2 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 awards STANDING UP FOR SCIENCE

eligion won’t save us. Or politics. R Or business. According to David Suzuki, the 74-year-old environmentalist who re- ceived the 18th annual George Wood- cock Lifetime Achievement Award in February, it all comes down to science. If politicians had listened to Suzuki and other scientific-minded futurists about thirty years ago, Kyoto Protocol standards would have been achievable. Now Suzuki still clings to a “very slen- der thread” of hope. The human race can still endure, IF we immediately en- act rational strategies. “Science is by far the most important factor for shaping our lives and society today… (but) decisions are made for po- litical expediency,” he says. “What’s hap- pening now is absolutely terrifying.” Suzuki recalled the advice of 300 cli- matologists who met in in the 1970s and identified global warming as the greatest threat to human survival, next to atomic bombs. “(But) the fossil fuel industry, the auto sector and neo- conservatives like the Koch brothers in New York began to invest tens of mil- presents this year’s George lions of dollars in a campaign of decep- Woodcock Award to tion,” Suzuki said. “You can find the best scientist and educator evidence of this in Jim Hoggan’s book, David Suzuki, at the Fairmont Climate Cover-Up, and in Nancy Hotel . “We are Oreskes’ Merchants of Doubt.” going backwords,” he PHOTOGRAPHY

D “Now we have public opinion on warned the audience.

these issues driven by organizations like WENDY The Fraser Institute, the Heartland In- stitute, the Competitive Enterprise In- Campbell with a set of leather bound stitute. You just have to read The National Vaillant wins copies of all the award winners since Post and you’ll never have to change 2003. Campbell received a standing your mind on climate change. You’ll wholeheartedly ovation from nearly everyone present. know that it’s baloney... This year all four nominated titles for “I began my career in television be- OHN VAILLANT’S FIRST BOOK, THE the $40,000 prize were published by lieving that through education, through Golden Spruce, about a former log- Random House / Knopf of Toronto, in- writing books, through radio and televi- Jger named Grant Hadwin who cluding Stevie Cameron’s coura- sion programs, we would have a better- cut down K’iid K’iyaas, a “Golden” geous, 768-page On The Farm: Robert informed public. But, in fact, we are Sitka Spruce on Haida Gwaii, in 1997, William Pickton and the Tragic Story going backwards. received several major book awards and of Vancouver’s Missing Women. PHOTO “The level of trust in science, espe- was shortlisted for ’s Na- Tiger 978-0-30739-714-0; Farm 978-0-676-97584-0

cially in the United States, is dropping tional Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. TWIGG ✍ radically. And if we can’t trust in science, Five years later, at a lavish free lunch- Co-nominees for the BC’s National UBC PRESS’ TITLE , THE CONGO then who do we turn to? The Koran? The eon for invited guests, Vaillant received Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, Crisis, and UN Peacekeeping, 1960-64, Bible? Or all these right-wing pundits?” former Premier Gordan Camp- Stevie Cameron and John Vaillant by Kevin Spooner, has won this This year The Writers Trust of bell’s B.C. National Award for Cana- year’s CP Stacey Prize for the best book Canada co-sponsored the Woodcock dian Non-Fiction for his second book, nounced as the winner during the three- in Military History awarded by the Ca- Award, presented by Margaret Atwood. an investigation of events in Siberia re- hour ceremony. With sincere humility, nadian Historical Committee for the Mayor Gregor Robertson also par- garding a rare tiger that was killing peo- he told the audience he had decided in History of the Second World War and ticipated in the ceremony. ple in Russia’s Primorye Territory. advance: “I am going to feel whole- for Military History. 978-0-7748-1637-3 Since 1995, the Woodcock Lifetime Like Golden Spruce, Vaillant’s The hearted for whoever wins.” ✍ Achievement Award for an Oustanding Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and The event featured erudite and so- D&M’S POLAR IMPERATIVE: A HISTORY OF Literary Career in B.C. has been sup- Survival (Knopf $34.95) uses a news- phisticated dissertations on each of the Arctic Sovereignty in North America by ported by the City of Vancouver, Van- worthy story as the basis for an expan- four nominated titles, delivered by Shelagh D. Grant has been nomi- couver Public Library and B.C. sive look at conservation and ecology, Daphne Bramham, Douglas nated for the 2011 Lionel Gelber Prize, BookWorld. Another new co-sponsor, as revealing atavistic links between techno- Todd, Michael Levine and a literary award for the world’s best non- of 2010, is Yosef Wosk. logical man and the wilderness. Wade Davis. Publisher Scott fiction book in English that seeks to Born in Vancouver, David Suzuki has Vaillant’s face did not register pleas- McIntyre, as one of the administra- deepen public debate on significant glo- written more than 50 books. ure or surprise when his name was an- tive board members, presented Gordan bal issues. 978-1553654186

SPRING Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Contributors: Hannah Main-van der Kamp, John Moore, Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: BC BookWorld, Joan Givner, Sage Birchwater, Grant Shilling, For this issue, we gratefully Mark Forsythe, Louise Donnelly, Sheila Munro, 2011 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 acknowledge the unobtrusive Cherie Thiessen, Shane McCune, Joseph Farris. assistance of Canada Council, a Produced with the sponsorship of Pacific BookWorld News Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. BC Issue, Web consultant: Sharon Jackson continuous partner since 1988. BOOKWORLD Society. Publications Mail Registration No. 7800. BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Photographers: Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk. Vol. 25, No. 1 Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Betty Twigg. In-Kind Supporters: Publisher/ Writer: Alan Twigg Advertising & editorial: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics. Deliveries: Ken Reid Vancouver, B.C., V6R 2S3. Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 All BC BookWorld reviews are posted online at Library; Editor/Production: David Lester Email: [email protected]. Annual subscription: $25 www.abcbookworld.com .

3 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 letters

chance to go and talk to him. I was over- Treasure hunt whelmed with shyness and so we never I AM EXTREMELY spoke. I’ve regretted that lost opportu- happy and hon- nity ever since. oured by your cov- Just days before the news of his death, erage in B.C. I happened upon an article about Eric BookWorld. My Nicol in The Essentials by Alan Twigg. husband and I are There, in print, was a sentence that impressed by the stabbed my heart. “Terribly shy, he Louise Jilek-Aall scope of this pub- avoided parties.” lication, but it is And to think I was only steps away. quite intimidating to see how many good Nancy Wise authors there are in B.C. What a treas- Sandhill Book Marketing, Kelowna ure you have given to the public to be able to find out about and discover all Nicol was hoaxer these people and their books. Louise Jilek-Aall extraordinare Tsawwassen SHY, WITTY AND VERY GENTLE, ERIC NICOL WAS one of the finest writers I ever en- Curtis catchy countered. Eric Nicol (centre) playing a reporter with actress Leslie Caron. Also see p. 17 He was a better writer than his shy- I’M A MEMBER OF THE ASSU FAMILY FROM ness allowed the world to see. Few of his Quadra Island, coming out with a book readers were aware of just how good he about the Kwakwaka’wakw and potlatch Dick & John was on the world stage. In his brief spell ban history, in 2011. I just want to say I Sexiconoclast as a radio scriptwriter in , long really enjoyed that Autumn BCBW ar- THANK YOU VERY MUCH INDEED FOR THE THE GREAT HUMORIST ERIC NICOL WILL BE before he got a play on Broadway, he ticle on The Edward Curtis Project. I’ve piece comparing my book Edge of the missed. It was always a great pleasure for worked with the best in the business, the been chatting with Sound with Fishing with John. me to drive up to Eric’s house in Dunbar legendary Frank Muir and Dennis the author Marie I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s going to discuss his manuscript The Casanova Norden. Clements and the to be the only mention of my book, be- Sexicon while we were readying it for Our first book together was the city photographer cause I haven’t got a “name” or a degree, publication. What I most remember history, Vancouver, what you might call Rita Leistner I’m not a bright about those visits was the way in which an urbane urban history. Other titles in- about the correla- young thing, and Eric’s humour derived from his deft han- cluded the satire Canadide and the seri- tion between the I live on the West dling of language. I recall his eureka mo- ous Letters To My Son (Eric’s faithful Garry Thomas Morse Curtis subject Coast. What the ment in which he playfully defined readers were forewarned: “CAUTION. matter in our re- heck. “aural sex”—as the phenomenon that Contents May Prove Hazardous To Any spective books. I was pleased to read that I’ve never read occurs when the French word “oui” Preconceived Idea Of An Eric Nicol B.C. BookWorld was already on top of Fishing with John buds the lips, inviting a kiss. He was never Book”). mean-spirited. this material. I will be posting my cheque Jo Hammond but I’m sure we But the crowning glory was Eric’s and getting a subscription to B.C. have a copy of it Ronald Hatch, Ronsdale Press, “discovery” of the letters sent home by BookWorld right away. somewhere. I recall my husband Dick Vancouver the very real Francis Dickens, son of Garry Thomas Morse muttering something about it. Now I’m Charles, and one of the worst Mounties Vancouver curious. Nicol was shy guy in history. Jo Hammond Entitled Dickens Of The Mounted, Corrections Sunshine Coast I ADORED ERIC NICOL’S HUMOUR AND I AM this book was hailed by Andreas particularly saddened at the news of his Schroeder in The Encyclopedia of Litera- TLEKO (THANK YOU) Unexpected death. I own many editions of his books. ture in Canada as one of the country’s for the nice review Years ago, when I was a much best Literary Hoaxes. of my book, Spir- JUST CAUGHT THE NEW WINTER ISSUE OF younger sales rep, our three-day B.C. The book’s opening line... “It was not its of Our Whaling B.C. BookWorld. Terrific exposure for Book Fair was held in downtown Van- the best of times, it was not the worst of Ancestors. The title me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. couver. Often authors were invited to at- times, it was Ottawa” surely gave a hint is not Spirits of Our With the cuts to the small presses like tend a cocktail party. At one particular of Nicol mischief afoot. Ancestors. Also, for NeWest, the onus of marketing appears fair, the social event was held at the Van- Yet, to quote Schroeder, “The hoax Cote the record, the to have fallen on the shoulders of ama- couver Art Gallery. The guest of hon- became a runaway best-seller, appearing Makah treaty date teurs—the authors. Ugh. our was to be Eric Nicol. on both fiction and non-fiction lists, ap- was 1855, not 1885. And you mis- Your support is needed and appreci- I so wanted to talk to him, but felt parently fooling a lot more people than spelled Hishuk’ish. There is no “y” at the ated. I’ve been waiting for this article awkward. I didn’t know what I could say either Nicol or the totally unrepentant end of this word. In spirit, and it was more than I expected. to him that wouldn’t sound foolish. I Gibson expected.” Charlotte Cote Roy Innes watched as he went outside, away from Doug Gibson University of Washington, Seattle Gabriola Island everyone, on the terrace. It was my big Toronto

A natural history of a landscape few have ever seen. MOTHERSTONE British Columbia’s Volcanic Plateau UBLISHING P IGHT

L by Tanya Lloyd Kyi •art by Ross Kinnaird $69.95 (bound) $39.95 (paper) Fascinating facts and funny illustrations reveal

OUNTRY everything you ever wanted to know about poison. C Promotional tour dates new series! “... Tanya Lloyd Kyi has no trouble balancing the Chris Harris & Harold Rhenisch and orders: More titles sinister and the safe.” —Quill & Quire Scientific Consultant: Dr. Mary Lou Bevier chrisharris.com coming soon! Ages 9+ / 112 pages ISBN 978-0-9865818-1-6 (bound) ISBN 978-0-9865818-0-9 (paper) | annick press | www.annickpress.com | available from your favourite bookseller

4 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 New Voices FICTION / SHORT STORIES In Sadru Jetha’s first collection of beautifully crafted stories, Nuri Does Not Exist, we accompany Nuri on his quest to understand how servitude transcends New Books slavery; fealty transcends servitude; and community transcends fealty, charming us with its cathartic vision. • Renee Rodin’s finely wrought autobiographical pieces in Subject to Change show the reader that the things we usually think of as too ordinary to talk about or too extraordinary to communicate to others are New Ideas often the most formative elements of our social lives.

Please join us! RENEE RODIN BOOK LAUNCH Subject to Change

Saturday, March 19 in Vancouver

See www.talonbooks.com talonbooks spring 2011 for more information. 978-0-88922-655-5 $19.95 978-0-88922-644-9 $18.95

POETRY

In Discovery Passages, Garry Thomas Morse sets out to recover the stolen, appropriated and scattered realm of his Kwakwaka’wakw ancestors, drawing upon written history and oral tradition in poems that scrutinize the bans on Native language and potlatching and the confiscation and sale of Aboriginal artifacts—as well as the effects these actions had on the lives of his people. • In a world where the corporate iron fist clad in the velvet glove of the state has appropriated all that is authentic and authoritative in language, Triage, the first book by community advocate Cecily Nicholson, utilizes the increasingly marginalized and criminalized language of protest and resistance to present a

978-0-88922-660-9 $17.95 978-0-88922-657-9 $16.95 978-0-88922-662-3 $17.95 polyvocal narrative of human communities struggling at the brutal margins of the neoliberalized state. • Composed in three sections, Glengarry is a return in writing to the landscape of rob mclennan’s youth and a headlong rush into the fractures, slippages and buried surfaces of what the text leaves undisclosed to him, resisting the linguistic lure of nostalgia and romanticism to uncover a living language with every step. • In Floating Up to Zero, Ken Norris sings the present moment, precariously balanced between a frozen past and a fluid future. The poet at the centre of this journey inward finds himself trapped in his house in mid-winter, trying to talk his way out toward a world of infinite possibilities beyond a slowly melting history. • Very little critical work exists on the poetry of bill bissett, and almost no theoretical discourse on his visual work. In textual vishyuns, Carl Peters posits that bissett’s drawings, paintings and collages challenge artistic conventions of visual language in the same way his poetry

978-0-88922-659-3 $17.95 978-0-88922-661-6 $24.95 challenges linguistic conventions of syntax and grammar to escape the strictures of Western modes of thought and perception.

DRAMA

With And So It Goes, George F. Walker returns to the stage after a ten-year hiatus. During that time Canada’s middle-class dream has taken a heavy hit and the newly unemployed baby boomers in this darkly comic drama seek solace from the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut. • Drew Hayden Taylor deploys the literary conventions of theatre of the absurd and the mystery novel in Dead White Writer on the Floor when he locks six Native literary tropes in a room with the writer who created them. • Morris Panych brings us a new play that premiered at the Segal Centre last fall; Gordon examines a father and son whose lives are devoted to alcohol and obsession in the first generation and criminal activity in the second. Panych’s trademark piercing humour is evident throughout. • In 978-0-88922-654-8 $17.95 978-0-88922-663-0 $17.95 978-0-88922-664-7 $17.95 Paradise Garden, playwright and actress Lucia Frangione dramatizes, through the romantic tale of a Gulf Island hippie and a Turkish immigrant, how paradise is hard to maintain—and so too a relationship of love in the time of individuality and alienation. • Emerging playwrights Chris Craddock and Nathan Cuckow address the topic of gay-bashing with a play that rocks the conventions of hip- hop and rap. The Associated Press says about BASH’d: “It’s furious, fast moving, hip-hop entertainment! As one of the lyrics proclaims, ‘It’s Romeo meets Romeo,’ complete with an ample supply of scatological language, swaggering attitude and a keen, often hilarious sense of observation about gay life.” • Finally, George Boyd’s Governor General’s Award-nominated play about the razing of Africville, Consecrated Ground, has been released in a revised, updated edition.

978-0-88922-658-6 $17.95 978-0-88922-656-2 $16.95 978-0-88922-666-1 $16.95

Talonbooks Follow Talonbooks on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. www.talonbooks.com

5 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 Celebrating 43 Years of Publishing in Canada

Working with Wool A Coast Salish Legacy & the Cowichan Sweater Sylvia Olsen Cowichan sweaters, with their distinctive bands of design and untreated, handspun wool, have been a British Columbia icon since the early years of the twentieth century, but few people know    the full story behind the garment. Sylvia Olsen Sarah E. Turner tells the tale, drawing on her own experience, 1-55039-174-7 • 9” x 7.5” academic research, and her four-decade friendship 32 pages • paper • $9.95 with some of the Coast Salish women who have each knitted hundreds of sweaters.

1-55039-177-1 • 8.5 x 9.25 • 328 pages 165 photos • cloth • $38.95

Winner of the Bolen Books Children’s Book Prize An Auto-Erotic History of Swings Patricia Young Patricia Young’s latest book of poems dances, cavorts and sings    through the prehistory of our species. Epic in scope, An Auto- Sylvia Olsen Erotic History of Swings is about sex and God and sublime ISBN 1-55039-173-9 • 6 x 9 imagination. 304 pages • paper • $14.95 This is a dervish of a book whose images in quantity and variety rival those adorning Indian temples that deify and celebrate physical human love.

1-55039-178-x • 6 x 9 • 112 pages paper • $14.95

UPDATED EDITION Nobody Move    Robert D. Turner Susan Stenson ISBN 1-55039-181-x • 8.5” x 11” A celebration of life and its eccentricities, Nobody Move covers 348 pages • paper • $39.95 a great swath of territory, each page another electric surprise. “Birthed in the feast of the body,” Stenson’s poems fuse emotion and language in ways that often defy examination and transcend BC Bestseller logic, and sometimes break your heart.

1-55039-178-x • 6 x 8.25 • 96 pages paper • $14.95

  Richard Somerset MacKie ISBN 1-55039-171-2 • 8.5 x 11 The Blackbird Must Be 320 pages • paper • $42.95 Dorothy Field In the first half of The Blackbird Must Be, Dorothy Field recalls the ancient story of Genesis. Although not explicitly Biblical, Field’s retelling of the story is hauntingly familiar—it begins with BC Bestseller love, hope and trust on a small Edenic farm on Vancouver Island and ends in betrayal, regret and sorrow. The second half leaps into the marvellous and surreal world of the Garry oak tree in Field’s backyard. The Blackbird Must Be is a beautiful and moving poetry collection that reminds us that there is power in vulnerability and strength in forgiveness.   ’  Jack Schofield 1-55039-179-8 • 6 x 9 • 96 pages ISBN 1-55039-169-0 • 8.25 x 8.25 paper • $14.95 144 pages • hardcover • $29.95

Sono Nis Press • 1-800-370-5228 • www.sononis.com • [email protected]

6 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 WHO’SWHO BRITISH COLUMBIA

is for Arneson

Bal Arneson

Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao of China came out of retirement to win a gold medal at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

HOST OF A NEW COOKING SHOW ON THE Food Network in Canada and the Cook- ing Channel in the U.S. called Spice God- dess, Punjabi-born Vancouverite Bal Arneson has followed her first book, Everyday Indian, with family recipes for classic Indian meals in Bal’s Quick and Healthy Indian (Whitecap $29.95). 978-1-77050-023-5 is for Bowering

NEVER MIND PLAYBOY. GEORGE BOW- ering’s new memoir Pinboy (Cormo- rant $32) recalls his sexual awakenings at age fifteen in the south Okanagan. John Furlong He finds himself enamoured of three choices: his first love, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and one of his high school teachers. 978-1-897151-93-8 is for Davis is for Furlong

is for Czajkowski VANCOUVER MAYOR GREGOR ROBERTSON WITH HELP FROM VETERAN GLOBE AND MAIL and his predecessor Sam Sullivan columnist Gary Mason, Olympics CHRIS CZAJKOWSKI’S A WILDERNESS both watched as Chuck Davis re- boss John Furlong has recounted Dweller’s Cookbook (Harbour $14.95) ceived the George Woodcock Lifetime his behind-the-scenes version of how he is a multi-faceted account of how a wil- Achievement Award on October 14, handled the 2010 Winter Olympic and derness dweller—in a non-growing cli- 2010. It was Davis’ last public appear- Paralympic Games in Vancouver and mate 20 km from a road, 60 km from a ance. He died at Surrey General Hospi- Chuck Davis receives 2010 Woodcock Whistler in his immodestly-titled Patriot store and 250 km from a town large tal of lung cancer on November 20, three Award from Mayor Gregor Robertson. Hearts: Inside the Olympics That enough to have a supermarket—feeds days after his 75th birthday. Changed a Country (D&M $32.95). herself and the clients of her wilderness A Chuck Davis Book Fund has been Furlong’s account of his 14-year-long adventure business. 978-1-55017-518-9 set up at Vancity (account #173575) for journey of shepherding the 2010 Ol- donations to hire ympics includes dealing with the death writers to compile his is for Engler of Georgian luger Nodar mammoth work-in- Kumaritashvili and unseasonably progress, The History ALLAN ENGLER WORKED FOR MANY YEARS warm weather. of Metropolitan Van- as a cook on coastal towboats and for a A dazzling companion volume by couver. Tax deductions decade as secretary-treasurer and then former ice skater and photographer donations of $100 or president of Local 400, Marine Section, Gérard Châtaigneau and West more can be made out International Longshore & Warehouse Vancouver skating judge Jean Riley to the Vancouver His- Union–Canada. He believes capitalism Senft is Triumph on Ice: The New torical Society, Box is based on social labour, private capital- World of Figure Skating (Greystone 219, Madeira Park, ist entitlement and workplace dic- $39.95) is primarily comprised B.C. V0N 2H0. tatorships, a system that destroys of dramatic skating moments Crawford Kilian has a environments, widens disparities from the 2010 Olympics, aug- created a Chuck and relies on repression, militarism mented by shots from the 2010 Davis blog and the and war. His new book is Eco- ISU World Figure Skating Davis’ Woodcoock nomic Democracy: The Working Championships. Award speech is on Class Alternative to Capitalism Furlong 978-1-55365-794-1; Allan Engler Senft 978-1-55365-657-9 Chris Czajkowski holds bread from her stone oven Youtube. (Fernwood $15.95). 978-1-552663-46-2 continued on next page

7 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 WHO’SWHOBRITISHCOLUMBIA PHOTO

DAVIES

BEV Joe Keithley (right) performing with D.O.A. in 1981. From Talk—Action = Zero

is for GGs is for Keithley

RICHMOND’S WENDY PHILLIPS HAS WON GODFATHER OF CANADIAN PUNK, the Governor General’s Award for chil- Joe Keithley has documented more dren’s text with Fishtailing than thirty years of rocking in the (Coteau $14.95). The lone Gov- free world with the world-re- ernor General’s Award winner nowned band he founded—and from B.C. publishers was Allan still sings and plays with— Casey’s memoir and geo- D.O.A. Founder of Sudden graphical study Lakeland: Jour- Death Records and a Green Party neys into the Soul of Canada candidate, Keithley is now a fam- (Greystone $29.95), chosen as Wendy Phillips ily man in Burnaby. Keithley’s the best English non-fiction title. visual history of the band from Fish 9781550504118; Lake 9781553653080 1978 to the present is Talk – Ac- tion = Zero: An Illustrated His- tory of D.O.A. (Arsenal Pulp $24.95). A joint book launch is for Hume (with David Lester’s graphic novel The Listener) and a D.O.A. con- FEW BRITISH COLUMBIANS HAVE A Stephen Hume cert June 4 at The Rickshaw in deeper and more prodigious ap- Vancouver is planned with ten- preciation of this western corner of the tative guests Mecca Normal.978-1-55152-396-5 continent than journalist and historian Stephen Hume. His latest compi- lation is A Walk with the Rainy Sisters: In Praise of British Columbia's Places is for Lived (Harbour $32.95). Hume was raised in various towns around B.C. 978-1-55017-505-X NO GLOSS, NO GRANTS, NO INTERNS. NO internet presence. The nine-years-young non-fiction journal Lived Experience ($19) is the brainchild of back-to-the- is for Israel land philosopher Van Andruss, who ran Macleod’s HAVING ONCE LIVED NEAR THE APARTMENT Books in Vancou- of Samuel Beckett in Paris, and ver prior to Don enjoying his writing for decades, poet Stewart. It is Inge Israel has crafted Beckett simply one of the Soundings (Ronsdale $15.95) to explore most readable his life, letters, plays and novels. The en- and mature liter- igmatic, Irish-raised Protestant was ary publications Van Andruss known for his gloomy and sometimes ex- in Canada. The istential world-view that spawned Wait- journal comes out once a year from ing for Godot. 978-1-55380-112-2 . Van Andruss likes to get to know the people he publishes. Contact: Box 1599, Lillooet, BC, is for Joseph V0K 1V0. [email protected]

HAVING BEEN NOMINATED FOR THE is for McKnight Dorothy Livesay Prize for her first po- etry collection about grief and death, The Startled Heart (Oolichan, 2004), TO MARK THE 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE Eve Joseph now evokes and exam- City of Vancouver on April 6, 2011, ines the process of reaching epiphanies Lesley McKnight has researched with The Secret Signature of Things and collected stories about the city told (Brick $19). In a long poem called from the perspectives of young people ‘Tracking’ she struggles with the ques- for Vancouver Kids (Brindle & Glass tion of how to remember missing abo- $12.95)—from early potlatch ceremo- riginal women on the West Coast. nies and the Great Vancouver Fire to 978-1-894078-81-8 modern times. 978-1-897142-52-3

8 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 WHO’SWHOBRITISHCOLUMBIA

is for Nuttall-Smith

SHIPWRECKED IN THE HEBRIDES IN THE tenth century, Irish priests, enslaved by Norse traders, manage to cross the At- lantic, via Iceland, and descend North America’s plains to the steamy jungles of Mexico in Ben Nuttall- Smith’s wide-

Ben Nuttall-Smith ranging historical novel Blood, Feath- ers and Holy Men (Libros Libertad $23), a blending of Irish, Norse and pre-Columbian mythology of the indig- enous peoples of the Americas. Having served as a brother in a Ro- man Catholic teaching order from 1956 to 1978, Nuttall-Smith has fash- ioned his truth-seeking heroes on Chris- tian clerics who encounter the majesty of Quétzalcoatl, the feathered god of the Olmecs and Toltecs. 978-1-926763-10-1

is for Owen “When I became a mother to two sons of Chinese heritage and couldn’t find modern day adventure stories with Chinese characters,” says Bonita Sauder, “I wrote one.”

CATHERINE OWEN’S SEEING LESSONS (Wolsak & Wynn $17) is about the pio- B.C. to identify resources used to com- tion is interrupted tional Relations at an International neer B.C. photographer, fierce traveler bat homophobic and transphobic har- by a family move to school. She has also been a restaurant and visionary Mattie Gunterman assment and strategies for establishing Salmon Arm from manager, ‘fitting’ model, newspaper sub- and her photos from 1899-1945. “I was safe spaces for queer high school youth. Vancouver. Eager editor, bartender, flag-girl, English reading The History of Women’s Photog- 9781552663783 to become a medi- teacher, guidance counsellor and a con- raphy,” says Owen, “and came across a cal doctor while still tributor to the Fistula Foundation in sentence on Mattie Gunterman that in her teens, the Ethiopia to support HIV/AIDS. Year of read: ‘In 1927, Mattie’s entire body of is for Reid protagonist Ellen the Golden Dragon (Coteau $9.95), the Donalda Reid work was destroyed by fire.’ Through Manery befriends first novel for pre-teens in Sauder’s Jour- research, I found out that, in fact, cop- RETIRED ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPAL the outsider Tony Paul, who attends her ney to the East series, has been awarded ies of most of her photos had been pre- Donalda Reid was captured by high school but lives on the nearby In- a Moonbeam Children’s Book Award served through her son whose stash had Rwandan Hutu militia in the Congo in dian reserve. Their belief in one another and gained a silver place in the Pre-Teen been preserved before the flooding of 1998 while on a gorilla-viewing trek. enables them to overcome the hurdles Fiction Fantasy category. 978-1-55050-428-6 the High Arrow Dam in 1965 in Beaton. Proceeds from the sale of her memoir, of sexism and racism. 978-1-897187-80-7 Eventually, I got to meet her great Captive: A Survival Story (Second Story grandson Henry Gunterman, Jr., Press, 2008) support African grand- and he took me on a tour of the Beaton mothers living with AIDS through the is for Tanis region, showing me original documents Stephen Lewis Foundation. She has also is for Sauder and prints that chronicle his great grand- visited Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, TANIS HELLIWELL OF POWELL RIVER HAS mother’s determined existence.” Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. sOME OF US ARE MORE INTERNATIONAL worked to bring spirituality into the Seeing Lessons features 12 pages of Reid’s first young adult novel, The than others. B.L (Bonita) Sauder workplace since 1976 with corporate Gunterman’s photographs. 978-1-894987-48-6 Way It Is (Second Story Press $11.95), of West Vancouver has resided in Hong clients, resulting in Take Your Soul to is an engaging 1960s-era tale of a gifted, Kong, Singapore, Cape Town and Bang- Work: Transform Your Life and Work young woman whose advanced educa- kok where she was Director of Interna- (Random House, 1999). No mention was made in publicity materials about is for Partridge her previous publication about com- muning with leprechauns in Ireland, a STEPHEN PARTRIDGE OF THE UBC self-published memoir called Summer of English department has co-edited The the Leprechauns: A True Story (Blue Dol- Cambridge Companion to Baseball phin Publishing, 1997). It was followed (Cambridge University Press $26.95), by another self-published memoir, Pil- with Leonard Cassuto of Fordham grimage with the Leprechauns: A True University, New York City. At various Story of a Mystical Tour of Ireland times, Partridge has counted himself a (Wayshower Enterprises $21.95). fan of the Cardinals, Orioles, Red Sox, “Some years ago I lived in an old cot- and Mariners. 978-0-521-14575-6 tage in the village of Keel on the west coast of Ireland,” she begins. “I shared Crumpaun Cottage with a leprechaun and his family who had lived there for a is for Queer very long time. The leprechaun be- friended me and taught me about REBECCA HASKELL AND BRIAN elementals...” Burtch address harassment experi- Helliwell describes leading her fourth enced by many queer youth during their mystical tour of Ireland, to visit sacred high school years in Get That Freak: sites, as an unmitigated disaster that si- Homophobia and Transphobia in Tanis Helliwell visiting a dolman (home of a leprechaun) in Keel, Ireland, multaneously served as one of the most High Schools (Fernwood $17.95). They June, 2010. Dolmans are megalithic tombs built between 4000 and 2000 BC significant events of her life. draw on accounts from young adults in for religious ceremonies including burying the dead. 978-0-9809033-2-4

9 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 WHO’SWHOBRITISHCOLUMBIA is for eXotic

A COLLECTION OF EXPLICITLY SEXUAL poetry from an indigenous perspective, Red Erotic (Ojistah $20), by Janet Rogers, a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer born in Vancouver in 1963, also features artwork by eight artists: Lee Claremont, George Littlechild, Denesse Grey Paul, Lindsay Delaronde, Chris Bose, Nicholas Galanin, Judy Radul Nadema Agard, and Marcus Amerman. 978-1-77084-020-1 is for Unclassifiable

BORN IN LILLOOET IN 1962, MIXED MEDIA installation and performance artist Judy Radul has been a cutting edge experimentalist on the West Coast since the early 1980s. To celebrate, explain and catalogue her works, People Things Enter Exit (Presentation House $35) contains essays by Christopher Eamon, Helga Pakasaar and Monika Szewczyk, with interviews by Jeff Derksen, Stan Doug- PHOTO las and Antonia Hirsch. 978-0-920293-70-6 GALANIN

From Red Erotic by Janet Rogers is for Verdicchio NICHOLAS

THE ITALIAN CULTURAL CENTRE HAS AN- nounced the winning authors and works is for Yeadon-Jones for the biennial F.G. Bressani Literary RECENT TITLES FROM Prize. Pasquale THE SIX DREAMSPEAKER Verdicchio has won Cruising Guides by the prize for poetry for Anne and Laurence Canada’s truly independent publisher This Nothing’s Place Yeadon-Jones fea- (Guernica Editions ture hundreds of nauti- $15). The prize is named cally accurate and after the Jesuit priest, Fa- informative hand-drawn Bright Bardo Blood, ther Francesco charts of marinas and poetry by Feathers Giuseppe small boat anchorages for Ilya Tourtidis & Holy Men Bressani (1612- the west coast, augmented 97 pages novel by 1672) the first Italian by colour photos. The pair $17.00 Ben Nuttall-Smith missionary to come to have created a new edition ISBN 9781926763118 Canada, who wrote for Dreamspeaker Vol- 252 pages Pasquale Verdicchio $23.00 Breve Relatione, and ume 2: Desolation Sound ISBN 9781926763101 who can be considered the precursor of & the Discovery Islands (Harbour Italian-Canadian writing. 978-1550712629 $49.95) which also includes information on recreational activities suitable for adults and children; the best places to Opera Bufa Yannis Ritsos anchor your boat for a romantic sunset, poetry by Poems is for Wosk pick blackberries or buy a cappuccino. Manolis poems translated 978-1-55017-524-0 and introduced 116 pages ONE OF THE UNDER-CITED HEROES OF THE $17.00 by Manolis, Apryl Leaf editor B.C. literary world, philanthropist ISBN 9781926763095 is for Zorgamazoo 546 pages Yosef Wosk was recently described $34.00 as “an all-round good guy” by Simon ISBN 9781926763071 Fraser University News, having just com- WITH AN MFA FROM THE UBC CREATIVE pleted a 15-year stint with SFU Con- Writing program, Robert Paul tinuing Studies during which he Weston was inspired by Dr. Seuss pioneered the Philoso- and Roald Dahl to Still Waters Nukes phers’ Café series and write his first fantasy novel novel by on the 49th the formation of the Ca- for young readers, Doris Riedweg novel by Zorgamazoo (Penguin 233 pages Michael Zrymiak nadian Academy of In- $17.50), an illustrated tale $23.00 199 pages dependent Scholars. ISBN 9781926763064 $23.00 Although no longer rich in wordplay and ISBN 9781926763057 formally associated with mythical creatures. SFU, Wosk will con- Katrina, a girl, teams tinue his behind-the- up with Morty, a zorgle, scenes leadership as an to uncover an inter- independent financial galactic conspiracy that www.libroslibertad.ca supporter of countless threatens the existence of literary and scholarly every bizzare creature on 604.838.8796 • [email protected] Yosef Wosk undertakings. their planet. 978-1-59514-199-6

10 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 11 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 7+(%5,*+7 $29.95 | Paperback with flaps /,*+762)%&

ISLAND WINERIES OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Edited by Gary Hynes

Discover the unique wines produced on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands with winery profiles, tasting tours, and seasonal recipes from regional chefs. $24.95 | Hardcover $26.95 | Hardcover $26.95 | Hardcover $19.95 | Paperback

DEADLY FALL THE OPPOSITE OF DARK SITTING LADY SUTRA SOLDIER OF THE HORSE Susan Calder Debra Purdy Kong Kay Stewart Robert W. Mackay Paula Savard’s boring life as an insurance Casey Holland learns her father has RCMP Constable Danutia Dranchuk In 1914 Tom Macrae leaves his adjuster takes a swift turn when a close been murdered in his pricey West Van returns to investigate a death secure life in Winnipeg to fight friend is murdered. Is Paula’s investigation home. The problem is, Casey buried at a tranquil waterfall in this with the Canadian Cavalry in the taking her into dangerous territory? him, open-casket, three years ago. intricate and gripping mystery. trenches of the Great War. $16.95 | Paperback $19.95 | Paperback $19.95 | Paperback $21.95 | Paperback

THE CANTERBURY TRAIL THE TARTARUS HOUSE ON CRAB OKANAGAN ODYSSEY CYCLING THE KETTLE VALLEY RAILWAY Angie Abdou George Szanto Don Gayton Dan & Sandra Langford On the last ski weekend of the season, A mysterious tale set on the misty In his unique version of wine pairing, The Kettle Valley Railway and its many several opposing groups of townsfolk West Coast, Jack Tartarus returns Don Gayton matches up local books connectors has something to offer all levels embark on a mountain adventure to Crab Island to confront his past, and landscapes with local vintages, of cyclist from easy day-riding to multi-day that will change their lives. and the house that haunts it. giving terroir a whole new meaning. adventures through the magnificent scenery of southern BC. This edition includes everything you need to explore this incredible area. $9.95 | Paperback $9.95 | Paperback $9.95 | Paperback $22.95 | Paperback H ifsjubhf

THE PIG WAR GREAT CAT STORIES HOAXES AND HEXES COWBOY CAVALRY Rosemary Neering Roxanne Willems Snopek Barbara Smith Gordon E. Tolton When an American settler shot a pig From cats that heal and console to cats In Hoaxes and Hexes, Barbara Smith explores Terrified by the apparent frontier lawlessness belonging to the Hudson’s Bay Company that survive simply through the love these intriguing reflections of human nature at the time of the Northwest Rebellion of 1885, on San Juan Island, little did he realize he of their caregivers, these stories will that show our curious desire to believe in the 114 men mustered to form the Rocky Mountain would cause what would become one of the warm the hearts of all animal lovers. impossible and explain the inexplicable. Rangers, a motley crew of cowboys, ex-Mounties, strangest border conflicts between Britain ex-cons and retired, high-ranking military and the United States: the Pig War of 1859. officials. This is their little-known story.

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12 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 cover

BY JOHN MOORE PLANET OF THE AGGREGATORS FEW YEARS AGO THERE WAS A SPATE OF FILMS ABOUT PEOPLE WHO COULD bly spin off into civilian fashions. Inevi- “The genius of surrealism was to gener- tably, assorted thugs and goons from the alize with ebullient candour the baroque see just a few minutes into the future. That’s a sensation familiar to A underworld of global capitalism have cult of ruins; to perceive that the nihilis- readers of William Gibson’s novels, especially his latest, Zero History designs on both the denim and on the tic energies of the modern era make eve- (G.P. Putnam’s Sons $31), third in a sequence of novels that began with predictive services of Chombo. rything a ruin or fragment—and Have you got all that? therefore collectible. A world whose past Pattern Recognition (2003), followed by Spook Country (2007). As in his earlier novels, Neuromancer, has become (by definition) obsolete, and Burning Chrome, Mona Lisa Overdrive, whose present churns out instant an- In Zero History, a marketing whiz of sight. With Milgrim, Gibson offers Virtual Light etc., Gibson excels at evok- tiques, invites custodians, decoders and named Hubertus Bigend has corralled the provocative suggestion that a loss of ing baroquely detailed visions of a not- collectors.” The juxtaposition of cultur- an eccentric, anti-social, mathematical personal history—a sense of one’s self as too-distant-future, a world enriched by ally coded ‘collectibles’ from the recent genius, Bobby Chombo, to serve as an the aggregate of personal memory— co-existence with its own avatar, Cyber- past with technologies only imagined on ‘aggregator.’ His synthetic analysis of might be replaced by a heightened af- world. (Apparently he’s even appeared Star Trek forty years ago isn’t a vision of economic and social factors has the po- finity for “pattern recognition,” a talent as himself as an avatar in the cyber-world the future; it’s your living room right tential to provide Hubertus with the ul- that could be more useful in a semi- game, Second Life, to publicize his books, now. timate competitive edge, literally of all cyberworld that is already part digital. which makes him the Hubertus Bigend (I took a break from writing this arti- time. Bigend has paid to have Milgrim de- of authors.) cle to watch an IBM computer named In a world where global markets are toxified, weaned off his anti-anxiety Though Gibson has been described ‘Watson’ compete on Jeopardy against the electronically integrated in real time, a drugs, in order to exploit his gift for pat- as a writer of science fiction, his novels TV game-show’s two all-time champs. head start of a few minutes, even a few tern recognition in industrial/commer- are actually less fantastic than most of Watson beat them like a pair of borrowed seconds, would be the ultimate in in- cial espionage. Milgrim’s assignment is Kurt Vonnegut’s and mercifully mules and I went back to using a 500- sider-trading. Chombo’s calculations can to track down and recognize a distinc- not marred by the smug self-congratu- year-old technology, the mechanically- afford Hubertus with a lead-time on the tive and highly desirable blend of denim latory and patronizing humour that gets printed book. It didn’t seem like a terribly present of seventeen minutes. As Bigend clothing produced as a “secret brand” tedious in Vonnegut’s work. The Dadaist radical juxtaposition until I thought says, when asked if that’s enough, “Seven only obtainable by those in the know collage that is Hollis Henry’s hotel room about it.) would have been entirely adequate. from containers that appear briefly and in an exclusive London club, for in- Some critics have taken shots at Seven seconds, in most cases.” mysteriously at outdoor flea markets and stance, isn’t one iota weirder than a de- Gibson’s novels for being too strong on The Holy Grail of brokers, wheeler- other ad hoc souks of the post-modern signer’s apartment I saw on one of those technology at the expense of character. dealers and marketing magnates like world. real estate shows on the Home & Gar- Admittedly, his fondness for caricature Hubertus Bigend is that brief myopic Bigend wants to penetrate the anti- den TV channel the other night. and whimsical names is somewhat Dick- moment of clairvoyance, just a glimpse corporate culture of the secret brand Back in 1978, in an essay about ensian, but so is the scope of his work. into what Gibson calls “the order flow,” and gain control of the coveted Walter Benjamin entitled He’s been quoted as saying he believes or “the aggregate of all the orders in the cloth in order to secure “Under the Sign of Sat- we’re entering a new Victorian Age of market. Everything anyone is about to contracts for supply- urn,” Susan polarization between the Haves and buy or sell, all of it.” ing military Sontag Have-Nots in the Global Village. So it is The aggregate includes even the clothing observed, a not-so-brave (and not always so new) shadowy grey and black markets in that will world he describes. drugs, rare commodities and forbidden inevita- Despite the mock-thriller plot, Zero technologies that thrive in the dark back History is very much a character-driven alleys of capitalism, a subject that has novel whose real story is the gradual re- been a signature theme in Gibson’s writ- emergence of Milgrim’s personality. ing. From a detoxed vacant near-cipher, a In Zero History, Chombo’s aggregate man whose past has become obsolete, he of the order flow is what director Al- grows through his attachment to Fiona, fred Hitchcock used to call the a rebel-girl motorcycle courier, and be- McGuffin—the secret information or gins to make ethical decisions that are object whose possession drives the plot no longer subject to the agendas of without actually being part of the ac- Hubertus Bigend and favour the shad- tion. owy subversive culture of “secret brands” Chombo is a relatively minor char- and alternative capitalism. acter. Gibson is much more interested Maybe it’s just us, with our personal in the characters developed in Pattern and professional websites, blogs, Recognition and Spook Country. These Facebook pages, Second Life avatars, include Hollis Henry, ex-rock star who talking and texting constantly on Black- retired to write a book on ‘locative art’ berries and iPhones, who have become and whose modest fortune has since been too strong on technology at the ex- erased by the ubiquitous ‘market forces’ pense of what used to be called currently destroying our mutual funds character. And William and RRSPs; Hubertus Bigend cruises the Gibson is just the guy hold- world’s oceans in his surplus Soviet ing the mirror. 978-0399156823 ekranoplan, a ground-effect vehicle with an interior renovated by Novelist and critic Hermes; and Milgrim, a young John Moore lives in man whose addiction to anxiety- Garibaldi Highlands. suppressing drugs has left him with such sketchy sense of PHOTO self. He has become a man SHEA ’ O with “zero history.” ✍ MICHAEL A BLIND PERSON’S OTHER senses are said to be- come sharper in com- pensation for the loss

13 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 politics

ARMEN AGUIRRE WAS can confide nothing. The suicidal epi- sode results in her return to Vancouver, six years old when where she completes her first year of her family fled to high school. Shortly after her arrival C there, she is joined by her mother and Vancouver after a CIA-inspired step-father who have barely escaped cap- coup in Chile ousted the demo- ture. Broken and defeated, they go their cratically elected socialist govern- separate ways. CARMEN Aguirre returns to South ment of Salvador Allende and America. At eighteen, she takes the brought army general Augusto OF resistance oath in a cafe in Lima, A YOUTH vowing to reveal no information, Pinochet to power in 1973. even if she is tortured to death, and PROPORTIONSthe understanding that if she gives away her Five years later, her mother and step- In her OPERATIC Bolivian comrades during the first twenty-four father returned to South America to memoir capital city, hours of capture, she will be executed spend the next decade working for the La Paz, a place by the organization. Chilean leftist resistance. Her mother re- Something she comes to love: The contrast between her twin lives fused to be separated from her two Fierce, Carmen “We drove for hours, until the land in North America and South America daughters, choosing closeness and dan- Aguirre boldly de- broke like a Greek plate and there was a is, obviously, extreme. She worries that ger for them over distance and safety. drop in the road. I looked out to see her convictions aren’t strong enough to As her oldest daughter, Carmen Aguirre scribes her upbringing nothing but sky. The universe. Then, I overcome her fears. Nevertheless, with has now written Something Fierce, in the long shadow of looked down, and there below us was a her companero, she carries out cross-bor- Memoir of a Revolutionary Daughter the Chilean dictator city in a bowl. A bowl like the deepest der missions into Chile. The life-expect- (D&M $32.95), a riveting testimonial Augusto José Ramón crater on the moon, with a little house ancy of those who undertake such work of bravery and fear. stuck to every last square inch is two years. The family’s activities over the next Pinochet Ugarte. For of it. The bus drove over the Even though she is twenty decade span Bolivia, Peru, Argentina 10 years, from 1979 to edge of the bowl and down.” pounds underweight and suf- and Chile, interspersed with return trips 1989, she takes the At one point Aguirre col- fers from dizzy spells, Aguirre to Canada. Blacklisted, they were unable lapses under the strain. She still pushes herself “to master to re-enter Chile by train or plane. Jour- reader inside Chile, candidly describes her emo- the skill of killing my heart neys were made circuitously with de- war-ridden Peru, the tional meltdown, wrought by whenever I crossed the border.” tours and doublings back to throw off Bolivian dictatorship the pressure of fear, her step- Powerful impressions are left the secret police. JOAN GIVNER of Luis Garcia Meza, father’s stress-induced anger by determined women. In order to operate safe houses, and a long period of isolation in a house Dr. Vergara Emerson, a Boliv- Aguirre’s parents maintained a middle- strife-ridden Argentina with a diminishing food supply. “I was ian pediatrician and professor, walks to class disguise, doing conventional jobs. and naive Canada. an agoraphobic fifteen-year-old skeleton the front of a movie theatre to denounce The girls were conditioned to secrecy, with an obsessive-compulsive disorder,” the dictator, Luis Garcia Meza. trained to never confide in anyone or ment. Such vagueness is entirely appro- she writes. “You will remember her,” Carmen’s step- reveal details of family life. priate since Aguirre was deliberately It comes as a revelation when an ac- father tells her, “because what that This life of unremitting drama and kept in the dark, and direct knowledge quaintance tells her, “Girls, always know woman did is the definition of courage.” concealment would prove excellent of her full situation was suppressed, pre- this: it’s your human right to be happy.” Salvador Allende’s sister, Laura training for Aguirre’s later work as a per- sumably for her own protection. She wonders what that means Allende, stays with Aguirre’s family in formance artist and actor in Vancouver, But Something Fierce is for someone like her. “Did Vancouver during her cross-Canada where she has also gained considerable more than a journey that mean children tour, while dying of cancer. Carmen acceptance as a playwright [See BCBW into the shadows of shouldn’t have to hears her weeping in the night, grieving cover story, Autumn 2008, political re- think about revolu- for the lost of her country, not her life. abcbookworld.com]. pression. tions, or safe Carmen’s grandmother is a role Parental absences were sudden and What could houses, or being model who risks banging pots and pans unexplained. The sisters were told: Never have been a tortured to during the blackouts in Chile. “I’ve seen answer a knock at the door. If you hear narrative of death?” she fear turn people into informers, mon- nothing for twenty-four hours, you will call unremitting asks. sters,” she says, “turning in their own a secret phone number, and say you’re with horror is re- Dis- friends and neighbors. You’re dealing the Tall One and Raquel. Within an hour, lieved by traught, with a country, sick with fear.” someone will knock at the door. Go with joyous occa- she slashes a Trinidad, a family friend, has given that person. The phone number will be re- sions—an wrist and is her life to the underground, at the ex- vealed when you hold this blank page over idyllic holiday sent to a psy- pense of her husband and children. a flame. Memorize it, burn the paper, flush with Chilean chiatrist to After a decade of struggle, she tells the ashes away. grandparents, ✍ whom she Aguirre, “The resistance has dissolved... several adoles- we tried hard, but it’s time to state the THE STORY LINE FOR SOMETHING FIERCE IS cent love af- obvious, we lost. Maybe in ten, twenty, linear, the writing rough-edged, with fairs—and by a hundred or a thousand years, the soci- abrupt changes of scene and occasional poetic descrip- ety we dreamed of will come to be, but lapses into cliché, but this serves the con- tions of sur- we lost this round.” tent well, since anything polished or con- roundings, such And we meet Carmen’s mother, a trived would diminish its force and as Aguirre’s valiant spirit who can draw a knife to authenticity. first view of face down a band of human predators The evocation of danger from the when they threaten her daughters. For point of view of a young girl is so her, motherhood and family life are not strong—and maintained so steadily, viv- incompatible with revolutionary work. idly describing the terrors that surround These are hard acts to follow. But her—that when Aguirre finally spills out Carmen Aguirre, now a respected play- everything to a lover, in her late teens, wright, has found the courage to revisit the reader feels a wave of alarm. (Fortu- her terrors. She has inherited the heart nately, her confidante is a true of a revolutionary, so the struggles for companero). justice and freedom will continue, on Details of historical events and the the page, or on the stage. 978-1-55365-462-9 exact nature of the resistance organiza- PHOTO tion and hierarchy of the resistance are mostly blurred. Only later, for instance, Biographer and novelist Joan Givner, from SAWCHUK does Aguirre realize that an intimate Mill Bay, writes frequently about books family friend was a superior in the move- LAURA pertaining to women’s lives.

14 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 new from ANVIL PRESS

Exit by Nelly Arcan Afflictions & Departures trans. by David Hamilton by Madeline Sonik Exit is the final novel First-person experiential from Quebec literary essays that probe the sensation Nelly Arcan. turbulent and changing It is a hymn to life. nature of the world in the late 1950s and early “A work of originality The First Book ’60s. pushed to the limit.” Competition was held to –LeDevoir celebrate the 10th anniversary of the

ISBN: 978-1-897535-66-0 • $20 ISBN: 978-1-897535-67-7 • $20 Writer’s Studio at Simon 224 pps. • Novel • March 224 pps. • Essays/Memoir • April Fraser University, Harbour Centre. The competition identified Hard Hed The Song Collides three fine new writers by Charles Tidler by Calvin Wharton who will see their books published this spring. Hard Hed is a contem- A highly personal and Watch for event info! porary retelling of the internal metaphysical Johnny Appleseed investigation into the The winners are: The story, an unabashedly state of the natural world. House with the Broken Two original work of fiction “Wharton’s mastery of his (Creative Nonfiction) by that roams in and out art never fails to bring his Myrl Coulter of of time and place and words to resonant life in ; Nondescript point of view. the ear and mind.” Rambunctious (Fiction) by —Tom Wayman Jackie Bateman of ISBN: 978-1-897535-69-1 • $20 ISBN: 978-1-897535-68-4 • $16 80 Vancouver; and Galaxy 240 pps. • Novel • March pps. • Poetry • April “Here is a poetry of gentle (Poetry) by Rachel surprises.” Thompson, also from —David Zieroth Vancouver. www.anvilpress.com • [email protected] available to the trade from utp | repped by the lpg

Spring Titles

The Boy The Gate Made That Way By Betty Jane Hegerat By Michael Elcock By Susan Ketchen ISBN 978-088982-275-7 ISBN 978-088982-272-6 ISBN 978-088982-270-2 $21.95 • Fiction • 280 pp $18.95 • Fiction • 224 pp • $12.95 • Fiction • 176 pp

FICTION In 1959 Ray and Daisy Cook and their “Meticulous research and a cinematic In Ketchen’s stand-alone sequel five children were brutally slain in the sensibility have endowed The Gate with to Born That Way, the dauntless central town of Stettler. The authentic power. Elcock realizes his aim Sylvia continues to explore the Boy is part memoir, part investigation, – to make us remember a period that is ebb and flow of herd dynamics. part novella, part writer’s journal telling nearly forgotten, and must be recalled A funny continuation of Sylvia’s the story with all of the troublesome so that it never happens again.” misadventures in which she questions unanswered. Isabel Huggan finally gets her horse, a horse as unique and spirited as she is. Gulf Sweet Devilry By Leslie Vryenhoek By Yi-Mei Tsiang ISBN 978-088982-274-0 ISBN 978-088982-273-3 Win books from Oolichan $17.95 • Poetry • 80 pp $17.95 • Poetry • 104 pp Moving from solemn and meditative to Yi-Mei Tsiang’s debut collection of Visit www.oolichan.com saucy and irreverent, Gulf is a collision of poetry, Sweet Devilry, explores POETRY and enter our contest natural elements and technology, native the tenderness of loss that informs species and newcomers, the inevitable motherhood as well as the power and to win a selection of our titles, rending of families and the connective the conflict that come with being a a set for yourself and tissue of memory that ties us to place. woman. one for your local library.

Fernie, BC • (250) 423-6113 • www.oolichan.com

15 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 SFU SUMMER PUBLISHING WORKSHOPS JUNE 5, 2011 TO AUGUST 8, 2011

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July 16 The Symposium on the Book True AccountsYou think you know. But you don’t know it all. Featuring Terry Gould, Barbara Mintzes, Ted Fontaine, Jerry Langton and Stevie Cameron.

The Opening Act Spit Delaney’s Canadian Theatre History, 1945–1953 Island ½ Susan McNicoll Drawing on interviews with actors of the period, McNicoll explores such companies as Everyman in Vancouver, New Play Society in Toronto, and Théâtre du Nouveau Monde in . 978-1-55380-113-9 7-1/2 x 10 280 pp 55 b&w images $24.95 Beckett Soundings ½ Inge Israel In these poems, Inge Israel slips into the mind of Samuel Beckett to explore the sources of his novels, plays and poems, especially his belief that language (mis)informs all that we know. 978-1-55380-112-2 6 x 9 100 pp $15.95 Torn from Troy ½ Patrick Bowman In this rewriting of Homer’s Odyssey, Alexi, a young Trojan boy, is captured by the hated Greeks and encounters the uncanny domains of the Lotus Eaters and the Cyclops. This collection of short stories — winner of the Eaton’s Book Prize and a finalist for the Governor 978-1-55380-110-8 5-1/4 x 7-5/8 200 pp $11.95 General’s Award — started Jack Hodgins off on his award-studded literary career. Broken Trail ½ Jean Rae Baxter “Jack Hodgins’ stories do one of the best things fiction Jean Rae Baxter explores the world of a young white boy during can do — they reveal the extra dimension of the real the American Revolution who is adopted by the Oneida and who place, they light up the crazy necessities of real life.” must decide whether he will become native or remain white. — Or is there a third and better way?

978-1-55380-111-5 6 x 9 200 pp $18.95 978-1-55380109-2 5-1/4 x 7-5/8 246 pp $11.95

Available from your favourite bookstore or order from LitDistCo Ronsdale Press Visit our website at www.ronsdalepress.com

16 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 tribute

HE TURNOUT FOR A ME- on Kingsway,” in British Columbia. He morial mass in honour would later describe the province as “a body of land surrounded by envy.” Tof Eric Nicol on Feb- After a brief period in Nelson, the fam- ruary 6, just four days after his ily relocated to Point Grey where Nicol began writing stories at Lord Byng High death at age 91, was embarrass- School. While pursuing an arts degree ingly small for someone who had at UBC in 1941, Nicol wrote for the The significant stature as a writer for Ubyssey newspaper under the pen name of Jabez. six decades. Nicol served with the RCAF in W.W. II, during which he started writing oc- It was held in a modest Catholic casional columns for the Vancouver News church in the Dunbar neighbourhood Herald and The Province. As Jabez, he of Vancouver, presided over by a published his first book, Says We (1943), Franciscan who deemed that anyone a collection of columns by himself and who is a writer is necessarily a contem- the once-legendary Vancouver journal- plative, and all contemplatives are ist Jack Scott. within the realm of God. While he was in the RCAF, Nicol Nicol was a self-avowed agnostic. wrote comedy skits that were performed Precious little in the service referred to entertain the armed forces. At war’s to Nicol as a person and the importance end, he returned to UBC for his M.A. of his literary career was barely men- in French Studies (’48), then spent one tioned beyond a letter from his Alberta- year in doctoral studies at the Sorbonne. based illustrator. He moved to London, , to write Laymen who knew Eric were only in- a radio comedy series for Bernard vited to speak at a tea ’n’ sandwiches re- Braden and Barbara Kelly of the ception afterwards. BBC from 1950-51. Despite severe back pain, veteran During this period, while writing sportswriter Jim Taylor attended alongside Frank Muir and Denis from West Vancouver to give some ap- Norden, Nicol bought a car and lived preciation of Eric as a writer, and Nor- it up a little, renting a swanky apartment. man Young (a retired UBC professor) Naively, he had not understood that he was also present as someone who knew must pay taxes on his earnings. the bigger picture, but by then the hu- And so he skedaddled back to Van- mourless mass had unintentionally served couver, where he became a regular col- as a sobering reminder of how fleeting umnist with The Province in 1951. “literary fame” can be. ✍ ✍ DURING 40 YEARS OF WRITING FOR JACK KNOX’S COLUMN IN THE The Province, Nicol claimed he never Times Colonist on February 6 was a wel- had a contract, he never took a holiday come antidote. and he never missed a deadline. He “Nicol wasn’t just good,” he wrote. feared that if he went on vacation, he “He was good for a long time, like might lose his job. Gordie Howe… He was a smart For most of his life, Nicol lived in the writer with an Everyman quality, find- same house he purchased in 1957, near ing humour in mundane life. Witty with- DEATH BE UBC. After being at any gathering for out being mean, he always seemed to DEATH BE about fifteen or twenty minutes, he in- have a cheerful sense of the absurd. variably whispered to his companion, ✍ “Let’s get out of here.” IN SHORT, ERIC NICOL CRANKED OUT Avoidance of parties was akin to 6,000 columns for The Province between avoidance of embarrassment. “I’m either 1951 and 1986; as well as 39 books, sitting there like a frog full of shot,” he countless radio scripts, stageplays and told the Georgia Straight in 1989, “or I magazine articles. One of his plays was NOTNOT LOUDLOUD run off at the neck and then hate myself produced on Broadway. He wrote two the next morning.” successful radio series for the BBC and It was easier to let his characters he became the first living Canadian speak. Nicol was the first Vancouver writer to be included in The Oxford Book playwright to have his work successfully of Humorous Prose. produced by the Vancouver Playhouse. He won the Leacock Medal for Hu- His best-known play, Like Father, Like mour three times. In 1995, he became Fun (1966), concerned a crass lumber the first recipient of the George Wood- baron’s attempt to contrive his son’s ini- cock Lifetime Achievement Award to tiation to sex. After it was unsuccessfully recognize an outstanding literary career staged in New York under the title A in British Columbia. Minor Adjustment (1967), Nicol re- Eric Nicol wrote prodigiously and bounded with The Fourth Monkey chronically. His last book, Scriptease (1968) about a failed playwright who (2010), was written while he had Alzhe- takes refuge on the Gulf Islands. imer’s. Nicol’s play for the National Theatre He was good for a long time. in Ottawa, Pillar of Sand (1973), was set ✍ in fifth century Constantinople and ex- ACCORDING TO ERIC PATRICK NICOL— Remembering Eric Nicol, amined civilization’s decline. “The re- NICOL born on December 28, 1919 in King- views were mixed,” he said, “bad and ERIC ston, , the son of William the Gordie Howe of Canadian humour OF terrible.” Other plays are Regulus; Be- Nicol and Amelia Mannock ware the Quickly Who; The Clam Made Nicol—in 1921 he “almost immedi- COURTESY

a Face; a Joy Coghill vehicle, Ma! ately persuaded his parents to flee a (1981), about once-legendary B.C. fierce winter in favour of a farmhouse GRAPHIC continued on page 18

17 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 The Separation Guide by David Greig Eric Nicol cartoon by , 1968 • For married, common-law, and same-sex couples • Covers key divorce and separation topics • Deal with assets, finances, legal processes, and post- separation life planning $19.95 / book

British Columbia Probate Kit by Mary-Jane Wilson • Learn to legally probate or administer an estate by yourself • Easy, step-by-step instructions continued from page 17 but he hoped to do so if royalties came guide you through the process newspaperwoman Margaret ‘Ma’ pouring in. • No need to consult a lawyer! Murray; and his cryptic Free At Last. As a self-avowed ‘devout determin- Save thousands of dollars in One of Nicol’s more audacious works ist,’ an agnostic ‘hooked on antique prin- legal fees was Dickens of the Mounted: The As- ciples,’ Nicol was determined not to $39.95 / book + forms on CD-ROM tounding Long-Lost Letters of Inspector F. change with the times. After 35 years, Dickens NWMP 1874–1886 (1989), in the droll punster was retired by Pacific which he devilishly invented correspond- Press at age 65. After that he wrote one Buying Real Estate in the US ence from the son of Charles column per week, reduced to one col- by Dale Walters Dickens.This fictional work was taken umn per month, then zilch. • Make informed investments for fact by many readers and some me- “The print humourist is an endan- south of the border dia outlets. gered species,” he wrote. “Every year I In his amusing but shrewd memoir expect to receive a Canadian Wildlife Fed- • Navigate daunting legal and Anything for a Laugh (1998), Nicol’s eration calendar with my picture on it.” tax issues viewpoints are invariably witty, unfail- Eric Nicol had three children from • Understand all of your options ingly original and occasionally down- his first wife Myrl Mary Helen $22.95 / book right odd. “I can take pride in nothing,” Heselton. In 1986 he married au- he writes. “It’s a sort of low-grade hu- thor Mary Razzell, with whom he mility.” lived in the same Point Grey home he Direct Mail in the Digital Age ✍ had purchased in 1957. Although he by Lin Grensing-Pophal ALTHOUGH HE WAS AN INVETERATE once described himself as “pretty well • Learn the secrets of successful punster, Eric Nicol did not wish to be retired from everything except breath- direct mail campaigns pegged as simply a humourist. Seldom ing,” Nicol teamed with cartoonist Pe- • Integrate direct mail effectively cited among Nicol’s best books is the still- ter Whalley for Canadian Politics serviceable history of his city, Vancouver Unplugged in 2003 and released a “pal- with other marketing efforts (1970). sied opus” about aging in 2005. But he • Weigh the pros and cons of Apolitical but wary of authority, he couldn’t stop joking. direct mail versus other was proud that his column on the assas- Self-deprecating to a fault (“In the methods available today sination of John F. Kennedy was feast of life, I have been a digestive bis- $20.95 / book read into The Congressional Record. If cuit”) and not prone to self- prodded, he liked to recall that one of mythololgizing, Nicol accumulated the his Province columns against capital pun- wisdom of the jester. Start & Run a ishment resulted in a citation for con- Just before he died, he joked once Home Staging Business tempt and a trial that attracted national more to Mary, his steadfast supporter, by Dana J. Smithers interest. “Let’s get out of here.” • Understand the opportunities Beset by family troubles, Nicol Eric Nicol died at 9:19 a.m. on Feb- shocked his readership by producing ruary 2, 2011, at the Louis Brier Home in this fast-growing industry something serious, Letters to My Son, a and Hospital in Vancouver. • Insider home staging tips book based on Lord Chesterfield’s ✍ from a seasoned expert famous tome to his wayward son. “Al- SOMEWHERE NEAR THE MIDDLE OF • Learn to launch, market, though life is a box of chocolates accord- Frank Davey’s new book on the ori- and grow your business ing to Forrest Gump,” Nicol wrote, gins of the TISH writing movement at “what they expected to get from me was UBC, When TISH Happens (ECW), $23.95 / book + CD-ROM a soft centre. Instead they bit into a Davey states that when he was growing sourball. I felt badly about this. I had up in Abbotsford in the 1950s, there Start & Run a Tattoo & violated one of the first rules of surviv- were only three living B.C. writers that Body Piercing Studio ing as a writer: continue to give your read- anyone knew existed: Roderick by Kurtis Mueller and Tanya Lee Howe ers what they have learned to expect from Haig-Brown, Earle Birney and you. If you are , you . That held true for the • Written for anyone interested Stephen King Eric Nicol give them horror, book after book. early sixties, too. in this lucrative business Margaret Atwood, feminist tur- But from the Age of Pun to the Age • Learn safe, ethical, and moil. Farley Mowat, a torrid love of Rap, tastes in humour radically sound business practices affair with wolves, whales, whatever the changed. Nicol’s gentlemanly wit began • Understand everything you Maritimers are slaughtering as a surro- to seem anachronistic. need to know about running gate for having a team in the National By the time Nicol was forced into re- your own studio Hockey League.” tirement from the newspaper game, he A self-avowed commercial writer, was given a laptop computer as a present $23.95 / book + CD-ROM Nicol frequently described his politics as from Pacific Press. “anarchist in theory, liberal in practice.” Nicol, according to Jim Taylor, always www.self-counsel.com In public, he seemed downright con- wrote using a pencil. servative, even prudish. In 1962, Nicol 1-800-663-3007 quipped that he did not smoke, drink, For a complete bibliography of Eric play cards or run around with women— Nicol’s work see abcbookworld.com

18 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 a forum for & about writers # 42 LOOKOUTLOOKOUT 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 • [email protected] THE PASSIONATE COLLECTOR As books are digitized by libraries and Google, “real books” have become increasingly attractive to literary adventurers such as Andrew Irvine who search for precious objects.

ROM MONDAY TO FRIDAY, ANDREW IRVINE, A “So many of these books are worth past president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Asso- reading more than once,” he says. ciation, works as a philosophy professor at UBC. “Recently I re-read Karolyn But on the weekends he can be found hunting Frost’s book about the under- throughF Canada’s used bookstores. ground railroad [I’ve Got a Home in Irvine’s particular passion is collecting first-edition Glory Land]. “And for a long time, copies of all the books that have ever won Canada’s Gov- Marie-Louise Gay’s children’s ernor General’s Literary Awards. Between 1936 and book Rainy Day Magic [from 1987] 2010, 610 books have received awards. Of these, 357 was a favorite at bedtime in our have been in English. house. Irvine has succeeded in finding all but three of the “Of course, in addition to all the 357 English books in their award-winning editions, and famous books, it’s also easy to find ti- seven are still without their original dust jackets. tles that over the years have been for- The three books Irvine is especially eager to find are gotten. It’s hard to read first-edition copies of Arthur Bourinot’s 1939 book Josephine Phelan’s account of of poetry, Under the Sun (The Macmillan Company of the assassination of Darcy Canada) and two novels: ’s 1936 McGee [The Ardent Exile, from 1951] without think- 1972 Fiction winner (Thomas Nelson & Sons / Jonathan ing that it’s a book that it would be good for more Cana- Cape), and ’s 1938 Swiss So- dians to read.” nata (Jonathan Cape). Some award-winning G.G. books were originally is- “It’s especially hard to find some of the older books sued in such small press runs that finding first-edition cop- with dust jackets in good condition,” he says, “because ies is just a matter of luck. the first thing libraries do is throw away a book’s dust “In 1947, Robert MacGregor Dawson won jacket. This means that for anyone wanting to consult the prize for Academic Non-fiction for his book The Gov- the original book, part of the experience is lost.” ernment of Canada. What’s not widely known is that, in ✍ addition to the 1947 hard copy of the book, a 1946 pa- perback student edition was also issued. The 1946 edi- FINDING BOOKS PUBLISHED DURING THE DEPRESSION IS A challenge because print runs were small. Then, during tion doesn’t appear on WorldCat, the online catalogue the Second World War, paper was often rationed, espe- that lists the holdings of some 71,000 libraries from over cially in Britain, but also in Canada. 100 countries around the world.” “It’s not unusual to find dust jackets from the 1940s It’s very unusual for anyone to find an earlier 1946 printed on backs of old military maps,” Irvine says. copy, but Irvine has one. Some of his favourite titles in his collection are: ✍ • Anne Chislett’s Quiet in the Land IN THE PROCESS OF BECOMING AN AMATEUR BOOK SLEUTH, • Leonard Cohen’s Selected Poems Andrew Irvine has become an expert in Canadian liter- • Roméo Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil ary history by default. Having published numerous books • Hugh MacLennan’s of philosophy, Irvine is considering compiling a book • ’s Klee Wyck about the awards, something that would not just intro- Emily Carr 1969 Poetry winner • Robert Ford’s Window on the North duce readers to the wide variety of Canadian literature • Marshall McLuhan’s The Gutenberg Galaxy that has been honoured by the Governor General’s Lit- Can you help Andrew Irvine • John Gray’s Billy Bishop Goes to War erary Awards since their inception in 1936, but that find dust jackets for these • Stephen Leacock’s My Discovery of the West would also give Canadians the opportunity to fall in love • ’s English Patient with forgotten titles all over again. first editions? • The Fable of the Goats & Other Poems by E.J. Pratt (Macmillan, 1937) — poetry • By Stubborn Stars & Other Poems by Kenneth Leslie (Ryerson, 1938) — poetry • The Dark Weaver by Laura G. Salverson (Ryerson, 1937) — novel • Three Came to Ville Marie by (Oxford, 1941) — novel • The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek & Other Tales by Thomas H. Raddall (Blackwood, 1939) — novel • The Government of Canada by Robert MacGregor Dawson (UTP, 1947) — non-fiction • Democratic Government in Canada by Robert MacGregor Dawson (UTP, 1949) — non-fiction Andrew Irvine 1945 Fiction winner 1995 Fiction winner 1954 Fiction winner

19 BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • SPRING • 2011 HHistoristoryy

Woodlands, as one resident chose to describe it, was “a garbage can for society’s garbage kids.” were punished by some of their peers, threatened, transferred, and in one case drugged and institu- Gina McMurchy-Barber tionalized. As a result of peer expectations, abuse has crafted a fictional memoir by someone who was usually brought to light by people visiting the “growed up in Woodloods” with Down syndrome after ward, such as student nurses or family members. her mother took her there one day—and never came In 1977 the B.C. government ordered all back. headstones to be removed from the institution’s The narrator is Ruby Jean Sharp, a character not cemetery. The reasons aren’t completely clear why based on the author’s own sister, who also had Down this action was taken. Some speculate it was to syndrome but was raised by loving parents. appease the directors of the new Queen’s Park Opened in 1878 and once known as the Provincial Hospital next door, who felt it was disturbing for Lunatic Asylum, Woodlands was a so-called school patients to gaze out their windows at a cemetery. that was more like a prison. Abuse was rampant. Three DARKNESSDARKNESS Between 1977 and 1980 some eighteen hun- thousand people are buried in the Woodlands cem- dred headstones were removed and recycled for etery. In her afterword to Free as a Bird (Dundurn such purposes as lining walkways and making a $12.99), McMurchy-Barber provides the following his- AT THE EDGE OF THE ’BURBS barbecue for staff. Many headstones were sim- AT THE EDGE OF THE ’BURBS ply discarded in the creek or sold off as building torical summary, having once worked at Woodlands supplies. The cemetery itself was made into a park. for six months as a young adult. 978-1-55488-447-6 At its height the population of Woodlands reached an estimated fifteen hundred residents. In the past there were no support groups or or- ganizations for parents whose children had men- tal, behavioural, or physical disabilities. Although HEN I WAS A KID, THERE WAS ONE WORD THAT GRATED ON MY some thought institutionalization was the kindest nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard: retard. That’s treatment for these children, the very existence because my older sister, who was born with Down of facilities such as Woodlands testified to the gen- syndrome, was often stared at, made fun of, and called eral opinion that these people should be kept names like retard by others who didn’t know any bet- locked away and isolated from society. ter. When I was thirteen, I looked up the word in a McCallum’s report paints a bleak picture of dictionary and found that one definition simply read: this infamous institution. However, in fairness it “slow or delayed learning.” I didn’t think that should be added that there were some staff mem- sounded so bad — after all, everyone has something bers who did their best to care for the residents they find difficult to learn or master — and that took the sting out of the word for me. in a respectful and nurturing manner. And there At the time of Jane’s birth in 1954 the attending doctor told my parents there are a few parents who felt their sons or daugh- Wwas a good chance she would be blind, would never learn to walk, and wouldn’t ters benefited from being placed there. likely live beyond the age of five. He also explained there was no support available to help care for her and that she would be a burden to the family. His recommenda- ✍ AFTER WOODLANDS CLOSED, IT REMAINED EMPTY tion was to have her placed in an institution for the “mentally retarded” — a term for many years, though the buildings were occa- used back then. The doctor’s limited knowledge and attitude were quite typical for sionally used by the film industry. Eventually, the those days. provincial government sold the land to develop- I’m grateful my parents weren’t influenced by the dark predictions for Jane’s ers who began to erase all evidence of the institu- future and instead brought her home from the hospital. As she grew, she had per- tion’s existence. During a period of public debate fect vision. And she not only learned to walk, but to run, skip, and jump, too. over what was to happen to the few remaining Jane lived into her mid-thirties. By the time of her death, she had a job and a buildings, a terrible fire broke out on July 10, boyfriend and lived in her own apartment. She had a full life and was loved by 2008. In a few short hours the flames destroyed many. What more could one ask for from their time here on earth? Gina McMurchy-Barber’s all but the facade of the centre block and tower, When I was younger, I had a fierce desire to defend my sister against the ridicule the oldest part of the institution. Two days after of others. Then, as a young adult, I enrolled in a college training program respond- heart-wrenching young adult novel, the fire, developers were given permission to de- ing to special needs children and others with learning disabilities. One of my first molish and remove the debris, but no in-depth jobs was working at Woodlands School. My employment in that bleak institution in Free as a Bird, takes the reader inside investigation has so far been conducted. Today , British Columbia, lasted six long months. the cemetery has become the Woodlands Memo- While I was there, I realized what my sister’s life might have been like if my Woodlands, a now-defunct provincial rial Garden and honours the more than three parents had taken the doctor’s advice. I’m certain she would never have reached her PHOTO

thousand deceased individuals who were buried full potential had she been one of those fifteen hundred people who spent their lives facility for the mentally challenged. at the former Woodlands cemetery. To date only

hidden out of sight and locked behind doors. COURCY about nine hundred grave markers have been re- DE I left Woodlands to work for the Community Living Society, an organization covered. Officials say no more graves will be re- started by parents and caring staff who fought to get residents out of Woodlands

MICHAEL moved or dismantled. School and into group homes in the community. The Com- The valuable real estate overlooking the Fraser munity Living Society and other associations like it were instrumental in bring- Ironically, some could even look out from this of abuse directed at the institution. Her report, would, in many instances, not be believed. Se- River and the mountains beyond continues to be ing an end to the institutionalization of disabled people in British Columbia castle-like fortress to the B.C. Penitentiary next The Need to Know: Administrative Review of vere punishment and threats were used to dis- molded into modern townhouses and apartment and seeing to it that Woodlands closed forever. door, a maximum-security prison for society’s Woodlands School, brought to light many of the suade children from reporting abuse.” Her report towers. Only the black monoliths covered in The characters and events in this novel are fictitious. However, Woodlands worst criminals. problems inherent in institutions of this kind. She also stated that the cruel behaviour modification headstones at the back of the property are left to School, as mentioned earlier, actually did exist. There were many similar gov- Some of the residents had visits from relatives, recounted that most residents had little if any techniques were rationalized by staff who felt resi- remind us all that for more than a century un- ernment-run institutions throughout Canada and the United States, but like but most had no contact with the outside com- contact with family or friends outside the insti- dents “didn’t understand or feel pain, and in any dervalued people once lived and died there. Woodlands, many of them have been closed. Unfortunately, there are still such munity. Those residents who were able to build tution. They had no control over any aspect of event, required a strict disciplinary approach in “For the needs of the needy shall not be ignored places to be found both north and south of the border. friendships with other residents, then cried each their lives. Even those who were capable were order to learn.” Little consideration was given to forever; the hopes of the poor shall not always be ✍ night when they had to be separated. More of- considered medically and legally incompetent as the fact that “bad behaviour was a response to crushed.”—Psalms 9:18 WOODLANDS BEGAN IN 1878 AS THE PROVINCIAL LUNATIC ASYLUM. SOON AFTER IT confinement, only spending time with people of Gina McMurchy-Barber ten than not, the ones who needed the most at- “retardates” and therefore treated as if they were opened, a report was written with the following description of the facility: tention and love got the least. Woodlands, like unable to speak for themselves or had any intel- similar disabilities, absence of effort to socialize “The place is gloomy in the extreme, the corridors narrow and sombre, the windows high and unnec- many such institutions, was self-sufficient. It was lectual insight whatsoever. Some children were or integrate residents into normal life, boring, To read the report on Woodlands written essarily barred…. The establishment exceedingly overcrowded…. The patients being herded together staffed by medical and dental professionals, thera- used for drug experiments and genetic research bland, sterile environment.” One former resident by Dulcie McCallum: more like cattle than human beings” (Commission of Enquiry Report of the Provincial Asylum for the pists, cooks, teachers, ward staff, and child-care — some of which are known today to be quite of Woodlands described the place as “a garbage www.bcacl.org/documents/Woodlands_ Insane, 1878). can for society’s garbage kids.” Abuse/The_Need_to_Know.pdf workers. As a result, there was little contact with painful. And it wasn’t uncommon for unclaimed • The name of the place was changed in 1950 to Woodlands School, though at best there were only PHOTO Throughout the years there were many re- outside services such as public health, victim sup- bodies to be regularly donated to the University To view Asylum: A Long Last Look at twelve teachers for more than fifteen hundred “students.” port, or police. In essence, it was a self-contained of British Columbia for research. ported cases of physical and sexual abuse that Woodlands by Michael de Courcy, go to COURCY The residents of Woodlands were labelled as “severely or profoundly retarded,” or as “morons.” “city” with citizens who had no say in the run- McCallum stated that Woodlands “was a per- leaked out. But according to reports, they were DE www.michaeldecourcy.com/asylum Some weren’t mentally disabled at all but had physical disabilities or behaviour problems that were only ning of their day-to-day life. fect place for perpetrators seeking an opportu- always handled internally. In most cases the in- • made worse by the isolation, monotonous environment, and lack of normal human interactions. While After Woodlands closed in 1996, the provin- nity to physically and sexually abuse children and MICHAEL vestigation into the reported abuses was stalled A teacher’s guide for Free as a Bird: some came to Woodlands as older children or even adults, others were abandoned as babies and knew cial government asked Ombudsman Dulcie adults who were silent, unable to complain, not The sculpture in the Woodlands Memorial Garden by an apparent “code of silence” among the staff. www.dundurn.com/teachers no other home. Many lived out their lives behind its walls, locked metal doors, and jail-like windows. McCallum to investigate the many complaints knowing how or to whom to report or who entitled “The Window Too High.” Stories surfaced that staff who did report abuses

20 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • SPRING • 2011 21 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • SPRING • 2011 22 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 kidlit

BC BOOKWORLD: How did the metamorphosis from trou- a boy is any book he will read. John Wilson was born in Edin- bled teen to writer come about? When people question me about violence in my books, I burgh, Scotland in 1951, of parents who JOHN WILSON: History. I had a history teacher in grade say: If a boy gets bored with one of my books, he’s not go- had recently returned from a life in In- 11 who told stories about the past. My favourite lesson was ing to put it down and read Anne of Green Gables. Odds dia. He grew up on the Isle of Skye and about the day Franz Ferdinand was shot in 1914. I lay awake are he’s going to go and play a video game where he can in Paisley, near Glasgow, and earned an half that night imagining I was one of the characters in make people’s heads explode. Call of Duty’s my competi- Honours B.Sc. in geology from St. An- Sarajevo that day. What would I have done? How would I tion. I have to hold my reader’s interest before I can even drews University. In 1975, he went to have felt, either pointing the gun at Franz or seeing the as- think about doing anything else, such as putting the violence work for the Geological Survey of Rho- sassin point the gun at me? in a moral context. desia (now Zimbabwe) but, unwilling I never wrote anything down but I was already a writer. BCBW: Shot at Dawn is part of Scholastic’s new series for to consider military service there, he That’s all I do now. Instead of lying in the dark making up boys, I Am Canada. Do you think enough is being done in eventually resettled in Calgary, working stories, I sit at my computer, but I’m still a small boy trying to Canada to interest boys in reading? in gas and oil exploration. travel in time. WILSON: The situation’s improving. There are a lot of au- In 1986, as a geologist in Edmon- BCBW: Do you do a lot of research for your novels? thors writing books for boys, such as Eric Walters, Art ton, he decided he wasn’t travelling WILSON: Occasionally, I’ve been lucky enough to receive Slade and Iain Lawrence, but go into any Chapters enough, so he sold his sports car, took a a grant from the Canada Council to go to archives and read store and stand a metre or two away from the Teen Fiction leave of absence and set off west. His old letters and documents, but mostly I use my holidays. For shelves. The predominant colour is pink. I have a seven- grand tour took him to Japan, Thailand, the trilogy I’m working on, called The Heretic’s Secret, I went teen-year-old son who would have his fingernails pulled the India of his parents, Nepal, Egypt, to to see the castles and medieval towns where I set before he took a pink book off a shelf, regardless of how Zimbabwe and much of Europe. Re- the story. good that book might be. turning home, he had difficulty adjust- Also, the internet can be a great resource for details. For BCBW: So there’s a marketing problem for boys? ing back into a regular work schedule. example, in Written in Blood, I needed to know about hand WILSON: Partly. After all, it makes sense from a market- A feature article, sold to the Globe and guns in the American southwest in 1877. There are websites ing perspective to target the easiest demographic, but not Mail, pointed him in a new direction, that specialize in exactly that. if it’s at the expense of the readers who are a tougher sell. so he quit his job and became a full- For my most recent book, Shot at Dawn, set in the First Anyone involved in children’s literature—authors, editors, time freelancer before moving on to World War, I realize I’ve been reading books on WWI ever publishers, booksellers, marketers—has a responsibility to novels and non-fiction books. since my history teacher told me about Franz Ferdinand. all readers, even the ones who would rather be playing video “As a teen growing up in the west of I’ve spent the last forty years researching that book. games. Scotland in the 1960s,” Wilson says, “my BCBW: There’s violence in your books, I’m thinking of the BCBW: Did you read violent books when you were a teen, primary concerns were staying out of prisoner having his toes cut off with rusty shears in Death and if so, what? trouble at school (not always success- on the River. Is it necessary? WILSON: As a kid I read horror stories, H.P. Lovecraft, fully) and avoiding the gangs that hung WILSON: There is violence in some of my books, but none science fiction, Asimov, Bradbury, Wyndham, and a around downtown on Saturday nights. of it is made up or gratuitous. The guy in Death on the River lot of historical non-fiction. At that time, the stories from the I was a good sprinter! is based on a man who really did have his toes cut off that Second World War—fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain, “I had no intention of trying to emu- way. The history of our species is violent and we have to ac- prisoners escaping from Colditz—were coming out and I late the boring dead people we were knowledge that. To paint the past as a pleasant, peaceful pro- devoured them. forced to read in English class.” gression towards the present, hardly prepares a kid for living I didn’t actually need a graphic description of mayhem. A Wilson has now been a full-time in the real world. suggestion was often enough to feed the part of me that lay writer for twenty years and boasts a bib- BCBW: What about the argument that gross or violent books awake at night making up stories. And the stories I made liography that includes hundreds of arti- simply pander to the baser side of the reader’s nature and up were way more violent that anything I write now. cles, essays, photo essays, poetry, reviews, that boys should be encouraged to read better literature? I would read any book that took me to a different place, 22 novels and eight non-fiction books Would you say boys need different kinds of books from girls? anywhere that was more exciting than the real world I was for teens and adults. His most recent WILSON: Absolutely. There are countless definitions of stuck in. Essentially, now I’m writing the stories that I wanted book is Shot at Dawn (Scholastic what makes a good kids’ book. The only definition that re- to read as a teen, and hoping that they will help today’s teens Canada $14.99). ally matters where boys are concerned is: a good book for to escape. Shot at Dawn: 9780545985956 SAVED BY HISTORY

John Wilson doing research for Written in Blood at White Sands National Monument, New Mexico.

With his 30th book appearing on bookstore shelves, John Wilson still wakes up every morning surprised that he is a writer. PHOTO

WILSON

IAIN

23 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 ARTHUR ELLIS AWARDS BANQUET June 2, Victoria, BC

FOR MORE INFORMATION: crimewriterscanada.com

THE ANNUAL 3 CATEGORIES 3 CASH PRIZES DEADLINE 1 DEADLINE Shuswap FOR ENTRIES: LUSH MAY 15, 2011 Ẁriters’ ...... FICTION $3,000 IN CASH PRIZES MAXIMUM 3,000 WORDS POETRY ...... A SUITE OF 5 RELATED POEMS Festival (MAXIMUM 15 PAGES) CREATIVE NON-FICTION 9Xj\[fe]XZk#X[fie\[n&]`Zk`fe MAXIMUM 4,000 WORDS ENTRY FEE: $25 PER ENTRY INCLUDES A ONE-YEAR Presenters SUBTERRAIN SUBSCRIPTION! May 27 - 29 (You may submit as many entries in as many categories as you like) www.subterrain.ca • Angie Abdou ...... SEND ENTRIES TO : Salmon Arm, BC • William Lush Triumphant c/o subTerrain Magazine, PO Box 3008, MPO, Vancouver, BC V6B 3X5 fi\dX`cjlYk\i7gfikXc%ZX›Dfi\[\kX`cjXknnn%jlYk\iiX`e%ZX Saturday: Prestige Harbourfront Deverell Sunday: Okanagan College, • Deanna Kawatski Salmon Arm • Theresa Kishkan photo by Mark Mushet • Workshops and interactive • Evelyn Lau sessions • Annabel Lyon • Keynote address • John Pass • Blue pencil sessions • Wendy Phillips • Author readings • Michael Slade • Storytellers Party with • Richard Wagamese food, drink, and rousing • Nancy Warren great stories Annual Non-Fiction Contest* • Author book sales table For registration and more info: Three winners will receive $500 each plus publication! • Readings by KidsWrite www.saow.ca $29.95 entry fee includes 1 year of EVENT Contest winners 5,000 word limit Other events: Deadline April 15 Coffee House at Salmon Arm Art Visit http://event.douglas.bc.ca for more information Gallery sponsors: THE WRITERS’ UNION OF CANADA

Offering the Perennial Beauty of the community-minded but globally connected World’s Spiritual & Healing Traditions in Kitsilano, Vancouver for over 40 years

for since 1970 See www.banyen.com all our books, reviews & AUTHOR EVENTS 3608 West 4th Ave. at Dunbar, 1 block E. of Alma O pen year-round with over 25,000 titles plus a great selection Banyen books 604-732-7912 of Canadian authors, used books, art supplies, and gifts. music/gifts/tkts 604-737-8858 Books & V isit us at www.galianoislandbooks.com out-of-town orders 1-800-663-8442 Sound Mon.-Fri. 10-9  Sat. 10-8  Sun. 11-7 250.539.3340 [email protected] www.banyen.com to sign up for our monthly e-letter, Blossoming 76 Madrona Drive Galiano Island BC V0N 1P0

24 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 theatre

Morris Panych M made his playwriting debut with a O musical, Last Call: A Post-Nu- clear Cabaret, in 1982, produced R by Tamahnous Theatre in Vancou- ver. He has since written twenty E plays, adapted others, and di- rected eighty plays, as well as film orris Panych’s poignant drama The Trespassers me to tears, of late. I feel pretty emo- and opera. Usually featuring MORRIStional when somebody displays their hu- (Talonbooks $16.95) runs from March 26 to April quirky characters, in semi-real manity, even in passing. situations, Panych’s works such 16 at the Vancouver Playhouse, having played at the The thing that most deeply moves me as Vigil, The Overcoat and 7 Sto- Belfry Theatre in Victoria in October. is music; say, for instance, Prokofiev’s cello concerto. To think how somebody ries have been mounted in many M could be such a genius to construct and countries. The Trespassers might It is about a fifteen-year-old boy to talk about in everyday politics, who can interweave those harmonies, and to do be described as typical Panych, caught between his born-again Chris- address current issues; I can’t. I am scared it with such apparent ease and wit, but tian mother and his rambunctious of success, and failure in equal measure, more than that, how this man has fuelled by pathos and humour, granddad, an anarchist and gambler, but what scares me the most is writing reached out a hundred years and some- while slightly perplexing to the au- who arranges for his grandson’s sexual that’s irrelevant. It’s a terrible contradic- how known what was in my heart. dience, with shades of Samuel initiation. tion to want to be relevant but not write How his music speaks to me; that is Beckett. The boy comes to the attention of about things that are current; I am moving. For art to reverberate through the police when they investigate a mys- pretty much doomed to failure. Some- space is wonderful, but through time it terious murder in an abandoned peach times I think I should write about being is awe-inspiring. orchard. His grandfather advises, gay but I have nothing to say about that, “There’s something in between lying and either. ‘I’m gay’ is not a play; although not lying. It’s called a story.” some people seem to have made a ca- The following interview excerpts are reer of it. from a longer interview conducted with Where would you like your work Morris Panych by MK Piatkowski for to be produced? One Big Umbrella. It’s a nice feeling to have a play make you some money, so anywhere is fine. That said, one of my favorite recent How do you write, pen or experiences was going to see Law- keyboard? rence and Holloman at a little hole- I hate to admit it, but I have almost no in-the-wall place in Kensington penmanship left. I lack the coordination Market. I felt that the play had le- even to write my own name. I believe that gitimately reached its second life; a writing will move more and more to the life away from the main theatre con- keyboard, and that the work itself will stituency. I love to have my plays more and more reflect this mutable, tan- achieve this second life, anywhere; in gential form; no less true, but less rooted. little out-of-the-way places, in big Committing to pen and paper is very houses. It’s important to me that my different than committing to computer, work is produced in places other than which is not so much a commitment as just where it originated. It makes me feel a first date. I can change my writing on like my children are finally leaving home computer and nobody has to ever know and going out into the world to make just how shitty it was. their mark. When I was first in creative writing What do you drink on at UBC, we copied our scripts on opening night? gestetner machines, which were like a I like to start in the morning, to be hon- kind of printing press. There were a lot est. I like to drink enough by show time more steps so I thought more carefully that I appear relaxed, funny, easygoing about what I was writing. and generally feeling great about my I wish I were the kind of person who work, when in actual fact I’m really just could carry around a little notebook. a little hammered. Writing to me needs discipline. I get up, At the Tarragon [Theatre], when I get coffee, I go to my attic room, I turn Urjo Kareda was alive, we used to drink What do you on my computer, I fall asleep, I wake up, scotch all through the show; he would want to write I write. listen on the tanoy and I would venture, about that you As a writer, what scares you? drunk, into the theatre, through the lit- haven’t yet? I am scared to write non-comedic mate- tle back door. This I call the barf door, Sin. What it is. I don’t rial because I fear it will come across as for two reasons. Immediately after any know, but when I fig- melodramatic. But I have to try. Lately I show, the obligatory cheap champagne ure it out, I want to write have been working to take away the com- I sip then dump into somebody else’s about it. And love; I edy somewhat from my writing, deal with glass; if somebody buys me a nice bottle would like to write a love different themes. I cannot write about I hide in a washroom and drink it, if story—it would be sad, I contemporary politics. I think I’ve been somebody else gets a nice bottle I hide think, and a little bit around long enough to know that some in the washroom and drink it with them; funny. I want to write things don’t last, trends change, philoso- “I am scared to write as for the ‘gala’ after party, usually I have more about lost chil- phy evolves; what matters to me is human red wine because I get a free couple of dren; since my par- non-comedic material interaction; things that don’t change, plastic glasses worth. ents both died, ever—fear, anger, love, death, suspicion. because I fear it will come What inspires you? I feel I have I can’t write about the war in Iraq be- To say what inspires me, sort of implies become one. across as melodramatic.” cause I don’t know what to say about it. I that I’m inspired, which I’m often not. 9780889226289 —Morris Panych, two-time winner of can say ‘war is bad’ but that’s not very in- But I am often moved, particularly by Governor General's Award for Drama teresting, and not necessarily even true. I acts of kindness; even somebody open- admire people who can find something ing a door for me and smiling can bring

25 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 UNSETTLING THE GATHERING PLACES New from UBC Press SETTLER WITHIN Aboriginal and Fur Trade Histories Indian Residential Edited by Carolyn Podruchny and Laura Schools, Truth Telling, and Peers Reconciliation in Canada Gathering Places presents some of the SPIRITS OF OUR WHALING Paulette Regan most innovative and interdisciplinary ANCESTORS A compassionate call to action approaches to metis, fur trade, and First Revitalizing Makah and that points the way toward Nations history being practised today. Nuu-chah-nulth Traditions an honest and meaningful Jan. 2011, 978-0-7748-1844-5 Charlotte Coté exploration of the legacy PB $34.95, 344 pp., 17 photos, Foreword by Micah McCarty of the Indian residential 3 paintings, 1 map, 4 tables A member of the Nuu-chah-nulth school system and its First Nation, Charlotte Coté offers impact on all Canadians a valuable perspective on the issues surrounding indigenous This book is significant not AWFULLY DEVOTED WOMEN whaling, past and present. only as it concerns relations Lesbian Lives in Canada, 1900–65 August 2010, 978-0-7748-2053-0 between indigenous peoples and Canadians; it will be of Cameron Duder interest to those working in multicultural settings of many PB $24.95, 328 pp., 22 b&w kinds where power imbalances have affected relations. This intimate study of the lives of illustrations, 3 maps Paulette Regan manages to combine scholarly discourse with middle-class lesbians who came of personal accounts in ways that buttress its credibility and age before the gay rights movement make it a must-read for anyone interested in reconciliation unveils a previously unknown MILITIA MYTHS between peoples. world of private relationships, Ideas of the Canadian Citizen – L. Michelle LeBaron, Professor of Law and Director, discreet social networks, and love. Soldier, 1896–1921 UBC Program on Dispute Resolution January 2011, 978-0-7748-1739-4 James Wood Jan. 2011, 978-0-7748-1778-3 PB $32.95, 328 pp., 5 b&w illustrations Sexuality Studies Series This compelling cultural history PB $34.95, 316 pp. explores the citizen soldier as an ideal and symbol, tracing its evolution in CANADA AND BALLISTIC FROM VICTORIA TO Canadian society from the late MISSILE DEFENCE, 1954–2009 nineteenth century to the end of VLADIVOSTOK Déjà Vu All Over Again the First World War. Canada’s Siberian Expedition, 1917–19 James G. Fergusson Benjamin Isitt Nov. 2010, 978-0-7748-1766-0 Based on newly declassified PB $32.95, 368 pp., 29 b&w photos, A highly readable and provocative information, this insightful book 6 tables book that brings to life a forgotten Studies in Canadian Military History offers the first full account of Canada’s chapter in the history of Canada and Series / Published in association with uncertain response to US ballistic Russia – the journey of 4,200 Canadian the Canadian War Museum missile defence initiatives and reveals soldiers from Victoria to Vladivostok the implications of this indecision. in the wake of the Russian Revolution. Nov. 2010, 978-0-7748-1751-6 Nov. 2010, 978-0-7748-1802-5 PB $34.95, 352 pp., 18 b&w photos, PB $29.95, 352 pp., 37 b&w photos, 3 maps Studies in Canadian Military History Series / 5 maps Published in association with the Canadian Studies in Canadian Military History War Museum Series / Published in association with the Canadian War Museum

Available from fine bookstores near you.Order online @ www.ubcpress.ca Order by phone 1.800.565.9523 (UTP Distribution)

B BDI=:GIDC

THE UNHERALDED ARTISTS OF BC SERIES

The Life and Art of Mildred Valley Thornton Sheryl Salloum     ss302).' 100 colour/b&w plates. "//+,!5.#( June 9th, 2011 8 pm Heritage Hall, Vancouver

Everything Was Good-Bye Gurjinder Basran 978-1-896949-07-9 s$21.95

s3EARCHFORTHE'REAT"#.OVEL#ONTEST7INNER s!MAZON"REAKTHROUGH.OVEL!WARDSEMI lNALISt Singing from the Darktime A Childhood Memoir in Poetry and Prose S. Weilbach

A voice of innocence and resilience in a cruel and frightening world with an afterword by renowned Holocaust scholar Doris Bergen. the art of breathing underwater Cathy Ford 1st full-length book of poetry in 21 years     s McGILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS www.mqup.ca MOTHER TONGUE PUBLISHING 250.537.4155 mothertonguepublishing.com Follow us on Facebook.com/McGillQueens and Twitter.com/Scholarmqup Order from your favourite bookstore or through LitDistCo. Represented in Canada by the Literary Press Group

26 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 theatre Thespian roots How a daughter’s curiosity unearthed the rise of stage professionals such as Bruno Gerussi and William Shatner.

HEN STRATFORD OPENED ITS inaugural theatre season in W1953, seventy-six of its eighty actors were Canadian by birth or training. So where did they all come from?

Inspired by yellowed press clippings of about five plays her father Floyd Caza (standing far left in photo at right) had appeared in with the Everyman Theatre in B.C. and the Ottawa Stage Society, Susan McNicoll has illuminated the little- known origins of Canadian professional theatre in The Opening Act: Canadian Theatre History, 1945-1953 (Ronsdale $24.95). “I was vaguely aware Dad was an actor but never knew he was a professional for six years following World War Two,” she says. “Dad never seemed to Counterclockwise, bottom left: Bruno think it was a big deal. It took his death for me to Gerussi (as Stanley) and Muriel Ontkean discover it was.” After spending a year in the Toronto Public Li- (as Blanche) in Totem Theatre’s produc- brary reading every major newspaper in the coun- tion of Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar try published from 1945 to 1953, McNicoll set Named Desire in 1952. Bottom middle: about conducting almost fifty interviews with actors Thor Arngrim and Norma MacMillan in and directors from an era that produced a comedy staged by Totem Theatre in , , Elwy Yost, Arthur Hill, William Vancouver. Bottom right: Thor Arngrim Shatner and Christopher Plummer. and Norma MacMillan in Totem Thea- “I did it with no internet,” she recalls, “which, tre’s 1953 production of No Time for looking back, I have to admit may not have been a Comedy. The theatre operated in Van- bad thing. It forced me to interview the actors from that time—most of whom have died since then— couver and Victoria from 1952 to1954. and to go to all the source documents.” Left: Thor Arngrim (left) and Stuart Baker When the war ended in 1945, no professional pose with the elephant they had walk theatre companies existed in Canada. Only actor/ down the aisle as a gag for a Totem director John Holden had been courageous Theatre production of The Man Who enough to establish a professional company during the Depression, in 1935, and he had somehow kept Came to Dinner in the summer of 1954 it going until he left to fight overseas in 1941. in Vancouver. Top: Floyd Caza, Ted Fol- The Opening Act is an amply illustrated, cross- lows, Ed McNamara, Murray Westgate Canada panorama of pre-Stratford theatre, from and David Major deliberately posing west to east. The B.C.-related chapters highlight Everyman Theatre, Theatre Under the Stars in gloomily in front of the scenery truck for , Totem Theatre, Island Theatre (Bowen Vancouver’s Everyman Theatre in the Island), York Theatre and the Vancouver Stage So- fall of 1946. ciety. 978-1-55380-113-9

27 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 K A L A M A L K A P R E S S

Is excited to announce the release of THE UNSETTLED, new poems By Mona Fertig

“I have always been struck by three qualities in Mona Fertig’s poetry: a sensuousness, an honoring of the sometimes beautiful, sometimes awkwardly real world at the poet’s feet, and a spiritual density that cracks through anywhere.” John Lent

ISBN 978-0-9867655-0-6, Fall 2011 in bookstores or order online through www.kalwriters.com

The Vikings Return Icelandic Immigration to Canada, 1870-1920 Marian McKenna This volume takes a new look from a Canadian perspective at the so-called “Great Emigration”. The chapters narrate their dramatic story, tracing the roots of discontent in the homeland, the origins of the first tentative immigrating groups, and the beginnings of a mass emigration. This modern saga deserves a re-telling for not only those of Icelandic descent, but for all those interested in the human condition and in these pioneering immigrants whose labors have helped to build the Canada we know today.

Juvenile Fiction AA GirlGirl CalledCalled TennysonTennyson BC by Joan Givner BOOKWORLD by Joan Givner SUBSCRIBE To receive the next 3 issues by mail, send a cheque for $20 or visit www.bcbookworld.com and use PayPal. Pacific BookWorld News Society, 3516 West 13th Ave., Vancouver, B.C. V6R 2S3.

This classic fantasy quest takes readers on an adventure written in the Name ...... British tradition, fused with a contemporary voice. Givner alludes to the work of Tennyson, as “Tenn” loves poetry, story and rhyme; in fact it will be her Apt/Box #...... Street...... love of great writers that helps her in her quest and leads her to success.

City...... Prov/Code...... Thistledown Press • www.thistledownpress.com ISBN 978-1-897235-83 • $12.95

28 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 adventure Accompanying Don Quixote with A GLASS OF CHAMPAGNE Prior to the onset of the bush plane, mapped and photographed much of the province, travelling by foot, horse and canoe, including a stint with the eccentric Charles Bedaux.

HARLES BEDAUX WAS ton on July 6, the caravan made of Frank Swannell, 1929-39, Likely to Draw Rush of Miners: M.J. a promising start, reaching Fort marking the close of Swannell’s Brown predicts discoveries in north- once famous in B.C. as St. John only eleven day later, career. It’s Jay Sherwood’s third ern British Columbia that will rival a wealthy French busi- after 550 miles. book derived from Swannell’s Klondike finds. C Movie-making took prec- archive of over 4,000 images, One-Armed Brown also appears in nessman who proposed driving edence. By August 9, forced to taken between 1900 and 1940. the classic memoir of life in the north- five Citroens (equipped with cat- abandon the Citroens (they Some of Swannell’s images ern B.C. wilderness, Driftwood Valley, by erpillar tracks) from Edmonton were only getting two miles to Frank Swannell connect with classic books writ- Theodora Stanwell-Fletcher. a gallon, and they required rafts ten about the northern BC wil- Swannell, a World War I veteran, to Fort St. John, across the wil- to be built each time they crossed a derness and are doorways to fascinating also met and photographed Karl derness, to Telegraph Creek and river), Bedaux admitted defeat and de- people who appear in these works, such Hanawald, a veteran of the German cided to destroy the vehicles in order to as the famous packer Skook Air Force, in 1931. Hanawald’s trading the Stikine River, supposedly to make dramatic footage for his movie. Davidson, bush-pilot Grant post at Lake was about a day’s jour- benefit science, in 1934. Bedaux found “a darling place for McConachie and the shady mining ney from the Stanwell-Fletchers’ cabin destruction.” His car No. 4 was to go speculator One-Armed Brown. in Driftwood Valley and their closest Bedaux was based out of the Chrysler down the Halfway River on a raft. “A Shown in a 1931 photo with his part- source for supplies. Building in New York, but he had vis- beautiful descent down the rapids. The ner, Loveseth, and Skook Davidson, As in his previous two books, Jay ited northern B.C. on hunting trips in car looks like a toy.” But the planned dy- One-Armed Brown met Swannell in the Sherwood peppers his narrative with ex- 1926 and 1932. When Bedaux wanted namite explosions fizzled. Al Phipps gold mining area of McConnell Creek cerpts from Swannell’s journals. The re- to hire a surveyor to map his progress noted, “the car sailed gaily on to land on September 18. Swannell describes sult is another treasure trove of life in along the mostly roadless route of dis- undamaged on a sand bar.” One-Armed Brown as a “typical Ameri- the remote areas of the central and covery, B.C.’s surveyor-general wasted Two remaining Citroens were simply can blowhard… Says they have 10-12 northern part of the province. Return no time in recommending Frank abandoned. Reaching Fort Ware in early lb. gold, but only produces two nuggets to Northern British Columbia also in- Swannell. September, Frank Swannell noted the which certainly never came from here.” cludes Swannell’s surveys of the Colum- As described in Jay Sherwood’s expedition had taken 54 days to travel Swannell could be a shrewd judge of bia River and Vancouver Island. Return to Northern British Columbia 356 miles, averaging only 6 ½ miles per character, as well as landscape. In the 978-0-7726-6283-5 (Royal BC Museum $39.95), that’s how day. Remarkably, Bedaux persisted, back of his 1931 diary Swannell pasted veteran photographer and topographer reaching the on October a newspaper article from the spring of Swannell joined the Bedaux-Canadian 16—and reaching Hudson’s Hope soon 1932 with the headline: Rich Gold Field 1934 Explorations of Sub-Arctic Re- afterwards, returning to Edmonton on gions described in a press release as “one October 24. The five Citroens had of the most elaborately equipped private only covered about one-fifth of the scientific ventures ever undertaken in planned route. North America.” ✍ The press soon dubbed it “the cham- CHARLES BEDAUX’S QUIXOTIC pagne safari.” The 30-person cavalcade escapades are just one of the ad- included Bedaux’s wife, Fern, and his ventures outlined in Return to mistress, Madame Chiesa, a Span- Northern British Columbia, ish maid, a Scottish gamekeeper who subtitled A Photojournal doubled as a valet, 60 horses and Floyd Crosby, a well-known Hollywood filmmaker who was hired to record the heroics. After Swannell and his assistant Al Phipps left Victoria on July 1 and met the in Edmonton, it soon struck Swannell that Bedaux was not primarily motivated by science so much as his need to do something un- precedented. Departing from Edmon- PHOTOS

CANADA

ARCHIVES Charles Bedaux easing AND

a Citroen down to the LIBRARY Cameron River. All five of his vehicles were ditched along the way.

29 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 Shop ’til you’re dropped Stranger on a Strange Island Mannequin Rising From Main Street To Mayne Island by ROY MIKI by GRANT BUDAY GG-winning poet Roy Miki peers into the shoppers’ aquariums of Kitsilano, Granville For a starving East Van writer, with a new Island, and Tokyo. Miki’s own collages illustrate bride and a child on the way, the opportunity to his reports on modern consumer culture. rent a house — cheap! — on Mayne Island proves too much temptation. Available here Available here People’s Co-op Bookstore on The Drive Blackberry Books, Granville Island People’s Co-op Bookstore on The Drive Ardea Books on West 4th Blackberry Books, Granville Island and of course amazon.com Ardea Books & Art on West 4th Miners Bay Books and of course amazon.com

www.NewStarBooks.com Transmontanus 19 www.NewStarBooks.com

All you can eat! Buffet World by DONATO MANCINI

Watch in awe as a force of nature clashes with the Forces of Fast Food in a spectacular and colourful death match.

Served up here People’s Co-op Bookstore on The Drive Blackberry Books, Granville Island Ardea Books on West 4th Pulpfiction, Main and W. Broadway shops and of course amazon.com

www.NewStarBooks.com ARSENAL PULP PRESS

persistence language is not all ways butch the only thing and femme that breaks

Ivan E. Coyote & Proma Tagore Zena Sharman, eds.

A powerful and moving Poetry on the junctions anthology of writing on between migration, race, butch/femme experience. the body and desire.

978-1-55152-397-2; $21.95 978-1-55152-399-6; $16.95

talk-action=0 venus with anticipated an illustrated biceps results history of d.o.a. David L. Chapman Dennis E. Bolen Joe Keithley & Patricia Vertinsky

A full-colour illustrated A pictorial history Wry, adrenaline- ’s of muscular women fi lled stories about seminal punk band over the last the lost souls of the D.O.A. 100 years. Boomer Generation.

978-1-55152-396-5; $24.95 978-1-55152-370-5; $29.95 978-1-55152-400-9; $18.95

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30 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 reviews POETRY GLORY BE TO GOD FOR BROKEN THINGS The traveling mendicant Patrick Lane has become a garden Buddha

Witness by Patrick Lane (Harbour $16.95)

OME YEARS AGO, WHEN ASKED how long it took him to Sbuild his garden, Patrick Lane replied, “Sixty-two years.” He could well now answer, “Sev- Beth Kope’s mother enty-one years” to the same question about his new collec- tion of selected poems. Lane made the selections DISMAY, ANGER & LOVE himself. Readers who are famil- iar with his work will be happy Falling Season by Beth Kope (Leaf Press $15.95) Broken up, scattered lines on the page reflect the fracture of to see old favourites showcased the mother’s personality, memory and health. This is not a ge- again. (Yes, for anyone who al- Beth Kope’s first book, Falling Season, recalls heart-wrench- neric Alzheimers mother; she is particular and unique as the ready knows Lane’s work, the sev- ered-hand-tossed-over-the ing attempts to cope with the onset of a devastating form of daughter/poet stands by, “helpless, knowing no rescue,” bear- bridge poem is included, as well Alzheimers called Lewy Body, as experienced by her mother. ing witness. as the doomed ptarmigans twins “This disease pared her down,” she recalls. “It shredded her These poems of honest dismay and almost unbearable sad- and the castrated ram.) to the most basic. Unrestrained anger. Unrestrained love.” ness will surely resonate with any readers who have lost a loved There is nothing that was pre- viously published from the years Kope portrays her mother’s three years of rapid decline. one to dementia. 2004 to 2010, and there are no Poignantly included are two photos of her mother as a stunning Kope is now collaborating with Maureen Ulrich on a the- poems from some of his previ- young woman. atrical work to be based on Falling Season. 978-1-926655-11-6 ous titles including A Linen Crow (1985) and No Longer Two People (1979). afraid he was once. The chaos But we do find some early and helplessness of Wild Birds HIROSHIMA, poems from the sixties, the odd (1987) has given way to “the craz- stories from Old Mother (1982), ing time makes. How precious the MOTHERS, the tough, tight-lipped father/ broken.” TORONTO & son poems from Mortal Remains Looking closer at the earlier (1991) and seven pages of pre- poems, the reader can detect STALKERS viously unpublished poems. there were contemplative mo- The Art of Breathing Underwater by ✫ ments throughout. As in the Cathy Ford (Mother Tongue $19.95) PATRICK LANE WAS TWENTY-THREE equilibrium of the Taoist yin/ years old when his first poems yang symbol, the active and ATHY FORD’S FIRST COLLEC- were published. Wit- the contemplative lie tion in twenty-one years ness begins with ex- curled side by side, Cis dense on the page, cerpts from Separations each one seeing with dense in associations and refer- (1969). His first iden- the eye of the other. ences. The many subjects in- tities were nomad, Lane’s recent 2010 clude the disappearance of brawler, working class poems are stunning. women and of species, fertility, tough. His writing of- He was always a teller Hiroshima, mothers, grand- ten detours into his of powerful stories but MAIN-VAN mothers, northern rivers, Mary hardscrabble child- HANNAH DER KAMP now, in the later po- Magdalene, Toronto, facial re- hood. ems, the narratives be- construction, the Carmanah, Subsequent public personas come more covert, more and stalkers. were the traveler, the champion discreet, as in the exquisite still It’s only a slight exaggeration of the Third World poor, the life, The Green Dress (2010) about to say that many of these topics lover. The arc reveals that Lane a woman’s choice of dress might occur on one thickly did not get stuck in any one in which to face a family trag- worded page. In short, this is identity. Nor were previous iden- edy. serious stuff. The middle sec- tities jettisoned. They’re all still What My Father Told Me Patrick Lane tion is a long poem in forty-five here but altered in emphasis. (2010) is not just like some of sections loosely centered on the Out of the confused tangle the painful material Lane has witness, makes a history of his on the moss, something fallen, highly original textile art of of stories and passions, some shared before. It belongs at the people and of himself, “whether under the rain. Kubota’s kimonos. Perhaps an threads begin to suggest a pat- end of this book because it is dif- in pain or in ecstasy.” A new Collected is now slated illustration of these textured silk terned life tapestry. There is a ferent. There was always some “Rest, reflect, prepare, listen.” Re- for the fall. If it contains more works of art would have been shift in the psycho/spirituality gentleness under his bravado. collection can be a monkish new poems such as these in Wit- helpful for some readers to bet- that is not just about aging. The Now it is more open, a compas- task. Lane has paid his dues as a ness, it will be worth buying even ter relate to the poems. traveling mendicant has become sion for the father who failed human and a poet. Let him re- for readers who already own This volume will reward the a garden Buddha, from him, for the son who failed the flect! Lane’s previous titles. reader who takes time to read brawleresque to Mertonesque. father. That is why he is on his knees 978-1-55017-550008-0 slowly. Its general tone is one of In 1980 the garden was What does an accomplished cleaning the garden… elegiac reverence suggested by screaming in “an irrevocable and no-longer-young poet do It is what the old know, Poet and teacher, Hannah Main– particulars. At 114 pages, it con- flood of rage.” Thirty years later, with his own apparent Lost and a slight turning, something van der Kamp meditates in her gar- tains more depth than some the poet on his knees, caresses Found? As the book’s title sug- not seen, and reaching back den at Black Point, on the Upper poets manage in a dozen books. rare mosses and remembers how gests, he takes on the role of a for what was left behind Sunshine Coast. 978-1-896949-09-3

31 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 reviews FICTION

disability pension. In earlier, kinder times, she would have TO BEG, GIVE, STEAL been securely living in a super- vised home. Now she’s out on OR DUMPSTER the streets. Not all stories in this collection are going to resonate equally. I The many ways to survive in enjoyed Christie’s ‘grimy-side’ the Beggar’s Garden stories much more than his tales of a condo-owning website de- signer who gets a dog and finds with severe mental disorders. Beggar’s Garden by Michael Christie himself a new friend (An Ideal (HarperCollins $24.99) This work experience ex- Companion) or the kindly retired plains why the mentally-chal- woman who used to work in the ichael Christie’s liter- lenged protagonist of his story shoe department of Woodwards ary debut of nine sto- The Extra comes off so believably. but now runs a thrift shop (The ries takes you where But it doesn’t explain how M Queen of Cans and Jars). you’ve never been before— Christie has skillfully presented Similarly, I much preferred most likely—inside dumpsters the reincarnation of J. Robert the grandfather in Discard to the and rat-infested backyard sheds. Oppenheimer, now a nattily bank manager of the title story Or outside to steal a dressed gentleman in (Beggar’s Garden). Somehow a car, or buy crack in a porkpie hat. widower stricken with memories Oppenheimer Park. Oppenheimer, a sci- of the grandson he and his de- PHOTO In this collection entist, meets up with ceased wife brought up and we encounter a poor one of the local deni- TWIGG then discarded rings much sod who gets stomped zens, Henry, who, in truer to me than a bank man- in an alley for the sake the spirit of scholarly Michael Christie of Galiano Island is a former skateboarding ager who moves into his shed, of his crack pipe and inquiry, requires assist- athlete who is flying high with his compassionate views of so-called stops going to work, creates a a 14-year-old car thief ance in the “procure- low-life in Beggar’s Garden. In January, he was one of three authors CHERIE THIESSEN marketing and financial plan for who takes off to ment and consump- who launched Incite, the new series of free readings coordinated a beggar, and then ultimately Kelowna with the woman who tion of crack cocaine.” by Vancouver International Writers Festival at the Vancouver kicks in his front door. picked him up at a gas station— Henry in Goodbye Porkpie Hat Public Library, every second Wednesday. But I, for one, was happy to to mention just three of helps his neighbour out by call- be given the opportunity to go Christie’s all-too-real characters. ing 911 whenever the neigh- appeared at the window. selves, or simply much more in- dumpstering without risk. I now An MFA graduate of the Uni- bour ODs. Henry has one sleazy The world as seen from the telligent. know that dumpster has become versity of British Columbia’s basement room in an Eastside inside of a dumpster, or from A nameless waif on disability, a 21st century verb: to look or creative writing program in tenement, but even then thieves behind the eyes of a crack ad- in The Extra, thinks he’s teamed crawl into a large trash container 2010, Christie has respected the break in to take his old TV and dict, is a view worth seeing be- up with a real hero, Rick, who for the sake of finding food, ob- adage, “Write about what you a can of butts. Henry’s proud pos- cause it is often surprising. The really helps him out, while the jects, or shelter. know.” He has worked in a session is a Grade 10 science text people we meet in Beggar’s Gar- ‘landlord’ above him, rents him 978-1554688296 emergency he ‘dumpstered’ two years ago. den are surprisingly gentle, some an unserviced slab of his base- homeless shelter and has also That’s how he was able to rec- victimized time and time again ment. But both men prey on the Cherie Thiessen reviews from provided outreach to those ognize Oppenheimer when he by those worse off then them- mentally challenged guy for his Pender Island.

A philosophical and A call to action and A Japanese-Canadian Hair-raising exploits Evolution challenges practical appeal to practical solutions to Murder and justice on pioneer and his and colourful Gold, gambling and creationists and inspire change in our make our planet the Cariboo Gold lifetime crusade for characters in Ted riverboat adventures intelligent design. lives and the world. healthy again. Rush trail. justice and equality. Burton’s last memoir. in the northwest.

Extinction:Extinction: The Soul Solution: Testimony for Earth: Remember Me: Tomekichi Homma: Shaking the White Water Skippers The Future of The need for a A Wordview to Save The Charles The Story of a Feather Boa: of the North: Humanity theology of the Earth the Planet and Morgan Blessing Canadian Risky Business & The Barringtons Ronald E. Seavoy R. Harrington/ Ourselves Story K.T. Homma/ Other Adventures Nancy Ferrell 978-0-88839-691-4 L. Harrington R. Harrington/ Mervyn Dykes C.G. Isaksson E.C. (Ted) Burton 978-0-88839-616-7 5.5 x 8.5, sc, 152 pp 978-0-88839-648-8 L. Harrington 978-0-88839-627-3 978-0-88839-660-0 978-0-88839-609-9 5.5 x 8.5, sc, 216 pp $17.95 5.5 x 8.5, sc, 256 pp 978-0-88839-645-7 5.5 x 8.5, sc, 104 pp 5.5 x 8.5, sc, 72 pp 5.5 x 8.5, sc, 192 pp $19.95 5.5 x 8.5, sc, 240 pp $19.95 $11.95 $14.95 $19.95 $19.95 Hancock House Publishers www.hancockhouse.com | [email protected] | 604-538-1114 | 1-800-938-1114

Jude Neale Only the Fallen Can See A lively read for est. 1945

The compelling armchair travellers and journey of a mother seriousserious OkanaganOkanagan explorersexplorers struggling with Wilderness bipolar illness. Jude Neal is putting Writing a face to bipolar disorder. Retreats

Kirsty Elliot True with author Paula Wild on “Finding the balance-points of Vancouver Island’s humour and heartbreak, whimsy West Coast and depth, light-heartedness and dark twists.” May 27 - 31 Kim Barlow June 17 - 21 Sept 16 - 20

Get away - get inspired ColourCol our photosph ot os & maps, 272 pp Write - hike - kayak ISBN 978-0-9812451-0-2 1391 Commercial Drive www.paulawild.ca www.leafpress.ca Vancouver, BC V5L 3X5 www.nuchatlitz.ca publishing poetry only littlewhitepublishing.com (604) 253-6442

32 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 featureview NON-FICTION

Seeing Reds: The Red Scare of 1918-1919, lish the vaguest of rumours, each Canada’s First War on Terror by Daniel one scarier than the last. Police Francis (Arsenal Pulp Press $27.95) “specials” find themselves sur- OST PEOPLE KNOW THE rounded by a hostile mob and story of the Red Scare: have to be rescued. A wild storm After the war an irra- hits the city, toppling trees and M snapping trolley poles in an tional fear of communism led to witch hunts, censorship and omen of the violence to come. purges. Police infiltrated unions Of course, the strike col- and spied on civilians, due proc- lapsed. It was followed by show ess was suspended and lives trials of the leaders. The pros- were ruined or even lost. ecution gained access to names Those crazy Americans, eh? of potential jurors and was able Actually, the events described to stack the jury. above happened in Canada dur- At the trial of strike leader ing and immediately after the Bob Russell, RCMP officer First World War, 30 years before Frank Zaneth, who had infil- the McCarthy era. The years trated the strike committee as 1918 and 1919 were arguably organizer “Harry Blask,” gave the most chaotic, fearful and sensational testimony about con- politically significant in Canada’s spiracies and ominous refer- history, yet few of us know much ences to weapons—but nothing about them beyond references directly damning of Russell, to the Spanish flu and the Win- whom he had never met. Even nipeg General Strike. so, Russell was convicted, as were Into that breach steps North the other leaders. Vancouverite Daniel Francis, (Zaneth retired in 1951 as an B.C.’s best popular historian. His assistant commissioner of the Seeing Reds: The Red Scare of 1918- RCMP.) 1919, Canada’s First War on Ter- On Boxing Day 1919, Russell ror, is not only a solidly researched was taken to Stony Mountain review of a neglected corner of Penitentiary, where he served a our past but a gripping—and year. Upon his release, accord- BC ing to one account cited by cautionary—tale. BOOKWORLD For one thing, he reminds us Francis, the presiding judge, STAFF PICK that protecting civil liberties has then on his deathbed, asked to never been a priority of the speak with Russell. He refused, RCMP. Spying on civilians was saying: “Let him die with his not a dirty job foisted on the guilty conscience.” horsemen by politicians during ✫ the 1950s Cold War. It was part In 1919, red scaremongering was common in Canadian newspapers, as demonstrated DAN FRANCIS NOTES ONE MAJOR DIF- of its inheritance from the Royal in this Montreal Star cartoon equating the Russian Bolshevik as a cave man. ference between the first and Northwest Mounted Police, second Red Scares: While which embraced the task enthu- McCarthy was chasing ghosts, siastically. the radical unionists of the first “(I)n the case of the Scare “did pose a threat to the RNWMP, it is probable that the establishment.” Not the church- force would not have survived if burning, maiden-defiling, the Scare had not come along home-seizing threat cited by the to give it a new reason for exist- SCARY REDS shrillest of newspapers, but a ing,” Francis writes. Daniel Francis’ Seeing Reds has Shane McCune determination to obtain better So it’s no surprise that, when pay and working conditions and asked to investigate the growing wondering “Why didn’t we learn this in school?” a say in the management of the unrest and militancy among economy—much scarier threats unions, the RNWMP ascribed it to employers and government. to leaders with unpronounce- Germany and even the growth Francis recaps the shooting for Vladivostok to fight the Bol- “In this sense the threat was able names and suspicious ac- of left-wing movements in the of Albert “Ginger” Goodwin in sheviks. Its first skirmish took real, and the Red Scare was less cents, rather than to shrinking U.S. (Seattle’s general strike the hills above Cumberland in place in the streets of Victoria an illogical outbreak of paranoia incomes, wretched working con- preceded Winnipeg’s by three the Comox Valley. That sparked when some of the men muti- than it was a response by the ditions, widespread unemploy- months). Canada’s first general strike in nied. power elite to a challenge to its ment and a very unpopular war. ✫ Vancouver on Aug. 2, 1918, “Officers ordered other sol- hegemony.” That was also what the coali- HAVING SET THE STAGE IN HIS OPEN- which in turn provoked mobs of diers to remove their belts and It’s a cliché to say of a histori- tion government headed by ing chapter, Dan Francis zooms veterans to attack labour halls whip the recalcitrants back into cal book that it is relevant today, Conservative Robert Borden in on the cast of characters, and assault union leaders. line,” Francis writes. “Urged but there’s a reason why the sub- wanted to hear. Under siege bringing them to life in quick, (Goodwin is still a figure of along at gunpoint, the mutineers title refers to our “first war on over conscription and a stalled vivid sketches. On the left are controversy in eventually boarded the terror.” The parallels between economy, Borden was only too bold and outspoken men and Cumberland. In 1996 ship and the expedi- Robert Borden’s Canada and eager to redirect public anger women excited to be part of a a nearby section of the tionary force sailed for Stephen Harper’s are inescap- toward the dreaded Reds (al- movement they believe will Inland Island High- Siberia.” able: fear and hatred of alien though Francis indicates the PM change the world for the better. way was renamed Gin- ✫ immigrants (Bolsheviks then, was not as hysterical about the On the right are employers, ger Goodwin Way. THE CLIMAX OF SEEING REDS Muslims now), ill-defined mili- threat as some of his ministers). politicians, police and war vet- The sign was repeat- is, of course, the Win- tary operations overseas (Sibe- And many labour leaders, es- erans determined to crush that edly vandalized and nipeg General Strike. ria, Afghanistan) and pecially in Western Canada, were movement by any means. Some eventually disap- SHANE McCUNE Francis’ narrative here suppression of due process at in fact Bolshevik sympathizers, are gripped by foolish fears, peared.) is almost cinematic in home (War Measures Act, secret while others endorsed the Indus- some are cynically exploiting Tory alarmists made wild its pacing, its rapid switches trials). trial Workers of the World such fears, and a few, such as claims about Bolshevik cells fo- among geographic and personal At less than 300 pages, See- (Wobblies) or the One Big Un- national censor Ernest Cham- menting revolution in Canada viewpoints and its sheer tension. ing Reds manages to cover its ion. This radicalization of union- bers, are almost comical in their under the direct control of pup- Even though the reader knows subject with surprising thor- ists sprang largely from their pomposity. peteers in Russia. Apart from how it will turn out—or perhaps oughness while remaining a opposition to the war, a view not Conflicts began to boil over in the utter lack of evidence to because of that—each vignette brisk read. Every chapter offers shared by mainstream labour early 1918 as soldiers returning back such claims, they were adds to that tension. details and insights that made groups back east, some of which from the war demanded prior- more than a little hypocritical in The organizing council draws me wonder, “Why didn’t I learn even supported conscription. ity in the search for work over light of Canada’s participation in up last-minute plans, unaware this in school?” It was also due to the wider non-combatants, especially “en- efforts to undo the Russian than one of their number is an Well, many of Dan Francis’ political upheavals shaking the emy aliens.” They were incensed Revolution. RNWMP plant. Women on both previous works have become status quo around the world— by the anti-war campaigns of radi- A month after the Great War sides of the dispute pump gas, textbooks, so perhaps there’s the Russian Revolution, waves of cal unionists, and there were vio- ended, the Canadian Siberian drive vehicles and generally hope. 9781551523736 immigration, militant unionism lent clashes from one end of the Expeditionary Force—including keep essential services going. in Britain, anarchist violence in country to the other. an RNWMP squadron—sailed Sensationalist newspapers pub- Shane McCune writes from Comox.

33 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 The World's Most Lovable and Mischievous Sparky Bear Cub BY WENDY SHYMANSKI

Canada’s Only Booktown This heartwarming novel about a first-year cub is based upon factual information and stories recorded by the author over a ten-year period of studying and photographing the Khutzeymateen Valley grizzly bears in :MWMXSYVWIEWMHIXS[RERHHMWGSZIVSYV northern British Columbia. Sparky: The World's Most Lovable and Mischievous Bear Cub is a beautiful tale of the mystical Khutzeymateen MRHITIRHIRXFSSOWLSTW¯IEGL[MXLMXWS[R Valley and the grizzly bears, who, if they could speak, might have told YRMUYIWX]PIERHXVIEWYVIW the story themselves. FOR AGES 7-12, AND UP.

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34 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 reviews EDUCATION BIG VICTORY AT LITTLE STALINGRAD Mark Zuehlke’s Rapid Read chronicle recalls how the 1st Canadian Infantry Division liberated Ortona, Italy, in 1943.

Ortona Street Fight by Mark Zuehlke defender to effectively elimi- (Orca $9.95) nate. Some men were bound to survive and continue onwards to IEUTENANT JOHN DOUGAN storm the defensive positions. figured he’d be dead in That predictable tactic had L just a few moments. devastated the company already, Since dawn, over forty of his slicing them down to a mere 17 comrades had been killed or men. And so Dougan gambled. wounded by enemy fire in two He decided his Canadians valiant, yet foolhardy charges. would attack by scuttling Beyond the hun- through a narrow dred yards of aban- ditch like field mice. doned vegetable “Hell, we’re all go- gardens and olive ing to die anyway,” he trees, “so torn by shell- said to himself. “Might fire that they looked as well give it a go.” like twisted fence Minute by minute, posts,” a row of two- yard by yard. This is and three-storey LOUISE DONNELLY how Ortona Street buildings concealed Fight by military histo- German snipers. rian Mark Zuehlke chronicles The snipers hid behind bro- the bloody week of December ken windows and on rooftops. 21 to December 28, 1943 when More were dug in at the base of the 1st Canadian Infantry Divi- German paratroopers surrender to the 1st Canadian Infantry Division in Ortona, Italy the buildings. And still more sion wrested the port town of paratroopers crouched behind Ortona, Italy, defeating crack Many of the soldiers could man and councillor who fre- machine guns, waiting for yet German paratroopers who had have been mistaken for boys, quently topped the polls. another futile rush from the Ca- been ordered to hold the “pearl such as 26-year-old Private ✫ nadians. of the Adriatic” at all costs. Gordon Currie-Smith, whose ORTONA STREET FIGHT DIFFERS FROM Dougan and the company Ortona’s location, on the east- small stature (he was under five Zuehlke’s more extensive commander agreed a third ern coast of Italy, directly paral- feet tall and barely weighed a Ortona (D&M) because it is the charge across open ground was lel to Rome, and protected by hundred pounds) saved him latest in the Raven Books Rapid madness but the battalion com- cliffs on the north and east, and when a booby-trapped Ortona Reads series for adult readers. mander at the other end of the by a deep ravine on the west, school exploded and buried Building on Orca Books’ Sound- radio handset ordered them “to had forced the Canadians to at- him up to his neck in rubble. ings and Currents series of high get on with it.” Even if they tack from the south. Sergeant Harry Rankin was interest/low reading skill books blinded the enemy with smoke Under heavy and constant a “tough little guy from the for reluctant young readers, the bombs, Dougan knew he and the shelling, infantrymen from the wrong side of the Vancouver new Rapid Reads series features six men going with him would Loyal Edmonton Regiment and tracks.” His forte was “destruc- both compelling non-fiction be cut down in seconds. the Seaforth Highlanders, with tion on demand.” Armed with a and contemporary fiction with Then he noticed the ditch. tank support from the Three recovered stash of German a straight-forward narrative. Across from a much deeper Rivers Regiment, fought their Teller mines, devices shaped like These titles, such as Ortona Street ditch where he and his men way across gullies, mud-choked a covered frying pan, and Fight, target adult literacy as well were huddled, there was a shal- vineyards, decimated olive packed with enough explosives Civil rights lawyer and as offering a condensed one-sit- lower ditch, barely three feet groves and, finally, into the nar- to disable a tank, Rankin devised Vancouver alderman Harry ting read of lengthier tomes. deep. It ran straight through the row, medieval streets. an effective strategy for mouse- Rankin also distinguished Other Rapid Reads include deadly hundred yards to an Ortona was nicknamed “Lit- holing, the practice of blasting himself as a soldier at Ortona. Generation Us: The Challenge of apartment building. tle Stalingrad.” a route through the interior Global Warming by University of The Germans expected a Gleaned from hundreds of walls of closely packed houses fuse to the built-in detonator, Victoria climatologist Andrew logical assault from the Allied interview hours with an ever- and buildings to avoid move- light it, and run “like hell.” It’s Weaver and mysteries such as troops. A rifle company should dwindling number of surviving ment through the even more the same Harry Rankin (1920- The Spider Bites by Medora Sale predictably advance across open WW II veterans, Zuehlke uses his dangerous and exposed streets. 2002) who notoriously gave hell and Love You to Death by Gail ground “in sections spread out trademark soldier’s-eye view to Jabbing the wall with a bayo- to right-wing Vancouver city Bowen. 978-1554693986 over a wide front” creating too bring men like the daring and net, with a Teller mine dangling councillors and mayors for more many individual targets for the resourceful Dougan back to life. from it, Rankin would slip a short than 25 years as an alder- Louise Donnelly writes from Vernon.

35 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 A COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD BCQUICKIES reviews BOOKWORLD INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS

QUICKIES is an affordable advertising feature exclusively for writers, artists RACISM and events. For info on how to be included, just email [email protected] www.islandbookshoppe.ca www.salmovapress.com www.carollynehaynes.com www.gracespringscollective.org REVISITED Tariq Malik’s novel commemorates the exclusion of south Asians by B.C. immigration authorities in 1914.

ARIQ MALIK’S FIRST NOVEL CHANTING DENIED SHORES (Bayeaux Arts $17.95) was fittingly launched Who Killed Abraham Tat Joy Kogawa House, a facility that commemo- Lincoln by Paul Serup rates the internment of Japanese Canadians during Up Close & Personal: Raised by Committee An investigation of North World War II. A Raven in My Heart Confessions of a Can a committee raise a child, America’s most famous ex- Reflections of a Bookseller or replace a mother's love? priest’s assertion that the Chanting Denied Shores spans seven years (1914–1921) Backyard Birder by Carollyne Haynes Roman Catholic Church was in the lives of four characters involved in the so-called by Kay McCracken by Sharon McInnes behind the assassination of 978-1-4269-2144-5 [sc $24.95] America’s greatest president. . The story takes a complex MEMOIR ISBN 978-0-9809608-2-2 • $27.95 BIRDS ISBN 9780986745300 • $21.95 NOVEL 978-1-4269-2234-3 [hc $34.95] HISTORY ISBN 978-0-9811685-0-0 • $29.95 look at events that are now generally simplified as a racist refusal of white Canada to admit would-be immi- www.ekstasiseditions.com www.captainjoesteachingresources.com

http://www.BrotherXII.com http://louishan.wordpress.com grants—mostly Sikhs—who arrived in the Vancouver harbour from India on a chartered Japanese vessel called the Komagata Maru. The ship and its passengers re- mained stranded in while immigration officials enforced an exclusionary law that forbade ar- rival of British subjects from India Tariq Malik unless they had sailed directly from Three Blocks West India. Only 22 of the 376 passengers were permitted of Wonderland The Doctor Who Was to go ashore. Brother XII by Heather Susan Haley The Captain Joe Series Followed by Ghosts The Komagata Maru embarked from Hong Kong. by John Oliphant “Fierce, racy, full of stiletto by Emily Madill The Family Saga of a Chinese irony, verve—yet rife with Woman Doctor The strange odyssey of a 20th-century sensitivity-Haley's new book is Life lessons for children. The ship could have landed in Port Alberni without BIO- prophet & his quest for a new world a highly fuelled poetic ride.” by Dr. Li Qunying & Louis Han hindrance but the man who had chartered the ship ISBN 978-0978097202 • $24.95 POETRY ISBN 978-1-926626-08-6 • $39.95 GRAPHY ISBN 978-1-897430-47-7 • $18.95 KIDLIT MEMOIR ISBN 9781550227819 • $26.95 was intent upon directly challenging the British Em- pire and exposing its racist policies. This man was later hailed by Gandhi as a hero in the movement to gain www.diamondthought.com www.diamondthought.com www.wildhorsecreekpress.com www.amazon.com liberation and independence for India. The ship was sent back to India with most of its pas- sengers, with some disastrous consequences. The stand- off is now marked by a plaque in Vancouver harbour. Malik’s story is strong on research but somewhat disjointed in structure. It features some first-person narration from a fugitive Punjabi schoolteacher, Bashir Taxes becoming too complicated Ali Lopoke, who is a Muslim escaping his past as a revo- for you now? Need to hand it over to someone who understands? lutionary firebrand. The conflicted, six-foot-six Canadian Immigration Living in the Shadow Birds, Beasts inspector William Hopkinson, who is of Anglo-Indian pearls & forbidden fruit and a Bike of Fisher Peak has specialized in tax preparation Under the Southern Cross descent, understands there are revolutionary elements by Keith G. Powell for writers, artists & small business by Angela Hryniuk by David Stirling in India who are spreading their dissent into Canada. owners for over 15 years. Poems of passion, lust and The story of BC's "forgotten" ISBN 978-1-897435-19-9 (PB) BC Kootenay goldrush of 1864. TAX Call today to set up your unrequited love. 978-1-897435-20-5 (electronic) He speaks Punjabi and understands the politics of the HISTORY ISBN 78-0-9812146-1-0 • $21.95 PREP appointment: 604.779.2670 POETRY ISBN 9781894692205 • $18.95 TRAVEL $14.95 situation better than the racist Vancouver MP Harry Stevens and the director of the Vancouver port, who are both bigots in keeping with the times. www.ubcpress.ca www.libroslibertad.ca www.stephenbett.com www.friesenpress.com Also profiled are Mewa Singh, a disgruntled Van- couver farmhand who is witnessing his people’s daily humiliation; and Jean Fryer, Hopkinson’s seven-year- old daughter, whose recollections shed fresh light on the unfolding traumatic events. This novel provides an excellent refraction of the social near one hundred years ago. It also includes many fascinating details that will make this novel engaging for anyone who is already knowledgeable about the Komagata Maru. The Empress and Chanting Denied Shores will be a great deal more for- Opera Bufa Track This: Mrs. Conger A Book of Relationship Dusk to Dusk by Grant Hayter-Menzies by Manolis Poetic Reflections of the midable for anyone who lacks previous knowledge of by Stephen Bett Seasons of Love and Life. The untold story of two “A delight to read, these poems, the story. This is an admirable work, from a discrimi- Published by BlazeVOX Books by Michael B. Poyntz women who joined hands filled with rage and passionate nating and compassionate writer, but its cumbersome and made history. desire... unforgettable...” (Buffalo, N.Y) AKA “Irish” HISTORY ISBN 9789888083008 • $35 POETRY ISBN 978-1-926763-09-5 • $17 POETRY ISBN 978-1-60964-033-0 • $16 POETRY ISBN 978-1-77067-024-2 • $15.95 construction makes for the opposite of light reading. 978-1-897411-16-2 www.newwestminsterfrasersbaseballclub.blogspot.com www.worldscibooks.com/eastasianstudies/7622.html www.mywonderfulnightmare.com www.choosingtosmile.com Complacency, art and murder collide in Hitler's rise to power in 1933, and in an artists search for meaning in the art of Europe after the death of a political activist. The Frasers Choosing to Smile by Ken McIntosh & Chinese Community Graphic Novel Rod Drown My Wonderful Inspirational life stories of three Historical Fiction Leadership Nightmare friends who happen to have cancer Art & Politics How young pro baseball dreams Arbeiter Ring Publishing came to New Westminster in 1974. Case Study of Victoria in Canada Spiritual Journals Inspired by Cancer by Glenda Standeven, Fifteen of the 31 players tell of by Erin Higgins & Julie Houlker, arbeiterring.com days which, though not always by David Chuenyan Lai glorious, were memorable. BC (University of Victoria, Canada) Alma Lightbody SELF Michelle Rickaby LitDistco/Fraser Direct SPORTS ISBN 978-0-9865564-0-1 • $19.95 HISTORY ISBN 978-981-4295-17-8 • US$58 HEALTH ISBN 978-1-4251-8725-5 • $18.95 HELP ISBN 978-0-9865227-0-3 • $19.95 9781894037488 1894037480

36 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 featureview NON-FICTION

Mountain goat photo by Chris Harris It looks like Tibet. Or maybe the upper reaches of Bolivia. But, no, the stunning topography in Motherstone is tucked away within Chris Harris: a day’s drive of Western “I’m a mountain person. Mountains Canada’s biggest city. turn me on.”

LOOKINGLOOKING.. .. UPUP BY SAGE BIRCHWATER the germ of an idea years ear- to three west Chilcotin shield vol- Rhenisch who came up with the the Central Interior unique. Motherstone: British Columbia’s Volcanic lier that took on a life of its own. canoes, the Rainbows, the term “motherstone” as he was Rhenisch uses the scientific ex- Plateau by Chris Harris and Harold Rhenisch (Country Light $39.95) When Harris was on horseback Ilgachuz and the Itcha moun- driving home to Campbell River pertise of UBC professor Dr. in the 1990s, photographing in tain ranges, while he and his from the Cariboo. Mary Lou Bevier to augment WO YEARS AGO, PHOTOGRA- the Ilgachuz Mountains with wife, Rita Giesbrecht, and “It jumped into my head. The gut-felt romantic impressions to pher Chris Harris and outfitters, Roger and Wanda friend, Mike Duffy, went by foot. red rock south of Spences tell the story of this remarkable Twriter Harold Rhenisch Williams, he and fellow photog- As a hiker, Harris returned Bridge talked to me. It’s nice to place. set the bar high with their first rapher, Kris Andrews, decided to the tarn that inspired the feel in this vast, empty universe “It’s an interesting balance— high-altitude collaboration, Spirit to take a side hike over a ridge project years earlier, and noted we’ve got a home. I’m of this the scientific and the mythologi- in the Grass: The Cariboo Chilcotin’s to see what was on the other only slight changes to the land- place. I am this place speaking cal,” Rhenisch says. “We had to Forgotten Landscape, nominated side. Harris came back with an scape, caused by gravity and ero- of itself. We are this place.” have the science right, but at the for two BC Book Prizes. image of a crater lake nestled sion over a fifteen-year span. For Going back three billion same time it’s not a scientific Now, according to self-pub- in an undisturbed volcanic the most part, the natural vista years, Rhenisch says British Co- book. We had to tell the story of lisher Harris, they have sur- cone. In fact, it was a tarn in a was totally undisturbed except lumbia was formed by the drift- being there. Science couldn’t passed that effort with cirque. for a possible goat or two. ing of continental plates. Chains do that.” Motherstone: British Colum- This became the of volcanoes formed With his tenth book, bia’s Volcanic Plateau, a coffee seed for the Motherstone along stress lines in the Motherstone, Harris hopes to once table book that portrays the project. “I vowed to go western Pacific, drifted more create an awareness of the majesty of the Central Interior back there,” he says. “It east, and smashed into value of the natural world and and invites the reader to take an was the heart of the North America. the biodiversity of the Cariboo expedition into time; to peek Ilgachuz volcano. How ”Very little research Chilcotin region. Awareness af- into our geographical begin- many people go has been done on this fects public opinion about nings, and wonder how the through there in a year? region,” he says. “I spent places,” he says, “and only pub- landform we call the Cariboo It was a masterpiece of three months research- lic opinion affects change.” Chilcotin was formed. nature. I virtually don’t ing to find out what the The amalgam of art, science Motherstone covers a vast re- think anyone has ever story was. Everything we and adventure makes for one gion of volcanic activity from the been there.” have in British Columbia message. “The natural world is edge of the Chilcotin Plateau, When he began the is caused by continental not something we must set out where it buttresses up against actual work of photo- plate movement. Rock is to conquer and subdue,” the Coast Mountains in the west, graphing for Motherstone, Pipe Organ Mountain, heart of a record of a dance that says Harris. “On the contrary, to the sub-glacial volcanoes of Harris wasn’t sure what the the Ilgachuz volcano happens in time.” in fact it is our only hope Wells Gray Park to the east. project was going to look like. Motherstone, according to for survival.” “I’m a mountain person,” “All my books are total explora- “No one has walked here,” he Rhenisch, is essentially the story ✫ Harris explains. “Mountains tion,” he says. “I’ve learned to says. “And with every drop of of going out to the mountains SINCE LAUNCHING MOTHERSTONE AT A turn me on. I’ve ridden through trust the process. Doors start to rain or snow flake, or with every and walking. “We wanted the gala reception in 100 Mile these mountain ranges before, open. I just like being out there freeze and thaw, the Ilgachuz book to be the art of the moun- House in October, the duo has but this time I walked through hiking, physical and free, ex- volcano gallery is re-hung. Na- tains, where the mountains are commenced an extensive, prov- every inch of it. ploring with the camera.” ture has not finished creating creating the art. The earth is an ince-wide tour and slide show. “When you walk you feel like Harris decided he wanted to this masterpiece of art yet. expression of itself where you Seven hundred signed, hard- you’re touching the earth. You walk the ground he intended to “It was totally an amazing ex- can walk across ground no one cover copies of Motherstone feel the energy coming up photograph rather than travel perience to be up there and feel has ever walked on before. The ($69.95) are also available. For through the earth. by horseback. He hired guide that energy coming up through earth is seeing itself for the first info visit chrisharris.com “I found I was in tears out outfitters Dave and Joyce my feet and legs.” time through your eyes.” Sc 978-0-9865818-0-9; hc 978-0-9865818-1-6 there. The volcanic landscape is Dorsey, and Roger and Wanda Over a two-year period Harris Both Harris and Rhenisch so untouched; so powerful.” Williams to pack his camp gear photographed hundreds of are adept at pulling back the veil Sage Birchwater is BC BookWorld’s As with most Chris Harris and equipment two days into magnificent images, then he of every-day perception to re- Cariboo correspondent, from projects, Motherstone began with the wilderness. They ventured handed the project over to veal the essence of what makes Williams Lake.

37 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2011 PRINTING

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