FREE AT BC FERRIES GIFT SHOPS • ESCAPING THE FRASER VALLEY 31 BC BOOKWORLD

VOL. 30 • NO. 1 • SPRING 2016

WORLDWORLD CLASSCLASS TEARDOWNSTEARDOWNS

DUMP TRUMP Caroline Adderson documents the rapid rate of home demolitions. See page 5

LAURA SAWCHUK PHOTO PUBLICATION MAIL AGREEMENT #40010086 INTERNATIONAL STORIES: CARIBBEAN 15 ICELAND 17 SPAIN 19 GREECE 22 Start the year with a good book. Discover great books by B.C. authors in Passages Gift Shop JOIN US May 20th - 22nd, 2016 Prestige Harbourfront Resort Your coaches Salmon Arm, BC and mentors for 2016:

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Left: Original serigraph titled “Along Chuckanut Drive” by Nancy McDonnell Spaulding, commissioned by Chuckanut Bay Gallery, www.chuckanutbaygallery.com

2 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 LITERARY LANDMARKS TOPSELLERS*

Mary-Jane Wilson BCBritish Columbia Probate Kit (4th Edi- tion) Everything you need to probate or administer an estate (Self-Counsel Press $39.95) Greg Poelzer & Ken S. Coates From Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation: A Road Map for All Canadians (UBC Press $32.95) Eve Lazarus Cold Case Vancouver (Arsenal Pulp Press $21.95) Jim McDowell

Uncharted Waters: The Explora- TOM CAMERON PHOTO tions of José Narváez (1768–1840) Malcolm Lowry once stayed on Gabriola Island at the Surf Lodge, one of 165 locations on (Ronsdale Press $24.95) the new Literary Map of B.C. Charlotte Cameron (above) became fascinated with Lowry’s visit, resulting in her play, October Ferries to Gabriola. Lowry’s Under the Volcano was Jean Martin Fortier ranked 11th by editors of Modern Library in their list of the best 100 novels written in Eng- The Market Gardener: lish in the 20th century. Much lesser-known is Lowry’s novel, October Ferry to Gabriola. A Successful Grower’s Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming (New Society Publishers $24.95) Shelley Adams Whitewater Cooks with Passion (Sandhill Book Marketing $34.95) Let’s put ourselves on the map Caroline Adderson et al. Vancouver Vanishes: Narratives of You can now get lost and found with our new Literary Map of B.C. Demolition and Revival (Anvil $32.95)

Jon Bartlett & EOPLE WHO VISIT PARIS ROUTINELY SEARCH ✫ Rika Ruebsaat for the graves of famous authors in LITERARY THE LITERARY MAP OF B.C. IS MEANT TO BE FUN. IT IS ALSO Soviet Princeton: Slim Evans and the world’s most visited cemetery, meant to err on the side of content. If you put the 1932-33 Miners’ Strike Père Lachaise, opened in 1804. If you all the words and photos together from the map, (New Star Books $19) go to London, you can visit shrines for LANDMARK it’s the equivalent of at least five books. PCharles Dickens and Samuel Johnson. In no way does this site purport to present the Jillian Roberts & Ditto for literary sites in New York or San Gabriola best writers of the province. Rather, the writers Cindy Revell Francisco. Russia has Tolstoy’s home at Yas- thus far are a cross-section in terms of genres, Where Do Babies Come From? naya Polyana. Dublin has James Joyce, Os- Island ages and geography. Some are famous; many are Our First Talk About Birth car Wilde... Copenhagen has its Kierkegaard not. Some living, some dead. If you ‘scroll out’ (Just Enough series) (Orca Books $19.95) statue. and get a Google world view of the planet on this site, you’ll Dina Del Bucchia & But here? find some B.C.-related literary locations around the globe—in Daniel Zomparelli Millions of people worldwide know Malcolm Lowry wrote Mongolia, Iceland, Peru, etc. There is room for expansion. Under the Volcano while living in shacks on the Dollarton mud Ideally some communities around B.C. will want Rom Com (Talonbooks $15) flats in North Vancouver—but tourism departments have yet to emulate the City of Vancouver where more than 40 Robert D. Turner to capitalize on the fact. literary markers have been erected to Klondike Gold Rush Steamers Folks on Gabriola Island appear to correspond to the Vancouver Public (Sono Nis Press $49.95) be a bit smarter. Word has it they are Library’s own literary map based on already planning some festivities for next entries provided by BC BookWorld. Charles Demers year, likely in October, to commemorate Not all the sites on the Literary Map The Horrors: An A to Z of Funny the arrival of Malcolm Lowry and his wife of B.C. are easily visited, but directions Thoughts on Awful Things (D&M $24.95) Margerie on their island in 1946—seventy to each location are provided. Some sites Caroline Woodward years ago—that gave rise to his novel Oc- have historical significance. Other times Light Years: Memoir of a Modern tober Ferry to Gabriola. we’ve pinpointed a location from within Lighthouse Keeper (Harbour $29.95) Fearful of being evicted from their a literary work, or else the residence of a beachfront shack at Dollarton, Malcolm particular author. Bonnie Reilly Schmidt Lowry and his wife took a small ferry, the Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro was Silenced: The Untold Story of the Atrevida, to Gabriola after he finished most productive when she lived in West Fight for Equality in the RCMP (Caitlin Press $24.95) Under the Volcano. They were hoping to Vancouver and Victoria. Douglas Cou- find an alternative place to live. Margerie’s pland, William Gibson, David Suzuki, Roy Jantzen friend, Angela McKee, lived on Gabriola David Day and Spider Robinson have Active Vancouver: A Year-round Guide to and offered to help them look around. global reputations. Outdoor Recreation in the City’s Natural The Lowrys stayed at Anderson Lodge, There are more than 11,000 B.C. au- Environments (Rocky Mountain Books $25) now called Surf Lodge, at 885 Berry Point thors on our ABCBookWorld.com refer- Helen McAllister & Road. ence site now attracting more than 4,000 Surf Lodge is one of 160 literary loca- visitors per day. Jennifer Heath tions now posted on the Literary Map Let’s celebrate what we’re really, really, Down to Earth (Oolichan Books $29.95) of B.C., more than a year in the making Literary Map of B.C. creator really good at.—A.T. * The current topselling titles from major in partnership with Vancouver Public Alan Twigg with James BC publishing companies, in no particular order. Library. Joyce statue in Dublin. www.literarymapofbc.ca

Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Contributors: Beverly Cramp, John Moore, Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Joan Givner, Mark Forsythe, Alex Van Tol, BC BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Cherie Thiessen, Keven Drews, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6R 2S3 Caroline Woodward. Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. We gratefully acknowledge the unobtrusive BOOKWORLD Produced with the sponsorship of Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics assistance of Canada Council, a continuous partner since Pacific BookWorld News Society. 1988, and creativeBC, a provincial partner since 2014. Publications Mail Registration No. 7800. Consultants: SPRING 2016 BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Christine Rondeau, Sharon Jackson Vol. 30 • No. 1 Advertising & editorial: Photographers: Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Tara Twigg Publisher/Writer: Alan Twigg Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6R 2S3 Deliveries: Ken Reid, Acculogix Editor/Production: David Lester Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 In-Kind Supporters: Email: [email protected] All BC BookWorld reviews are posted at Simon Fraser University Library; Associate Editor: Beverly Cramp Annual subscription: $25 www.abcbookworld.com Vancouver Public Library; UBC Library.

3 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 4 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 cover HOUSING

Vancouver Vanishes: Narratives of Demolition & “The house’s century-plus Revival by Caroline Adderson solid old bones lost when the et al. (Anvil Press $32.95) public decided it would rather save a massive old tulip tree on the site. Legg House was HE AVERAGE LIFES- demolished in June 2014.” pan of a house in Also featuring contribu- Vancouver is be- tions from Elise and Stephen coming less than Partridge and Bren Simmers, a human lifespan. Vancouver Vanishes is replete TSpearheaded by Caroline with photos by Adderson and Adderson, Vancouver Van- Tracey Ayton. ishes: Narratives of Demoli- Redevelopment can’t be tion and Revival is a shared stopped. Memory must be attempt to document and erased. Developers have co- protest the rampant destruc- opted the word development. tion of perfectly fine family We must become world class. dwellings in Vancouver for no Give us thy $8 loaf of bread reason other than speculative with ‘farm-to-table’ self-righ- profit. teousness, over-priced Ca- Between 2004 and 2015, nucks tickets and huge ve- more than 10,000 demolition hicles that half of the drivers permits were issued for resi- Caroline Adderson can’t park. Try to stop it? Ha. dential buildings in the city visits yet another Go ahead, make my bulldozer. teardown in of Vancouver. As of 2015, an THIS is what Vancouver is all Vancouver. average of three houses were about. Profit. being torn down per day. Many The aforementioned Mi- PHOTO

EVE OF of these homes were built for chael Kluckner has been the middle and working class trying to blow the whistle in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. for thirty years. In 1990, he SAWCHUCK

Although these “disap- published Vanishing Vancou- peared” houses are not LAURA ver, followed by Vanishing deemed significant enough to DESTRUCTIONSthe growth of new stories in whether cyclists are actually Mackie and Kerry Gold, heri- British Columbia in 2005 and merit heritage protection, Ad- other languages?—it’s a lot using Cornwall in Point Grey tage honcho John Atkin, poet Vancouver Remembered in derson and the others believe more difficult to debunk her or not—it’s pretty hard to Evelyn Lau and the increas- 2006. their removal amounts to an contention that wide-scale condone widespread domestic ingly pervasive and essential Roland Morgan, a Georgia architectural loss—and much destruction of wooden houses demolitions from an environ- Eve Lazarus who concludes, Straight editor who exiled him- more. is antithetical to the conceit mental perspective. not without a whiff of anger: self back to London where he As a novelist, Adderson of Vancouver City council Heartfelt and smart con- “Legg House, an Arts and continued to live by his wits, contends suburban renewal is to make Vancouver into the tributions have been made to Crafts house built in 1899, beat Kluckner to the punch tantamount to a loss of shared greenest city on the planet. Vancouver Vanishes from the managed to hang on all the with Vancouver: Then and Now narratives. Even if that per- No matter how many miles likes of heritage-meister Mi- way until June 2014 with (Whitecap, 1983), arguably the spective seems a tad airy-fairy of prescribed bike lanes city chael Kluckner—who wrote heritage A status on the city’s first book to alert the Vancou- to you—Hey, don’t those new planners allocate on a map Vancouver The Way it Was way Heritage Register. That should ver populace to its own loss of mega-houses, often owned in order to compete with Co- back in 1984—as well as Van- have been enough to save it architectural memory. by folks from afar, constitute penhagen and Amsterdam— couver Sun mainstays John from demolition. It wasn’t. 978-1-77214-034-7

Expulsion & Other Stories head to foot “in a hijab or chador or what- by Marina Sonkina (Guernica $20) ever they call it.” The completely mysterious new Staff lodger, Erin, is seemingly a Moslem. F ANY WRITER IN B.C. CAN MATCH THE VERVE AND She loves the garden. She wears retro intelligence of Moscow-educated Marina sunglasses. She has a nice figure. Sonkina, we haven’t met them yet. Hoping to have a relationship be- Should we also mention that she Pick tween equals, Matthew pretends to be I a fellow renter rather than her landlord. has a 6’6” son named Yuri Kolokolnikov who plays Stryr in Game of Thrones to boot? They have beguiling and often loopy Sonkina’s latest collection of stories, Ex- conversations. Maybe she likes him. Erin pulsion & Other Stories, is nothing short of never has visitors. She has taken a job in a brilliant. Two-thirds of Expulsion consists of thrift store. How does a guy get to know a Chekhovian tales of survival set in the Soviet girl when he can never see her face? He fol- Union, but the longest and first story, ‘Face’, lows her. Bizarrely she enters a synagogue. is a 65-page novella about Vancouver—and His fascination with the lodger leads to a its apocalyptic ruin. deeply disturbing revelation. Afterwards, Erin In ‘Face’ a wealthy industrialist buys his confesses she is a sibyl of the Erythian line 24-year-old son an old bungalow next to the in the 30th generation, someone who is an University Endowment Lands in Point Grey. oracle who can foretell the future, “but when The actor/narrator Matthew welcomes his misfortune strikes, people blame us.” freedom as a property owner and vows not Marina Viewing Erin as a damsel in deep distress, to be tempted by the “madness” of the real Sonkina Matthew dedicates himself to saving her. To estate game. Tales of survival in the do so, he needs money. Matthew hatches a Matthew’s parents have already sold their old Soviet Union and scheme. He will secretly sell the house. But home in Shaughnessy and paid seventeen the new Vancouver. he will only sell it if the offshore buyer prom- million for one of the penthouses atop the ises to let them continue to live there. She 62-floor Living Shangri-La tower but he would need never know. A foreign buyer is found rather sleep under a bridge than live in that who agrees to let them stay. But the mad- sealed fish tank. ness of the real estate game has taken hold… “With nouveau-riche Chinese gobbling up Several of Sonkina’s Soviet-era stories are the city’s real estate and its old Victorian-era more impressive and even more memorable, houses regularly becoming bulldozer bait,” THETHE MYSTERYMYSTERY but the audaciousness of ‘Face’ and its com- Matthew dreams instead of opening a splen- pletely unpredictable ending makes for a PHOTO did new venue for local theatre. potent artistic response to the feeding frenzy To make ends meet as an out-of-work ac- of mini-Trump speculators who have made tor, he decides to rent out a tiny basement housing costs in tucked-away, provincial SAWCHUCK suite in his bungalow. The first person to Vancouver on a par with Paris, Hong Kong

respond to his ad is a young woman clothed LAURA and London. 978-1-55071-945-1

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6 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 PEOPLE PHOTO The most literary MORROW

PAT town in Canada K. Linda Kivi CHO BAY ON GILFORD ISLAND IN Blackfish Sound, with its Eyear-round population of ten, has been home to four authors who have produced nine books. Alexandra Morton, now widely known as the province’s leading opponent of fish farming, lived at “Billy’s Bay,” raising her son and daughter on a floathouse and working as a seasick deckhand on Bill Proctor’s fishboat from the mid-’80s until 2007. Artist and homesteader Yvonne Maximchuk also worked as Bill Proctor’s deckhand for eight seasons and co-wrote his first book, Full Moon Flood Tide - Bill Proctor’s Raincoast (Harbour, 2003), nominated for the Bill Duthie Booksellers Choice Award in 2004. Following Maximchuk’s own memoir, Drawn to Sea: Paintbrush to Chainsaw, Carving out a Life on BC’s Rugged Raincoast (Caitlin Press, 2013), she col- laborated with the old salt for Tide Rips and Back Eddies: Bill Proctor’s Tales of Blackfish Sound (Harbour $24.95). he “Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality” was created by the Newcomer Nikki Van Schyndel took up residen- PARABLE B.C. government in 2013 to help circumvent regional planning processes cy on Bill Proctor’s land after the release of Becoming for a controversial and hugely unpopular proposal to build a 7000- Wild (Caitlin, 2014), a memoir about living in the T Broughton Archipelago for a year-and-a-half, forag- of bed, 22 sq/km ski city in the Purcell Mountains. Protestors such as Linda Kivi ing for food and making tools from cedar and bone. have been active for more than two decades to stop it. Her all-ages parable of greed, The Town of Nothing (Maa Press $15), illustrated by Amber Santos, came about after Jumbo Glacier Resort manager Grant Costello showed up at a makeshift Jumbo Wild! protest camp in 2013 and pointed at a spot on the logging landing among the trees and said, “This is the municipal boundary.” GREED It was wilderness on both sides. More info: www.keepitwild.ca 978-0-9685302-6-9 HANOI CONFIDENTIAL How can you not pay attention to a novelist Bill Proctor, in front of his Echo Bay museum who plays guitar in a punk band called 12 for local history, and Yvonne Maximchuk.

Gauge Facial and an all-woman rockabilly BLACKFISH SOUND EXPERT BILLY PROCTOR WAS band called Jukebox Jezebel? born at Port Neville in 1934 in a cabin near the Port Neville Store. A month later he moved with Born in Victoria to a German mother and a Vietnamese his parents to Freshwater Bay on Swanson Island father, Yasuko Thanh dropped out of school and lived on the where he spent the next twenty-one years. Here, in streets at age fifteen. She has earned her living as a busker, this excerpt Proctor recalls evading formal school- an opium dealer, a cleaner of goat pens, a bed and breakfast ing at age twelve: operator, a housekeeper and a panhandler. “Round about that time there were two mission- Thanh’s first story collection Floating Like the Dead (Emblem aries who came once a month to visit Mom. They’d Editions, 2012) was shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction paddle over in a dugout canoe and Mom always told Prize and the Danuta Gleed Award. The title story won the me to go down and help them out of the canoe. So Journey Prize for best short story published in Canada in 2009. I would and one would always say, “How is the It concerns Chinese lepers who dream of escape from their heathen today?” forced exile on D’Arcy Island, near Victoria, in the late 1800s. “This was because I was not going to school. The protagonist for her debut novel due in April, Mysteri- They were always trying to get Mom to send me ous Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains (Hamish Hamilton to boarding school. Finally they reported me to $24.95), is Vietnamese national and Paris-educated physi- welfare. Then the government boat called Sheila cian, Dr. Nguyen Georges-Minh, who, in 1908, loathes started coming around. his own good fortune at having French connections “I took to hiding in the bush when I saw that have made him rich while the imperial them coming, so I ended up spending a lot forces of France enslave the indigenous people of time in the bush. It really bothered me to of French Indochina. think that these people wanted to take me When a plan to poison the Christmas dinner away and leave my mother there alone. of a garrison of French soldiers goes awry, he is “As I was spending a lot of time in forced to take refuge in remote jungles where Yasuko Thanh: the bush, I got to know all the different his wife’s growing madness increasingly leads former Vancouver species of trees and plants that grew on him to care for their infant son. While eluding busker our land. In 1948, a salesman came in capture by hill tribes, he is terrified of being selling books, so I bought a 10-volume discovered by French sympathizers. set of The Book of Knowledge, which I Thanh’s “apocalypse then” is reputedly still have and I still use. inspired by the history of her father’s family “So, instead of going to school, I in French Indochina and the “Hanoi Poisoning was learning about the things around Plot of 1908.” The title refers to a group of covert me. Now when people come to my sympathizers who seek to undermine French rule. museum, some ask me, “How often do Thanh received her MFA from UVic and now lives you go out in the real world?” with her husband, rockabilly musician Hank Angel I say, ‘I think this is the real world.’” and two daughters in Victoria. 978-0-670-06878-4 Tide Rips: 978-1-55017-725-1

7 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 LETTERS

Agog Estevan Controversy Penmanshipping

MANY THANKS FOR THE COVER STORY ON IT IS DISAPPOINTING THAT BC BOOKWORLD’S JUST WANTED TO THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU Light Years. Also, many, many thanks review of To The Lighthouse repeats do for B.C. authors. You are on the for a longer and updated BCBookLook the oft-told conspiracy fable that the side of the angels. The moral support version of the review, as well as its Canadian government published a and championing you do elevates the reappearance on your ABCBookWorld “bogus” report of a Japanese sub- work and makes it seem more noble reference service. marine shelling the Estevan Point somehow. You have a special place in It is a truly wonderful spread and I lighthouse on June 20, 1942. It is a the hearts of all who toil with pens and am well aware that your BCBookLook well-documented historical fact that keyboards. version will now serve for infinity! What the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine Greg Dickson a concept that is. First the newspaper I-26 did surface offshore on that date, Vancouver version; then two website versions. and fired 17 shells from its deck-gun, I’m agog. aimed at the Radio Direction-Finding As a matter of Zacch Caroline Woodward Station near the Deanna Kawatski’s most recent Lennard Island book was Big trees saved and other Nootka village of ‘LITERARY LANDMARKS’ IS A FABULOUS feats (Shuswap Press, 2014) Hesquiat (not at project and I’m so glad that you’ve Moses the Estevan light- initiated it. or really any electronic format), so that house). Two un- For a literary landmark, I’d like to I WAS PLEASANTLY SURPRISED BY YOUR subscribers could access author, title, exploded shells suggest the spoken word poet Zaccheus equating me with a biblical figure [Mo- publisher, date, and ISBN of titles re- fired during the Jackson, who passed away last year. ses] for the article in the winter issue of viewed and/or advertised? attack were later As a location I suggest the eastside of BCBW on our new Asian an- Jaimie Miller recovered by gun- 2100 block Commercial Drive, outside thology, AlliterAsian. Thank Technical Services, nery experts of of Cafe Deux Soleils. you for thinking so highly of UBC Library the Royal Cana- Sidney Allinson This would commemorate an impor- me. Now that the word is out, [We love librarians and we dian Navy and tant artist in our literary community, I hope I can continue to live have followed up with UBC identified as being of Japanese origin. one who performed for city council, the up to that moniker. Library for a new initiative] A detailed account of this and several governor general, and writers festivals Jim Wong-Chu other Japanese bombardments of our across Canada. Vancouver Pacific shores during WWII is published He had a massive impact as an Not dour in WAR ON OUR DOORSTEP: The Un- educator, teaching hundreds of poetry known Campaign on North America’s workshops across the country and in Twice is nice I JUST GOT HOME FROM A TRIP Jim Wong-Chu east and found coverage of my West Coast, by Brendan Coyle, Heritage remote indigenous communities. I WOULD LIKE TO THANK ALAN TWIGG forthcoming novel on the new House, 2002. He’d add representation to the and whomever else may have contrib- BCBookLook site. It’s so great to have Sidney Allinson Literary Landmarks project of both in- uted to the review of my book, Born to you getting the word out about B.C. Colwood digenous writers and the spoken word the Wild: Journals of a National Park books. I look forward to each issue of community. Warden in the Canadian Rockies, in BC BookWorld. Fantastic. Thanks! Go godfather figure The landmark would also serve to the recent issues of both BC BookWorld Tricia Dower acknowledge Cafe Deux Soleils as a and in BCBooklook. Vancouver I JUST WANT TO EXTEND MY CONGRATULATIONS vital literary venue and centre of Van- The review was excellently written to Alan Twigg for being awarded the couver’s spoken word movement. and with much wit. I feel deeply hon- Order of Canada! That is a huge and Chris Gilpin oured and very grateful that my book also well-deserved honour. We are Vancouver has been highlighted twice, once in delighted that he has agreed to come print and the other on BCBookLook. to our next Words on the Lake Writers Send letters or emails to: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Rob Kaye Festival in Salmon Arm, in May. He is Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 the Godfather of B.C. literature. Vancouver Island [email protected] Deanna Kawatski Title feed need Celista Letters may be edited for clarity & length.

WE READ, COLLECT AND EAGERLY AWAIT EACH issue of BC BookWorld, as a key piece of the British Columbian and Canadian publishing landscape. While nothing could take the place of reading for interest and information, we also spend quite some time and ef- fort searching authors and titles (and ISBNs!) reviewed in BC BookWorld. Is there a possibility of a title feed being made available (by RSS, z39.50,

LITERARY LANDMARK: Self-described East-Van ghetto poet Zaccheus Jackson (1977-2014): “Some people find God. Some people find health. Or tofu. I found spoken word.”

8 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 9 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 CompellingCompelling NarrativesNarratives forfor ChangeChange fromfrom NewNew SocietySociety PublishersPublishers

I’m Right i-Minds and You’re an Idiot How Cell Phones, Computers, Gaming, and Social Media are The Toxic State of Public Discourse Changing our Brains, our Behavior, and How to Clean it Up and the Evolution of our Species JAMES HOGGAN MARI K. SWINGLE US/Can $19.95 US/Can $19.95 PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-817-3 PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-825-8 “James Hoggan has interviewed a diverse group of thinkers, In this age of screens we’re beset with a pack of new emotional from pundits to psychologists, seeking explanations of and and behavioral conundrums. Mari K. Swingle walks us through alternatives to the all-too-familiar “stubborn adversarial the fundamentals of these changes with a kindness and clarity advocacy” that pervades public discourse. This engaging and I find deeply refreshing. i-Minds is a well-researched guide important book offers a blueprint toward empathy, flexibility, for teachers and parents keen on understanding the and creativity instead of narrow-minded demagoguery.” ramifications of our new media climate.” —Scott Slovic, coeditor, Numbers and Nerves: —Michael Harris, author, The End of Absence Information, Emotion, and Meaning in a World of Data

ResourcesResources forfor ResilientResilient LivingLiving

The Big Book of Nature Activities Farmers Market Cookbook Mastering Basic Cheesemaking Mycelial Mayhem A Year-Round Guide to Outdoor Learning The Ultimate Guide to Enjoying Fresh, The Fun and Fundamentals of Making Growing Mushrooms for Fun, Profit JACOB RODENBURG and Local, Seasonal Produce Cheese at Home and Companion Planting DREW MONKMAN JULIA SHANKS GIANACLIS CALDWELL DAVID AND KRISTIN SEWAK US/Can $39.95 US/Can $29.95 US/Can $29.95 US/Can $29.95 PB ISBN: 978-086571-802-9 PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-822-7 PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-818-0 PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-814-2 Get out! Seasonal activities, information, stories, Unlock the mysteries of your farmers market and “If you can use a cookbook, this book will show “…this book is both welcome and indispensable for games and observations to foster engagement CSA box with this complete guide to eating and you how to make some great cheese.“ the beginning cultivator or curious cook.” with the natural world. preserving local, seasonal foods. —Gordon Edgar, author, Cheesemonger —Peter Bane, author, The Permaculture Handbook

Building for a Sustainable Future

Reinventing Green Building The Rocket Mass Heater Essential Hempcrete Construction Essential Prefab Straw Why Certification Systems Aren’t Working Builder’s Guide The Complete Step-by-Step Guide Bale Construction and What We Can Do About It Complete Step-by-Step Construction, CHRIS MAGWOOD The Complete Step-by-Step Guide JERRY YUDELSON Maintenance and Troubleshooting US/Can $34.95 CHRIS MAGWOOD US/Can $24.95 ERICA WISNER and ERNIE WISNER PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-819-7 US/Can $34.95 PB ISBN: 978-086571-815-9 US/Can $39.95 The essential guide to hempcrete – a PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-820-3 “…[Yudelson] proposes a smart, simple and PB ISBN: 978-0-86571-823-4 strong, versatile, environmentally-friendly, The essential guide to prefab straw bale sustainable approach to steer us back on Home heating that’s safe, clean, efficient, and uses energy-efficient natural insulating material panels– an innovative development on one of the course quickly and cost effectively.” 70-90% less fuel than a typical woodstove. most widely used natural building methods — Jiri Skopek, Managing Director, Sustainability, Jones Lang LaSalle new society Available at fine bookstores and ebook retailers, PUBLISHERS online at www.newsociety.com or call 1 800 567 6772 www.newsociety.com

TOOLS FOR A WORLD OF CHANGE c BOOKS TO BUILD A NEW SOCIETY

10 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 reviews MURDER

Cold Case Vancouver: The acceptable.” City’s Most Baffl ing Unsolved Lazarus has not merely Murders by Eve Lazarus (Arsenal Pulp Press $21.95) regurgitated stories from the “WE DON’T CATCH likes of retired Vancouver Po- lice staff sergeant, Joe Swan, HE GOOD NEWS— who operated the Vancouver if there can be Police Centennial Museum any good news THE SMART ONES.” and wrote an historical crime in a book about column for the West Ender unsolved mur- Eve Lazarus surveys unsolved newspaper commencing in Tders—is that the homicide 1983. His accounts of mur- rate is falling in Canada. These homicides in Cold Case Vancouver. der cases were reprinted in A days murder accounts for 0.1 Century of Service: Vancouver percent of all police-reported Vancouver: The City’s Most in the Kensington-Cedar Cot- Police 1886-1986 (Vancouver violent crime. Baffling Unsolved Murders. tage area. We learn from B.C. Police Historical Society, 1986) Vancouver is safer than As a populist historian, Gay and Lesbian archivist and Police Beat: 24 Vancouver ever, with one of the lowest Lazarus has developed a lively Ron Dutton that up until Murders (Cosmopolitan Pub- murder rates in North America. but authoritative tone in three the 1980s if a crime against lishing, 1991). Whereas in 1962, Vancou- previous B.C. heritage titles. a gay person ever did make Instead Lazarus has con- ver had eighteen murders For Cold Case Vancouver, it to court, the “homosexual sulted a wide range of infor- with a population of less than Lazarus is more like a re- panic defence” was a standard mants and undertaken some tactic for defence lawyers. A original research, most strik- 400,000, by 2013, the city’s spectful reporter, avoiding 1998 population had more than sensationalism, as she relates defendant could claim he was ingly in her introductory story

PROVINCE so horrified to be propositioned doubled and yet there were the facts, without lurid or ru- about the grisly fate of twenty- THE only six murders. moured conjectures, adding by a gay person that extreme four-year-old Jennie Conroy OF That disparity can be par- maps, archival photos and retaliation could be deemed whose body was found near tially explained by demograph- newspaper clippings. acceptable by the court. the West Vancouver cemetery COURTESY ics. The percentage of the There’s the well-known Conversely, when a man in 1944. MAP population comprised of men 1953 ‘Babes in the Woods’ sto- X marks the spot where the attacked thirty women in the A disturbing percentage between the ages of eighteen ry about the skeletons of two ‘babes in the woods’ were early 1950s, he was dubbed of victims in Cold Case Van- and thirty-five—the demo- little boys uncovered by a Van- found in Stanley Park. “the love bandit” by the press. couver are female; and we graphic that commits seventy- couver Parks Board worker in In that era, domestic violence learn we are most at-risk to five percent of homicides in Stanley Park. Both were likely and left to drown in 1975 and was largely ignored and wom- be murdered if we are be- most countries—has dropped killed about six years earlier. also the first recorded gang en were chronically at-risk in tween the ages of eighteen and considerably since the 1970s. Lazarus points out they were murder in 1954 when Danny their homes. twenty-four. The Vancouver Police De- slain around the time seven- Brent was shot in the head, “Certainly in the Fifties,” “The truly frightening thing partment has 337 unsolved year-old Roddy Moore was probably by hired killers from says Neil Boyd, director of is,” Lazarus writes, “that these murders on its books dating inexplicably beaten to death Montreal, and left on the tenth SFU’s School of Criminology, killers might still walk around back to 1970. Police will not on his way to school in East hole of the UBC golf course. “it was totally permissible among us. As a forensic ex- comment about these crimes Vancouver in 1947. Sex rears its ugly head in for mothers and fathers to pert for the Vancouver Police on the record, but Eve Laza- There’s the case of the numerous entries, including whack their children in the Department said, even with rus has examined twenty-four young country singer Debbie the case of an in-the-closet grocery store. Teachers would DNA and all the scientific im- of the city’s most puzzling Roe, just back from success gay man, Robert Hopkins, hit children, and the notion provements, ‘we don’t catch unsolved murders between in Nashville, who was sexually who was found strangled and that a man could ‘correct’ his the smart ones.’” 1944 and 1996 for Cold Case assaulted, beaten, strangled shot in the head in his home spouse was seen as totally 978-1-55152-629-4

Staff Pick

A man attacked thirty women in the 1950s and was dubbed “the love PHOTO bandit” by the ARCHIVES

press. Domestic AND violence was largely MUSEUM

ignored. The ’50s

Eve Lazarus has revisited were more dan- the brutal killing of North VANCOUVER gerous for women Van’s Jennie Conroy (pictured above in 1941). NORTH says Eve Lazarus.

11 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 prizes NON-FICTION

Resettling the Range: Animals, or settlers’ grazing rights. tives to encourage lery: arsenic, DDT at their own landuse practices Ecologies, and Human Commu- As John Thistle describes grass renewal and and other chemi- rather than simply demonize nities in B.C. by John Thistle (UBC Press $29.95) in Resettling the Range: restrict invasive cals. those of others.” Animals, Ecologies, and Hu- brush and trees. John Thistle Resettling the Range is a man Communities in B.C., Killing wild thinks there was a story about our relationship HE FIRST B . C . wild horses were regarded by horses was a smarter, more eq- with animals, landscapes, ranches ap- ranchers and government as quick fix solution uitable way to deal indigenous peoples and their peared during pests to be rid of like bears, but many of these MARK with both of these pursuit of aboriginal rights. the gold rush cougars, coyotes, even eagles, animals belonged FORSYTHE perceived pests: “... Environmental historian eras of the 1850s owls and skunks. to indigenous peo- there was nothing John Thistle has generated Tand 1860s when hungry min- Wild horses competed with ples. Because reserve lands inevitable about the deci- a necessary and thorough ers needed to be fed. Ranchers cattle herds by dining on had limited feed and water sions early British Columbi- study of rancher settlement, bought most of the best valley grasslands that were further supplies, horses often grazed ans made: they might have the ranching industry’s in- lands through preemption or threatened by poor grazing on what are now considered restored the range rather than teractions with grasslands leased crown lands. By 1865 practices, severe weather “crown lands”. simply put poison in it; they and the effects of ranching on many grasslands had been conditions; a reluctance to re- State sponsored roundups might have reclaimed wild First Nations peoples, most of overgrazed by cattle. habilitate lands and the loss of and bounty hunting ensued. horses rather than simply whom were dispossessed from Some ranches were im- fire control, once used by na- Many thousands of horses annihilate them. They might access to grasslands and other mense. The Gang Ranch in were killed, used for meat, have listened more to what traditional lands—a profound the Chilcotin operated on a dog food or fertilizer. Tensions First Nations peoples were rangeland legacy that lives million acres; the Douglas mounted, with threats of war saying rather than simply dis- with us still. 9780774828383 Lake Ranch dominated the between ranchers and aborigi- miss and blame them for not Nicola Valley. nal people on the grasslands. valuing property or knowing Former CBC Radio host Mark Indigenous people were Grasshoppers were also how to use land properly; and Forsythe has contributed to forced onto small reserve targeted with some heavy artil- they might have looked closer these pages for fifteen years. lands. Access to grasslands to graze their own horses and cattle was prohibited by fences

JohnJohn Thistle’sThistle’s studystudy ofof managingmanaging (and(and mismanaging)mismanaging) B.C.’sB.C.’s grasslandsgrasslands hashas wonwon thethe 4th4th annualannual Reseeded wheatgrass on a protected area. BasilBasil Stuart-StubbsStuart-Stubbs PrizePrize forfor OutstandingOutstanding ScholarlyScholarly BookBook onon B.C.B.C. toto bebe presentedpresented atat UBCUBC LibraryLibrary onon JuneJune 9.9. HOWHOW THETHE WESTWEST WASWAS DE-RANGEDDE-RANGED

GRIFFIN & SABINE THE LOVE STORY THAT BEGAN 25 YEARS AGO CULMINATES AT THE PHAROS GATE

“This, the first new book in the series in 13 years, promises to be the last, but it’s never too late to discover what, for a certain segment of readers, remains one of the most cherished love stories in modern literature.” —Mark Medley, Books Editor The Globe and Mail

25TH ANNIVERSARY THIS SPRING Over 3 million copies sold worldwide.

COMING MARCH 2016 ŠThe Pharos Gate ŠGriffin & Sabine: 25th Anniversary Edition

AVAILABLE NOW ŠSabine’s Notebook ŠThe Golden Mean

12 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 Talonbooks Spring 2016

Price Paid The Fight for First Nations Survival Bev Sellars The second book by award-winning author Bev Sellars, Price Paid is based on a popular presentation Sellars often gave to treaty-makers, politicians, policymakers, and educators. The book begins with glimpses of foods, medicines, and cultural practices North America’s indigenous peoples have contributed to the rest of the world. It documents the dark period of regulation by racist laws during the twentieth century, and then discusses new emergence in the twenty-first century into a re-establishment of Indigenous land and resource rights. The result is a candidly told personal take on the history of Aboriginal rights in Canada and Canadian history told from a First Nations point of view.

Awards for Bev Sellars’s previous book, They Called Me Number One • Winner of the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature, 2014 • More than 40 weeks on the B.C. Bestsellers list in 2013 & 2014! • 3rd Prize, Burt Award for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Literature, 2014 • Shortlisted for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize (B.C. Book Prizes), 2014

$24.95 CAN / 144 pages / Non-fiction: Autobiography / 978-0-88922-972-3 / ebook forthcoming

Mend the Living Maylis de Kerangal Translated by Jessica Moore Mend the Living is a novel centred around the physical and emotional intricacies of a heart transplant. The vibrant life of nineteen-year-old Simon Limbeau comes to a state of suspension, after a car accident, urging his family and friends to the thresholds of grief, ethics, and love, all in the span of twenty-four hours. With a dazzling cast of characters, award-winning author Maylis de Kerangal imagines Simon’s body as a locus of relations: Simon’s parents, Marianne and Sean, have been estranged for some time, and must come together to make a decision about their son’s heart; Juliette, Simon’s girlfriend, is building a labyrinth in a Plexiglas case, awaiting Simon’s call; and Simon’s fritends, Christophe and Johan, have scraped by with broken limbs, but are alive and well. Weaving from hospital corridors to the wild waves of the Atlantic, from the narrow streets of Paris to the countryside in Algeria where goldfinches still sing, from the most intimate details of grief within a car in Le Havre to universal considerations of science, compassion, and humanity, Mend the Living is a powerful and vast-ranging book. In her trademark masterful use of language, playing with pacing and tension and a vibrant vocabulary, Maylis de Kerangal gives us a metaphysical adventure that is at once both collective and intimate.

“The story unfolds in an intricate lacework of precise detail. … These characters feel less like fictional creations and more like ordinary people, briefly illuminated in rich language … This novel is an exploration not only of death but of life, of humanity and fragility, ‘because the heart is more than the heart.’” – New York Times $19.95 CAN / 216 pages / Fiction: Literary / 978-0-88922-973-0 / ebook forthcoming

Running on Fumes Injun Pound @ Guantanamo

Christian Guay-Poliquin Jordan Abel Clint Burnham When the electricity Injun is a long poem about race, Some of the poems, such as inexplicably goes out racism, and the representation of “libya neoliberal Libya 2.0” nationwide, gradually shifting Indigenous peoples. Composed and “#egypt #jan25,” are the banalities of life towards of text found in western novels more direct than others, but the rigors of survival, an published between 1840 and even then reference is to the unnamed mechanic jumps into 1950, Injun uses erasure, “hashtagging” and repetition his beat-up car and drives east, pastiche, and a focused poetics of media/discourse today. journeying 4,736 kilometers to to create a visually striking ISBN 978-0-88922-979-2 reach his dying father. response to the western genre. Poetry / $17.95 / 112 pp ISBN 978-0-88922-975-4 ISBN 978-0-88922-977-8 ebook forthcoming Poetry / $16.95 / 96 pp Fiction / $14.95 / 160 pp

th book Human Tissue We the Family bill bissett a primer for Not Knowing George F. Walker In this new collection of concrete Weyman Chan Canada’s master playwright poems, bissett writes “poemes These poems try to get along applies his trademark black uv greef transisyun n sumtimes with each other – but can’t. humour and incredibly crisp joy byond binaree constraints The series of poems entitled dialogue to the family and if evreething goez what is “Parables for Frankenstein” trace multiculturalism. We the Family aneething accepting nihilism lettr the socialization and making of follows the ripple effects within texting as an approach 2 heeling a prototype misfit. Other poems two culturally and racially sorrow denial.” telescope the language and divergent families when their ISBN 978-0-88922-980-8 imagery of online identities. children wed. Poetry / $19.95 / 176 pp ISBN 978-0-88922-981-5 ISBN 978-0-88922-982-2 Poetry / $17.95 / 144 pp ebook forthcoming Drama / $17.95 / 128 pp

Sextet Inside the Seed The Watershed

Morris Panych Jason Patrick Rothery Annabel Soutar This dark and steamy comedy Mirroring controversial real- How much do we value clean explores the harmonies and life scientific and corporate water? And our industrialized dysfunctions of six sexually controversies, Inside the Seed standard of living? And can entangled musicians on an concerns a once-brilliant we stop one from degrading ill-fated winter tour. When a scientist who made a startling the other? This documentary blizzard strands this sextet for discovery: a bio-engineered play follows an artist and her an extra night, they have only form of rice that could save an family – and a country and its their instruments, each other, overpopulated world on the people – in the struggle to chart and their secrets to keep brink of catastrophic famine. a sustainable course between them warm. economic prosperity and ISBN 978-0-88922-986-0 ISBN 978-0-88922-984-6 ebook forthcoming environmental stewardship. ebook forthcoming Drama / $18.95 / 144 pp ISBN 978-0-88922-988-4 Drama / $17.95 / 128 pp ebook forthcoming Drama / $18.95 / 144 pp

Talonbooks www.talonbooks.com 278 East 1st Ave. tel. (604)-444-4889 Vancouver, BC fax. (604)-444-4119

13 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 Elaine McCluskey’s new novel, The Most Heartless Town in Canada, is a boister- ous and funny story that dives deep into the world of amateur sport, family dynam- ics, and the divide between rural and urban Canada. $20 / 978-1-77214-035-4 / March

Ignite by Kevin Spent is a collection of elegiac and experimental poetry powder-kegged with questions about one man’s lifelong struggle with schizophrenia. $18 / 978-1-77214-053-8 / April • Serpentine Loop is Elee Kraljii Gardiner’s engaging and poignant collection of poems about life on and off the ice. $18 / 978-1-77214-054-5 / March • Assdeep in Wonder, Chris Gudgeon’s debut collection of poetry, explores the idea of identity in a

myriad of contexts – personal, sexual, cultural, national, literary, and poetic. $18 / 978-1-77214-052-1 / April • Under the Stone by Quebec author Karoline Georges is a dystopian novel about a child that has been locked away since birth in a minuscule cell, at #804 of level 5969 of the Edifice. $18 / 978-1-77214-036-1 / March • No Flash, Please! by Derek von Essen (photos) and Phil Saunders (text) documents Toronto’s explo- from sive alternative music scene during the late 80s and early 90s. ANVIL $25 / 978-1-77214-037-8 / 250+ photos / March NEW www.anvilpress.com • [email protected] PRESS • available to the trade from pgc/raincoast •

ÿ NATURALLY GREAT BOOKS ÿ www.greystonebooks.com

The Shark and the Albatross Wasted A Wildlife Filmmaker Reveals Why An Alcoholic Therapist’s Nature Matters to Us All Fight for Recovery in a Flawed Treatment System     & Foreword by     978-1-77164-196-8 • $19.95 “Through words and photos, Aitchison transports readers to far-flung corners of the earth and displays, vividly, why we should care about our Terra Preta natural world.”   How the World’s Most 978-1-77164-218-7 • $22.95 Fertile Soil Can Help Reverse Climate Change and Reduce World Hunger My Journey Into the Heart of Terror , , Ten Days in the Islamic State  &  Foreword by     978-1-77164-110-4 • $21.95 When Someone You “This book is urgently needed in a world where violence, ideology, and bigotry seem so seductive Know Has Dementia in the public arena.” Practical Advice for Families   and Caregivers 978-1-77164-224-8 • $32.95   Foreword by    978-1-77164-215-6 • $22.95

14 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 W O R L D

WITH HOUSEHOLD DEBTS IN good looks like a joke.” Canada at record highs, Among individuals that Deneault cites as lew-abiding citizens who ‘avoid’ profits for banks remain taxes include the financial journalist astronomical. Recent Move over, Diane Francis, who herself has pro- vided profiles of some of Canada’s tax profits have exceeded avoiders. Quotations below are from 100 million dollars per Francis: The Irvings: “New Brunswick is week for one; another a company town owned by the Irving Switzerland family...But technically, ownership is had its most lucrative held in a series of trusts in Bermuda.” year ever. Harold Siebens: “sold his 34 per- Legal fancy-footwork is a cent of Siebens Oil to Dome for $120 Now a new book re- common practice for Canada’s million in 1978 and immediately veals that some of Can- became a permanent resident of the banks, especially in the Caribbean. Bahamas.” ada’s banks have been Frank Stronach: “Today, however, major facilitators for he is clearly a globalist living in a tax formation of the Bahamas into a tax haven....” supporting corrupt re- BY BEVERLY CRAMP haven with seemingly impenetrable David Gilmour (Peter Munk’s gimes in the Caribbean banking secrecy was shaped by a Ca- partner): “…went to the Bahamas. He AX EVASION IS ILLE- nadian minister of finance who sat on said his family had paid high taxes in enabling some Cana- gal; tax avoidance the Royal Bank of Canada’s board of Canada for five generations and he was dian corporations and is not. That’s the directors. sick of it.” gist of a new ex- Canada: A New Tax Haven, trans- Deneault alleges there is a double wealthy Canadians to le- posé subtitled ‘How lated by Catherine Browne, reviews standard in governments trying to gally avoid paying their the Country that the history of Canada’s involvement collect taxes while at the same time Shaped Caribbean with Commonwealth Caribbean na- encouraging tax avoidance: “The money fair share of taxes. TTax Havens is Becoming One Itself.’ tions as they developed banks where accumulated in these outlaws’ dens In the Caribbean, as According to Alain Deneault, our Canadians and other citizens could moves around without any legal, fis- elected politicians have created subsets place their money to shield it from the cal, political, or regulatory constraint, extensively outlined of laws with loopholes that now allow taxman—known as tax havens. as states encourage the emergence of in Alain Deneault’s tax havens to thrive. It has become By page two, Deneault provides the a class of privileged property owners respectable to hide your dough. As reason why avoiding taxes is bad for who are then courted by these same Canada: A New Tax Canada’s former finance minister, Canada when he reveals that by 2012, states offering new political and fiscal Haven (Talon $29.95), Paul Martin, who later became prime Canadians had “invested” more than incentives.” minister, was widely known to have $155 billion in seven offshore tax ha- He concludes, “the framework of the swashbuckling pi- sequestered much of his corporate vens. “Under this practice of tax avoid- corporate globalization makes it pos- rates of yesteryear have wealth in the Caribbean so he could be ance,” he writes, “citizens are deprived sible for powerful people to bypass immune to Canadian taxation. of money to fund public services, and the constitutional principles that are morphed into socially Of course the likes of Paul Martin the state as defender of the common the foundation of states, and Canada acceptable privateers, can argue they are not ‘evading’ taxes in this sense is pursuing its own de- in the sense of failing to meet their legal Canadian struction.” plunderers and just plain obligations; rather they are seeking to One of the outcomes of a tax avoid- ol’ profiteers who are rationally, within the law, minimize banking enabled ance ethos, as recounted by Deneault, taxes as a cost of doing business or is the chilling story of how the notori- often shielded by tax protecting their income. ruthless Baby Doc ous Haitian kleptocrat Jean-Claude Deneault’s book covers such events Duvalier (left) Duvalier and his wife Michele were havens, many of which as how, in the 1950s, an ex-governor able to launder some of the money are directly linked to of Canada’s central bank attempted to loot millions they had plundered from their poverty- to establish a low taxation regime in from the Haitian stricken country’s government bank Canadian banks. Jamaica. A decade later, the trans- continued on page 17 people after he assumed dicta- torship from his father Papa Doc Duvalier (right).

15 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 Telling the Truth about Canada’s Indigenous Peoples The Full Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Paperback, Cloth, and eBook editions in English and French

Canada’s Residential Schools Canada’s Residential Schools Canada’s Residential Schools The History, Part 1, Origins to 1939, The Inuit and Northern Experience, Missing Children and Unmarked Burials, Volume I Volume 2 Volume 4 978-0-7735-4650-9 $39.95 paperback, 978pp, 102 photos 978-0-7735-4654-7 $27.95 paperback, 266pp, 41 photos 978-0-7735-4658-5 $27.95 paperback, 272pp English English English Canada’s Residential Schools Canada’s Residential Schools Canada’s Residential Schools The Legacy, Volume 5 The History, Part 2, 1939 to 2000, The Métis Experience, Volume 3 978-0-7735-4660-8 $29.95 paperback, 392pp English Volume I 978-0-7735-4656-1 $19.95 paperback, 88pp English 978-0-7735-4652-3 $39.95 paperback, 824pp, 76 photos Canada’s Residential Schools English Reconciliation. Volume 6 978-0-7735-4662-2 $27.95 paperback, 296pp English Available at better bookstores and online retailers.

McGILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS mqup.ca Follow us on Facebook.com/McGillQueens and Twitter.com/Scholarmqup

CHANGE FOR THE BETTER VISITING OUR ROOTS

Where the Rivers Meet The Changing Nature of Pipelines, Participatory Resource Management, and Eco/Feminism Aboriginal-State Relations in the Northwest Territories Telling Stories from Clayoquot Sound CARLY A. DOKIS NIAMH MOORE $QLQGHSWKDFFRXQWRIWKHZRUNLQJVDQGH΍HFWV This book sheds new light on a pivotal movement of participatory environmental assessment in in Canadian, and feminist, history, challenging the Canadian North and its implications for the what we thought we knew about Clayoquot legitimization of resource co-management. Sound and the women who fought to save it. February 2016 | paperback | 978-0-7748-2846-8 January 2016 | paperback | 978-0-7748-2628-0

Working Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma A History of British Columbia’s Social Policy LISA PASOLLI How have persistent notions of what motherhood should be obstructed the creation of progressive child care policy in British Columbia?

January 2016 | paperback | 978-0-7748-2924-3

www.ubcpress.ca stay connected thought that counts

16 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 W O R L D

AROLD RHENISCH AND HIS WIFE DIANE HAVE made three trips to Iceland, initially be- cause she had always wanted to go there. Upon their arrival in 2010, after one day, she sat on her bed and announced she never wanted to leave. HRhenisch felt much the same. Iceland transformed him—it took the intellectual outside and beyond his book- ishness—to inspire him to make a very different kind of book, The Art of Haying: A Journey to Iceland (Ekstasis $33.95), with more than 200 photos. The Art of Haying, according to Rhenisch, is about draw- Novelist Gunnar Gunnarsson (1889- ing a line through grass and making a new beginning from 1975) and Harold Rhenisch. it. “I learned that one of the ancient arts, older than poetry but as old as the art of knitting, is the art of haying,” he writes. “...Horses have human souls here. If you’ve never met an Icelandic horse, that might seem merely a poetic device.” “...Horses have After his first visit, Rhenisch successfully applied for human souls here. a writer-in-residency in Iceland at the home of Icelandic If you’ve never writer Gunnar Gunnarsson. Rhenisch’s father was a Ger- met an Icelandic man immigrant raised on stories and films of farm people horse, that might in much the same vein as Gunnar Gunnarsson’s stories, “if seem merely a not directly influenced by him.” Harold Rhenisch’s writer- poetic device.” in-residency in Skriðuklaustur and his journeys around HAROLD RHENISCH Iceland with his wife, picking bilberries for lunch, resulted in his book. “I have no Icelandic ancestry,” says Rhenisch, “but you could say I grew up in Gunnar Gunnarsson’s books. His books sold millions of copies in Germany in the ‘30s and ‘40s, and he missed the Nobel Prize by a hair. The Black Cliffs was universally praised in 1932 and it was the first Icelandic crime novel.” After visits in summer, fall and winter, Rhenisch wrote his travel memoir in which he chats with ravens, learns about knitting traditions and describes his month at Skriðuklaustur, writing about the modern Icelandic sagas of Gunnar Gunnarsson. Klaustrið (the Monastery) is a residence managed by The Institute of Gunnar Gunnarsson. It is situated at Skriðuk- laustur Culture Center in North East Iceland in Gunnars- son’s former home that he built in 1939, next door to the farm on which he was born. In 1940, Gunnarsson went on a “politically complex” speaking tour in wartime Germany. “The Nazi connection with Gunnar’s house was difficult for me,” Rhenisch says, “so, at first, I was thinking there’s no way I would stay there. But then I realized, who better, Warming to especially as he was no Nazi. It turned out to be a profound homecoming of sorts. The creative culture in Iceland is ex- traordinary. Plus, there are horses and rowan forests and extraordinary light. What’s not to love! “This is a love story for a country, for a woman, and for a way of life in which the old is new and the new is old and a man frees himself from the walls that books have made in PHOTOS his mind — walls that he previously didn’t know were there. It’s a scary thing, to have been kept by books my whole life, RHENISCH and then, one day, to step outside their pastures, but that’s

ICELAND DIANE what happened.” 978-1-77171-125-8

Simon and Le Fort, began the process happen today as a 1989 law was en- that they had to rely on private money- at the RBC’s headquarters in Toronto acted to crack down on such practices. changers to dispose of the foreign cur- Banking to move the deposed dictator’s money Deneault chronicles why and how rency accumulated as they went about from Canada to the tax haven of Jersey Canadian banks have had a long his- their professional duties. One of these in the U.K. It was a complex operation tory in the Caribbean. “The economic moneychangers, Enos Collins, himself Baby Doc involving the securities being split group ruling the colonies that would an ex-privateer, had the idea of creat- from their ownership records and eventually become Canada,” he writes, ing a real bank and was able to carry continued from page 15 further movements “had always had an out this project in 1825.” accounts when they fled the country between the HSBC eye on the Caribbean. These days Canada has one of the in 1986. Bank in Jersey, the This was especially lowest corporate tax rates in the world. “Baby Doc,” as he was known, RBC in London, the true of Halifax mer- Even the IMF (International Monetary basically robbed his country with the Banque Nationale de chants, who were in- Fund) has suggested Canada could assistance of Canadian institutions. Paris, and sundry terested in the West raise its maximum tax rate for high Baby Doc’s father was the equally Swiss institutions. Indies trade. From the income Canadians by as much as 15% vile Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier Despite guidelines eighteenth century without causing capital flight. who ruled Haiti with an iron fist from requiring banks to on, these merchants According to Deneault, loopholes 1957 to 1971. determine customers’ grew wealthy by ex- now encourage companies to relocate When even Swiss banks decided identity, according to porting salt cod and to Canada rather than to Barbados to freeze Baby Doc’s accounts, the Deneault, “the RBC Alain Deneault lumber to the islands or Bermuda. In the book, Deneault escaping couple turned to Canada. admits that it simply and importing coffee, places much of the blame directly on According to Deneault, they had some relied on the impeccable credentials sugar, molasses, and rum. Canada’s former prime minister. “To- of their advisors “convert into cash of the two lawyers, Le Fort and [John “…The Halifax Banking Company day,” Deneault alleges, “our country’s a sum of $41.8 million in Canadian Stephen] Matlin [from the British was founded by a privateer who had laws and public policies apply only treasury bills.” law firm Turner and Company], who sailed Caribbean waters. Around 1814, to citizens belonging to social classes The treasury bills were considered were conducting the operation. The Nova Scotia privateers—violent seamen unable to take advantage of loopholes ideal because they could be bought bank later claimed that it would have authorized by the British government that our indulgent [Steven Harper] and sold with a degree of secrecy refused the money had it known who to attack merchant ships designated government has created for the benefit approaching anonymity. One of Du- the true beneficiaries were.” as enemy vessels—deplored the lack of the powerful.” 978-0-88922-836-8 valier’s lawyers, Alain Le Fort from It is important to note that it is of proper banking services in the port the Geneva law firm of Patry, Junet, unlikely this kind of transaction would of Halifax. The privateers complained Beverly Cramp is a Vancouver writer

17 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 The emerald-encrusted gold San Pedro cross has disappeared from the Bermuda Maritime Museum. In Foreign its place remains an impeccable forgery. The investigation into its disappearance has ended and yet the questions remain. Who made the forgery, and who stole the cross? Discovered by two salvage divers off the coast of Bermuda, only one of the divers and a mysterious group of cardinals known as the Silenti, are aware that the cross contains a priceless hidden key. Only the cardinals know of the key’s importance to the Papacy. In a subtle blend of fact and fiction, B. R. Bentley skilfully interweaves the attempts of the various protagonists to obtain possession of the key with the renewed investigation into the disappearance of the cross in this, his latest book, The Bermuda Key. A stand-alone novel in its own right, The Bermuda Key is also the seamless sequel to Bentley’s previous 978-1-4602-8007-2 The Cross, 978-1-4602-8008-9 book, bringing events to an enjoyable, albeit 978-1-4602-8009-6 highly unexpected, conclusion.

E-BOOK & PRINT COPIES NOW AVAILABLE – SEE LINKS AT WHOSE MAN IN HAVANA? FROM KINSHASA TO KANDAHAR: Adventures from the Far Side Canada and Fragile States in Historical www.brbentley.com of Diplomacy Perspective JOHN W. GRAHAM EDITED BY MICHAEL K. CARROLL AND GREG DONAGHY John Graham never would have dreamed that his apprenticeship within the Canadian Explains the historic forces that have foreign service would have him stationed in shaped Canadian policy towards failed and Cuba spying for the CIA on Soviet military fragile states and provides a platform for a operations. Subsequent assignments national discussion about Canada’s future proved to be as unexpectedly and bizarrely role addressing state fragility. entertaining. 256 pp, $34.95 328 pp, $34.95 APRIL 2016

978-1-55238-824-2 sc 978-1-55238-844-0 sc 978-1-55238-827-3 epub 978-1-55238-847-1 epub 978-1-55238-828-0 mobi 978-1-55238-848-8 mobi Affairs from U Calgary Press

Also from A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North: Terrestrial Sovereignty, University 1870-1939 by Gordon W. Smith. P. Whitney Lackenbauer (Editor) (978-1-55238-720-7) of Calgary Press: Fishing for a Solution: Canada’s Fisheries Relations with the European Union, 1977-2013 by Donald Barry, Bob Appelbaum and Earl Wiseman (978-1-55238-778-8) In the National Interest: Canadian Foreign Policy and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909–2009 edited by Michael Carroll and Greg Donaghy (978-1-55238-538-8)

University of Calgary Press press.ucalgary.ca

Titles From Oolichan Books

Fernie, B.C. - www.oolichan.com - [email protected]

November’s Radio WaitingW for the Steve Noyes AAlbatross 978-0-88982-311-2 SandyS Shreve Fiction - 256 pages 978-0-88982-304-49 Paperback • $19.95 The Rise and PPoetry - 86 pages November’s Radio, is a strange, PPaperback • $17.95 Fall of Emilio satiric book concerning the “Poignant,“ salty, full of danger, Picariello making of a holographic film tthese poems always manage in China and the intrigue tto dock at our hearts. The Adriana Davies around a new anti-anxiety eexperience of reading it is a lot, drug. It is a literary novel with 978-0-88982-318-1 I imagine, like being there.” BC History - 128 pages comic leanings, crisply written, Paperback • $19.95 and full of surprising scenes. ~ Jane Eaton Hamilton

In this study of Emilio Belly Full of Rocks PicarielloPi (aka Emperor Pick) TumourT AdrianaAdA i DaviesD i paintsi t a vividi id portraitp of what life was TylerT B. Perry Evelyn Lau like at the turn of the 20th century in the Canadian west 978-0-88982-298-69 978-0-88982-312-99 for Italian immigrants, with opportunity hampered by Poetry - 96 pages Poetry - 80 pages bigotry. Despite this, Emilio managed to build quite the Paperback • $17.95 empire, with both legal and illegal business. Paperback • $17.95 BellyB Full of Rocks, Tyler B. EvelynE Lau digs up her deepest His predilection for running alcohol between BC and Perry’s second book of poetry, ffears to unearth the universal Alberta, however, is what led to his demise, as well as the ddelves deep into the psyches of hhope we all have—of a life that demise of his employee, Filumena Lassandro. Both were Red Riding Hood, the Wolf, mmatters. executed for the murder, with Filumena the last woman tthe Huntsman, Mama Bear, executed in Alberta. aand other fairy tale characters as tthey struggle to piece together Visit www.oolichan.com and enter ttheir broken lives. our contest to win a selection of titles, a set for yourself and one for your local library.

18 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 W O R L D

ITH THE RETRIEVAL OF Alec Wainman has emerged posthumously Republican militias (shown here at a suitcase, Alec the Aragon front, 1936) had no formal Wainman can as a highly significant Spanish Civil War uniform and chose their own attire. There were few helmets to go around. finally be recog- photographer. At age 23, he volun- nized as a great humanitarian. teered as an ambulance driver to help documentary film. WAfter a forty-year search, 240 black Born in Yorkshire in 1913, Alexan- and white Spanish Civil War photos combat Franco’s fascist army. der Wheeler Wainman came to Vernon, taken by Wainman have resurfaced in B.C. at age seven with his mother, Live Souls: Citizens and Volunteers widowed by World War I. of Civil War Spain (Ronsdale $24.95). In 1928, the family returned to In 1934 and 1935 Alec Wainman Britain where he studied modern lan- was working at the British Embassy guages at Oxford, receiving an M.A. in in Moscow when he became dismayed Russian and Italian. by Western Europe’s ignorance The English Wainman joined the BMU in Paris of the dangers posed by the in August and arrived in Barcelona in rise of Nazism. September, soon evolving into an inter- Concerned that Hitler Staff preter for the multi-lingual Republican and Mussolini were sup- forces. A year later he was head of the porting Franco’s national- Suitcase English and American press depart- ists in Spain, he went to Pick ment for the Ministry of State of the Spain soon after the Spanish to defend democratic freedom 4,500 Spanish Civil War negatives of Republican government. Civil War broke out in July of while western governments photos on 126 rolls of film taken by A pacifist with Quaker sympathies, 1936 and initially served as a stood aside. Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and Chim Wainman never engaged in the fight- pacifist volunteer in the British Medical Some forty thousand volunteer sol- (David Seymour) and published in the ing. He crossed paths with Ernest Unit (BMU). diers from 50 countries came to fight well-known volume, The Mexican Suit- Hemingway and Stephen Spender The British Medical Unit under Dr. for the Spanish Republic prior to World case (2010) the subject of a 90-minute (who he photographed) but he never Reginald Saxton would make medical War II. The largest contingents met George Orwell or Norman history in collaboration with the Cana- of civilian support came from Bethune. dian Blood Transfusion Unit under Dr. France, Germany, Italy, Yugosla- Back in Vancouver, Wainman Norman Bethune by collaborating on via, Britain, USA, Canada, Latin taught at UBC’s Department mobile blood transfusions in the field, American and Bulgaria. of Slavonic Studies from 1947 using refrigerated blood trucks, there- But Franco’s dictatorship to 1978. He mostly kept quiet fore enabling poorly armed soldiers to arose—bolstering the confidence about his involvements in Spain, more capably defend the Republic’s of Hitler and Mussolini, leading sharing his memories with only 1,000-km. front. to the outbreak of World War II. a few friends and pacifist George Having volunteered at age 23 for ser- In Live Souls, which also con- Woodcock, with whom he col- vice as an ambulance driver, Wainman tains Wainman’s unfinished laborated for a CBC documentary. has only now emerged posthumously memoir of the Spanish Civil War, In the mid-1950s, Alec Wain- as a highly significant Spanish Civil Serge Alternês is tactfully cir- man purchased a 90-acre proper- War photographer after his son and co- cumspect about how his father’s ty on the Okanagan lakefront and author Serge Alternês rescued a long- photos were finally found and sold it in the late 1980s. This ac- lost cache of 1,650 photos sequestered retrieved. counts for the street name Wain- by a dishonourable publisher. The archive, stored in a suit- man Cove, a 700-metre roadway ✫ case, was rescued by Jeanne on the west side of Okanagan WAINMAN’S BEHIND-THE-SCENES PHOTOS OF Griffiths from the home of a Lake, near Fisbee Creek, north Republican soldiers and civilians were retired and since deceased Soho of Fintry and south of Whiteman all taken with a Leitz Leica camera. publisher. Oddly, a more famous Creek. Wainman and his family They poignantly capture the faces cache of photos was similarly After the Hungarian Revolution failed, Alec Wain- built the two original breakwaters of idealism and the camaraderie of retrieved in 2007 from a long- man (lower right) helped bring Hungarian refugees that created a larger cove. from the Sopron School of Forestry to UBC in 1957. those who independently mobilized missing suitcase. These were the 978-155380-437-6

19 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 Spring Books from Ronsdale Press

Wordplay Last Chance Island ARRANGED AND DERANGED WIT Norma Charles Howard Richler Two African children are abandoned on Laugh out loud as Howard Richler takes an island off Ireland, and a young Canadian us through the punny-funny English girl must find a way to save them. language at its most creative. With 12 978-1-55380-458-1 (PRINT) illustrations. 978-1-55380-459-8 (EBOOK) 228 pp $11.95 978-1-55380-452-9 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-453-6 (EBOOK) 200 pp $19.95 Deaf Heaven Taking a Chance on Love Garry Gottfriedson Mary Razzell Can a teenage girl on the Sunshine Coast Poetry that takes us inside present-day during WWII find both love and an First Nations reality to reveal the education when the adult expectations wounds of history and the possible promise so little? healing to come. 978-1-55380-455-0 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-449-9 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-456-7 (EBOOK) 154 pp $11.95 978-1-55380-450-5 (EBOOK) 104 pp $15.95

From There Mouse Tales SOME THOUGHTS ON POETRY & PLACE Philip Roy & Andrea Torrey Balsara Stephen Burt Happy the pocket mouse wants bedtime Experience Canadian, American and stories to help him fall asleep, but the Grimm English poetry afresh as Stephen Burt, brothers’ stories promise something else. Harvard poet and critic, shines light on 978-1-55380-444-4 (PRINT) its deep connections to place. 32 pp $12.95 hard cover 978-1-55380-461-1 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-462-8 (EBOOK) 56 pp $10.95

Available at your favourite bookstore or order from PGC/Raincoast Ronsdale Press www.ronsdalepress.com

Soviet Princeton Twenty Seven Stings Slim Evans and the 1932–33 Julie Emerson Illustrated by Miners’ Strike Roxanna Bikadoroff Jon Bartlett & Rika Ruebsaat “Few will fail to be impressed and moved When mine owners slashed wages in by this new collection, which comprises 17 Princeton, B.C., the miners called in takes in verse on the multiple relationships notorious labour activist Slim Evans, who between women and war. ... We need led the newly formed union in a dramatic poets like Emerson, and books like Twenty months-long battle against the owners, Seven Stings. Read this one even if you the police, the local board of trade, seldom read poetry. and the KKK. — Vancouver Sun Also available as a Kobo or Kindle ebook

Around the World The World, I Guess on Minimum Wage George Bowering Andrew Struthers

“ “A book about the writing life that A comic and spiritually inflected memoir manages to be affable, astute, and of the Canadian 1980s, presented in cohesive ...George Bowering’s candour is the style of the British 1890s. Imagine beguiling. He gives you a good time with T.E. Lawrence’s seven pillars of wisdom his writing, you feel comfortable, even performed as a Bob and Doug McKenzie chummy, in his presence; he’s playful, but sketch, and you’re halfway there. then he nails you with some hard truths.” — subTerrain — Vancouver Sun

New Star Books Incendiary Poetry & Prose Since 1974 newstarbooks.com | [email protected] | @newstarbooks

20 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 WORLD

THE TREE OF LIFE

ince moving to a two-acre farm and planting dozens of trees, Nikki Tate has come to appreciate “why trees just might be our best friends.” As a follow-up to her children’s book about Shousing around the world, she celebrates the universal importance of trees in Deep Roots: How Trees Sustain Our Planet (Orca $19.95). Among other things, we learn that six of the planet’s eight species of baobab trees are in Mada- gascar. During the rainy season, water is stored in their enormous, smooth, white trunks that rise like 100-ft. pillars. The baobab is known as the Tree of Life because the trees produce much-needed fruit in the dry season when little else grows. Baobab flowers bloom at night and are pollinated by bats. 978-1-4598-0582-8

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in 1958 to join one of her sisters who was PHOTO Cuban literacy campaign already living in Nanaimo. My grandfather and my uncle did not survive the war.” HARVEY Having lived and worked in “I don’t know if the farm still exists but I

STELLA Cuba for five years in the mid 1960s, hope to go and find out. My mother told me Shirley Langer has a deep and abiding that her eldest sister did go back once, after knowledge of Cuba that has resulted in her Germans were allowed to travel there. It was young adult novel, Anita’s Revolution still a farm at that point but was somewhat (Shirleez Books $15.95), recalling Castro’s rundown. That would have been quite a long literacy campaign of the early 1960s when time ago.” 978-1-927485-83-5 school children were sent into the country- side to teach one million illiterate Cubans Hats on in Tanzania how to read and write. Some were killed by counter-revolutionaries but Cuba’s literacy Emily Urquhart was named one rate eventually rose to almost 100%. Anita’s of four finalists for this year’s B.C. Na- Revolution has been translated into Spanish tional Award for Canadian Non-fiction for and was re-launched in February at Cuba’s Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family and 25th annual Internacional the Mystery of our Hid- Feria del Libro, an Interna- den Genes (HarperCollins tional Book Fair in Havana. $29.99), shortlisted from 978-09812538-1-7 among 137 entries. Beyond the Pale investi- gates the phenomenon of al- binism from her perspective Kindness in as a folklorist and mother of Sadie, her daughter, who Pomerania has albinism, a rare genetic condition. Michelle Barker’s Several chapters in Be- A Year of Borrowed Men yond the Pale concern Urqu- (Pajama Press $21.95) hart’s trip to Tanzania with arose from her mother’s her husband to investigate childhood experiences on the high incidence of albi- a family farm during World nism in that country. War II in Pomerania when We learn, among many that Polish area of Europe was part of Nazi things, that the term “albino” is no longer Germany. politically correct. People with “oculocuta- Written from the perspective of seven- neous abinism” have little or no pigment in year-old Gerda, it’s the true story of survival their skin, hair and eyes. As well, they have after Hitler’s army “borrowed” all the men little protection against the sun; sunburns in her family for warfare. Gerda can’t fully are quick and dangerous and may cause grasp why three French prisoners-of-war skin cancer. Syntagma Square protest: An estimated 388,324 migrants reached Greek shores by sea in the first nine months of 2015. who have been sent to work on their family “Low pigmentation,” she writes, “results farm as labourers cannot be invited inside in photophobia, meaning that daylight, par- from the barn for just one meal. FOR HER SECOND NOVEL, THE BRINK OF FREEDOM Larsen of aid organization Children’s Ark, was ticularly the searing rays of high noon, can (Signature Editions $22.95), Stella Leventoyan- Harvey’s guide to the Roma settlement just out- Kindness overcomes suspicion as Gabriel, be intolerable.” nis Harvey travelled to Greece to better grasp the side of the port city of Corinth where a paved road Fermaine and Albert gradually gain the trust With a doctorate in folklore from Memo- plight of refugees in the Mediterranean. narrowed. The city gave way to farmland, then a of the little girl. rial University of Newfoundland, Emily Urqu- Her story concerns a young boy who goes WHO GOES decimated olive grove strewn with garbage. Maria With family photos and an author’s hart of Victoria won a National Magazine missing from a refugee camp. After he is found said the farm had likely been abandoned. When the historical note, A Year of Borrowed Men Award in 2014. 978-1-44342-356-4 with a Canadian woman who wants to help, Roma moved in, they likely burned the trees, some suggests to young readers (ages 6–9) that ✫ Greek police apprehend a Roma from Ukraine of which were over 500 years old, to keep warm. it’s not a stretch to change the German The B.C. National Award for Canadian Non- on suspicion of human trafficking. They entered the camp through the open gate. word Feinde (enemies) to the German word fiction was won by Rosemary Sullivan for “The characters are as real to me as my neigh- THERE? There were all sorts of houses, from shacks to Freunde (friends). The book is illustrated by her biography, Stalin’s Daughter: The Ex- bours and friends,” she says, “I feel desperate when newish-looking houses. Harvey had never seen Renné Benoit. traordinary and Tumultuous Life of Sveltana my characters make what I think are bad decisions. HALT new houses in other Roma camps. Maria said “My mother’s family had to flee the farm Alliluyeva (HarperCollins). The Quebec-born I hear myself shouting, please don’t do that.” Faced with their own dire economic crisis, Greeks in that the drug dealers in the camp likely owned in the spring of 1945,” says Barker, “and author was presented with the $40,000 prize them. This tidbit would give her more to explore they never returned. They headed south- at a sumptuous, free-for-VIPs bun toss at TELLA LEVENTOYANNIS HARVEY WAS Athens have looked askance at protesting migrants. in her novel, connecting two characters from first struck by the mass influx different backgrounds. west, ending up in a town called Ermsleben, Vancouver’s Fairmont Waterfront Hotel on of migrants into Europe when Harvey returned in 2014 and visited a refugee Greece for months waiting to hear about their eyes and an open smile who was willing to Children’s Ark donors were primarily Swed- in what became East Germany. My mother February 4th. All three runners-up including she was in Greece in 2012 fin- detention centre, Amygdaleza, the largest such asylum request. He liked his school, he liked be- share his story. Like other Syrians, he’d come ish. “The general society ostracizes the Roma,” escaped in 1953, and immigrated to Canada Urquhart received $5,000 each. ishing her first novel, Nicolai’s facility in Greece. High fences were topped with ing in Greece, but he wasn’t sure the government through Turkey to Greece. To do so, he had Maria said. “So they stick to their own, living Daughters about the Nazi oc- razor wire; there were guard towers with armed was going to let his family stay. His face became been smuggled into Greece in a decrepit, rusted apart from the rest of the general Greek com- cupation during World War II. officers at each corner. The staff spent close to very serious. It upset her that a little boy had to fishing boat. He had received refugee status but munity.” S“In 2012, the economy was shrinking further, two hours with her as she toured the facility. worry about such things. now his status was reviewed every six months to It became increasingly clear to Harvey the unemployment was in the double-digit zone and She met with doctors and other medical staff. Visiting Syntagma Square—in an exclusive, determine if it was safe for him to return home. extent to which both new migrants in Europe young Greeks in particular had few opportuni- A week later, she read in the newspaper that affluent neighborhood in the heart of Athens— He was in the square because he didn’t have a and the traditional migrants—the Roma—are fre- ties. This was also the time when I saw the rise a twenty-six-year-old Pakistani man died in that Harvey came across a makeshift camp in front of place to live. quently victims of ignorance. This research was of the far right Nazi party, Golden Dawn (Chrysí centre. Police had allegedly beaten him while he the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. On cardboard “Yes,” he said, “it’s true that I won’t be shot all grist for her novel, mostly set in the Athenian Avgí) and attacks by this group’s followers on was in another detention centre because he was boxes, blankets and plastic tarps, some 200 men, in the streets here, but I’m not allowed to live neighbourhood of Ta Prosfygika. foreigners and the later murder of the Greek involved in a protest over the living conditions. women and children stood or sat, placards in either. All we want is freedom.” Of Greek heritage, Harvey came to Canada anti-fascist rapper, Pavlos Fyssas. “ The man had allegedly requested medical treat- hand. A number had tape across their mouths. Harvey came to understand that refugee as an immigrant from Egypt, where her family Among all the countries in Europe, Greece ment. It had been denied. Harvey didn’t know This was Day 5 of a hunger strike. She found status doesn’t permit the migrant to find a job was living, after the Egyptian government began had been cited by the European Commission the man. But she wasn’t able to get him out of an English-speaking bear of a man with kind or gain social assistance to find a place to live. nationalizing foreign businesses to oust foreign- as the country most tolerant and welcoming to her mind. His death made her ques- Official refugee status also doesn’t enable some- ers. “We weren’t mistreated and my parents felt, migrants in 1989. Harvey wondered what had tion what she’d been told by Greek “There was one to legally travel to another part of Europe. with few exceptions, that Canadian immigration happened to filoxenía (Greek for hospitality) and officials and it left her wondering Eventually she created her main characters authorities treated us in a respectful way. The how she would feel in a refugee’s shoes. about her own naiveté. nothing I could do Vijay, Saphal and Sanjit for The Brink of Free- process was orderly. No dangerous, life-threat- Her curiosity led her to Athens where she Next she visited the Asylum Ser- dom. Roma also take a leading role. Harvey ening crossings. No people smuggling.” found an apartment close to a Roma camp, later vice of the Ministry of Public Order but watch helplessly, spoke to those who could understand English Much of Harvey’s family still lives in Greece described in The Brink of Freedom. When the po- and Citizen Protection in Athens to and later try to or else her somewhat clumsy Greek. “I wanted and she visits often. Part of the proceeds from lice tore down that camp, she could see the des- understand the registration process to see through their eyes,” she says, “to sense The Brink of Freedom will go to the Red Cross to peration on the faces of the people who watched for asylum seekers. It all seemed rea- write about it.” their plight through their hearts. More and more support their efforts to help refugees in Greece. their temporary shelters being destroyed. sonable. Then she talked to an Stella Leventoyannis Harvey I came to realise that in order for me to write, I A social worker by training, Harvey is Emily Urquhart distributes protective sun hats in Tanzania (near the equator) where “There was nothing I could do but watch help- Afghani boy who spoke perfect need to first feel.” mainly known in B.C. as the founder/manager half of people with albinism develop skin cancer by age 20 and 80 per cent by age 30. lessly,” she says, “and later try to write about it.” English. His family had been in A Swedish woman raised in Greece, Maria of the Whistler Writers Festival. 978-1927426760

22 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 23 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 A story of strength and survival that will leave you speechless

“This is extraordinary and, often unexpectedly, beautiful reading.” NOAH RICHLER, author of This Is My Country, What’s Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada

”Life-affi rming, awe-inspiring, and even wickedly funny in parts.” NEIL SMITH, author of Boo

“Carmen Aguirre will show you what compassion truly looks like. And the fi nal few pages will leave you gobsmacked.” ALISON WEARING, author of Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter

”I read all Aguirre’s Author photo ©Alejandra Author Aguirre work with fascination and a kind of awe.” HEATHER MALLICK penguinrandomhouse.ca

caitlin-press.com

24 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 W O R L D

A young Ronald Wright at Inca fortress, Cusco, Peru PHOTO

VICKERS Glory, gore and gold ROD . J

(Penguin, 2003), Ronald Wright is largely based how maintain integrity while witness- BY CHERIE THIESSEN ing slaughterous triumphs to which but always wanted recalls the triumphs on meticulous re- to give myself the search and his- he has been a party. Wright named his E CAN PROBABLY NEV- freedom of a novel of the Spanish torical characters protagonist Waman in honour of Felipe er get enough of to imagine what it makes it all the Waman Puma, “the indigenous writer writings that set would have been conquistador more fascinating. and artist whose work so brilliantly to right the loot- like to live through Francisco Pizarro The driving nar- illuminates the Peruvian experience of ing and devasta- the catastrophe of rative tells the tale those tragic times.” tion that wreaked the Spanish con- in his novel, of the vast sweep In an afterword, Ronald Wright writes: Whavoc on ancient civilizations under quest. Hence The The Gold Eaters. of Pizarro’s inva- “I have kept to the skeleton of fact, add- the guise of bringing Christianity to Gold Eaters, which I sion of the rich ing flesh where fiction demands. The the savages. began in 2010.” and advanced Inca main events happened, and most of my Luisa Maria Celis’s novel about In The Gold Eaters we follow the kingdom. Over 3,000 miles long and characters are based on people known to the Spanish conquest of Venezuela, misfortunes of Waman, an Inca youth stretching from southern Columbia have taken part in them.” Arrows (Libros Libertad), which I re- yearning for adventure and travel. He to central Chile, the empire was the Even Waman was born of research. viewed in BCBW in spring, 2009, was thinks leaving his village will hasten world’s second largest after China. The initial raid on that Inca vessel re- a product of meticulous research. The the process of becoming a man. Un- Abetted considerably by the dev- ally occurred and a young boy was kid- author read over 90 books, blasting fortunately, his leave-taking will yield astating smallpox they brought with napped and taken to Spain. Very likely light on the atrocities under Diego de despair, sickness, suffering and im- them, by deceit and by the Inca’s he later served as the interpreter for the Losada, one of the Spanish invaders prisonment, starting from his eleventh trusting nature, Pizarro, a founder of Spanish in Cajamarca and Cusco, two in Venezuela’s Caracas Valley during day at sea after he manages to board Panama, loots and slaughters his way of the main Peruvian cities featured in Spain’s “Golden Age” in the mid 16th a trading vessel in Tumbes (coastline to Cusco’s gold. the book. century, around 40 years after Fran- of present-day Peru) as the youngest Before him, in 1521, Hernán Cortés The architects of Machu Picchu cisco Pizarro’s rampages. crew-member. had just conquered Mexico, and Cusco were part of an advanced Now Ronald Wright has followed A Spanish vessel, with with the help of his invis- civilization but unfortunately they did suit with a remarkable New World tale none other than Francis- ible army, the smallpox. not have guns or a deadly disease to do of glory, gore and gold, The Gold Eaters co Pizarro at the helm, Now Pizarro wants the gold their dirty work. Atawallpa’s ransom (Penguin/Hamish Hamilton $32), writ- overtakes the boat Waman of the last great unknown was a roomful of gold and silver, seven ten after Wright made numerous trips is on. The boat is looted civilization to the south. So tons of gold and 13 tons of silver all to South America, conducting research. and most of its occupants it is that in 1526, aboard melted down. But when the gold was Under these authors’ unblinking are murdered, or eaten by the Santa Elena, the reader delivered, Pizarro betrayed Atawallpa eyes, the glorified Spanish Conquista- sharks as they attempt to meets up with Pizarro as and killed him anyway. dors look a whole lot more like thugs flee. The one woman aboard he sails from Panama and When it comes to these gold eaters, and thieves. The amazed Incas called is raped and flings herself overtakes the little trading ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’ them ‘gold eaters’ because they fell on overboard. Ronald Wright vessel at the outset of the seems apt. The novel is made intrigu- the gold with such hunger and savagery. Waman fares better. He’s novel. ing by conflicts between Pizarro and “The urge to write about Peru,” taken prisoner, taught some Span- This story of how Pizarro, with only “One Eye,” Almagro, his sleazy partner says Wright, “first came to me when I ish, and ultimately becomes the “Old a few hundred ragged and smelly men, in-crime, as well as betrayals, raids, was ill and bedridden, aged 30, at Ol- One’s” translator. Waman worries he is able to capture the Inca emperor, murders and rebellions. lantaytambo, where Manku, the Inca may never again see his mother, his Atawallpa (Atahualpa) and decimate Wright has published ten books of resistance leader—and a hero in The father, his grandfather and Tika, his the huge Inca army has been told be- fiction and non-fiction translated into Gold Eaters—routed a Spanish army comely cousin who was orphaned by fore—for example, in Peter Schaffer’s sixteen languages in over forty coun- in 1536.” After convalescing at a small an earthquake when very young. Tika 1964 play, The Royal Hunt of the Sun. tries. Earlier works include Time Among hotel there called El Albergue, Wright lives with Waman’s family in the small But while Schaffer takes more dramatic the Maya (2000), and his first novel A began working on what became his Peruvian community of Little River. license with his plot, and elevates both Scientific Romance (1999), which won first book, Cut Stones & Crossroads: A Waman’s fledgling romance with Tika, Inca ruler and Spanish conqueror, Britain’s David Higham prize for fiction Journey in Peru—just reissued in Pen- his years as a captive—in Spain, aboard Wright seems to creep as close as any- and was selected as book of the year by guin Modern Classics with a foreword ship and ultimately back in Peru—and one can to historical truth. the New York Times, The Sunday Times, by Alberto Manguel. his efforts to find his way home serve as Not unlike the infamous, real-life and the Globe and Mail. 978-0-670-06826-5 “Over the years,” he says, “I also the framework for Wright’s gargantuan translator Malinche who assisted Cor- wrote about the Incas in other non- historical narrative. tez in conquering the Aztecs of Mexico, Cherie Thiessen reviews fiction, especially Stolen Continents That Wright’s action-packed plot Wright’s translator Waman must some- fiction from Pender Island.

25 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 W O R L D

S THE AUTHOR OF 18 PREVIOUS MILITARY BOOKS, historian Mark Zuehlke was one of a small contingent of marchers in a 300-kilometre trek in 2013 through Sicily in the footsteps of Canadian Asoldiers who were there in WW II. They walked between 15 and 35 kilometres each day, usually along winding country roads, in order to reach the outskirts of a small town or village. Often they walked under a searing sun, with Mount Etna in the distance. MarchingMarching inin That adventure with his wife Frances Back- house sparked Zuehlke’s contemplation of war and remembrance for Through Blood and Sweat: A Remembrance Trek Across Sicily’s World War SicilySicily II Battlegrounds (D&M $36.95).

Canadian tank in Regalbuto, Sicily, 1943.

Filmmaker Max Fraser also undertook the Si- cilian trek to mark the 70th anniversary of Sicily’s liberation in order to make his documentary, Bond of Strangers. The marchers were repeatedly greeted by hun- dreds of cheering and applauding Sicilians. In front of each community’s war memorial, a service of remembrance for both the Canadian and Sicilian war dead was conducted. Each day brought the marchers closer to their final destination—the Agira Canadian War Cem- In the centre, etery, where 490 of the 562 Canadian soldiers who Mark Zuehlke fell during the course of Operation Husky in 1943 and Frances are buried. Backhouse. Operation Husky was the code name for the successful 1943 invasion of Sicily. 978-1-77162-009-3

MarilynMarilyn && MaryMary inin ScotlandScotland nce upon a Scottish time in the 17th-century, Mary Ma- cLeod was banned from composing any song indoors or outdoors, so she defiantly wrote a song on her threshold instead. Hence Marilyn Bowering’sBowering’s tribute to the rebel poet of the Hebrides, Mary MacLeod, is called Threshold O(Leaf(Leaf PressPress $20).$20). Bowering’sBowering’s poemspoems areare sparespare tributes,tributes, evokingevoking MàiriMàiri as a sister poet. An afterword recalls Bowering’s Hebridean rambles [pictured[pictured here]here] toto thethe islandsislands ofof HarrisHarris (burial(burial placesplaces ofof thethe MacLeods),MacLeods), Berneray (where Mary MacLeod lived), North Uist and South Uist in 2010, but it’s neither a travelogue nor a biography. Photos are by Xan Shian (Bowering’s daughter). Threshold was the co-winner of the Gwendolyn MacEwan Poetry Competition for Best Suite in 2013. Mary MacLeod was born c. 1615 on the island of Harris and died at

Dunvegan c. 1707 on the island of Skye. 978-1-926655-88-8 Marilyn Bowering

26 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 W O R L D Celebrating 48 Years of Raif Badawi’s case has garnered Publishing in Canada international attention surrounding the topic of free speech.

Kah-Lan the Adventurous The Klondike Gold Rush Sea Otter Steamers Karen Autio A History of Yukon River Steam Navigation Illustrated by Sheena Lott The whip Robert D. Turner The whip The heroic travels of two dynamic sea otter characters are a wonderful During the Klondike Gold Rush, introduction to sea otters, and to the sternwheeled steamboats were the human activities that threaten them. key mode of transportation. This Appealing illustrations by Sheena book tells the dramatic story of vs. the blog these amazing boats, the people Lott and a triumphant ending will who built and ran them, and the Suffocating orthodoxy in Saudi Arabia. inspire readers to learn more about these remarkable animals. services they gave to a vast, lonely, frenzied, challenging frontier. JUVENILE FICTION • Ages 7–10 978-1-55039-242-5 UBLISHED BY VANCOUVER’S support of Ensaf Haidar, Badawi’s wife, 978-1-55039-244-9 • $9.95 Greystone Books, the who was granted political asylum by hardcover • $49.95 Saudi blogger Raif Canada and now lives in Sherbrooke, Also available as an ebook 600+ photos Badawi has received the Quebec with their three children. She PEN Pinter International has been tirelessly fighting for Badawi’s Writer of Courage Award freedom and has organized rallies, met Pfor 2015 from the international literary with the U.S. Congress and spoken to organization that seeks to safeguard media outlets all over the world about the human rights of authors worldwide. his case. B.C. BESTSELLER In 2008, Badawi founded the online Along with the PEN Pinter prize, forum Free Saudi Liberals, a website Raif Badawi has also received the about politics and religion in his coun- Thomas Dehler Medal Award, The try. He has been imprisoned since 2012 Franco-German Journalism Prize and was publicly punished for express- 2015, the Press Freedom Prize, The ing his opinions with 50 lashes on Difference Day Honorary Title for January 9, 2015 on the square in front Freedom of Expression, the Aikenhead Knitting Stories Shack Island Summer of the Al-Dschafali mosque in Jeddah. Award 2014, The Geneva Summit Personal Essays and Seven Coast Penny Chamberlain A selection of Badawi’s blog posts Courage Award and The Honour Of Salish–inspired Knitting Patterns is available in 1000 Lashes: Because The City of Strasbourg. It’s the summer of 1969, the summer Sylvia Olsen I Say What I Think (Greystone $9.95) According to Salman Rushdie, “Raif of flower children and the first In 1000 Lashes he expresses his Badawi’s is an important voice for all Master storyteller and expert knitter moon landing. 12-year-old Pepper opinions on life in an autocratic-Islam- of us to hear, mild, nuanced, but clear. Sylvia Olsen’s essay collection knows she’s adopted and decides this ic state under the Sharia law and his His examination of his culture is per- is both personal and political, summer will be an excellent time perception of freedom of expression, ceptive and rigorous. Of course he must historical and practical. Includes to find out who her birth family is, human and civil rights, tolerance and be saved from the dreadful sentence seven stunning Coast Salish- along with exploring ESP, dreams, the necessary separation of state and against him and the appalling condi- inspired knitting patterns. friendship and infatuation. religion. Having shared his thoughts on tions of his imprisonment. But he must Bolen Books Children’s Book Prize (Nominee) NON-FICTION/ESSAYS 3 politics, religion, and liberalism online, also be read, so that we understand Chocolate Lily Award (Nominee) 978-1-55039-232-6 • $28.95 3 Badawi was originally sentenced to the struggle within Islam between suf- JUVENILE FICTION • Ages 9–13 1,000 lashes, ten years in prison and focating orthodoxy and free expression, Also available as an ebook 978-1-55039-175-6 • $10.95 fined approximately $315,000. and make sure we find ourselves on the 1000 Lashes was published with the right side of that struggle.” 978-1771642095 Also available as an ebook Vietnamese women

Tracing the history from the 11th century.

HILE TEACHING IN HANOI FROM centuries later has a passionate affair 2005 to 2011, Elizabeth with a household servant and almost McLean developed a cu- gets away with it; and a modern man- riosity about Vietnamese ager who must weigh the personal and The Moment W Kristie Hammond history and folklore. It family costs of marrying a Life Cycle of a Lie inspired her to write eight foreigner for his money. When a devastating train Sylvia Olsen stories that imagine the Her Vietnam stories accident results in the loss of his Have you ever told a lie, then spirited lives of eight wives have been repackaged and leg, James cannot imagine ever and daughters who rebel renamed for a Canadian told another to cover up the leading a ‘normal’ life again. first? Is failing to correct a against the constraints of release as The Swallows As James struggles to adapt to male-dominated Confu- Uncaged: A Narrative in misunderstanding lying at all? his new life, he’s helped by true A complex novel of love, gender cian and contemporary Eight Panels (Freehand friends he didn’t know he had. societies to love “zestfully $21.95). She previously relations, friendship, betrayal, 3Chocolate Lily Award (Nominee) and wickedly.” In doing so, received the Impress Prize truth, and lies. McLean traces the history for New Writers in the UK JUVENILE FICTION • Ages 8–12 TEEN FICTION • Ages 12+ of Vietnam from the 11th in 2011. Prior to moving 978-1-55039-235-7 • $9.95 978-1-55039-233-3 • $14.95 century to the present. to Vancouver that year, Also available as an ebook Also available as an ebook Among the women she Elizabeth McLean Elizabeth McLean served creates are Lan, a 13-year- as a consultant for the old girl in 1067, who dreams of having Women’s Publishing House in Hanoi, Sono Nis Press • 1-800-370-5228 her teeth stained so that she can at- having previously worked as a CBC www.sononis.com • [email protected] tain womanhood in The Black Stain; radio producer and as a researcher for an unhappy village wife who two TIME Canada. 978-1-55481-264-6

27 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 NEW SPRING MEMOIR, POETRY & FICTION

LIVERPOOL LAD Adventures Growing Up in Postwar Liverpool Peter Haase A lively memoir of growing up street savvy, in the famous working-class slums of Liverpool in the 50s and 60s. When kids played in bombed houses, survived brutal teachers and thrived in closeknit communities. “This memoir comes at you like a homespun but eloquent and funny missive from another world: the hardscrabble, life of post-World War II Liverpool. My only gripe is that the book ends too soon.” –DEREK LUNDY, AUTHOR OF BORDERLANDS: RIDING THE EDGE OF AMERICA 300 pgs | b&w photos | 978-1-896949-29-1 | $21.95

B BDI=:GIDC

TIGHT WIRE Prose poetry Kerry Gilbert “Delivered in crisp, edgy prose verse reminiscent of Ondaatje.” –JOHN LENT

“The ‘tight wire’ is where the feminine is performed within the callousness of the culture’s expectations.”–SHARON THESEN

In this powerful collection, images of the circus are central. The theme of these poems are balance: both literal and symbolic.

86 pgs | 978-1-896949-53-6 | $18.95

COMING IN JUNE! THE DANCEHALL YEARS A novel Joan Haggerty This long-awaited beautiful novel begins one summer on Bowen Island during the Depression and moves through Pearl Harbour and the evacuation of the Japanese through three generations into the 1980’s. 460 pages | 978-1-896949-54-3 | $24.95 mothertonguepublishing.com Heritage Group Distribution 1- 800-665-3302 The Colors of Spring

YVES SAINT LAURENT JEAN COCTEAU THE MERCY JOURNALS STRAIGHT TO THE HEAD Claudia Casper Fraser Nixon COLORING BOOK COLORING BOOK 978-1-55152-640-9; $12.95 978-1-55152-633-1; $17.95 978-1-55152-638-6; $17.95 978-1-55152-639-3; $12.95 A coloring book that delves into the dizzying “Part Lord of the Flies, part Romeo Dallaire’s Welcome to the city of cocaine nights and hang- A coloring book that playfully explores the imagination of artist-filmmaker Jean Cocteau. Shake Hands with the Devil, The Mercy Journals over dawns: a wild rollercoaster of a crime novel creative fantasies of Yves Saint Laurent. is a book of extraordinary vision.” set in 1983 Vancouver. –Aislin Hunter

WEEKEND THICKER THAN BLOOD EVEN THIS PAGE IS WHITE COLD CASE VANCOUVER Jane Eaton Hamilton Marion Crook Vivek Shraya Eve Lazarus 978-1-55152-635-5; $17.95 978-1-55152-631-7; $18.95 978-1-55152-641-6; $12.95 978-1-55152-629-4; $21.95 Two queer couples, one summer weekend: A book that explores the nuances and A powerful poetry book on race, by the A BC Bestseller: the untold story a searing novel of longing and regret. challenges of being an adoptive parent author of God Loves Hair and She of the behind some of Vancouver’s today. Mountains. most notorious murder cases.

ARSENAL PULP PRESS • arsenalpulp.com

28 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 W O R L D IRAN • YUGOSLAVIA PHOTO

PASS Throw away the stones JOHN

asreen Pejvack’s novel Amity (Inanna $22.95) charts the Nlife-altering friendship between two very different women who share their stories of wreck- age caused by Yugoslavia’s dis- solution and Iran’s revolution. The story resonates with Yugoslavian and Iranian politics and its effects on women. Payvand, an Iranian refugee and activist, still plagued with nightmares, meets Ragusa, a Yugoslavian refugee whose pock- ets are loaded with stones ready to walk into the water and end a life that feels intolerable since the loss of those most dear to her.

A MORAVIAN QUILT OF

Nasreen Pejvack

Nasreen Pejvack was born in Tehran, Iran, where, pre-revolu- tion, she worked as a writer and poet for an activist underground publication. She moved to Greece The Romani—or Roma—are not from is a zurna; the two become lovers. This in the brutal aftermath of the 1979 MEMORYMEMORYRome or Romania. They are nomads affair resembles her grandmother’s own revolution in Iran, and then, after with no homeland of their own. Until Theresa Kishkan’s intimate adventure. nineteen months in Athens, she recently they have mostly been called Other segments take place after Patrin immigrated to Canada. Now in gypsies. They originated on the Indian novella revisits returns home to Victoria. While work- Vancouver, she has a degree in subcontinent. For centuries Roma have ing in an antiquarian bookstore on Fort psychology and is aiming for a Ph.D been persecuted and hounded from the 1970s for an Street, she hears a poet (who can easily in sociology. 978-1-77133-237-8 place to place, mainly in Europe. be viewed as the late Robin Skelton) ancestral quest. read from a collection of ancient folk- AUSTRALIA N THERESA KISHKAN’S COMPELLING lore. When the poet intones an ancient novella, Patrin (Mother Tongue when she had to leave behind the graves poem for the consecration of cloth, Patrin $17.95), a Canadian narra- of her dead babies. seems to hear a voice speaking to her Marriage Saving tor named Patrin Szkandery Behind one leaf, Patrin finds a scrap of across the decades. She feels a strange uncovers her ancestral past paper bearing eight words in a language nostalgia for something unknown that aggie Bolitho’s debut via her Roma grandmother, a she doesn’t understand. lurks in her DNA. novel for adults, Out- woman who left with her fam- The leaf design of the quilt is repli- Ever since her childhood, Patrin’s Mback Promise (Harper- ily, bound for Canada, from Moravia in cated in the imagery and structure of this dark skin tone, her unusual name and Collins $3.99 Kindle), profiles an I Central Europe. intricately wrought novella, as well as on solitary habits have given her a sense of Aussie couple, the Balfours, who are trying to save their marriage Sailing from Antwerp to Saint John, its book jacket. alienation. She is a reader and a writer— after their only child was killed by a N.B. aboard the Mount Temple (the same The narrator—who was and yet, when Patrin attends hit-and-run driver six years earlier. ship that brought the author’s non-fic- named by her grandmother— a salon in the poet’s home, Grady Balfour has been having tion grandmother to Canada in the same learns that Patrin not only and a session of his creative an affair, so he and Ros agree to take year), Patrin’s grandmother, in her late means ‘leaf’ but also refers writing class at the university, a three-month camping trip into the teens, fell in love with a gadzo (non Roma) to the bundles of twigs that she feels little affinity with heart of Australia to rekindle the fire man, and was cast out of her tribe for this Roma left as signs for their fel- the articulate members of the or else agree to call it quits. Their taboo violation. Her mother gave her a low travelers. The leaves of the creative writing class. chasm of grief is as formidable as quilt as a parting gift. The young couple quilt become signs that guide JOAN It is the incantatory voice the outback. married, settled outside Edmonton, and Patrin as she travels through GIVNER of the old folklorist that guides Raised on the West Coast, had one child—Patrin’s father. the region of former Czecho- her towards the tradition to Bolitho of North Vancouver mar- From her grandmother, Patrin in- slovakia where her ancestors roamed which she belongs. For all the temporal ried an Australian and moved to herits the old quilt. As Patrin restores before their journey to Canada. Her geo- and geographical differences between Melbourne where she began writ- the quilt, it begins to mean more than a graphical quest is the outer manifestation Patrin and her forebears, the atavistic ing fiction. She spent twenty years warm coverlet, redolent with the smells of an inner journey of self-discovery. connection between them is strong. Like there before returning to B.C. in of sheep and wood smoke, under which ✫ her Roma great-grandparents, she is a 2007. 9781460705667 she slept with her widowed grandmother. THE NOVELLA IS MADE UP OF FIFTY-NINE FRAG- wanderer. The fabric tells a story. ments, various in length, dated in the Mirroring the stitched framework of Patches of loden and homespun cloth 1970s, and woven together in a non- the quilt, Kishkan deftly weaves an ac- alternate with scraps of rich velvet, rem- linear pattern. They describe the episodes count of Patrin’s early years, and the life nants from the cast-offs of a landowner in Patrin’s life that culminate in the story of her grandmother, in and around with whom her great-grandfather found discovery of her Roma family’s camp- Patrin’s first journey to Europe, and a temporary work. ing grounds in the Beskydy Mountains, final one to what was once known as Then, her close attention to the intri- situated along the borders of the Czech Czechoslovakia. The gateway to her ap- cate pattern of leaves brings a further Republic, Slovakia and Poland. preciation of her racial heritage is that revelation. They come from various trees, One segment describes her solitary threadbare quilt—the legacy of her Roma clearly differentiated and botanically journey to Europe as a teenager. On a grandmother—like a map with roadways exact. As her fingers trace the stitches ferry bound for Crete she hears music to her heart. 978-1-896949-51-2 around them, she learns that the quilt played on an unfamiliar instrument. Maggie Bolitho was fashioned as a map by its creator— Drawn to the musician, she learns that Novelist and critic Joan Givner her Roma great-grandmother who wept he is part Roma, and that his instrument reviews from Mill Bay.

29 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 Who hasn’t, at one Here, one of She wants her heart time or another, Newfoundland’s and her music back. considered killing a most celebrated Eve, a composer of billionaire? authors offers a story sacred music and a A rare work of literary of the irresistible music therapist, is well fiction that cuts into historical forces that aware of the saying, the psychology of define our lives and “Physician, heal politics in ways that are the compelling private thyself,” but she just off-kilter, unexpected, power that beckons us can’t seem to do it. and unnerving. home.

Rich and Poor by Jacob Wren Found Far and Wide by Kevin Major The Dead Man by Nora Gold BookThug Breakwater Books Inanna Publications 'JDUJPO
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Dr. Davis adjusts to Beware: Thinking Poems that beg us a hospital dead-set Can Be Dangerous. to explore our own against abortions. From a boot camp humanity. for readers to With intoxicating Middenrammers is a Rousseau’s children, fervour, Karen brave and provocative this collection features Shklanka’s new poetry novel about one an eclectic variety of collection makes its doctor’s battle for stories that are at once way through time and social justice in a small- thought-provoking place to bring you the town hospital. and whimsical. stories of everyday people.

Middenrammers by John Bart Talk About God & Other Stories by F.G. Paci Ceremony of Touching by Karen Shklanka Freehand Books Guernica Editions Coteau Books 'JDUJPO
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Shift rings with A lush, poetic In poemw, the third the energy of buffet, a lyrical finger of the left hand ecopoetics, where pilgrimage through hits ‘w’ and makes up human encounters the lush forest of the a new kind of poem. with nature become Green Man and his Poemw are jokes-and- transformational, and woodland kin. not-jokes, cheeky, the many meanings of goofy. Tender. the title are explored.

Shift by Kelly Shepherd The Bird in the Stillness by Joe Rosenblatt poemw by Anne Fleming Thistledown Press Porcupine’s Quill Pedlar Press 1PFUSZ
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Examine the How much can a Frontier justice development farmer take? meets modern of Winnipeg’s Jenna Butler and forensic science. municipal water her partner have Is it possible to reach supply. withstood drought, back in time and floods, insects and solve an unsolved their neighbours’ murder, more than disbelief over the past 
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Aqueduct: Colonialism, Resources, and the A Profession of Hope: Farming on the Edge of the The Bastard of Fort Stikine by Debra Komar by by Histories We Remember Adele Perry Grizzly Trail Jenna Butler Goose Lane Editions ARP Books Wolsak & Wynn /PO'JDUJPO
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Available Now EXCEPTIONAL LITERATURE from SCENIC CANADA and the www.LPG.ca

30 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 reviews FICTION

From Up River and For One BrettBrett JosefJosef GrubisicGrubisic returnsreturns toto BowieWorldBowieWorld asas teensteens father became less generous.” Night Only by Brett Josef The book’s cover shows Grubisic (Now or Never $21.95) dreamdream ofof escapeescape fromfrom thethe FraserFraser ValleyValley inin 1980.1980. three teens of the 1980s, including a boy sporting eye- liner, shoulder pads and big BY CARELLIN BROOKS hair. Originally the novel

RETT JOSEF GRUBIS- would have ended in 1981, ic’s third novel, but rewriting the story after From Up River his sister’s fatal accident took and For One the novel beyond nostalgia for Night Only, was an era. Grubisic’s experience Bpartially inspired by his home- of cleaning out his sister’s town of Mission in the Fraser house with her friends after Valley. As in his first novel, her death gave rise to a similar Mission is fictionalized as scene in the novel. River Bend City. Whereas From Up River “I have ambivalence about has reflections of the B.C. Mission,” he says, “but I real- music scene, Grubisic’s sec- ize that I routinely return to it ond novel, This Location of to gripe about it, and I thought Unknown Possibilities (Now or Never, 2014) highlights that would be an interesting PHOTO space to explore.” the general absurdity of the movie-making process. It fol-

As a professor of English NORBURY literature at UBC, Grubisic lows a bemused professor to regularly teaches Alice Mun- the Okanagan where she has ro’s Lives of Girls and Women. ROSAMOND been hired to serve as a history “That book ends with a kind consultant for a period film. of manifesto about how one The somewhat prim professor should represent one’s home- thinks she will be getting an town,” he says, “and she uses important role on the set as a lot of words like accuracy well as an interesting story to and so forth. tell about how she spent her “The character who’s the summer. Alas, the projected writer [in Lives of Girls and film is almost immediately Women] rejects an early ver- discarded, morphing instead sion of her novel which is filled into a steam-punk mash-up with exaggeration and cari- MISSIONMISSIONWAS of the Victorian era, complete cature. I realized the idea of with the discovery of a crashed how one represents one’s past alien spacecraft in the desert through fiction was something and evil aliens for the movie’s I wanted to explore.” busty lady explorer and her Grubisic’s first novel, The IMPOSSIBLEearlyIMPOSSIBLE punk bands like Siouxsie says. “Discovering something no prostitution,” he says, al- wimpy doctor sidekick to Age of Cities (Arsenal Pulp and the Banshees. The record you didn’t know existed, like luding to some of the novel’s battle. 2006), was partially set in employees are black-lipped new music, it changes you.” more lurid and unexpectedly All three novels share a River Bend City in the early and spike-haired. ✫ hilarious episodes. satirical streak. “I can’t do 1960s, before he lived there. That territory is familiar to FROM UP RIVER HAS FOUR MAIN CHAR- Grubisic’s sister, Meesha sustained sadness,” Grubisic It tells the story of a closeted Grubisic from his own teens. acters—siblings Gordyn and Grubisic, died unexpectedly says. “I just don’t have that gay teacher who lives with Typical trips to the big city Dee, and their two friends, in 2014. In the novel, Jay’s quality in my own experience his mother and first visits were going to Eaton’s and also siblings, Jay and Em— sister Em also dies as an of life.” To a suggestion that Vancouver in 1959. During window shopping, until he who all must solve numerous adult, leading to Jay and Dee he’s somewhat dour, Grubisic his brief forays into the big discovered the music store, problems to form the band of reconnecting. replies, “I’m as pessimistic as city, he accidentally discov- as Gordyn does in the novel. their imagination. The intrepid “My novel was close to be- any writer, but I also have a ers a gay subculture. This “It was a whole world we but not exactly talented teens ing finished when my sister large amount of optimism. experimental novel involves never knew existed,” says must come up with songs, was hit by a car,” he says. “The And I think that optimism the discovery of a manuscript Grubisic. “The people in it are lyrics, musical ability, access writing after that changed the comes out in comedy.” inside a hollowed-out home far more adventurous then to instruments, places to play novel into something more Grubisic is now planning economics textbook. you’d ever dream of being, and a name. serious. At the time of my one more novel to be set in Set two decades later, From but you recognize something “There’s a lot of autobi- sister’s death, I was drawn to River Bend City, which will Up River is about four teens in them. A desire to be out of ography and a lot of fiction,” the idea of finding a source to complete a loosely-based Mis- with a dream to make it big the ordinary.” says Grubisic. “For example, I blame [for the tragedy]. The sion trilogy, marking another as musicians. We follow the These days Grubisic still never played in any band, New more I thought about Mission return to a place he wanted to main character Gordyn—with seeks out music from new Wave or otherwise, but there and my father, the more I get away from. 978-1-988098-07-4 his name self-respelled—as he bands such as The Knife, were two sets of brothers and thought that if they hadn’t ex- serendipitously wanders into St. Vincent and Ladytron. sisters in my real life. isted, she wouldn’t have died. Carellin Brooks is a Freud- the Granville Street record “My taste in electronic has “The characters are several The rewriting started dealing ian scholar, a Wreck Beach wonderland of Phantasmorgia remained constant—basically steps removed from reality. with that. The novel became historian and a Vancouver and looks for ‘45 records from sythn pop, but more edgy,” he There was no drug running, darker. The portrayal of Em’s Public Library trustee.

s the father of an autistic child, Aaron Cully Elks in the headlights Drake realistically explores the emotional and While working as a reporter for the Terrace Standard in Terrace, social realities of growing up autistic in his Autism Lit Josh Massey published The Plotline Bomber of Innisfree debut novel, Do You Think This is Strange? A (BookThug $20), a lively and delightfully brash “eco-dystopian (Brindle & Glass, $17.95), in which the 17-year-old narrator, Freddy, doesn’t satire” about an ex-hipster who becomes an elk farmer, only get along with his father, who drinks. Freddy believes his autism is the reason to become unwillingly involved in political turmoil and violence his mother decided to abandon the family and disappear from his life. along the B.C./Alberta border. Trouble arises when opponents of “Academics call my family situation dysfunctional,” Freddy writes. “I call it a proposed pipeline expansion start to interfere with his privacy life.” Freddy struggles socially, but excels at boxing. After he is expelled from and business. This second novel from Massey is ‘out there’ both one school for fighting, he runs into Saskia Stiles at his new school, a girl he figuratively and geographically. 978-1-771661-26-3 met and befriended years ago at their childhood group therapy sessions. That was ten years ago. Saskia used to be lively; now she is subdued. Eight Miles high in Whistler Gradually the two autistic teens renew their friendship that few adults can Grey Stevens, the protagonist of Dietrich Kalteis’ second crime possibly comprehend. Saskia’s mother is understandably protective of her, but novel is contentedly growing and selling a sought-after brand Freddy prevails and asserts the dignity of their mutual understanding. When of pot in Whistler dubbed ‘Eight Miles High’ and developing a Freddy beats up his father, with surprisingly good consequences. A long-hidden new romance when the incursion of two rival gangs in town family secret is ultimately unveiled, linking his family’s unhappiness to the unhap- gives rise to a turf war that threatens his life and his love. The piness of Saskia’s family. With a greater understanding of the past, Freddy can Deadbeat Club (ECW $14.95) paints an unflattering view of look ahead with more hope for happiness. Aaron Cully Drake is a former reporter the ‘world class’ ski resort while offering action, vengeance and and editor and has written for newspapers and magazines. 978-1-927366-38-7 Aaron Cully Drake dark humour. 978-1-77041-152-4

31 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 reviews FICTION

David Korinetz is the founder of Red Tuque Books, a book distribu- tion company for Canadian self-published authors and small presses. Founded in 2009 with over 440 titles represented, it offers assis- tance and encouragement to self-published authors. It publishes catalogues as well as an annual anthology through The Canadian Tales Writing Competition, now in its sixth year. Korinetz says he puts in 4-7 hours a day for Red Tuque and 1-3 hours per day for writing. He also sells his works at fairs and markets in Penticton where he is known by his droopy wizard hat. For more info, visit www.redtuquebooks.ca

UNKIND HEARTS &

Warlock: Chronicles of the is an apparition of a living old wizard magicless? Can his be in the distant past or in a “Leaving multiple threads Daemon Knights by David person. A wraith, according apprentice, Robin, ever learn distant apocalyptic future.” of a story open has more Korinetz (Red Tuque $16.95)KORINETZ to The ElfKing, is a bodiless as much as his master? Clearly Korinetz is an in- or less become a standard soul that for some reason has Will Shaun, the big Icar- credibly imaginative writer, but practice in the fantasy genre,” chosen to remain in the world ian shape shifter turned into how does he keep track of it says Korinetz, “and I know ITH FIFTEEN DIF- of the living. a were-beast by the swamp all? His first novel was rewrit- this from the hundreds and ferent points A warlock, on the other witch, survive his ten five times; the hundreds of books in this of view in hand, is a sorcerer, a necro- capture by the second and third, style I have read over the forty-five mancer and a practitioner of Herrenvolk and twice. This one years. short chap- the dark arts. “They were vile his subsequent was written in one When Korinetz wrote his Wters, it’s nearly impossible to abominations,” explains the wounds while go, but he says he first book, FireDrakes, he render a viable synopsis of Da- ElfKing, “neither dead nor tru- fighting as a gladi- spent more time did not know that he would vid Korinetz’s fourth fantasy ly alive, but always extremely ator? fleshing out the end up with a trilogy. With novel, Warlock: Chronicles of dangerous.” Why does the CHERIE outline—nearly two Warlock, he did. “I know how the Daemon Knights with its Emperor Gamel is one such Princess hate Jack years. it will all end,” he says, “but I serpentine plot and non-stop vile abomination. He hasn’t let so much? Once an THEISSEN “I typically do a am still working on the details action. being dead stop him from con- assassin but now an ambassa- 10,000 word outline,” he told of how to get there. I expect Ships are wrecked in juring up evil. He was close to dor, can Jack be trusted? Will me. “I spend three to four to have the next book out by storms, evil sea captains are obtaining the four elfin amu- the Balorian halfling, Hugh, months working on one for the end of 2017 and the third plotting murder, assassins lets that would have granted and the Blue ElfKing be able each book so I can get the plot in 2019.” with incredible powers are him unlimited power and to help stop the warlock? worked out. Once that is done, In addition to the map he lurking everywhere, armies eternal life. Except that the ✫ I focus on individual chapters provides at the front of the are about to invade. There’s Daemon Knight, Sir Rodney WARLOCK SEEMS TO BE SET IN MEDI- and the characters who own book, I’d like to see Korinetz danger around every sand Vincent thwarted the warlock eval times, equivalent to 10th them. I have a character book include a character page with dune, tree and corner. by getting the beautiful Em- century Europe, but according where I keep notes about the a short description of each David Korinetz says he press, Magdalen, who is now to the author, the time “could basics and update the charac- because I found myself doing decided on this multiple-sto- pregnant with his child. ter when things change.” far too much backtracking. ryline approach after reading If the warlock can only Korinetz’ first three books, Even readers who have read Game of Thrones. move into her baby’s body “Leaving FireDrakes (2007), Sorceress the last series are going to need “I like to keep the story when he or she is born, then multiple threads (2009), and Halfling (2011), some reminding when the next moving,” Korinetz says, “and he will have it all. While Gamel formed The FireDrakes Tril- trilogy comes out. If you’re an that’s why I try to keep chap- conspires to get his hands on of a story open ogy, while Warlock continues impatient reader like me, it ters to ten pages or less. Terry Magdalen, having pulled him- the Chronicles of the Daemon could be better to wait until all Brooks also heavily influenced self out of the dark void and has more or Knights as the first book in what three books in this new series me. He tends to use multiple into the body of the Carpath- will be The Warlock Trilogy. are finished. For that matter, story arcs. I like to get into the ian King, Brian, who is quite less become a The next book in The War- starting with the FireDrakes head of each character to show a schemer himself. standard lock Trilogy, Prophet, is ready Trilogy would make sense, too, how they see things a little dif- Will the wizard Aldus ever and that’s a good thing; few although Korinetz insists that’s ferently than everyone else.” find a rare Blue Elf to help him practice in the readers will be happy about not necessary. 978-0-9783824-3-8 Halflings are small human- break the spell that Gamel the way Warlock ends sud- like characters who use their cast on him, the spell that fantasy genre.” denly unless they have the Cherie Thiessen reviews fetches to travel at will. A fetch has rendered the benevolent next book on their radar. fiction from Pender Island.

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Available at leading retail Rachel Rose on love, loss and addiction Winner and online book stores. 2015 Distributed by Heritage Group Lowell Thomas Visit our website for more information: www.oceancruiseguides.com Marry & Burn by Rachel Rose Canada’s First Nations constituencies. Award PublishingP travel guidebooks since 1994. Over two million cruisers now use our books. (Harbour Publishing $18.95) Easily one of the most important poets to emerge in B.C. in the early 21st century, Rachel Rose has also won the ACHEL ROSE WAS AP- Pat Lowther Award and the Audre Lorde pointed poet laure- Award for her third collection, Song & ate of Vancouver for Spectacle (2012). 2014-2017 on the Rose was also the librettist for an Rstrength of her rela- opera about forbidden love and fun- tively small but distin- damentalism, When the Sun Comes guished output that has been accorded Out. It premiered in Vancouver in numerous awards and critical acclaim. 2013 and was remounted in Toronto Now she has received her second in 2014. Pushcart Prize for a poem in her fourth A dual Canadian/American citizen, collection, Marry & Burn. The winning Rachel Rose was born in Vancouver in poem ‘White Lilies’ appears in a re-titled 1970. She has returned to Vancouver version in Marry & Burn as ‘Living on with her family after many years in Islands I’. Seattle, Montreal, and Japan. Described as “a searing collection of Rose’s other poetry awards include poems on the subjects of love, loss and the Best American Poetry 2001, A.M. addiction,” Marry & Burn goes beyond Klein 2000 Award for Poetry, the 1993 intimate struggles to subjects that Peterson Memorial Prize for Poetry, include the unexpected heartache of and she was a finalist for both the losing an entire hive to the global bee Gerald Lampert Award and the Grand epidemic and the reconciliation pro- Prix du Livre de Montreal. cess to heal the wounds of racism for 978-1-55017-718-3

Living on Islands I

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with his body in her arms | annick press | www.annickpress.com | available from your favourite bookseller as though my mother were a witch who could bring back the dead? I picked the thick white lilies from our garden photo by Mark Mushet for his grave but was not permitted to the place where the mourners gathered. Instead I waited in the silent house, unfolded the image of his mother with her hair wild as the wind and the weight of him in her arms a stone, a feather, a sunflower Annual Non-Fiction Contest as my mother rose to meet her Contest Judge: Ayelet Tsabari or what I have imagined, the map of memory $1500 in prizes available, plus publication! creased and softened Entry fee includes 1 year of EVENT like a star repeating its trajectory into the sea Deadline April 15, 2016 the girl who could never forget and the father who did not yet know Reading Service for Writers If you are a new writer, or a writer with a troublesome manuscript, it coming up the gravel driveway may be just what you need. with a shovel over his shoulder whistling, kicking the mud off his boots Visit eventmagazine.ca Rachel Rose before he opened the door. The best little magazine in Canada.

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Randall Wayne McLean writes on all things baseball and New York. From the Baseball Hall of Fame, to his trips to New York City, and his experience during 9/11. He walks you through historical achievements and personal baseball stories, some of which are reflected through his poetry. From his insightful humor and personal viewpoints into baseball, his passion for the game shows #5 - 1046 Mason St. Victoria, B.C. V8T 1A3 through in his writings. A book for baseball (just off Cook Street) • Tel: 1-250-384-0905 fans, young and old. Hand sorted for premium quality • Full selection of exotic teas 978-1-4602-7575-7 (PB) PB: $16.99 CND • e-book: $6.99 CND (Amazon.ca) • B.C. honey and Belgian chocolates • Mail orders welcome 978-1-4602-7576-4 eBook PB: $12.99 USD • e-book: $4.99 USD (Amazon.com) www.baseball-sayitaintso.blogspot.ca www.yokascoffee.com

34 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 Comedian Charles Demers (the one with glasses) had a recent hit show at the PuSh Fest in Vancouver called Leftovers, about retaining socialist ideals. His B.C. bestseller The Horrors (D&M $24.95) recounts awkward personal hangups.

a vibrant addition to two previous books on Goodwin by Susan Mayse A is for Aldridge and Roger Stonebanks. Ellyn stud- ied Women’s Studies and Fine Arts at Jim Aldridge, QC, has represented Concordia University. Her work has the Nisga’a First Nation in treaty nego- appeared in Bitch, Briar Patch and tiations, mainly as lead counsel, since the Vancouver Review. 978-1-77113-227-5 1980, and now assists the lawsuit Who’s Who brought by Nunavut Tunngavik Incor- porated against the BRITISH COLUMBIA F is for Frid federal Crown for breach of the Nun- Addressing his three-year-old daughter Rainforest crusader Ian McAllister, In February, to much acclaim, he pre- avut Land Claims Twylla Bella, Alejandro Frid of Bowen Crozier’s 30 poems garnered the num- miered his one-man show at the PuSh Agreement. With Island tells her he has “jettisoned my ber one spot for The Wild in You: Festival in Vancouver, Leftovers, about Terry Fenge, Al- gigantic cynicism, at least most of it Voices from the Forest and the Sea the lack of progress in the world from dridge has co-edited for most of the time, and focused on (Greystone $24.95). 9781771641609 a socialist perspective. 978-1-77162-031-4 Keeping Promises: the positive and the doable” in order Jim Aldridge The Royal Procla- to write A World for My Daughter: mation of 1763, An Ecologist’s Search for Optimism Aboriginal Rights, and Treaties of D is for Demers E is for Ellyn (Caitlin $24.95). Canada (McGill-Queens $34.95), a col- A World for My Daughter is a com- Move over Bill Richardson. Having Laura Ellyn, a writ- lection of essays that marks the 250th pendium of personal experiences as hosted the BC Book Prizes on several er and editor based anniversary of King George III’s proc- a wildlife researcher in Alaska, Chile occasions, Charles Demers has re-en- in Montreal, has lamation in 1763 that reserved lands and central B.C., as well as his involve- tered the literary world with The Hor- published a graphic west of the Appalachian Mountains for ments in environmental protests and rors: An A-to-Z of Funny Thoughts novel-styled account Indians and required the Crown to pur- rallies in Vancouver. An ecologist for on Awful Things (D&M $24.95). The about the life and chase Indian land through treaties that First Nations on the west coast, Dr. comedian gives new meaning to a 26-er death of Vancouver were to be negotiated without coercion Frid was born and raised in Mexico by starting with “A” for “Adolescence”, Island’s most well- and in public. 978-0-7735-4587-8 City and has lived most of his adult recalling his sexless teenage years in a known labour mar- Laura Ellyn life in B.C. He has been arrested twice Trotskyist sect. “B” for “Bombing” re- tyr, Ginger Good- for civil disobedience against fossil fuel calls the sickening sensation of know- win: A Worker’s Friend (Between the is for Bily companies. 978-1-927575-96-3 B ing your comedy act stinks. And so on. Lines $23.95). Her graphic history is Photographer and environmental en- gineer Linda Bily has teamed with G is for Goldberg mountaineer John Baldwin, a nature photographer with over 250 first as- As education director at the Vancouver cents to his credit over a forty-year pe- Holocaust Education Centre, Adara riod, to co-author Soul of Wilderness Goldberg published her first book, (Harbour $36.95), a collection of 166 Holocaust Survivors in Canada: Ex- full colour photos and essays featur- clusion, Inclusion, Transformation, ing the wild beauty of western British 1947-1955 (U. of Manitoba Press Columbia and Alaska. 978-1-55017-735-0 $24.95) to trace the influx of 35,000 Jewish survivors of Nazi persecution and their dependants who came to C is for Crozier Canada in the decade following World War II. Goldberg examines how Cana- If it has happened before, we don’t dian resettlement officials and estab- remember it. Before Christmas a book lished Jewish communities both coped featuring poetry—by Lorna Crozier— with major difficulties in order to incor- reached the top of the BC Bestsellers porate the post-genocide migrants. Her list and it remained on or near the top research was conducted at Holocaust for weeks. Accompanying 30 splendid Alejandro Frid crosses police line during the Kinder Morgan Trans survivors’ kitchen tables as well as in nature photographs by Great Bear Mountain Pipeline protest on Burnaby Mountain in 2014 traditional archives. 978-0-88755-776-7

35 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 who ™ƒ•–Š‡Ƥ”•– ƒ’ƒ‡•‡ immigrant to Canada?

This new book on ƒ’ƒ‡•‡ƒƒ†‹ƒ history has the answer... Nile Creek Enhancement Society presi- and more! Huser dent in 2006, “warrior-painter” Ken H is for Kirkby has worked to improve wildlife Sakura in Stone: Victoria’s Japanese Legacy habitat on Vancouver Island. The ac- by Gordon & Ann-Lee Switzer Having won a Gover- claimed painter has now joined forces TI-JEAN PRESS $14.95 nor General’s award 152 pages, paperbound with poet Manolis, self-described as in 2003 is one hon- “the most prolific writer-poet of the by the authors our; having a mem- Greek diaspora,” for Chthonian Bod- of Gateway to ber of Monty Python ies (Libros Libertad $48), expressing Promise: Canada’s read your books for First Japanese deeply felt appreciation of nature and Community (2012) operettas is another. landscapes. 978-1-926763-42-2 BY WILLAM STREET For Glen Huser’s available from Available at Indigo Chapters, & iUniverse latest picture books, Glen Huser tijeanpress.ca in soft cover or ebook formats. his words are read amazon.ca 978-1-4917-5502-0 (sc) $25 by the renowned British comedy and major bookstores 978-1-4917-5502-3 (ebook) $6.29 group’s Terry Jones and recorded on CDs included in the books. Both titles retell Greek myths: The Golden Touch (Tradewind $20) tackles the story of a foolish king whose lust for gold almost costs him his family and his life. Earlier Flowers, Time for Snow (Tradewind, 2013) recreated the legend of Demeter and Persephone and why we have dif- ferent seasons each year. 978-1-896580-73-9 Emily Lycopolus

I is for Ikebuchi L is for Lycopolus

Just as missionar- With more than 180 simple recipes and ies sought to shelter hundreds of variations, Emily Lycopo- First Nations wom- lus’ first cookbook The Olive Oil and en and girls from Vinegar Lover’s Cookbook (Touch- prostitution, the wood $37.50) proves how versatile Methodist Woman’s olive oil and vinegar can be. It includes Missionary Society sections on ways to experiment with in Victoria estab- marinades, salad dressings, brines and Shelly D. Ikebuchi lished a “Chinese cocktails. Emily Lycopolus is co-owner Rescue Home” as of Olive the Senses (olivethesenses. a refuge for Chinese prostitutes and com), a luxury olive oil and vinegar other “slave girls” for more than three tasting room and shop in Victoria that decades. sources the finest fresh, ultra-premium The facility later accepted Japanese olive oils and aged balsamic vinegars girls. Shelly D. Ikebuchi, department from all over the world. 9781771511353 After All the Scissor chair of sociology at Okanagan College, Work is Done has examined the rescue operation that aimed to redeem the lives of more than M is for Maracle David Fraser 400 women by teaching them domestic skills in From Slave Girls to Salva- Self-described as the most published These poems scrape at the tion: Gender, Race, and Victoria’s First Nations woman author in the dark of human experience: Chinese Rescue Home, 1886-1923 country, Lee Maracle has turned (UBC Press $95). 978-0774830560 David Fraser sorts through her oratory into essays for Memory Serves (NeWest Press $24.95), edited memory with a raw clarity. by Smaro Kamboureli. “Canadians J is for Jantzen must come out of the fort,” Maracle 64 pp $15.00 urges, “and imagine something be- Roy Jantzen’s Ac- www.leafpress.ca yond the colonial condition—beyond tive Vancouver violence, rape and the notions of dirty publishing poetry only (Rocky Mountain people.” Maracle has claimed that $25) provides the indigenous people do not control the lowdown on cycling, intellectual maps that determine the trail running, hik- worthiness of story. 978-926455-44-0 ing, snowshoeing, paddling, walking or Lee nature treks for ev- Roy Jantzen Maracle eryone from begin- Subscribe to BC BookWorld ner to intermediate skill level. Activities are listed with timing, distance, eleva- tion and accessibility details. There are To receive the next “eco-insights” for each location. A Cap- ilano University professor, Jantzen also 4 issues delivers wilderness tourism workshops Name...... by mail, send a for the Yukon Department of Tourism. cheque for 9781771600798 Apt / Box#...... $25

Street...... K is for Kirkby REPLY TO: City...... 3516 West 13th Ave., Born during an air Vancouver, B.C. raid in London in Prov...... Postal Code...... V6R 2S3 1940, Ken Kirkby was raised in Por- or pay via PayPal tugal and migrated to northern B.C. www.bcbookworld.com and the Arctic as a young man. Having Ken Kirkby taken his turn as

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secure your privacy in the digital JETHA age. QAYAM SFU’s Qayam Jetha has assessed the effectiveness of $16.95 Paperback maternity allowances to assist mothers in Bangladesh. The Border Guide - 11th Edition: NEW N is for Nexus P is for P.R. The ULTIMATE Guide to Living, Working, EDITION and Investing across the Border The Pembina Institute for energy ex- As president of by Robert Keats, CFP, RFP, MSFP perts has predicted B.C. will fail to meet his own public its 2020 legislative target due to its relations compa- promotion of LNG plants. It’s just one ny and also chair • Save money with sound cross- of a myriad of concerns raised in a re- of the David Su- border financial planning for markably concise analysis of the need zuki Foundation to counteract climate and hydrological board, James “snowbirds”. change, The Climate Nexus: Water, Hoggan argues • Understand the new tax and Food, Energy and Biodiversity in that the great- immigration laws. a Changing World (Rocky Mountain est environmen- • Learn tips on investing in cross- $16), by Jon O’Riordan and Robert tal problem we James Hoggan William Sandford. The former is a pol- face could be the border real estate. icy and research advisor for SFU’s ACT “smog of adversarial rhetoric, propa- $27.95 Paperback (Adaption to Climate Change Team). ganda and polarization that stifles 978-1-77160-142-9 discussion and debate.” He examines how trust has been undermined and Taxation of Americans in Canada: misinformation thrives in I’m Right Are YOU at risk? O is for Oikawa and You’re an Idiot: The Toxic State by Dale Walters, CPA, PFS, CFP of Public Discourse and How to Clean The number of Japanese Canadians it Up (New Society $19.95). Hoggan incarcerated in Essondale Mental Hos- founded the website DeSmogBlog and • Avoid paying taxes by making the pital in March of 1943 was fifteen; that has written two previous books. number increased to fifty-eight by Octo- 978-0-86571-817-3 best use of foreign tax credits. ber of 1945 due to World War II fears. The • Take advantage of the US-CAN tax Canadian government required manda- treaty. tory testing for venereal disease for each Q is for Qayam incarcerated Japanese Canadian in B.C. • Protect your investments on both who was later moved out of the province As a Master’s student in public pol- sides of the border. to eastern provinces icy at SFU, Qayam Jetha received $18.95 Paperback in the 1940s. a Graduate International Research These are just Travel Award to conduct stressful but two of the fascinat- rewarding research for three months in ing, little-known de- Dhaka, Bangladesh, to evaluate a cash Start & Run a Security Business tails to be found in transfer program to benefit women. by Katherine Matak Cartographies of Specifically, his research focussed Violence: Japanese upon a Maternity Allowance Program • Develop clientele, deal with safety Mona Oikawa Canadian Women, (MAP) that provides a stipend of ap- Memory, and the proximately five dollars per month for issues and liability challenges. Subjects of the Internment (Uni- a period of two years to selected poor, • Avoid pitfalls and needles versity of Toronto $41.95) by Mona rural, and pregnant mothers. expenses while creating a Oikawa, an associate professor in The program was implemented the Department of Equity Studies at nationally and is intended to improve respected company. York University. Now available in pa- maternal and infant health by enhanc- • Learn how to market your brand. perback, this overview features inter- ing nutrition, encouraging breastfeed- $18.95 Paperback + Download Kit views about internment that Oikawa ing and increasing the use of maternity conducted with women survivors and services. This work led to Jetha’s Does their daughters after more than 22,000 More Money Mean Better Health? www.self-counsel.com Japanese Canadians were forced out of Assessing the Maternity Allowance their homes in 1942. Over 4,000 were Program (Dhaka, Bangladesh: Centre 1-800-663-3007 deported to Japan. 978-0-8020-9601-2 for Policy Research $15). 984-70060-0008-0

37 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 My Electrician Drives a Porsche? /ŶǀĞƐƟŶŐŝŶƚŚĞZŝƐĞŽĨ ƚŚĞEĞǁ^ƉĞŶĚŝŶŐůĂƐƐ Gianni Kovacevic

/ŶǀĞƐƚŽƌ͕ĂƵƚŚŽƌ͕ĂŶĚƐŽƵŐŚƚͲ ĂŌĞƌƉƵďůŝĐƐƉĞĂŬĞƌ͕ǁŚŽ ůŝǀĞƐŝŶsĂŶĐŽƵǀĞƌ͘ ΛZĞĂůŝƐƟĐŶǀŝƌŽ KAT’S kovacevic.com ΨϮϯ͘ϵϱͬŚĂƌĚĐŽǀĞƌ CATALOGUE ϵϳϴͲϭͲϵϮϲϵϵϭͲϲϳͲϮ A self-described country girl at heart, Kat Rose prefers ϱ͘ϱdžϴ͘ϱŝŶ͘ʹϭϵϮƉĂŐĞƐ a non-urban lifestyle that includes her dog and her ĞͲŬ ϵϳϴͲϭͲϲϮϲϯϰϮͲϳϭͲϮ horse, baking and reading. She took creative writing at university and now makes her living in the health care ǁĞĞŬĞŶĚƐĞƌǀŝĐĞĐĂůůĐŚĂŶŐĞƐƚŚĞůŝĨĞŽĨŽĐŶĚĞƌƐŽŶĨŽƌĞǀĞƌ͘ field. Her novels stress the importance of hard work ͞džĐĞƉƟŽŶĂůůLJǁĞůůǁƌŝƩĞŶ͘͘͘ƚŚŝƐĮĐƟŽŶĂůĂĐĐŽƵŶƚŽĨǀĞƌLJƌĞĂůͲǁŽƌůĚ and perseverence. In The Loss, a 25-year-old dreamer, ĞdžƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞƐĂŶĚƚƌĞŶĚƐ͘͘͘ĞƐƉĞĐŝĂůůLJĐŽŵŵĞŶĚĞĚƚŽƚŚĞĂƩĞŶƟŽŶŽĨƚŚĞ Ryleigh Carter, struggles to maintain a positive atti- tude after the break-up of a romance. Building It Up ŶŽŶͲƐƉĞĐŝĂůŝƐƚŐĞŶĞƌĂůƌĞĂĚĞƌǁŝƚŚĂŶŝŶƚĞƌĞƐƚŝŶƚŚĞŝŵƉĂĐƚƚĞĐŚŶŽůŽŐLJ͕ recounts how two friends, Jensen Owens and Autumn ĞŶƚƌĞƉƌĞŶĞƵƌƐŚŝƉ͕ĂŶĚŐůŽďĂůŝnjĂƟŽŶĂƌĞŚĂǀŝŶŐŽŶƚŚĞŵĞƌŝĐĂŶĞĐŽŶŽŵLJ Miller, must learn to cope in the aftermath of a tragedy. ŝŶŐĞŶĞƌĂů͕ĂŶĚƚŚĞŵƐĞůǀĞƐŝŶƉĂƌƟĐƵůĂƌ͘͘͘/ƐǀĞƌLJŚŝŐŚůLJƌĞĐŽŵŵĞŶĚĞĚ A Father’s Daughter describes the protagonist’s dutiful ĨŽƌ ƉĞƌƐŽŶĂů ƌĞĂĚŝŶŐ ůŝƐƚƐ͕ ĂƐ ǁĞůů ĂƐ ĐŽŵŵƵŶŝƚLJ ĂŶĚ ĂĐĂĚĞŵŝĐ ůŝďƌĂƌLJ need to help her younger sister who is forced to live with ĐŽůůĞĐƟŽŶƐ͘͟WĂƵůd͘sŽŐĞů͕Midwest Book Review their estranged father Jack.

The Loss (Createspace / Red Tuque 2015) New Authors ŽͲƉƵďůŝƐŚĞĚĂŶĚĚŝƐƚƌŝďƵƚĞĚďLJ 978-1515174868 $13.99, 251 pages, 6x9 are always welcome! Building It Up (Createspace / Red Tuque 2015) 978-1517061401 $12.99, 219 pages, 6x9 ŽǁŶůŽĂĚŽƵƌĐĂƚĂůŽŐƵĞĂƚ A Father’s Daughter (Createspace / Red Tuque 2016) ŐƌĂŶǀŝůůĞŝƐůĂŶĚƉƵďůŝƐŚŝŶŐ͘ĐŽŵ http://kat-rose-c1r1.squarespace.com/artists WůĞĂƐĞĐŽŶƚĂĐƚƵƐĂƚŝŶĨŽΛŐƌĂŶǀŝůůĞŝƐůĂŶĚƉƵďůŝƐŚŝŶŐ͘ĐŽŵ dĞů͗ϲϬϰͲϲϴϴͲϬϯϮϬdŽůů&ƌĞĞ͗ϭͲϴϳϳͲϲϴϴͲϬϯϮϬ&ŽůůŽǁΛ'/W>ŬƐ

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Poems by Poems by Dina Tzoutzi Georgantopoulos Mantzourani Translated by Translated by Manolis Manolis $20 $20

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CHTHONIAN BODIES

Poems by Manolis Paintings by Ken Kirkby

ISBN: 9781926763408 $48 HOURS OF THE STARS

EROTOKRITOS Poetry by [FOR COLLECTORS OF RARE BOOKS] Dimitris Liantinis Salt Chuck Stories from Vancouver Island’s West Coast recalls the 1920s to Poetry by Vitsentzos Kornaros. Transcribed by Manolis Translated by 1940s when the area opened up through fi shing, trapping, logging and mining as seen ISBN: 9781926763361 Manolis through the experiences of fi ve pioneers. Characters include Rebecca McPhee $20 and the fi rst Red Cross Hospital at Kyuquot and the highballing Gibson Broth- ers who logged airplane spruce at Zeballos back in the days when a house of ISBN: 9781926763415 prostitution openly operated between the town and the mines. Also included are the Perry Brothers, prospector Andy Morod and many more.

LIBROS LIBERTAD 128 pages • 62 photos • Three maps • Bibliography CANADA'S TRULY INDEPENDENT $17.95 • ISBN: 0-9739980-3-2 $20 $18 PUBLISHER ISBN: 9781926763439 ISBN: 9781926763385 Distributed by Sandhill Book Marketing Ltd., Kelowna [email protected] • (250) 491-1446 WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA

38 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 who’s who BRITISH COLUMBIA

goes awry, brash Will is led to suspect that London’s foremost surgeon, Di- R is for Richards oysus Atherton, could be conducting scientific experiments on the living. Linda L. Richards is the new publisher 9780864926470 and senior editor at Self-Counsel Press, replacing Kirk LaPointe who has moved on to a gig with Business in Van- marks the spot couver after losing his bid to become X mayor of Vancouver. A mystery/crime Ten new literary novelist, Richards is the publisher and signposts are be- founding editor of the on-line January ing erected in Van- Magazine. Richards’ 14 books of both couver this spring fiction and non-fiction include The in conjunction with Canadian Business Guide to Using the Vancouver Public Li- Internet, published by Self-Counsel in brary’s partnership 1995. Her second Rapid Reads novel with BC BookWorld is When Blood Lies: A Nicole Charles Sandra Singh to popularize B.C. Mystery (Orca $9.95). 9781459808379 literary history. The honourees are Emily Carr, Michael is for Shepherd Turner, Stan Persky, Margaret Lau- S rence, Major J.S. Mathews, Mona Fertig, Chuck Davis, Gary Geddes Kelly Shepherd wrote five poetry Rick Antonson, Mary Trainer and Brian Antonson, co-authors of Whistle Posts and Alice Munro. This civic campaign chapbooks prior to Shift (Thistledown West: Railway Tales from British Columbia, Alberta, and Yukon (Heritage $18.95). has been led by VPL director Sandra $17.95), a collection of poems about Singh: pwp.vpl.ca/literarylandmarks human relationships with the natural On the new Literary Map of B.C., world—ecopoetics—including connec- Emily Carr (Victoria) and Alice Munro tion, alienation, and the intersection (West Vancouver) have been sited with of ecology and industry. The poems non-Vancouver locations: www.liter- also reflect the many meanings of the arymapofbc.ca title including a shift in point of view, physically moving, and transforma- tion. Shepherd is from Smithers and he currently teaches in Edmonton, Al- Y is for Yukon berta. His writing has been published Having teamed up for Slumach’s Gold: in The Goose, Geist, and The Coastal Kelly Shepherd Kim Goldberg Ian Weir In Search of a Legend, Rick Antonson, Spectator. 978-1-77187-104-4 Brian Antonson and Mary Trainer have reunited for Whistle Posts West: is for Turner Railway Tales from British Columbia, T Alberta, and Yukon (Heritage $18.95), a collection of train stories that in- With more than 600 clude the “last spike” at Craigellachie photos, Robert D. in 1885, the devastating collision at Turner’s The Klon- Hinton, Alberta in 1986, and tales of dike Gold Rush robberies, bridge disasters, humour Steamers: A His- and high jinx, as well as Robert Ser- tory of Yukon River vice’s 1904 journey to the Klondike Steam (Sono Nis aboard the White Pass and Yukon $49.95) must surely Route Railroad. Robert D. Turner rank as one of the Rick Antonson‘s upcoming Full most comprehensive Moon Over Noah’s Ark: An Odyssey studies of the remarkable Yukon River to Mount Ararat (Skyhouse $24.99) vessels and their vital services, as well tells the tale of his time as part of a five- as those who built and ran them. Af- member expedition to the 5,167-metre ter 19 books, Turner understands the summit of Mount Ararat, camping importance of B.C. and Yukon history alongside Armenians for whom Ararat to the general public and it’s a catalyst is their stolen signature of nationhood. for his work. “I’ve met so many people Antonson also traces the history of the whose parents or grandparents fea- earliest mountaineers seeking to scale tured in my books,” he says. Ararat, initially drawn by eyewitness 978-1-55039-242-5 Linda L. Richards’ When Blood Lies (Orca $9.95) is the second novel in a accounts of “Ark” sightings. series of mysteries featuring rookie reporter Nicole Charles. Whistle Posts West: 978-1-77203-043-3 Full Moon: 9781510705654 U is for Undetectable Julia Selinger, Jane Eaton Hamilton, Elizabeth Haynes, Ann Cavlovic, Moni For forty years Kim Goldberg never V is for Vici Brar, Trysh Ashby-Rolls, Joei Carlton Z is for Zeballos told anyone she had Hepatitis C. She Hossack, Kelly Pitman, Julie Paul, and railed against doctors and Big Pharma. Edited by the pub- Vici Johnstone. 978-1-927575-73-4 Zeballos is home to Then she was completely cured, at no lisher, Vici John- Canada’s last sig- cost, during clinical trials conducted stone, This Place nificant gold rush. for a drug called Harvoni, developed by a Stranger: Cana- W is for Weir Having produced her Gilead Sciences Inc., with a wholesale dian Women Trav- Salt Chuck Stories price of $1,125 per pill. We learn from elling Alone (Cait- Set in London in 1816, Ian Weir’s from Vancouver Is- her memoir Undetectable (Pig Squash lin $24.95) is about second novel, Will Starling (Goose land’s West Coast Press $19) that approximately 250,000 23 women traveling Lane $29.95), was one of ten Canadian- (Sandhill $17.95), people live with chronic Hepatitis C in Vici Johnstone alone—and writing authored books longlisted for the 2016 Eleanor Hancock pioneer Eleanor Canada, often furtively. “The way to about it. Women Dublin International Literary Award. Witton Hancock, end the stigma is to normalize discus- have been traveling alone for more The charming protagonist has spent who grew up in Zeballos from age sion about Hepatitis C,” she says, “the than a century but the dangers re- five years assisting a military surgeon three, has combed through Vancouver same way we openly discuss cancer or main much the same. Contributors during the Napoleonic Wars. At age and Victoria newspapers, conducted diabetes.” are Yvonne Blomer, Nadine Pedersen, nineteen, the foundling and would-be 180 interviews in the early 1980s and Kim Goldberg’s account of her heal- Catherine Owen, Kami Kanetsuka, surgeon Will Starling returns to Lon- gathered photos and documents for her ing uses the Japanese literary style Yamuna Flaherty, Lori Garrison, Karen don to help his mentor start a medical forthcoming study, Hardly the Klon- called haibun—a travel diary paired J Lee, Miriam Matejova, Desiree Jung, practice in the rough Cripplegate area. dike: The 1938 Zeballos Gold Boom. with haiku—after she was inspired by Waaseyaa’sin Christine Sy, Shan- It’s an era when surgeons and anato- If you have original info and photos reading Matsuo Basho’s Narrow Road non Webb-Campbell, Kim Melton, mists rely on body snatchers to obtain pertaining to the Zeballos gold rush, to the Interior. 978-0-9949868-0-1 Sarah Paynter, Nancy Pincombe, human cadavers. When a grave robbery contact: [email protected]

39 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 IDEAS

OME PEOPLE PREFER TO read newspapers and magazines from back to front. They would be ideal readers for Ron Sakolsky’s awkwardly Sbrilliant Breaking Loose: Mutual Acquiescence or Mutual Aid? (Little Black Cart Books $8). At the tail end of Sakolsky’s erudite but dense meditations, the Denman Island anarchist describes an event that occurred in the New York subway in 2012 that set him thinking about where we are headed as a species. “A man ended up on the tracks in the path of an oncoming train. By- standers on the platform, instead of acting to rescue him, whipped out their smart-phones and cameras to record the event for their Facebook pages.” With his inveterate knack for prefer- ring overlong sentences that sometimes blur his content, the New York-born Sakolsky posits, “The disposable digital camera posts that have increasingly replaced real-time relationships based upon mutual aid with a superficial Facebook connectedness have caused in-depth cooperative interactions to Ron Sakolsky and suffer a profound loss.” Sheila Nopper. The key words in that paragraph are mutual aid, arising from Peter Kropot- kin’s 1902 book in response to social Darwinism (ie. Dog-eat-dog capitalism), Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. It in- spired the likes of Kropotkin biographer George Woodcock to write his defini- Wake up and smell tive work, Anarchism, to explain why anarchist philosophy has precious little to do with bomb throwing and more to do with interpersonal responsibility. Still with us? The 2012 subway incident reminded Sakolsky of an incident when he was on his way to the anarchy Brooklyn. It was 3 a.m. on a weekday morning. The lower Manhattan plat- form was empty. Ron Sakolsky of Denman Island recalls how saving a “Looking across the lines of tracks while waiting for my train,” he writes, “I life in the New York subway saved his own soul and stirred saw an apparently drunken man, who his adherence to Kropotkin’s credo of mutual aid. had been tottering along on the farthest platform, inadvertently stumble onto tracks below. “Without a moment’s hesitation, I to him that this man was not intending not destroy. His inspirational rhetoric of revolt, to rage against the machine. was in motion, running up and down to commit suicide, that he had fallen emphasizes the value of pushing the It’s not an act. It’s a challenge to act. stairways at full speed to get to the spot and wanted to be saved. envelope. He cites examples of modern “Whether we are locked securely in where he had fallen.” It was a moment of spiritual re- activists who are doing so, such as the the gilded cages of consumerism, or He could hear the sound of a train birth, one that has served Sakolsky as Zapatistas in Mexico or a hodge-podge are bouncing around contentedly in a coming. He reached down to grab the a source of reverie ever since he liter- of protesters in the French countryside technological bubble of recuperation; man’s upturned hand, pulling him onto ally lent a helping hand. He had peered called Zone to Defend who have estab- we are increasingly rendered inert… the platform just before the train swept down onto the tracks, “expecting to see lished an encampment at the site of a If we rebel, we often place reformist into the station. the face of a stranger, but instead saw proposed second airport for the nearby limits on our rebellion in the name “Aware that I had saved him from myself looking back up at me.” city of Nantes to be built by the Vinci of realism instead of inspiring each certain death, he kissed my hand with The goal of Breaking Loose: Mu- corporation. other to pursue our dreams of break- tears of gratitude rolling down his cheeks. tual Acquiescence or Mutual Aid? is Closer to home, he praises the ing loose. “Sitting him down safely on a nearby to expand upon ideas Sakolsky first bravado of indigenous resistance from “Whether we cast off the chains of bench, I returned to my own platform to broached in an article for Green Anar- the First Nations Unist’ot’en clan “in mutual acquiescence among friends catch a train back home. At the time, I chy magazine in 2006 called ‘Why Mis- response to the voracious appetite of and accomplices or in larger rebel distinctly remember feeling wide-awake ery Loves Company.’ That piece gave the colonial megamachine.” You don’t groupings, breaking loose and mutual and brilliantly alive, whereas previous rise to his term ‘mutual acquiescence.’ have to agree with his politics to enjoy aid tend to go hand in hand. to my encounter with him, I had been Sakolsky refined his thoughts for some of the high octane ingenuity of “Relations of mutual aid can rein- sleepy and somewhat despondent.” a 2011 conference, but he was un- his prose. force our individual refusals, and to- Now here comes the good bit. comfortable with the notion that his “Though the terrain of battle is lo- gether we can create unmapped zones “In a certain sense, it was he who thoughts might languish in what he calized, these struggles exude a ‘war of inspiration where we are encouraged had saved me. I had been rescued from calls ‘the academic ghetto.’ He conse- of the worlds’ ethos,” he writes, “that to keep the wrecking ball of resistance the despair of an atomized existence. quently re-jigged the piece as ‘Mutual counters the perpetual crisis manage- rolling merrily along in the direction of The natural human capacity for mutual Aquiescence or Mutual Aid’ for the ment/state of emergency/anti-terror- creating anarchy. aid had kicked in, and I had taken inaugural issue of Modern Slavery. ist/counter-insurgency initiatives of “Rather than playing the mobiliz- direct action. “I did not create the term mutual governmental control in a google-eyed ing game of waiting for technological “It was not an act of heroism on my acquiescence as part of a doom and cybernetic age of endless apocalypse innovation to save us or expecting a part, but an inherent act of human gloom scenario of despair,” he writes, and perpetual surveillance with a revolutionary messiah to come forth solidarity.” “in which misery rules our lives, but land-based corporeal presence that is who will lead the faithful to a heaven Lots of people commit suicide in New as a way of understanding why and rooted in the visceral art of nurturing on earth, inspirational acts of revolt York City by imitating Anna Karenina, how people become immersed in the revolutionary becomings.” can sustain us in the upheaval of the by jumping in front of a train. Sakol- dead end of believing that misery is the Okay, don’t expect to see Ron Sa- here and now and spur us on to future sky had assumed the man was ill or only reality.” kolsky invited to speak at any govern- revolutionary endeavours.”

drunk. Only when the man raised his Sakolsky is a sincere intellectual ment-sponsored writers festivals. He Contact Little Black Cart Books at: hand towards him did it become clear who writes with a passion to uplift; seeks to wake us up, to inspire acts [email protected]

40 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2016 SERVICES / BOOKSTORES / PRINTERS

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Captain Joe & Pet Tracker The Amazing Story of Grateful Jake Rachel the K-9 Pet Detective by Emily Madill by Kat Albrecht Confidence boosting “A must-read for animal books for kids. lovers and sleuths alike.” PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 978-0981257907 • $11.95 each AVAILABLE: Available only at Amazon Chapters, Amazon, Barnes & Noble 978 0578157559 www.emilymadill.com www.katalbrecht.com KIDLIT PET MEMOIR

Mark Winston: To bee or not to bee; there is no question. Pass the Erotokritos Masala by Vitzentzos EE TIME: LESSONS FROM THE Kathy Drover sold her Reading Room Vegetarian Indian Komaros Hive (Harvard Univer- Bookstore in Sooke (population less cooking made simple Transcribed by Manolis. sity Press) by SFU’s Mark than 10,000) to Malinda Riffle. It was

by Bharti Saincher The only longhand book Winston has won the opened in 2003, adding a café in 2007. of its kind — a long poem Governor General’s Non- After nine years, Pirkko Anderson For beginners and 500 years old—transcribed experienced chefs alike. by an 11-year-old boy. BFiction Award and the Canadian Sci- reports that he’s closing Coho Books 978-0-9879500-0-0 • $35.95 978-1-926763-36-1 • $5,000.00 ence Writers Book of the Year Award. in Campbell River; after ten years in www.libroslibertad.ca www.passthemasala.com “Honeybees are hurting,” he says, “with Powell River, Sean Dees is pulling the COOK BOOK EPIC POEM one-third of all colonies dying annually plug on Breakwater Books. Temporar- across most of the world.” ily closed are K & K Books ✫ in Vernon, due to a fire next Ben the Beyond the The number of bookstores door, and Vancouver Co- Dragonborn Floathouse in the U.S. grew last year as Op Bookstore, due to a fire Gunhild’s Granddaughter The Six Worlds Book 11 e-book hype has abated and upstairs. After six years in by Myrtle Siebert by Dianne Astle sales of e-readers have plum- business, Judy Zubriski has A fantasy that affirms the Myrtle’s first 15 years: importance of seeking the remote floathouse lifestyle meted. Kolin Lymworth’s temporarily closed Hooked treasure of your own true self. to logging camp’s one-room Banyen Books operation in on Books in Penticton due to school to high school boarding. 9780992162603 e-book: $4.32 Paperback: $13.92 978-0-9880709-1-2 • $16 Kitsilano turned 45 in Decem- smoke damage from a restau- www.benthedragonborn.com www.myrtlesiebert.com ber. Also thriving, Vancouver rant fire next door. Zubriski is FANTASY NOVEL A great read for all ages. NON-FICTION Kidsbooks is relocating a few Kolin Lymworth awaiting insurance and repair blocks east on West Broadway estimates, hoping to re-open. in Kits. ✫ This Won’t from Fjord ✫ As if she doesn’t have enough Hurt a Bit! to Floathouse The courageous book by Joan on her plate... SFU Chancellor Painless remedies for McEwen about the plight of Anne Giardini has co-edited English ailments by Myrtle Siebert Ivan Henry, Innocence on her third book, Startle and by Lindsay C. Lewis Flipped coin turns Andy Forberg to hand-logging. Trial: The Framing of Ivan Illuminate: Carol Shields A step by step guide to After 100 years a writing great essays. granddaughter returns Henry (Heritage House), has on Writing (HarperCollins 978-1-4602-7220-6 (HC $32) to the farm. 978-1-4602-7221-3 (PB $19.99) been fundamental in Henry’s $29.95), a collection of lit- 978-1-4602-7222-0 (eBook $9.99) 978-0-9880709-0-5 • $20 www.lindsayclewis.com www.myrtlesiebert.com ability to sue prosecutors for erary advice and opinions Joan McEwen ESSAY WRITING GUIDE NON-FICTION breaching his charter rights. drawn from her mother’s After 27 years in jail for sexual correspondence with other assault charges, Henry settled a wrong- writers, essays, notes, comments, The Dynamic Hamlet: ful conviction lawsuit with the City of criticism and lectures. Giardini has co- Introvert The Novel Vancouver in November. The province edited Startle and Illuminate with her Leading Quiety with by Alan W. Lehmann and federal government have yet to son, Nicholas Giardini, one of Carol Passion and Purpose Using contemporary settle. Shields’ twelve grandchildren. by Lesley Taylor language, this retelling of ✫ If you are an introvert and Hamlet explores power, you’re ready to step up and politics, love, courage, Nightwood Editions’ publisher Si- Collected by Hugh Henderson. lead you need this book! faith, and friendship. ISBN: 978-0-9936546-2-6 Visit Amazon.ca or contact the author: las White, who doubles as a town eBook Price: $9.99 [email protected] councillor on the Sunshine Coast, www.thedynamicintrovert.com ISBN: 978-1-4834-2867-3 CORRECTION has been instrumental in a decision SELF-HELP NOVEL for Sechelt to name one of its streets It has been brought to our attention that after poet Peter Trower, now a resi- our review of To The Lighthouse (Heri- Skai Fowler The Listener dent of Inglewood Care Centre in West tage, 2015) by Peter Johnson and John Vancouver. Contemporary by David Lester ✫ Walls repeats an error that appears in Abstract Painter “A dense and fiercely Novelist Steven Galloway was sus- the book. The authors of that book report Studio 13 Fine Art intelligent work... that Tony Greenall was the lightkeeper 1315 Railspur Alley all in a lyrical and pended from his activities as the head Granville Island, Vancouver stirring style.” of the UBC Creative Writing due to who saved nine people off Entrance Is- www.skaiart.com — Publishers Weekly (NY) unspecified allegations that the univer- land. Glenn Borgens and Jake Etzkorn Bring this ad in for 1/2 off 978-1894037488 • $19.95 sity has described as “serious.” He also for one skai art card www.amazon.ca were the actual lightkeeper heroes. Tony relinquished his role as a judge for a ABSTRACT ART GRAPHIC NOVEL prominent Ontario-based book award. Greenall was on leave at the time of this ✫ well-documented incident.

Aldridge Print & Media...43 Friesens Printers...43 Mother Tongue Publishing...28 SFU Writers Studio...34 Annick Press...33 Galiano Island Books...41 New Society Publishers...10 Sidney Booktown...41 Anvil Press...14 Granville Island Publishing...38 New Star Books...20 Sono Nis Press...27 Arsenal Pulp Press...28 Greystone Books...14 Ocean Cruise Guides...33 Street, William...36 Back Valley Road...41 Hancock, Eleanor...38 Oolichan Books...18 Sub-Terrain/LUSH...2 Banyen Books...41 Harbour Publishing...44 Orca Books...6 Talonbooks...13 Bentley, B.R....18 The Heritage Group of Publishers...4 Penguin Random House...24 Theatre in the Raw...34 BC Historical Federation...34 Houghton Boston...43 Printorium/Island Blue...43 Ti-Jean Press...36 Caitlin Press...24 Leaf Press...36 Proud Horse Publishing...36 UBC Press...16 Chuckanut Conference...2 Libros Libertad Publishing...38 Raincoast Books...12 U of Calgary Press...18 Cramp, Beverly...43 Literary Press Group...30 Rebel Mountain Press...18 Vancouver Desktop...43 AD Douglas & McIntyre...9 Marquis...41 Ronsdale Press...20 Voices from the Valleys...34 Douglas College/EVENT...33 McGill-Queen’s University Press...16 Rose, Kat...38 Word on the Lake...2 INDEX Ellis, David...41 McLean, Randall Wayne...34 Royal BC Museum...28 Yoka’s Coffee...34 Federation of BC Writers...36 Mermaid Tales Bookshop...41 Self-Counsel Press...37

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