves an offering on a chorten (Buddist shrine) outside Karsha village. volved. The talented ink illustrations in to venture to an isolated Himalayan the book are by this seven-year-old boy. village in Little Tibet makes Blue Sky tography career.” It also pays the bills. passed this way twenty years earlier. Toward the end of their three-month Kingdom: An Epic Family Journey to Christine meantime is “lukewarm Things have changed: creeping mo- stay, the Kirkbys determine it’s finally the Heart of the Himalaya intriguing about the idea from the start.” She dernity gnaws at Ladakh’s traditional the moment to discuss autism with from the get-go. has a doctorate in psychology, and culture. Yet some things remain: fright- their son. It’s a tender, vulnerable Calling Kimberly home, Bruce metaphysical interests in Buddhism, ening canyon-precipice trails lead on to scene. Kirkby packs credentials as an out- however, she hopes that living in a prayer flags and yaks. There are still For Bruce Kirkby, he gains height- doors photographer, writer and wil- traditional Tibetan community for a peasants in colourful garb and neck- ened awareness while helping Lama derness guide with a yen for extreme time might have dividends. They can laces calling out Jullay!, their universal Wangyal’s family clan in the timeless challenges. On this adventure, along teach English and math, maybe do greeting. work of harvesting barley. Everything, with his wife Christine, he hopes to some good. Blue Sky Kingdom takes us to he intuits, is done with a prayer. In one explore more deeply the realms of in- Kirkby regards their expedition in Zanskar and the time-defying world of the book’s most affecting passages ner experience. Bodi, their eldest son, terms of “self-preservation,” saying “our of Karsha Gompa, a 1,000-year-old he concludes “there seemed to be no registers on the autism spectrum, and only choice was to swim for all we were Vajrayana Buddhist monastery where separation between life and religion in his mother is concerned for both her worth toward a distant, opaque light— the family has an invitation to live and these fields. Life was the ceremony.” youngsters. something we hoped was the surface.” teach. Once Lama Wangyal, the re- Kirkby further glimpses that the With a need to get out of a con- For twelve weeks they aim for the vered head monk, welcomes and gives ramshackle advance of modernity in- stricting life, and with bumps in their higher heights—by canoe, train, trans- them local names, and when the movie evitably heralds the dissolution of this marriage to overcome, the Kirkbys Pacific freighter to Seoul, Shanghai, crew departs, the family is free to settle ancient society. Zanskar, he concludes head for Ladakh’s remote Zanskar then train from Beijing to Lhasa. and Kirkby’s tales of daily village life empathetically, sits “perched on the Valley. Readers following recent news Although it’s an epic route, Kirkby become engrossing. edge of extinction.” will know of ongoing border fighting spends no more than a few pages on Kirkby’s descriptions of butter The road can be a tough teacher. between Chinese aggressor forces and each of these phases. The exception is lamps, rosary beads, chanting, ma- Back in B.C., Kirkby has a deeper ap- the Indian army a scant 150 miles to his outrage at China’s savage occupa- roon-robed monks, simple meals preciation of stillness, “to quietly watch the north. tion of Tibet. A dusty, smelly Indian and monastic puja rituals make for and listen.” Can we ever tire of such Overburdened with an L.A. film train ride soon kicks in, ultimately fascinating reading. In films like Little simple, good advice? 978-1-77162-269-1 crew documenting the family odys- nearing them to their destination. Buddhas, The Cup and Kundun, some sey, the author confesses, “selfishly, I For ten days with a reduced film of us have seen images of Tibetan Bud- The most recent book by world traveler had agreed to the television project at crew they trek through the magi- dhism’s utterly unique culture: the and lifelong Buddhism explorer, Trevor the last minute, viewing it as a way to cal landscapes and snowy peaks of Kirkbys’ new home is a world of living Carolan, is Road Trips: Journeys in the advance my freelance writing and pho- high-altitude valleys. We learn Kirkby holiness where compassion, profound Unspoiled World (Mother Tongue, 2020).

13 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV ART & HISTORY REVIEW

Exploring the plight of the ocean’s top predator Spirits of the Coast: Orcas in Science, Art and History and its importance as a edited by Martha Black, Lorne Hammond and Gavin Hanke, with Nikki Sanchez (Royal BC Museum $29.95) symbol of B.C.’s coast. BY BEVERLY CRAMP

n 1965, the Roy- al BC Museum Orca (RBCM) acquired an indigenous button blanket and headdress I with remarkable POWER killer whale imagery. At the time, they “The headdress and blanket had of the Haida crests and a major crest Vancouver Sun in 1949, a troubling were in the possession of Mildred come to Nowell through his marriage in all other Northwest Coast cultures image of cultural appropriation. As Valley Thornton, a white artist and to Ruth, the daughter of Chief Lagius, “appearing on poles, house fronts, Black notes, “the photograph bears journalist. in 1899,” says Martha Black in an es- painted and carved screens, robes, witness to the migration of the killer Known for her portraits of Indig- say for Spirits of the Coast: Orcas in headdresses, hats and other regalia, whale headdress and button blanket enous people in B.C. and Alberta, Science, Art and History, a collection bracelets, spoons and more.” from Kwakwaka’wakw Thornton frequently talked to her from over 50 contributors that explores Mildred Valley Thornton can be seen lineage property to ex- subjects as she painted them, and one of B.C.’s most ubiquitous symbols wearing the killer whale regalia for a otic non-Indigenous then recorded any socially significant of the coast. Black adds that several photo that appeared in the costume.” comments soon afterwards for books historical photographs show Chief La- she later wrote. gius, Ruth Lagius Nowell and Charles But Thornton provided no informa- Nowell wearing the headdress and tion about the original owner of the blanket over a span of at least 25 years. headdress and blanket, nor where or “These images hint at how, in its from whom she had acquired them. original cultural context, the killer The RBCM already knew though, whale headdress signified identity, from existing photos taken in 1899, lineage, connections and collective that both once belonged to the family action.” of Charles Nowell, a Kwakwaka’wakw Black cites other experts about the chief originally from Fort Rupert who killer whale being a primary crest of later lived in Alert Bay. the Haida Raven lineages, the oldest

A celebration of modern Thai cooking from Chef Angus An of Vancouver’s award-winning restaurant Maenam

“Maenam exudes freshness and flavor. Citrusy lemongrass and spicy Nahm Prik are almost palpable flicking through Angus An’s modern homage to Thai cooking. This is a sure inspiration for many meals to come.” YOTAM OTTOLENGHI

“Angus takes iconic flavors of Thai cuisine and transforms them into creative, elegant, and absolutely gorgeous dishes. The perfect blend of traditional and modern, Maenam is a truly unique Thai cookbook.” PAILIN CHONGCHITNANT, AUTHOR OF HOT THAI KITCHEN

AVAILABLE NOW, WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD

appetitebyrandomhouse.com

14 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV BOOKS FOR THE TIMES FROM UBC PRESS museum

bc

royal

the

of

courtesy

t photo Ruth Lagius Nowell and Chief Charles Nowell in killer whale headdress and blankets, 1899. GETTING WISE WHIPPED Black points out that Thornton “ex- orcas are actually in the dolphin fam- BIG PROMISES, ABOUT Party Discipline in pressed her ‘enduring respect’ for Indig- ily writes Ken Balcomb in his essay SMALL Canadian Politics GETTING OLD enous peoples and their histories, arts, simply titled Killer Whales. While there GOVERNMENT 978-0-7748-6496-1 Debunking Myths ways of life and spirituality, suggesting is a minimum of ten different species Doing Less with hardcover Less in the BC about Aging she felt kinship with these values.” of killer whales found in all oceans and Liberal New Era 978-0-7748-8062-6 Perhaps Mildred Valley Thornton seas worldwide, Balcomb says the killer 978-0-7748-6487-9 paperback felt ‘transformed’ by posing in Charles whales of B.C., so-called Resident killer paperback Nowell’s regalia. Nonetheless, it was whales, are “indisputably” the most cultural appropriation and Thornton’s studied in the world. He charts their use of the regalia was a symbol of in- origins from the North Atlantic Ocean, sensitive colonialism. from where they migrated through the O Bering Strait about 120,000 years ago other essays in the collection describe during one of the times when it was the orca’s role as an apex marine clear of ice. (Another of those ice-free, predator. interglacial warming periods is hap- “It preys on a wide range of species pening now). throughout the world’s oceans, making The Pacific Northwest orcas re- it one of the most ecologically diverse ferred to as “Transient killer whales” and widespread species on the planet,” are genetically so different from North writes researchers Jared Towers and Atlantic killer whales that Balcomb Rebecca Wellard, who specifically believes they came through the Bering describe killer whales (referred to as Strait even earlier than the Resident type A, B, C and D) in the Southern killer whales. Hemisphere, which are the largest Pacific Northwest orcas favour eat- and most widespread species of orca ing chinook salmon, the largest and THE BOMB IN THE IT’S ALL GOOD DIGITAL LIVES IN in the world. most nutritious salmon. Chinook used WILDERNESS (UNLESS IT’S NOT) THE GLOBAL CITY Mental Health Those known as type A killer whales to be abundant in the region but are Photography and the Contesting Tips and Self-Care are so large that their prey consists Nuclear Era in Canada no longer. Ken Balcomb blames human Infrastructures Strategies for Your 978-0-7748-6388-9 mainly of minke whales and elephant harvesting (which can take as much 978-0-7748-6238-7 Undergrad Years paperback seals around the Antarctic Peninsula. as 90% of the fish in a given year) and paperback 978-0-7748-3901-3 Most other killer whales’ prey in the environmental destruction from our paperback region consists of smaller seals, pen- industrial activities. guins, fish and squid. Balcomb concludes that if the Killer whales are known for their salmon continue to dwindle, the killer cunning, group-organized predations. whales could be extirpated and hu- For example, type B killer whales use mans may not be far behind. Sign up for our newsletter “a dramatic hunting technique called “Reducing our impact on the eco- at ubcpress.ca to receive the latest ‘wave-washing,’ in which they all swim system is much easier than sending UBC Press news, including events, quickly along the surface towards an a rocket to the moon,” he writes. “But è ice floe with a seal on it. They synchro- if we fail and the salmon stocks go ex- specials, and new releases. nously dive just before hitting it, and tinct, and if climate change runs wild kick up a large wave with their flukes, thanks to our inability to self-regulate, which washes the seal off the ice.” we may ourselves join the growing list The use of the common English of extinct species in the fossil record.” name killer whale is misleading as 978-0772677686

15 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV Celebrating 40 years of activist, solutions-oriented publishing

From our roots in nonviolent civil disobedience training during the Vietnam war, to today, with over 600 books published, New Society Publishers continues to bring positive solutions and cutting edge ideas, to some of the most troubling challenges of our time.

YEARS new society PUBLISHERS Publishing Books for a World of Change www.newsociety.com

Available at fine bookstores and online retailers, or www.newsociety.com. Call 1-800-567-6772 for a full catalogue. 4100% POST CONSUMER RECYCLED PAPER 4CARBON NEUTRAL 4B CORP™ 4EMPLOYEE SHAREHOLDERS

MANY TITLES NOW AVAILABLE AS AUDIOBOOKS

16 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 SCIENCE REVIEW LABORATORY ACHIEVER How Julia Levy, a scientist and WW II refugee, became a billion-dollar biotech entrepreneur.

In Sight: My Life in Science and Biotech by Julia Levy (UTP $34.95) BY BEVERLY CRAMP

n 1950, eating bagged lunches, sitting with high school girl- friends in Vancouver, Julia Levy (née Coppens) se- cretly disagreed with their discussions about going to university. In her memoir In Sight: I My Life in Science and Bio- tech, she recalls they mostly thought, “Universities were where you met boys who were going to have successful careers.” Levy wanted a career as well. Even more of an oddnik, she chose science—a sector dominated almost entirely by men. In a nutshell, at 23 she earned her Ph.D. from University College London; she taught microbiol- ogy and immunology at UBC; she joined with four UBC colleagues in 1980 to form QLT Inc., and its subsequent discoveries in the field of photodynamic therapy led to the first approved medical treatment for age-related macular degeneration. Having served as chief scientific officer and later as chief executive officer of QLT, gaining financial as well as scientific success, Levy became an Officer of the Order of Canada and received a number of hon- ourary degrees. “Her story would be just as fascinating if it were happening today,” says Molly Shoichet, University of Toronto science professor in her foreword to In Sight. O in levy’s early childhood, she was raised in comfort in the

Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) where her Dutch father worked in a merchant bank. Her British-born t mother had two maids, a cook and an amah to look Julia Levy with colleague David Dolphin and a In the 1960s, Levy befriended another research after little Julia and her older sister. molecular model of QLT’s drug, BPD-MA. scientist named David Suzuki who had “a vibrant Then, on Levy’s sixth birthday in 1940, news came lab of graduate students” and was “high energy and that Holland had surrendered to Germany. Her father swabbing various parts of our bodies (face, hands, a great organizer of group activities.” Suzuki later quickly sent his wife and two daughters to Canada. hair, etc.) and then plating the swab onto agar to see became a media star as the host of TV show, The He was taken prisoner days later and spent the war how many different bacteria grew on the Petri dishes Nature of Things. in a Japanese prisoner of war camp—notorious for we were given. It was a simple demonstration of the By the late ’60s, Levy’s career was taking off. She their horrendous conditions. ubiquity of microorganisms.” was getting invitations to international science meet- At the end of the war, when he rejoined his family Levy graduated with an honours B.A. in bacteriol- ings. She also found time to remarry, to Ed Levy, and in Vancouver, he was a broken man suffering from ogy and immunology. If there was a big break, it was she had her third child. PTSD. probably applying for a job at The National Institute In the ’70s, Levy began studying a new field in- “Over the years, I’ve often thought about my for Medical Research in a northern suburb of Lon- volving light-activated drugs, called porphyrins, that mother in those first years we were in Canada,” she don, England whereupon she was given a fellowship showed early promise for treating cancers. It led her writes. “She was really on her own: a woman who to do her doctorate. Newly married, she earned her to co-found one of Canada’s nascent biotechnology had never worked or cooked a meal, nor expected to Ph.D. in 1958. companies, Quadra Logic Technologies, later short- have to, with two small children in a strange country While working at the Institute, she had the oppor- ened to QLT Inc. Their initial resolve was to work on about which she knew next to nothing. tunity to meet several Nobel Prize-winning scientists, cancer treatments. “When I talked to her about that time, she was some of whom were women. “They were fierce and QLT’s Photofrin drug was approved in 1993 in always very Britishly matter-of-fact, her attitude being competitive,” she recalls. “They represented that early Canada and later in the United States for several types ‘you do what you have to and don’t go on about it.’” generation of pioneering women who persevered in of cancer. But QLT remains more widely-known for Their future was completely uncertain. But Levy getting scientific training in the 1920s and 30s and discovering the first medical treatment of a leading was a diligent student and achieved good grades in went on to have successful careers in research, our cause of blindness among the elderly with the drug both English and Science. She is remembered by true role models.” known as Visudyne. one of her classmates as being a “nerd” although she In 1959, Levy returned to Canada to take a posi- It was the development of Visudyne that boosted never wanted for friends. She also knew how to stick tion at UBC as an assistant professor with a salary QLT to a billion-dollar company. up for herself. of $4,800 per year. More importantly, she was also Levy retired from the company in 2006 after having When Levy attended UBC, there were about five given her own lab and office to do research in immu- won many awards including the Helen Keller Award thousand students. “The labs, the hands-on part nology and microbiology. But her first marriage was for Contributions to Vision and the Lifetime Achieve- of science, thrilled me,” she says. “One of our first floundering and she left her husband after the birth ment Award from the B.C. Biotechnology Association. labs in bacteriology involved the simple exercise of of their second child in 1961. 9781487508319

17 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS produces books that illuminate the experiences of people of all ethnicities, people with disabilities and people who identify as LGBTQ+. Our goal is to provide reading material that represents the diversity of human experience to readers of all ages. Orca aims to help young readers see themselves reflected in the books they read. As a BC-based publisher of Canadian authors and illustrators, we are mindful of this in our selection of books and have a particular interest in publishing books that celebrate the lives of Indigenous people. Providing young people with exposure to diversity through reading creates a more compassionate world.

18 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 HISTORY REVIEW

Stagecoach North: A History of Barnard’s Express (Yes, Lee Marvin won the Academy by Ken Mather Award for Best Actor in 1965 for his (Heritage House $22.95) portrayal of a notorious gunman with a BY SAGE BIRCHWATER Express ways similar name in the American western comedy Cat Ballou, likely a coincidental t’s fitting that one of choice of name.) the last remain- With the first sniff of gold discoveries ing red and on the Fraser River, Ballou got in on gold-painted BC and means the ground floor by starting an express Express stage- service for miners. Many missives he coaches in Brit- carried from these men from the bars I ish Columbia is Francis Barnard pioneered the of the Fraser to the outside world con- safely ensconced tained gold dust which helped spur on in a display shelter beside the Visi- northernmost stagecoach line in the gold rush. tors Centre in 100 Mile House. For When Ballou got into a dispute with decades B.C. Express Coach No. 14 North America over a 50-year span. the colonial government for refusing to stood sentry outside the Red Coach carry the mail without an agreement, Inn, a business venture started in the Mather says Barnard was always quick 1930s by landed British to spot an opportunity: gentry, Lord Martin Cecil, Barnard bought out Bal- 7th Marquess of Exeter. lou’s chief rival, William As Ken Mather points Jaffray, and offered to car- out in his Stagecoach ry the mail free of charge. North: A History of Bar- Six months later Bar- nard’s Express, English nard was awarded the aristocrats played a sig- government mail contract. nificant role in ensuring While not lucrative, it gave that British Columbia re- him the edge during lean mained part of the Brit- times to out-compete Bal- ish domain. Authorities in lou. By the time the Cari- London sent upper-class boo Road was complete in English gentlemen to the 1863, Ballou had left the colonies throughout the country. That’s when Bar- world to add their own ideas nard started the Barnard of government and legal Express Stagecoach line control to its territories. from Yale to Barkerville. Once gold was discovered O on the gravel bars of the i found myself scrambling Fraser River in 1857, that’s over maps trying to chart what happened in B.C. the gold rush drama. For

A dozen years earlier wily instance, I’d never heard

Yankee negotiators wrested of the Big Bend gold strike Oregon Country and the t along the Columbia Riv- Columbia District away er, north of Revelstoke from British colonial control and the B.C. Express stagecoach, 1911 his efforts to establish the successful in 1866, as Barnard established a Oregon Treaty of 1846 drew a line in Barnard Stagecoach and Express Com- stagecoach route from Yale to Savona the sand establishing the 49th Parallel children behind in Toronto, he came pany (the BX), later called the British on Kamloops Lake and boat passage as the boundary between British and with few resources apart from his in- Columbia Express, heralded as the from there to Shuswap Lake to serve American territories. James Douglas, domitable will and a shrewd business northernmost stagecoach line in North the miners. governor of Vancouver Island and over- sense. America over a 50-year span. We learn of Steve Tingley, the man seer of the vast Hudson’s Bay Company At 30, Barnard first took a steam- Mather begins by introducing Brit- Barnard sent south into American ter- fur empire of New Caledonia, didn’t ship from New York to Panama, crossed ish Columbia’s first expressman, Wil- ritory twice to buy horses and bring want American acquisitions pushing the isthmus by train, and proceeded liam “Billy” Ballou, a colourful and them back to pull his stagecoaches. further north. So, when 30,000 gold up the west coast of North America by obstreperous frontiersman from Ala- Tingley became a trusted driver of the seekers from California flooded into steamship to San Francisco, and then bama, drawn to the Pacific by the 1849 BX and BCX stagecoaches along the the colony in 1858—bringing with on to Victoria. He started working a California gold rush. There he honed precarious Fraser Canyon route to them attitudes of manifest destiny and claim that spring, just upstream from his skills carrying letters, newspapers, Barkerville. Eventually he took over the genocide toward Indigenous inhabit- Yale, but quickly realized being a miner and parcels of importance to miners in company. (Tingley Road in the Cariboo ants—he urged colonial secretary of wasn’t his calling. He sold his claim in remote camps and returned with large bears his name.) state Edward Bulwer-Lytton to send the fall and cut cordwood that winter. quantities of gold. Francis Jones Barnard’s son Fran- more resources. In the spring of 1860, Barnard got Ballou had the uncanny ability to cis Stillman Barnard also played an A few dozen British aristocrats ar- a job mapping the trail through the change his appearance and fade into important role in the stagecoach en- rived in Victoria with their libraries, Fraser Canyon, then later he was hired obscurity as he passed through the terprise. A man with a strong business wealth and education to bolster the as a constable in Yale. Finally, Barnard landscape undetected carrying trea- sense, the younger Barnard took on British presence. They were accompa- secured a job as purser on a steam- sure. He claimed he never got robbed. more duties of the company as his fa- nied by the Royal Engineers and the ship between Victoria ther got into politics, first as a member British Navy to add muscle to the fledg- and Yale, and with of the colonial legislative council, then ling colony. Bulwer-Lytton appointed the prospect of steady as a member of parliament in Ottawa. Colonel Richard Clement Moody to employment, sent for Barnard Sr. was a strong propo- head the 150-strong battalion of Royal his wife and children. nent of Canadian unity. He initially Engineers, as well as Matthew Baillie They resided in Yale, proposed a stagecoach route linking Begbie as judge, and Chartres Brew the largest town on the British Columbia to eastern Canada. as inspector of police. Fraser River, for the Instead, a railroad was proposed, but Mather explains how another class next eight years. F.J. Barnard got behind that initiative. of British loyalists also arrived from Mather says many “When the combined Colony of Brit- eastern Canada. Though considered stories have been told ish Columbia voted in favour of joining crass by members of the British upper- about Francis Jones Canada, it was the support from the crust, these Canadians with their Barnard, raising his mainland that clinched the union,” strong work ethic, possessed a strong exploits to the level Mather says. “For this reason, Barnard aversion to becoming American. of myth. Troubled by can truly be considered a Father of O errors of fact that ren- Confederation.” 9781772033090 these conditions “set the stage” for the dered this myth “seri- At the Historic O’Keefe Ranch in Vernon, Ken Mather arrival of Quebec-born Francis Jones ously flawed,” Mather stands beside one of the few original Barnard’s Express Sage Birchwater contributes regularly Barnard from Upper Canada in the offers an accurate tell- stagecoaches left. Replicas have been made but this is the from Williams Lake on subjects spring of 1859. Leaving his wife and ing of this man and real deal, well over 100 years old. pertaining to the B.C. Interior.

19 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV REAL ESTATE REVIEW

Land of Destiny: 264A, Ward Five) prior to embarking miniscule patio of your North Van- surrender the Pacific Coast to the ag- A History of Vancouver Real Estate for Japan from the CPR dock on the couver townhouse coldly shaded by a gressively expansionist United States; by Jesse Donaldson Empress of India on April 4, 1892. dozen other such units, or in the ‘bonus or they could hock their future to build (Anvil Press $20) Kipling later wrote in American room’ over the double garage of your a transcontinental railroad that would BY JOHN MOORE Notes: “He that sold it to me was a Surrey stucco cracker-box palace while unite them with the British colonies delightful English boy. All the boy said calculating that your grandchildren of the Pacific Coast, thwarting the epending on which rung was, ‘I give you my word it isn’t on a will inherit your mortgage payments, American policy of manifest destiny of the city’s so-called cliff or under water, and before long the you may be tempted to commit acts of and giving Canada a port to engage in ‘property ladder’ you town ought to move out that way.’ And vandalism or arson directed at City Hall trade with the entire Pacific Rim. happen to be teeter- I took it as easily as a man buys a piece or the nearest realtors’ office. For a nascent Canada, a Pacific port ing, just that subtitle of tobacco. I became owner of 400 well- Donaldson’s complex, humorous, linked by rail to the grain belt of the D (A History of Vancouver developed pines, thousands of tons of outraged and entertaining narrative is Prairies was a vital economic artery, Real Estate) of Jesse Donaldson’s cor- granite scattered in blocks at the roots not a simplistic call-to-arms. It is as for which they were prepared to cut any rosive chronicle of more than a century of land values—inflated by speculation, back-room insider deals, unmitigated greed, blatant nepotism and shame- less conflicts of interest—is enough to provoke wailings, gnashing of teeth and the demented laughter of the damned. “Before Vancouver was a city, it was—first and foremost—a real estate investment,” Donaldson says in the introduction. The reader is invited to substitute “swindle,” “hustle,” “con game” or “boondoggle” for the word “investment” at almost any point in Donaldson’s blood-boiling exposition of why taking out a crippling mortgage to buy into the Vancouver property market should be sufficient cause to get you pink-sheeted under the Men- tal Health Act and confined in an appropriate facility until you recover your wits. The main title, Land of Destiny, is an ironic mockery of the kind of plati- Jesse Donaldson dressed tudinous post-Imperial hype used by as a Monopoly-styled property speculators in late 19th and Mr. Moneybucks to promote his history of early 20th century to market land all t Serial Vancouver real estate. SWINDLING over the planet as the mania for build- kind of Devil’s bargain with railroad- ing railroads opened up the ‘dark con- builders. The Faustian pact Canada tinents’ of North America, Africa, Asia The mod con game of made with the CPR is a recurring and eastern Russian to questionable theme in this book, since it affected development by the so-called civilized speculation in Vancouver real estate, nations who could afford them. real estate in Vancouver but that’s a whole other equally lurid Everywhere the steel rails went, story. Pierre Berton’s account of the worthless wilderness was magically of the pines, and a sprinkling of earth. informative as it is incendiary. In the building of the CPR, The Last Spike, transformed into prime real estate, That’s a town lot in Vancouver. You course of this caustic history Donald- was published in 1971. It’s overdue for peoples who had lived there for mil- or your agent hold onto it till property son documents the racist caveats that “updating,” as real estate agents say, lennia were dispossessed by legal rises, then sell out and buy more land often accompanied real estate sales, in and I can’t imagine a better qualified fiat, (backed up with gunpowder) and farther out of town and repeat the pro- which prospective buyers of properties writer than Jesse Donaldson to take desperate land-hungry immigrants got cess. I do not quite see how this sort of in certain up-market areas of Vancou- John Henry’s steel-drivin’ hammer fleeced of their meagre life’s savings thing helps the growth of a town, but ver willingly signed undertakings not to that tale. like hick rubes on a carnival midway. the English boy says it is the ‘essence to sell their property to any person of Meanwhile, Donaldson’s account Vancouver was not unique in this of speculation’ so it must be all right. Oriental or Negro persuasion. It’s em- of the bare-faced hustles—from the respect. It may now be in the sense that But I wish there were fewer pines and barrassing to note that these disgrace- speculators who secretly lobbied for the few other such cities have had their rather less granite on the ground.” ful codicils continued into the 1960s site of the Canadian Pacific Railroad dirty laundry aired as thoroughly and Kipling was duped. When he re- before they were publicly shamed out terminus, to the first mayors and city conspicuously as Donaldson hangs out turned in 1907, he learned that he’d of print, though their spirit lingers in aldermen who were among the fore- Vancouver’s skid-marked underwear been paying taxes on property legally certain parts of the city to this day as most property speculators, right up to on the Lion’s Gate Bridge in this ap- owned by someone else. wealthy Asian newcomers move into the dubious sale of the Expo 86 lands palling account of the machinations of Privately, Kipling wrote, “All the con- neighbourhoods formerly reserved for on False Creek to offshore billionaire Vancouver’s early ‘city fathers.’ solation we got from the smiling people British Imperial exiles and their pam- Li Kai Shing, whose Concord Pacific O of Vancouver was, ‘You bought that pered progeny. company pre-sold un-built condos-in- take, for example, the fleecing of from Steve, did you? Ah-hah, Steve! After the Confederation of the the-air to Hong Kong investors without British author Rudyard Kipling. In his You hadn’t ought to ha’ bought from eastern colonies in 1867, leaders of giving the local sharks so much as a book Vancouver & its Writers (Harbour, Steve. No! Not from Steve!’ And thus did the emerging nation of Canada faced taste of blood—should be a lesson to 1986), Alan Twigg noted that Kipling the good Steve cure us of speculating a choice harder than the rock of the us all in the ways of the world. had been greatly impressed by British in real estate.” Canadian Shield. They could content 978-1-77214-144-3 Columbia during his wedding tour O themselves with becoming a small na- of North America in 1892. He was so fair warning: if you read this book tion in the northeast corner of North John Moore tends his garden in the pleased that he purchased a town lot in the closet-sized ‘den’ of your 700 America, a double bed uncomfortably Garibaldi Highlands. Realtors are fore- in the Mt. Pleasant area (subdivision square foot Yaletown loft, or on the shared with a French population, and warned not to knock.

20 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV Gold in British Columbia DISCOVERY TO CONFEDERATION Gold in British Columbia Marie Elliott

Elliott takes readers through the gold rushes of British Columbia from 1858 to BC’s entry into Confederation in 1871, explaining their central importance to Canada’s history and allowing us to meet the miners, First Nations peoples, Hudson’s Bay Company traders, the governors, Royal Engineers, and the brave women who trekked over the mountains. With 50 photos & maps.

978-1-55380-517-5 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-518-2 (EBOOK) 400 pp $24.95 Marie Elliott

ST. MICHAEL’S St. Michael’s Sick Witch RESIDENTIAL Crystal Hurdle SCHOOL Residential School LAMENT& LEGACY Nancy Dyson & Dan Rubenstein Crystal Hurdle takes the reader on a journey Sick through the hallucinatory terrain of medical One of the very few accounts of life in a residential Witch afflictions — with bizarre images from pop school by caregivers who witnessed the shocking culture — in poems that explore the connections discipline, poor food and harsh punishment for between physical and mental illness. the children’s use of their native language. 978-1-55380-626-4 (PRINT) NANCY DYSON CRYSTAL HURDLE & DAN RUBENSTEIN 978-1-55380-623-3 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-627-1 (EBOOK) 100 pp $17.95 978-1-55380-624-2 (EBOOK) 220 pp $24.95

OUT OF Out of the Dark Service on the Skeena THE DARK Lillian Boraks-Nemetz Geoff Mynett POEMS This collection of poems describes Lillian Service on the Skeena describes the life of Horace Boraks-Nemetz’s journey out of the darkness Wrinch, who served as the first resident doctor experienced by a Holocaust survivor and into a in the northern interior of BC, treating the world where “the glow of marigolds [is] lighting Wet’suwet’en people and helping build a hospital

your path to my love.” SERVICE on the with his own hands. With 50 photos and maps. SKEENA 978-1-55380-632-5 (PRINT) Horace Wrinch, Frontier Physician 978-1-55380-575-5 (PRINT) Lillian Boraks-Nemetz 978-1-55380-633-2 (EBOOK) 88 pp $17.95 GEOFF MYNETT 978-1-55380-576-2 (EBOOK) 450 pp $21.95

riding Riding the Continent Moon Madness the continent Hamilton Mack Laing Alan Twigg One of Canada’s first environmentalists records This superb biography recounts how Dr. Louise his experiences as a motorcycle-naturalist as he Aall went alone to the interior of East Africa in rides one of the earliest Harley-Davidsons on a 1959 to build a clinic to treat “moon madness” 1915 cross-North America tour. With 40 photos. (epilepsy), which continues to operate today. 978-1-55380-556-4 (PRINT) With 55 photos. NONfictiON / $19.95 978-1-55380-557-1 (EBOOK) 978-1-55380-593-9 (PRINT)

Ronsdale PRess Hamilton Mack Laing www.ronsdalepress.com 228 pp $19.95 978-1-55380-594-6 (EBOOK) 230 pp $21.95

L’ÎLE PERDUE D’ATLANTIDE FOR YOUNG READERS

ris dans ou m s a a l p , i o

p c

h u

e o

Y

Youpi en Livre 4 L’île perdue d’Atlantide vacances Philip Roy In the second novel of the French series “Un rebelle • • en sous-marin”, Alfred takes his home-made submarine • • •

Ronsdale PRess www.ronsdalepress.com Ronsdale PRess www.ronsdalepress.com

Ronsdale PRess Ronsdale PRess Ronsdale PRess www.ronsdalepress.com www.ronsdalepress.com into the Mediterranean in search of the lost continent www.ronsdalepress.com

HISTOIRE PAR ILLUSTRATIONS PAR GLEN HUSER Philip Roy Andrea Torrey Balsara of Atlantis avec d’incroyables aventures.

LA SÉRIE UN REBELLE EN SOUS-MARIN 978-1-55380-599-1 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-600-4 (EBOOK) Firebird The Girl of 250 pp $12.95 FRENCH LANGUAGE Glen Huser Newgate Prison A crossover novel about a Ukrainian boy David Starr Youpi en vacances during WWI who learns that his brother Philip Roy & Andrea Torrey Balsara has been sent to an internment camp for Libby has been sent to Newgate Prison for helping Wonderfully touching full-colour illustrations tell enemy aliens. Will he save his brother her brother when he defended her from an assault by how Youpi, the pocket mouse, informs his friend from the camp’s deadly conditions? a Peer of the Realm. She now faces the noose but is saved by the great prison reformer, Elizabeth Fry. Jean that he wants an exotic vacation. Quelle sera 978-1-55380-587-8 (PRINT) leur destination? 978-1-55380-588-5 (EBOOK) 978-1-55380-617-2 (PRINT) 290 pp $12.95 978-1-55380-618-9 (EBOOK) 978-1-55380-605-9 (HARDCOVER) 230 pp $12.95 32 pp $12.95 FRENCH LANGUAGE

Available from your favourite bookstore or order from PGC/Raincoast Ronsdale Press Visit our website: www.ronsdalepress.com

21 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 HISTORY REVIEW Heart-Wrinching HEROISM

Service on the Skeena: he was offended by one man’s dispar- Horace Wrinch, Frontier Physician “Dr. H.C. Wrinch proved aging remark in reference to either his by Geoff Mynett wife or the morality of Gitksan women (Ronsdale Press $21.95) in general. BY MIKE SELBY himself to be one of This well-known Gunanoot story is mentioned almost in passing in Service ucked into the those supermen whose on the Skeena. There is so much more pages of Geoff to know about the physician rather Mynett’s biog- than the outlaw. raphy, Service ambition in life was O on the Skeena: horace wrinch arrived in canada in Horace Wrinch, to administer to the 1880, and he came to B.C. in 1900. T Frontier Physi- Being raised on a farm in England, cian, is the story of there was no notice or record of him how the citizens of Hazelton woke up in sufferings of humanity.” being a wunderkind. He farmed again the early summer of 1906 to a double in Ontario with his brother. murder. Everyone assumes the killer Methodism spoke to him and he is the respected Gitxsan businessman – Press report, 1918 hoped to represent the Church as a and trapper Simon Gunanoot; no one missionary. His capacity for learn- appears to care. Rather than face an fugitive group. He had taken a physi- found scattered around gift shops in ing was matched with an overriding all-white jury, Gunanoot evades arrest cian’s oath to help people; and his provincial parks and wire racks in aptitude for healing. He graduated as by escaping with his parents, his wife Methodist training emboldened him, service stations. They generally only a doctor and later as a surgeon from Sarah, their two children, another child but what was his obligation to the state what Wrinch did, not who he was. Trinity Medical College in Toronto in she had had with a previous partner, Provincial Police? Gunanoot hid from law enforcement 1899. as well as his brother-in-law Peter Wrinch is sometimes mentioned in for thirteen years before surrendering, Mynett frequently reminds readers Himadan and his wife. those trade paperback B.C. histories only to be acquitted of the murder that Horace Wrinch was an immigrant “Life was extinct.” These three dis- charges. This famous B.C. farmer, landowner and agriculturist passionate words were noted by the outlaw story, on par with the before he trained to be a Methodist attending physician Horace Wrinch as so-called “Gentleman Ban- minister, missionary, physician and he examined the first murder victim. dit” Bill Miner, has been told surgeon. In all his pursuits, he was He would regrettably repeat them only extensively elsewhere, most evidently indefatigable. hours later when a second body was notably in David Ricardo According to Mynett, Wrinch was discovered. Williams’ classic Trapline “often found asleep on the side of Gunanoot hid in the deep woods Outlaw: Simon Peter Gu- the road in his cutter [automobile], only to reappear back in town every nanoot (1982) in which we wrapped in fur robes. After being out now and then to replenish his supplies learn Gunanoot had killed on all-night calls, he would be back in and occasionally have a few drinks. the two white men because the hospital at 6 a.m.” He also brought his children to the The impression that builds is that village’s hospital where they were seen Horace Wrinch’s wife Alice Horace Wrinch was always a man of and treated by Horace Wrinch. In es- and children using winter action:

sence, like the rest of the townspeople, t transport from their remote • Upon leaving the creature com- he, too, was aiding and abetting the Hazelton home. forts of Ontario and arriving in the

Sternwheeler Monte Cristo on Horace Wrinch’s journey up to Hazelton in 1900. Dr. Horace Wrinch (left) at St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, 1899–1900.

22 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV t Dr. Horace Wrinch earned a reputation for not distinguishing between the Whites and the Indigenous people in his hospital. wilderness of Northern B.C., Wrinch an X-ray machine, Wrinch raised the built Hazelton’s first hospital (design- money for it by personally canvassing ing and constructing it himself). This door to door. first hospital in the northern interior • When the Spanish flu pandemic served an area from Atlin in the north hit British Columba, killing 4,000 in down to the Cariboo, and from Port 1919-1920, Horace Wrinch inocu- Essington on the coast to Edmonton. lated the village of Hazelton with anti- The hospital in Hazelton is now named influenza serum, against the advice in his honour. and wishes of the provincial health • Before roads and the railroad could authorities. reach Hazelton, Wrinch constructed an Histories written by a family mem- accredited nursing school and operated ber are typically unreadable vanity a prosperous hospital farm. projects of interest only to the author’s • He became an elected magistrate immediate family, and even that is not and president of the B.C. Medical As- guaranteed. Mynett, a retired lawyer sociation, which he also co-founded. who is married to Wrinch’s grand- He was elected as an MLA in 1924, all daughter Alice, is too good a writer to the while being a loving husband and follow suit. He manages to be an insid- father to five. er who can also write from a distance, In 2019, Geoff Mynett and his wife Alice, a Wrinch granddaughter, • He was head of the Red Cross in creating an immensely fascinating nar- donated Dr. Horace Wrinch’s oscilloscope and his 19th century copy Hazelton during the First World War, rative about a remarkable healer who of the Encyclopaedia of Medicine to the Bulkley Valley Museum. he helped set up the B.C. Hospitals As- brought and often forced change dur- sociation and he served as its president ing exceedingly challenging times and for two terms. circumstances. Geoff Mynett brings • He was one of the first people who the human side of Horace Wrinch to championed public health insurance in life in this accessible and superbly British Columbia, designing a health written work. 978-1-55380-575-5 insurance plan for his community. • When he felt he could no longer Mike Selby reviews non-fiction practice medicine effectively without titles from Cranbrook.

Wrinch family home on the right, foreground, with the hospital on the left. Dr. Horace Wrinch at St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto.

23 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV POLITICS REVIEW Campbell’s STOOP

Big Promises, Small Government: would mean relinquishing $1 billion Doing Less with Less in the BC Liberal in revenues. It was followed, seven New Era by George Abbott weeks later, by another $1 billion cut (UBC Press $32.95) The Fall Book Club to corporate taxes. BY PORTIA PRIEGERT Taking a page from the neoliberal playbook, Campbell wrongly assumed aving served as the economic growth would make up with Shuswap MLA the shortfall. Meanwhile, a slowing for seventeen global economy, with declining energy years, includ- and commodity prices, pushed the ing twelve government another $2 billion in the years as a hole and “extinguished any prospect of cabinet minis- a magical made-in-B.C. turnaround,” H ter, George Ab- Abbott writes. Yaa Gyasi bott says he never With resource ministries such as planned to write about his time in Forests and Agriculture struggling, government. and his election commitments to Spend your Fall He says his focus instead during spare Health, Education and Higher the so-called New Era under Premier Education, Campbell tried to balance reading Transcendent Gordon Campbell—from 2001 to the budget through major cuts to so- 2005—was “day-to- cial programs, even Kingdom and then day survival” as he those for children led a large ministry and families, whom take part in a virtual through “daunting” he had promised to budget cuts. protect. face-to-face with this Having retired A large section of from politics in 2013 Big Promises exam- acclaimed author. and pursued a UVic ines the cost-cutting doctorate in politi- consequences for cal science, Abbott three ministries— says he was initially Human Resources, Join the Vancouver Writers Fest on reluctant to revisit Children and Family what he has called Development, and Sunday, November 15 for a special Book his “least favourite the portfolio Abbott Club event with Yaa Gyasi, author of the period” in politics. oversaw, Commu- The committee nity, Aboriginal and acclaimed Homegoing and undoubtedly overseeing his stud- Women’s Services. ies, however, con- News stories from one of the most exciting novelists of her vinced him it was those days detailed an important story the turmoil—there generation. to tell. Now UBC Press is bringing his were cuts to child protection, tough research on the Campbell era to a wider new policies for welfare recipients, a audience. freeze on social housing and much The basic premise in Big Promises, more. Interviewed by CBC The Current’s Matt Small Government: Doing Less with In the words of Seth Klein, the Galloway, Gyasi will discuss Transcendent Less in the BC Liberal New Era is that B.C. director of the Canadian Centre Campbell’s 25-per-cent cut to personal for Policy Alternatives, a non-partisan Kingdom, the anticipated follow-up to her income taxes, announced soon after social justice research group, it all the Liberals’ 2001 landslide victory, amounted to a “transfer of income first national bestseller. ultimately led to social services cuts from the poor (in program cuts) to the that hit some of the province’s most wealthy (who disproportionately benefit economically and socially disadvan- from the tax cuts.)” taged people. Campbell’s leadership style is This is sure to be a highlight of the But don’t expect the kind of sala- assessed bluntly: “Gordon Campbell season—perfect for other Book Clubs to cious, even-the-score political firestorm despised indecision and was we’ve come to expect from south of the particularly impatient with long join, too. border during the Trump presidency. debates on matters on which he had Abbott is not dishing dirt. Instead, this already formed his conclusions. He is an earnest and scholarly enterprise preferred to act before doubters and that will mostly excite policy wonks. naysayers could crowd his path.” Sunday, November 15 “Although the tax break was un- Readers—who will bring their own doubtedly popular among many Brit- politics and prejudices to the book— 3:00pm PT, online ish Columbians,” Abbott writes, “few must figure out how to square a Tickets (includes book): $32 understood that it would come at a scholarly analysis with the fact that very high cost.” Abbott was a key player in enacting writersfest.bc.ca Abbott says the cut was motivated the measures. by Campbell’s “ideological zeal” and its Abbott did leave the Liberal party in magnitude was not specified during 2015, but not before serving two more the election campaign. Ultimately, it terms and running unsuccessfully for

24 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV Big promises and big lies of the Gordon Campbell government are examined by former Liberal cabinet minister George Abbott.

the Liberal leadership after Campbell’s In his foreword, Vaughn Palmer, a 2010 resignation. longtime provincial affairs columnist Abbott’s insider status lends cre- for the Vancouver Sun, describes the dence to his perspective and his con- book as “a cautionary tale.” Indeed. nections have enabled him to quote Perhaps, more than anything, I fin- anonymous public servants. He says ished Big Promises feeling melancholy he has honoured his oath of cabinet about the havoc needlessly wreaked on secrecy and claims he has based his the lives of people struggling—whether research on news stories and the of- due to health issues, the repercussions ficial record, including debates in the of childhood poverty and trauma, or legislature. the systemic biases we are increasingly “What I read and learned as a stu- hearing about in public discourse— of- dent moulded my understanding,” he ten through no fault of their own. says. I found myself thinking again about Of course, people are allowed to the potential of proportional represen- change their views and politics is a tation to temper the rash impulses of messy affair at the best of times, but those drawn to power. Abbott uses the the reader will have grounds for be- phrase “prescription before diagnosis” ing uneasy. Perhaps those nameless to describe Campbell’s approach to gov- bureaucrats he quotes have vested erning. Perhaps we should carry that interests in which version of history is medical metaphor further, and seek a written. Are there biases and potential way to hold politicians to some basic conflicts of interest that may be opaque duty of care, as articulated in Hip- to readers? pocrates’ exhortation to “do no harm.”

While Big Promises is readable 978-0-7748-6487-9 enough for the layperson, it lacks the t descriptive passages and human inter- Victoria-based writer Portia Priegert is est a journalist might use to set the a former reporter for the Ottawa bureau B.C. Liberal Party campaign poster, 2001. Gordon Campbell became scene and tell a story. of The Canadian Press. the 34th B.C. premier by winning 77 of 79 seats in the election. NEW FROM ANVIL PRESS

BC BESTSELLER LAND OF DESTINY BORDERLINE OUTLASTING THE WEATHER FONTAINEBLEAU A HISTORY OF VANCOUVER by Marie-Sissi Labrèche SELECTED & NEW POEMS 1994-2020 by Madeline Sonik REAL ESTATE Searing and lyrical, Marie-Sissi Labrèche’s by Patrick Friesen “A darkly engrossing and artfully by Jesse Donaldson auto-fictional novel,Borderline , describes Spanning a quarter century of Friesen’s work, composed sequence of stories from a young girl’s experience growing up in a contemporary master of the form Ever since Europeans first laid claim to the the poems in Outlasting the Weather speak Montreal’s working-class neighbourhood to what is meant by “a life lived in poetry.” — Sonik’s fearsome prose shines Squamish Nation territory in the 1870s, the of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Borderline sublime light on the plain-sight real estate industry has held the region in its treats all things — the city, class, education, “Outlasting the Weather, a collection twenty- secrets of modern life.” grip. Land of Destiny explores that influence, mental health, despair, sexuality, love, and six years in the making, displays an astonish- — Lee Henderson, author of The Man starting in 1862, with the first sale of land in art, with an unflinching, unblinking eye. ing range of achievement from a writer who Game and The Road Narrows as You Go the West End, and continuing up until the has continued to change and evolve while housing crisis of today. It exposes the back- “A perfectly sustained wail of bloodthirst pushing the limits in exploring the human 978-1-77214-148-1 • 224 PAGES • $20 STORIES room dealings, the skullduggery and nepo- and helplessness. Labrèche shocks and journey.” — Allan Safarik tism, the racism and the obscene profits, seduces in the same abject, incandescent • • • while at the same time revealing that the breath.” — Paige Cooper, author of Zolitude 978-1-77214-153-5 240 PAGES $20 POETRY same forces which made Vancouver what it 978-1-77214-143-6 • 160 PAGES • $18 is — speculation and global capital — are NOVEL the same ones that shape it today. “Distinctly urban, with a twist!”

978-1-77214-144-3 • 200 PAGES • $20 www.anvilpress.com | [email protected] HISTORY/CULTURAL STUDIES AVAILABLE TO THE TRADE FROM PGC/RAINCOAST

25 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV FICTION REVIEW Singing in secret Nazanine Hozar’s epic novel will haunt you.

Aria by Nazanine Hozar trio is inevitable. (Knopf $24.95) Thus far, Aria has landed on many The protagonist accepts the nick- BY CAROLINE WOODWARD name Aria given to her by Behrouz, the “must-read” lists and been nomi- truck driver. Behrouz was beaten by ria is the kind of his father for his “delicate ways.” Then vivid and power- he was married off to a relative nearly ful storytelling nated for the 2020 Amazon Best twice his age, only to learn she had a that grabs you thieving son who was several months by the throat older than him. on page one, First Novel Award and the 2020 “I used to sing in secret,” says Beh- A holds you up rouz, “so my father wouldn’t know. I against the wall Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. used to sing arias… Little tales, cries for days (and well into in the night. If you sing an aria, the the nights) and only lets you drop on world will know all about you. It will the final page. palate who makes bead bracelets for and her adoptive mother. The novel is know your dreams and secrets. Your The stories within these pages will her. further developed by the relationship pains and your loves.” likely haunt you for ages. When you The setting is Iran between 1953 Aria has with Behrouz, the gentle truck O next hear the word ‘Tehran,’ you will and 1981, twenty-eight turbulent years driver, the only father figure she has nazanine hozar writes about complicated think of a half-starved little girl locked which encompass the lavish oil-funded known throughout her life, as well as and often desperate people trying to out of her house, huddled high up on reign of the last Shah, the era of the his relationship with an upper-class survive dangerous times. Hence the a balcony. Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the young man, an army captain, who ends meaning of an aria, bestowed as a Or the army truck driver who found return from exile and rise to power of up in prison during both regimes. name for a neglected child who be- that little girl as an infant, abandoned Ayatollah Khomeini. We also meet an Armenian school comes an educated young woman, in a reeking alley, surrounded by wait- The structure of the novel follows boy called Hamlet and Mitra, a girl who permeates and echoes among all the ing street dogs. the child Aria and her relationships is his best friend. They both befriend lives within this aptly named novel. Or the neighbour’s boy with a cleft with her birth mother, her stepmother Aria but years later betrayal among the Although it’s packaged as fiction,

Something Drastic $19.95 | 9781989689080 “An outrageously hallucinogenic, extravagantly over-the-top trek through addiction and apocalypse.”

– Joan Barfoot, author of Luck

Songs from a Small Town (In a Minor Key) TIFF: A LIFE OF TIMOTHY FINDLEY $19.95 | 9781989689097 Sherrill Grace

“This book will make you think. Print | ebook | 538 pages | 6 x 9 | 978-1-77112-453-9 | hardcover | $39.99 It might even make you cry.”

– Arleen Paré, winner of the “A meticulously researched “A powerful, eye-opening deep dive into a troubled and portrait of the artist as an 2014 Governor General’s Award fascinating life—passionate, anguished man who tried engaged, often messy, vastly desperately to live by his rewarding.“ mo† o: Against despair.” —Margaret Atwood —Jerry Wasserman, Emeritus Professor of English and Theatre, UBC, editor of Modern Canadian Plays

WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY PRESS nonpublishing.com 1-866-836-5551 | wlupress.wlu.ca Available from: UTP (Canada) 1-800-565-9523 Ingram (USA) 1-800-961-8031

26 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV Aria is like getting gritty dispatches are scrambling to assign “more Mus- from a journalist who knows exactly lim” names to themselves and to their how mulberry flowers and their sun- children to avoid persecution. dried fruit smell; how it sounds to There are Sunni and Shia Moslems, hear an ancient festival march through Christians, Zoroastrians, Jews and faraway streets as hundreds of men Baha’i characters. Issues of language, pound their own faces and chests like education and class are interwoven drums; what a dangerous eye infection throughout the book. looks and feels like; and what a man Was it better to attend school taught missing two thumbs has likely experi- in French, favoured by the Shah’s up- enced in exactly which area of Iran’s per class? Or should learning be con- main prison. ducted in Farsi, the ancient language of There is an undeniable authentic- Persia from which learned culture and ity and gorgeous writing, the kind of the kingdom of Iran became a nation? quote-worthy writing to be found on Or should schooling be done in Arabic every page which reveals humanity at because the only book people ought to its worst and at its best—such as the read should be the Quran? observation made by one imprisoned At the bidding of Ayatollah Khomei- character that the trouble with poets ni, the Savak, the secret police to the was that they wrote beautiful words Shah, are replaced by the Vevak, but and then other people went out and their fondness for torture is much the died for those words. same. To serve their political masters, The importance of literacy and gain- they seek out and imprison all oppo- ing an education, even if it’s being able nents and significant relatives and then to count money well enough to work in turn a blind eye to legitimate, public, a stall in a bazaar, is stressed through- judicial process. out as child characters or their care- Nazanine Hozar of Vancouver left takers struggle to attain it, or worse, her birthplace, Tehran, during the war block their children or their siblings between Iran and Iraq (1980-1988), from being educated. eventually earning a Masters in Fine Hozar pulls no punches when she Arts specializing in creative writing presents her flawed characters, male at the University of British Columbia. and female, as superstitious and stub- With her stunning debut novel, born. She depicts the brutal, misogy- Hozar deserves the international read- nistic mistreatment of women; as well ership enjoyed by authors such as as the oppression of boys and men Afghani-American Khaled Hosseini, “By making Aria ‘rootless’ somehow, suspected of being gay. author of The Kite Flyer, and other I can then manoeuvre her through the We meet the rich and the poor; the books which explore the complex lives generous and the repressed, the vindic- of orphans and families in dangerous different cultures and classes of Iranian tive and the selfless—the whole gamut times and places. 9780345811820 of human qualities in 3-D, from inner

society. This gives the reader a view photo fears to outward behaviours. Caroline Woodward’s A West Coast into these worlds as well, as they When the change of political regime Summer (Harbour) was nominated for

campbell gets underway, the complicated multi- a B.C. Chocolate Lily Award (2018/19).

follow Aria.” NAZANINE HOZAR denominational religious reality of Iran She writes from the Lennard Island

tenille is revealed in this novel, even as people Lightstation.

Fall Reads from Greystone Books

From the bestselling author of The Rise of Wolf 8 comes the thrilling tale of Yellowstone’s legendary wolf pack.

Hope Matters Seaweed, An Enchanting The Mind-Body Cure Why Changing the Way We Miscellany Heal Your Pain, Anxiety, Think Is Critical to Solving the   and Fatigue by Controlling Environmental Crisis 978-1-77164-599-7 • $26.95 • HC Chronic Stress The Reign of Wolf 21     978-1-77164-777-9 • $22.95 • PBK 978-1-77164-579-9 • $24.95 • PBK The Saga of Yellowstone’s Legendary Druid Pack   978-1-77164-524-9 • $34.95 • HC

Naturally Great Books greystonebooks.com

27 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV Available Oct 15, 2020 Available Now A modern queer tragedy about a pilot’s last words, an interrupted celebration, and the fear of losing everything.

FICTION/Historical FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS/Aging Illustrator: Michael Kluckner “A wise, tender and Dupuis has written two books beautifully-written book . . . on the strike and one on the Highly recommended.” Halifax Explosion. —T. Sandborn, Vancouver Sun

Available Now Available Now

9781459746428 $21.99 pbk

“Utterly engrossing. Coen is a hero for our era, darkly struggling amid the after-

shocks of loss, but doing so with dignity, HEALTH & FITNESS/Cancer humanity, and passion.” “The best prostate cancer HUMOUR/Business book I’ve ever read. Period.” “Very funny, well-written . . .” — TIMOTHY TAYLOR, author of — Beau Stubblefield-Tave, Shortlist, Whistler Independent The Rule of Stephens Executive Director, us TOO Book Awards Published and distributed by Check out our catalogue or phone Toll-free: 1-877-688-0320 granvilleislandpublishing.com

h Columbia d Yukon Hon ourin nity in Britis h Columbia an and Yukon Hon unity in Britis h Columbia d Yuko ook comm munity in Britis h Columbia an book com y in Britis s! Co ents of the comatulationsmunit y inook Britis Prizeh m theC bongrook 20 BC andmu Yukonnit B ents of ts ofe btheook 20 com ity in g achievem to enthets finalis of th commun tin g achievem ts of the book g and promotin g achievemen ents of the b rin and promotin oting achievem e on Honouring ring and prom oting achiev k Yukon Honou ring and prom o Columbia and d Yukon Honou ring and prom h Columbia an d Yukon Honou our unity in Britis h Columbia an and Yukon Hon unity in Britis h Columbia d Yu book comm munity in Britis h Columbia an the book com unity in Britis h C vements of e book comm munity in Britis ements of th f the book com unity oting achiev hievements o e book comm romoting ac ements of th of the uring and p omoting achiev hievements ouring and pr d promoting ac achiev ukon Hon Honouring an d promoting bia and Yukon Honouring an d prom sh Colum bia and Yukon Honouring an British Colum ia and Yukon Honou munity in h Columb bia and Yukon munity in Britis British Colum and Y e book com ommunity in h Columbia of the book c munity in Britis British ievements the book com ommunity in ents of se submissions book c nit oting achievem ements of th book commu m oting achsiev supporting this year’ ents of the th gThank and y oupr omto the publisher g achievem ents of ourin and promotin oting achievem on Honouring ring and prom moting achie

28 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 FICTION REVIEW

Logan Macnair (seen here on a visit to Israel The earlier this year) named each of his book’s 65 chapters with a single word starting with ‘P’. stutterer and the statesman

Logan Macnair gives us two opposing wordsmiths, one verbal and one non- verbal, the orator and the scribe.

occasionally abstract, chapters. n Logan Macnair’s audacious “While some of them are only a couple pages long, and experimental first novel, Panegyric, we meet a male they can be demanding, but my hope is that there will I be lots there for curious readers to potentially unpack politician named Valerie Montblanc who wants to be prime if they are so inclined.” The P-word chapter titles were not an idea that minister. On the hustings, he is a masterful embellisher— was originally intended. “It was something I decided to commit to after he can make a verbal bouquet out of a fistful of weeds. writing a few initial chapters. I would spend a lot of time looking through these lists of fancy P-words and [panegyric—public speeches or published text in praise compiling the ones that I thought were interesting. You would be surprised how many archaic P-words of someone or something.] are actually out there! “When it came to naming the chapters, I didn’t To further his political ambitions, he wants a biog- Panegyric by Logan Macnair have a set method in place, sometimes the chapter (Now or Never $19.95) raphy. Trouble is, Montblanc can’t write his way out of was fully-written and I then had to find a suitable a proverbial paper bag, so he hires a lifelong stutterer, BY CHERIE THIESSEN word for a title that captured the essence of what Larry Mann, who can’t manage a sentence without the chapter was about, and sometimes I started with a stammer but he has an extraordinary vocabulary. Larry’s lucrative assignment is turning into a chal- nothing more than an interesting P-word that I would It’s an original odd couple: a rich, self-made, older lenge that could well be beyond him. Larry’s panglos- then use as a jumping-off point for the chapter. man with enemies and a woefully unsuccessful and sian hopes appear to be misplaced. “Larry’s speech impediment was not originally unfulfilled younger man who suffers painfully from [panglossian: marked by the view that all is for intended either. It was only after writing about six or psellism. the best in this best of possible worlds: excessively seven chapters that the idea came to me. As soon as [psellism: stammering or stuttering; a speech dis- optimistic] it did, the themes and characters of the book became order.] Montblanc wants Larry to write about him in posi- much clearer to me, as did their internal struggles and As a ghostwriter, Larry has produced one widely- tive colours but then, tantalizingly, he slips the greys motivations (and the juxtaposition with the eloquent praised biography for which he received zero credit. and even the blacks into the literary palette. and well-spoken Montblanc). His biggest public accomplishment to date is attaining What are the mysteries in Montblanc’s past? Is he “Because I don’t have this speech impediment the highest score on The Donkey King in the video stable? And why can’t Mann get off the ground and myself, I needed to do a lot of research so that I arcade on the Spirit of Vancouver ferry. take control of his life? This plot alone is worthy of a could accurately depict not just how the condition The ghostwriter has left his dreary digs on the read but Macnair ups the ante with his clever writ- is expressed, but also some of the internal struggles West Coast and for five months he will live in Mont- ing in 65 short chapters—all with a one-word titles or thought processes that people who have such a blanc’s luxurious lower suite while interviewing him beginning with the letter P. condition may undergo. and completing the book. Larry will be making good For a stutterer such as Larry, P’s are especially “As the story goes on, I try to express that, while money for this gig but once again there will be no difficult to pronounce. Dedicated readers with a dic- Larry has blamed his impediment for many of the recognition in it for him, no glory. tionary at hand will be well rewarded with a serious failures in his life and sees it as a source of shame, The ghostwriter must remain marooned in his increase in vocabulary. he has also been using it as a crutch to mask the true quarters, not welcome to invade the upper chambers Macnair manages to segue from each chapter title source of his worries.” of the house. There is a wife who is seldom there, but to the content of each chapter. Each chapter is a little Panegyric has found a good home with Now or she is willing to appear as a prop on the hustings. like eating a bowl of lentil curry—very dense and fill- Never Publishing, a Lower Mainland literary publisher Montblanc is controlling, mercurial and often sar- ing. It took Macnair two-and-a-half years to complete that prints edgy books. Macnair is now hard at work castic. The politician ricochets from mood to mood, this work, while simultaneously in pursuit of a Ph.D. on his second novel, Troll. Perhaps it will feature sometimes cruelly mocking Larry’s speech impedi- “The short length of the chapters was inspired by another polemicist. ment; at other times he can be angry and challenging. a few things,” Macnair says, “most notably Leonard [Polemicist: a person who engages in controversial It’s almost as if he’s playing with the scribe, saying Cohen’s novel Beautiful Losers, which was a huge debate.] 978-198-8098-975 incongruous and often shocking things out of the influence on my book. I borrowed many structural blue to confuse him. and stylistic cues from it, including his use of short, Cherie Thiessen reviews fiction from Pender Island.

29 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV FICTION REVIEW

A Match Made for Murder by Iona Whishaw (TouchWood Editions $16.95) BY JOHN MOORE Self-isolate Match Made for Murder is the Inn where Winslow plans to relax and seventh in Iona spend the holiday poolside with a good Whishaw’s Lane mystery. Her plans are interrupted Winslow mystery with Iona by gunfire. One of the hotel’s wealthy series set mostly guests has been shot point blank and A Lane is second on the scene. in and around Nel- son, B.C. during the late 1940s, im- After six novels, a detective Tucson, in the late forties, is an idyl- mediately after the end of WW II. lic Southwestern town where nothing Like any good mystery author, based in Nelson solves her first much seems to happen. Winslow pro- Whishaw has written her novels so you ceeds to find and investigate the sleazy don’t have to read them in order, but case outside Canada while on underside of the town, including its po- doing so adds deeper levels of complex- lice department and the war-spawned ity and enjoyment. If you haven’t been her honeymoon in Arizona. American culture of corporate greed. keeping up, stack them all beside your Whishaw often uses the device of favourite deck chair and self-isolate for Though Lane Winslow’s skills as frenzy that possessed WW II survivors, having Inspector Darling and his side- a summer well-spent. an amateur detective are empowering, resulting in the Baby Boom of the fif- kick Sergeant Ames juggle two appar- In a genre more crowded with quirky they also make it impossible for her to ties. She marries the inspector. ently unrelated cases that gradually characters than a downtown bus, cre- find the inner peace she seeks. Winslow and her newly-wed Fred prove to be connected. It’s an old trick, ating one with the charisma to carry a After six novels of cautious, mutual- choose to honeymoon in Tucson, but a good one that allows a writer to series is tougher than picking a winner ly investigative foreplay with Inspector Arizona, where Darling’s former boss employ a larger cast of characters and in the ninth race. At a glance, Lane Frederick Darling, in A Match Made for and mentor is now Chief of Police. The introduce information asymmetrically, Winslow appears to be an attractive but Murder Winslow seems to have made a newlyweds have escaped the cold of avoiding the linear clue-by-clue plod of innocuous young Englishwoman who truce with her past and succumbed to the Kootenays in November in favour formulaic mysteries. comes to the Kootenays to find peace, the instinctive ‘nesting and breeding’ of the posh and romantic Santa Cruz This time, back in Nelson, Sergeant as far as possible from five years of Ames has been left in charge of the de- stress and privation in wartime London. partment during Darling’s absence. As Winslow’s inherent sleuthing skills he investigates a case of vandalism at are used to complement the work of the Van Eyck garage, it seems to lead one member of the Nelson police force directly to the death of the suspected in particular, her ongoing love interest, vandal himself. Working with Con- Inspector Frederick Darling. stable Terrell, the new recruit, to piece Under her cool, well-mannered, together what happened in this strange English reserve, Lane Winslow is as and unsettling murder, Ames damaged as any veteran who spent too finds that his romantic inter- long at what Brits call ‘the sharp end’ of est in mechanic Tina Van the war. She is one of many resource- Eyck creates complications ful, young women who worked for the that are more than awkward; Security Intelligence Service (SIS) and they could be deadly. the New York-based British Security So, A Match Made for Mur- Coordination (BSC). der is not just a double mur- It hits close to home as Whishaw der investigation; it’s a double says she based the character of Lane Iona Whishaw romance. But what really Winslow on her mother, who, in real- makes the Lane Winslow mys- life worked for British intelligence dur- teries so compelling is that Whishaw ing the war. gets the tone and mood of the time and O place exactly right. Her eclectic mix of remittance men, Imperial refugees and in her first lane winslow novel, a killer in King’s Cove (TouchWood, 2016), Iona small-town Canadians—all suffering Whishaw explores an insidious afflic- from wounds or moral crises as a result tion of the spy: the corrosive suspicion of the recent war—should provide her that the agency they have loyally served with plots and characters for many is spying on them and will do so until novels still to come. they take their secrets to the grave, To the deck chairs, everyone. prematurely if they become ‘unreliable.’ 9781771513265 Len Deighton’s detective Bernard Samson and John Le Carre’s George John Moore is an ardent gardener, mys- Smiley in Smiley’s People had similar tery buff, novelist and longtime social problems. British novelist William distancer in Garibaldi Highlands. Boyd, not usually a writer of ‘spy nov- els,’ explores this state of life-long un- The complete series of Lane Winslow ease in Restless. Like Boyd, Whishaw Mystery books, with cover art by subtly conveys how the trained senses t Victoria illustrator Margaret Hanson. of the secret agent, hyper-acute ob- Vancouver’s Iona Whishaw based the servation and sensitivity to situa- fictional King’s Cove on the hamlet tions, constantly threaten to become where she was born, Queen’s Bay, paranoia. outside of Nelson.

30 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 MT MOTHER TONGUE Creating a Legacy PURCHASE AT RBCM.CA/BOOKS P PUBLISHING LIMITED of Art and Literature or from your favourite bookseller BC A VALUABLE REGIONAL ART HISTORY GUIDE Bestseller ANNOUNCING THE POCKET GUIDE TO THE UNHERALDED ARTISTS OF BC SERIES

Introduction by Marsha Lederman The Western Arts correspondent for the Globe and Mail, she has lived in Vancouver since 2007.

This small attractive full-colour book will gather thirteen forgotten and accomplished artists from the acclaimed Unheralded Artists of BC series, in one place, for the first time. It will include a short bio and a selection of works for each artist. They were painters, sculptors, watercolourists, draftsmen, portraitists, abstractionists, surrealists, visionaries, teachers, adventurists, printmakers, immigrants and most importantly passionate artists. Jack Akroyd (1921-1996) In British Columbia, between 1900 and the 1960s, over 16,000 artists worked and lived. It George Fertig (1915-1983) was the height of an immensely creative surge Mary Filer (1920-2016) in the province. Beyond the handful of names of successful artists, there is little documented Jack Hardman (1923-1996) evidence of others. Art was made invisible by Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher (1906-1994) socioeconomic or political forces and by a lack of public/private galleries. LeRoy Jenson (1927-2005) “Those artists that worked the system got recognition, and David Marshall (1928-2006) those that didn’t disappeared from view.” —former curator at the Frank Molnar (1936- ) “Its luminous, large-format pages offer everything from Vancouver Art Gallery. Arthur Pitts (1889-1972) Haida storytelling to marine biology, all to show our $24.95 Mildred Valley Thornton (1890-1967) 978-1-896949-82-6 | softcover too-often-ignored kinship with this astonishing animal.” 5.5” x 7” | 200 pages | full colour Ina D.D. Uhthoff (1889-1971) — Brian Lynch, Georgia Straight e-book also Harry Webb (1927-1995) 978-0-7726-7768-6 Jessie Webb (1930-2011) $29.95 hardcover $11.99 ebook Individuals can order direct from website (free shipping) Bookstores & Institutions, order from mothertonguepublishing.com Heritage Group Distribution 1-800-665-3302

Hungry Slingshots The Smallest by LOUIS CABRI Objective ‘Cabri’s poetry has long been by SHARON KIRSCH propelled by sound and theory, making him one of the few language ‘Akin to an intricately detailed slide poets so deeply engaged with how under a microscope, this suite of stories, a poem sits and sounds on the page. in fact, a collection of newly discovered ... Given the amount of quality memories, is a familial jigsaw puzzle — a work he’s produced over the years, series of mysteries, reassembled by way he’s certainly due for some deeper of meticulous research and the astute attention.’ observation of a writer in her prime.’ — rob mclennan’s blog, Spot — Bill Arnott, The Miramichi Reader

Obtainable from the People’s Co-op Zoom in at Volume One Books | Coho Books | Bookstore | UVic Bookstore and People’s Co-op Bookstore and

www.NewStarBooks.com www.NewStarBooks.com

Writing and Reading I Am a City Still But by GEORGE BOWERING Soon I Shan’t Be ‘What’s fun to read is the pleasure by ROGER FARR Bowering takes in writing as ‘an old coot’ — after long years in the ‘The wager — the excitement of this book — is writing game, he can laugh at how radically and openly we are thrown himself. But the poet-professor still into the project of thinking and feeling our has veteran chops and can use an way through the contemporary — no assumed offbeat, apparently unrelated story ‘truths,’ no established ‘methods’ or ‘theories’ or to suddenly crystallize his point. ... ‘ideology’ — just the ineradicable will to resist.’ It’s artful writing about writing and Poetry has always been there when nothing reading from a guy who remains else is left. This is poetry as the last stand — but an indelible part-of-the-scene.’ the magic is that it reads as much like poetry as — Trevor Carolan, subTerrain the first skirmish of what is to come. — Stephen Collis, The Capilano Review

Sold at Munro’s | Galiano Island Books | 32 Books | May be purchased from Spartacus Books | People’s Co- Mosaic Books | Laughing Oyster and op Bookstore | Tanners Books | Cap U Bookstore and

www.NewStarBooks.com www.NewStarBooks.com

31 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 NOW AVAILABLE POETRY REVIEW A year of walking and seeing

When We Are Broken dwell there with me,” she says. “In my by Luanne Armstrong daily walks, I focus on the quiet, always (distributed by Maa Press $30) changing occurrences of nature.” BY BEVERLY CRAMP Her 23rd book, a collection of po- etry and photography, When We Are aving lived much of her Broken, follows a year of Armstrong’s life on her family farm daily meanderings, during which she on Kootenay Lake frequently stopped to meditate on her in the heart of the surroundings and take photographs. Kootenay-Columbia “Whatever snagged my eyes, is H where I would stop and wait and look basin, issues of land and a sense of place are key subjects to see what had asked me to pay at- in Luanne Armstrong’s writings. tention.” “Part of my life’s work has been The photography proved integral to to truly understand Armstrong. “Often, I don’t see what is the place where truly there until I look at the photo. It’s I live and the a way of seeing, a way of going deeper other crea- into awareness as I walk.” tures that Daily walks are key to Armstrong’s physical health as she has heart is- sues and rheumatoid arthritis. But her frailty is part of her poetry, lending the verses an elegiac character. Armstrong will be presenting the “Julia Levy’s story of personal and scientific book and her photographs through a discovery is dramatic, uplifting, and powerful. multi-media presentation at the Capitol Theatre in Nelson on November 26th. It is the story of a pioneer and leader who used When We Are Broken is distributed through Maa Press and can be ordered her great intelligence to overcome difficult through [email protected]. 9780987838414 obstacles and illuminate the way for others.” Luanne Armstrong’s physical frailties lend her poetry an elegiac character.

– Linda Solomon Wood, CEO, Observer Media Group t

new from freehand books

Equal parts heart-stirring and mind-bending.” — Jim Bartley

universal disorder by bernice friesen 978-1-988298-55-9 | 384 pgs | $22.95

Enchanting! Every time I left the book, I rushed to return.” — Shaena Lambert

one madder woman by dede crane 978-1-988298-68-9 | 360 pgs | $23.95

freehand-books.com “A first-rate “ A must read for observance of a all entrepreneurs, hundred years of hell- leadership teams, and raising. It makes you CEOs.” proud to be Canadian.” - Carinne Chambers-Saini, CEO and Co-founder, Diva International Inc. - Holly Doan Blacklock’s Reporter

utorontopress.com | @utpress

32 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV POETRY REVIEW INSIDE THE

Pineapple Express by Evelyn Lau (Anvil Press $18)

f you want an monastery antidote for the COVID Evelyn Lau’s new contemplative blues, try poems are for adults only reading this I brave, sad book about liv- for disturbing your peace. Had they ing every day with depression. even / been born, those years were Evelyn Lau talks to herself disturbing / everyone’s peace? Now throughout, like some foreign it’s another / young woman’s turn.” correspondent taking mental There is not a single comment snapshots from an urban prison, about, or reference to, being an occasionally distracted by a spider under-privileged person of colour. or mosquito. She is beyond concern about her “Thirty years ago / you were a reputation. She asks herself if it homeless teenager, and now / you is wrong to stop seeking glamour remember how to live on nothing.” and “disappear into the monastery There is no story. Pineapple Ex- of poetry.” press is more like driving through Lau describes her bleak aston- a grey, concrete neighborhood we ishment when she is almost hit know we don’t want to live in. by a taxi in a crosswalk. Has she “You waste whole afternoons become that invisible? A simple drowsing / on the day bed like a statement on the back of the book sultan / bored with the dazzling cover rings true. “Evelyn Lau’s harem, / waiting for winter.” eighth collection of poetry marks At one point, on a Sunday night, an important contribution to the she describes three policemen literature of depression.” hammering on her door, hands on A section on living with anti- their holsters, racing from door to depressants is particularly fine. door to seek the source of scream- They teach you stillness. “The Sili- ing reported to 911. con Valley millionaires who flock / “You answered the door / in to Katmandu, in search of serenity your middle age, TV flickering / / would be envious.” on mute, in your nightshirt and These poems about the moods slippers / at 10 pm — surely and medications pursuant to de- so incapable / of causing a dis- pression describe what it’s like to withdraw for survival. turbance, of exciting / a violent t passion, that the cops politely / She is just alone. Evelyn Lau in Vancouver averted their eyes and apologized / 978-1-77214-147-4

has written over 600 poems, some of which appear in his A cracked and first collection, A Curious Happiness in Small Things (Raven Chapbooks $18) about reflections on his family, dusty mirror nature, and the beauty of the North where he spent part of his working life, “savouring the emptiness there.” fter a lengthy battle with alcoholism, David Hag- I write my poems – poor ragged things gart discovered in 1988 that he had serious mental in a cracked and dusty mirror health issues. It was during this period that he A my gift to the few that read them started to write poetry, advised by his mentor Patrick — from the poem, The Weekend by David Haggart. Lane to learn to write “by writing.” Haggart attended one of Lane’s workshops in Sechelt, Haggart produced two previous chapbooks of poetry, found work with an old friend he knew from the time he Signs of Life (Little Soup Press) and On The Way Out spent working in the Arctic—stone sculptor Abraham Ru- (Arashido Publishing) as well as three chapbook antholo- ben—and moved to Salt Spring Island in 2000. There, he gies with fellow writers. 978-0-9734408-3-6

i am five Not okay my sisters are saying boy i do not know what the word means but it was never going to be okay by jaye simpson (Nightwood $18.95) i am bruised into knowing it: the blunt b, the hollowness of the o, the blade of y O aye simpson, who identifies as simpson is an oji-cree saulteaux indigiqueer non-binary, has written their whose roots hail from the Sapotaweyak, Kees- first collection of poetry and eekoose and Skownan Cree Nations. They grew j prose, it was never going to be up primarily in the Vancouver area in foster okay. They explore intergen- homes. erational trauma, Indigeneity and They have been published in This Magazine, queerness and also address the urban Indig- PRISM, SubTerrain, Room, and the anthologies: enous diaspora and breaking down the limita- Hustling Verse (2019) and Love After the End

tions of sexual understanding as a trans woman. (2020). Simpson self-describes as a displaced photo

In an excerpt from their poem, boy, simpson Indigenous person “resisting, ruminating and t nanray jaye simpson recalls the early pain, confusion and anger of residing on” Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and

divya being given a specific gender: Squamish First Nations territories. 978-0-88971-382-6

33 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV KIDLIT REVIEW

Elephant seals are thriving again on the West Coast, including a new colony on GOLIATHS Race Rocks off of the beach Vancouver Island.

Return from Extinction: The Triumph of the Elephant Seal by Linda L. Richards (Orca $24.95) Nonfiction Ages 9-12 BY BEVERLY CRAMP

hile driving down the California Coast a few years ago, Lin-

da L. Richards

caught sight of a highway sign: Vis- t W ta Point: Elephant Seal Viewing Area. She later wrote, “Imagine a crea- Only mature males have those Visiting seals wasn’t anywhere near ture the size of a small bus, making An elephant seal big, protruding noses which give the in a Paris zoo the top of her sightseeing list but she sounds as loud as an airplane taking mammals their name. They aren’t known as ‘Goli- pulled over for a “quick peek” at a off and moving inelegantly—though ath’, in 1936. It is related to elephants. beach below. not always slowly—across the sand.” believed that this “As far as scientists can tell, the From a distance, she thought she Richards was soon hooked on seal was from the purpose of the nose is all about was looking at hundreds of dead crea- the seals, especially the odd-looking Channel Islands breeding,” she says. “The bigger the tures on the sand. Then she realized males with their blubbery big noses. off the California nose, the more awesome, impres- Coast, making they were all seals “flipper to flipper “You don’t forget the first time you sive and scary sounds the male can it a northern and tail to tail,” lying on the beach com- see an adult male elephant seal,” she elephant seal. make. This scares off smaller (and panionably, flipping sand. They seemed recalls in Return from Extinction: probably less noisy) competitors to be having seal conversations. The Triumph of the Elephant Seal. when establishing their territories.”

New from Tradewind Books

Bonnie Sherr Klein  ff Bonnie Sherr Klein

ffi B e e p

B e lisabeth Eudes-Pascal e p 

B u

 b b i e

illustrations by

isbn Élisabeth Eudes-Pascal

Beep Beep Bubbie Crocs in a Box - Three mini-books The Mysterious Stones ISBN: 978-1-926890-23-4 $19.95 ISBN: 978-1-926890-06-7 $24.95 ISBN: 978-1-926890-18-0 $19.95

Bonnie Sherr Klein, best-selling The three mischievous crocs are Written by Enrique Pérez Diaz, author of Slow Dance: a story of back—in a box! Frolic along with Cuba’s leading author for young love and disability, joins acclaimed these raucous reptiles as they romp people, and illustrated by the illustrator Élisabeth Eudes- through a crocodile day, sprint off celebrated Colombian-Canadian Pascal “for the lighthearted the sports field, and turn the work- artist Yayo. intergenerational story, sure to open a-day world upside down. young eyes to issues of disability.” Kiki lives with his tío and his (Quill & Quire) “Heidbreder’s bouncy verse and the abuela ever since his papá sailed mayhem and imagination of Maté’s away in search of a new life. Kate is upset when her grandma energetic illustrations will leave kids (Bubbie) gets a motorized scooter. joyous with laughter.”(Toronto Star) Will Bubbie still be Bubbie in that scooter?

www.tradewindbooks.com

34 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV The males can weigh over 2,000 kilograms while the females are much smaller at just over 700 kilograms. The females look the way everyone expects a seal to look: “They have large eyes, Managing Remote Staff: Capitalize on Work-from- a smooth head and a friendly expres- Home Productivity sion.” by Lin Grensing-Pophal, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, PCM Richards took the time to find out that the spectacle she had witnessed was a recent phenomenon. “Not so • Many small businesses are many years ago, there were no seals on struggling to adapt to the the beach,” she was told by a docent at impact of COVID-19 while the Piedras Blancas elephant seal rook- ery. “Not so many years before that, maintaining productivity, staff there were only 20 to 70 northern el- engagement, customer satis- ephant seals left in their entire range.” faction and a healthy bottom Their recovery seemed like a miracle line. to Richards. She wondered how it had occurred. Overhunting had brought the Renewal. The horrors and deprivations • This book addresses the northern elephant seals to the edge of faced by Indigenous people included myths, misconceptions, pros extinction when they were killed for disease, war, broken promises and and cons of remote work for their oil in the mid-to-late 1800s. forced assimilation. employees who are now out of But they fought back and survived. “The records of early hunters de- sight, but NOT out of mind! scribe huge numbers and easy pick- In the face of crushing losses and ings,” she writes. “The animals could challenges, they rebuilt their nations, • Learn the attributes of suc- be shot or herded to one part of a beach adopted new ideas and kept their cul- cessful remote workers, and clubbed—females, males, young tures alive. establish policies and proce- Yellowhorn and Lowinger have col- and old—and no one cared for anything dures, and effectively train staff with an emphasis on but the oil in the animals’ blubber.” lected a number of survival stories, By the end of the 19th century, like how the Indigenous peoples in the communication. elephant seals were scarce. In 1892, northeast came together to create a a couple of naturalists found nine stronger front against settlers. The Mo- $26.95 | Paperback + Download Kit | 152 pages northern seals at Guadalupe Island hawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and off Mexico. “In the name of science, Seneca came together in 1451 to form the men killed seven of the nine for the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. It is The Business Transition Coach: Your Guide to the Smithsonian Institution,” says now the oldest surviving confederacy Succession Planning, Exit Richards, adding that they considered in the world. In 1722, the Confederacy Strategies, and Preparing for was joined by the Tuscarora and there- it justifiable because as one of them the Big Handoff explained, the species was doomed to after was known as the Six Nations. extinction and few if any specimens The book takes its title from one of by Wayne Vanwyck were in North American museums. the most important creatures to In- Fortunately, by 1922, the Mexican digenous peoples say Yellowhorn and • Sort out your personal and Lowinger: “Of all the birds and animals, government banned any further hunt- professional transition options. ing of the northern elephant seals. Eagle tells the most important story of Their numbers increased every year all: the story of life.” • Prepare your business, your from then on. “In the end,” says Rich- What the Eagle Sees has already employees, and yourself for ards, “they protected—and ultimately collected many awards and has been transition. saved—a whole species.” shortlisted for the 2020 BC & Yukon By 2020, elephant seal populations Book Prize’s Sheila A. Egoff Children’s • Create a business plan that have reached nearly a quarter million. Literature Prize. 9781773213286 makes sense now and multi- They range from Mexico to northern plies the valuation later. B.C. and the Aleutian Islands. • Leave a legacy that you can A new colony has now taken hold Grandma and be proud of. at Race Rocks Ecological Reserve in her Scooter the Juan de Fuca Strait off southern $26.95 | Paperback + Download Kit | 180 pages Vancouver Island. Numbering around Beep Beep Bubbie twenty collectively, every year these by Bonnie Sherr Klein and elephant seals return to birth and raise Elisabeth Eudes-Pascal Savvy Real Estate Investing: Create a Passive pups. 9781459821361 (Tradewind $19.95) Ages 3-8 Income Stream and Make Money in Your Sleep by Shazia Virani Turtle Island young girl named Kate sees her grand- • Make money grow from an average salary. survivors ma (Bubbie) on a motorized scooter for • Create a passive income stream and earn money while A you sleep. What the Eagle Sees: the first time and worries what Indigenous Stories of Rebellion it means, in Beep Beep Bubbie • Leverage your assets to build and Renewal by Eldon Yellowhorn by Bonnie Sherr Klein. Kate and Kathy Lowinger (Annick Press $16.95) a strong portfolio of invest- wonders, will Bubbie still be Nonfiction Ages 11+ ment properties so you can Bubbie in that scooter? But soon enjoy life. she learns how useful the scoot- er can be. Even better, it’s fun • Diversify your real estate n Turtle Island: The Story to go shop- investments so you can retire of North America’s First ping with early. People (Annick, 2017) Bubbie on Eldon Yellowhorn • “You don’t make money by her scoot- and Kathy Lowinger just buying and selling real I er. Klein is teamed up to tell stories a feminist estate, you make money by of what pre-contact life was like for filmmaker investing purposefully and Indigenous peoples throughout North and disabil- America as far back as fourteen thou- knowing where the trends lie sand years ago—before Columbus. ity rights ac- in any market.” tivist. After Indigenous people called the continent - AUTHOR suffering a Shazia Virani, Turtle Island (it was settlers who im- Bonnie Sherr Klein posed the names Canada, America and catastrophic $19.95 | Paperback + Download Kit | 112 pages Mexico) and it was their whole world brainstem stroke in 1997, she says Yellowhorn. spent three years in rehabilita- Now Yellowhorn and Lowinger have tion and learned to get around followed up with what happened after using two canes and a motor- www.self-counsel.com settlers arrived and invaded Indig- ized scooter. Art by Élisabeth enous lands in What the Eagle Sees: Eudes-Pascal. 978-1-926890-23-4 1-800-663-3007 Indigenous Stories of Rebellion and

35 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 SHOWCASING ANNICK’S • Politics • Kidlit BC AUTHORS • Memoir • Humour

“A multilayered, endearing treasure.” —Kirkus Reviews ★ review

“Wonderful.” —School Library Journal

★ Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Ages 4–7 / 9781773214290 hc

Sockeye Silver, Saltchuck Blue by Roy Henry Vickers & “Should be read aloud in every Robert Budd (Harbour $9.95) Kindergarten classroom across the country.” With catchy rhymes married —CM Reviews ★ review to Roy Henry Vickers signature From Where I Stand “A tender challenge for children artwork, this children’s board (and adults also) to be silent by Jody Wilson-Raybould book is the third instalment in observant listeners.” (UBC Press $24.95) a series that started with Hello —Storywraps

Having shaken up federal politics Humpback! and One Eagle Soaring. Ages 4–7 / 9781773214344 hc when she went from being a The concepts of colours are linked senior cabinet minister in Justin to the changing seasons on the Trudeau’s Liberal government West Coast: red tones of huck- to becoming an independent leberries in summer, silver and Member of Parliament, Indigenous red flashes of spawning salmon in leader Jody Wilson-Raybould fall, grey rain in winter, and the has published a collection of her sprouting of green in spring. speeches and lectures from the past ten years. She is forthright in her analysis of Canada’s colonial annick press | www.annickpress.com past and her desire for a new era available from your favourite bookstore of recognition and reconciliation.

The Survival Guide to British Columbia by Ian Ferguson (Heritage House $19.95) Every Little Scrap and Wonder: A Small-Town Having moved to B.C., humorist Childhood by Carla Funk Ian Ferguson finds the place pretty (Greystone $29.95) – but also pretty scary. Here’s his guide on surviving everything from Poet Carla Funk grew up in a the province’s politics, the locals Mennonite community in Vander- and the weather, to our food and hoof. After publishing five books fashion sense. Some ‘Fergusonian’ of poetry, this is her first memoir, wisdom: B.C. is located – “to a paean to childhood and rural THE WRITER’S the left of Alberta”; speaking life in British Columbia. Paying to B.C.’ers, means “not saying tributes to both her church-going anything beyond, ‘I love trees’ and mother and her truck-driving ‘forgive me’; and, you can “tell father, she uses rich language an outsider (filled with enthusi- STUDIO to create the world that shaped asm and interest) from a local her as a person and writer. (full of resentment and ennui).” WORK WITH A MENTOR IN A SUPPORTIVE COMMUNITY Thought-provoking books available on Online program starts January 2021 Apply by October 31

CONTINUING STUDIES sfu.ca/write

Selected by BC BookWorld Tanya Boteju, 2018 graduate

36 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 WHO’S Q WHO BRITISH COLUMBIA

Francine Cunningham has written for THAT’S AWSM A IS FOR ALEXANDER on The Aboriginal Peoples After years spent documenting a Television Network solitary wolf on Discovery and Cha- (APTN). tham Islands, mere miles off Victoria, photographer Cheryl Alexander has produced Takaya: Lone Wolf (RMD $30). Last year, the wolf dubbed Takaya roamed Victoria’s streets and came too close to urban- ites, so the wolf was Cheryl Alexander relocated 100 miles away by conserva- tion officers. In March, Takaya was shot dead by a hunter. A film about Alex- ander and the wolf was shown on CBC and BBC in 2019. 9781771603737 B IS FOR BOYD The internationally respected envi- G IS FOR GIBSON ronmental lawyer David R. Boyd of Pender Island has debuted his political Chantal Gibson’s debut, How She Chantal and legal thriller, Thirst for Justice Read (Caitlin $20), represents the David R. Gibson

(ECW $22.95), about a trauma surgeon Boyd t voices of Black women, past and pres- whose experiences volunteering in the ent, highlighting the colonial ideas Democratic Republic of the Congo lead embedded in everyday things such as t him down a path he never would have storybooks, coloured pencils, paintings imagined possible, resulting in a global and postage stamps. It won the Griffin manhunt and a riveting trial. Poetry Prize and the Pat Lowther Me- 9781770412408 morial Award. Gibson is a Vancouverite who has ancestral roots in Nova Scotia. C IS FOR CUNNINGHAM 978-19879-1596-9 Self-described as “a white-passing, H IS FOR HILGEMANN city-raised Indigenous woman with t mental illness who has lost her moth- In Judy Hilgemann’s self-illustrated er,” Francine Cunningham of Vancou- The Great Grizzlies Go Home (Har- ver writes about residential schools, bour $23.95) for young readers, two intergenerational trauma, Indigenous grizzly bears swim to Comorant Island peoples sent to sanatoriums, systemic and surprise the residents of Alert Bay. racism and mental illness in her debut The bears wander around the town for poetry collection ON/Me (Caitlin $18). a few days before conservation officers Originally from Calgary, she is a gradu- are called in to safely trap and relocate ate of UBC’s Creative Writing program. them back to the mainland. Based on 9781773860169 true events, the book has a section on

D IS FOR DERRICKSON bear safety tips. 978-1-55017-907-1

Grand Chief Ron Derrickson describes t I IS FOR ITINERARIES Mercedes Eng won the 2018 Fight or Submit: Standing Tall in t Growing up Jewish in Montreal, Philip Two Worlds (ECW 2020) as being Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Resnick broke with organized religion “not a litany of complaints but a list of and moved out west to teach in 1971. battles.” We learn that as chief of the E IS FOR ENG After forty years as a UBC political sci- Westbank First Nation near Kelowna he F IS FOR FOX ence prof, he offers increased his community’s revenues by Mercedes Eng recalls growing up in his reflections on ac- 3500% and led his people into “a war in Medicine Hat, Alberta with a white When he’s not being a solo wilderness ademic freedom and the forest over logging rights.” Derrick- settler mother (using the initials yt explorer, Lexus ambassador, Fujifilm key political devel- son claims he for “white”) and a Chinese Canadian X-Photographer, Sandisk Extreme opments in B.C. and was the target father in her third book of poetry, my Team member and Manfrotto photog- Canada in Itinerar- of a full Royal yt mama (Talonbooks $16.95). In one rapher, Daniel Fox is the founder of ies: An Intellectual Commission due poem Eng describes watching the TV WILD.ECO, a non-profit organization Odyssey (Ronsdale to his politics as miniseries Roots and seeing a young that mentors young adults and raises Philip Resnick $21.95). After ten well as an as- black woman being whipped: “electric funds to send disadvantaged students political books and sassination at- with fear I asked why / because she’s to month-long wilderness camps. Fox’s six poetry collections, Resnick recalls tempt by a hit- black / my mom said, and this un- Feel the Wild (RMB $40) is a collection initially feeling he was not a good Brit- man hired by contextualized response is true but I of his photos, drawings, and stories ish Columbian—because he was too local whites. don’t / think she understood what that about the power of nature and travel. rooted in the past, European-focused, 978-1-77041-566-9 meant to not-yt-me.” 978-1-77201-255-2 9781771603713 and not outdoorsy. 978-1-55380-602-8

37 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV

Ask at your local bookstore! WHO’S WHO BC CROSSING the DIVIDE Discovering a Wilderness Ethic in Canada’s Northern Rockies Wayne Sawchuk Logger, trapper, conservationist, Sawchuk’s journey to protecting the Muskwa-Kechika wilderness area is packed with edge-of-your- seat stories involving a wounded bear, a blinding snowstorm, a partially submerged snowmobile and jumping onto a mountain from an airborne helicopter. 9781928195061 $21.95 Creekstone Press

Medicinal Mushrooms of Western North America Robert Rogers & J. Duane Sept This book highlights 40 species of mushrooms that have shown significant benefits for chronic illness, including autoimmune conditions. Color images of each species aid in identifying the mushrooms, and notes on Heather Jessup additional species clearly inform — or warn — t the reader of similar-looking mushrooms. 9780995226623 $14.95 Calypso Publishing

rier $49.99), examining how the rise of Understanding First Nations J IS FOR JESSUP celebrity autobiography was used in Canada for image management. Her The Legacy of Canadian Colonialism A hoax isn’t always a lie meant to de- examples include: L.M. Montgomery, Dr. Ed Whitcomb ceive or wound; it can also exert a posi- Nellie McClung, the Dionne Quintu- A must-read book aimed at non-Indigenous tive influence. In This Is Not a Hoax: plets, Margaret Trudeau and Shania Canadians who want a better understanding Unsettling Truth in Canadian Cul- Twain. 978-1-77112-429-4 of the background and current issues that ture (Wilfrid Laurier $35.95), Heather have arisen over the past 150 years between Jessup reveals that hoaxes can be First Nations and the settler population. The constructive by helping people re- M IS FOR McKAY book is clearly focused on First Nations and examine “unquestioned institutional John McKay is a professional drafts- the many problems they face in Canada. trust, habituated cultural hierarchies man and authority on the design of 9780986596742 $19.95 From Sea to Sea and the deeply inscribed racism and ships from the sailing era. He got into sexism of Canada’s settler-colonial writing books while researching HMS history.” Hoaxical works are from Ca- Victory, a museum ship in England British Columbia MAP BOOK Series nadian artists such as Brian Jungen best known as Lord Nelson’s flagship GM Johnson Maps and Rebecca Belmore, and writers at 1805’s Battle of Trafalgar, resulting These colourful Map Books are incredibly easy and translators David Solway and in the oft-reprinted The 100-Gun Ship to read. The use of brightly marked double lined Erin Moure. 978-1771123648 streets help map readers distinguish between Victory (Conway Maritime, 1987). His different types of roads. Many useful features are Sovereign of the Seas 1637: A Re- marked from golf courses and parks to wineries . K IS FOR KIRSCH construction of the Most Powerful Warship of its Day (Seaforth Publish- • Easy to Read BC Map Book 9781770687271 $19.95 As a child, Sharon ing $68.95) includes a history and a • Grtr Vancouver & Fraser Valley Street Map Book Kirsch had a pen- 9781770681057 $19.95 folio of drafted plans and drawings of chant for reading • Victoria & Vancouver Island Street Map Book the ship’s design from the hull to the 9781770687257 $19.95 GM Johnson Maps in the closet and sails and rigging. 978-1-5267-6629-8 she liked catalogu- SATURDAY at the GARAGE ing her tiny, plastic Nancy Hundal animals like pink N IS FOR NARSIMHAN alligators, blue bea- Eight-year-old Kiara’s grandmother left Each Saturday, a young girl joins her Sharon Kirsch vers and purple bi- her a genie in a garam masala bottle. father at the family-owned garage where son. The protagonist she learns how to work the cash register, She enlists the genie to help her with and narrator in her follow-up to What a bully at school but the genie is on pump gas, fix cars and more. In this Species of Creatures (New Star, 2008), gentle story, an award-winning author vacation after working for ten thousand The Smallest Objective (New Star recollects her own experiences with her years. The genie wants Kiara to do his $22), is searching for buried treasure in father in a Marpole garage they once bidding. The battle of wills that follows her now-vacant family home while her owned. is Mahtab Narsimhan’s fifth kidlit mother struggles with failing memory. 9781988242323 $21.95 Midtown Press story, Genie Meanie (Orca $7.95). 9781554201556 BC Bestsellers! 978-1-45982-398-3 by Colleen MacDonald L IS FOR LEE These beautiful route guides have O IS FOR OSCAR something for everyone whether on a Working on a postdoctoral fellowship at Oscar Martens of bike or on foot - cycle, run, hike or walk! SFU, Katja Lee has written Limelight: Burnaby started Canadian Women and the Rise of Let’s Go Biking OKANAGAN publishing his sto- Celebrity Autobiography (Wilfrid Lau- and Beyond ries in literary jour- Easy Rides, Hikes, Walks & Runs nals at age 17. In 9781775308126 $19.95 Let’s Go Biking July 2000, he participat- Also available: ed in the St. Roch Let’s Go Biking Voyage of Redis- Around VANCOUVER Oscar Martens covery through the Northwest Passage, Easy Rides, Walks & Runs followed by a year working on coastal 9781775308102 $24.95 Let’s Go Biking tugboats. His first collection of fiction was The Girl with the Full Figure Is Your SANDHILL BOOK MARKETING LTD Daughter (Turnstone, 2002). Martens latest book is No Call Too Small

Distribution for Small Press & Independent Publishers (Central Avenue $14.99), a collection

www.sandhillbooks.com of short stories bound together the- Eml: [email protected] Ph: 250-491-1446 t matically by relationships with aging parents, campers and partners. Katja Lee 978-1771681957

38 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV WHO’S WHO BRITISH COLUMBIA P IS FOR PAWA R IS FOR REVA S IS FOR SCHAUBER t In The Mind-Body Maria Reva’s satirical novel Good Citi- The Group of Seven Reimagined: Cure (Greystone zens Need Not Fear (Knopf $29.95) Contemporary Stories Inspired by $24.95), Dr. Bal concerns a cast of characters living Historic Canadian Paintings (Heri- Pawa shows how in a crumbling apartment building in tage $24.95) includes contributions by we can heal from Soviet-era Ukraine. They work Vancouver-based writers chronic stress and in the small industrial J.J. Lee, Alfred DePew, relieve the impact town of Kirovka in T. Godwin Good, Isa- it has on our bod- the years leading bella Mori and Nina ies. She explains up to, and imme- Shoroplova. Sto- Bal Pawa how the body’s diately after, the ries are linked to stress hormones fall of the USSR 21 paintings by impact everything from our sleep to our in 1989. The nar- artists associ- immunity, and shows how to manage rative linchpin is ated with the stress through actionable tips for sleep, a young woman Group of Sev- T IS FOR TAN nutrition, exercise and mindset. named Zaya, en, including 978-1-7716-4579-9 an orphan and B.C.’s Emily Coen Caraway is left with more than survivor who Carr. This heartache after his fiancé, Elias San- Q IS FOR QUARMBY crashes a beauty coffee table tos, fatally crashes an airplane one pageant. book is edit- week before their wedding day in Eddy As one of the 9780735278424 ed by Karen Boudel Tan’s After Elias (Dundurn guests, along with Schauber. $21.99). The only thing Elias leaves be- artists, aboard a 978-1-77203-288-8 hind is a cryptic recorded message that schooner trip to Coen can’t under- Maria Reva was born the Arctic, SFU stand. The more in Ukraine and grew Coen digs into professor L y n n e up in Vancouver. Quarmby mixes his memories of memoir, micro- Elias, the more biology, grief for he realizes his Lynne Quarmby the loss of a fro- previous hap- zen world and the piness was an sublimity of the northern landscape in illusion. Watermelon Snow: Science, Art, and 978-1-45974-642-8 photo a Lone Polar Bear (McGill-Queen’s $24.95). Quirks and Quarks host prescott Bob McDonald and ex-Green Party leader Elizabeth May have provided Eddy Boudel Tan endorsements. 978-0-2280-0359-5 matthew

Four years ago, we adopted a remote village in Tanzania. With the help of BC BookWorld readers we were able to recently purchase a new vehicle for the community. Now our aim is to build a much-needed local pri- mary school. Father Placid Kindata and the villagers have already made thousands of bricks for it. HELP Luhombero Project #2 Luhombero, Tanzania. Photo by Placid Kindata

We are asking our readers to collectively match a Schools in Tanzania are expensive. There is no nearby $5,000 kickstart donation to this school building project school in Luhombero. Transportation is difficult and expen- made by one of our long-time readers, Yosef Wosk. sive. It is common to have 120 students in one classroom. There are three ways to donate. To learn more about Luhombero and the school project, 1. via Paypal to [email protected] please visit: www.helpluhombero.org 2. send a cheque to BC BookWorld 3. for a tax receipt, go to Canada Helps, Thank you, (www.canadahelps.org), choose Provision Charitable Foundation”, and select Luhombero Beverly Cramp, publisher, BC BookWorld Primary School from the drop-down menu. Alan Twigg, founding publisher, BC BookWorld

39 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV TIDEWATER PRESS WHO’S WHO BC

Fiction: coming of age, when you’re all grown up Short Stories: unordinary adventures in living

ISBN978-1-7770101-4-0 ISBN 978-1-7770101-6-4 tJustin Trudeau and Stuart Hodgson looking at a painting of an Inuit hunter. Poetry Chapbook Series Launched U IS FOR UMINGMAK X IS FOR XESDU’WÄXW POEMS BY DAVID HAGGART Umingmak is Inuit for muskox and Also known by his Like all great poetry books, you can’t represents strength, authority and Xenaksiala name, read just one of these poems. You protectiveness. It was also the Inuit’s Wa’xaid, Cecil Paul will be drawn in by the compassion nickname for Stuart Hodgson, the first is one of the last flu- and wisdom and after every poem resident commissioner of the North- ent speakers of his you will want to pause and reflect. west Territories in 1967. Umingmak: people’s language. –Robert Hilles, author of Shimmer and Stuart Hodgson and the Birth of the At age ten he was Don’t Hang Your Soul On That Modern Arctic (Tidewater $29.95) placed in a residen- by Jake Ootes tells how Hodgson Cecil Paul tial school run by co-founded the Arctic Winter Games, the United Church organized three royal visits to the NWT, of Canada at Port Alberni where he united the territory’s communities and was abused. After three decades of pro- met Justin Trudeau as a boy. longed alcohol abuse, he returned to 9781777010102 the Kitlope—also called Xesdu’wäxw— An imprint of RAINBOW Publishers where he was born in 1931, and there his healing journey began. He is the Available at Salt Spring Books and by V IS FOR VANCOUVER co-author of Stories from the Magic email: [email protected] Populist his- Canoe of Wa’xaid (RMB $30) as told 978-0-9734408-3-6 47pgs $18 torian, Eve to Briony Penn. 9781771602952 Lazarus adds another title to her list of true Y IS FOR YUSUF crime stories, With an MA in English from UVic, Labyrinthof Green POEMS AND PHOTOGRAPHS cold cases and Yusuf Saadi works with form, imagery BY DIANA HAYES non-traditional and sonancy in sonnets and shorter histories with poems in his debut poetry collection, Find yourself on a path entering a tunnel Vancouver Ex- Pluviophile (Nightwood $18.95). One of branches, the ground damp, each posed: Search- of the book’s poems, “The Place Words leaf and stone finely articulated. These ing for the City’s Hidden History Go to Die,” won the Malahat Review’s are textured poems, spiralling out from (Arsenal $32.95). From eccentric mu- Far Horizons Award for Poetry. Loca- their sources of difficulty, grief, and love, seums, buried houses and belly-flop tions he explores range from Montreal rich with details so precise we recognize contests to nudist camps, Lazarus to Kolkata; from the moon to the gates their origins…. Every page in this book explores Vancouver’s neighbourhoods of heaven. 978-0-88971-374-1 has such beauty, its place in the green with equal measures of humour and labyrinth: “Winter’s old stream bed a pathos. 978-1-55152-829-8 semaphore of rock/spreading like a fan Z IS FOR ZSUZSI toward the wetlands.” W IS FOR WARRIOR After hearing a deathbed confession from a cousin, lapsed-Catholic Lucy –Theresa Kishkan, author of seventeen books including The Weight of the Heart and Euclid’s Orchard. With endorsements suddenly becomes bombarded with by Tom Wayman, guilty admissions from other people Available online: plumleafpress.com Kate Braid and as they unburden themselves to her in and at local independent bookstores. Howard White, Dis- Zsuzsi Gartner’s debut novel, The Be- An Imprint of Rubicon Publishing Inc. ISBN: 978-1-4869-3270-2 103 pgs $22.95 appearing Mingle- guiling (Penguin $29.95). Lucy starts wood Blues (Mother enjoying the dark stories and is soon Tongue $19.95) by connecting them to her own errant past. M.C. Warrior, is, ac- The Beguiling uses humour to explore Mark Warrior cording to White, a blessings, curses, sainthood, sin and . reminder of “a whole mortality. Previously, Gartner’s short MAA Press . world of experience out there that sel- story collection Better Living Through . dom makes it into books, a vivid world Plastic Explosives (Hamish Hamilton, Publishing . of whipping cables, bleeding alders, 2011) was short-listed for the Giller and Distribution . physical exhaustion and the blessed Prize. Her fiction has been broadcast . relief of a quitting time whistle.” on CBC and NPR. 978-0735239357 978-1-896949-78-9 www.maapress.ca . Zsuzsi Gartner . Mother Reindeer's Journey to the Sun t . Kathy Sager and Kristen Scholfield-Sweet . . . . When We Are Broken . Not Extinct: Keeping the Sinixt Way Luanne Armstrong Marilyn James and Taress Alexis

40 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020

?????WENDY/TARA / BEV BOOK PRINTERS

FIRST NATION BOOKS FICTION

ANNUALS 911 Fort Street • Victoria • BC • V8V3K3 • T 250-385-9786 • TF 1-800-661-3332 NON-FICTION

TRAVEL BOOKS Family owned & operated for 105 years POETRY

GRAPHIC NOVELS MEMOIRS

COLOURING BOOKS BC’s Book Printing Experts CHILDREN’S BOOKS Building Trust in Client Relations

GRAPHIC ADVANCED DESIGN READER COPY

PRINT- BOOK BOOKS… ON-DEMAND AND SO MUCH PRINTING YOUR AUTOMATIC PROJECT CUSTOM STOCK PUBLISHING MORE! REPLENISHMENT 1 2 3 MARQUIS MARQUIS EXPRESS EXPRESS HIGH-SPEED TRAIN PRINT!

A complete book printing & publishing ecosystem.

marquisbook.com 1 855-566-1937

FACEBOOK: @BCBOOKLOOK TWITTER: @BCBOOKLOOK BC BC BOOKLOOK: bcbooklook.com BOOKWORLD ABC BOOKWORLD: abcbookworld.com

41 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 QUICKIES A COMMUNITY BULLETIN ENDPAPERS BOARD FOR INDEPENDENTS

QUICKIES is an affordable advertising vehicle for writers, artists & events. For info on how to be included: [email protected]

Food Floor: My Woodward’s Days by Margaret Cadwaladr Memoir of working as a grocery cashier at Woodward’s in Vancouver in the 1960s.

$15.95 • ISBN 978-1-9995465-1-9 www.foodfloordays.com & selected bookstores MEMOIR

Direct Action Gets The Wear a mask, read a book Goods A Graphic History of the Strike in Canada by The Graphic History Thank you to all those workers and Collective Correction $14.95• 9781771134170 volunteers around the province who Between The Lines I was delighted to read the lovely www.btlbooks.com have kept our libraries and bookstores review of my debut novel, Secrets GRAPHIC NOVEL in the Shadows, in BC BookWorld. functional since March. However, the subtitle of the review says my father 1919 Greenwood Library director Sasha Tauzer (left) and vice-chair of supported Hitler A Graphic History the Greenwood Public Library board Roegan Lloydd are just two of of the Winnipeg and the Nazi Party, General Strike the countless ‘book people’ who have provided due diligence, in a safe which isn’t true. While Rudi, the fic- by The Graphic History way, to continue public access to physical books—our favourite kind. Collective and David Lester titious father fig- Meanwhile the More Canada think tank has issued six recom- $19.19 ure in my book, is ISBN 9781771134200 Between The Lines mendations to bolster the country’s independent bookstores. These a Nazi supporter, www.btlbooks.com include according public library mailing rates to stores that allocate Heige S. Boehm my father was just GRAPHIC NOVEL 20% of shelf space to Canadian-authored books as well as a 10% a child of 12 when bonus on sales of Canadian-authored books from independent WWII ended, and he and his family had no love for the Third Reich that Canadian publishers. had so deeply affected their lives The two B.C. publishers involved were Don Gorman of Rocky and brought such destruction on the Mountain Books and Howard White of Habour and D&M. whole country. At BC BookWorld we want to commend our more than 600 dis- Heige S. Boehm Sunshine Coast tribution outlets who are providing you with access to this 40-page, printed edition of the newspaper. Send letters or emails to: BC BookWorld, 926 W. 15th Ave, Beverly Cramp Vancouver, BC V5Z 1R9 [email protected] Publisher, BC BookWorld Letters may be edited for clarity & length.

AD Annick Press...36 Granville Island Publishing...28 Nightwood Editions...5 SFU Writers Studio...36 Anvil Press...25 Greystone Books...27 Now or Never...26 Talonbooks...11 Banyen Books...43 Help Luhombero...39 Orca Books...18 Tanglewood Books...43 BC Book Prizes...28 Harbour Publishing...44 Penguin/Random House...2, 14 Tanner’s Books...43 INDEX BC Ferries Books...36 Heritage Group of Publishers...9 People’s Co-Op Books...42 Tidewater Press...40 Caitlin Press...12 Maa Press...40 Plumleaf Press...40 Tradewind Books...34 Douglas & McIntyre...6 Marquis Printing...41 Printorium/Island Blue...41 UBC Press...15 Dundurn Press...28 McGill-Queen’s University Press...11 Proud Horse Publishing...42 University of Toronto Press...32 EVENT Magazine...42 Mercer, George...12 Raven Chapbooks...40 Whistler Writers Festival...2 Ekstasis Editons...4 Mermaid Tales Bookshop...43 Ronsdale Press...21 Wilfrid Laurier University Press...26 Freehand Books...32 Mother Tongue Publishing...31 Royal BC Museum...31 Vancouver Writers’ Festival...24 Friesens Printers...41 New Society Publishers...16 Sandhill Book Marketing...38 Vancouver Writers Intensive...32 Galiano Island Books...43 New Star Books...31 Self-Counsel Press...35 Yoka’s Coffee...43

Richard Kelly Kemick 44 • 2 Read. Subscribe. They can hear your stomach churn, OPEN smell the cavities in your molars, elevendollarsninetyfive AY seepoetry your pulse gallopingand prose into the soft parts of your neck. Submit. 11 TO 6 There is no place they do not know you. Y TO SUND TUESDA Because every issue P is an EVENT. CO-O and used b LE’S w oo

E O P e k H E n

• 2020 National Magazine Awards P est. 1945 s T ORE T 0 t Silver Winner, Poetry S o 0 • 2020, 2019 & 2018 Journey Prize OOK ,0 s gla b B k dl r 6 o y o Short List 1 o w

b a

c

s

• 2017 Canadian Magazine Awards c

S OLDEST e

A’ d

e

e !

Winner, Best Literature p

CANAD !

s t

e d Y

u

o

• Regularly featured in Best Canadian

f

u

r

BOOKSTORE o

Stories Poetry Essays d , & anthologies s

o

in the Heart of the Drive n n o i a • • Canada’s longest-running Non-Fiction t Contest • Popular Reading Service for Writers eventmagazine.ca 1391 COMMERCIAL DRIVE [email protected] 604-253-6442

42 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 BOOKSTORES & COFFEE

An Independent Bookstore in Vancouver for 49 years!

3608 West 4th Ave. Vancouver, BC 604-732-7912 banyen.com

20 plus Yoka varieties is reading & recommends: After Life: Ways We Think About Death by Merrie-Ellen Wilcox (Orca Books). ISBN: 9781459813885

#5 - 1046 Mason St. Victoria, B.C. V8T 1A3 Tanglewood Books, located in a heritage building OPENING HOURS: (just off Cook Street) 1-250-384-0905 at 2306 West Broadway on the corner of Vine Street, Mon to Sat: 10am to 6pm • Hand sorted for premium quality • Full selection of exotic teas Sun: 12pm to 6pm emium Quality at is an Aladdin’s cave of new and used books. We can • B.C. honey and Belgian chocolates • Mail orders welcome • Pr Affordable Prices get your special orders to you within 4 business days, we have a popular and unusual DVD collection, as Tel: 604-736-8876 www.yokascoffee.com well as some rare vinyl thrown into the mix. Tanglewoodbooks.ca

43 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020 ,

K

W

A

U

Q S mega rex mega meGarex yrannosaurus a t named scotty

Dr. W. Scott Persons IV

N with illustrations by Beth Zaiken

E

V

A R

IKR UD R RA BUDD & VICKERS

a 44 BC BOOKWORLD • AUTUMN 2020