YOUR FREE GUIDE TO BOOKS & AUTHORS FRANK ZAPPA

A complete guide to his more than BC 100 recorded works. BOOKWORLD PAGE 25

VOL. 32 • NO. 3 • Autumn 2018

A darkly comedic memoir by Lindsay Wong NOT CRAZY RICH ASIANS

See page 7

Avoid Screens

FICTION: ILLUSTRATION: POLITICS: W.D. Valgardson’s Julie Flett reflects Christy Clark’s gothic crime on creating art for downfall is a PHOTO novel. picture books. political thriller.

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Find these and other great BC books at your local independent bookstore.

2 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 PEOPLE TOPSELLERS*

Cyndi Suarez BCThe Power Manual: How to Master Complex Power Dynamics (New Society $19.99) Sophie Bienvenu translated by Rhonda Mullins Around Her (Talonbooks $19.95) Collin Varner The Flora and Fauna of Coastal British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest (Heritage House $39.95) Sarah Cox Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand against Big Hydro (UBC Press $24.95) Jen Currin PHOTO Hider/Seeker “It’s poetry’s uncanniness (Anvil Press $20) that attracts me.” SAWCHUK LORNA CROZIER LAURA “I come, after all, from a family of very ordinary, hard-working

Richard Wagamese Saskatchewan people.” Richard Wagamese Indian Horse (D&M $21.95) NE OF THE FIRST PUBLIC EVENTS FOR ing the rent. Our house had only three books, a bible, one Christina de Castell (above volume of a set of The Book of Knowledge and a Zane Gray Lou Allison & left), new chief librarian of novel the mice had chewed. That library expanded after I’d Jane Wilde the Vancouver Public Library, left home and started getting published. Dancing in Gumboots: “The pride of place in my parents’ living room was a two- Adventure, Love & Resilience: was to unveil a plaque of B.C. tiered, maple coffee table. On the bottom shelf my mother Women of the Comox Valley marble to be added to the (Caitlin Press $24.95) accumulated Patrick’s and my books that we dutifully sent VPL’s Woodcock Walk of Fame Joshua Whitehead to her. On the top of the same table, crouched a big plastic Jonny Appleseed for Lorna Crozier (right), a beloved poet and writing lobster my father had brought back from a visit to my brother (Arsenal Pulp $17.95) O who was a helicopter search and rescue pilot in PEI. Neither instructor who is this year’s recipient of the 25th Monique Gray Smith George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award. of my parents would eat the crustaceans when they were Speaking Our Truth: on the island, but my father couldn’t get over the fact that A Journey of Reconciliation For more than four decades Crozier has made herself widely Maritimers, including his son and grandkids, devoured them (Orca Books $29.95) known across the country as a poet and played a significant with gusto. The lobster stretched out in its place of honour role in the mentoring of younger writers. In 1991, she and above our books until my father died and my mom got rid her life partner, Patrick Lane, moved to Victoria so she could of it. Our books stayed… teach at the University of Victoria’s Department of Writing. “Why have I spent five decades wrestling with this de- In her Woodcock acceptance speech, Crozier said: manding, dangerous angel? At seventy, still smitten, I have “It doesn’t seem that many years ago that I was the to say that it’s also poetry’s uncanniness that attracts me. It youngest poet on the stage at literary festivals, now I am the knows things before I do—the breakdown of my first marriage oldest. Seventy seems a good time to look back and evaluate for instance was forecast in my early poems... how I’ve spent, some might say how I’ve wasted, my life. I “My poems are smarter than I am, more inventive, badder, can honestly claim that since my mid-twenties, a day hasn’t more daring, wittier, less needy. Not many poets can live up Angela to the integrity you find in their work.” Crocker gone by when I haven’t been in the company of poetry. It helps that my husband of 40 years is also a poet, many say Lorna Crozier will be appearing at the Whistler Writers Festival Angela Crocker Canada’s finest, but I can’t blame him for my obsession. I in October. Crozier has written and edited twenty-five books while Declutter Your Data: was on this esoteric path before we met, and in fact, it was receiving a Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence; Take Charge of Your Data and Organize Your Digital Life poetry that introduced us. But I have to wonder, with some a Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize for Small Beneath the Sky: A (Self-Counsel Press $16.95) amusement, why I chose an art form that most people find Prairie Memoir (2010) and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize for What the Living Won’t Let Go (2000); plus two Pat Lowther arcane, possibly elitist. Shelley Adams Awards for best collection of poetry by a Canadian woman; a Whitewater Cooks: More Beautiful Food “I come, after all, from a family of very ordinary, hard- Governor General’s Award for Inventing the Hawk (1992) and a (Sandhill Book Marketing $34.95) working Saskatchewan people. My mother cleaned houses Canadian Authors Association Award. Administered by Pacific Book- World News Society, the $5,000 Woodcock Award is co-supported Daniel Marshall and sold tickets at the swimming pool. My father drove a back-hoe and was laid off during the winter when the ground by Yosef Wosk, The Writers Trust of Canada, The City of Vancouver Claiming the Land: and VPL. For more info: abcbookworld.com British Columbia and the froze. When that happened, my parents worried about pay- Making of a New El Dorado (Ronsdale Press $24.95) Publication Mail Agreement Contributing Editors: John Moore, Charles Ulrich #40010086 Joan Givner, Mark Forsythe, The Big Note: A Guide to the Return undeliverable Canadian Cherie Thiessen, Caroline Woodward. BC addresses to: BC BookWorld, Recordings of Frank Zappa Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. We gratefully acknowledge the unobtrusive 926 West 15th Ave., assistance of Canada Council, a continuous partner since (New Star $45) BOOKWORLD Vancouver, BC Canada V5Z 1R9 Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics 1988, and creativeBC, a provincial partner since 2014. Autumn 2018 Produced with the sponsorship of Consultants: Roy Henry Vickers Pacific BookWorld News Society. Christine Rondeau, Sharon Jackson, Volume 32 • Number 3 Publications Mail Kenneth Li & Robert Budd Registration No. 7800. Photographers: One Eagle Soaring Publisher/Writer: BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 In-Kind Supporters: Simon Fraser University Library; Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk Vancouver Public Library; UBC Library. (Harbour $9.95) Alan Twigg Advertising & editorial: Proofreaders: Editor/Production: BC BookWorld, 926 West 15th Ave., Wendy Atkinson, Tara Twigg David Lester Vancouver, BC Canada V5Z 1R9 Deliveries: Ken Reid, Acculogix * The current topselling titles from major Associate Editor: Tel: 604-736-4011 BC publishing companies, in no particular order. [email protected] All BC BookWorld reviews are posted at We acknowledge the financial support of the Government Beverly Cramp Annual subscription: $25 www.abcbookworld.com of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage

3 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 A book in the hand...

Birds of Nunavut TWO-VOLUME SET! Edited by James M. Richards and Anthony J. Gaston 7KHȴUVWFRPSOHWHVXUYH\RIWKHELUGVRI1XQDYXW WKLVODYLVKO\LOOXVWUDWHGERRNLGHQWLȴHVDQG GRFXPHQWVWKHGLVWULEXWLRQHFRORJ\EHKDYLRXU DQGFRQVHUYDWLRQRIWKHVSHFLHVWKDWOLYHLQDQG PLJUDWHWKURXJKWKHWHUULWRU\

August 2018 / 805 colour photos, 155 maps / 820 pages 978-0-7748-6024-6 / jacketed hardcovers

The Birds of Vancouver Island’s West Coast Adrian Dorst 7KLVUHJLRQDOJXLGHWRWKHVSHFLHVRIELUGV UHFRUGHGRQWKHZLOGZHVWFRDVWRI9DQFRXYHU ΖVODQGZLOOLQIRUPGHOLJKWDQGVXUSULVHDPDWHXU DQGSURIHVVLRQDOELUGHUVDOLNH

April 2018 / 130 b&w photos / 560 pages 978-0-7748-9010-6 / jacketed hardcover

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Memoir • Money • Biography

The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Going the Distance: The Life Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons and Works of W.P. Kinsella and My Crazy Chinese Family by William Steele (D&M $34.95) by Lindsay Wong (Arsenal $19.95) This biography explores the life and of- In contrast to the movie Crazy Rich ten controversial work of W.P. Kinsella, Asians, Lindsay Wong’s darkly comedic the author who wrote “If you build it, memoir of a young woman coming of he will come.” Kinsella hit the big time age in a dysfunctional Asian family could in 1989, when his novel Shoeless Joe have just been called Crazy Asians. It was turned into the international block- is being heralded as a powerful tour buster film Field of Dreams. Kinsella’s de force on mental illness in the family personal diaries are used to document and refrigerators that are out to assas- his health problems, accusations of sinate you. Novelist Kevin Chong has appropriation, failed marriages and a predicted Wong is “the future of Asian tumultuous romantic relationship with Canadian writing.” writer Evelyn Lau.

The Clean Money Revolution: Culture Gap: Towards a New Reinventing Power, Purpose, World in the Yalakom Valley and Capitalism by Joel Soloman by Judith Plant (New Star $19) with Tyee Bridge (NSP $19.99) Culture Gap is Judith Plant’s memoir of By 2050, $50 trillion will have changed life on a commune in a remote valley hands in North America. It will be the deep in B.C.’s Coast Mountains. Set in biggest money-making opportunity in the early 1980s Plant shares her adven- history. “Business as usual,” founded on ture as a young mother struggling to exploitation and environmental ruin, is reconcile her social ideals of personal over. Climate catastrophe, reactionary and environmental responsibility, while politics, and widening inequity have loving and caring for those closest to put the world on edge. A must-read her. Rural communal living was a lifestyle for investors, wealth advisors, aspiring emblematic of its time, and Culture Gap entrepreneurs, and all who want their heroically lets us enter that world. values and money to work together to transform the future.

Thought provoking Selected by books available on Alan Twigg

4 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 PEOPLE Nakkita Trimble tattoos Sage Nowak (Tahitan Nation Wolf Clan) us- ing a method involving sewing. Having taken over 30 hours so far, the tattoo is also a cer- emonial process. Each stich is an opening to the spirit world recon- necting with ancestors. PHOTO

WILSON

NATHAN TATTOO renewal Wooldridge, EFORE THE ARRIVAL OF EUROPEANS to what is now British Colum- Basil Stuart- Bbia, First Nations tattooed their bodies with clan crests and Younging symbols of identity. Missionaries discouraged this practice and in Stubbs Prize honoured some areas, carved metal bracelets were used to cover the tattoos. Eventually, bracelets were carved with clan crests and took the HE SIXTH ANNUAL BASIL STUART- VICTORIA’S ORCA BOOK PUBLISH- place of crest tattoos. In the past few years, a revival of cultural TStubbs Prize for Outstand- ers will receive the 2018 tattooing has been underway as described in Body Language: ing Scholarly Book on British Columbia was presented at the Reawakening Cultural Tattooing of the Northwest (Bill Reid Jim Douglas Publisher of Irving K. Barber Learning Cen- the Year Award. $28.57), which accompanies the exhibition of the same title at the tre to Dr. Marianne Ignace and Orca and its publisher, Andrew Bill Reid Gallery, on until January 13, 2019. “The revival of Indig- Chief Ronald E. Ignace, authors Wooldridge, are recognized for their of Secwepemc People, Land and enous tattooing is a process of re-indigenization,” writes co-curator accomplishments as one of Canada’s Laws—an exploration of Sec- leading children’s publishers, special- Dion Kaszas, a self-described Hungarian, Métis and Nlaka’pamux wepemc history told through izing in imaginative, engaging, and culturally significant books for young cultural tattoo practitioner, scholar, and visual artist. 978-0-9812341-7-5 Indigenous knowledge and oral readers. traditions. The Gray Campbell Distinguished Their book has been described Service Award for significant contri- as a model for collaborative ap- butions to the book publishing indus- proaches to Indigenous history try will go to professor, publisher and author Gregory Younging. Based that draws on Aboriginal sources in Penticton, Younging is a member and the work of outside experts of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation in to master- northern Manitoba who is recog- fully integrate nized for his advocacy for Indigenous editorial agency in Canadian publish- oral histories ing. He has also been publisher of and “western” Theytus Books, one of the first two scholarship. Indigenous-owned publishing houses The event in Canada. at UBC began These awards are presented an- nually by the Association of Book Yosef Wosk with an official LIBRARY Publishers of welcome from B.C. An indus- Morgan Guerin, councillor of COLUMBIA try reception the Musqueam Nation, followed will be held BRITISH in Victoria on by opening remarks from Univer- OF

September 20. sity Librarian Susan E. Parker, speeches from the winning au- UNIVERSITY thors and a lively Q&A session.

Andrew THE

OF Wooldridge In a surprise announcement, the prize amount of $1,000 was

COURTESY doubled this year to $2,000, Basil-Stuart Stubbs Award winners Marianne Ignace and Ronald E. Ignace (centre, back row) with family members at reception. Attendees also included family of thanks to the generous support Basil Stuart-Stubbs as well as past prize recipients Arthur Ray and Jean Barman. of Yosef Wosk.

5 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 VANCOUVER’S STELLAR FALL FICTION & POETRY Ordinary Strangers, a novel Bill Stenson WINNER of the 4th Great BC Novel Contest. 978-1-896949-70-3 | 282 pages | $23.95

7KLVDVWRQLVKLQJQRYHOEHJLQVDWDIDLURQDKRW$XJXVWGD\ MAGAZINE LQLQ+RSH%&6DJHDQG'HOOD+RZDUGDUHGULYLQJWR )HUQLHWRVWDUWDMREDQGEHJLQDQHZOLIH7KH\VWRSIRU DEUHDNDQGÀQGDFU\LQJWRGGOHULQWKHQHDUE\ZRRGVVRRQ WKH\DUHFRQWLQXLQJWKHLUMRXUQH\ZLWKKHU$FRPSHOOLQJDQG “BEST original story, that takes you to the other side of happenstance LIT-MAG DQGIHDU “Never, since Jack Hodgins made mirth and myth out of lumberjacks, IN CANADA” has Settler Coast culture been so accurately rendered. Humour and — BROKEN PENCIL wisdom flesh out their liturgy of lies, a web these Ordinary Strangers spin around a stolen child in this tragic-comic thriller.” –LINDA ROGERS

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Undiscovered Country, new poems Al Rempel 978-1-896949-69-7 | 88 pages | $19.95 30TH Undiscovered Country explores the “dark night of the soul,” in a variety of lyrical modes, including the long poem, through the ÀOWHUVRI WKHJHRJUDSKLHVDQGVHDVRQVRI QRUWKHUQ%& ANNIVERSARY “Rempel is beautifully pragmatic, yet hopeful: “you could be anywhere—but you’re not, you’re here.” –KERRY GILBERT.

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6 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 20188 cover MEMOIR NOT Crazy RICH

The Woo-Woo: cabulary is rife with profanity accurate medical diagnosis How I Survived Ice Hockey, she would never dream of us- and treatment. In spite of Drug Raids, Demons and the severity of her migraine- My Crazy Chinese Family ing in her native tongue. She by Lindsay Wong believes the real cause of every Asians associated vestibulopathy (Arsenal Pulp Press $19.95) mental disorder is possession (MAV), she completed the MFA by malignant supernatural “[Lindsay is] the future of degree, and went on to earn creatures, known collectively many awards. BY JOAN GIVNER as the Woo-Woo. Because Asian Canadian writing.” Should she fear repercus- these ghosts fear bright lights sions from her revelations of N CANADA DAY and noise, Wong’s mother and KEVIN CHONG “the Chinese loony-bin”? Kev- 2008 the Sec- her three children took refuge in Chong apparently thinks ond Narrows in their early years in the food author of The Plague so for he warns “Someone get Bridge span- court at the shopping mall, Lindsay Wong into a witness ning the Bur- where they stayed from open- protection program.” He cou- Orard Inlet was shut down for ing to closing time. Hudson’s wicked observations: It was in New York that she ples that plea with the opinion several hours as a distraught Bay was another safe place, A barbequed pig is ushered developed severe vertigo and that she is “the future of Asian woman dangled over the side Sears less so because it was in on a tray, double doors other neurological symptoms, Canadian writing.” from a cable. Holiday traf- not as bright. propped open, five pall all the more alarming in view Anyone seeking a gloss on fic was thrown into chaos The danger of being pos- bearers from the butchers of her family history. Fortu- his last remark might look during the rescue sessed is at its high- conveying the wide-eyed nately she was able to escape to Philip Roth’s extensive operation, causing est in the bathroom. carcass, still shocked. Tum- the Woo-Woo and obtain an responses, in essays and in- subsequent recrim- It is not safe any- my hollowed out, skin like a terviews, to attacks by some inations between more, her mother fitted cape, dyed shocking members of the Jewish com- various municipal warns, nor is going sienna. One of the uncles munity on his racy portrayal of jurisdictions. Mental to the bathroom un- hacked the animal into Jewish life in Goodbye Colum- health workers were accompanied. “Leave bite-sized snacks with an bus and Portnoy’s Complaint. outraged by Trans- the door open when executioner’s axe. Another 978-1551527369 port Minister Kevin JOAN you pee.” Shower- uncle yanked out the pig’s Falcon’s complaint: ing is particularly underbelly. Joan Givner reviews “How can it take six GIVNER dangerous, as is tak- A “camping” holiday, in from Victoria. hours to deal with an elderly ing too long on the toilet. In which the families depart female?” one relative’s home, bowel- in matching trailers for a Lindsay Wong She was not elderly at that movement times are closely “dehydrated” RV resort in will be one of time. She was the 42-year-old monitored and checked off by Osoyoos produces similar 102 authors at favourite aunt of Lindsay a responsible adult. soaring prose. the Vancouver Wong, and like other women When a doctor is consulted, ...we huddled misera- Writers Fest, in the family was plagued by he becomes a source of con- bly, suffocating in the October mental illness. Grandmother temptuous jokes. Poh-Poh’s choky desert heat, in- 15-21. Poh-Poh suffers from paranoid psychiatrist, for example, is side our claustrophobic schizophrenia and fears the described as loving “Poh-Poh 150-square-foot mobile refrigerator is out to assas- so much he studied Poh-Poh cabins, skinny, rectan- sinate her. Wong’s mother, in college! P is for Poh-Poh and gular travelling motels Quiet Snow, suffers from phony PhD.” “That neurolo- that had the frigid luxury depression and severe anxi- gist is crazy...He’s just giving and malfunctioning comfort ety. Beautiful One, the bridge you bullshit because you paid of unplugged commercial jumper, who planned suicide him.” freezers. This was what attempts on every national Alert to every literary and we thought real North holiday for two years after the racist cliché, Wong co-opts Americans did: that bridge episode, has periodic them and plays relentlessly we were fruitfully psychotic breakdowns. with their satiric possibilities, living the Ameri- Lindsay Wong has ample especially in describing her ex- can dream if material here for the kind of ceptionally thriving immigrant we owned human misery memoir that family. Even Beautiful One, one brand- has been a dominant liter- is “a franchise queen,” who new R.V. per ary genre since around 2005 successfully operates three family. when Martin Levin of The Vietnamese restaurants. The Although the Globe and Mail noted that family home, “Belcarra,” is a derisive impulse literary agents were asking sprawling McMansion with is not restrained their clients for accounts of three white garages that al- in describing autism, alcoholism, abuse ways house three or four new Wong’s own life (“Ivy etc. Wong’s inclination, on the American cars. It is located League graduate es- other hand, is for irreverence, on the side of a mountain, capes her crazy fam- parody, and subversion. The a two hour drive from the ily”), it does not conceal result is a comic tour de force, city of “Hongcouver,” where either her accomplish- no less powerful for its tragic white families moan about ments or her courage. Her undercurrent. the “Asian tsunami.” “Pot academic success began Her favourite target is the Mountain” or “The Poteau” is at UBC (“The University of deep-rooted superstition that ideal for growing and harvest- a Million Chinese”) where dismisses mental illness as ing pot. teachers spotted the raw “Western bullshit” and pre- Family gatherings are lav- potential in the “weirdo vents it from being medi- ish affairs and a cousin’s character profiles” she wrote cally treated. “No such fucking wedding, attended by fifteen of her relatives; from there she PHOTO thing as brain disease,” says hundred guests, provides went on to graduate work at her mother, whose English vo- rich scope for the author’s Columbia University. SHIMON

7 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 Worry Stones Joanna Lilley

Set in the Canadian Arctic and Scottish Highlands, Lilley’s captivating debut novel portrays art historian Jenny in her struggle to rescue her mother from a religious cult and keep her fanatical father at bay. All the while, Jenny tries to move beyond her need for the comfort of “worry stones” and to foster her own talents as a sculptor, working alongside Inuit artists. 978-1-55380-541-0 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-542-7 (EBOOK) 290 pp $18.95

Gold in British Columbia Claiming the Land Marie Elliott British Columbia and the Elliott takes readers through the gold Making of a New El Dorado rushes of B.C. from 1858 to B.C.’s entry into Daniel Marshall Confederation, explaining their central Marshall focuses on the 1858 Fraser River gold rush importance to Canada’s history. and its battles between the California miners and the With 50 photos & maps. First Nations peoples. With 30 photos & maps. 978-1-55380-517-5 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-502-1 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-518-2 (EBOOK) 350 pp $24.95 978-1-55380-503-8 (EBOOK) 406 pp $24.95

Skylight Out All Day Antony Di Nardo OUT John Donlan Skylight Poetry exploring the interplay between a ALL These poems evoke our sense of loss as we live disintegrating natural world and the human DAY through the sixth extinction of the natural world. poemp s observer. Partly feral, partly tamed, these Yet always they reveal the comfort and courage poems record what we miss inside and provided by close and loving observations of outside our windows. the processes of life. 978-1-55380-544-1 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-547-2 (PRINT) ANTONYNTONYONY DID NARDO 978-1-55380-545-8 (EBOOK) 80 pp $15.95 JOHN DONLAN 978-1-55380-548-9 (EBOOK) 86 pp $15.95

Beautiful Communions Provoked by Des Kennedy Gilgamesh A poignant novel invoking the confessions and Gilmour Walker “beautiful communions” within a turbulent family — all observed by border collie Shep with This humorous mashup of the ancient Epic bemused detachment. of Gilgamesh sees a modern man attempting to follow Gilgamesh’s search for eternal life. 978-1-55380-532-8 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-533-5 (EBOOK) 978-1-55380-520-5 (PRINT) 312 pp $18.95 978-1-55380-521-2 (EBOOK) 76 pp $18.95

FOR YOUNG READERS

Railroad of Courage Dan Rubenstein & Nancy Dyson Twelve-year-old Rebecca makes a daring escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad to Canada, led by the famous Harriet Tubman, aided along the way by compassionate abolitionists. 978-1-55380-514-4 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-515-1 (EBOOK) Tree Musketeers The King’s Shilling 164 pp $11.95 Norma Charles David Starr Jeanie Leclare discovers that a giant Duncan Scott is forced to take the The Kingdom of No Worries cedar tree next to her school is going “King’s Shilling” and serve in epic battles Philip Roy to be bulldozed by her uncle. How can against Napoleon’s fleet, fighting not Three boys create a “kingdom” on an island, attracting she become a tree musketeer and save only for his own survival but for multitudes to their utopia — until the police arrive to the tree? England itself. evict them, and they face a difficult decision. 978-1-55380-550-2 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-526-7 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-511-3 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-551-9 (EBOOK) 978-1-55380-527-4 (EBOOK) 978-1-55380-512-0 (EBOOK) 120 pp $11.95 224 pp $11.95 152 pp $11.95

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

8 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review GEOGRAPHY

Chevrolet Nomad station wagon at the Arch at the Great Divide, circa 1960— Kicking Horse Pass, Yoho National Park, Alberta.

THE GREAT

Surveying the Great Divide: boundaries to regulate mining set going northerly were given a useful index. Later, from 1918 to 1924, The Alberta/BC Boundary DIVIDE and timber interests and to even numbers such as 2A, 4A, Required to take a “round” the impressive and resolute Survey, 1913-1917 by Jay Sherwood encourage railway and moun- 6A, etc. of photographs at each of his A.O. Wheeler—whose son (Caitlin Press $29.95) tain tourism in the Rockies. As the remaining passes survey stations, B.C. com- Edward Oliver Wheeler took Finally, in April 1912, were surveyed, the same num- missioner A.O. Wheeler took part in the first topographical Richard McBride’s govern- bering system was retained, nearly 2,000 of them, an as- survey of Mount Everest in ment committed to surveying but the letter designated for tonishing record of mountain 1921—added to the survey BY ROBERT ALLEN B.C.’s eastern boundary. the pass was changed to B, photography. Sherwood has of the Great Divide, while HE PROVINCIAL George Herbert Dawson, C, D, etc. incorporated a number of Alberta commissioner Bill boundary be- B.C.’s Surveyor General, con- Fortunately, a number these in each chapter. Cautley moved further north tween B.C. and tacted Edouard Deville, the of field party members kept During this past decade, to survey the 120th meridian Alberta is the lon- Dominion of Canada’s Sur- diaries and careful field notes members of the Mountain Leg- from the Great Divide through gest in Canada. veyor General, to discuss tim- or described their progress in acy Project at the University of the Peace River area. Cautley’s TSurveying the Great Di- ing, methods of surveying, and letters to family and friends. Victoria have returned to some later work could probably fill vide by Jay Sherwood recalls cost sharing. of Wheeler’s survey a book of its own. how surveying that line be- In 1913, the Do- Two normally civil stations to compile ✫ tween the two most-western minion, B.C., and a “before and after” SURVEYING THE GREAT DIVIDE provinces was a remarkable Alberta governments provinces have now been photographic re- leaves me awestruck by the feat. agreed to a tripartite cord in a technique hardships involved in survey- The “man-defined” north- agreement to jointly at loggerheads over known as “repeat ing that border and full of ern section follows along the fund the boundary photography.” admiration for the detailed 120th meridian of longitude survey. Alberta pipelines and “The repeat pho- fieldwork of a century ago. whereas the southern part- Of the mountain B.C. wine. But the tographs that they We have all driven by signs follows a natural feature, the passes to be sur- have taken,” notes saying, “Welcome to Alberta” Continental Divide. veyed, Kicking Horse geographical schism has Sherwood, “are being (and “Welcome to British Co- Sherwood’s focus is the Pass was chosen used by scientists to lumbia”), and so now I will have latter--the spine of the Rocky first, even though always been far greater. document a variety a new and better appreciation Mountains commonly referred the Crowsnest Pass of changes that have of what was involved in deter- to as the Great Divide. had the most economic im- Many such documents have occurred in the landscape mining our intricate eastern ✫ portance. survived, and Sherwood has during the past century.” boundary from high elevation FROM THE TIME THAT BRITISH Kicking Horse, on the CPR reviewed and drawn from Sherwood also uses his own survey stations in mountains Columbia became a province mainline and accessible to them precise information repeat photographs through- that had never or only very in 1871 until almost the end Banff and Calgary, offered the about the surveys and condi- out the book. recently been climbed. of the nineteenth century, the commissioners easy access by tions under which the crews For example, in the sum- Indeed, on my next journey province was continually in rail. Men and supplies were worked. mer of 2017, a large wild fire through one of those passes, debt. Very little money was moved to the site easily. Sherwood has gone through burned in the Akamina Pass, I will stop and tip my hat to allocated to surveying any Each pass was designated the documentary and photo- altering its landscape and eco- Wheeler, Cautley, and their boundaries, let alone the main a letter as it was surveyed. graphic records meticulously system. Between the original crews. eastern one. Pass A was Kicking Horse, to provide a detailed chapter photographs taken by Wheeler I am still spellbound every Sensitivity to the province’s Pass B was Vermillion, C was for each year’s fieldwork from and Alberta commissioner Bill time I drive through the Yel- extensive borders started Simpson, and the list contin- 1913 to 1917. Cautley, and recent ones by lowhead, Kicking Horse, Ver- to change with the Klond- ued on to Pass S, the Yellow- Besides these five yearly the Mountain Legacy Project million, or Crowsnest passes. ike gold rush of 1896-99, head Pass. chapters, he provides chap- and Sherwood, scientists will 9781987915525 when the province’s northern The monument (or survey ters entitled Background, be able to document the regen- and northwestern boundaries marker) set at the lowest point Cast of Characters, Survey- eration of the ecosystem and Robert Allen is a life member came into focus. of Kicking Horse Pass was ing Methods, Geographical a century of landscape change of the Association of British In the first decade of the numbered 1A. All other monu- Names, Afterword, and Sur- in this scenic location. Columbia Land Surveyors (AB- twentieth century, the B.C. ments set going southerly vey Crews. Rounding out the The boundary survey co- CLS), a life member of the Ca- government also required were given odd numbers such book are acknowledgements, incided with the worst part of nadian Institute of Geomatics, more precise knowledge of its as 3A, 5A, 7A, etc. Monuments a lengthy list of sources, and the First World War. and a Canada Lands Surveyor.

9 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2018 review POLITICS

A Matter of Confidence is a fast-paced CHRISTY CLARK political thriller.

HE BRITISH COLUMBIA PROVINCIAL ELECTION greater good. on May 9, 2017 was one for the Maybe the history books. After a long night of bridge tolls ballot counting the Liberal and New were unfair, DOWNFALL Democratic parties were locked in a but one would virtual tie, with the upstart Green hope that a Party holding the balance of power multi-billion in the legislature with three seats, dollar deci- but the final seat count was not known until two weeks sion would be Tlater after a painstaking recount and count of absentee the product of ballots in the riding of Courtenay-Comox. long and con- When these ballots were finally tallied, Christy Clark sidered delib- and the Liberals had come up one seat short of a bare eration. I cer- majority. The stage was set for the NDP to assume power tainly expect with the support of the Green Party. my students to But Christy Clark was determined to exercise her right work more than to test the confidence of the legislature some six weeks five hours on after the election, only to be handed an inevitable defeat. their essays. As per convention, she visited the lieutenant-governor The book’s to inform her that she was not in a position to govern, account of the but we now know—in violation of the convention that political nego- conversations between the first minister and the Crown’s tiations that led to representative remain secret—that she appealed to the the formation of the lieutenant-governor to dissolve the legislature. new government is es- Lieutenant-Governor Judith Guichon refused Clark’s pecially compelling. As appeal and asked the leader of the NDP if he could obtain kingmaker, the Greens the confidence of the legislature. When John Horgan in- entered into negotiations dicated that he would have the confidence A Matter of Confi dence: with both the of the legislature with the support of the The Inside Story of the Liberal and New Green Party, the lieutenant-governor in- Political Battle for BC Democratic par- vited him to form a government. by Rob Shaw and ties. While there Richard Zussman A Matter of Confidence: The Inside (Heritage House $22.95) was always a Story of the Political Battle for BC by better policy veteran journalists Rob Shaw and Richard fit between the Zussman is a gripping account of B.C.’s HAMISH TELFORD Greens and the most dramatic election. The 336-page BY NDP, Andrew book is a first-hand account of the elec- Weaver had a tion based on more than seventy interviews with political better working relationship operatives, including all of the principal players (save the with Christy Clark and previ- lieutenant-governor). This primary research has been ously Gordon Campbell than supplemented by a few newspaper reports; there are no with John Horgan. Indeed, direct references to the secondary (i.e., academic) litera- the relationship between ture on B.C. politics and history. The book reads like a Weaver and Horgan was fast-paced political thriller. apparently frosty, at least While extensive reference to secondary sources initially. However, the Liber- would slow the book down, there are a few places when als reportedly did not offer the additional information would have been helpful. For Greens much in their meetings, example, the authors note that even though Clark was whereas the NDP was very keen to a trail-blazer for women in politics she was intensely dis- work with the Green Party to form liked by many female voters, and “as she increased her a government. efforts to speak out about the obstacles faced by women But Shaw and Zussman report leaders… her credibility was simultaneously eroded by that the outcome of the negotiations the growing, visceral, negative reaction she elicited from was essentially pre-determined by the voters—especially, ironically, women.” I have no doubt visceral dislike of the Liberals by Green that the narrative is accurate, but it would have been MLA Sonia Furstenau, who had battled helpful to have some opinion poll data to support the the Liberal government for years over assertion, as well as perhaps some explanation for this the dumping of toxic waste in a quarry puzzling phenomenon. near her community of Shawnigan Lake The book provides some fascinating glimpses from on Vancouver Island. behind the political lines. Two stand out in particular Furstenau was the deal breaker. She for me. The election was really won and lost in some of “simply could not be brought onside to con- the areas outside Vancouver, principally Surrey as well sider any type of deal that would allow the as Maple Ridge and the defining issue in these commu- Liberal government to spend one more day in nities was bridge tolls. Shaw and Zussman recount that office.” There were hints of this enmity in the the Liberal Party promised to cap bridge tolls at $500 per media at the time, but Shaw and Zussman offer year, saving commuters up to $1,000 per year. When NDP a much fuller account of these tense negotiations. campaign director Bob Dewar saw this announcement in In sum, Shaw and Zussman have provided a com- the newspaper, he instantly decided that the NDP would prehensive and highly readable account not just of the respond with a promise to eliminate bridge tolls entirely B.C. election of 2017 and the first minority government and within five hours John Horgan was announcing the in the province in sixty-five years, but the entire decade new policy to “thunderous applause at a rally in Surrey.” of politics in the province that preceded these historic NEWS The authors almost seem to celebrate this policy- events. A Matter of Confidence is a great summer read making on the fly as a stroke of political genius, but it for any political junkie. 9781772032543

really amounts to a great condemnation of the populist POSTMEDIA / tendencies in our democracy. The Port Mann Bridge was Hamish Telford is an associate professor of political sci- PHOTO a $3.6 billion dollar project, and the Golden Ears Bridge ence at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford. cost $800 million. The NDP completely upset the financing His latest book is Talking Past Each Other: Quebec STAFFORD of these projects on the spur of the moment for immedi- and the Federal Dialogue in Canada, 1867-2017 (Peter

ate political benefit—and damn the consequences or the Lang Pub. Group). LYLE

10 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 TALONBOOKS LATE-SPRINGLATE-SP / EARLY-FALL TITLES

Around Her beholdenbeholden The Eyelash and SOPHIE BIENVENU FRED WAH & RITA WWONGONG the Monochrome translated by Rhonda Mullins Comprised of two lines of poetic text TIZIANA LA MELIA In the mid-1990s, a sixteen-year-old gives flflowingowing alon alongg a a114 114-foot-long-foot-long map map of of The Eyelash and the Monochrome asks: birth to a healthy boy in the anonymity ththe CColumbia l bi River, Ri this thi powerful f l image- i What happens when material becomes of a Montreal hospital. She gives him up poem by acclaimed poets Fred Wah and thought and thought becomes object? At for adoption – a parting that will affect all Rita Wong presents language yearning once a book of poetry and an artist’s book, successive stages of her adult life. Around to understand the consequences of our it gathers together poems, performance Her traces twenty years of the lives of hydroelectric manipulation of one of scripts, and parallel texts, illustrating the Florence Gaudreault and her estranged North America’s largest river systems. hybrid nature of these texts and trespassing son Adrien through the prism of twenty 978-1-77201-211-8 • $19.95 • Poetry upon the boundaries of genres. characters who have crossed their paths and Available September 2018 978-1-77201-197-5 • $19.95 • Poetry who, each in turn and with their own unique Available September 2018 voice, tell their story. 978-1-77201-209-5 • $19.95 • Fiction Available September 2018

The Green Chamber Kuei, My Friend White MARTINE DESJARDINS A Conversation on Race and Reconciliation DENI ELLIS BÉCHARD translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel DENI ELLIS BÉCHARD & Assigned to write an exposé on Richmond Set between 1913 and 1964 in one of NATASHA KANAPÉ FONTAINE Hew, the conservation world’s most elusive Montreal’s upper-middle-class, suburban translated by Deni Ellis Béchard & Howard Scott and corrupt humanitarian worker, an neighbourhoods, Martine Desjardins’s The intrepid journalist finds himself on a plane Kuei, My Friend is an engaging book of Green Chamber is a riveting, fast-paced, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo letters: a literary and political encounter highly atmospheric novel that chronicles the – a country he thinks he understands. But between Innu poet Natasha Kanapé Fontaine decline of a wealthy French-Canadian family when he meets Sola, a woman searching and Québécois-American novelist Deni Ellis over the course of three generations. for a rootless white orphan, he slowly Béchard. They engage in a frank conversation uncovers a tapestry of corruption and 978-1-77201-196-8 • $19.95 • Fiction about racism and reconciliation, posing racial tensions generations in the making. Now Available questions we should all be discussing. 978-1-77201-196-8 • $19.95 • Fiction 978-1-77201-195-1 • $19.95 • Non-Fiction Available October 2018 Now Available

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12 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review POLITICS

The Canadian Party System: overwhelming voting base cording to Johnston, it is this these thematic arguments to on the interactions between An Analytic History in any region. Alternatively, cycle of Conservative Party provide a sweeping and in- the parties. by Richard Johnston (UBC Press $55) however, the parliamentary victory and defeat that gives depth explanation of the Cana- Moreover, much of the po- logic of the system pushes the Canadian party system its dian party system as it evolved litical science research done parties in the other direction extreme volatility. over the twentieth century. explicitly on Canada’s party BY ADAM COOMBS due to a tendency to produce Québec’s willingness to It is his historical emphasis system is over forty years old, one-party governments with a vote en masse for one party is that makes this book such a written before the rise to domi- tremendous amount of power, not the only factor leading to valuable contribution to the nance of quantitative analysis EW POLITICAL PAR- ties in countries thus encouraging all parties long-term instability. Rather, relatively limited literature of in academic political analysis, within the West- to aim to form government by what Johnston calls “insur- Canadian political parties. which makes The Canadian minster political competing nationally. gent” parties with short life To me, as a historian of Ca- Party System: An Analytic His- system have been The second force is that, spans and a geographic focus nadian politics, I welcome this tory a much-needed interven- Fas successful over the course despite creating a system that also lead to instability, as he analysis of the volatility and tion in the field and invaluable of the twentieth and twenty- for anyone seeking to under- first centuries as the Liberal Most Canadians don’t realize the extent stand Canadian politics in the Party of Canada. Not only have twentieth century. Johnston’s they governed for ninety of the to which the federal Liberal Party has expertise in the methods of previous 118 years, but only political science allows him three leaders in the party’s been dominant for 118 years. to quantitatively assess im- entire history have not become portant questions regarding prime minister. voter behaviour and identity Even when suffering histor- that could only be inferred ic election defeats as they did ALL HAIL THE MIDDLE OF using traditional methods of historical research.

in 1958 and 1984, the federal should encourage voters to act LiberalTHE Party bounced back, on a riding level, where they ROAD never remaining in opposition can have the greatest effect, for longer than nine years. Canadians instead act on a While standard political national, or at least regional science theories of party sys- level, where each individual tems suggest that the West- has almost no effect. Finally, minster model will trend to- for Johnston, the historical wards two dominant parties, context within which parties what is remarkable about the act matters, and the party’s Liberals is that rather than be- past shapes how they respond ing a party of the right or the to subsequent issues in what left, they were—and remain he calls “reactive sequenc- —a party of the ideological es.” Ultimately, for Johnston, centre, consistently fighting “the upshot is [that] history off attacks on both their left counts….”

and right flanks. Furthermore, Taking these three fac- PHOTO the Liberals have faced not one tors into account, Johnston PRESS consistent opposition but an makes a series of arguments array of insurgent parties that to explain the nature of the Yup, that’s Pierre Trudeau

CANADIAN with hair back in 1968 when rapidly attracted substantial Canadian party system and / support in certain regions of its evolution. While he lists the Liberal Party won 158 BREGG the country, and in most in- ten specific arguments in his seats (an increase of 22). stances just as rapidly lost it. conclusion, these can be sum- PETER This fractionalized and marized in four broad themes. details in his third group of fractionalization of the elector- As a historian of Cana- unstable nature of the Cana- The first group of arguments arguments. These insurgent ate—and I am also surprised dian political parties, I find dian party system also seems addresses the Liberal Party’s parties compete almost exclu- that the atypical example of Johnston’s prose clear and to defy standard interpretive electoral dominance, which sively with the Conservative the Canadian party system straightforward. theories. But how much does Johnston explains as a result Party for votes, and they cycle within the Westminster sys- Ultimately, Johnston has Canada actually depart from of the party’s consistent abil- in reverse to the Conserva- tem has gone understudied written a book that will be the political norm? And if in- ity to win the majority of seats tives’ fortunes to contribute to for so many years. required reading for students deed it does depart from the in Québec combined with the system’s volatility. Johnston’s bibliography of Canadian politics for de- norm, as the examples above extensive support from non- One insurgent party stands reveals that much of the lit- cades to come. In identifying suggest, why? francophone Catholic voters. apart from all the others: the erature on Canadian political and explaining the role of the It is these questions that But as Johnston details left-wing Co-operative Com- parties is now decades old Liberal and Conservative par- University of British Colum- in his second group of argu- monwealth Federation, found- and mostly qualitative in its ties and their relationship to bia political scientist Richard ments, Québec also plays an ed in 1932, which morphed analysis. One such example is Québec, while also highlight- Johnston addresses in The important role in shaping the into the New Democratic Party the brief (1920-1930) history ing the importance of what he Canadian Party System: An Conservative Party’s electoral (NDP) in 1961. A traditional of the Progressive Party, where calls “insurgent” third parties, Analytical History. fortunes, which are deter- party of the left, the NDP’s only one monograph and a Johnston provides a valuable For Johnston, the nature mined by whether Québec growth, while slower than ex- limited number of unpub- explanatory framework for the of the Canadian party system swings for the party or not. If pected, mirrors that of other lished graduate theses exist. unique nature of Canada’s is fundamentally shaped by it does swing for the Tories, as leftist parties in Westminster While the work by scholars party system. 9780774836074 three main forces. The first is Québec did in 1930, 1958, and systems. Johnston argues such as C.B. Macpherson, the electoral logic within the 1984, then the Conservatives that the CCF/NDP competes W.L. Morton, Walter Young, Adam Coombs did his gradu- Westminster system which win a majority government. almost exclusively with the and Reginald Whitaker on ate work in twentieth century rewards parties for develop- However, when Québec inevi- Liberals for votes, which Social Credit, the Progres- Canadian politics and ideology ing concentrated support in tably swings back to the Lib- makes it the primary factor sive Party, the CCF, and the at UBC. He co-hosts Tuesday one geographic region and erals, the Conservatives’ seat leading to the fractionalization Liberal Party respectively are Morning Special Blend on punishes parties with broad totals collapse, as they did in of the electorate in Canada. excellent, they are exclusively CKCU FM 93.1 (Ottawa), which national support but not an 1935, 1962, and 1993. Ac- Overall, Johnston combines qualitative and do not focus features political commentary.

13 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 

14 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review SEXUALITY

Better Sex Through Alert to the path- encounter instruc- enous women and women and even imprisonment. Mindfulness: How Women clearing work of oth- tions for awakening of colour navigate the added It is no wonder that so Can Cultivate Desire by Lori A. Brotto ers, Brotto carefully the vagina, vulva, minefield of racialized mi- many women in Brotto’s re- (Greystone Books $22.95) cites William Mas- and clitoris through sogyny en route to expressions search expressed self-criticism ters and Virginia solely paying atten- of healthy sexual subjectivity? and self-doubt about their Johnson who devel- tion to genitals while For asexuals who narrate sexual selves, as well as un- BY BECKI L. ROSS oped ‘sensate focus’ lying on a bed. their contentment in life with- happiness with obligatory and in sex therapy with In a later chapter, out sex, what might be the un- unrewarding sex. ORI A. BROTTO IS A couples in the 1950s BECKI L. readers are invited to intended consequences of the Brotto also exposes the lack feminist sex scien- and 1960s, as well as ROSS try hands-on ‘plea- reductive claim that all areas of evidence-based education in tist at UBC whose molecular biologist, surable touch’ exer- of life suffer when sex suffers? schools dedicated to the theme goal is to translate Jon Kabat-Zinn, who began cises designed to enhance sex- And might sex-based mind- of sexual pleasure. sexological findings introducing mindfulness to ual response in both singles fulness yield dividends for the On the campaign trail, the Linto digestible and meaningful patients suffering from chronic and couples, emphasizing the polyamorous and kinky as new premier of Ontario, Doug knowledge for women in search pain in the 1970s and 1980s. benefits of employing all five much as for the conventionally Ford, catered to his funda- of fulfilling sexual activity. We learn that Brotto, in senses during sexual activity. coupled? mentally sex-negative and At 260 pages, her Better collaboration with the B.C. In her final substantive I also wonder about the fearful base by promising to Sex Through Mindfulness: Centre for Sexual Medicine in chapter, ‘Tuning In To Pain,’ specific sex-related concerns roll back the previous govern- How Women Can Cultivate Vancouver, has co-led a mind- Brotto addresses the 15% of of sex workers—escorts, cam ment’s revised sex education Desire marks a sprightly ad- fulness-based sex therapy pro- women in North America for girls, sugar babies, porn ac- curriculum. dition to the raft of sex advice gram for hundreds of women whom acutely painful sex is a tors, and erotic dancers—who Months later, as Ford and books marketed to women over the past fifteen years. regular occurrence. have rarely received non- his conservatives dither, let’s over the past thirty years such During an eight-week pe- While noting that research judgmental treatment for sex consider the value of re-imag- as Becoming Orgasmic (1987), riod, Brotto and her inter- findings are still scant, Brotto complaints from health care ining pedagogy in high school For Yourself (2000), The Elu- disciplinary team at UBC draws on several studies to providers? classrooms that a) introduces sive Orgasm (2007) and Come lead small groups of women show that group mindful- Nevertheless, as a queer sex toys as valued stimuli for as You Are (2017). through awareness exercises ness-based therapy—with its sociologist disturbed by sexol- sexual arousal, b) explores In Better Sex, Brotto notes that upwards of 30% of women globally experience some form of sexual difficulty, whether it is low desire or loss of libido, Lori Brotto has dissatisfaction as a result of sexual trauma, gynecological enhanced the ethically cancers, or genital pain. She therefore aims “to bring minded campaign to the issue of low sexual desire boost women’s sexual in women into the open so that women feel less shame and are self-esteem worldwide. empowered to cultivate their feelings of sexual desire.” Brotto points to stress aris- ing from work, family, and money, the ‘tyranny of infoma- nia,’ as well as the pressures of navigating contradictory cultural messages. Such messages can pum- mel women into normative ways of looking, acting, and thinking. The well-documented ‘or- gasm gap’ among straight firstfirst women suggests that women have been paying attention COMINGS

to men’s sexual satisfaction PHOTO

COMINGS

much more than their own for DEE

far too long.

Brotto boldly criticizes the MARTIN alleged benefits of ceaseless such as the Body Scan (tak- emphasis on acceptance and ogy’s legacy of pathologizing the meaning and practice multi-tasking. Cognitive over- ing note of sensations in each compassion—helps sufferers non-normative sexuality, I of enthusiastic consent, c) load often leads to less ef- part of the body, including reduce genital pain, sex-relat- found Better Sex to be both foregrounds knowledge of ficiency, more mistakes and genitals), guided meditation, ed distress, and depression. surprisingly radical and im- sexual and gender minorities, unwanted distractions in the and discussion about what ✫ mensely stimulating. and d) integrates sex-based bedroom. participants are discovering, EXHILARATING PROMISE RESIDES ✫ mindfulness as a strategy for Rather than endorse the including the vulva-like prop- in Brotto’s thesis that mindful- LORI BROTTO’S HOPE-FILLED BOOK sexual enlightenment, joy, and promise of a pharmaceutical erties of a raisin. ness practice can change the arrives at an auspicious mo- healing. fix, such as Addyi—the ‘pink At week 5, women are en- brain’s structure and function ment: women, girls, and non- Lori Brotto’s Better Sex not pill’ equivalent to Viagra — couraged to use sexual aids to enable cultivation of more binary folks are breaking the only innoculates the reader Brotto makes a persuasive case such as erotica (made by and nourishing human sexual silence about sexual harass- against the scourge of sexual for applying the 4000-year-old for women) and/or vibrators exchange. ment and assault at the hands ignorance, guilt, and dread, Buddhist practice of mindful- to elicit sexual arousal. Post- At the same time, Brotto’s of predatory men in the era her book bravely enlarges our ness to matters of women’s session facilitation, or coach- research would benefit from of #MeToo and #TimesUp. grasp of what might be pos- sexual dysfunction. ing, is made available online a more rigorous adoption of Yet as we learn more about sible on a new or even revolu- Mindfulness is a thera- and through audio-recordings, an intersectional analytical the contours and content of tionary sexual horizon. peutic approach with bound- and women are encouraged framework. For example, she widespread sexual danger, 978-1771642354 less capacity for lubricating to complete up to 40 minutes relies heavily on stories from and as we seek to redress the women’s sexual potential. of daily meditation between white, heterosexual women, alarming under-reportage of Becki Ross teaches at the Insti- As she explains, “when we sessions. with very brief gestures to sex-based crimes, our grasp tute for Gender, Race, Sexual- pay attention to the body in Evidence-based results, lesbians, bisexuals, and same- of women’s sexual pleasure ity and Social Justice at UBC. a kind, compassionate, and including questionnaires and sex couples. remains murky. She is co-founder of the West non-judgmental, and present- self-reports by session partici- We could have learned Sexual literacy, desire, and End Sex Workers Memorial oriented way, it offers us a new pants, reveal increased sexual more about the sexual desires practice have always been and author of Burlesque West: way of being in the world. And satisfaction by 66%, as well and frustrations of LGBTQ thorny arenas for women, Showgirls, Sex, & Sin in Post- that new way of being might as improvements in desire, folks and two-spirits, includ- given that possession of a war Vancouver (UTP, 2009). just be critical for the sexual orgasms, mood, and overall ing those who identify as trans lusty sexual appetite has For the unabridged version of satisfaction that so many well-being. or non-binary. sometimes meant the risk of this commentary, visit women crave.” To me, it was refreshing to Moreover, how do Indig- shame, stigma, punishment, The Ormsby Review.

15 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review

I FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE DOG WON

As early as eight weeks, puppies are tested to determine whether or not they have the personality to do police work.

The Dog Lover Unit: Lessons in often until death. This relationship be- Courage from the World’s K9 Cops gins as early as eight weeks, when pup- by Rachel Rose (St. Martin’s/Macmillan $28.99) pies are tested to determine whether or not they have the personality to do police work, a fascinating process and one of the most interesting chapters of BY BONNIE REILLY SCHMIDT the book. ACHEL ROSE’ S THE DOG Once the puppy passes muster, a Lover Unit: Lessons handler is assigned. Handlers, too, are in Courage from the subject to intense periods of physical World’s K9 Cops is a training and years of voluntary work surprising departure with police dogs before being selected Rfrom her previous publications of as members of a canine unit. The dogs poetry. On the surface, her study of are issued with a regimental number police dogs and their handlers seems and are considered partners with their an unlikely subject for Vancouver’s poet handlers, an indication of their value laureate (2014 to 2017). Rose demon- in police work. strates, however, that perhaps only a ✫ poet can interpret the human-animal IN THE DOG LOVER UNIT, ROSE MANAGES connection in such an insightful and to capture the personality of each dog articulate way. and describes in detail their ability to Rose’s research was conducted over do what they are trained to do. The dogs a four-year period and takes her to she meets are experts in water recovery, canine units (K9 in police vernacular) searching for drugs in prisons, locating in four countries. As she states, “I go cadavers, finding missing people, and wherever the dogs take me,” and she chasing down suspects, to name a few gains access to units that few civilians of their responsibilities. As a reward for REIMAGINE are afforded. Rose “tracks” along with their obedience, the dogs are always the units during investigations, and vol- highly praised by their handlers and YOUR WORLD unteers to allow the dogs to “take a bite” allowed time to play. of her during their training. She inter- Rose supplements these stories views the dog handlers and researches with photographs of many of the dogs some of the more controversial issues she meets along with their police par- facing police forces today, such as the ents. Although the dogs are happy to harassment of female police officers and be working, few of us consider that OCT 15–21 the use of deadly force, making for an they are also exposed to danger. For informed narrative. example, they may inhale an illicit drug Anyone who loves dogs will enjoy such as heroin during a search. They this book. One of the first things read- can also die in the line of duty, often ers learn is that police dogs are highly while defending their handler. This was trained working dogs, not pets. No one true of Chip who, along with RCMP of- 2018 should pet or touch these animals ex- ficer Doug Lewis, was stabbed multiple cept their handlers, who are referred to times by a violent suspect during a foot in the canine unit as a dog’s “mom” or chase. Chip did not survive, and Lewis “dad.” Rose discovers the close and lov- almost lost his life. ing connection between police handlers We also learn more about how police and their dogs. The two live and work forces in other countries use canines. 100+AUTHORS together and most handlers keep their In France, for example, the public has dogs long after the dog is retired, and a general fear of police dogs. This is 80+EVENTS The Return of a Shadow By Kunio Yamagishi A poignant novel about the Japanese internment in Canada and an internee’s life after his release Eizo Osada had his shadow, always there inside his DISCOVER THE head, ready, unbidden, to announce itself. It had been there since he left Japan for Canada over forty years ago. 2018 LINEUP AT He had left his wife and three sons, one of them only two years old, to earn money to maintain the family back home. WRITERSFEST.BC.CA Then Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. A worried Canadian government interned Japanese people. After his release his shadow questioned why he did not go back to his family, but there was the last letter from his wife twenty-three years ago asking him to stay in Canada as there was no employment in war-torn Japan. Now, approaching retirement, the time Canadian Patrimoine had come to return to the wife and family that he had not Heritage canadien seen for so long. Little did he know what awaited him and how he in turn

Cultural would become a shadow. Services ISBN 9781786937155 • Available on amazon.ca, amazon.co.uk, amazon.com, or bookstores near you.

16 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 LAW

RCMP Constable Nathalie Cuvele training Eryx for a K9 unit near Nanaimo. because the Nazis used dogs to control These conversations provide in- the population during the occupation sight into the thoughts of the men and of France in the Second World War, women who place their lives on the line a factor still ingrained in the minds for their communities on a daily basis. of many French citizens. To this day, In the process, Rose distills some of French police officers muzzle their dogs the more recent controversies involv- while in public. ing the police over issues such as the In the United Kingdom, most of the appropriate use of force. She compares dog handlers are men, though Rose just the public’s perceptions of the police happened to visit a squad with a major- with the “situational awareness” skills ity of women. In contrast, few women that all police officers are trained to make it into canine units in Canada. use, and she offers alternative ways to Rose notes that many women canine look at these issues and the work police handlers in the RCMP face “years of dis- officers do. crimination and bullying.” In the RCMP, Rose acknowledges in the epilogue this gendered viewpoint also extends to that people will be conflicted over her female dogs, which are considered a li- conclusions. She ruminates that she ability because they are thought to lack finds herself caught in between two aggression. The majority of the canines groups: between her “leftie circle” of used by the RCMP are male. friends in the arts community who she ✫ anticipates “will not support this work” BUT THE DOG LOVER UNIT IS ABOUT MORE because of its focus on policing, and than police dogs and their work. It is those people “on the right politically also a book about crime and punish- [who] likely will not support me, either ment in western society, a weighty is- personally or ideologically” because she sue that appears alongside Rose’s own is from that community. experience as a “righteous victim” of Politics and ideology aside, Rose sexual abuse as a child. It is this victim- insists that we are all part of the con- ization, first introduced in the prologue, versation, noting that there is “danger” that leads Rose on her journey with the in adopting any one “single story” when canine units. Questions about loyalty, it comes to justice. It is a powerful fear, violence, and human injustice reminder that not only stirs our admi- in her personal life emerge and are ration for Rose’s honesty and courage, confronted the more she learns about but makes for challenging but engaging police dogs. reading. 9781250110749 Rose also discovers that police offi- cers are people too. Readers will realize Bonnie Reilly Schmidt was an RCMP this as well, largely because Rose is so officer between 1977 and 1987. She adept at asking the officers relevant and wrote Silenced: The Untold Story of meaningful questions such as “What the Fight for Equality in the RCMP made you who you are?” “How do you (Caitlin Press, 2015). She recently re- handle negative publicity?” “What’s tired from NightShift, a non-profit that your normal routine?” and “What do feeds the homeless and those with you wish people knew?” mental illness and addictions in Surrey. Inner Explorations of a Seeker by Amar Ochani

A guide to finding one’s passion, under- standing the true meaning of compas- sion, why must one meditate, learning to be mindful, practicing loving kind- ness and forgiveness, building qual- ity relationships, developing balanced parenting approach and a helpful resource for Book signing: living an inspired life. 3:30-5:30pm, 978-1-7750775-0-3 Sat., Sept. 29, $16.95 (softcover) Chapters, Coquitlam Available on Amazon, Chapters, & India Bookworld www.amarochani.com

17 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review ACTIVISM

Changemakers: it all, how social change hap- attitudes in these communi- pump systems, one person Informative narratives Embracing Hope, pens, they provide examples ties generated an alternate- influences another, who then show how small groups of Taking Action and Transforming the World of individual and community thinking, regulation-bending influences another, and so on. dedicated individuals have by Fay Weller & Mary Wilson efforts in the Gulf Islands, one atmosphere where people were Change can induce distress created change for their com- (New Society $17.99) of Canada’s more environmen- more apt to think outside the when it becomes clear that munities. The topics include tally-conscious areas. This is box and to be cooperative in shifts in attitudes and actions food (production and provi- the area that elected the only sion), transportation, plumb- BY SANDI RATCH federal Green Party MP, Eliza- ing, clothing, resource re-use, EN YEARS AGO, I WAS beth May. energy options, and challeng- carrying glass Many of these island com- ing the economic system. straws because The process of expand- I could see the ing similar changes to larger damage plastic groups might seem arduous Tones were doing. Eventually and grim but there is some- I gave up. thing satisfying about reflect- After years of trying to ing upon the way we exist in make a difference by helping this world, and something our environment, I became THE even more satisfying about jaded. I became lazy in my living a life aligned with our efforts because it felt like values. It is one definition of so many others were doing happiness. nothing. The final fourth of the book Fay Weller is a community This book explained to me LAST organizer and artist; Mary is a hands-on manual for how iterative learning hap- Wilson holds a Ph.D. in individuals wanting to build pens: change is slow and education. change in their communities. individual changes in lifestyle There is room for reflection are necessary even if they feel need to be made. The authors and mindfulness here, and pointless—they are the start- describe how dissonance of- the examples are useful guide- ing point. PLASTIC ten occurs when “the societal lines for community action. Millions of other people story that we have learned Facilitation techniques are were still using plastic straws, [about our way of life] does not provided. so what difference would my fit with our reality or experi- If you are the kind of person little action make? Well, we are ence [when we see who likes to engage at a tipping point as enough that we have to fix people, do work- people now see plastic straws STRAW the environment].” shops, and wants to affecting ecology and wildlife How Gulf Islanders Coincidentally, make environmen- that plastic straws are being we can feel a positive tal change or other banned. have led the way with resonance when we community changes, It’s a success started by communal & personal see people working Changemakers is a many individuals like my- towards a new world vital resource. self who acted a decade ear- activism that fits with our SANDI In the era of lier. Our actions weren’t for core values. Weller RATCH Trump, when envi- naught. Environmental im- munities changed drastically community action. and Wilson argue ronmental protec- provement is a process and in the 1960s and ‘70s when The creation of The Islands that we need to develop a new tion measures are being cut what we do matters. draft evaders came to Canada Trust by the provincial NDP societal story that matches and environmentalists are “By changing ourselves or from the U.S. The isolated na- also empowered local activism. the changes we need to make losing ground, it is a relief to changing a relatively small ture of islands like Salt Spring, One important dynamic in order to protect the en- read about people who are detail of the way we live, we Pender and Gabriola made discussed by Weller and Wil- vironment. To support this making important changes for change the world,” write Fay them ideal bastions for left- son is the “neighbour effect” argument, about half of the our environment. 9780865718753 Weller and Mary Wilson in leaning immigrants—places whereby a change by one per- book is dedicated to examples Changemakers: Embracing where action could happen son will inspire others nearby from Gulf Island communities Historian and blogger Sandi Hope, Taking Action and under the government’s radar. to make the same change. that have made significant Ratch received her master’s Transforming the World. As In conjunction with B.C.’s Whether it is, for example, adjustments to help the envi- degree in archaeology from Si- they explain the psychology of so-called counter-culture, the use of solar panels or heat ronment. mon Fraser University in 1995.

oe Sacco, one of whose lives and fortunes de- Panels from Joe Sacco’s chapter in Global Warm- ing and the Sweetness of Life: A Tar Sands Tale the world’s greatest pend on, or are imperiled by, Jcomics journalists Oily tales the tar sands. Sacco contrib- world—a reconstituted understanding of the has teamed up with Vancou- utes a chapter-length comic sweetness of life. verites Am Johal and Matt Hern for Global about the contradictions of life in an oil town. Joe Sacco is best known for his books Pal- Warming and the Sweetness of Life: A Tar Combining travelogue, political analysis, estine (1996) and Footnotes in Gaza (2009). Sands Tale (MIT Press $19.95). The three go and ecological theory, the authors argue that Am Johal is director of SFU’s Vancity Office on a road trip from Vancouver to the Alberta confronting global warming requires a politics of Community Engagement and Matt Hern tar sands. Along the way they talk to people that speaks to a different way of being in the is a Vancouver activist. 9780262037648

18 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review MEMOIR

50 letters that he wrote to Readers get to share in the his fiancée back in Van- young Thomson’s glee when ABROAD couver. She would share he buys fine Italian clothing. highlights from the let- At the same time he laments ters with other students “pseudo-bohemianism,” which and professors at UBC, he describes as, “people who WAY making Thomson notori- think they’re European and ous at the time. cool just because they eat For a student in 1960, “When I realized who cheese and baguettes and was reading my letters drink wine.” forsaking Vancouver for Italy I took extra care with “One of the unexpected was one step removed from them,” Thomson says in benefits of my year in Italy,” his introduction. he writes, “was to see my life making a trip to the moon. Many of the letters in a more moral and spiritual chronicle his delight in way. I gained insights into my Now it’s called taking a gap year. discovering the arts such upbringing and education and as the paintings of Bot- began to see that they had Florence, Dante and Me “Italy had panache ticelli and Caravaggio; molded me in a very narrow by Robert Thomson and style,” Thomson re- sculptures by Michelan- way.” (Godwin Books $25) members in his memoir gelo and Cellini; ancient Unfortunately for him, his about the trip, Florence, architecture in Rome and steady stream of letters didn’t Dante and Me. Pompeii; opera houses sufficiently impress their re- BY BEVERLY CRAMP “Many of my generation 1960: Robert Thomson like La Pergola and San Carlo; cipient to the extent that she (holding a book on Ital- N 1960, THE MOVIES were enchanted by the beauty and popular singers of the era felt she owed her heart to him. ian history) departs from Roman Holiday and and glamor of Italy, not to including Peppino di Capri Discrete, Thomson never the CNR station in Van- Three Coins in a Foun- mention her distinctive style couver en route to Jasper and Mina. Thomson describes reveals her name and omits all tain glamourized Italy that could be seen even in (visiting his fi ancée), the thrill of hearing dramatic writings as he delicately puts and its capital city, everyday things such as Vespa Quebec and boarding a poetry readings of the work it, “of a private nature.” Rome. scooters, Olivetti typewriters ship to Europe. of Dante. Thomson went to Italy IItalian songs on the radio and Vesuvius espresso coffee The letters describe in de- because he was studying included Dean Martin’s That’s machines.” art were negligible. tail the many people Thomson European languages. He has Amore!, Rosemary Clooney’s By comparison, Vancou- “There was only one good befriended: Franco, a retired since written and published Mambo Italiano, and Domeni- ver was a stodgy, small port bookstore in town, Duthie’s colonel; Gino, a violinist from numerous books, including co Modugno’s Volare. city. Thomson recalls there on Robson St., and prob- Naples; and Ede, a woman Operatic Italian and Learn So when twenty-year old was one opera company, ably only one good shop for who shared his love of opera Spanish with Love Songs. For UBC student Robert Thom- The Vancouver Opera, but it buying long playing classical and lyric poetry. more info, visit abcbookworld. son won a scholarship to produced only three or four records, Len Timbers’, also on Many of his passages com- 978-0-9958760-0-2 spend a year studying in operas a year. There was a Robson.” ment on Italian attitudes to- Italy, he was ready to live the city art gallery but its hold- Thomson’s memoir is de- wards fashion, friendship and Beverly Cramp is associate dream. ings in Italian Renaissance rived from a cache of almost child rearing. editor of BC BookWorld.

19 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review BEAU DICK WAS THE REAL MCCOY The Audain Art Museum at Whistler continues to amaze.

Beau Dick: Revolutionary Spirit (Gary Edenshaw) and Beau Dick led by Darren J. Martens, in collaboration with a group of protesters across Canada the Audain Art Museum (Figure 1 $40) to Ottawa, where they broke copper shields to draw attention to the Harper government’s broken relations with In- BY ALAN L. HOOVER digenous peoples. “[The] copper that is HIEF BEAU DICK (WALAS being provided is brought forth by the Gwa’yam) (1955-2017) Haida Nation who have suffered atroci- was a much-honoured ties over the last 150 years, almost Cartist and activist in the totally alienated through genocide,” Kwakwaka’wakw com- said Dick. munity, and the wider Indigenous and This activism is recorded in the 2018 non-Indigenous arts community of documentary movie Maker of Monsters: British Columbia. Like many Kwakwaka’wakw artists, Beau Dick produced work that was used in the con- tinuing dramatic ceremonial life of his people’s communities. However, Dick then chose to apply his knowledge of Kwakwaka’wakw cultural tra- ditions on to the world of politics and social advocacy. In 2013, supported by his family, community, and the Idle No More movement, he initi- Beau Dick with Otter Woman, a spirit guard- ated a trek from Quatsino on ian mask carved from red cedar, 2009 northern Vancouver Island to the legislature in Victoria. The Extraordinary Life of Beau Dick, He and his companions ceremo- written and directed by Natalie Boll A missing author. nially broke a copper shield, an act and LaTiesha Fazakas. fraught with traditional meaning and ✫ A regime full of lies. an expression of anguish to shame the BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED, BEAU DICK: government of B.C. for its inaction in Revolutionary Spirit is a record of $JLUOê JKWLQJIRUWKHtruth. addressing longstanding Indigenous a retrospective featuring 89 pieces of and environmental grievances and Dick’s work exhibited at Whistler’s injustices. Audain Art Museum in 2018. Lena must fi nd her uncle Copper shields are a measure of This book includes 44 of Dick’s won- and uncover the truth in wealth and power. The shaming rite, derfully carved masks, two dramatic once practised throughout the Pacific articulated puppets, a fine raven rattle, this searing YA novel about Northwest, had all but disappeared two dancing headdresses, a painted defi ance, courage, and until Beau Dick revived it. leather apron, and ten silkscreen the devastating effects of In 2014 Haida leader Guujaaw prints. a totalitarian regime in 1980s East Berlin. Available September 11. 9781773210711 hc The issues we have

“Stunning and as First Nations, our compassionate.” #Kirkus concerns, are really every- “Throbbing with body’s concerns. There’s a lot tension.” ‘‘ #School Library Connection at stake here, our whole credi- bility as Canadians is at stake. Visit annickpress.com to read an excerpt. Where do we stand now and #houseofonethousandeyes where do we go from here is annick press the question. Are we ready to available from your favourite bookseller reconcile and face the truth?” — BEAU DICK

20 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 ART

A number of pieces illustrating Beau writer and academic Peter Morin Dick’s mastery of different Northwest some time after the artist passed away. Coast art styles appear in the book, Morin then burned the letter, but it is including a large model totem pole reproduced here in its original seven- in the style of Haida artist Charles page hand-printed form. In it, Morin Edenshaw, a Tsimshian style head- discusses the role of the Indigenous dress frontlet, and two Nuxalk-style artist and how Beau Dick was, and Thunder masks. remains, so important to the practice In addition to the colour photo- of west coast art. graphs of objects and stills of the art- An unusual and poignant touch is ist, exhibit co-curator and book editor the inclusion of a poem about the artist Darren J. Martens discusses Dick’s written by his daughter Linnea Dick, work and career in a 13-page essay who also contributed as co-curator of divided into headings “The Man,” “The the exhibition that the book memori- Mentor,” “The Activist,” “The Artist,” alizes. and “The Legacy.” If you are unfamiliar with Beau Martens emphasizes the differences Dick’s work or simply want a record of between Dick’s work produced for the it, Beau Dick: Revolutionary Spirit will art market and for potlatches. serve you well. “Each piece is carefully considered,” ✫ he writes, “meticulously executed and BORN IN ALERT BAY AND RAISED IN THE presented for maximum effect, [which small community of Kingcome, and is] a very different approach from that then in Vancouver, Beau Dick worked used in his work for potlatch ceremo- with his father, Ben Dick, and later nies.” studied under senior artists Doug And it was here that I wanted a Cranmer and Henry Hunt. bit more curatorial input. Martens His work was first collected by major introduces Dick’s appealing phrase B.C. museums in the 1970s and 1980s, “potlatch perfect” to describe his when he was in his twenties. From the pieces intended for use in the pot- start of his career he was recognized as latch. Martens explains that this was having a talent to carve in many tribal “not meant as a term of derision or an styles, not just in the style of his own insult; rather, it references a series of Kwakwaka’wakw tradition. works (often masks that are not market Beau Dick’s work is in many private ready) created for use within a potlatch and institutional collections including celebration.” the Canadian Museum of History, the However, none of the objects il- Royal BC Museum, the UBC Museum lustrated in Beau Dick: Revolutionary of Anthropology, the Vancouver Art Spirit are identified as having been Gallery, the Heard Museum (Phoenix), made specifically for potlatch use, so and the Burke Museum (Seattle). the reader cannot see the differences 9781773270401 that Martens references. Nor does Martens dis- Alan Hoover worked for 33 years at the cuss the attraction that Royal British Columbia Museum as a cu- both museums and rator and manager. Most recently he has collectors have in ob- published Southern Northwest Coast taining pieces that Indigenous Canoe Racing: A Brief were in fact used in History (available via RBCM $14.95), potlatches and thus an historical account of Indigenous carry the cachet of canoe racing in Northwest Washington “authenticity.” State and Southwest B.C. The book’s other textual piece is a Letter to Beau Dick written by Tahltan Nation

978-1-926991-92-4 (pb) 978-1-926991-94-8 (pb) 978-1-926991-93-1 (e-book) 978-1-926991-97-9 (e-book) Two young lovers are forced Suddenly diagnosed with apart by their different social prostate cancer, Gagnon faced a strata and years later find critical decision.With fear of life- themselves on opposite sides of altering changes, he researched a proposed nuclear plant near his options. This heartfelt but a pueblo in central Mexico. He humorous memoir shares his forms an activist group, while intimate thoughts and the details she reports for a right-wing of his journey, with its emotional newspaper. It’s a fight for a way and physical side effects. In of life and the environment hindsight, he tells what he would against the government’s lust for have done differently. This book power and money. has an extensive bibliography.

If you have a book in you, Beau Dick we can help you get it out with broken

PHOTO — to the entire world! copper at the B.C. Legisla- granvilleislandpublishing.com Publisher and distributor MCNAMARA ture, 2013. ŝŶĨŽΛŐƌĂŶǀŝůůĞŝƐůĂŶĚƉƵďůŝƐŚŝŶŐ͘ĐŽŵϴϳϳͲϲϴϴͲϬϯϮϬdǁŝƩĞƌ͗Λ'/W>ŬƐ GEOFFREY

21 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 travel A Guide for the Budding Investor!

The World’s Most Travelled Man: Bambuti, a group of pygmies. These are sion begins in the Belarussian capital of was easy because the author was a for- Western women.” A Twenty-Three Year Odyssey to and people who, we are told—if they live to Minsk. The World’s Most Travelled Man eign tourist, free to continue untroubled And so on. through Every Country on the Planet by Mike Spencer Bown be thirty—have “more fun than an of- contains many such geographically- on to a pretty lake town. At least as precious are the author’s (D&M $29.95) fice worker who drags his living carcass extended examples that might result Similarly, by the time Bown reached insights and cautions about bigger ques- around for three score and ten.” from a need to include each of the 195 KING OF Nepal’s capital of Kathmandu, in the tions, like the environment, the UN, and This pygmy interlude becomes fraught countries somewhere in the narrative. midst of that country’s communist upris- other hapless and bumbling interna- BY HOWARD STEWART with danger after an alcohol fuelled con- I couldn’t help wondering if organis- ing, he was fully able to enjoy the hash- tional “do-gooders.” flict arises from cultural differences and ing the book more rigorously according fuelled partying of fellow backpackers, “It’s a good thing that as cultures IKE SPENCER BOWN HAS competition for women. The crisis was to geography might have helped over- undisturbed by the “encroaching army modernize, they invest in other ways to spent the better part neatly resolved however, by lighting up come my occasional travel sickness. But of rebels” who were so clearly someone gain prestige, including cars, vacations, of 23 years travelling a bit of mellow Bambuti bud. that might have required more careful THE BACK else’s problem. While this attitude may motorboats, and big houses, because to every country in the The Congo adventure is one of several introductions and a clearer framing of sometimes strike the reader as trivialis- there are few deeds more damaging to the world. I didn’t do a care- places where we are offered insights each region, which is not Bown’s style. ing or being a spectator to the trauma of environment than having loads of kids.” Mful count but I’m pretty sure that every into Bown’s unique sensory capacities. Rather, The World’s Most Travelled Man others, Bown makes it clear that we must The Kafkaesque process of getting a one of those 195 countries is mentioned These have been honed, he tells us, by is a kind of Hakluyt’s Voyages for the cultivate this kind of tough mindedness Sudanese visa illustrated “the pernicious somewhere in his remarkable book. long periods of solitude in the Canadian Facebook age, describing the details of if we want to ensure that our travel re- bureaucratic mess that keeps the third In the process of criss-crossing the wilderness. Life alone in the wilds of how one might travel if one wanted to mains fun—picking up girls, drinking world just so.” “Human rights campaign- globe, Bown saw some of the world’s PACKERS western Canada has resulted in him go everywhere in the known world on an beer, swimming, riding dune buggies, ers have made a fetish of this line called most exquisite landscapes and under- being able virtually to read the minds of extended voyage recounted by Bown, the and so on—over the long haul. the border, and all sorts of legal rights for took the most remarkable travel experi- others, discerning who is truly a friend seasoned, loquacious traveller. How to maximize His crucible in the western Canadian the person who steps over it.” Feckless ences our planet can offer. He describes or foe, who’s dangerous and who’s not. The reader is offered tips not just on woods and mountains has combined attempts to help refugees, Bown reminds these with much economy, making it This helps immeasurably when it comes how to get to and through these places, your travel, budget and with Bown’s subsequent odyssey to us, have complicated the lives of innocent clear that we need to go and see them to navigating tricky situations abroad, but also how to do so without losing fun from perhaps the make him a veritable font of wisdom backpackers. for ourselves. particularly when one might feel tempted sleep. Passing through Rwanda, our about the places and people he encoun- The author’s growing travel expertise This book is rich in advice about how to get involved in local difficulties, which traveller was briefly daunted by thoughts most interesting guy tered, as well as how to travel smart. and wisdom have not gone unnoticed. Have you thought about how you could make money to do just that. Bown steadfastly eschews. of genocide in that place, once again Sweeping and worldly aphorisms and Less than half way through the book we in the emerging legal cannabis market? This book is a As Bown explains, The World’s Most This sort of spidey sense cultivated in a “peaceful green land.” He reassured you’ll ever meet. travel advice come naturally. Rio de Ja- learn that, on at least a dozen occasions, Travelled Man is a tale about how to the “fourth world” (as he calls our local himself by remembering that it all hap- neiro is “a violent city, which is disturbing Bown joined travellers’ discussions only concise and straightforward guide on investing in Cana- maximize our travel and have the most wilderness) proved remarkably effec- pened long ago, in 1994, “back when the if you are not born there.…” to learn they were “discussing various da’s new and growing cannabis industry. It’s not only a fun possible in the process, while on a tive in helping him wend his frugal way colours of my backpack were still bright “With backpacking, each continent tales about me and my travel exploits.” primer for investing in the stock market in general, but modest budget. This involves, among through countries and situations where and all the zippers worked.” A similar requires unique ways and means. Euro- As he neared the end of his travels, Bown also a comprehensive guide on the Canadian cannabis other things, discount air travel and he otherwise had only the most super- close brush with disorienting local re- pean travel is very strange compared to had become a celebrity traveller, a kind even judicious bribing of local officials ficial understanding of local conditions ality came when Bown was offloaded that in the Middle East.” of Paris Hilton of the hostel trail known industry and how to capitalize by investing in it. to expedite otherwise time consuming and personalities. from a Guatemalan bus, early in “The DRC (the Democratic Republic of not only at home in Canada but in many and annoying waits for visas. I felt a bit motion sick at times from his travelling days, by soldiers Congo) was not ready for mass tourism other countries, from Somalia to Ireland. $15.95 CAD | Paperback | Online Updates I enjoyed the book most where Bown all the movement in rapid succession, inclined to “disappear” yet (there had been a particularly grue- As this book so carefully documents, dwells on local colour, recounting those from Central America to South East Asia those passengers they some murder there).” Mike Spencer Bown’s renown as the king moments when he met people and dis- to the Balkans, from Central Asia to the suspected of support- “Just as in Tunisia, the economy [of oil of backpackers was hard earned and well cussed their lives, hopes, and challenges. Amazon basin, back to Asia again and ing an insur- rich Libya] seems to be based on street deserved. By the time he got to Dublin, His tales of travel through Central Asia, on to central Africa. I suppose this is gency. Once vendors selling one another sunglasses Ireland, the host of The Ray D’Arcy Show Advocate Successfully for Your Kid! much of which he did with a Kazakh inevitable in a tale covering nearly 195 again, the so- and dresses, coffee, fruit juice, and sha- declared Bown “the most interesting guy woman friend, are among the most en- countries in less than 400 pages, but it lution warma…” he’d ever met.” 9781771621427 tertaining. might be disorienting for the more “It is always a I must admit, however, that I’ve been obtuse among us. good sign for the Howard Stewart’s Views of the Salish spoiled recently by the global travel There is a chapter, for ex- stability of a re- Sea: One Hundred and Fifty Years of narrative of another western Canadian ample, entitled “The Forest gion if you see Change around the Strait of Georgia writer, Andrew Struthers, whose Around Primeval.” While the title (Harbour, 2017) was longlisted for the the World on Minimum Wage (New Star, suggests Central Africa, George Ryga Award for Social Awareness 2014) hooked me with its manic stream the posted itinerary starts and awarded third prize in the British Co- of the sublime, the sublimely ridiculous, in Morocco lumbia Historical Federation’s competition and much that lies strewn somewhere and the ac- for the Lieutenant- between the two. Struthers is a hard act tual discus- Governor’s Medal to follow. for Historical Bown also offers fasci- Writing. nating glimpses into the troubled Horn of Africa, where he became some- thing of a local celebrity. Perhaps the most mem- orable is his time spent deep in the backwoods of the Congo with the

Every parent wants their kids to have the advantages they didn’t have. But navigating a complex system of diagnosis and treatment for children with special needs, especially less obvious needs, can be very frus- trating. This book empowers parents (and caregivers) of children with mild to moderate disabilities to be their voice, and advocate for them the best they can. $17.95 CAD | Paperback | Download Kit . BOWN

SPENCER

MIKE

www.self-counsel.com Mike Spencer Bown in 1-800-663-3007 COURTESY Bagan, Myanmar, 1998. PHOTO

22 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 23 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 ATELIER VANCOUVER EATS BRIAN GLUCKSTEIN TOM BURROWS OPEN TO THINK Marc Lepine Joanne Sasvari Brian Gluckstein Scott Watson, Ian Wallace Dan Pontefract

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CHINATOWN GHOSTS THE TIGER FLU MURDER BY MILKSHAKE Jim Wong-Chu Larissa Lai Eve Lazarus 978-1-55152-748-2; $19.95 Larissa Lai’s first novel in sixteen years. 978-1-55152-746-8; $21.95 The groundbreaking poems of the late Jim “Blending the surreal and the entirely possible, The fascinating story of a sensational Vancouver Wong-Chu, founder of the Asian Canadian The Tiger Flu is majestically compelling.” murder featuring a radio personality, his wife, and Writers Workshop, alongside his evocative —Eden Robinson, author of Son of a Trickster his mistress, set against a Mad Men-esque backdrop photographs of Vancouver’s Chinatown in the of ’60s-era sensibilities. (Oct.) 1970s and ’80s. (Sep.) ARSENAL PULP PRESS arsenalpulp.com

24 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review DISCOGRAPHY

FROM ZAPPA A -Z

Frank Zappa, his parents, PHOTO

and cat at his OLSON Los Angeles

JOHN home, 1970.

The Big Note: A Guide to the Recordings of Frank Zappa By Charles Ulrich (New Star $45) Performer details, personal dramas, lyrical references, BY DEREK VON ESSEN and sometimes historical con- text play into each section, as appeared years later on live DON’T CONSIDER MYSELF well as sidebar interviews and albums sounding insanely a Zappa collector. On bios of selected players, which complicated in performance— a scale of one to ten, also have their own index at and rightly and inevitably so. LPs/500+ CDs. I realized my level of fandom is the back. ✫ a couple of days later that around 7.5, though Given Zappa’s soured opin- THE BIG NOTE IS NOT ONLY FOR my crappy cassette tape of connecting his life’s work into Iit reaches ten during some ion of journalists and how Zappa fans. Musicians of all Hot Rats (1969) wasn’t good one massive and impressive guitar solos. I own ten of his they misrepresented him, it’s genres will benefit from his enough, followed by Cruising conceptual project. LPs, under a dozen CDs, and a treat to read so many quotes approach to creating complex with Ruben & the Jets (1968) Having sold more than a a few bootlegs. from him directly related to arrangements with uncom- because, well—why not? few albums in my time from In some circles I’d be con- Ulrich’s vast enterprise. Inter- mon devices and instruments. The Big Note should come the front counters of record sidered an extreme fan. In spersed throughout, Zappa’s Xenochrony, polyrhythms, with a warning that purchas- shops, I can say that The Big Zappa circles, where there’s own words play well into Ul- Lydian melodies, and other ers are entirely likely to buy Note hits every mark from ev- 100+ official releases (hun- rich’s text and give excellent uncommon time signatures more albums by Frank Zappa ery conversation on the floor dreds more if re-mastered context. —sure, I can dig it; but when and the Mothers of Invention with clerks and shoppers alike. re-releases are included), I’m One of my favourite albums, we get into Electro-Wagnerian even before they’ve finished Buying this book for a Zappa merely the average, bystander Over-nite Sensation (1973) im- Emancipators and Pignoses, I reading it. By the time I’d collector would be akin to gift- fan. I mean, how many ver- mediately gave up the goods in start to wonder if the casual drafted this review and read ing a dictionary to an aspiring sions of “Black Napkins” does Ulrich’s assiduous treatment. reader might be interested in the passages on the corre- writer, or Gray’s Anatomy to a a guy really need? Apparently Among much else, I learned any of this. But would anyone sponding recordings, I’d also medical student. The details —a lot! And now I’m curious that Tina Turner and The Ik- other than Zappa and music bought Burnt Weeny Sand- within these pages are vast to hear all the others listed in ettes performed on the album fans be reading such a hefty wich (1970) and Imaginary and no one could absorb all of The Big Note: A Guide to the without credit, at the re- them —though thankfully Recordings of Frank Zappa, quest of Ike Turner, who Charles Ulrich did. As a definitive guide to Zappa’s insisted that Zappa pay Buying this book for a Zappa collector a book to take in before musical output from 1966 them each $25 per song, would be akin to gifting a dictionary to bedtime it gets painful at until his early death in 1993. which was Ike’s rate for almost 800 pages. But as In addition to Charles Ul- them. In the end Zappa an aspiring writer, or Gray’s Anatomy a reference tool—wow— rich’s lengthy introductory paid them $25 per hour absolutely wow. section, which also has a bit at the recording session. to a medical student. From that record shop of a “how to” on deciphering There was much mate- floor I recall a few Zappa- The Big Note, each album has rial for Ulrich to compile from brick of a book anyway? Diseases (2005; recorded centric debates that could been listed alphabetically with Zappa’s career as a composer, As a non-musician but ap- 1972) for all the glorious in- easily have been settled with bootlegs finishing it off. When bandleader, lyricist, and over- preciative listener, I encoun- strumentals they contain. The Big Note. In fact, for those it came to looking up all the all large personality, but it tered a lot of terminology that ✫ record shops still in operation, Zappa LPs I own, the alpha never gets boring; in fact, quite I don’t understand, and wish FRANK ZAPPA CREATED AND this is an absolute must-have listing certainly made quick the opposite. Reading through I did. But this is what search unified his creative life into book to have at hand. Forget work of finding their place the individual song details is engines are for. I admit to what he termed “Project/ the baseball bat under the in the book. With Zappa and fascinating. While some were checking many references Object.” Everything from his counter, this volume would most artists with extensive recorded right off the floor, while reading this reference musical compositions and decide all arguments with its back catalogues, my brain most came to life in pieces book. lyrics—including the recur- information. works chronologically, so I ap- and in a multi-layered—more I also ended up shopping ring characters created within P.S. “First printing: Moth- preciated that it was listed in like multi-multi-multi-layered around for more Zappa ma- them, the dissemination of it ers Day 2018.”—well timed. the back of the book, followed —fashion. Zappa then utilized terial to satiate my yearning all through recordings, films, 9781554201464 by an unbelievably lengthy his outstanding and patient after some inspired reading. performances, and other av- song index. editing skills to stitch together Three days into reading I enues—all formed Project/ Derek von Essen’s most re- The notes on recording the ideal version for release. bought Zappa’s first album, Object. Everything he did was cent book is No Flash, Please! sessions are extraordinary. I hadn’t realized how much Freak Out! (1966) because it linked somewhere in its pro- Underground Music in Toronto The technical information editing went into many of my concerned me that it wasn’t cess. The Big Note illuminates 1987-92 (Anvil Press, 2016). is only one aspect included. favourite tracks, which then in my collection of 2,000+ how effective Zappa was in He lives in Roberts Creek.

25 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 Naturally Great Books greystonebooks.com

DAVID SUZUKI & PETER WOHLLEBEN Trees, Animals, and the Sacred Balance of All Living Things

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26 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review FICTION

Straight Circles terminally jealous and forever- but usually we call kindness and em- of their own obsessions and by Jackie Bateman angry sibling who refuses to these occasions by pathy expand the ultimately, they lack crucial (Anvil Press $20) let go of real and imagined the more benign heart, put simply elements of self-control and childhood grievances. term, ‘accidents.’ and metaphorical- self-awareness, which read- Helen, squat and heavyset, Not so in Dalbegie, ly, not medically. ers will see revealed by the BY CAROLINE favours a bowl-cut hairdo, where the author re- Whereas harming novel’s conclusion. There are WOODWARD and works full-time in a cat turns to her Scottish others makes some black holes in their psyches shelter in Edinburgh, where roots and pungently of us, like Oliver where souls ought to be, to N THE DIVERSE GENRE her anti-social and smelly self evokes the towns- CAROLINE and Helen, feel more channel Granny Mac, an off- of suspense writing, is avoided by co-workers and folk’s hard drinking, powerful, whether page, long-dead character who North Vancouver’s WOODWARD strangers alike. The cats are deep-fried diets and the target is a tiny dwells securely in the hearts Jackie Bateman offers safe. People, randomly chosen, penchant for spreading mali- child, a timid wife, or an and minds of her generations us Straight Circles, are most certainly not. Unhap- cious gossip. Like all first-rate unsuspecting healthy young of offspring, especially Lauren Ithe final book in her Lizzy pily for Lizzy, and a few others, mystery writers, Bateman is male hiker. The book does and Lizzy. Trilogy set in Scotland, a grim Helen has decided to take her keenly aware of societal ills not dwell on their deprav- Every single character, inspection of domestic abuse, two week vacation in Dalbegie and provides an especially ity much less revel in it but major and minor, among the child neglect and murder. where she continues to com- gritty depiction of addictions their character development watchful eyes on Dalbegie’s This is hard-boiled suspense pete with Oliver, whether he and the damage done, espe- is an uncanny blend of what High Street or in the over- despite the clever insertion knows it or not. cially to grubby, malnour- onlookers might recognize in grown back yards of the side of a cozy knitting shop in the The other most frequent ished children left to fend for an external, superficial way, streets, plays a memorable fictional Scottish town of Dal- themselves far too much of e.g., “that pale man with the role and the good and gener- begie where winter is setting in the time. hat” or “that dumpy woman in ous nature of small towns and “it’s Baltic out there,” as Helping others, as Lizzy the long overcoat,” and the in- is revealed as well in a very one landlady aptly puts it. instinctively does, makes most ternal, or psychological, blind satisfying ending to this book It will come as no sur- of us feel more fully connected spots experienced by these and the Lizzy Trilogy. The first prise to fans of these to other humans because creatures. They are prisoners two novels in the trilogy also well-written novels— published by Vancouver’s albeit deeply chilling Anvil Press, are Nondescript at several levels—who LIZZY Rambunctious (2011) and also favour gritty Brit- Savour (2014). 978-1-77214-114-6 ish and Nordic Noir television mystery se- HEADS FOR TV Caroline Woodward’s novel, ries (okay, full disclo- TRILOGY Alaska Highway Two-Step, sure, rabid fans like my first published by Polestar own self) that the Lizzy Press in 1993, was nomi- Trilogy has been optioned Empathy and nated for the Arthur El- for a TV series. I can only lis Best First Mystery hope they get the production Award by the Crime values, and the terrific writ- narrator of the main foursome kindness Writers of Canada. It ing and acting chops, of the is Lauren, the ghost of Lizzy’s was re-published by Cardinal series, based on the mother. In Bateman’s hands, versus two Harbour Publishing acclaimed police procedural this does not present a cred- in 2017. novels by Giles Blunt, also a ibility issue. In fact, some of Canadian. the best writing in the book serial ✫ comes from the point of view JACKIE BATEMAN OBVIOUSLY of this hovering other-worldly killers in knows her suspense writing mother, offering wisdom and formulas and sub-genres and warning, unheard in death skillfully applies cracking and often ignored in life, the Edinburgh good dialogue and just the lot of mothers to wayward right amount of Scottish dia- daughters the world over: lect, a deft hand at pacing and Beautiful things acutely observant descriptive shouldn’t be hidden away. powers. She uses four main We think the things that are precious to us will narrators to tell this story, Jackie dipping us in and out of their somehow bring us luck, Bateman heads, while ratcheting up the and it’s not true. Even the tension to nearly unbearable real necklace didn’t do me levels. Former runaway Lizzy any favours. Look at me is the main narrator, newly now. But if you want to pregnant and on a quest to live the fairy story, just this find out what happened to her once, you deserve to be in mother nearly two decades it. God knows, we all need earlier when she simply disap- to live in our minds once peared from bleak Dalbegie. in a while, as long as Not one, but two serial we’re stuck on earth. killers reveal their plans in Stick the chain in your their respective chapters and pocket, touch it once what’s worse, they have more in a while, and make than a passing acquaintance believe it’s looking with each other. Oliver is an after you. obsessive man, forever clean- Because right ing himself and his surround- now, no one else is.” ings, using bleach and scald- ✫ ing hot water. He must wear a JUST AS IN REAL LIFE, hat to conceal the damage he’s the thoughts and ac- done to his own scalp. Oliver, tions of damaged and an early computer user, has dangerous people do discovered a way to monetize not need to “make his murderous urges which sense” and Bateman led Helen to him some years shows how prevalent before. Helen began life as one vicious behaviour is, es- of the crawling wounded, quite pecially when fuelled by literally the twin given up for drugs, alcohol and morbid adoption as a baby. She has projections triggered by been wreaking her random a voice, a laugh, a brief- PHOTO vengeance on the rest of the case. Being in the wrong PICK world ever since, in a creepily place at the wrong time

convincing portrayal of the has never made sense RACHEL

27 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 profi le FICTION

In Valhalla’s Shadow known as New Iceland. by W.D. Valgardson In fact, the origins of this (D&M $32) Valhalla is no haven for heroes in novel’s protagonist can be a Canadian Gothic crime novel traced back to the days when BY Valgardson was in graduate CHERIE THEISSEN and ticks but it doesn’t seem and bad, of ambition.” endoes, mysteries and fear school in the United States N NORSE MYTHOLOGY, to have much to recommend Valgardson—repeatedly cit- but Valgardson is too good a and some of the Vietnam vets Asgard was the dwell- it to humans. Why this place ed by the late W.P. Kinsella as writer to leave it so one-sided. were returning. ing place of the gods, then? his foremost mentor—thrusts There is also a sense of com- “They didn’t call it PTSD located in another di- Well, there’s the fishing, the reader immediately into munity, sharing and compas- in those days but it was what mension, possibly the which could have been one of the middle of the action. Par- sion, people making the best they had. My grandfather Isky or a different planet. the reasons Parsons’ father sons finds the body of a fif- of their lives. called it ‘shell shock.’ As well, It was divided into at least came here in the long ago past. teen-year-old Indigenous girl “When I taught creative when I taught in Missouri, I twelve realms; Valhalla being And then there’s the fact that lying near the beach writing,” Valgard- travelled a bit with a friend one. Valhalla was the home of as an RCMP officer, Parsons near the rundown son says, “I taught who was a highway patrol- Odin and Norse heroes slain in has been here before, when home he has just students to graph man and I had the privilege of earthly battle. he came to investigate a mys- purchased. once they reached seeing the world of police from Valhalla is also the name of terious disappearance. Now Then comes the a certain point in their perspective. I think Tom a town one hour’s drive from he’s suffering from depres- meticulous weaving their narrative. I was forming over a long period Winnipeg, located just fifteen sion, post-traumatic stress of a ‘sense of place,’ used the back of of time. It wasn’t like I sat and minutes from W.D. Valgard- disorder and its subsequent with the introduc- wallpaper rolls for cogitated and said now I will son’s hometown of Gimli. The nightmares. tion of the wacky, CHERIE long narratives: make up characters like this. protagonist in Valgardson’s ✫ wild and wary in- THEISSEN chapters across the It was more like they wandered novel, Tom Parsons, who has DURING MY INTERVIEW WITH habitants of Valhalla top, horizontals for into the room. just arrived at Valhalla on the W.D. Valgardson about In where everyone knows ev- characters, theme, point of “This narrative began with northern shores of Lake Win- Valhalla’s Shadow he de- eryone else’s business but view, setting, etc. When there a man who invaded my dreams nipeg, north of Gimli, is not clared that “While I’m never nobody talks about their own, are a lot of characters, plots and who insisted on telling me a warrior. If confronted with sure about labels, I hope it’s where everyone threatens but and subplots, there is a lot to his story. He was often not crises, he mostly does nothing successful as a Gothic crime also offers advice. keep track of.” consistent, there were pieces or behaves foolishly. novel. I think it has something There’s a supporting cast A synopsis of the dispa- missing, sometimes I didn’t After his RCMP career, his worthwhile to say about a of drug dealers, pimps, prob- rate elements in In Valhalla’s listen well. And, of course, marriage and his family have number of issues: the RCMP, able murderers, chess playing Shadow will not fit easily onto other characters appeared. disintegrated, Parsons just old age and identity, PTSD, intellectual recluses with killer a wallpaper roll. There’s Par- When I wrote The Girl With wants to escape from Win- our treatment of Aboriginal dogs, unhappy housewives, sons’ PTSD, the corruption The Botticelli Face, I wrote it nipeg. Mind-numbingly cold people, the importance of the drunks, crooks, yachters, and racism in the RCMP, the every night from 3-5 a.m., one in winter and searingly hot in past, the need people have cultists and plain old thugs. privileged vs. the poor, the chapter a night. One rewrite summer, Valhalla may be the for a place to which they can The atmosphere is preg- search for lost gold, drugs, and it was done. In Valhalla’s perfect setting for mosquitoes belong; and the power, good nant with suspicion, innu- sex and two Odin groups liv- Shadows took six years.” ing near the lake, one rebel- ✫ ling against the other. Plus, ALWAYS INTERESTED IN THE EFFECTS there’s all that Nordic mysti- of isolation on people in re- cism and history of an area mote settings and frequently confronting what he says a VALHALLA IN Jungian would call his own shadow, William Dempsey Valgardson has written 15 books. Gentle Sinners (1980) won the Books in Canada Award for Best Novel of the NEW ICELAND Year. The Girl with the Bot- ticelli Face (1992) won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. In addition, Valgardson served as editor of the Icelandic pub- lication Lögberg-Heimskringla for two years and has kept an apartment in Gimli for many years, returning nearly every summer. He taught creative writing at UVic from 1974 to 2004. 978-1-77162-196-0

Cherie Theissen regularly reviews fiction from Pender Island. PHOTO

MAGNUSSON

OLÖF W.D. Valgardson JANIS

28 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 since 1990

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Mudflat Dreaming 9x11 and other poems like Waterfront Battles Bird, Nine, x, and Eleven and the Squatters Who Fought Them in 1970s Michael Turner Vancouver “Extraordinary... in Turner’s/our current state, disruption has become Jean Walton the new norm. Disruption both terrifies and excites the poet... All “Squatters, shackers, beachfront the reflections and contemplative bohemians, whatever you want rhymes add up to a holographic text to call them, they’ve been a that begs repeated reading.” neglected chapter of Vancou- — Dodie Bellamy ver’s history for too long. Now Jean Walton has rescued [them] from obscurity in her vivid and thoughtful account.” — Dan Francis

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29 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 GROW MAKE BUILD CHANGE

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30 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review FICTION

Beautiful Communions Des Kennedy As the story zips back and by Des Kennedy forth between the past and (Ronsdale Press $18.95) was featured at the Denman Island present, there is so much go- Readers and Writers ing on that you would think it BY CHERIE THIESSEN Festival, presenting would be difficult to follow. It his ‘feel good’ isn’t. Ginger had envisioned INGER WANTS TO GET novel Beautiful an exciting marriage but after back the fam- a dozen years of boredom, Ni- Communions. ily home from gel up and leaves his wife and Gthe disgraced daughter, Irene, and never church of The contacts them again—even Congregation of the Great though his wife is about to Convergence. have their second child (Peter). Ginger’s parents, Mr. and Irene is seriously damaged Mrs. Dustin Flynn, gave their by the departure of her father mansion to the sect in their because he had appeared will, with the provision that it to be so devoted to her; the couldn’t change hands until mother-daughter relationship their daughter died. suffers as a result. Why would There had been a son, Nigel do this? Well, Ginger Frank, but he was killed at the ultimately thinks she knows, end of WWII. Frank’s loss was and readers will probably devastating for both parents guess, too. but especially for Ginger, who The fatherless son, Peter, had adored her older brother. later endures an unimaginable Frank’s death was dev- tragedy. Irene’s daughter and astating for someone else as subsequent granddaughter well… also suffer reverberations of That’s just a smidgeon the abandonment. But would of Beautiful Communions, Ginger have turned out the the fourth novel by Denman way she had if Nigel had Island’s best-known gardener remained? She has become Des Kennedy. Among his ten LOVERS some kind of uberhuman, fiction and non-fiction books, & Other Shenanigans spilling over with wisdom, joy three have been nominated for of life, and causes. the Stephen Leacock Medal for The indomitable Ginger has Humour. both parents leave for mis- so much humanity and love in In keeping with his back- sionary work in Africa, sent by In Des Kennedy’s her that she hugs anyone who to-the-land philosophy, his their newly espoused church. reaches out to her and even Heart & Soil: The Revolutionary They will never return. Ginger latest novel, a some of those who don’t. It is Good of Gardens (Harbour, is advised by The Congrega- as if her brimming spirit is the 2014) was nominated for the tion some years later that they Border Collie called wellspring for the story. Annual Literature Award by died from cholera. There are good gals and the Council of Botanical and Ginger marries Nigel but Shep maintains the bad guys aplenty and environ- Horticultural Libraries. Ken- she should have known bet- mental battles, of course. How nedy walks his talk, from his ter. Well, actually she did. bemused detachment could there not be? self-built green home and Right from the start she had Observing all these hu- gardens on Denman Island to categorized him as superficial man shenanigans is an un- his involvement in protests in and posturing, but passion appropriate for most canny Border Collie, Shep, Clayoquot Sound and Strath- trumped common sense and who maintains the bemused cona Park. intuition. human affairs. detachment appropriate for ✫ ✫ most human affairs. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GINGER DES KENNEDY STARTS THIS EVER- Kennedy weaves together and her dogmatic parents widening narrative—set pri- Back in the 1950s, after sionate affair with Frank when disparate elements and plot- becomes seriously strained marily in a fictional Canadian Ginger’s brother, Frank, had the latter was in wartime lines with seeming ease for a when she falls in love with small-town—when Ginger is a been dead five years, Ginger London on leave. In fact, the fun-to-read story. Ultimately, her charismatic professor, feisty and very active woman was taking a class from Nigel professor was the last person we learn who gets the family Nigel Childes, at a time when in her eighties. She is being when he recognized likenesses that Frank wrote to, just days mansion. professors taking up with interviewed by young newspa- between Ginger and Frank— before he was killed, asking What’s not to love? This is a students was only just veer- per reporter, Chrissie Crosby, whereupon Nigel realizes Gin- Nigel to let his family and es- delightfully wise and mirthful ing towards being scandalous. a former runaway described ger is his dead lover’s sister. pecially his sister Ginger know read. 978-1-55380-532-8 Ginger’s amorous adven- as split-second smart and Yes, you read that cor- if anything happened to him in ture precipitates the unusual completely pissed off at just rectly. the war, but the professor had Cherie Thiessen reviews will. Shortly after writing it up, about everything. Nigel had a brief but pas- not done that. fiction from Pender Island. CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Seven prize categories for fiction, poetry, children’s, illustrated, non- 35th annual April 2019 fiction, regional, and booksellers’ choice. Submission deadline is December 1, 2018.

For submission details visit www.bcbookprizes.ca

31 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review CRIME FICTION

Seaweed under Fire ✫ by Stanley Evans Detective Sergeant NOT ALL LOCALES EXIST AS STANLEY (Ekstasis Editions $25.95) Evans describes them, but he Silas Seaweed does try to remember to take confronts the crooked advantage of attractive local BY PHYLLIS REEVE SEAWEED’S geography; there are a few in his quest for HIKER AND HIS DOG too many views of the Salish find a corpse NONCHALANT TOUGH LOVE clues to murder Sea, distant mountains and in Beacon Hill twinkling lights. Like most Park. Two cops detectives of his ilk, he likes find another jazz but unfortunately when Acorpse in an Italian restau- he tries to include a local star rant. Before long our provin- he gets her name wrong, so cial capital is littered with “the piano lady was playing more dead bodies than Mid- Dianne Krall songs,” instead somer on the eve of Beltane. of Diana. Our hero and narrator De- Sometimes style gets the tective Sergeant Silas Seaweed better of him and he overdoes of the Victoria Police Depart- what, used once, might be an ment Crime Scene Investiga- effective sentence structure. tion Unit arrives, finds clues, For instance, I found “My more bodies, and several mentors were and still are suspects. shamans and hereditary chief- Once again—for the sev- tains”, “Her town home was enth time—in Stanley Evans’ and still is a large red-brick Seaweed Under Fire, he Queen Anne-style house,” confronts crooked lawyers, and “Native Indians were and crooked policemen, crooked sometimes still are hunter- insurance salesmen, crooked gatherers.” And yes, he did restaurateurs, crooked green and still does use both “First grocers moonlighting as mon- Nations” and “Indian.” eylenders, even a crooked Beacon Hill Park, scene of the fi rst murder in Seaweed Under Fire. Some clichés just keep on First Nations guy—and mur- giving. I won’t be giving away derers. procedural formula, but the between them. who are First Nations. But this any plot secrets by quoting The detective is Indig- deadpan narrative learned This is a man who rescues is not the real world. the conclusion of the novel: enous—but the author is not. from Spade and Marlow per- a large cedar log from the sea His schooling was at Victo- “I drove to Clover Point and British-born, Stanley Evans mits Detective Sergeant Sea- and builds a dugout canoe. ria’s prestigious St. Michael’s parked in the turnaround. has lived in Canada most of weed to treat everyone with He is a shape-shifter, chang- on a scholarship. Perhaps this Looked out to sea and thought his life, had several careers, the same nonchalant tough ing effortlessly from someone equips him to confront two about Felicity Exeter. After and written other books and love—be they Coast Salish, who lives in a container to teenage girls in private-school a while I went to her house. plays prior to inventing Silas Italian, Chinese, Filipino, or someone who goes for a drink uniforms smoking crack. The She opened the door and said Seaweed in 2005. Searching Caucasian. Silas’s heritage is at the Laurel Point Hotel and quintessential hard-boiled cop hello. She was wearing a tur- the web I could not find any always present, giving him a makes love to a beautiful bil- with a heart-of-gold, Silas is a ban to cover bandages around accusations of cultural ap- perspective useful in his deal- lionairess. do-gooder, welcoming regular her head. That turban looked propriation directed at Evans. ing with others on the fringe. A wolf and a racoon assist walk-in clients at his office in good on her.” 9781771711920 His work is sold and promoted Incidents involving tradition him in his sleuthing. the container. He does not like by Strong Nations Books and spirituality stop short of His boss, Inspector Bernie pimps, drug dealers, or men Phyllis Parham Reeve recently whose mandate promises to sentimentality. Tapp, regards Silas as the who beat up women. wrote the foreword to Char- bring Indigenous books into Silas Seaweed has two force’s “Indian specialist.” In He does like women—even lotte Cameron’s play, October our lives. residences: a container on the real world he would be less colleagues, victims, and mur- Ferries to Gabriola. She is “Sensitive” is an odd word the waterfront and a shack special; the Victoria Police De- derers. And women—even co-founder of the bookstore to apply to writing so blatantly on the reserve, with a small partment has both currently colleagues, victims, and mur- at Page’s Resort & Marina on based on the Whodunit police outboard boat to take him serving and retired members derers—like him. Gabriola Island.

From Two Strand to twins ures with folded arms and blank FICTIONROUND-UP faces that have inspired painters SET IN WEST VANCOUVER, KEITH MAILLARD’S such as Picasso and Modigliani. 14th novel Twin Studies (Freehand During a research trip to Greece, $24.95) follows a twin researcher at yearns to return to his family’s home described this craziness, the word Gilmore tramped around remote UBC named Dr. Erica Bauer who on Crete. Romania is controlled by kouzoulada, something unexplain- hillsides on the Cyclades looking for meets a set of pre-teen twins, raised the Communist Party, so he travels able. And it was unexplainable to looted prehistoric cemeteries where by a single mom, who are evidently on foot through the mountains. the rest of Hellas but something that figurines were buried with the dead. fraternal, but who urgently insist When Pericles finally reaches meant a lot to the Cretans.” 9780986786624 Greece, he is disillusioned to discover 978-1-77171-283-5 they are identical. It’s an examina- Recently published: tion of gender and identity, class and his dreamed-of paradise is controlled Cyclades in the money, and the complicated bonds by a dictatorship. My Name is Knife between twins and siblings, lovers Pericles then makes his way to 20th century (Penguin Random House $26) and friends. Crete where everyone is suspicious THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE MAKING AND by Alix Hawley Maillard was far ahead of his time of strangers and there is a shocking described as a hybrid novel, John Hider/Seeker (Anvil $20) when he published his first novel revelation about his Gilmore’s self-pub- by Jen Currin about gender fluidity, Two Strand grandfather. lished The Broken Angela of the Stones River (1982), which also explored the Undeterred, Peri- Notebooks (Ellipse (Thistledown $19.95) nuances and complications of non- cles must re-orient Editions $28.50) by Amanda Hale conventional sexual identity. his youthful idealism. merges fact and fic- Our Animal Hearts 978-1-988298-31-3 “There was something tion, prose and po- (Penguin Random House $24.95) Pericles in the in the island Pericles etry, interviews and by Dana Tomlinson had felt from the first readings that include The Ghost Keeper 20th century time he stepped onto Robert Bringhurst’s (Patrick Crean Editions $22.99) AT A TIME WHEN MILLIONS ARE CROSSING its soil, something derivations from the by Natalie Morrill borders to find a better life, the like a little craziness, works of Haida story- Jonny Appleseed prolific Cretan-Canadian poet and something different tellers.The protagonist (Arsenal Pulp $17.95) PHOTO translator Manolis (Emmanuel Aligi- from the rest of Hellas. searches for insights by Joshua Whitehead

zakis) of White Rock has donned his He couldn’t name it, WOLAK into the prehistoric White (Talon $19.95)

fiction cap for The Quest (Ekstasis but one could easily be BILL marble carvings by Deni Ellis Bechard $25.95), a story set in the 1970s of a afraid of it. There was Manolis, poet, known as the Cycladic The Light a Body Radiates boy named Pericles in Romania who a Cretan word that author, publisher figurines–female fig- (Caitlin $24) by Ethel Whitty

32 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review THEATRE

The Cure for Death by She is the original fish on the Lightning: a play adapted by lake and the mother of all Daryl Cloran from the novel by Gail Anderson-Dargatz sturgeon. Her brother, grief Storytelling on stage as stricken at losing his sister, (Talonbooks $18.95) • is transformed by their father Talker’s Town and into “an owl-like bird that can The Girl Who Swam Forever: Two Plays by Nelson Gray a cure for social ills only be seen by the Katzie de- and Marie Clements scendants.” Only humans can (Talonbooks $18.95) take a sturgeon’s life, and only Three coming-of-age dramas, set in rural areas of after they seek the power to do so from the brother. BY GINNY RATSOY Interior B.C., depict cross-cultural interactions Clements interweaves this HE CURE FOR DEATH in the mid-20th century. One is based on the first story with a version of the by Lightning is more contemporary one in an adaptation by novel by Gail Anderson-Dargatz, one of 60 authors Talker’s Town. The setting is Daryl Cloran of at the Whistler Writers Festival, Oct. 11-14. both above (“reality”) and be- Gail Anderson- low (“dream”) water, and both TDargatz’s 1996 novel of the the 1960s and the beginning same name which port of Filthy Billy Swam Forever, Nelson Gray the Catholic school and the of creation. The Old One acts became a bestseller and a belief in the makes a similar statement, town. Piecing together the past as a narrator/chorus/guide and award-winner curing power of sto- but with an important dif- events, Talker recalls report- to the reader, introducing the in Canada and the rytelling, Beth takes ference: he sees his work as ing to police that he had heard story by revealing the play’s U.K. Adhering to matters into her a settler, and that of Marie her wailing inside the house of structure, gradually telling the book’s plot, the own hands… The Clements, who is Métis, as Leroux (a slightly older tough Old Pierre’s story, and even- action begins with play ends with the together “enacting … a cross- guy) but receiving no follow tually being revealed as the John, Mother (never quartet travelling to cultural dialogue.” up report. He also recalls the original sturgeon. named) and fifteen- GINNY nearby Blood Road, Gray acknowledges that, girl’s brother, Raymond-Bob, In the 1960s story, Forever, a pregnant and orphaned year-old Beth Weeks RATSOY which is blanketed even after he consulted writ- seeking revenge for her disap- tenting on the Ad- with turtles that ten accounts by Katzie elders pearance. More memories and residential school student, has ams Plateau, defending them- Billy and Beth help up the and developed face-to-face revelations ensue. the spirits of her grandmother selves and their sheep from embankment where they will relationships with several In a powerful, disturbing and the Old One to guide her. a grizzly bear. John emerges lay their eggs. Action replaces members of the Katzie nation, denouement, Talker, like Beth from the bush in his attempt paralysis; cooperation with his attempts to create a female in Cloran’s play, achieves to kill it, wild-eyed and forever nature replaces fear of it. Katzie character for Talker’s adulthood by taking action changed. The dark tone of The Cure Town were futile. After con- —action that is disturbing, “The year I turned fifteen,” sulting with Clements, he narrates Beth, “the year the saw the solution: to commis- world fell apart and began to come together again…” The family returns to their farmhouse in a Turtle Val- ley plagued with fire, sui- cide, inexplicable deaths, and seemingly possessed animals and humans. John becomes increasingly deranged, com- bative, and tyrannical, and repeatedly subjects Beth to physical and sexual abuse. When he takes a shotgun to a The Cure for Death neighbour whom he blames for by Lightning his woes, he is apprehended by was produced by the authorities and temporar- Western Canada ily removed from the commu- Theatre at the PHOTO nity. Mother barely manages to Sagebrush Theatre keep the place together, coping CLORAN

in Kamloops, 2017. through denial, communing with her dead mother, and DARYL Forever escapes from the resi- keeping distant from Beth. for Death by Lightning is tem- dential school, revealing her Beth’s complicated rela- pered by the occasionally ambiguous, and complete situation through dialogue tionships with the two Indig- humorous and touching rela- with spirits and sacrifices. with her brother Ray (Brother enous hired hands, cousins tionships between Beth and sion her to write a play about Although this ending is a Big Eyes) and with the white Dennis and Filthy Billy, and her peers. There is also magic the same events as those in purging and a personal clean- boy, Jim, the baby’s father. their Indigenous /settler cous- realism conveyed by animal Talker’s Town. ing for Talker, it is also, ulti- More memories and revela- in Nora add to the tumult of puppets that layers a spiri- Loosely based on Gray’s mately, a scathing indictment tions ensue… her initiation into adulthood. tual element onto the realist experiences in the 1960s as a of the ethos of the town and, The richness and breadth All three have been damaged template. fifteen-year-old in a rough Fra- by extension, of the project of of The Girl Who Swam Forever by intergenerational trauma. In a production note, play- ser Valley mill town, “where colonialism. is typical of Clements’ style. In Dennis, who copes by drink- wright Cloran credits the pup- the men all smelled like saw- As is patent in both the works such as The Unnatural ing, and Nora, who, as the de- pets with creating the “magic dust and the women washed preface and the play itself, and Accidental Women (2000) scendant of residential school of the show.” Having seen the it out,” Talker’s Town is a the actual events on which and The Edward Curtis Proj- survivors and “not a real play (under Cloran’s direction) memory play in part about the Talker’s Town are based are ect (2010), for example, she Indian anyway,” retreat from by Western Canada Theatre in unreliability of memory—and difficult for Gray to both recall masterfully conjoins different society. They provide potential Kamloops in 2017, I can attest a great deal about the vicious- and to process into a fiction worlds, erasing barriers of companionship and romantic that the vivid visual descrip- ness of racism and the lasting that, in turn, is not pleasant time and place and producing partnerships for Beth. tions transfer successfully to repercussions of colonialism. for the reader to process. How- works that are at once strong They eventually elect to the stage. The narrator-talker recounts ever, confronting the horrors condemnations of the project escape to the city. Filthy Billy, Cloran’s preface identifies being on the fringes of a tough of racism is a necessary step of colonization and jaw-drop- who displays symptoms of the core of the play: “the re- group of boys in the supersti- to eradicating racism. pingly beautiful affirmations Tourette Syndrome, is the lationship between Canada’s tious town. He is not fully ac- ✫ of the resilience of Indigenous one shining light in Beth’s settlers and Indigenous people cepted because he was a talker MARIE CLEMENTS TAKES ORAL cultures. The Cure for Death: 9781772012057; life. He is steadfastly loyal to and our shared connection to rather than a doer. history from Katzie elder Old Talker’s Town/The Girl Who Swam: her, helps her make sense of the land—all seen from the The play’s point of attack Pierre as her starting point in 9781772012019 things through storytelling, unique perspective of a fifteen- occurs when a pregnant Indig- The Girl Who Swam Forever. and is a counterbalance to her year-old girl.” enous teen, Roberta-Bob, with The daughter in the first hu- Ginny Ratsoy is an associate otherwise troubling home life. ✫ whom Talker had a poignant man family to live on Pitt professor of English at Thomp- More revelations ensue. IN HIS INTRODUCTION TO TALKER’S Platonic night-time encounter Lake swims on the lake and is son Rivers University special- Empowered by the sup- Town and The Girl Who at the wharf, disappears from transformed into a sturgeon. izing in Canadian literature.

33 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review POETRY NORTHERN Haiku evolutions HAIKU SPECIALIST AND AUTHOR OF FIVE collections of poetry, as well as five B.C. WITHOUT chapbooks of haiku poetry, Terry Ann Carter has edited deep breath: THE SMOKE a book of haiku evolutions (Leaf Press $12) with contributions from THE FEDERATION OF BC WRITERS RINCE GEORGE POET Al Rempel journeys haiku poets from around the world. through the grieving pro- Carter, president of Haiku Canada, cess, exploring death and has participated in the Basho Festival WHY JOIN? loss in Undiscovered in Japan. PCountry: New Poems (Mother Tongue As a community fellow at the $19.95). His poems unfold through the Centre for Study of Religion and So- PROMOTE YOUR BOOK IN OUR MEMBER CATALOGUE geographies and seasons of northern ciety in Victoria, Carter is examining Zen Buddhist influences on Eng- BE PART OF A WRITING COMMUNITY 800 STRONG B.C. finding hope in an afternoon spent with his daughter or contemplating lish language haiku. 978-1-988811-00-0 WORDWORKS MAGAZINE IN YOUR MAILBOX existence while viewing clouds in ACCESS PAID WRITING OPPORTUNITIES spring, leaves in fall, or moonlight on The future of poetry THE WORLD OF CANADIAN POETRY SINCE 2000 GREAT NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES a country road. Rempel’s poetry was included in the is examined in What the Poets Are DISCOUNTS TO FBCW EVENTS anthology The Best Canadian Poetry Doing (Nightwood Editions $22.95). ...AND MUCH MORE! in English and he was shortlisted for The book brings together millennial Arc’s Poem of the Year Award in 2015. and Generation X poets in conversa- 978-1-896949-69-7 tion with a focus on the role of poetry LEARN MORE: and poets in the twenty- Prairies to west coast first century. What the Poets are Doing asks FORMERLY A MUSEUM CURATOR IN Bar- the questions, what’s BCWRITERS.CA/WHYJOIN bados, Wendy Donawa examines changed, what’s en- the physical landscapes from her dured and what’s prairie roots to her current West next in Canadian po- Coast lifestyle in her first collec- etry? tion of poetry, Thin Air of the The volume is edited WATCH FOR OUR MEMBERSHIP DRIVE: Knowable (Brick $20). by Rob Taylor, who Donawa was a finalist teaches creative JOIN FOR 25% OFF OCTOBER 14-28 in The Malahat Review’s writing at the Open Season competition University of the and a runner-up for the Fraser Valley. Cedric Literary Awards. Al Rempel 978-0-88971-343-7 978-1-77131-460-26

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ KARYOTAKIS- SHADES AND POLYDOURI: COLORS THE TRAGIC THE ORMSBY REVIEW LOVE STORY Poetry by A rebirth for serious book reviews Ion Deaconescu. translated by Poetry translated by Oliver Fraggieri & Manolis Aligizakis Manolis Aligizakis After two years as a pilot project in the wil- derness, publishing 350 in-depth reviews $20 $20 and essays, The Ormsby Review is off ‘n’ running under editor Richard Mackie. We ISBN: 9781926763453 ISBN: 9780926763491 hope to erect a stand-alone site for Ormsby $48 materials soon. Meanwhile, thanks to all our editorial contributors and financial supporters. As of September, the latter include creativeBC, Yosef Wosk, Simon Fraser University (Grad- uate Liberal Studies), Web Express Printing and B.C. Historical Federation.

—Alan Twigg, PUBLISHER

EROTOKRITOS CHTHONIAN BODIES [FOR COLLECTORS OF RARE BOOKS] Poems by Manolis. Paintings by Ken Kirkby ISBN: 9781926763408 Poetry by Vitsentzos Kornaros. Transcribed by Manolis ISBN: 9781926763361 WRITE THE WAY OTHERS THANK Libros Libertad PRAY

CANADA'S TRULY Selected poems by INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER István Turczi YOU [email protected] $20 1-604-838-8796 “We sailed on, taking fresh trouble for granted.” libroslibertad.com ISBN: 9781926763477 — CAPTAIN BODEGA Y QUADRA

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

34 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 review KIDLIT We Sang You Home Clearly at Night: A Michif Al- text by Richard Van Camp; phabet (Lii Yiiboo Nayaapiwak art by Julie Flett (Orca $6.95) • lii Swer: L’alfabet di Michif) Little You (Simply Read, 2010). Working text by Richard Van Camp; with two linguists and a Michif art by Julie Flett (Orca $6.95) speaker, Flett also spent time • My Heart Fills with Happiness talking with her Metis relatives text by Monique Gray Smith; and visualizing her family’s art by Julie Flett (Orca $6.95) experiences to develop the book’s illustrations. “I wasn’t looking at ob- BY BEVERLY CRAMP jects, rather, it was experi- RCA BOOK PUBLISH- ences—being and doing—that ers now offers I worked with. Instead of ‘A dual-language is for Apple,’ I used activities picture books like picking berries or actions for pre-school- like ‘fly up, fly away’ that is Oers; three of which are illus- ohpaho in Michif. It was such trated by multi-award winner an organic process for me and Julie Flett. Previously pub- worked really well.” lished in English, We Sang By the time of the re-re- You Home and Little You, lease of her Orca books into both with text by Richard Van dual English and Plains Cree, Camp—a Tlicho Dene from Flett’s intuitive approach to the NWT, and My Heart Fills picture book illustration was with Happiness, with text well-developed. “I’m such a by Monique Gray Smith—of visual person that as soon as Cree, Lakota and Scottish I read the story for the first ancestry, are now available in time, I start visualizing it. I bilingual, Plains Cree versions begin by doing spontaneous translated by Mary Cardinal sketches, immediately get- Collins. ting the images down within Positive messages of pa- hours. The labour comes later rental love can be a healing in developing the sketches, balm for Indigenous peoples though I usually stick close to still struggling after genera- the original sketches.” tions of familial destruction And in keeping with her wrought by generations of We Sang You Home illustration by Julie Flett instincts to take inspiration residential school systems from her family experiences, that separated First Nation grandparents were multilin- When her Swampy Cree- change but it left its mark on images in the Orca books often families. And those messages gual (Michif, Swampy Cree, as speaking grandfather was in Flett. “I was really impacted reflect Flett’s personal expe- are more effective when they well as English and French). the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and began to wonder what riences and those of people are in traditional languages. “They didn’t teach their lan- Flett asked him on one of their I could do for my children’s close to her. An image of two Little You is a paean to a guages to their children for last phone conversations to generation and my nieces parents lying in bed with their newborn baby, much adored complex reasons that many say a few words in his first to re-connect with our lan- newborn baby in We Sang by his mother and father. indigenous families face,” language. “It was almost as if guages.” You Home came from times Each double page spread says Flett. he was waiting for me to ask,” An opportunity came when that Flett spent cuddling in includes one side for text and she says. “He spoke it to me Flett was asked to do a book bed with her baby son. And the other for Flett’s elegant, very well.” project of her choice. She the last picture in My Heart contemporary illustrations. Her grandfather died opted to write and illustrate Fills with Happiness of a fa- The book ends with: “You not long after that ex- an alphabet book, Owls See ther carrying his daughter on are the birth/of everything his shoulders as he shows new/you are perfect/you her a Narwhal, was conjured are you!” We Sang You by stories of her father, who Home is another love spent time in his later teens story from parents to in Churchill, Manitoba where a young child. he would have witnessed the Narrated from northern tusked whales. a child’s point of After working on dual lan- view, My Heart Julie guage books, Flett is learn- Fills with Happiness ing to speak her traditional describes looking languages. “I’m a beginner into the face of a speaker,” she quickly admits. loved one, smell- But clearly, Flett is dedicated ing bannock to learning more about her baking in the grandparents’ languages and oven, singing, feel- helping children do the same. ing the sun warm your Flett We Sang: 978-1-4598-2014-2 A grandfather’s Little You: 978-1-4598-2006-7 face, walking barefoot on the My Heart Fills:978-1-4598-2018-0 grass, holding the hand of a final words spur Cree loved one, listening to stories, Beverly Cramp is associate and drumming. The final text alphabet project. editor of BC BookWorld. is a call to action—“What fills YOUR heart with happi- ness?” ✫ I’m such a visual person that as JULIE FLETT DID NOT grow up speaking soon as I read the story for the her traditional languages al- first time, I start visualizing it. though her I begin by doing spontaneous PHOTO sketches, immediately getting MOLYNEAUX the images down within hours.” COURTNEY ‘‘ 35 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 “This uplifting tome offers OBITS well-founded hope...” “A roadmap to liberation from the greedy banksters’ death grip on our Ryan Correy environment and societies.” in 2008, when he took part in Race Across Joyce Nelson America. Bypassing Dystopia: +RSHÀOOHGFKDOOHQJHVWR FRUSRUDWHUXOH

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varieties Yoka CCLAIMED ENDURANCE CYCLIST AND ria. As a marine biologist, he worked in Rocky Mountain Books author Prince Rupert, also writing for fisheries is reading & ARyan Correy died of cancer and aquaculture publications. recommends: on April 28, 2018 at his home. As an In 1991 he became the editor of Speaking indefatigable promoter of cycling and Westcoast Mariner magazine and soon Our Truth outdoor adventure, he founded Bike- relocated to Courtenay, literally moving pack Canada and recently revised his his house there via tug and barge. In by Monique 2015 RMB memoir A Purpose Ridden, 2000 he was the founding editor of Mar- Gray Smith to include his marriage and updates on iner Life. In 2003 he founded Western (Orca Books). his extensive career as a long-distance Mariner, Canada’s largest commercial competitor throughout the Americas. marine magazine which he continued Due this summer, his posthumous to edit until his death. Bikepacking in the Canadian Rock- Morris wrote the book Coasters: the ies (RMB $25) will share his passion Uchuck III, Lady Rose, Francis Barclay for some of his favourite backcountry and Tyee Princess (Horsdal & Schu- cycling trails. It outlines ten ambi- bart, 1993), an illustrated tribute to tious, multi-day routes complete with four B.C. vessels and crews that were directional cues, detailed maps and a continuing the delivery of passengers “Bikepacking 101” section for newbies. and freight to inlet settlements. 9781771602372 Morris also co-wrote historical articles for compilations like The Greater Vancouver Book and Raincoast #5 - 1046 Mason St. Victoria, B.C. V8T 1A3 Rob Morris Chronicles 22. (just off Cook Street) 1-250-384-0905 According to Rob Morris’ publisher at Western Mariner, David Rahn, “He • Hand sorted for premium quality • Full selection of exotic teas 1949-2018 leaves an unparalleled legacy that in- • B.C. honey and Belgian chocolates • Mail orders welcome Premium Quality at Affordable Prices ARINE JOURNALIST AND EDITOR cludes thousands of articles on every Rob Morris was born and aspect of west coast maritime life: the www.yokascoffee.com Mraised in St. Catharines, On- history, the vessels, the mariners and tario. He moved to British Columbia in fishermen and the coastal communities 1974 to attend the University of Victo- where they live.” Call for Submissions to the 36th Annual BCHF Historical Writing Competition The BC Lieutenant-Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing may be awarded to the author whose book makes the most significant contribution to the historical literature of British Columbia.

HISTORIC BIA AL M F U E L D O E C R A H T Eligibility S I I Top prize: $2,500 O T I N

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T T I E N R A W Second prize: $1,500 N ISTOL T A H RIC I A A For historical writing of non-fiction G B L O M IC FE V U R D E L O RN O T E O C IS R R'S R H A MEDHAL FO T S I I O T N Third prize: $500 I books published in 2018 by authors of R

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T T I E N R A W N British Columbia history. T L Community History Award: $500 G A O C V I E R R TO NO IS R'S H MEDAL FOR

Winners announced at our annual conference in 2019. See our website for entry details.

British Columbia Historical Federation

36 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 A is for Albion FORGET FORTUNE COOKIES. AFTER 34 YEARS in business, Julie Emerson has in- stalled a hand-cranked Haiku Gumball Machine at Albion Books (523 Rich- ards) in Vancouver to provide book- store patrons with a free, randomly selected haiku from among works provided by forty B.C. poets, as well as five classic Japanese poets. The ceremonial first crank was performed by poet Jacquie Pearce who read aloud one of her own haiku, unraveled from an acorn capsule.

B is for Butler THE SECOND NOVEL IN a projected series by biologist and for- ester Dave Butler of Cranbrook, No Place for Wolver- ines: A Jenny Will- son Mystery (Dun- Dave Butler durn $14.99) follows National Park War- den Jenny Willson as she investigates the death of a wolverine researcher in a mysterious fire. In the process, Willson forms an uneasy alliance with an RCMP corporal and an Idaho-based investiga- tive journalist. She’s quickly drawn into a web of political, environmental and criminal intrigue that threatens to tear apart a small British Columbia town, pitting neighbour against neighbour. 978-1-45973-983-3

C is for Coleman ANNE COLEMAN’S I’LL TELL YOU A SECRET: A Memory of Seven Summers (M&S, 2004) previously revealed her intimate friendship with revered Canadian nov- elist Hugh MacLennan, almost thirty Multi-media artist years her senior, during the 1950s, and author, Julie mostly during summers in the pictur- Emerson installed esque resort village of North Hatley, The Haiku Gumball Quebec. Coleman has now published a follow-up memoir called Inland Machine at Albion Navigation by the Stars (BPS Books Books in Vancouver. $25.95) that covers eight decades of her life. It is again set in North Hatley (and also involves the early lives of writers WHO’S Canadians could suggest worthy can- BRITISH•COLUMBIA such as Michael Ondaatje and Marga- didates. That led to rights activist Viola ret Atwood). Coleman has previously Desmond being chosen to appear on won the Edna Staebler Award for Cre- the ten-dollar bill. This year, as Gov- ative Non-fiction and was shortlisted ernor General of Canada, Julie Payette for the Governor General’s Award for presented a Meritorious Service Medal (M.S.M) to Forster in Victoria. In 2016, Non-fiction. 978-1-77236-045-5 Forster also received the Governor Gen- eral’s History Award for Popular Media, WHO known as The Pierre Berton Award. E is for Egypt Fis for Forster As one of the great empires of the an- WHEN SHE WAS MAINLY KNOWN AS AN G is for Gaston cient world, Egypt pulls at the imagi- astronaut, Julie Payette wrote the BILL GASTON’S MEMOIR JUST LET ME LOOK nation with its famous pyramids and foreword to Merna Forster’s second at You: On Fatherhood (Penguin pharaohs. Its contemporary state is not book, 100 More Canadian Heroines: Random House $24.95) delves into so glorious given the country’s socio- Famous and Forgotten Faces (Dun- the messy relationship that can exist political troubles, especially after the durn, 2011). Forster later launched a between father and son when it in- failure of the “Arab Spring.” campaign to include images of notable volves alcohol, fishing, rebellion, and One of North America’s top schol- Canadian women on our banknotes all the judgements given and all the ars on Egypt and the Middle East, with a petition and website where words not said. Gaston also unravels Dr. Robert Springborg argues his father’s relationship with in his latest book Egypt (Polity his father, which involved heavy Press $22.95) that the country drinking and family secrets taken is in a downward spiral of poor to the grave. governance. Now a Vancouver Bill Gaston is the au- Anne Coleman, in the early days resident, Springborg writes that thor of seven novels and six Egypt’s accumulated failures short story collections, as under military rule, particularly well as poetry and drama. since a 2013 coup, have become 2018 He will be appearing at the OSGG

is for Drown so grave that the nation-state is © Vancouver Writers Fes- D ROD DROWN AND CO-AUTHOR KEN MCINTOSH at risk of collapsing. tival (October 15-21). HALL have spent six years investigating Springborg is married to Cai- He lives and teaches in Victoria.

Metro Vancouver’s 1960s drug un- ro-born Anne-Marie Drosso RIDEAU 9780735234062 / derworld for No Dog Barked: Who whose book, Hookah Nights: Killed the MacLauchlans? (Archives Tales from Cairo (Darf $12.95), Merna Forster wearing her CARBONNEAU New West $30), a true story about the is a collection of 14 short stories Meritorious Service Medal unsolved murders of Dr. Robert Henry of men and women in present- (M.S.M) from Governor Gen- VINCENT MacLauchlan and his wife Margaret day Egypt. Egypt: 978-1-509-52049-7 eral Julie Payette in Victoria.

Ann in 1966. 978-1-7750952-1-7 Hookah: 978-1850773146 MCPL

37 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 WHO’SWHO

Jis for Jago FOLLOWING WORLD WAR II, RETURNING veterans such as Al Neil pioneered the formation of not-for-profit jazz clubs in several Canadian cities, most notably The Cellar on Watson Street in Vancouver. Touring jazz heavyweights mingled with up-and-comers in the 1950s and 1960s, giving rise to a pan- Ann Hansen: “I found that my experi- Canadian jazz culture as outlined in ences did not always conform to po- Marian Jago’s Live at the Cellar (UBC litically correct stereotypes of prison- Now Press $29.95). 9780774837699 ers, guards, wardens, or even myself.” available on BC Ferries K is for Kim H is for Hansen EVEN PLATONIC RELA- ANN HANSEN WAS ARRESTED IN 1983 WITH tionships can end the four other members of the radical in heartbreak. Mi- anarchist group dubbed by the media chelle Kim’s debut, as the Squamish Five. The bonds and middle-grade youth experiences Hansen shared with other novel, Running imprisoned women during her many Through Sprin- years of incarceration have prompted klers (Atheneum her to write a firsthand account of Michelle Kim $22.99) details a the brutal effects of imprisonment on friendship between women’s lives. The heartbreaking and two girls—one half-Korean and the engaging stories in Taking the Rap: other half-Japanese—who are sepa- FAT CATS by GEORGE MERCER Women Doing Time for Society’s rated when one attends high school a Crimes (Between the Lines $29.95) year earlier. Kim previously worked for Book Four in the Dyed In The Green make her case for prison abolition. the BBC but now lives in Vancouver. fiction series about our national parks. 9781771133555 9781481495288 ISBN: 9780987975461 • $19.99 I is for India L is for Lin MEENAL SHRIVASTAVA OF SIDNEY HAS JULIA LIN’S BIOGRAPHY, SHADOWS OF THE www.georgemercer.com written a creative non-fiction history Crimson Sun: One Man’s Life in Man- of the female foot soldiers of Gandhi’s churia, Taiwan, and North America Available at independent and Indigo bookstores across Canada. national movement, Amma’s Daugh- (Mawenzie House $24.95), outlines Also available as an ebook from Amazon and Kobo. ters (UBC Press/Athabasca University the little-known histories of Manchu- Press $29.95), using her grandmother kuo and Taiwan- Amma’s 1962 autobiography as a ese immigration foundation. to North America.
          Shrivastava recalls the courage of She describes how Amma, at the age of twelve, as she fourteen-year-old joins the nationalist movement and is Akihisa Takaya- arrested for making seditious speeches. ma escaped with Despite serving many jail sentences, his family to Tai- Amma never wavers from her devotion Julia Lin wan after the Rus- to Gandhi’s teachings and her dream sian invasion of the of equality for women who faced deeply Japanese puppet state of Manchuria patriarchal rules and attitudes. (Manchukuo) in 1945. To withstand Amma’s Daughters documents an the brutal Chinese dictatorship of important part of India’s history. Born the Kuomintang, Takayama reinvents in Jaipur, Shrivastava is an alumna himself in the 1960s as a physician of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), named Charles Yang. First escaping to New Delhi. She is now coordinator of the U.S., Yang then takes his family to Political Economy and Global Studies Vancouver where they become the first at Athabasca University. 9781771991957 Taiwanese Canadians. 978-1-988449-17-3

          

     




 

 
 

 





 

 

 
 

  



 
  

 
  
 




                            



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38 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 BRITISHCOLUMBIA

mainly mining communities nestled in M is for MacLeod the valleys of the Arrow, Slocan, and Kootenay Lakes. Many of those com- FOR HIS PREVIOUS BOOK ON POVERTY IN B.C., munities are now ghost towns and it’s legislative reporter Andrew MacLeod hard to imagine the hub of economic received the George Ryga Award for and social activity they once were. In Social Awareness. In All Together her book, published posthumously, Healthy, A Canadian Wellness Revo- Children of the Kootenays: Memories lution (D&M $22.95), he examines of Mining Towns (Heritage $22.95), inequities within Canada and draws Stainton shows what a great place it on international comparisons to assess was to grow up with wilderness and why Canada’s high spending on health PHOTO wild animals at her doorstep; and how care has failed to achieve better results. the tight-knit friendships formed were 978-1-77162-188-5 ANDREWS enough to overcome struggles during the 1930s. 978-1-77203-185-0 AUSTIN Nis for Nesling Car ownership is rare in North Korea. Commuters (above) on a creaky but affordable trollybus in Pyongyang (Red Star Utopia: Inside North Korea). JOHN NESLING’S FOURTH BOOK, THE LONG is for Tater Cold War and Beyond: a Bystander’s T ative blurb on the back of the book: IN HER FIRST COLLECTION OF POEMS, Perception (Island Blueprint) is about “Your friend asks you to help her land This Will Be Good (BookThug $18), the phenomenon of the Cold War from the perfect boyfriend. You: A. Tell her Mallory Tater writes about her femi- 1945 to 1991. Nesling discovers that to go away—you’re reading. B. Agree to nism and struggles with an eating ‘history does not quite repeat itself, create a quiz (even though you think it’s disorder. She also critically observes but it rhymes’ as Mark Twain so aptly a bad idea). C. Withhold the surprising the suburbs of the Lower Mainland stated. Chapter 9 attempts to speak on results when a boy you like comes out and nearby American lands, from Delta the problem of evil and the scapegoat ahead. D. Try to patch things up after to Point Roberts, painting disturb- principle with which we avoid it. you both say things you regret.” ing images of modern suburban life. 978-0-9937401-0-7 9781459813960 She describes the latter as “a bruised thumb of American soil” and people in Ois for Ochani the former, “where Baptist women get regular perms, where palm trees rest in SILENCE IS THE PRACTICE GROUND FOR traffic islands, and a Walmart will soon finding inner peace. Honesty without Composting toilets do not involve sprout from the earth.” 978-1-77166-394-6 courage is a lost virtue. Vipassana water, septic tanks or sewer systems Shazia meditator Amar Ochani has learned Installation, and Use (New Society Hafiz from his renowned Vipassana teacher, Ramji $39.99). is for Utopia the late S. N. Goenka, for his debut U Gord Baird is the Water Commis- Austin Andrews’ photographs from book, Inner Explorations of a Seeker sioner for the Victoria Capital Regional six continents have appeared in TIME, (Inspired Living $16.95) in which he ad- District’s regional Water Supply Com- Foreign Policy, Maclean’s and the on- vises, “The truth hurts, but only once; mission and Juan de Fuca Water line edition of National Geographic. As untruth keeps hurting all the time.” Distribution Commission. He was a a film director and editor, his films Ochani’s short essays and thoughts are R is for Ramji technical editor for the BC Ministry of FORMER POETRY AND REVIEWS EDITOR FOR have screened at Sundance, Tribeca, not written for readers of any particular Health’s Manual of Composting Toilets PRISM International, Irani-Indian poet and the Hot Docs festival. Writer Si- faith, religion, denomination or creed. and Greywater Standard Practices Shazia Hafiz Ramji of Vancouver will mon Cockerell has made almost two Born in Mumbai, Ochani led inspi- (2016). Ann Baird works on regional launch her debut title, Port of Being hundred trips to the absurdly named rational seminars for the Landmark climate action initiatives involving (Invisible $16.95) with appearances at Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Forum in India, and now lives in water, food, and energy resiliency in the Vancouver Writers Festival and the (DPRK) for his Beijing-based company, Coquitlam. He reminisces, “Like most climate adaptation and risk manage- Surrey International Writers’ Confer- Koryo Tours, to promote interaction be- people, I spent a substantial part of ment. 9780865718722 ence. Its content examines migration, tween North Koreans and the rest of the life with the feeling that something is immigration, technology and B.C.’s world. Together they’ve produced an missing. This feeling stayed with me urban housing crisis. 978-1-988784120 unusually engaging coffee table book, until I realized that meditation and is for Quiz Queens Red Star Utopia: Inside North Korea spirituality interested me more than Q K . L . DENMAN S QUIZ QUEENS (ORCA (Durville/UTP $49.95) that reveals the money and recognition did. Money and ’ Currents $9.95) is about boy-crazy bleak and repressive society, admired fame still pull me, but their lure is far S is for Stainton Kiara who convinces her studious pal BORN IN 1927 ON A PRAIRIE FARM, SHIRLEY by Donald Trump, that is home to 25 lesser now.” Jane to create a questionnaire to help D. Stainton grew up in the Slocan million freedom-starved and frequently Amar Ochani will be signing his find her soulmate. It makes for a cre- Valley at a time when the region was starving North Koreans. 9781988824239 book at Chapters-Coquitlam, Saturday Sept. 29. 3:30-5:30. 97801-7750775-0-3 “I am fortunate to Pis for Potty have so many strong GORD AND ANN BAIRD ARE THE OWNERS women and sup- and co-creators of an internationally recognized Eco-Sense home in Victoria. porters around me Its building occurred when greywater, rain water harvesting, compost toilets, who are relieved, and earthen architecture were still on excited and support- the fringes of cultural acceptance, not yet supported by local regulations. ive that I’ve tried to By challenging the building codes navigate the body and regulations in a logical, informed and respectful manner, they created and eating disor- the first legal, seismically-engineered, ders in this book.” two-storey load bearing cob home in North America. It became the first Eco- — MALLORY TATER Sense home audited within the Living Building Challenge (LBC) project. The LBC is the most challenging green building rating system globally, and the Baird’s home was the first to achieve petal recognition leading to the status of “World’s Greenest Modern House” for a number of years. From wastestream to mainstream, the Bairds have flushed forth their knowledge in Essential Composting Toilets: A Guide to Options, Design,

39 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 Self-Publish.ca WHO’SWHO

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Vis for Virag Yis for Yamagishi AFTER FORTY YEARS MAKING OTHER PEOPLE JAPANESE-BORN KUNIO YAMAGISHI DID look good as an editor, Nancy Flight of not experience Japanese-Canadian Greystone Books has semi-retired hav- internment camps himself. He was ing recently earned educated in Tokyo before immigrating the inaugural Karen to Canada without knowing about the Virag Award which camps. Devastated when he found recognizes excep- out about them, he has suffered am- tional efforts by an bivalence towards Canada ever since. individual or orga- His novel, The Return of a Shadow nization to raise the (Austin Macauley $21.95), is based on profile of editing in historical facts, but his protagonist, Nancy Flight their community. Eizo Osada, is fictitious. It’s named for Karen In 1930s, Eizo leaves his wife and Virag, a member of the Editors’ As- three young sons, one of them only two sociation of Canada who died in 2014. years old, to come to Canada to earn money for the family back in Japan. Then Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and Wis for Wick he is sent to an internment camp. Eizo SINCE 1996, THE POINTE RESTAURANT AT returns to his family after 43 years in the Tofino-based Wickaninnish Inn Canada, but will his family accept him? (The Wick) has been an innovative 9781786937155 proponent of west coast cuisine. Now they’ve served up The Wickaninnish Z is for Zuehlke Memoir Writing Services Cookbook: Rustic Elegance on Na- THE TWELFTH INSTALLMENT IN MARK ture’s Edge (Penguin Random House Zuehlke’s military history series, The Your life adds up to a story. $45), that shares recipes (combining Cinderella Campaign: First Canadian cutting edge techniques with fresh, Army and the Battles for the Chan- seasonal ingredients) from their cur- nel Ports (D&M $37.95) is one of five Tell it. rent and former chefs—Warren Barr, shortlisted titles for the 2018 John Now you can hire an experienced writer— Rod Butters, Matthias Conradi, Mark W. Dafoe Book Prize, a $10,000 prize with more than two decades as a full-time Filatow, Justin Laboissiere, Duncan in memory of Canadian editor John freelance writer in Vancouver—to help you: Ly, Andrew Springett and Matt Wilson. Wesley Dafoe. 9780147530271 The Cinderella Campaign describes • Record your life stories through an First Canadian Army’s urgent and extensive interviewing process. X is for Experiences thankless mission of opening the Chan- Conduct research to augment your story. • OUT THERE LEARNING: CRITICAL REFLECTIONS nel ports to Allied victory in World War • Write the story with you. • Manage the book design. on Off-Campus Study Programs (UTP II. They thought of themselves as the • Provide advice on printing. $29.95) examines the value of non-tra- “Cinderella Army” and international ditional avenues of study. This collec- correspondents agreed. This was be- For more information contact me at tion offers “voices from the field” expe- cause First Canadian Army had been 604-688-1458 • [email protected] riences of faculty members, students, relegated to the left flank of the Allied Beverly Cramp teaching assistants, and community advance toward Germany from the LAURA SAWCHUK PHOTO members engaged in every aspect of Normandy beaches and given the tough off-campus study programs. Edited task of opening the Channel ports from by UVic professors Deborah Curran, Le Havre to Ostend in Belgium against Cameron Owens, Helga Thorson and brutal German resistance. your Elizabeth Vibert. 9781487523145 978-1-77162-089-5 New Use More $$$ Deadline!!

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41 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 LETTERS

Vancouver Island? I have just read the BC Ferries-reader first volume of the Emily Carr Travels Anti-anti-aging book and am waiting for Volume 2 to ALL IN ALL THIS WAS AN EXCEPTIONAL ISSUE! ON A RECENT B.C. FERRY CROSSING FROM , arrive from Munro’s ( again, I should Q Vancouver Island to Vancouver, So much coverage by or about so UICKIES have bought it while I was there …) I picked up a copy of your excel- many exceptional people. The review Q Jean Skelding of Sarah Cox’s book (Breaching the lent publication. What a refreshing United Kingdom A COMMUNITY BULLETIN change to find something like that Peace) was terrific. Isn’t there some BOARD FOR INDEPENDENTS rather than the usual shopping bro- [To quickly search for extensive infor- kind of prize for such a great title? The chures. mation about more than 11,800 B.C. reviews of books by Karen Charleson I am now back in UK, complete authors and their books, simply go to (Through Different Eyes) and Cathy QUICKIES is an affordable advertising with my copy and wonder if you might our free reference service at abcbook- Converse (Against the Current) were vehicle for writers, artists & events. be able to help. world.com—Ed.] exceptional as well. For info on how to be included: For part of our trip this time we stayed on Quadra and one morning, [email protected] whilst in the store at Heriot Bay, I overheard some ladies talking about books they have read which are set Captain Joe & in Nanaimo and also on some of the islands. I wish I had plucked up the Grateful Jake courage to ask for titles and authors by Emily Madill but British reserve doesn’t let us do Confidence boosting that too often! I did go to the book- books for kids. store on the island and also to the 978-0981257907 • $11.95 each library but nobody could help me. AVAILABLE: Chapters, Amazon, Barnes & Noble Could send me a list of authors www.emilymadill.com who set their work in and around KIDLIT

Fall in Love Archie & the With Your Life, E-Course Holocaust with certified professional life coach Emily Madill, My copy of BC BookWorld came based on her latest book. in the mail yesterday (thank 978-0988127333 • Hardcover & Kindle you!) and when I opened it, I AVAILABLE: Amazon, Red Tuque, Chapters, discovered that my book Im- www.emilymadill.com print had been selected for the SELF-HELP BC Ferries shops thanks to BC BookWorld. This is so exciting for me to hear. Thank you for Canada has been ranked as Erotokritos selecting a book about ances- the eleventh-most literate by Vitzentzos tral Holocaust memories as an society on the planet, as Komaros exemplary title. I so appreciate reported by The Guardian. Transcribed by Manolis. your support! I am now look- The only longhand book ing forward to seeing it on the Photo on B.C. Ferries by Mark Forsythe. of its kind — a long poem 500 years old—transcribed shelves of a BC Ferry when my by an 11-year-old boy. son forces me to buy him yet 978-1-926763-36-1 • $5,000.00 My complaint is the use/ac- www.libroslibertad.ca another Archie book! Good tears ceptance of the grossly ageist Wall EPIC POEM Claire Sicherman Salt Spring Island Street term regarding that book THANK YOU! I VE JUST SEEN THE SUMMER ’ about grandmothering on page 3: issue online and I feel close to tears. anti-aging. Is aging something to fight Warriors for the I know that against? Shameful? Diminishing? Working Day I will be read- Negative? Your headline, I realize, by John Wiznuk ing the review is derived from the author’s quote. I The evolution of a more than a wish you had chosen to lead the very rural fire service, few times. I am and a volunteer interesting review with a reflection on very grateful firefighter. the joys of grandparenting instead. 9781525516139 soft cover: $20.36 that you took Grandparenting can be invigorating, 9781525516146 ebook: $5.24 the time to read friesenpress.com/bookstore challenging, exciting, and enhanc- and appreciate MEMOIR ing… partly because most of us who my first novel, are grandparenting are old… with all Through Differ- the richness that brings. ent Eyes and The I am an old woman in Victoria who even chose to feature it on the cover Chocolate goes ballistic every time someone of BC BookWorld. Pilgrim thinks they’re complimenting me by Karen Charleson by Marie Maccagno saying I’m young for my age. I’m not Hooksum Outdoor Fearless, honest. A must- young. I’m old and enjoying this stage read for those walking their School, Tofino of life tremendously. own personal journeys. Claire 978-1-7750721-0-2 Really, it is such an interesting

$25 CDN/PB • e-book versions available PHOTO Sicherman Send letters or emails to: mariemaccagno.com/books stage of life for those who haven’t been LAM

on Salt Spring BC BookWorld, 926 West 15th Ave., thoroughly brainwashed. MEMOIR Island Vancouver, BC V5Z 1R9 [email protected] Barbara Bambiger RAMONA Letters may be edited for clarity & length. Victoria

Annett, Kevin...38 Figure 1...24 Mother Tongue Publishing...6 Tanglewood Books...43 Annick Press...20 Friesens Printers...41 New Society Publishers...30 Tanner’s Books...43 Anvil Press...29 Galiano Island Books...43 New Star Books...29 UBC Press...4 Arsenal Pulp Press...24 Granville Island Publishing...21 Ochani, Amar...17 University of Alberta Press...40 Banyen Books...43 Greystone Books...26 Orca Books...2 Vancouver Desktop...40 BC Book Prizes...31 Harbour Publishing...44 Ormsby Review...34 Vancouver Manuscript Intensive...40 BC Ferries Books...4 The Heritage Group of Publishers...12 Penguin Random House...19 Vancouver Writers Fest...16 BC Historical Federation...36 Houghton Boston...41 People’s Co-Op Books...43 Watershed Sentinel Books...36 Caitlin Press...6 Libros Libertad Publishing...34 Printorium/Island Blue...41 Whistler Writers Festival...17 Cramp, Beverly...40 LiterAsian...20 Ronsdale Press...8 Yamagishi, Kunio...16 AD Douglas & McIntyre...14 Maa Press...36 Royal BC Museum...21 Yoka’s Coffee...36 Douglas College/EVENT...40 Marquis...41 Self-Counsel Press...23 INDEX Ellis, David...43 Mercer, George...38 Sub-Terrain Magazine...6 Federation of BC Writers...34 Mermaid Tales Bookshop...43 Talonbooks...11

42 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 BOOKSELLERS

First Nations Libraries Ltd.

We have a huge inventory of FIRST NATIONS titles, plus virtually every local history written in B.C.

An Independent Bookstore in Vancouver for 48 years!

This business is now FOR SALE. The major focus of this business is to BOOKSELLER provide books and archival materials to Western Canadian First Nations and WANTED university, college and regional libraries as well as the public. Do you love people Please visit me at 1818 Quebec St. (by appointment only), and books? Vancouver, near Main, near the Olympic Village. For more info please visit Text or email for an appointment [email protected] 3608 West 4th Ave. Vancouver, BC 604-732-7912 banyen.com galianoislandbooks.com

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O penOpen year-round year-round with with over over 25,00025,000 titles titles plus plus great a great selection selection of Canadian authors, used books, art supplies, and gifts. of Canadian authors, used books, art supplies, and gifts. Visit us at www.galianoislandbooks.com V isit us at www.galianoislandbooks.com 250.539.3340 • [email protected] 250.539.334076 Madrona Drive, Galiano [email protected] Island, BC V0N 1P0 Please Join Us 76for ourMadrona Annual Drive Literary Galiano Festival Island • www.galianoliteraryfestival.com BC V0N 1P0

Tanglewood Books, located in a heritage building OPENING HOURS: at 2306 West Broadway on the corner of Vine Street, Mon to Sat: 10am to 6pm is an Aladdin’s cave of new and used books. We can Sun: 12pm to 6pm get your special orders to you within 4 business days, • we have a popular and unusual DVD collection, as Tel: 604-736-8876 well as some rare vinyl thrown into the mix. Tanglewoodbooks.ca

43 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018 44 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2018