Literary Review of Canada a JOURNAL of IDEAS “TRULY MAGNIFICENT” — Robert Olmstead, Award-Winning Author of Coal Black Horse
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$7.95 0 2 MAGDALENA MIŁOSZ A Polish Bestseller GAYATRI KUMAR Polar Latitudes 0 2 R IAN SMILLIE Philanthropy SARAH SHEEHAN Cartooning with Duncan E B M E C E D Literary Review of Canada A JOURNAL OF IDEAS “TRULY MAGNIFICENT” — Robert Olmstead, award-winning author of Coal Black Horse FINALIST for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize “A WILD ADVENTURE SPUN IN EXALTED PROSE: THE BOOK I’VE BEEN WANTING TO READ FOR YEARS.” — Marina Endicott, award- winning author of The Difference “A BRILLIANT LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT.” — Michael Redhill, Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning author of Bellevue Square @HOUSEOFANANSI ANANSI PUBLISHES HOUSEOFANANSI.COM VERY GOOD BOOKS DECEMBER 2020 ◆ VOLUME 28 ◆ NUMBER 10 A JOURNAL OF IDEAS FIRST WORD NOTEBOOK THE ARTS The Hole Truth This Is Not the End of the Story Collected Thoughts Kyle Wyatt The lasting promise of section 35 Self-portrait of a curator 3 Ian Waddell Keith Garebian 15 30 FURTHERMORE Bronwyn Drainie, Robin Sears, INDIGENEITY PANDEMIC David Schatzky, Jeannie Marshall, Sanaz Title Role Don’t Kid Yourself Harland, Darren Alexander, Evan Bedford, A failure of imagination A ruling on the rules Joel Henderson, Diana Dunbar Tremain, Jonathan Yazer Jessica Duffin Wolfe Kevin Keystone, Christopher Moore 18 5 31 The Canadian Conversation LITERATURE THE PUBLIC SQUARE A Polish journalist’s perspective Socially Distant Magdalena Miłosz Lonely Hearts Club Settling in with Helen Humphreys Maybe the problem with Facebook is us 21 Katherine Ashenburg Dan Dunsky AROUND THE WORLD 7 32 Mennonite Descent Voices among Us CLIMATE CRISIS A journey through the colonies Leanne Betasamosake Melting Away Geoff Martin Simpson’s latest Travels of a reluctant activist 24 Christina Turner Gayatri Kumar GADGETS AND GIZMOS 34 10 Tech Support Shipmates MONEY MATTERS Who’s helping who? It’s a pirate’s life for The Philanthropist’s Dilemma Dan Falk Clifford Jackman Michael Strizic Elsewhere they meet with charity 26 35 Ian Smillie COMPELLING PEOPLE 11 BACKSTORY Trailblazer Bank Account How one woman engineered change A Mother, An institution’s history Sheilla Jones Wrapped in a Mystery Kelvin Browne 28 Jennifer S. H. Brown 13 36 Cartoon Character The legacy of a national lampoon Sarah Sheehan 29 POETRY Elee Kraljii Gardiner, p. 8 Souvankham Thammavongsa, p. 20 Lisa Martin, p. 23 Tom Wayman, p. 25 OUR CONTRIBUTORS Katherine Ashenburg will publish a new novel, Sheilla Jones writes about quantum physics Michael Strizic is the magazine’s Her Turn, this coming year. and Indigenous politics in Canada. new managing editor. Jennifer S. H. Brown is a professor emeritus Gayatri Kumar lives and reads in Toronto. Christina Turner studies Indigenous literatures of history at the University of Winnipeg. at the University of Toronto. She lives in Denver. Geoff Martin was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for “Baked Clay,” an essay about Mennonite Ian Waddell served in Parliament from 1979 Kelvin Browne is the executive director of and Black land histories in rural Ontario. to 1993. He is the author of Take the Torch: the Gardiner Museum, in Toronto. A Political Memoir, among other titles. Magdalena Miłosz is a doctoral candidate in the Dan Dunsky was executive producer of school of architecture at McGill University. Jessica Duffin Wolfe is a professor of The Agenda with Steve Paikin, from 2006 to digital communications and journalism 2015, and is the founder of Dunsky Insight. Sarah Sheehan is a critic and former at Humber College, in Toronto. academic living in Hamilton. Dan Falk is the author of The Science of Jonathan Yazer holds a master’s in global Shakespeare and In Search of Time. Ian Smillie is the author of The Alms Bazaar governance from the University of Waterloo. and a co-author of The Charity of Nations: Keith Garebian has published several books, Humanitarian Action in a ◆ most recently Mini Musings: Miniature Calculating World. Thoughts on Theatre and Poetry. On the cover: Lecce, Italy, by Kevin Ward. WITH THANKS TO OUR SUPPORTERS Made possible with the support of Ontario Creates 9780889777590 • $21.95 9780889776944 • $27.95 9780889777316 • $21.95 9780889777385 • $16.95 9780889777491 • $24.95 9780889776913 • $19.95 9780889777415 • $21.95 9780889777286 • $27.95 9780889776999 • $32.95 PARTICIPATION MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH CREATIVE SASKATCHEWAN’S MARKET AND EXPORT DEVELOPMENT GRANT PROGRAM. UofRPress.ca FIRST WORD The Hole Truth N HIS MONUMENTAL WORK, A DISPLAY OF So this past October, as record numbers of Heraldry, first published in London in Americans cast early ballots for president, just 1610, the antiquarian and officer of arms under 3,000 Asbestrians — including some as John Guillim wrote of a stone “that young as fourteen — went to a drive-through being once kindled and set on fire” will polling place and elected to remediate the I“never extinguish or goe out.” Such a stone pos- toponymic damage, rechristening the place sessed “admirable vertues . whereby strange Val-des-Sources, or Valley of the Springs. and unwonted effects may be wrought.” Guillim A “car vote” in a town of 7,000 is not the most thought this unusual rock, which he called consequential act of civic engagement, but it is asphestus, was to be found in Arcadia, that most so wonderfully 2020: a metaphor for this long- pastoral of utopias. Had he lived another three est of years, with its pandemic, its unrest and hundred years or so, he would have learned divisions, its engaged youth, and its lingering that a lot of it was also to be found not far from uncertainties around our collective health and Montreal, in the Eastern Townships. identity and path forward. In 1879, a Welsh miner discovered what he Because, like most things 2020, the choice of thought was a small deposit of asbestos near Val-des-Sources is not without controversy. For Quebec’s Nicolet River. A few years later, an many, especially older French speakers who refer entrepreneurial pair realized they were, in fact, to Guillim’s admirable rock as “ amiante,” the standing on pay dirt. What became known as the historic name Asbestos speaks not to a danger- Jeffrey Mine opened in 1881 and steadily grew ous substance now banned in scores of countries into the world’s largest source of the fibrous sili- but to a proud heritage. To dismiss the town’s cate material. For decades, workers would cross distinctive moniker is to dismiss its very iden- Boulevard St-Luc each day to dig into the earth tity. “You don’t change names for nothing!” one and to pull out of “the hole,” as the locals called lifelong resident told the CBC before the physic- it, an essential ingredient for modern industry. ally distanced vote. (Swastika, a tiny place close The stuff went into the ships and airplanes that to Lake Champlain in New York, took a similar defeated the Third Reich. It went into schools, stance when it recently doubled down on its hospitals, and homes all over Canada and the own name, originally from 1913.) world. It made the village, and later the town, Even though the voters were clear — that of Asbestos rich. Asbestos’s appellation, like so many things, In 1949, thousands of those miners went on ought to evolve at last — the end is far from cer- strike and helped lay the foundation for the tain. The provincial minister of municipal affairs Quiet Revolution. But after five months, they and housing must approve the change before returned to work and continued digging. Then, it’s official, and hundreds have signed a petition suddenly, the well-paid workers and their thriv- that urges her to reject the results; they argue ing town found their wagon hitched to a carcino- the entire process was somehow rigged behind gen with few redeeming qualities; the strange and closed doors. We may not know the final out- unwonted effects that Guillim once imagined come for quite a while. turned out to be mesothelioma and other dis- But we do know this: The mine that did some eases. By the time operations ceased, in late good and did some bad will never reopen, the 2011, the sprawling open pit that had been dug old jobs are gone, the extraction-based economy resembled an impact crater some two kilometres that powered a century is over. We know social wide and 350 metres deep. change is inevitable. We know that names — like In the decade since, Asbestos has tried to monuments and statues — have powerful sym- reinvent itself — with a microbrewery, a duck bolic purchase. And we know that not even the hatchery, a pharmaceutical company, even an ballot box will help us find common ground. attempted adventure-tourism retrofit of the mine Whether future generations call the place itself. But it’s been hard to attract new businesses Asbestos or Val-des-Sources or something else and industry when return address labels will for- entirely, the take-away is the same: some fires are evermore remind customers of cancer. For many almost impossible to extinguish, and sometimes boosters, the town’s name is a liability whose we find that we have dug ourselves holes we may time has come. never fully climb out of. Kyle Wyatt, Editor-in-Chief DECEMBER 2020 3 Literary Review of Canada Massey College 4 Devonshire Place Toronto, ON M5S 2E1 [email protected] EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kyle Wyatt [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR Michael Strizic ASSISTANT EDITOR Rose Hendrie POETRY EDITOR Moira MacDougall COPY EDITOR Barbara Czarnecki ART DIRECTOR Brian Morgan CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Cristina Austin, Marlo Alexandra Burks, Murray Campbell, Bronwyn Drainie, Basil Guinane, Beth Haddon, Mark Lovewell, Cecily Ross, Alexander Sallas, Derek Ungless PUBLISHER Eithne McCredie BOARD OF DIRECTORS John Macfarlane (Chair), Marina Glogovac, Scott Griffin, Neena Gupta, Kelly Jenkins, Joseph Kertes, Amela Marin, Don McCutchan, David Staines, Jaime Watt CORPORATE SECRETARY Vali Bennett FOUNDED IN 1991 BY P.