COMMUNITY AUTHOR #9,000

obody’s counting—except a computer at Simon Fraser University Library—but David Stanley is the 9,000th B.C. author to be added to our encyclopedic, ever- expanding, massive on-line Author Bank for B.C. literature—replete with photos, re- “DAVID views and essays—at www.abcbookworld.com. We’d never heard of DavidN Stanley either, but hey, isn’t that somehow the point? STANLEY, WE Turns out David Stanley once pur- David Stanley has visited more than chased the longest plane ticket ever is- 195 countries and territories. PRESUME.” sued in Canada by Pan American “Each year I try to get to a few Airways back in 1978. He arranged to more countries on my to-do list,” he make over 50 stops between Los Ange- says. “I stay at inexpensive hotels, the les and Singapore. kind I recommend in my guide- Now with nine books to his credit, books. Mostly I prefer to travel in- Stanley has recorded the development cognito, and rough, using public of tourism in the South Pacific over the transport as much as possible.” past quarter-century. Stanley’s “under the radar” approach David Stanley of Nanaimo, seen here on Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, has “In the early days there was only one backfired on him during the papal visit visited more than 195 countries and territories as a travel writer. large resort on Bora Bora,” he recalls, of John Paul II to the Solomon Is- “and it was fine to camp free, for as long lands in 1984. plained that I’d been at the Presbyterian able for free on-line. as you liked, on the beach in the center “All news media had been banned by Rest House chatting with the pastor dur- “What Internet users don’t seem to of Vaitape. the government,” he says, “but one re- ing the Pope’s entire six-hour visit, and realize, however, is that the bulk of travel “Do that today and you’ll be visited porter from New Caledonia did man- my story checked out, they decided I websites are either paid advertising by by the gendarmes within 10 or 15 min- age to slip through and file a story from wasn’t an undercover reporter after all.” businesses or hobby websites run by in- utes.” Noumea. This provoked outrage among Born in Toronto in 1944, Stanley has dividuals. The discipline of a professional Stanley’s first travel book, in 1979, officials in Honiara, so when I tried to lived in B.C. since 2003. He’s now semi- book editor is almost always lacking. I became the second title in the Moon board my flight to Fiji the next day, I retired. haven’t seen a website yet that tells the Handbooks series, after Bill Dalton’s was taken aside for questioning. “Over the past decade,” he says, whole story the way a good travel guide- own Indonesia Handbook. Today, Moon’s “In the end, I was taken to see the “book sales have declined steadily, partly book should.” successor company, Avalon Travel Pub- Minister of Immigration at his villa in due to competition from other guides Visit www.abcbookworld.com for a lishing, has well over 100 titles and the hills above Honiara. When I ex- but more because so much is now avail- complete list of David Stanley’s titles.

www.abcbookworld.com FAST & FREE WITH THE TRUTH ore than 1,000 visitors per day technical staff at SFU Library, most no- are enjoying free access to tably Todd Holbrook and Siavash Mour mountain of electronic in- Miri. formation about more than 9,000 B.C. Thank you to Simon Fraser Univer- authors at www.abcbookworld.com sity for ‘hosting’ this edifice of original ma- Our homegrown literature has al- terial. ways been under-recognized, so we SFU is one of several integral “in- have provided this service—without kind” partners who make our two-man funding and without pay- operation viable. We also ap- ment—as an electronic sister preciate our partnerships with publication to this newspaper Newsgroup, Vancouver Pub- for five years. lic Library, George Ryga Cen- We could not have done tre, the Federation of BC ILLUSTRATION so without the invaluable part- Writers and the BC English FARRIS “What’s that?” nership of SFU Librarian Teachers Association. JOSEPH Lynn Copeland and her SFU’s Lynn Copeland —David Lester & Alan Twigg

Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Contributors: Grant Shilling, Mark Forsythe, Joan Givner, WINTER Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: BC BookWorld, Louise Donnelly, Hannah Main-van der Kamp, 2008-2009 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 Heather Ramsay, Cherie Thiessen, Shane McCune. Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. Produced with the sponsorship of Pacific BookWorld News We acknowledge Photographers: Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk. the assistance of BC Issue, Society. Publications Mail Registration No. 7800. BOOKWORLD Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Betty Twigg. Canada Council and the Vol. 22, No. 4 BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics. Deliveries: Ken Reid Province of British Columbia, through the Publisher/ Writer: Alan Twigg Advertising & editorial: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Ministry of Community, Vancouver, B.C., V6R 2S3. Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 • Email: All BC BookWorld reviews are posted online at Aboriginal, and Editor/Production: David Lester available on request. Annual subscription: $19.08 www.abcbookworld.com Women’s Services.

4 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 COVER STORY

ost oar-powered crossings connect the Canary and MCaribbean Islands (5,000 kilometres). Six people have died trying; dozens have needed deep-sea rescue. “The number of successful ocean cross- ings is low,” writes Julie Angus, in her memoir, Rowboat in a Hurricane: My Amazing Journey Across a Changing Atlantic Ocean (Greystone $22), “espe- cially when compared to other extreme endeavours such as climbing Mount Ev- erest and skiing to the South Pole.” Julie Angus’ compelling story of her 145-day oar-powered journey from Lis- bon to Costa Rica shows she can nar- rate as well as she can navigate. While risking her life making a trans- Atlantic crossing with her partner Colin Angus—who was completing a round- the-world expedition using human power only—she vividly describes being hit by two hurricanes and two cyclones, encircled by a great white shark, bat- tered by a huge amorous turtle and al- most demolished by a wooden fishing boat at full cruising speed. Their slow-moving rowboat also nar- rowly avoided a collision with a twenty- eight-thousand tonne tanker. Only the rowboat’s lightness saved it by causing the bow wave of the tanker to toss it aside. There are wonderful moments as well as terrors—such as an unexpected solar eclipse, the appearance of exotic birds, whales, porpoises, dorado and pi- MORE OAR MORE OARlot fish which survive by following larger SINCE TWO NORWEGIANS ROWED fish and living on their leftover scraps. A group of four pilot fish that attach them- selves to the boat become cherished pets across the Atlantic in 1896, more and are given names—Ted, Fred, Ned and Oscar. Ted and Fred swim 6,000 kilometers beside the boat, accompany- than 200 people have used oar- ing them all the way to Costa Rica. Angus’ adventure started with an power to claim the same feat, but internet search for a boat designed for rowing on oceans. The search turned up a seven-meter-long boat, weighing 350 none prior to Julie Angus kilograms empty and 800 kilograms when fully loaded. She flew to the north and partner of Scotland to inspect it and arranged Colin Angus for its delivery to Lisbon, the point of departure. rowed from one continental The boat had two tiny cabins—a for- ward one to serve as a cupboard and an aft one, as big as a small closet, for living mainland to the other—a dis- quarters. Between the two cabins was an open deck with sliding rowing seats po- tance of 10,000 kilometres. sitioned in tandem. Sealed compart- ments below deck held supplies. As for a bathroom, “I soon learned that the best way... was to hang my der- riere over the side while sitting on the outer rail. The life-lines made a secure backrest and it was much more relaxing than the bucket.” In rough weather a six-meter rope with one end secured to the boat acted as an umbilical cord in case one was washed overboard.

6 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 Along the way, the reader learns For all the drama and the rich tex- about the toxicity of salt in large quanti- tural detail, this voyage had a serious ties: twelve grams are enough to kill a purpose. human being, and a single teaspoon of With bachelor’s degrees in psychol- seawater contains enough salt for the ogy and biology, and a master’s degree whole day. Their desalination unit (the in molecular biology, Julie Angus hoped size of a sewing machine) had a heavy- to get a more intimate sense of the life duty pump that forced salt water past a and dynamism of the Atlantic, and to semi-permeable membrane at high pres- see for herself the environmental dam- sure. This produced drinkable water age documented by others. with 97% of the salt and minerals ex- Rowboat in a Hurricane therefore tracted. In two hours the unit could yield describes with dismay and alarm the ten litres of clear water. amount of trash floating in the water, The continual spray of sea salt made most of it plastic. It is eaten by jellyfish, clothes unbearably salty and the fabric which in turn are eaten by other crea- chafed the skin and caused salt tures so that the toxins move sores. It became easier to stop up the food chain, making wearing clothes and row in the killer whales the most contami- nude. nated species on earth. In the midst of a hurricane, The voyage reinforced An- when survival seems unlikely, gus’s sense of the interconnec- Angus meditates on her inabil- tion of land and sea, of how the ity to believe in an omnipotent JOAN GIVNER health of life on land depends being. Religion has always been on the vitality of the oceans. a source of confusion and disruption for Human activity has caused fish stocks to her—the result of continual conflicts dwindle, turtles to become endangered, between her Muslim father and Catho- and coral reefs to die. Thus this book is lic mother that marred her childhood. a testament both to human courage and She also broods on the anxiety she is caus- to human destructiveness. ing her parents, a situation brought ✍ home by a telephone conversation with Angus deftly weaves personal detail her father. into the story, fleshing out her small cast “Hi Dad, it’s me,” I said, happy to of characters. Her fiancé, Colin Angus, hear his voice. “Things are going well, a distinguished sailor and explorer, had and we’ve made it almost eight hundred not been her first choice of shipmate kilometers from Lisbon...” because she feared the strain on their re- My father cut me off. “Honey, things lationship. However, when her chosen AREN’T going well. I just heard on the female partner opted out, and Colin’s news that the most northeastern hurri- male companion in a separate adventure cane in history has formed—Hurricane also parted ways, the couple seemed Vince. I looked up its coordinates on the fated to undertake the Atlantic crossing National Hurricane Center website, and together. it’s only six hundred kilometers away Happily, the journey strengthened from you.” the relationship and they were married “Which direction is it heading?” in August of 2007, two years after their “Straight towards you.” departure from Lisbon. Following their By contrast, phone calls to her mother Atlantic crossing and wedding, the provide some comic relief. When Julie Courtenay-based couple undertook a Angus tries to give her mother a sense of human-power journey from Scotland to their normalcy of life mid-ocean by de- Syria, on bicycles and in boats. Julie An- scribing their celebration of Colin’s birth- gus has since received National Geo- day with a glass of wine, she succeeds only graphic’s Adventurer of the Year Award. in raising her mother’s fears about the 978-1-55365-337-0 combination of boating and drinking. “Most boat accidents happen when peo- Joan Givner’s latest novel is Ellen’s Book ple drink!” her mother tells her. of Life (Groundwood $17.95)

Colin Angus: It became easier to stop wearing clothes and row in the nude.

7 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 EXPLORERS

HAVING WRITTEN ABOUT ‘Capi’, with five children to Joan Blanchet raise, rented her house to a fam- Frances Barkley—the first was one of Muriel Blanchet’s six ily from Washington State and white woman to reach home-schooled Huck Finn-ed it along the children. coasts of Vancouver Island. Canada’s West Coast— ✍ Cathy Converse examines For someone who had capa- bly home-schooled her kids, the secretive life of M. Wylie Blanchet left behind a suspi- Blanchet, whose boating ciously paltry paper trail. Ultimately the portrait that memoir The Curve of Time is emerges from Converse is one into its eleventh printing. of a no-nonsense person who stubbornly resisted the advice athy Converse’s or charity of others. CFollowing the When Blanchet developed Curve of Time emphysema and her doctor rec- (Touchwood $24.95) ommended moving to a drier focuses on where climate, her response was to stick Blanchet traveled and her head in the oven for twenty her family background. Cathy minutes a day. “Unfortunately, Although it is not Converse long-term exposure to oil touted as a biography, it stoves,” Converse writes, “can leapt quickly onto the BC cause the very condition she was Bestseller list and has remained trying to remedy. there for months. Once, when Blanchet and It would be nice to learn her daughter Janet were driving Blanchet was a doting single to Victoria and they passed a mom, as well as a generous free house with a well-stocked spirit, sensitive to First Nations woodpile, Capi Blanchet deri- people. It would be nice to be- sively suggested those people lieve she and her brood happily had to be from the Prairies be- undertook idyllic cruises, as a cause they had failed to note the sort of Swiss Family Robinson STRAIGHTENING OUT THE beach was littered with wood. On The Water. Blanchet scavenged all her Artists, however, are seldom firewood from the beach. “Two exemplary humans. The ego- friends once brought her a gift centricity required for original- of Presto logs,” Converse ity more frequently produces ofof writes, “so that she would not monsters than saints. have to burn wet wood and Converse’s well-intentioned CURVESCURVES scraps from the beach. profile reveals that Blanchet “Capi thanked them but was admirable but far from like- later said it was one of the silli- able. “She was not a Waterford est gifts she had ever received; Crystal kind of woman,” Con- it was like bringing coals to verse writes. Newcastle.” Translation: M. Wylie But burning driftwood per- Blanchet was a piece of work. meated with salt produces an Her children must have some- acid that eats away at brick and times felt like captives aboard causes chimney damage. “Also, the family’s crowded 25 ft. by burning wood that has not 61/2 ft. cedar launch. been seasoned for six to nine One of them openly dis- months generates soot and misses her famous book as a creosote,” Converse writes, false concoction. TIMETIME “which can markedly increase ✍ the risk of a chimney fire.” Blanchet, as Muriel MURIEL‘CAPI’ BLANCHET WAS A PIECE OF WORK On September 30, 1961, Liffiton, had a tomboy-ish M. Wylie Blanchet was found childhood within a well-to-do High Anglican family in Quebec. She inexplicably left dead at her typewriter, having suffered a heart attack at age 70. The never-solved her studies to marry bank employee Geoffrey Blanchet. disappearance of her husband casts a macabre shadow over Blanchet’s life, even now. Whereas he was highly emotional, she could be intensely pragmatic. This marriage Possibly M. Wylie Blanchet and Emily Carr could have been friends. Neither wasn’t made in heaven. After Geoffrey Blanchet fell ill in his early 40s and subse- liked the outside world, and the outside world often responded in kind. And the quently retired, the couple and their four children drove west in a Willys-Knight attentions of men were not at the top of their agenda. touring car, serendipitously discovering and buying a cottage at Curteis Point on Van- ✍ couver Island, near Sidney, B.C., in 1922. Just as Converse benefited from the work of Beth Hill, who first published The Unoccupied since 1914, this strange and abandoned little house, which they Remarkable World of Frances Barkley 1769–1845 in 1978, this time Converse is in- dubbed Little House, had been designed by Samuel Maclure. It was a case of debted to Edith Iglauer for one of the few recorded interviews with Blanchet [for finders-keepers, and ‘Capi’ Blanchet kept it for the rest of her days. a Raincoast Chronicles profile]. In 1923 the family bought their 25-ft. gas boat, the Caprice, for $600, after it had After World War II, the Caprice was sold for $700 to the owner of a Victoria been sunk at anchor by ice dislodged by the Brentwood ferry. The boat was only one- boatyard. It was soon destroyed by a fire when it was in for repairs. year-old but its engine had to be overhauled after it was The original version of The Curve of Time appeared raised to the surface. in England in the late 1950s, published by Blackwoods Blanchet’s affinity for mechanics and boats was there- in London, the company for which Blanchet had of- fore born of necessity. The engine would remain in use for ten written freelance articles. Few copies reached the 20 years until 1942. West Coast of Canada. The unusual title The Curve of One more child was born in B.C., then tragedy struck. Time is derived from some writing she had on board Geoffrey Blanchet died, or disappeared, under very myste- the Caprice by the Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) rious circumstances, in 1927, after he embarked on the in which the Belgian Nobel Prize winner considered Caprice and stopped at nearby Knapp Island. The boat was time as a curve. found by a Chinese gardener on the island. It was presumed Publisher Gray Campbell of Sidney released the first that Blanchet’s husband drowned while going for a swim, Canadian edition in 1968. It sold for $1.95. A chil- but this remains mere conjecture. dren’s book by Blanchet was published posthumously Each summer thereafter for 15 years, the indomitable RECLUSIVE & ORNERY: M. Wylie Blanchet (right) & her children in 1983. More info: abcbookworld.com 978-1-894898-68-3

9 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 EXPLORERS

George Dibbern met Curve of Time author M. Wylie Blanchet at Desolation Sound in 1938.

MANWOMANIZING RASCAL, ADRIFTby a friend in Honolulu in 1937. He George Dibbern served as Admired by Henry Miller, globe-sailing pacifist did so when Hitler’s Third Reich de- the perplexing subject of creed that all German-owned vessels Erika Grundmann’s bi- George Dibbern explored the Pacific must fly the swastika. ography Dark Sun: Te While Dibbern was en route from Rapunga and the Quest beneath the flutterings of his own Hawaii to Canada in 1937, the Auck- of George Dibbern. Now land Nazi Party, in conjunction with Nazi George Dibbern’s own Parties in Vancouver and Montreal, ini- classic memoir of human symbolic flag, much to the irritation tiated correspondence to divest Dibbern vagabondage, Quest (1941), has been of his German citizenship due to his ‘anti- re-published by RockRead Press, dis- of the Nazi Party, port authorities German views.’ Subsequently known as Atributed by Sandhill of Kelowna a “man without a country” Dibbern also ($29.95). and his long-suffering wife. Henry Miller created his own passport, notarized in ✍ San Francisco in 1940, with his credo “My life is one with the sea,” Dibbern “longing”), Dibbern escaped from im- a man like himself—boldly ahead of his upon it. “I, George John Dibbern, said. “We respect each other and I have pending Naziism and the constraints of time. The author of the sexually explicit through long years in different countries no other master.” conventional society, as well as his fail- Tropic of Cancer was especially impressed and sincere friendship with many peo- But this proved to be wishful think- ures as a breadwinner, to once more with Dibbern’s courage to act (not just ple in many lands, feel my place to be ing. Dibbern could never eradicate feel- roam the Pacific, apparently with his talk) and to write openly about the an- outside of nationality, a citizen of the ings of guilt for being an absentee father wife’s consent. guish of doing so. world and a friend of all peoples...” of three daughters who barely knew For the next 30-plus years, Dibbern’s Henry Miller’s fraternal and mon- When Dibbern visited British Co- him. South Pacific sailing adventures were etary support helped Dibbern’s family lumbia from July 1937 to June of 1939, Dibbern, the literal drifter, was born only interrupted by an almost five-year to survive the devastation of Germany he lectured in Victoria and Vancouver, in Kiel, Germany in 1889. He left Ger- second internment on Somes Island dur- after World War II. Henry Miller also and received praise from veteran mari- many to go to sea at age 18. During his ing World War II and a tried to get Quest back into time reporter Norman Hacking in first foray into the South Pacific, two-year stop-over in print, but to no avail. Mill- The Province. Hacking’s article was sent Dibbern spent several formative years B.C.. er’s laudatory review of to Germany as proof of his traitorous be- among the Maoris of New Zealand be- Dibbern’s only pub- Quest for Circle Magazine, liefs. Ultimately the German consul in fore he was briefly interned, with other lished book about his nau- published in Berkeley in Vancouver wrote to Berlin dismissing German nationals, on Somes Island in tical adventures, Quest in 1946, was reprinted in Dibbern as an eccentric, and essentially Wellington Harbour in 1918. 1941, earned him the ad- 1962 within a collection of harmless. Repatriated to Germany, he strug- miration of American au- Miller’s work called Stand Dibbern was a charmer who “took his gled unsuccessfully for ten years to find thor Henry Miller who Still like the Hummingbird. fun where he found it”—sometimes employment and to adapt to family re- wrote to Dibbern “as a Dibbern is perhaps best forming key relationships with younger sponsibilities. In 1930, with his 32-foot brother.” Although they remembered for sailing women, platonic at first, who served him ketch, Te Rapunga (Maori for “Dark never met, Miller chose to under a flag of his own de- as secretaries for the transcription of his Sun,” i.e., the sun before dawn, or view Dibbern as a hero, as Erika Grundmann sign that was sewn for him dictation. continued on page 13

11 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 “WHAT DID YOU EXPECT ANYWAY? continued from page 11 HUMMINGBIRDS?” One of these women in New Zealand, Eileen Morris (who later be- came the mother of his out- “Memoir, family history, of-wedlock daughter), Gold Dust sailed with him to British immigration story, Columbia. During his voy- on His Shirt explores the life ages on the B.C. coast, of one family among tens of Dibbern and his Te thousands in twentieth- Rapunga crew tied up century British Columbia. alongside M. Wylie Blanchet’s Caprice in ‘Toil... a life of unremitting Desolation Sound in 1938. toil,’ was their own brief Although Dibbern is not George Dibbern with his all-women crew, Tasmania, 1954 history of themselves, but mentioned in Blanchet’s with care, wisdom, and com- Though Dibbern’s dreams of a better coastal classic, The Curve of Time (Gray’s passion, Irene Howard shows Publishing, 1968), he’s mentioned in world remain unrealized, his message of Beth Hill’s Seven-Knot Summers international friendship is as timely as us much more than that.” (Horsdal & Schubart 1994) and Dan ever. He died in Auckland in 1962 while — Christopher Moore, author Rubin’s Salt on the Wind (Horsdal & preparing to return at long last to his wife and historian Schubart 1996). and daughters in Germany. While visiting Vancouver, Dibbern ✍ asterfully lacing together newspaper accounts, local his- formed an important friendship with a Erika Grundmann first learned young idealist named Gladys Night- about Dibbern via a conversation with Mtories, archival records, and, most importantly, memory, to ingale, later better known as Sharie friends about Henry Miller’s review of tell her family’s story, Irene Howard shows us in the process how Farrell. At the time she co-owned a Quest. After a further conversation with our own family stories can be a remarkable piece of everyone’s two-room cabin in Lynn Valley where bookseller Diane Wells of Wells history. her socialist friends gathered. Nightin- Books in Victoria, Grundmann eventu- gale subsequently married local boat ally located a copy of Quest from a library GOLD DUST ON HIS SHIRT maker Allen Farrell and they emu- in Saskatchewan. She met with Sharie The True Story of an Immigrant Mining Family lated Dibbern’s bohemian, self-sufficient Farrell in 1993 and then contacted 264 pages • $26.95 · ISBN 978-1-897071-45-8 Now available approach to life on the water, becoming Eileen Morris. After nine years of re-

Between the Lines www.btlbooks.com

Best of the Fall Season from Black Rose Books

FAITH IN FAITHLESSNESS An Anthology of Atheism Dimitri Roussopoulos An international bestseller among persons and groups concerned with the rise of fundamentalism and superstition, this work is in- tended to contribute to the reassertion of the legitimacy of god- lessness as a philosophical and moral stance. Faith in Faithlessness is a unique anthology that presents a com- prehensive selection of writings by some of the world’s most cele- brated thinkers, past and present, who eloquently address the most significant questions concerning religious belief. Contributors include: John Stuart Mill, George Elliot, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Einstein, Gore Vidal, Kai Nielsen, Christine Overall, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Michel Onfray, Tariq Ali, Salman Rushdie, Kurt Vonnegut, quotes by celebrity atheists, and resource guide. DIMITRI ROUSSOPOULOS is author and/or editor of some eigh- teen books. George Dibbern displays his own flag in Tasmania, 1953 440 pages: 978-1-55164-312-0 $19.99

TRIUMPH OF IGNORANCE AND BLISS the subject for Rubin’s biography, Salt on search, her thorough biography is Pathologies of Public America the Wind, and Maria Coffey’s coffee- the first to document the life of “Ger- James Polk table-book tribute, Sailing Back in Time man George” Dibbern. Although Understanding the contemporary United States is essential for all (Whitecap 1996). Nightingale/Farrell Grundmann is clearly one of Dibbern’s readers who want to know how to act for change. This work, in not only played an integral role in the many admirers, it’s a credit to her work the tradition of Herbert Marcuse, by one of his students, helps us a great deal. preparation of Dibbern’s manuscript for that she provides the grist for varying Triumph of Ignorance and Bliss examines the foundations of a cul- Quest, she contributed money, along with opinions of her subject. ture that favours firepower over diplomacy, passions from the Eileen Morris, to purchase over 200 acres Was George Dibbern primarily an al- pulpit over rational critique, and the star appeal of media idols for a commune on Galley Bay at the en- truistic and courageous figure? Or was over a debate about the real problems. Where engaged public dis- trance to Desolation Sound. he manipulative and self-indulgent? course should channel effective dissent, there is ignorance; where public outrage should ignite corrective action to oppose wrongs, This artists’ retreat was conceived on There’s always more to a man’s life than there is bliss. Te Rapunga during Dibbern’s talks with his paper trail. Polk’s portrait of America is riveting…his arguments are sound the likes of M. Wylie Blanchet. The Published from New Zealand and convincing. An important, fascinating book written with a property eventually served as a com- in 2004, Grundmann’s biography of strong message. —Norm Goldman, Bookpleasures.com mune in the 1970s, attracting, among Dibbern Dark Sun is available from the JAMES POLK teaches philosophy at the University of Southern others, writer Paul Williams. author ($40 plus postage) who lives on California. One member of Dibbern’s crew for Cortes Island. 326 pages: 978-1-55164-314-4 $19.99 his Auckland to Victoria voyage, Roy A second nautical memoir by Murdock, stayed in B.C., married Dibbern called Ship without Port, de- Available at your local bookstore, or by calling 1-800-565-9523 Ruth Hammersley and became as- scribing his two years in British Colum- See our full Fall line-up and Forthcoming for Spring at sociate editor of Victoria’s Daily Colonist. bia, is yet to be published. http://www.blackrosebooks.net “If you live in harmony with life,” Quest 978-0-9809890-0-7 Dark Star 0-908990-93-6 Dibbern wrote, “life will take care of you.” [email protected]

13 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 EXPLORERS

The Wahl’s that would perform well but also launch a give it lines that were just as flow- gillnetter ing as the medium it floated on,” Ryan Wahl writes. Ed Wahl moved the family to Dodge Cove near Prince Rupert in 1928, joining a small commu- nity of Norwegian fishermen who’d settled in the area. His brother followed. They were a self-sufficient bunch, building their homes, hunting and fishing, scrounging driftwood. The only time the Wahls had to venture into Prince Rupert, “was to buy groceries and give birth!” Six sons worked in the shop, learning the trade from stem to stern: cutting planks, sanding, shaping Ed Wahl planks in the steam box or hammering dry cotton into seams. When Ed’s wife Hildur died at age 34, his only option was to pull his sons Henry and Iver out of school. Iver Wahl was Ryan Wahl’s chief informant about the rise and fall of the family business. “I was nine years old when I started school but had to quit when I was 15,” Iver Wahl says, “…I helped with the house and took care of my younger brothers until Dad got a housekeeper.” Ryan Wahl also interviewed carpenters, welders and tradesmen who stayed with the family busi- ness for decades. They paint a pic- ture of an employer who despised unions, but did his best to keep WahlWahl Mart:Mart: good people. The story touches briefly on Japanese boat builders, like the Sakamoto family who sup- The place that launched plied gillnetters to the canneries until the Second World War. Eve- rything changed when they were a thousand ships interned, but some of their key de- sign concepts were incorporated into Wahl vessels. ✍ or three gen- How one Prince Rupert family produced By 1943 the boat yard was produc- erations the ing a boat a week, and Ed was weaving Wahls, a tal- the ‘Rolls Royces’ of the fishing fleet in more changes. “His straight lines be- came curved, his sharp corners became ented Theirs is a story of Viking spirit and tory by becoming the first fisherman to rounded and the Wahl boats that finally Norweigian West Coast ingenuity. use a gas-powered boat on the river.” emerged in the late 1950s had all the ✍ eye-pleasing characteristics that would Canadian Wahl’s forebears were not only expert When Oystein “Ed” Wahl, as a navigators, they were technically ad- make them so recognizable along the family, explored the rigours of Norweigian immigrant in his twenties, vanced shipbuilders as well, so as the entire B.C. coast.” Light, strong, and to boatF building in B.C., making came to North America with north coast fleet moved from many observers, simply beautiful. $25 in his pocket to join his sails to motorized gillnetters on The company expanded in the more than one thousand fishing brother, he was essentially trad- the river, Ed Wahl started 1950s, opening another boat shop in vessels, hand crafted from West- ing one rugged coastline for building his own boats. Self- Prince Rupert. Ed retired in the 60s, another. and his sons carried on, building and ern red cedar, yellow cedar, fir taught, he didn’t rely on plans After logging and fishing on or blueprints, but worked from rebuilding vessels that worked the en- and oak in their Dodge Cove the Olympic Peninsula, and models. Ed calculated the tire coast. Eventually fiberglass nudged wooden craft aside, and Ryan helped boatshed near Prince Rupert. later Alaska, Ed Wahl returned MARK FORSYTHE shape of each plank needed and to Norway in 1920, married cut the board without pulling build the last Wahl boat in 1989, his Conceived as a modest family history 16-year-old Hildur Olsen, and they out a measuring tape. Over the years he uncle’s vessel, Legacy. You can still see the project back in 2003, Ryan Wahl’s settled at Quathiaski Cove on Quadra proceeded to build a fleet of boats con- Wahl handiwork on the coast, classic Legacy in Wood (Harbour $32.95) has Island. structed by eye. wooden vessels that are mostly tied up, been refitted as an uplifting tribute to a Three years later he loaded up his 27- Wahl would often fish the new craft hoping the salmon might return. gifted and innovative family. Hand- foot gillnetter, Viking, and moved his through summer, consider improve- 978-1-55017-433-5 somely illustrated, it also doubles as an growing family to Port Essington on the ments that could be made, then sell the oral history of a cornerstone of the B.C. Skeena River. There, according to Ryan vessel and start building another one. Mark Forsythe is the host of CBC’s fishing industry. Wahl, his great-grandfather “made his- “His goal was not only to build a boat BC Almanac.

15 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 EXPLORERS Who was Captain Q

There is no known likeness of Captain Bodega y Quadra— another reason why his greatness has been obscured for more than two centuries.

IF THERE IS ONE NEW BOOK age as far north as Cook Inlet (in 1779); and who famously settled the Nootka dis- that needed to be written for pute with Captain Vancouver at Nootka Sound (in 1792) and thereby curtailed British Columbia more than further international conflict. After the Spanish flag was finally low- any other, a strong argument ered at Nootka Sound (on March 28, 1795) and Cala de los Amigos (Friendly “Amazing can be made that Freeman Cove) became neutral territory, Bodega y Quadra’s ambitions continued to be stuff.... M. Tovell has just spent stifled by increasing debts and he suf- many years writing it. fered from Spanish prejudices against Cyrus Peck him simply because he was not born in was a At the Far Reaches of Empire: The Spain. He died at the San Blas naval port Life of Juan Francisco de la Bodega y (just south of present-day California) in giant with Quadra (UBC Press $39.95) is an im- 1794, at age 49. pressively sober, extensively researched, Since then, Bodega y Quadra has the heart non-fanciful biography that—at been under-celebrated for more long last—provides a finely than two centuries. Yes, Quadra of a lion....” nuanced understanding of the Island was named in 1903, but BC few British Columbians realize life and times of Spain’s most in- BOOKWORLD Jack Granatstein that Vancouver Island was fluential sea captain in B.C. his- STAFF PICK tory. named “the Island of Quadra and Vancouver” on early maps of the Yes, Juan Pérez made the first re- corded European “discovery” of future 1800s until Hudson’s Bay Company B.C. territory in 1774. Yes, Tuscany-born traders abbreviated the name to reflect British chauvinism. Alejandro Malaspina made a sig- nificant voyage intended to mirror the sci- The virtues of Tovell’s thoroughness entific accomplishments of Captain cannot be adequately expressed in this COLONEL CYRUS WESLEY PECK was elected to Parliament space. Suffice to say you won’t hear James Cook. And, yes, Don José thunderous applause for his Herculean in 1917 while commanding the 16th Battalion (The Maria Narváez reached the Lower Mainland area in 1791, prior to Captain efforts to fill a gaping hole in B.C. his- Canadian Scottish) in the trenches of France & Belgium. tory, but At the Far Reaches of Empire George Vancouver. And Captain He won the Victoria Cross & became the only man in easily qualifies as one of the books that Dioniso Galiano provided impor- British Commonwealth history to have won the V.C. tant mapping input to Vancouver in most validates the importance of the while an elected member of Parliament. 1792. B.C. publishing industry in recent years. But it was the sophisticated diplomat, With history degrees from University of Toronto and Harvard, Tovell is former ISBN 978-0-9783506-1-1 EDWARD PECK, second son of Cy Peck, was Peruvian-born Bodega y Quadra [not Canadian ambassador to Peru and Bo- Distributed by CEF Books born in Victoria, B.C. He followed in his father’s just “Quadra,” as he is commonly PO Box 40083, footsteps by serving with the 1st Battalion known in B.C.], who led the second livia who served in the Canadian navy Ottawa ON KIV 0W8 Canadian Scottish in the Second World War. 0774813660 Spanish expedition (in 1775) to reach during World War II. Tel/Fax 613-823-7000 He is best known for a distinguished career in www.cefbooks.ca labour relations which spanned almost 40 years. B.C. waters prior to Captain Cook; who For extensive background information on Captain first claimed Spanish sovereignty over Bodega y Quadra and Spanish explorers prior to Alaska (in 1775); who led a second voy- 1800, visit www.abcbookworld.com

16 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 reviews TEENLIT RELIEF PITCHER

Making Change: Tips from an Underage Overachiever by Bilaal Rajan (Orca $12.95) AGES 10+

FORMERLY THE UVIC BOOKSTORE MANAGER, Sarah N. Harvey, who lives in Vic- toria with “a combative fish named Yul,” has edited Bilaal Rajan’s Making Change: Tips from an Underage Overachiever. In January 2001 an earth- quake in the Indian state of Gujarat killed thousands and left vast numbers homeless and des- titute. Although he was four years old, Bilaal Rajan wanted to help. Bundled for the Toronto winter and toting a paper shopping bag Julie Lawson: taught with a hand-printed “Relief Fund” elementary school for 18 sign, he canvassed his neigh- years before becoming a full- time writer in 1991 bourhood selling clementines and raised $350. Bilaal went on to doesn’t get nearly the literary sell cookies for hurricane victims respect he deserves) their lives in Haiti and handmade plates for will be full of travel, cool clothes children living with HIV. In 2005, and a gorgeous red car. he was named UNICEF Canada’s But then Ruth ditches Julia, WHEN VICTORIA Child Representative. goes to a party without her, gets drunk and does “it” for the first time. A month later she’s crying over sappy morning television WAS A FORT and her “boobs hurt.” Setting traps, speaking Cree and making dye for porcupine But cerebral Julia has a plan. After all, her dad’s new wife is quills are not accomplishments becoming of a “young lady.” also pregnant and, fortuitously, hiring a midwife. Under the Where the River Takes Me: The Hudson’s Bay Company Diary of Jenna Sinclair the advent of imported white guise of doing a school report, by Julie Lawson (Scholastic $14.99) AGES 9-13 wives as status symbols. Julia will interview the midwife, ✫ observe her in action and pass n the summer of 1849, speaking Cree, doing beadwork, Although Fort Victoria no along every bit of nutritional and young Jenna Sinclair writes making dye for porcupine longer exists, Julie Lawson of pre-natal advice to Ruth. I in her diary, “I begin with quills—are not considered ac- Victoria can walk the perimeter As narrated by the sharp- Bilaal Rajan: 12 year old activist an Adventure!” and then con- complishments becoming of a of where the old stockade once minded Julia, Sarah N. Harvey’s fesses to the indiscretion of “Ex- “young lady.” stood, find the exact spot for The Lit Report is not only about a Now 12, Bilaal’s Fundraising aggeration” and the peril of The droning, pebble- Jenna’s school and, closing her missed period, two pregnancies Tips for Activist Kids includes committing a “Misdemeanor of mouthed, whip-happy school- mind’s eye to the present-day and high-school graduation putting a spin on bottle drives and the Gravest Sort.” master quickly becomes the Empress Hotel, easily envision plans gone awry. Harvey has also bake sales to make your Jenna’s capitalized sins re- ideal villain for Jenna’s imagined the mud flats of James Bay. deftly added a trilingual legal- flect the admonishments of her novel. But soon, Jenna will en- Along with her more than 20 secretary known for her Holy fundraiser stand out. For a book Aunt Grace, who cares for her counter a real life villain and other titles, Lawson has also writ- Trinity flower arrangements, a sale he organized, Bilaal invited orphaned Scottish-Cree niece at danger and narrowly escape ten two other volumes in this im- neo-natal nurse with a second children’s author Eric Walters Fort Edmonton. This “uppity” murder. pressive series, No Safe Harbour, pediatrician wife and a tattooed, (who had once interviewed him) aunt has finally settled on a hus- Marriage à la façon du pays The Halifax Explosion Diary of ex-con, red-necked, bible- to attend. Don’t hesitate to ask band, astonishingly a (marriage in the cus- Charlotte Blackburn and A Ribbon thumping pastor. anyone to participate in your mere blacksmith tom of the country) of Shining Steel, The Railway Di- Along with the midwife who rather than the ex- served the social and ary of Kate Cameron. has “squid-ink blue” painted toe- cause is another mantra. As is list- pected high-ranking economic develop- 13-978-0-439-95620-8 nails, the supporting cast in- making, developing personal mis- officer, and Jenna will ment of Western cludes the delectable Jonah, sion statements and team- leave Fort Edmonton Canada. Early French with his Christian school boot- BABY IN A building. 978-1-55469-001-5 with them after they traders and later the camp buzz cut and the “stamina are married. officers and servants of BASKET CASE of a triathlete,” and the dishy, That’s the set-up LOUISE DONNELLY the Hudson’s Bay sensitive yet foul-mouthed Mark. GROUNDED The Lit Report by Sarah N. Harvey Julia’s high school confiden- The Year I was Grounded by Bill New for Julie Lawson’s Company, like Jenna’s (Orca $12.95) AGES 14+ Where the River Takes Me: The Orkney-born father, realized tial plan will be risky, of course— (Tradewind $12.95) AGES 11+ Hudson’s Bay Company Diary of First Nations wives gave them lassics-reading, uber- but it has to work out. They hope WRITTEN FOR AGES 11 & UP, BILL NEW’S Jenna Sinclair, the latest Ruth can tuck her newborn in a companionship and family-life planner Julia has been The Year I was Grounded is a play- installment of the Dear Canada and better access to furs, guides best friends for- basket and leave it on the C ful facsimile of a one-year jour- Series reflecting the lives of girls and interpreters. ever with “big-haired, steps of the church for and young women in early Ca- The women, whose relatives big-assed” Ruth, a some good Christians nal kept by a reluctant diarist who nadian history. benefited from European trade drama queen with to adopt. Then the learns to enjoy his own introspec- Jenna’s diary chronicles her goods, were also skilled in mak- unsurpassed abilities pair can simply pick tiveness. “I don’t tell everybody journey to Fort Colvile—once ing moccasins, snowshoes, at forging parents’ up with their plans this,” he writes, “but I think I like part of the HBC’s Columbia fur pemmican and the buffalo-hide signatures. and head for New York thinking a whole lot, too. Last sum- trading district but now part of sacks used to store and transport As soon as they or L.A. 9781551439051 the United States—and her sub- these goods. They also collected can kiss high school mer, kayaking sequent adventures during her spruce roots and spruce gum for goodbye, they’re off Louise Miki Donnelly on the lake, I first school year in Fort Victoria sewing and caulking the seams for New York or Lon- writes from Vernon. spent a lot of on Vancouver Island. of canoes. don or Los Ange- time thinking Jenna is held up as an exam- These mutually gainful un- les. Like Babar Sarah N. Harvey: about how ple for her prowess in math- ions became a bygone custom the Elephant from bookseller to things relate.” ematics and reading but her with the widespread arrival of (who, in editor and author impressive abilities arising from missionaries, who deemed such Julia’s Bill New 978-1-896580-35-7 Fort Edmonton—setting traps, practical liaisons immoral, and opinion,

19 BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 • [email protected] LOOKOUTLOOKOUT a forum for & about writers # 33

Andreas

Schroeder LAURA SAWCHUCK PHOTO

To lead the way into our coverage of Answer: It turns out that of the win- ners of the Ethel Wilson prize for BC 50 new fiction titles from British fiction since 1985, a mere three have Columbia, we asked Andreas been published by BC publishers. Twice FICTION FROM the winners were published by Douglas Schroeder—who has a new col- & McIntyre, once by Talonbooks. All the rest were published by Ontario publish- lection of novellas himself this fall— ers. And the shortlists reveal much the to comment on the ongoing same story. They reveal an almost unbro- ken record of having only one shortlisted proliferation of fiction from B.C. VLADIVOSTOK fiction writer published by a BC pub- Here’s his response: DO THE MATH: If BC fiction writers lisher every year. Most of the rest were published by Ontario publishers. So what should we conclude from HETHER YOU AGREE produce 1/4 of the fiction in English this a good thing this? It depends on whether you favour depends largely on Canada, why is recognition so pathetic? conspiracy theories, Alice’s Law of Co- your yardstick. I incidental Coincidences, or plain bad luck. Is there something inherent in B.C. remember Irving and George Bowering) the 12 B.C. fiction writers WLayton looking around the room at a since the Canada Council took DO THE MATH: who have made the GG fiction that just doesn’t work for League of Poets meeting as far back as over the GG’s in 1959. Both shortlist since 1979 (the year Torontonians? Or is it that Ontario pub- 1979 and grumbling: “There’s too their winning titles were pub- All ten the Canada Council’s archive lishers cream off our most successful au- nominees for this goddamn many of us! They oughta shoot for the GG awards begins thors and leave only the beginners and lished from Ontario. year’s Giller Prize half of us and neuter the other half!” On Even the GG shortlists pro- listing finalists), only one was the mid-list authors to our BC publish- and the Governor ers? If that were true, why aren’t more of the other hand, if you subscribe to the duce slim pickings—rarely General’s (English) published by a B.C. pub- those B.C. authors published by Ontario Manure Pile Theory of Literature, we’re more than one B.C. author is Fiction Award are lisher. That was Carol clearly on a roll. You need a lot of ma- shortlisted per year, and many from Ontario Windley for her debut col- publishers winning GG’s and Gillers? nure to grow prize pumpkins. years none at all. publishers. lection of short stories, Visible Alan Twigg, publisher of BC According to the PLR’s databank, The glamorous, newer Light, published by Oolichan BookWorld, has made it his business to Canada has produced roughly 8,000 fic- Giller Prize for Fiction is virtually a car- Books in 1993. The other 11 were all keep track of the “uneven playing field tion titles during the past half century— bon copy. No B.C. fictioneer has won published by Ontario publishers. for fiction” for 20 years. Before writing and a quarter of them came from B.C. the Giller in the 14 years of its existence. Can it get any worse than that? Well, this article, I asked him to comment on writers. The vast majority of these titles Yes, we’ve had an almost formulaic one yes, it can. One might be forgiven for as- my research. His response was blunt. from B.C. have been produced in the title per shortlist every year (except ‘95, suming that our own book prize for fic- “The fiction game is played in Moscow,” past 20 years. While the province’s popu- ‘97, ‘99 and ’01, when there were none), tion—the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, he wrote. “We are in Vladivostok.” lation increased by a mere 25%, our fic- but that’s as close as we’ve ever been to inaugurated in 1985—would go at least tion output during that same time that particular brass ring. some distance toward filling Public Lending Rights founder/over- increased by almost 500%. And it gets worse. If being DO THE MATH: the pumpkin box. After all, its With respect to those pumpkins— a B.C. fiction writer seems a winners have to be BC au- seer Andreas Schroeder of Roberts just where might they be found? The ob- handicap, being a B.C. fiction BC authors thors. But who’s published vious answer would be to look at the list writer published by a B.C. registered 108 them? Does geography and Creek has re-investigated his of winners for the Governor General’s publisher appears to double fiction titles with publishing politics possibly in- Award for English Fiction but B.C. hasn’t the problem, at the very least. Public Lending fluence the pecking order of Mennonite roots for three novellas Rights (PLR) had a GG winner for fiction since 1980. Never mind that our two GG a prize limited to authors who that comprise Renovating Heaven In fact, we’ve only had two winners of a fiction winners weren’t pub- in 2007. have lived in this province for GG fiction award (Jack Hodgins lished by a BC publisher. Of three of the past five years? (Oolichan). See page 34.

21 BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • WINTER • 2008-09 FICTION Actor Stephen Miller, “There were no dogs in known for playing Zack the city,” Stephen Miller McNab on Da Vinci’s Inquest, writes, describing Moscow has made the most of his TV DETECTIVE in 1918, “they had all character roles for 37 years. Now he’s hitting the big- been eaten.” mine site, along with jewelry and clothing belong- time with his new Russian ing to the royal family, the scene resembles some- thing we might see on Da Vinci’s Inquest, but for the most part The Last Train to Kazan is chillingly historical thriller original, with insights more akin to Hamlet than Dashiell Hammett. The Last Train to Kazan. “Ryzhkov had become a scientist of mud, a sort of Red Indian scout when it came to mud. He had Published internationally come out of the war having lost his revulsion for mud and dirt, and maybe it was a welcome kind of by Penguin Books, it’s a STEPHENSTEPHEN knowledge.” Having reluctantly attended a drunken orgy double-agent’s view of with the Italian and later located the missing Yakov Yurovsky—a non-fictional character who was given how and why the czar the unenviable task of safeguarding the czar and/or BC killing him—Ryzhkov’s sleuthing and double- and his family were BOOKWORLD agency is just the set-up for the web of intrigue and STAFF PICK mayhem to come. ✍ murdered in 1918. About one-third of the way through The Last Train to Kazan, Miller pulls a big plot twist, fol- lowed by an astonishing counter-reveal, and the de- IS A CANADIAN TRADITION TO NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO MILLER tective procedural aspect of the story evaporates. MILLER Miller ratchets up the tension by revealing that outgrow their britches. The forces of Envy and Jeal- nearly everyone has the potential for criminality or, ousy will rise up to smite you if you try to succeed in COMES IN FROM THE COLD at the very least, dishonesty. Those who don’t are the freaks. Miller investigates the emotions and more than one vocation. Stephen Miller, for exam- schemes of literally dozens of characters, rather than focussing on Ryzhkov alone. In this way we get a ple, has written four novels—starting with his lo- cross-section of social desperation that has a great deal more to do with Dostoevsky than a con- cally published Three-Day Novel Contest winner ventional whodunit or thriller. Miller’s scatter-gun approach to narration can Wastefall (Arsenal Pulp, 1990)—but he is seldom be off-putting, and some of the early dialogue is recognized as a writer in British Columbia, where chronically obtuse, but the reader with stamina will be rewarded with subsequent writing that is unde- he has lived since 1971. niably brilliant. “Rumours were the floor upon which they walked,” he writes. The North Carolina-born actor has recently re- Army didn’t know what to do with them. Then they Whether he’s describing a vicious stabbing on a leased two novels about the Russian Revolution— were moved by steamer in April of 1918 to train car belonging to a lecherous grand dame named but he has also carried Bette Davis down a flight Yekaterinburg, an industrial city named by Peter Sophie Buxhoeveden or decoding the amorous ITof concrete stairs, improvised all day with Robert the Great for his bride Catherine and designed Machiavellianism of her playboy lover Captain DeNiro and delivered Laura Dern’s baby while to serve as the gateway to Siberia. Tommaso di Giustiniani—both are trying to out-ma- accumulating almost 200 Hollywood and television By the time Ryzhkov arrives, Yekaterinburg had nipulate each other—Miller is unfailingly adept at credits. degenerated into a frontier outpost where two po- unmasking the darkest recesses of human behaviour. ✍ tatoes from last year could serve as a bribe. In “a The intricacies of the final two-thirds of the story Miller’s Field of Mars (Penguin, 2006) introduced city in chaos, stupefied, not knowing to whom it cannot be revealed except to say that Ryzhkov’s brief a disaffected Petrograd detective Peyotr Ryzhkov should pay allegiance,” our sullen, Clive Owen-ish conversation with a dreamy, stupid, beautiful girl— who, when stirred out of his apathy by the murder anti-hero is told the czar and his entourage have a genuine Russian princess, the Grand Duchess of a child prostitute, unravels a plot to overthrow been assassinated three nights before—but, if so, Marie—prompts him to betray his better judgment the czar and install a puppet ruler in 1913. where’s the proof? and proceed on a path that is deliberately foolhardy Now Miller has returned with The Last Train When the White Russians take control of and remotely noble. to Kazan (Penguin $24), a longer and even more Yekaterinburg from the Red Russians (thanks to an One hint: A forensic note in the afterword men- intense novel that reintroduces Ryzhkov in a more invasion by Czechs), Ryzhkov ditches his identity tions that the remains of two of the nine bodies of ghastly, bewildering and bloodier adventure. papers and ingratiates himself to a dashing Italian the Russian Imperial family have yet to be accounted Although set during the Russian Revolution, no- named Giustiniani, joining the counter-investiga- for—the prince Alexei and one of his sisters, “al- body is going to confuse Stephen Miller’s The Last tion. Regardless of nationality or political leanings, most certainly Marie.” Train to Kazan with Dr. Zhivago. everybody wants to learn the czar’s fate because most ✍ “There were no dogs in the city,” he writes, de- European royal families are related. Like most of Dostoevsky’s novels, The Last Train scribing Moscow in 1918, “they had all been eaten.” If the Mensheviks, or White Russians, can right- to Kazan could have been shorter, but it’s the unre- On the opening pages, former czarist secret po- fully claim the Bolsheviks have grotesquely butch- lenting intensity, the desire to dig beneath surfaces, liceman Ryzhkov accepts an offer from the Bolshe- ered the Romanovs, powerful nations such as that resonates long after the storyline is forgotten. viks that he can’t refuse: He can either face a firing Germany and England could be hard pressed to The Last Train to Kazan is memorable like the squad or travel to Siberia to learn if the Russian royal support the Bolsheviks or their law firm of Lenin, movie Mephisto starring Klaus Maria family has been murdered (yet). Marx & Trotsky. Brandauer, a political drama in which a stage At the outset our man Ryzhkov is a survival artist, Hence the outcome of the Russian Civil War actor keeps transforming to ensure his survival little else. He is seriously non-aligned, a man for might not hinge on whether the czar and his eight MILLER TIME: within Nazi Germany. whom, “Life was just a vortex of loss.” He doesn’t give family members have been assassinated, or who has After 400-plus pages, it is hard not to wonder if a damn about the Romanovs. Or Comrade Lenin. offed them; but rather the destiny of Russia could Ivanhoe Hotel, Miller’s three decades of surviving as an actor, nec- As hostages of the Bolsheviks, the Romanovs were depend on who gets the news first, and how that Vancouver essarily adopting whichever roles are assigned to him, first sent beyond the Urals to Tobolsk, supposedly news can be manipulated for propaganda. has fuelled his ability to create a unique detective in

for their own safety, but mostly because the Red When a human finger is found at an abandoned LAURA SAWCHUCK PHOTO Ryzhkov. 978-0-14305585-3

22 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • WINTER • 2008-09 23 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • WINTER • 2008-09 reviews ROUND-UP BC

Janey Bennett: FICTIONHow green DIGGING UP was my novel REBELLION The Frog Lake Massacre by Bill Gallaher (Touchwood $18.95)

Bill Gallaher’s The Frog Lake Massacre fol- lows a young man named Jack Strong who leaves Victoria in 1884 for the prairies and witnesses the deaths of friends during the so-called Frog Lake Massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Northwest Rebel- lion. Led by a Cree named Wandering Spirit, Cree warriors dismissed the objec- tions of their chief, Big Bear, and attacked a small town near Frog Lake, Alberta on April 2, 1885, near Fort Pitt on the Alberta/Sas- katchewan border, as Bill Gallaher a protest against the BC dwindling of buffalo herds. BOOKWORLD Nine people were killed, including two STAFF PICK Oblate missionaries, Fathers Fafard and Marchand, and the Indian Agent Thomas Quinn. Gallaher’s novel opens with a com- memorative ceremony held in 1925, fol- lowed by Jack Strong’s memories. 978-1-894898-75-1 DIGGING UP DICK Red Dog, Red Dog by Patrick Lane (M&S $32.99)

Patrick Lane’s intense relationship with his DIGGING UP CRETE older brother Richard ‘Red’ Lane lends Archaeology, Nazis and restoring frescoes in Janey Bennett’s Greece autobiographical elements in his first novel, Red Dog, Red Dog, about two broth- The Pale Surface of Things by Janey Bennett (Hopeace Press $22) get drawn further into the history of the Cretan underground ers in an unnamed Okanagan town—and resistance during World War II. the possibilities for redemption and for- ll his life, Douglas has been going with the flow, not “Some are born Greek, some achieve Greekness, some have giveness. asserting himself, as if good looks can serve as a com- Greekness thrust upon them,” she says. “I was lucky. I stayed The story is redo- A pass. Hotfooting it from his own wedding vows in in Chania for a month, driving back and forth across Lefka lent of a harrowing western Crete, thereby horrifying his bourgeois betrothed and Ori, tracking down villages and World War II sites, looking for upbringing and the his crass, rich, American father-in-law-to-be, is an unforeseen locations and geographical links. desperation of feeling act of self-preservation. “I was planning to go back several times a year while I wrote trapped within pat- But where does he go? Where does he hide? Having Pale Surface and instead, after that trip I nearly died from a terns of violence and worked on a summer archaeological dig, Douglas takes ref- parasite I picked up in Asia, so I bought all these books and secrecy. It’s partly nar- uge with a Greek widow and her young son, a goat shepherd, researched by reading. rated by one of the Patrick Lane hoping to start his life afresh. But when our injured hero-on- “My Cretan friends think I may have been more accurate as dead infant daughters the-run gets robbed a second time—by the thief who shot a result of not being there, of not interacting with them. They that were buried by the boys’ violent fa- him the first time—he astonishes himself and the boy by stab- are amazed that I know more than they do about traditions on ther. While the older brother, Eddy, acts bing and apparently killing their assailant. the island and their grandmothers verify my information.” out with drugs and weapons, the more in- So now the formerly hapless Douglas is on the lam from Ultimately, the confluence of village traditions, Greek law trospective brother, Tom, tries to keep a the police as well as an irate father-in-law. Penniless, forced and the Orthodox church enable Douglas to learn necessary lid on his feelings. 978-0-7710-4635-3 to steal, he plunges headlong into village intrigues that have lessons of shame, terror, gratitude, forgiveness, and ultimately, arisen from the brutal Nazi occupation of Greece more than accountability. fifty years ago. The title The Pale Surface of Things refers to Father Dimitrios, DIGGING UP MOM That’s just the beginning of Janey Bennett’s fascinating who, with help from Douglas, painstakingly restores religious Watching July by Christine Hart (Sumach $12.95) first novel, The Pale Surface of Things. The young, would-be frescoes that were covered up during the war. It’s a sophisti- archaeologist is the hook for only half of the story. There’s cated, movie-like novel, slightly longer than it needs to be, In Christine Hart’s first novel Watching July, another, far more important central character, Father that persuasively shows how personal honour can be more 16-year-old July MacKenzie moves to the Dimitrios, wise beyond his years, viewed as radically modern important than sex, social striving or conformity. Interior with her other same-sex parent— by the locals, who has also eschewed romance. ✫ Marie—after her birth mother is killed in The American-educated but Crete-born Orthodox priest Published from Victoria, with an overly-modest book jacket, a traffic accident. As a teenage romance who uses email and rides an antique Vespa motorscooter has The Pale Surface of Things has received seven book industry awards, lifts July’s spirits, it comes to light that her returned to vendetta-riddled Crete to unravel a dark family including a gold medal for multicultural fiction from USA Book mother’s death was not secret. The paths of the two seekers finally cross about half- News Awards, as well as Indie Excellence Awards and Indie as straightforward as it way through the novel, by which time Janey Bennett has eas- Next Generation Awards. In Canada, Pale Surface has gained a first appeared, and she ily succeeded in making her reader want to get a ticket to fly citation for Best Use of Environmental Materials (from must unravel dangers to Heraklion from Athens as soon as possible. PubWest), shared with Friesens Printers of Manitoba, who used arising from her past. ✫ 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable inks. A graduate of Incorporating points of view from a myriad of supporting Raised in San Diego, the daughter of an English profes- UVic’s English depart- characters, Bennett has a Balzac-ian zeal for bringing the so- sor, Bennett is a UCLA graduate and architectural journalist ment, Hart also writes 978-0-9734007-2-4 for Shameless Magazine. ciety of Crete itself into the foreground of her story. We also who lives on Hornby Island and in Bellingham. Christine Hart 9781894549714

25 BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 reviews MYSTERIES

Seaweed on the Rocks by Stanley Evans (Touchwood $12.95)

WENTY YEARS AGO THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN A FUSS made about a white guy inventing a Coast TSalish detective named Silas Seaweed. Stanley Evans’ less-than-anthropological ap- proach to generating a gritty mystery yarn—sprin- kling depictions of indigenous mythology and religion for the purposes of entertaining storylines— would have been denounced as “appropriation” on the West Coast. But these days it’s fiction. Get over it. That seems GRITTYGRITTY to be Evans’ unabashedly confident approach in his fourth, Victoria-centric police procedural Seaweed On The Rocks. It’s so clearly evident that he means no disrespect—and the city of Victoria takes VICTORIA centre stage in Evans’s stories as much as his detective—that he has been able to develop BC his own style with relative impunity. BOOKWORLD “The Warrior Reserve does not exist,” STAFF PICK we are told. “The Mowaht Bay Band does not exist.” In Seaweed on the Rocks, the plotting can be a tad whimsical, but Silas Seaweed’s insouciant charm “Murder, like is infectious, Evans’ characters from the underbelly of society are superb and critical observations of Van- every other form couver Island society are refreshingly candid and often revealing. “Victoria’s ‘Viagra Triangle’ is based at Rock Bay,” of extreme he writes, “the area lying between Douglas Street and the Gorge Waterway. Fifty years ago it was largely residential, but now the few remaining houses share behaviour, Rock Bay with pawnshops, one-hour motels, used- car dealerships, warehouses, hole-in-the-wall con- signment shops and British Columbia’s is addictive.” liquor-distribution headquarters.” What the storyline lacks in urgency, it makes up for in complexity. When Silas investigates the over- —STANLEY EVANS dose of a girl he knew from his reserve, he encoun- ters a ten-foot-tall mythical bear, small-time crooks, a murdered hypnotist, bogus First Nations ceremonies for profit, a murdered blackmailer and a beautiful but aloof Lexus-driving First Nations love interest. It rollicks. There’s wit. And it’s original. 978-1894898-73-7 WOKE UP, IT WAS A CHELSEA MOURNING

Murder at the Hotel Cinema by Daniel Edward Craig (Midnight Ink $15.95)

Stanley Evans Having worked for luxury hotels across Canada, includ- in Victoria’s ing stints as Vice President of Chinatown Opus Hotels in Vancouver and Montreal, Daniel Edward Daniel E. Craig Craig has conceived a Five- Star Mystery Series to follow the adventures of hotel manager Trevor Lambert, Director of Rooms. As the consummate host turned house detec- tive, our hotelier hero must investigate how and why a Tinseltown starlet named Chelsea took a fa- tal dive from her penthouse suite in Murder at the Hotel Cinema, his second release. 978-0-7387-1119-5 CARDINAL SINS

The Cardinal Divide by Stephen Legault (NeWest $22.95)

Having a launched Highwater Mark Strategy and Communications in 2005 to support ethically driven businesses, Stephen Legault has used his experi- ences in both nature and politics for a mystery novel, The Cardinal Divide, set in Alberta’s Cardinal Divide. The down-on-his-luck protagonist Cole Blackwa- ter, is a former politico from Ottawa’s environmen- STANLEY EVANS BIBLIOGRAPHY tal movement, a divorced single dad, who accepts a contract to help a conserva- Seaweed on the Rocks (Touchwood, 2008) tion group stop a mining ------project. Seaweed under Water (Touchwood, 2007) Trouble is, when the ------head of the mining project Seaweed on Ice (Touchwood, 2006) is murdered, Blackwater ------PHOTO

becomes a suspect and must Seaweed on the Street (TouchWood, 2005) clear himself before he can EVANS help conserve the Cardinal Stephen Legault

DIANNE Divide. 978-1-897126-32-5

27 BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 reviews MYSTERIES THE PEOPLE SMUGGLERS MOVE OVER Angel in the Full Moon by Don Easton (Dundurn $11.99) n his third, all-too-believable police procedural, Angel in the Full Moon, Don Easton opens his exposé of people smuggling MISS MARPLE Iand sexual abuse of children with the transport of an inno- cent young girl from Hanoi to Canada, for eventual sale to an Ameri- Gwen Southin’s series of mysteries about a long- can as a sex slave. To nab the villainous Russian ringleaders of an in-the-tooth sleuth is feminism with dentures. international syndicate, Mountie Jack Taggart must travel to the beaches of Cuba and call upon his contacts with the Satan’s Wrath Death in a Family Way; In the Shadow of fifties, dressed in baggy grey motorcycle gang. Like Taggart, former RCMP undercover opera- Death; Death on a Short Leash by Gwen slacks and a blue-striped shirt.... Southin (Touchwood $12.95 each) tive Don Easton of Victoria has had contracts on his life and has There was no drink and no gun.” undertaken dangerous work using false identities. “I want the read- he heroine is a senior As she is drawn into the inves- ers to experience what I did,” he says. “In so doing, what they read citizen Pygmalion, tigation of a string of abductions, will challenge their own morality of what they may originally believe Margaret Spencer, Spencer, a mother of two grown to be right or wrong. I want them to see, as Jack Taggart says, the who evolves into a daughters, discovers she has a ‘Big Picture.’ In the world of the undercover operative, life is not PHOTO Tfeisty Murder-She-Wrote-type hero- knack for solving mysteries and black and white, where good guys and bad guys are easily defined. ine, a la Angela Lansbury. her relationship with the former Instead, it becomes murky and grey.” 978-1-55002-813-3

Gwen Southin: Literary late SAWCHUK

Spencer is introduced as a cop Southby starts to grow. well-mannered, post-Edwardian ✫ bloomer among boomers type, born in 1908, who inadvert- Set in the Cariboo in 1959, In LAURA DEATH & TAXES Lower Mainland in 1960, ently becomes a crime-solver in the Shadow of Death features Southin’s newest release, Death Fatal Encryption by Debra Purdy Kong (Gypsy Moth Press $19.95) the late 1950s. Margaret Spencer on a dude on a Short Leash, has the duo in- ✫ ranch vacation that soon detours s her sequel to Taxed to Death, former criminology student vestigating the death of a veteri- In Death in a Family Way, set her into unsolved murders. Even- Debra Purdy Kong of Port Moody has a second novel fea- narian’s assistant whose body is in 1958, Spencer’s dissatisfaction tually her boss arrives and they turing a Revenue Canada Agency auditor, Alex Bellamy. found in a cranberry bog. A with her corporate lawyer hus- unravel the intrigue together. Eighteen months after getting fired from the RCA, Bellamy reap- Corruption abounds at the band—who works for Snodgrass, Equally important, Margaret pears in Fatal Encryption dressed as Kermit the Frog on Hallowe’en Silver Springs Nursing Home in Crumbie & Spencer—prompts Spencer leaves her husband and night, wondering where his life went wrong. Richmond, and they discover her to take part-time work for her comfortable home in In need of cash, Alex agrees to help catch a computer prank- the dead body of Brother Nat Southby, a gumshoe-detec- Kerrisdale in favour of a base- ster at McKinley’s Department Store, but Francois in Abbotsford. Puppies tive working out of a third floor ment suite in Kitsilano and a love things turn serious when someone vows to link the nursing home to a office on West Broadway. affair with Nat. permanently encrypt the store’s data and phony religious sect. It’s una- “He certainly didn’t look like The more her husband har- torch the building unless ten million dollars bashedly Lower Mainland lit. Humphrey Bogart in the Maltese asses her and urges her to re- is handed over in two weeks. Along the way As a reward for her dili- Falcon or any of the other detec- turn to her suffocating Alex gets implicated in a murder. He knows gence, Ms. Spencer gains ro- tives she had seen in the mov- marriage, the more she knows there’s a connection between the murder mance and a full partnership in ies, for that matter...,” Southin she is right to seek employment and the extortion threat, yet time’s running the gumshoe business by the writes, and sex. out. People are questioning his competency; end of the third novel. Debra Purdy Kong “Instead, Nat was somewhat ✫ 9780969921110 Family Way 1-894898-72-9; Shadow a killer is threatening his life. overweight, probably in his mid- Set in various parts of the 1-894898-71-0; Short Leash 1-894898-70-2

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29 BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 reviews FICTION ROUND-UP TOUCHING THE OLYMPICS

To See the Sky by Christopher Nowlin BLAST FROM THE PAST (Granville Island $18.95) In Jim Christy’s Vancouver noir, the fun circles around buried treasure, Vancouver gets renamed Olympia, stolen art, femme fatales, sad sack losers, sexual deviants and bohemians. Squamish is Squamoosh and Penticton becomes Penwickton. That’s how criminal defence lawyer Christopher Nowlin re- Nine O’Clock Gun by Jim Christy (Ekstasis $22.95) Raised on the mean streets of South Philadelphia, tough guy Jim Christy is a well traveled, school-of-hard- draws the map for To eading Jim Christy’s fourth and final knocks type dude who understands his characters See the Sky, an ecologi- installment of his Gene Castle Private Inves- well. Christy’s work reminds us that losers are cool, cally sensitive crime tigator Series, Nine O’Clock Gun, is like watch- that the middle-of-the-road might be smoother but novel set against the R backdrop of construc- ing a good late night b-movie starring Edward G. the ditches are more interesting, and that every Robinson or Humphrey Bogart. rounder has a good story to tell. tion projects for the Set in a perpetually foggy night, this is a compul- Nine O’clock Gun is a class detective novel and one 2010 Winter Games in sively readable journey into Vancouver’s past, in keep- GRANT SHILLING can easily imagine this series serving as the basis for a Vancouver and Whis- tler. After the pro- ing with Christy’s previous Vancouver noir novels film or television series. 978-1-897430-20-0 Christopher Nowlin Shanghai Alley, Princess and Gore, and Terminal Avenue—all named ✫ posed expansion of for Vancouver streets or landmarks. B.C. fiction aficionados might want to know that veteran Van- that Sea-to-Sky highway generates social The new novel’s dramatic conclusion occurs at the Nine couver newspaperman and golf columnist Roland Wild also pub- unrest, two children disappear and their O’Clock Gun in Stanley Park, a cultural landmark that was first lished a collection of semi-historical Vancouver stories called father becomes the main suspect. installed at Brockton Point in 1894. For many years the cannon The Nine O’Clock Gun, in 1952. Wild weaves a tale from the bois- Nowlin’s environmentally conscious was fired to mark the beginning and closing of fishing hours in terous boom-town days of Gassy Jack Deighton to the repres- protagonist, Demme Astrilsun, is inde- Burrard Inlet. With so many unemployed men trying to make a sive civic administration of Mayor Gerry McGeer, tracing the pendently wealthy. “I’ve lived in various living by fishing, the canneries needed to restrict fishing to pre- fortunes of a fictional Scottish immigrant. cities across Canada,” Nowlin told the vent over-supply. Over the years, the citizens of Van- See www.abcbookworld.com for more info. Calgary Herald, “and I’ve never witnessed couver began to depend on the Nine O’ Clock the same sense of affluence, the same self- gun to set their watches. It was moved to its Grant Shilling is a regular confidence that you get in Vancouver. I contributor from present location at Hallelujah Point in 1954. just wanted to question in a fairly satirical Cumberland This time Detective Gene Castle re- way the rationale that we need the rest of turns to Vancouver from questionable the world to put Vancouver in the spot- activities in what once was known light [with the Olympics].” 978-1-894694-55-1 as ‘Indo-China.. As Castle steps off the deck of the Santa Lucia, HITLER & JESUS, at the foot of Shanghai Alley near the end of World War II, “There was fog and sun- UNITED shine at the same time and Crucified by Michael Slade (Penguin $24) all but the very tops of the tallest buildings ap- Spanning 2,000 years, Crucified by Michael peared to glow from Slade is a Vatican conspiracy novel that within like illuminated links Roman Catholicism to a high-rank- cotton candy.” ing Third Reich member named Judas The big ‘W’ atop the who betrayed Hitler, as the original Judas Woodwards building betrayed Christ. stands for ‘Woe,’ the The story unravels hero informs us. from the contempo- “Hell, what the old rary discovery in Ger- burg really looks like many of an Allied is a hophead’s Kubla bomber plane called Khan. So goddamed the Ace of Clubs. The beautiful that, like grand-daughter of the any self-respecting Michael Slade downed pilot, Liz hophead him or her, Hannah, enlists the I don’t want to come help of a bestselling author and historian, down. They’re wait- Wyatt Rook, to explain how the bomber ing on me, calling: was so severely off-course when it disap- Come down, Castle. peared. Come down to these, Their investigations soon attract atten- your tawdry streets.” tion from the Vatican, enabling Slade to What’s an old make historical detours into the Crusades gumshoe to do? Haunted and Satanism, with flourishes of torture by thoughts of his advancing and murder en route. 978-0-143167-78-5 age and the perfume scent of an old flame, Castle watches the A RIVER RAN body count climb and all the events strike close to his rain and INTO IT gin-soaked world. Events circle After River by Donna Jonas Milner around buried treasures, beau- (HarperCollins $29.95) tiful women, stolen art and a pa- Set mostly in a fictional B.C. border town PHOTO rade of femme fatales, sad sack losers, grifters, sexual devi- named Atwood, Donna Jonas Milner’s first novel, After River, is a reflective memoir

ants and bohemians. In PETERSON other words, fun. about a woman coming to terms with the

BARRY disintegration of her family some 35 years after a Vietnam War draft resister named River Jordan crossed into Canada and changed their lives. Prejudice against the gentle, long-haired River in a rural B.C. Jim Christy community mixes with has evolved his own the fear of homosexu- ality, leading to the King of the Road rape of the teenage outsiderism, now protagonist and narra- reflected in his novels. tor, daughter of the town’s milkman. Donna Milner 978-0-06-146299-3

31 BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 reviews FICTION ROUND-UP DIAPER HILL DENIZENS

In the Quiet After Slaughter by Don McLellan (Libros Libertad $17.95)

In the late 1940s, a hillside was cleared off to make way for the Renfrew Heights Housing Project for War Veterans in Van- couver. Streets were named after memo- rable battle sites from both world wars, such as Normandy, Vimy, Dieppe, Anzio, Mons. The lives of the people in those bunga- lows are the basis for many of the seven- teen stories in former Vancouver Sun reporter Don McLellan’s first fic- tion collection, In the Quiet After Slaughter, thirteen of which have appeared in literary magazines. “Demand for the Don McLellan rental units out- stripped supply,” McLellan writes, “so the coveted homes were let to those who’d en- dured considerable frontline action. Suc- cessful candidates were also required to have at least two children, encouraging ac- tion amongst hopeful applicants of a more

PHOTO welcome sort. An appropriate moniker for the residential development suggested it- self nine months hence: Diaper Hill.” SAWCHUK McLellan grew up in Renfrew Heights,

LAURA a neighbourhood bordered by East 22nd Avenue, Rupert Street, Grandview High- way and Boundary Road in Vancouver. 9780980897975 TWINS The Cult of Quick Repair by Dede Crane Betsy Trumpener’s (Coteau $18.95) REPORTER GETS HER Dede Crane’s first short story collection, debut fiction in The Cult of Quick Repair, has been simulta- neously released with a collection of non- The Butcher of Penetang fiction stories, Birth, The Common Miracle is not for the squeamish (2008), which she co- edited with Lisa Moore. CHOPS DOWN Having studied BY CHERIE THIESSEN Some of the writing is quite simply arresting: “The night the Psychokinetics at the The Butcher of Penetang by Betsy Trumpener (Caitlin Press $17.95) villagers burned each other in effigy was the night Wolfgang Body-Mind Institute in Amherst, Massachu- fell in love,” she writes in “Burning in Salango on Saturday Dede Crane re you up for meeting hunters with hearts of gold and the Night.” setts, and Buddhist psy- A souls of children in a story called “A Slip of the Tongue”? Or this sentence from “Where It Hurts,” “Once, I looked chology at the Naropa Institute in Or a toddler who cracks eggs on the family dog’s snout in a out the streetcar window and saw a man flying through the air.” Colorado, Crane, a former ballet dancer story called “Even a Blind Hen”? But mostly the writer presents the facts and then lets you and choreographer, now lives in Victoria Or the youth group leader who likes to show young girls his decide how you feel. with writer Bill Gaston. 978-1-55050-392-0 porn magazines at the Bible camp’s sleepover in “Instructions ✍ for Altar Boys”? Many of the stories are written in the second person, so there’s Or Keith at the Good Shepherd Day Centre, who thinks a an extra assignment for the reader—to discern who the myste- THE SLOW WAIT wet teabag is his testicle and who later is picked up for trying to rious ‘you’ is. All yous are not created equal. rob a bank with his wife’s hairbrush in “Sa- Sometimes they change gender. Fre- FOR FAME tan’s House”? quently they appear to be the writer her- The Slow Fix by Ivan E. Coyote (Arsenal $18.95) I am. I like the sheer wackiness of “The night the villagers self, as in “Elk Canyon Bugler Seeks Junior Betsy Trumpener’s style and her courage Reporter.” Or, to ensure you do your Nice to think that Yukon-raised Ivan E. in trying it on. burned each other in homework, the point of view even shifts Coyote has got herself a respectable teach- ✍ in the middle of the story in “Emergen- ing gig at Carleton University these days You can tell Trumpener of Prince effigy was the night cies.” after her novel Bow Grip won the ReLit George is a CBC reporter. Just when you may be getting over- Award, was shortlisted for the Ferro- The Butcher of Penetang is a good choice Wolfgang fell in love.” zapped with the style, along comes a story Grumley Fiction Prize in the U.S and was for a title story, and the 40 narrative snip- like “The Coffin Maker,” veering off named a Stonewall Honor Book by the pets that comprise this fiction collection flash by as quickly as course with its zany, surreal black humour. American Library Association. the clips from a news broadcast. ✍ Now we’ll see how the mainstream re- Some stories are further divided into sub-chapters, and de- So is the Butcher of Penetang worth the effort? I expect differ- sponds to her new short story collection, tails can be sparse, so the reader has lots of work, occasionally ent readers will respond differently. It’s a personal thing; not The Slow Fix, in which a cousin’s stepdaugh- having to provide endings, too. everyone likes his or her ‘meat’ miniscule and bloody. ter helps her overcome her lifelong dread Frankly, I hate it when a writer does that. I want to know This is a skinny book, divided into four sections entitled, “A of buying tampons and she tells a what happened to that missing child in “Search Party.” But, Slip of the Tongue,” “Even a Blind Hen,” “All the Child I Ever homophobe in the bar- like a good, impartial reporter, the author generally keeps her Had” and “Zap Valley.” ber’s seat next to her to own point and conclusions from being overt. Like a skilled butcher, Trumpener chops and saws through shut up—among many We’re never quite sure, for instance, in the title story, how sinew, bone and cartilage, in order to serve up the best cuts. of the subversively she feels toward Gabe when he leaves her on the butcher’s ta- The liver gets saved for a special treat at the end. comic situations. In a ble.... This is Trumpener’s first book, but her writing has been rec- less conservative coun- In the last story, “Zap Valley,” while the narrator is seriously ognized in publications that include the Malahat Review, Doug- try, Ivan E. Coyote ill in hospital, and her friend is having sex with the wrong boy- las College’s Event, The Globe and Mail, and the Guardian. 978-1-894759-30-4 would be famous by friend, and the narrator is about to be abandoned by them both, now. Ivan E. Coyote what’s her attitude? Cherie Thiessen reviews fiction from Pender Island. 978-1-55152-247-0

33 BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 reviews FICTION ROUND-UP FOOD, WINE & A 400 YEAR OLD MAN

The Order of Good Cheer by Bill Gaston (Anansi $29.95)

Bill Gaston came to teach at the Univer- sity of Victoria Writing Department in 1998 following a dozen years in the Maritimes, mostly at the University of New Brunswick, where he was initially writer-in-residence. His new novel, HORATIO The Order of Good Cheer, contains two parallel stories of AT THE MONUMENT men separated by ✍ 400 years and the Of a Fire Beyond the Hills “I didn’t take the death threats very seri- span of the North by Ernest Hekkanen (New Orphic $25) Hekkanen concentrates American conti- ously, knowing how my former compatri- his narrative on events in Nel- nent. Each is hop- istory happens in the son when city fathers suddenly Bill Gaston ots, especially those on the political right, ing to save the blink of an eye. There feared for the fate of their diminishing morale of his group of com- His much to be said for loved to bravely puff up their pigeon tourism industry. As recording it while wounds are Hekkanen’s role became fun- panions in a remote and unfriendly cor- chests.” — ERNEST HEKKANEN ner of Canada by forming an Order of Good fresh. Subtitled “a novel based on damental in news stories from Cheer—“where nobles and men can enjoy news stories,” Ernest Hekkanen’s CNN, ABC, FOX, CBC, Los good local food, excellent wine, and cama- Of a Fire Beyond the Hills is a rare Angeles Times, Vancouver Sun, raderie.” The Order of Good Cheer was a name attempt to record local history with emotion and a twist of re- New York Times, and Globe & Mail, etc., he found his private life bestowed by Samuel de Champlain on a venge—undiluted by recollections. rapidly eroding. After the Doukhobor Museum outside of series of feast nights he hosted during the In the late spring of 2007, as a forest fire raged outside the Castlegar failed to provide a home for the controversial monu- winter of 1607. 978-0-88784-200-9 town of Nelson (giving rise to the title), right wingers from across ment as hoped, Hekkanen, in the novel, reluctantly provides the United States sent a barrage of hate mail to Nelson, pro- refuge for it in his own living room—and his wife isn’t thrilled. testing the possible erection of a War Resisters Monument. “I didn’t take the death threats very seriously,” he writes, WRESTLEMANIAC Hekkanen, author of 38 books, ended up being the local spokes- “knowing how my former compatriots, especially those on the person for the idealists who wanted the statue. political right, loved to bravely puff up their pigeon The Man Game by Lee Henderson (Penguin $32) “What does the monument mean to me—to chests.” In terms of its dual time structure, Lee me personally,” he advised the media, “For ✍ Henderson’s novel The Man Game resem- me, it’s a middle finger salute to the In essence, Hekkanen has counter-at- bles Gaston’s Good Cheer. A present-day sub- White House, the Veterans of For- tacked, providing a fiery and often funny urbia-bound narrator named Kat imagines eign Wars and all the other right- local history of the wave of fear, patriot- a livelier period of Vancouver history, via wing morons who determine ism and dollar-driven hysteria that ef- archival research, when he uncovers a bru- foreign policy down in the fectively blew the lid off Nelson’s tal combat game that originated from the United States.” image as an idyllic community. He has aftermath of Vancouver’s Great Fire of In 1967, reading Tolstoy’s likened his strange book to Henrik 1886: Ostensibly, a Patriotism: The Slavery of our Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People and Nor- former vaudeville Times encouraged Hekkanen man Mailer’s The Armies of the Night, but performer and en- to evade the draft and come it’s more journalistic and confessional. trepreneur named to Canada. Forty years later, in “Now I wear a beard similar to Molly and her 2007, the fate of the oldest Abraham Lincoln’s,” he writes. “I don’t paralyzed ex-ac- brother of a friend must have look anything like Lincoln. I look more countant husband also stirred his Horatio-like like I could play the role of one of the meet two lumber- stance. First drafted by the New apes in Planet of the Apes—without any jacks accused of York Yankees, then drafted by Un- facial putty.” Lee Henderson starting the blaze, cle Sam, this young man had his legs Of a Fire Beyond the Hills resonates not whereupon Molly invents a bare-knuckled shot from under him while leaping as an advertisement for bravery so much as sport more real than WWF. from a helicopter into Viet Cong-held a defense of it. He’s not getting the last Henderson’s The Broken Record Technique territory—never to play baseball laugh, but it’s his version of reality that will (Penguin, 2002), which won the Danuta again. prevail for posterity. 978-1-894842-13-6 Gleed Literary Award for debut fiction, has been reprinted to coincide with the re- lease of this novel. In one of Henderson’s short stories, Spines the Length of Velcro, pu- bescent boys in sumo wrestler costumes compete while their parents stake the odds. 978-0-670-91147-9 REELING BC IN THE BOOKWORLD YEARS STAFF PICK

Renovating Heaven by Andreas Schroeder (Oolichan $18.95)

Born in Hoheneggelsen, Germany, in 1946, Andreas Schroeder immigrated to Canada in 1951 when his family joined a Ernest Hekkanen’s Mennonite congregation in the Fraser Val- Of a Fire Beyond the ley that was founded by his grandfather. All 62 members of the congregation were Hills was shortlisted related to Schroeder on his mother’s side. for the George Ryga In three novellas that comprise Reno- vating Heaven, Schroeder, who holds the Award for Social Chair in Creative Nonfiction in UBC’s Awareness in B.C. Creative Writing Program and lives near Roberts Creek, recounts several decades of adaptation to Canadian society and his own subsequent alienation from conserva- tive Mennonite values. Andreas Schroeder is the author of twenty books. 978-088982-248-1

34 BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 reviews FICTION ROUND-UP CHICKLIT, CROONERS, THE LONER & MOTIVATIONS & THE NOVELIST

Chronicles of a Mid-Life Crisis by Robyn Harding (Penguin $18) Frankie Styne & the Silver Man by Kathy Page (Phoenix $23.95) Unabashedly promoted as chicklit, Robyn Harding’s third novel Chronicles of a Mid-Life Crisis Kathy Page’s themes have been identified details the break-up of a 16-year marriage due to as loss, survival, transformation and “the the husband’s unexpected disenchantment, the sub- magic by which a bad hand becomes a good sequent rebelliousness of their 15-year-old daughter, chance.” Her newly reissued Frankie Styne and the eventual reunion of her parents, Trent and & the Silver Man is about the very odd rela- Lucy, in order to deal with the parenting crisis. Now tionship between an obsessive loner who Robyn Harding living in Vancouver, Harding is one of the few novel- writes gruesome killer ists on the planet born in Quesnel. 978-0-14-305375-0 novels and his new

The Old Familiar by Alix Hawley (Thistledown $17.95) next-door neighbours, a new mother and her As a fourth-generation resident of Kelowna, teaching at highly unusual infant Okanagan College, Alix Hawley explores attractions and named Jim. distractions in her first “dark and sharp” fiction collection, When the novelist The Old Familiar. Frank hatches a real- In “Romance,” a young man employed for the summer Kathy Page life plot, the lives of the by a wealthy family discovers he and his first-time lover have mother Liz and her different sexual motivations. In “They Call Her Lovely Rita” very strange child are transformed. a man feels he has absentmindedly misplaced his wife some- This new edition marks the onset of a where, and goes searching for her. In “Chemical Wedding,” new Writers’ Union of Canada initiative to a gorgeous woman manoeuvres the murky waters of a din- assist members to revive out-of-print work. ner party with a former friend’s family. 978-1-897235-49-2 9780969079651 That Tune Clutches my Heart by Paul Headrick (Gaspereau $24.95) MYSTERY BEA In the social milieu of Magee High School back in 1948, teens are avidly debating the crooning abilities of Bing Gifts and Bones by Barbara Murray Crosby and Frank Sinatra, but May (Soames Point Press / White Knight $22.95) Sutherland is ambivalent about com- Bowen Islander Barbara Murray’s first paring the two singers. Alix Hawley studied English literature novel in her planned Bea and Mildred se- In That Tune Clutches my Heart, a and creative writing ries of mysteries, Gifts and Bones, is set in coming-of-age novel by Langara Col- at Oxford University Newfoundland in 1902. lege teacher Paul Headrick, May and UBC. Working as a maid, the heroine Bea spills her lonely heart into a diary MacDonald enlists the company of her odd given to her by her mother after relative, Mildred, to solve a disappearance suddenly losing two best friends. from the household in which she is em- Paul Headrick 9781554470648 ployed. 978-09783373-0-8

TRANSMONTANUS 17 Stranger Wycott’s Place Stories from the Cariboo –Chilcotin by John Schreiber Find it here:

Blackberry Books • Duthie Books • People’s Co-op Bookstore • Bolen Books Sorensen Books • Munro’s • Crown Publications • Cadboro Bay Books • Pollen Sweaters, Lund • Salt Spring Books • Open Book, Williams Lake • Overwaitea & Save-On Foods • amazon.com www.NewStarBooks.com

35 BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 reviews FICTION ROUND-UP SHAKESPEARE’S VERNE’S RETURN WOMEN Silent Girl by Tricia Dower (Inanna $22.95) Jules Verne sets latest book in B.C. Tricia Dower has produced an unusual col- lection of stories inspired by female char- The Golden Volcano by Jules Verne (University of Nebraska Press $15.95 U.S.) acters in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Pericles, The Taming of the Shrew, The Winter’s Tale, veryone knows that Jules Verne, “the most translated author Othello, Hamlet, Twelfth Night and in the world,” gave the world Journey to the Center of the Earth Coriolanus. and Around the World in Eighty Days. Few know he also wrote a E Set in Canada, Kyrgyzstan, Thailand, cautionary tale set in B.C. and the Yukon. and the United States, Two naïve Canadian cousins, Ben Raddle and Summy Skim, travel the stories in Silent Girl across Canada by train and spend one of the opening chapters of portray girls and Jules Verne’s novel The Golden Volcano in Vancouver prior to seeking women dealing with is- their fortunes in the Klondike via the deadly Chilkoot Pass. sues such as racism, so- The completed manuscript for The Golden Volcano was one of eight cial isolation, sexual unpublished novels found after Verne died in 1905, but the author’s slavery, kidnapping, vio- son Michel Verne re-wrote much of it to erase his father’s cynicism lence, family dynamics about gold (an attitude Verne developed while working at the Paris and the fluid bounda- Stock Exchange). With the recovery of Verne’s manuscripts by the Tricia Dower ries of gender. Société Jules Verne, Edward Baxter has provided a newly translated The novella-length allegory that closes version, undoing the tamperings of Verne, Jr. 978-0-8032-9635-0 the book, The Snow People: 30-46 AGM is Cibou by Susan de Biagi set on Vancouver Island in a future in which (Cape Breton University Press/Nimbus $19.95) environmental degradation has spawned fear and oppression. 978-0-9808822-0-9 Set in the 17th-century Mi’kma’ki territory of New B.C. the Mi’kmaq, Susan de Biagi’s first novel, Cibou, is narrated by a Mi’kmaq woman who is the author PORTRAIT STORIES

daughter of a French father. It chiefly concerns Undertow by Virginia Dansereau (Kalmalka Press $10) her relationship with a Jesuit historical figure, Jules Verne missionary Anthony Daniel, who was first sta- Okanagan College in Vernon marks its Susan de Biagi tioned in Cape Breton in 1632, and his brother, 20th year of publishing with the release Captain Charles Daniel, who established a French trading post in of Undertow, a collection of short stories 1629. The priest Daniel was later martyrized in Huronia and be- by Virginia Dansereau. came known as Saint Anthony Daniel. The stories vary in texture from the or- Susan de Biagi of Powell River holds Métis status under the con- dinary to the extraordinary, range in lo- stitution, as a member of the Nova Scotia Federation of Métis. Her cale from Canadian towns and waterfronts heritage is French and Mi’kmaw, dating back almost exactly to the to a New Mexican mesa and a Costa Rican time of her novel, “so I feel it is my story and my heritage.” hideaway, and they mostly explore the no- Biagi does not call herself a First Nations author. 978-1-897009-29-1 tion of portraiture in fiction. 978-0-9738057-5-8

Poet-laureate George Bowering’s classic GG-winning novel ‘A lively — and deadly — chronicle of fi rst encounters between the New World’s early settlers and this continent’s lesser beasts. Seldom has scholarship been served up with about Captain George Vancouver is back in print such delectable charm and saucy wit.’ – SYLVIA FRASER What Species of Creatures Burning Water Animal Relations from the New World by George Bowering by Sharon Kirsch Find it here

Find it here Duthie Books • Pulpfiction • People’s Co-op Bookstore • Blackberry Books • Cadboro Duthie Books • Pulpfi ction • 32 Books, Bay Books, Victoria • Sorensen Books, North Vancouver • People’s Co-op Book- Victoria • Pollen Sweaters, Lund • Salt store • Cadboro Bay Books, Victoria • Spring Books • Abraxas Books, Denman I. • Crown Publications, Victoria • Sorensen Marnie’s Books, Cortes I. • Book Bonanza, Books, Victoria • BC Ferries • Indigo Books + Music • Chapters • Quadra I. • Crown Publications, Victoria • amazon.com Indigo • Chapters • amazon.com www.NewStarBooks.com www.NewStarBooks.com

INTERROBANG?! Anthology on Scalawags: Music and Family Rogues, Roustabouts, (DECOMPOSITION, SAN FRANCISCO $13) Wags & Scamps Includes stories by Jean Smith, lyricist/singer for Vancouver rock duo by Jim Christy Mecca Normal, Ian MacKaye of Fugazi, and others. In these pages you will encounter gamblers ISBN 978-0-9818706-6-3 and adventurers, con men and con women, [email protected] rodomontades and ragamuffins, outright fools and outrageous liars. Scalawags, the THE ART OF lot of them. TOURING !" #"$%"! " (YETI PUBLISHING, PORTLAND $19.96) The wild, amazing—almost unbelievable— Focuses on the personal experiences lives of those who dared to really live. P      of a touring musician. Over 40   Q contributors, including Sonic Youth's O  Thurston Moore and Jean Smith.
     ISBN 978-09788786-0-3
     N www.yetipublishing.com !"#$%#&$%%$'

36 BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 GENERATION Y GENERATION EX Monument by Patrick Blennerhassett Potshots by Hal Sisson (Now or Never Publishing $19.95) (Manor House/White Knight $24.95)

As an arts and entertainment reporter for As a prequel to his comedic Figgwiggin the Victoria News, Patrick Blennerhassett, and Fowler trilogy, former lawyer Hal at age 26, has released Monument, a first Sisson offers his seventh novel, Potshots, an- novel about “Generation Y confusion” in other humourous romp about the mis- the form of a fictional memoir by a cen- adventures of Phil Figgwiggin, QC, who tral character named Seth Wilhelm. defends a call girl and a marijuana grow- “A lot of the book is derived directly operator after his stay at an idyllic Gulf Is- from personal experience,” says lands guest farm. 978-0-9809356-0-8 Blennerhassett, “playing hockey, drinking, drugs, dealing with being young and very, very stupid in a cul- ture of Canadian ALSO RECEIVED bars, clubs, hockey No Easy Answers Post by Arley McNeney rinks and house by Deanna Lueder (Thistledown $19.95) (Women’s Press $22.95) ------parties. This book is ------Darwin’s Paradox by about my friends Passe Partout Nina Munteanu and I, and how we by Sam Wharton (Dragon Moon $19.95) all sort of get lost (Libros Libertad $19.95) ------Patrick after, or during, ------Zorgamazoo Blennerhassett high school.” Good to a Fault by Robert Paul Weston A self-described Thompson Rivers Uni- by Marina Endicott (Penguin $17.50) (Freehand Books $25.95) ------versity English drop-out, Patrick ------Memories are Murder Blennerhassett graduated in journalism Template by Matthew by Lou Allin from Langara and won a Jack Webster Fel- Hughes (PS Pub. $37) (Napoleon $15.95) lowship Award in 2007. 978-0-9739558-4-2 ------Pretenders by Lynda He Rode Tall Williams (Edge $20.95) by Ross Buchanan ------(Libros Libertad $22.95) GENERATION XXX The Silk Train ------webc@m girl by Natasha Davies Murders Wild Talent (Le Bon Mot Books $18.95) by Sharon Rowse by Eileen Kernaghan (Carroll & Graf $24.95) (Thistledown $15.95) n Natasha Davies’s ground-breaking ------first novel webc@m girl, Brandon The Well & Other Stickboy: A Novel in Stories Verse by Shane L. Chase, a privileged 30-something play- I by Nick Faragher Koyczan (House of boy, is infatuated with Vancouver’s hottest (Thistledown $16.95) Parlance $22.99) webcam girl, Shelby Munro—but the path of virtual love doesn’t run smooth. Previously listed BC fiction Shelby wants out of the on-line adult sex industry. After she turns off the Far from Botany Bay The Gum Thief by webcams in her apartment, Brandon sees by Rosa Jordan Douglas Coupland the newly virtuous Shelby—the real (Oolichan $22.95) (Random House $32) ------Shelby—in a trendy bar and introduces Red Dust, Red Sky by Incidental Music by himself, hinting she might get some work Paul Sunga (Coteau Carol Matthews with his company. $21) (Oolichan $18.95) When Shelby’s former on-line manager ------Craig discovers Shelby has not only left Kill All the Lawyers Falling from Heights him for a job at Brandon’s security soft- by William Deverell by Chris F. Needham (M&S $34.99) (Now or Never $21.95) ware company, but is also having an affair with her boss, Craig descends deeper into a world of drugs and extortion, plotting to humiliate and ruin Shelby. If Doug Coupland had worked in the Vancouver on-line sex industry, he might have written this all-too-believ- able novel of man- ners. Natasha Davies has a background in business journalism, and has covered the Web for magazines, TV, new media and newspapers includ- ing Internet News and The Globe & Mail. 0973584041

YOKA’s Spring Literary pick is: BC Paul Rossetti Bjarnason’s BOOKWORLD Natasha Davies: Stargazers: Stories of the First Philosophers pay-for-view sex STAFF PICK in the city (John Hunt Publishing, O Books, UK $19.95) 1846940583

37 BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 reviewsPOETRY

Rader’s nature is specific; there’s not an airy abstraction to be found. The po- NOT AN AIRY ems about compost exude the sweetish scent of semi-decomposition. ABSTRACTION “Chipped enamel of egg, cuttings, kitchen chaff, coffee grounds ground down to earth by a staff of earthworms, the compost moulted in TO BE FOUND its spot at the garden’s verge, a fetid incubator of rot…. Living Things by Matt Rader (Nightwood $16.95) End-rhymed, cadenced and often in formal patterns such as sonnet, there is noth- poet who can do ing sloppy about these wry ob- woodstoves and chain- servations and they are very A saws, Matt Rader, who informed. grew up in Comox and now lives Sit with one of Rader’s tree in Oregon, is not a nature faddist. MAIN-VAN HANNAH DER KAMP poems, close the book, close Living Things is a slim volume that your eyes, and there is his ex- shows a highly familiar knowledge act tree. You’ve been momentarily away of trees, plants and birds which did not from your self, the tree took you away. get picked up by browsing a field guide. Described as “little hobgoblins of muck,” In a poem from a longer piece, Lives of frogs drag the poet “nightly by the mind North American Trees, the poet gets hectored rushes/into the reeds, thrash me with sedge and by the “heart on sleeve, bad skin” arbutus. leave/me for a moment, mugged of myself, re- “Windfirm. Hardscrabble./I unravel a lieved.” 9780889712232 standard in the rock and grime / of the subsoil where you too will return/ in the post burn of Hannah Main-Van Der Kamp your life.” writes from Victoria. RALPH MAUD VS BOSWELL

Charles Olson at the Harbor by Ralph Maud (Talonbooks $19.95)

ylan Thomas expert and a B.C. First Nations au- Dthority Ralph Maud first met the American poetry icon Charles Olson during a two-year stint at State University of New York at Buffalo—and there arose House of Parlance Media, Inc. the third side of his split literary Fall 2008 Subscribe personality. Since his Buffalo days, Maud To receive the next 4 issues by mail, From the award-winning author, send a cheque for $12.60 Shane. L. Koyczan: has resolutely admired and cham- Stickboy: A Novel in Verse pioned Olson, editing Olson’s let- ISBN 978-0-973-8131-6-6 ters and contributing to efforts to Name ...... “…compelling, intimate restore Olson’s house at 28 Fort …and brutally honest…” -Dr. Marlene Moretti, Square, Gloucester, Massachu- ...... Simon Fraser University setts as a research centre for “Shane Koyczan is electrifying.” Olson studies. Apt/Box #...... -Val McDermid, author

Now, to undo the harm done PHOTO

to Olson’s reputation by Tom Street...... From Juno-Award nominee Clark’s 1991 biography Charles ARCHIVES

Kinnie Starr: ...... How I Learned to Run Olson: The Allegory of a Poet’s Life, OLSON

ISBN 978-0-973-8131-3-5 Ralph Maud has written Charles Charles Olson, circa 1940s

City...... “Intimate and reverently bombastic!!” Olson at the Harbor to depict Olson KATE -Richard Van Camp, as a great poetic genius as well as a highly author of The Lesser Blessed Talonbooks has three authors nominated Prov/Code...... successful Herman Melville scholar. “…edgy…enchanting…” for Governor General’s Awards: Weyman -The New Yorker It’s all heady, esoteric stuff. Olson is Reply to: 3516 West 13th Ave. touted as the author of one of the two Chan for Noise from the Laundry (poetry); greatest American long poems of the Sachiko Murakami for The Invisibility Ex- Vancouver, B.C. V6R 2S3 www.houseofparlance.com twentieth century, ‘The Maxiumus Po- hibit (poetry) and Marie Clements for ems,’ rivaling Ezra Pound’s ‘The Cantos.’ Copper Thunderbird (drama). 978-0-88922-576-3

38 BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 is for Argillite

Carol Sheehan began visiting argillite artists in Haida Gwaii in 2006 with the help of Sarah Hillis Davidson of Sarah’s Arts and Jewellery in Old Masset. WHO’S The 15 artists she has profiled in Breath- ing Stone: Contemporary Haida Argillite Sculpture (Frontenac $35) are Sean Brennan, Michael Brown, Donnie Edenshaw, Shaun Edgars, Chris Russ, Gary Minaker Russ, Marcel Russ, Lionel Samuels, Jay Simeon, Robert Vogstad, WHO Darrell White, Gryn White, Martin Williams, Cooper Wilson and Freddie BRITISHCOLUMBIA Wilson. There are 200 colour photos by Jack Litrell and John W. Heintz. 978-1-897181-21-8 is for Braun

Born in the Fraser Valley, Connie Braun provides a creative non-fic- tional memoir of an extended Men- nonite family dur- ing the 20th cen- Connie Braun tury, from eastern Europe to the val- leys of the Fraser River, in The Steppes are the Colour of Sepia (Ronsdale $24.95). Historically faithful to documents, letters, old photos and personal testimonies, it com- plements Andreas Schroeder’s fic- tional views of his Mennonite background (see Fiction reviews). 978-1-55380-063-7 is for Collis

As a descend- ant of Scottish coal miners who came to Vancouver Island in the late 1800s, poet Stephen Collis wrote Mine (New Star 2001), a recon- Stephen Collis struction of the early history of the B.C. coal industry. Now Collis has explored further back in time for The Commons (Talonbooks $16.95), an IS FOR ARGILLITE anarchy-inspired exploration of how com- Marcel Russ—pictured with monly-held lands were essentially privatized his wife and muse Lori—

in the English countryside. Amid the peas- PHOTO began carving argillite at ant revolts, Collis includes cameo appear- age eight and moved to HEINTZ ances from the mad poet John Clare .

W Haida Gwaii to live with his and back-to-the-land philosopher Henry grandparents at age 13. JOHN David Thoreau. 978-0-88922-580-0 From Breathing Stone. DAMIAN in May of 2007, after setting a record $7 Massett and Prince Rupert to Vancouver.” Other B.C. contributors include Jim is for Diamond million price for First Nations art at an auc- Each poet has one previously unpublished Christy, George Fetherling, Kim Goldberg, tion at Southeby’s. Originally acquired for poem and a statement of poetics. It’s the first Ernest Hekkanen, Keith Maillard, Susan Having digested his 36 years as a theatri- an unspecified price from the missionary book from Mona Fertig’s efforts to estab- McCaslin, Bud Osborn, Sue Wheeler and cal activist for Theatre for Living: The Art William Duncan, the so-called lish her Saltspring Island imprint as a literary J. Michael Yates. 978-0-9808879-1-4 and Science of Community-Based Dia- Dundas Collection remained in the Dundas and art trade publisher. Eight book launches logue (Trafford), David Diamond has family’s “cabinet of curiosities,” along with are planned in the province. 978-1-896949-01-7 received the Distinguished Book Award from a 250,000-word diary, for more than a cen- the American Alliance for Theatre and Edu- tury. is for Horsfield cation (AATE). It’s the first self-published As outlined in Tsimshian Treasures: book to receive the honour. Diamond sug- The Remarkable Journey of the Dundas is for Greco As a follow-up to her award-winning gests, “If we are to deal with the pressing Collection (D&M $55), featuring 72 col- Cougar Annie’s Garden, Margaret issues of global warming, global violence, our plates, Canadian institutions and col- Born in Milwaukee in 1947, Heidi Horsfield has produced Voices from the hunger, poverty, we must find a way, lectors have recently purchased most of the Greco came to Canada in 1968. “The Sound: Chronicles of Clayoquot Sound whether on the so-called left or the so-called major items. 0295987383 award I am proudest of is my Canadian citi- and Tofino 1899-1929 (Salal $52.50), right to stop perpetuating the concept of ‘the zenship,” she says. “I’m still convinced I based on long-forgotten letters, diaries and other.’ There is no ‘them.’ There is only ‘us.’” ‘picked’ my parents because I thought they memoirs. “I unearthed so many obscure were Canadian. At the time, they were hon- documents in so many unlikely locations,” is for Fertig eymooning at the Lake of the she says, “at times I felt nearly deafened by Woods.” Greco is one of 76 po- all the chatter of those voices. I met many is for Ellis Billed as the first wide-rang- ets who have contributed to a characters who have become part of my life, ing anthology of contemporary new anthology by former Ameri- and I learned an enormous amount about Donald Ellis has edited the remark- B.C. poetry in 31 years, Rocksalt cans, Crossing Lines: Poets Who the underlying social and economic reali- able story of how Tsimshian ceremonial art (Mother Tongue $24.95), edited Came to Canada in the Viet- ties of the West Coast. Because the research objects were removed from Old Metlakatla by Mona Fertig and Harold nam War Era (Seraphim was so intensive and detailed—and because by Scottish missionary Robert J. Rhenisch, features 108 new, $19.95), edited by Allan I am so slow—this book has occupied Dundas in 1863. These were eventually mid-career and established BC Briesmaster and Steven seven years of my life.” 9 780969 700821 Mona Fertig brought back to Prince Rupert for display poets “from Dawson Creek to Michael Berzensky. continued on next page

39 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 RECENT TITLES FROM canada’s new independent publisher WHO’S WHO

continued from previous page Lakes to the south. This work arose from an art-camp organized by Donna Kane and Wayne Sawchuk in August of 2006 to direct aesthetic attention to an eco- Troglodytes In the Quiet is for Innes system undisturbed by industry or human Poetry by After Slaughter settlement. 9781554470655 “When my first crime novel was fin- Manolis Fiction by ished,” says Gabriola Island’s Roy Don McLellan Innes, “it never entered my head to do a sequel.” Among the spate of new murder is for New Society mysteries emanating from the West Coast, Innes’ second thriller, West End Murders Having recently acquired Gabriola-based (NeWest $12.95), transports his lead char- New Society Publishers, CEO Scott acters from Bear Creek to Vancouver where McIntyre, of Douglas & McIntyre Pub- they investigate a series of hate-crime mur- lishing Group, has announced a name ders. Inspector Coswell and Corporal change to D&M Publishers Inc. as a ban- He Rode Tall Travelling Blakemore uncover an underground or- ner for New Society, Douglas & McIntyre ganization and a conspiracy against an and Greystone Books. Fiction by with Shadows American politician. Although social issues New Society has been around for more Ross Buchanan Poetry by arise—gay rights, justice system and right- than 30 years; Greystone was hatched with Eduardo Bettencourt wing fanaticism—Innes says he writes solely Rob Sanders in 1993. to entertain, not to preach. 978-1-897126-27-1 Pinto is for Orca is for Jerusalem Orca Books founder and publisher A place of wisdom, yet seldom free of Bob Tyrrell has exchanged his publish- Time of Passe strife, Jerusalem and the universal yearning er’s baton for a fishing rod, making way for a holy land is the focus for poet Dvora for Andrew Wooldridge, who Plenty Partout Levin’s Sharav (Ekstasis $17.95). Her started in the warehouse fifteen years ago. Fiction by Fiction by new chapbook To Bite the Blue Apple si- Wooldridge “moved from marketing to Ed O’Brien Sam Wharton multaneously examines her experiences editorial to rodent catching,” and now, with with cancer. 978-1-897430-17-0 the purchase of fifty percent of the com- pany, to publisher and partner with Tyrrell, who will re-focus on the editorial direction is for Kerr of the company.

Kevin Kerr’s Studies in is for Patterson We pay double royalties to the year’s Motion best-selling author. To find out more visit (Talonbooks After he made his journey down the $18.95) examines Nahanni River in 1927, R.M. the obsession of Patterson’s outdoor memoirs appeared the Victorian pho- in nearly every issue of The Beaver during tographer the 1930s and 1940s. Warm winter reading Eadweard Those Earlier Hills Reminiscences Muybridge to 1928 to 1961 (Touchwood $24.95) is a from the Royal BC Museum stop time and compilation of articles by Patterson that Kevin Kerr freeze motion, appeared in the Hudson’s Bay Company- partly to alleviate the painfulness of an published magazine during a 25-year ep- Free Spirit overly dramatic life that featured adultery, och that included the long-serving Stories of You, Me and BC jealousy, betrayal, murder and an abandoned editorships of Clifford P. Wilson and child. Kerr reveals how the pioneering cam- Malvina Bolus. 978-1-894898-67-6 Gerald Truscott eraman used technology to try and absolve An entertaining and colourful his guilt due to tragic actions from his past, look at the characters and places including his acquittal for killing his wife’s is for Q’um Q’um that have made British Columbia lover as justifiable homicide. 978-0-88922-592-3 the province it is today. Also known as Q’um Q’um Xiiem, Includes a 100-minute DVD of BC tourist travelogues made in Jo-Ann Archibald worked with the 1950s and 1960s. is for Lent elders and storytellers to develop ways of bringing storytelling into educational con- $39.95 A mainstay of the literary world in the texts, resulting in Indigenous Storywork: ISBN 978-0-7726-5870-8 Okanagan, John Lent has co-authored Educating the Heart, Mind, Body and a collection of conversations about writing Spirit (UBC $85), written when she was with “Mr. Canadian Postmodern,” Associate Dean for Indigenous Education Carnivores Robert Kroetsch. Abundance in the UBC Faculty of Education. (Kalamalka Press $10) is the fourth release 978-0-7748-1401-0 of British Columbia from the Mackie Lake House Writer-in- David F. Hatler, David W. Residence Project. 978-0-97380574-1 Nagorsen and Alison M. Beal is for Rimmer The latest, most complete information on the 21 speciesof is for McKay Revered typographer Jim Rimmer’s wild land carnivores living in BC: private papers and his Pie Tree Press collec- from Grey Wolf to Bobcat, Grizzly tion were recently donated to SFU Special Bear to Mink – all the dogs, bears, Three years ago, Don McKay exam- Collections on the seventh floor of the weasels, skunks and cats, big and ined Vancouver Island wilderness “in the small, fierce and timid. Includes scheme of infinite time” for Deactivated Bennett Library. Now the letterpress artist illustrations, photos and maps. West 100, six movements of prose and po- has released his first trade publication, etry. Memories from the Composing Room $27.95 McKay has moved much further north Floor (Pie Tree Press / Gaspereau $59.95). ISBN 978-0-7726-5869-2 for The Muskwa The Vancouver- Assemblage born designer and (Gaspereau illustrator has cre- $49.95), his po- ated 190 digital and seven metal Available at your local book store. etic exploration of Distributed by UBC Press. the Muskwa- typefaces at his Kechikan region in Rimmer Type PHOTO

For more information about Foundry in New Royal BC Museum books, go to northern B.C., Westminster.

CREATES framed by Toad

www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca Carole Gerson and click on Publications. River in the north For more info see Don McKay Jim Rimmer abcbookworld.com

MARLENE and the Tuchodi 9781554470624

40 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09 Accelerated Paces: Travels Across Borders and Other WHO’S WHO Imaginary Boundaries (Essays/Memoir) by Jim Oaten Set somewhere between here and the heat-death of the universe, Jim Oaten’s debut collection serves up random samples of literal and literary truth is for Schreiber is for Exploring scooped up at top speed. Whether dodging down back alleys in Beirut, “As a young boy after the Second World Exploring Vancouverism (Mantua wheeling past God and traffic in Mombasa, Kenya, War,” writes John Schreiber in Books / CanadianValuesPress $25) by slipping around the edges of Alzheimer’s disease, Stranger Wycott’s Place: Stories from the Howard Rotbert of Kitsilano was the Gulf War, or the eternity of CNN, these short Cariboo-Chilcotin (New Star $19), “I lived launched in November at Spartacus Books stories and pieces ignore borders as they jaunt up the North Thompson River, north of in Vancouver. Critical of the status quo, it through external trips and internal voyages. Kamloops, near a is subtitled The Political Culture of Cana- isbn post office stop on da’s Lotus Land. He spends one week of each : 1-895636-93-0 | $18 | AVAIL. NOVEMBER the highway called month in Ontario developing rental hous- Darfield.” ing for low income people. Since then, hav- 978-0-9734065-1-1; Info: [email protected] anvil press ing walked and driven backroads for many years, Suicide Psalms Schreiber has gath- is for Yi Fao poetry by Mari-Lou Rowley John Schreiber ered a lifetime of stories and a richly Yi Faois the Chinese name for New A collection of poetry that is both hymn and visceral personal sense of history, culminating in a Westminister, meaning second port. Jim scream—of loss, despair, hope, and ultimately redemption. title story about William Wycott’s Wolf and Patricia Owen’s Yi Fao: “This is Rowley at her heart stammering, howling, homestead above Wycott Flats off Churn Speaking Through Memory (Heritage apocalyptic, playful, musical best.” —di brandt Creek, west of the Gang Ranch. $19.95) is a history of New Westminster’s Wycott was also featured in Harry Chinese Community from 1958 to 1980, “Rowley’s Suicide Psalms are deft, double-edged, ‘kill Marriott’s Cariboo Cowboy and Tales of the although many of its photos pre-date that sites bedded with violets,’ songs of violent beauty.” —sylvia legris Ranches. 978-1-55420-037-5 time period. It features four key families: Law, Lee, Quan and Shiu. 978-1-894974-40-0 isbn: 1-895636-92-2 | $15 | AVAILABLE NOW! is for Tougas is for Zuehlke ∞ canlit with an urban twist ∞ Chris Tougas won the inaugural Bolen Books Children’s Book Prize at a gala The Allied invasion of Sicily was the first What It Feels Like for a Girl October 15 at the Union Club of Victoria. battle experience for 20,000 troops from Bookseller Mel Bolen presented him the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and the poetry by Jennica Harper with a cheque for $5000 for Mechanimals 1st Canadian Tank Brigade. Mark “Smart, brave, hard-edged, and a little frightening ... (Orca $18.95) which he wrote and illus- Zuehlke recounts their combat versus Jennica Harper offers a compassionate glimpse into trated. Mechanimals tells the story of an fierce German opposition for 28 days in the turbulent lives of teenaged girls. May this book old farmer who loses all of his animals to a Operation find its way to school libraries. May it find itself in the tornado. 978-1-55143-628-9 Husky hands of every young person who ever wondered (D&M What it Feels Like for a Girl.” —elizabeth bachinsky $36.95), isbn: 1-895636-96-5 | $15 | AVAILABLE NOW! his seventh is for Uqalurait war volume. 978-1-55365-324-0 With John Bennett, former edi- tor of Inuktitut maga- zine, UBC’s Susan Rowley has released a paperback version of their account of Inuit life in Nunavut prior to exten- sive contact with south- erners, Uqalurait: An Oral History of Nunavut (McGill- Queens $34.95). Uqalurait describes the seasonal rounds of four different groups, incorporating 19th century exploration journals as well as contemporary views. 978-0-7735-2341-8 is for Vegan

Sarah Kramer is back and she never went away. With info on “How to say ‘I Am Vegan” in different languages, Vic- toria’s leading vegan has released her fourth title, Vegan A Go-Go!: A Cookbook & Survival Manual for Vegans on the Road (Arsenal $17.95). 978-1-55152-240-1 is for Will

Will Morrison’s memoir Between Sarah the Mountains and the Gantries (Belfast: Kramer: Appletree Press) was shortlisted for the her first three $80,000 U.K/Ireland literary prize in con- cookbooks junction with the Irish Writers Association. have sold “I knew my book was a long shot,” 150, 000 Morrison says, “going up against journal- copies. ists writing about China, Iraq, and Islam, and a book on John Donne.”

41 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2008-09