2 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 people THERE MUST BE TROUT IN TROUT LAKE Rumpled, clever and a tad manipulative, veteran reporter Mike McCardell is to TV journalism what Peter Falk is to detectives. You gotta love the guy, even if it’s a schtick.

n his preceding 2008 of vignettes, Getting To The Bubble, McCardell described meeting an autistic, runny-nosed, nine-year-old named Reilly who is certain he will catch a fish in the polluted Vancouver pond named Trout Lake by using a stick, a piece of string, a paper clip for a hook and some gummy bread for bait. “I believe you get whatever you Iwant,” Reilly told McCardell. Impressed by the boy’s unshakable faith in the prospect of good fortune, McCardell has extrapolated from Reilly’s hopeful approach for another beguiling collection of human interest stories, The Expanded Reilly Method (Harbour $34.95), another typical McCardell . Only this time McCardell seems to be taking feeling good, well, seriously. With his trademark ‘aw shucks’ style, he espouses the following Dr. Phil-like advice by using the autistic boy named Reilly as a touchstone for sanity: “We got offers of fancy fishing equipment that we passed on to his foster mother by phone. But the reply was, ‘No, thank you.’ Reilly said he would rather fish his own way. “I go to Trout Lake often and look at the water and watch the dogs swimming at one end and kids at the other. It is the smallest beach in the city. It has only a few spots where you can walk out on a wooden pier and put a line in the water. “I’ve seen other kids fishing and a few old timers. You can only fish there if you are very young or very old. I never saw Reilly again. “Maybe I missed him. Or maybe he moved on to another pond and another foster home. “But did he catch a fish? He said he would. He said he believed he would. “He had other things to overcome, like no hook or float to tell him he had a nibble, or bait except for bread. He also had to overcome strange things that go on in the minds of autistic kids, like not being sure about things that most of us Mike McCardell don’t even think about, and the temper that flared up without warning that his topped the foster mother told us about. BC Bestseller “He also had that darn runny nose, and it is hard to concentrate on fishing List with The when you are sniffing back nasal drippings. PHOTO Expanded “I have only one thing on which to base my faith in Reilly’s method: me. Reilly Method DIDLICK

“Since I started getting up in the morning and saying, ‘This is going to be a

good day,’ I have not had a bad day. Not one.” 978-1-55017-500-4 NICK COMINGS & GOINGS

CATHY LEGATE, DAUGHTER OF BILL DUTHIE, HAS CLOSED THE Peoples Co-op bookstore in Vancouver has last remaining Duthie outlet on West 4th Avenue marked 65 years in business. in Vancouver, ending 52 years of continuous ✍ . Meanwhile Bolen Books in Victoria has P.K. PAGE, ONE OF THE GRANDE DAMES OF CANADIAN reached the 35-year mark; Banyen Books in Vancouver letters, born in England in 1916, died at her is turning 40; Munro’s in Victoria is turning 47; and Oak Bay home on January 14. The award- winning poet, novelist, children’s P.K. Page Goh Poh Seng Jim Rimmer writer and painter was 93. Typographer, designer and illustrator Jim literary works from B.C. after he immigrated to Canada Rimmer was an inspirational figure within in 1986. He retired from practicing medicine in 1995 the Alcuin Society dedicated to the and died in Vancouver on January 10. Also recently appreciation of letterpress . He died deceased: academic Patricia Marchak (p. 36), PHOTO PHOTO PHOTO

on January 8 after a battle with throat cancer. First Nations playwright Vera Manuel (p. 36) and TWIGG TWIGG TWIGG Ray Viaud of Cathy Legate of Kolin Lymworth of Goh Poh Seng, a pioneer of Singapore fishing expert Charlie White. For further information Peoples Co-op Books Duthie Books Banyen Books literature in English, published several on these authors, visit www.abcbookworld.com

SPRING Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Contributors: Grant Shilling, Mark Forsythe, Joan Givner, For this issue, Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: BC BookWorld, Louise Donnelly, Sheila Munro, Hannah Main-van der Kamp, we gratefully acknowledge the 2010 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 John Moore, Cherie Thiessen, Shane McCune, Joseph Farris, W.P. Kinsella. Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. unobtrusive assistance of BC Issue, Produced with the sponsorship of Pacific BookWorld News Web consultant: Sharon Jackson Canada Council, a continuous Society. Publications Mail Registration No. 7800. Photographers: Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk. BOOKWORLD partner since 1988. Vol. 24, No. 1 BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Betty Twigg. Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics. Deliveries: Ken Reid Advertising & editorial: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Publisher/ Writer: Alan Twigg Vancouver, B.C., V6R 2S3. Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 All BC BookWorld reviews are posted online at In-Kind Supporters: Editor/Production: David Lester Email: [email protected]. Annual subscription: $25 www.abcbookworld.com Simon Fraser University ; Vancouver Public Library.

3 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 Spring Releases from New Society Publishers

CANADA’S LEADING PUBLISHER OF BOOKS ON SUSTAINABILITY

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Call 800-567-6772 for a free catalogue or visit us at www.newsociety.com

4 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 people KITCHEN KOOL

DESIGNED TO MAKE THE TRANSITION TO animal-free eating easier for newbies, Sarah YOU ARE WHAT Kramer and Tanya Banyard’s How it all Ve- gan! (Arsenal Pulp $24.95)—re-issued with a tenth anniversary Go Vegan calendar—is tongue-in- cheek, quirky and smartly packaged. The and calendar benefit from high-qual- ity photos taken by Kramer’s husband, Gerry YOU DON’T EAT Kramer, with whom she operates Tattoo Zoo in Sarah Kramer’s How It All Vegan! is now the bestselling title Victoria. from Arsenal Pulp Press, eclipsing the First Nation’s memoir Beneath the flippancy, there’s a serious side. Kramer was once diagnosed with chronic fatigue Stoney Creek Woman (1989) by Mary John. She credits her syndrome, having weighed 83 pounds. “Why am I savvy as an entrepreneur to her “’80s punk DIY work ethic.” vegan?” she says. “How can I not be? I can’t love one animal and eat another. I could barely eat at ow It All Vegan! was lovingly all. It was an ordeal just to pick up a fork.” She kneaded, given time to rise, says she became friends with food again thanks and baked to perfection in an to vegan recipes. old rickety pink-painted Kramer’s zest-laden books about vegan cook- house on McClure Street in ery arose after editor Tanya Banyard encouraged Victoria, recently demolished. It was one of those amazing her to make a cookbook in 1996 as a homemade vintage homes that gets passed around from friend to gift project for Christmas. friend.H The rent was insanely cheap—$325 for a one- Combined sales of her four titles after one dec- bedroom/den with a claw-foot tub and all the charm ade have reportedly reached one-quarter million. you can muster in a turn-of-the-century house—but On the tenth anniversary of How It All Vegan’s there was a reason for all the charm, and it came in the publication, Sarah Kramer has provided an ac- form of slumlord who didn’t care about the property. count [at left] of how her first vegan cookery and Living in a slumlord’s house has pros and cons. The lifestyle title came into print. 978-1-55152-253-1 benefits are the cheap rent and being able to decorate and paint the walls any color you want. With rent that cheap, my husband and I learned to tolerate the family of raccoons in the attic, the broken windows, dripping “I didn’t want to be like a cheesy, taps, and the scary knob-and-tube wiring in the attic. mainstream Martha Stewart.” This was during the height of the ’90s zine scene; my friends and I had been making zines for years, so trying my best to sound normal and professional—all the while neither Tanya nor I expected that our little homemade my knees were knocking uncontrollably as I tried not zine would turn into an international best-selling book. to pass out from excitement. I put down the I put the book together using a crude desktop phone and stared at Gerry in utter program that came with my com- shock. puter, and then we photocopied all the pages The original HIAV! zine was only at the local copy store and collated and fifty pages long, so Tanya and I bound the book in my living room. I furiously went to work invent- think our first run of the zine was maybe ing, testing, and adding more 100 copies. recipes as well as adding an When we handed out the book introduction that included as Xmas presents, the response our story about how we be- from our friends and families was came vegan. We also in- overwhelmingly positive. They cluded information for loved the book so much that vegan newbies making we decided to make another the transition, and what 900 copies to try and sell at we ended up with was punk rock shows and on the a final book length Internet. The second run of manuscript. the HIAV zine sold out al- My kitchen at the most right away and be- house on McClure came so popular with our was incredibly peers that a light bulb small, and there went off, and I realized was almost no we were on to something. counter space, but Tanya and I decided to try I made the best of and go legit and find a pub- it and used my lisher. thrift-store kitchen We started doing research table as a place to write, on different Canadian pub- bake, chop, test, and re- lishers, and Arsenal Pulp Press was our first choice test every single recipe for because they were local and seemed to have a simi- HIAV!. Gerry and I didn’t have a lar sensibility to us. I wrote a cheeky book pro- lot of money back then, and I was work- posal (and included some Tofu Jerky for them to ing with the bare minimum of supplies: try), but to hedge our bets we sent our proposal a few knives, a food processor (that was to five other publishers, just in case. Three days a wedding gift), and barely enough later, we got the call from Brian Lam of money to buy all the food to recipe test. PHOTO Arsenal Pulp asking if we’d like to have a book Gerry worked two jobs (in a restaurant and as a tattoo artist) so I could focus deal to publish How It All Vegan! KRAMER

I’ll never forget talking with Brian and on the book. continued on page 6 GERRY

5 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 people

continued from page 5 ing on the cover was the best thing we Out of our financial limitations the could have done. I have countless fan mantra for the book was born: Healthy, mail from people telling me that they delicious recipes that were easy to make, purchased the book without even look- with easy–to-find ingredients. ing inside because they saw us on the Our vision was for it to be not just a cover and were excited to see someone cookbook but more about how to live a like themselves reflected back. fun and happy life as I also have a few a vegan. We wanted letters from mothers readers to discover who ripped off the that being vegan was cover, or covered easy once you knew the book with paper a few tips and tricks. so we wouldn’t in- We spent many fluence their kids months recipe test- with our tattoos and ing, , and re- piercings. editing the book. We did every in- We poured our terview request. We hearts and souls into worked hard to get every page. the word out, and it I was at Tanya’s showed in sales. I house the day we got thought we’d be to see the book back lucky if we sold a few from the printers. thousand copies, We eagerly ripped but when the num- open the envelope, bers came back at and I stared at the 30,000 books sold cover in disbelief. “Then I flipped to the in our first few Holy shit. We were back of the book months of sales, I authors. I thought, was in shock. “Wow. This is going and my heart sank. I really thought to end up in a li- There was no index. we had hit the big brary somewhere.” I “Where’s the in- time. Best-selling was incredibly book. Fame. So proud of the work dex?” I yelled at where’s the fortune? we did. Tanya. We had both I quickly learned Then I flipped to assumed that the that writing a cook- PHOTO the back of the book publishers would put book is not a way to and my heart sank. make quick money. KRAMER There was no index. the index in.” The book sells.

“Where’s the index?” GERRY Money goes to the I yelled at Tanya. We had both assumed store. The store pays the distributor, who that the publishers would put the index then pays the publisher, who then splits in. I called Brian in a panic, and he said, the royalty portion with each author. “Does a cookbook need an index?” It was then that I realized this project Oh my lord. was going to be more of a labour of love So the first 2,000 copies of HIAV! hit than a job. A job pays you a regular the shelves without an index. For all of paycheque. You get medical and dental. you who have that first , you can You work 9–5. This new job of being a take it up with Brian. cookbook author was 24/7, and if I ✍ added up the hours I worked versus the I got busy myself, promoting the cash I was bringing in—I was being paid book via the Internet. The ’net was a pennies. fairly new concept back then (can you But it didn’t matter to me because we even remember what life was like before were receiving so much encouraging fan the Internet?), and for the first time I mail from the readers; they were loving was able to easily communicate with what we were doing, and it was hard to other vegans, not just in my local com- think about walking away to get a real munity but around the world. job. I really felt that what we were do- I wrote back to each and every per- ing was beneficial for the vegan commu- son who wrote to GoVegan.net (and I still nity, and on a personal level I found the do). Ten years later, it still blows my mind work utterly satisfying, creatively. to think that someone as far away as Gerry had started tattooing full-time, Greece has my book in their kitchen. I’ve and we were able to live off the money actually become very good friends with he made from that so I could continue some of the people who wrote fan mail. with the books. Thank Tofu for Gerry I think without the Internet HIAV! and his support or none of this would would have been just another cookbook have been possible. With a little extra on the shelves, but people our age were cash in our pockets, we were anxious to logging onto the web and finding other get out of the McClure Street house, as like-minded people to talk to about ani- it was starting to fall apart, and we were mal rights, vegan products, politics, and afraid for our safety. Two months after everything in-between. Word of mouth we moved out, the ceiling in the living spreads fast on the Internet, and they room collapsed, so we’d been lucky to found us at GoVegan.net. move out when we did. Our publisher, Brian, insisted that we But even though that house was be on the cover, and I fought him for a creaky, drafty and mouse-infested, my while because I didn’t want to be like a life changed in a way I never expected cheesy, mainstream Martha Stewart while I lived there, so that old rickety (sorry Martha, I do love you). Thank pink house holds a special place in my Tofu he won that argument, because be- heart, and I’m sad that it’s now gone.

6 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 from Sono Nis Press spring

The Littlest Monkey Plants of Haida Gwaii Sarah E. Turner Nancy J. Turner “Tombo sees a tiny A detailed and insightful face snuggled up to his record of the uses and mother! The new baby importance to the Haida monkey opens her of over 150 species of eyes and looks at him native plants. Moreover, it just before his mother explains the knowledge and pushes him gently but understanding that enabled firmly away.” the Haida to use the resources Primatologist Sarah of their islands sustainable Turner’s compelling from one generation to the photographs and next for thousands of years. simple text illumi- Richly illustrated with colour nates every page as she shares this universal tale about growing up, and black and white photos BACK IN PRINT moving over, and finding our way in the world. and illustrations. ISBN 1-55039-176-3 • 7.5” x 9.25” • 264 pages • paper • $38.95 • April 1-55039-174-7 • 9” x 7.5” • 32 pages • paper • $9.95 • April

Logging by Rail Mountain Timber Robert D. Turner The Comox Logging Company in the An insightful history and a Vancouver Island Mountains sweeping portrait of railroad Richard Somerset Mackie logging in . The In this sequel to his best-selling book begins with the small rail BC Bestseller Island Timber, Richard Somerset logging operations of the 1880s Mackie follows the Comox Logging and continues through the height Company from 1926 to 1946 as it of the steam era, two world wars, moves from the logged-over Comox the Depression, the change to Valley to the challenging terrain of truck logging and the last steam the Vancouver Island Mountains. A and dieselized logging lines. stunning visual feast, this is social Canadian Railroad Historical history and logging history at its Association Book Award. best.

BACK IN PRINT ISBN 1-55039-065-1 • 8.5” x 11” ISBN 1-55039-171-2 • 8.5 x 11 348 pages • paper • $39.95 • April 320 pages • paper • $42.95

BC Bestseller

Flights of a Coast Dog Coast Dogs Don’t Lie Counting on Hope A Pilot’s Log Tales from the North Coast Sched Sylvia Olsen Jack Schofield Jack Schofield Set against the backdrop of the English colonization of British Columbia, and an 1863 Back in Print! tells Packed with colourful anecdotes and even Flights of a Coast Dog naval assault on a Lamalcha camp on Kuper of Jack Schofield’s adventures from 20 more colourful characters, Coast Dogs Island, tells the story of years of flying Beavers, Otters and Cessna brings the early days of flying the Counting on Hope Don’t Lie two girls whose lives are profoundly changed floatplanes along British Columbia’s B.C. coast back to life. when their two cultures collide. rugged and challenging coast. ISBN 1-55039-169-0 • 8.25” x 8.25” ISBN 1-55039-173-9 • 6 x 9 144 pages • • $29.95 ISBN 1-55039-172-0 • 8.5” x 8.5” 304 pages • paper • $14.95 196 pages • hardcover • $29.95 Celebrating 42 Years of Publishing in Canada

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

7 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 Beautifully realized, this is an unbelievable fifty-year Veterans with a Vision journey documenting a critical part of queer Canadian Canada’s War Blinded in history. Not only is it impeccably researched but it’s told through the voices of our community. Peace and War – Janine Fuller, manager of Little Sister’s Bookstore SERGE MARC DURFLINGER and co-author of Restricted Entry: Censorship on Trial A vibrant, poignant, and very human history of war-blinded veterans and of the The Canadian War on Queers advocacy organization they founded, the National Security as Sexual Regulation Sir Arthur Pearson Association of War GARY KINSMAN AND PATRIZIA GENTILE Blinded.

NEW IN PAPERBACK For nearly fifty years, from the 1950s to " as recently as the late 1990s, agents of March 2010, 464 pages, 6.6 x 9.5 54 b&w photos the Canadian state spied on, interrogated, 978-0-7748-1856-8 $29.95 and harassed gays and lesbians in a series printed in large type of so-called national security campaigns. The Canadian War on Queers traces this history, revealing acts of state repression I was unlucky enough to get in the way of one of the shrapnel and forms of social resistance that raise bullets. I felt a slight sting in my right temple as though pricked questions about just whose security was by a red-hot needle – and then the world became black. being protected. Dawn was now breaking, but night had sealed my eyes. – James Rawlinson, blinded at Vimy, 1917 NEW IN PAPERBACK " March 2010, 584 pages, 6 x 9 Books written about the conflict record major political decisions 19 b&w photos, 1 map 978-0-7748-1628-1 $34.95 and their results; they speak of generals, and of heroes. There is a paucity of literary tribute to those who offered their youth to war; nor are there books which tell of the disabled, the war blinded, the amputee, the burnt-out veteran. Compelling personal stories illuminate this impeccably researched – David Dorward, blinded in Sicily, 1943 analysis of the use of national security legislation to wage a war against lesbian and gay Canadians during the Cold War years. – Lynne Fernie, filmmaker, co-director of Forbidden Love and Fiction and Other Truths Published in association with the Canadian War Museum and the Sir Arthur Pearson Association of War Blinded War. Resilience. History. Available from fine bookstores near you or order online @ www.ubcpress.ca

New and exciting work from Ekstasis Editions…

EKSTASIS EDITIONS  WWW.EKSTASISEDITIONS.COM

Scarecrow India, India Muscle Memory The Jagged Years DUNCAN REGEHR YOLANDE VILLEMAIRE LINDA ROGERS of Ruthie J.

ISBN ---- TRANSLATED ISBN ---- RUTH SIMKIN Poetry & Art  pages BY LEONARD SUGDEN Poetry  Pages ISBN ---- . ISBN ---- . Memoir  Pages Fiction  pages . .

The Watchmans Eyes & Ears on What It Means Three Blocks West Dance Boundary Bay to Be Human of Wonderland MIKE DOYLE DAVID WATMOUGH D.C. REID HEATHER SUSAN HALEY ISBN ---- ISBN ---- ISBN ---- Poetry  pages Poetry  pages Poetry  pages ISBN ---- . . . Poetry  pages .

S PLIT Island in the Light Winnipeg from Woman Walking Selected Poems STEPHEN BETT RICHARD OLAFSON the Fringes ELIZABETH RHETT ISBN ---- ISBN ---- WALTER HILDEBRANDT WOODS Poetry  pages Poetry  pages PHOTOGRAPHS . . BY RON A. DREWNIAK ISBN ---- ISBN ---- Poetry  pages Poetry  Pages . . Misshapenness The Catch Club The Language Nuances J.J. STEINFELD JOHN O. THOMPSON of Water MANOLIS ISBN ---- ISBN ---- GENINE HANNS ISBN ---- Poetry  pages Poetry  Pages ISBN ---- Poetry  pages . . Poetry  pages . .

EKSTASIS EDITIONS  BOX 8474, MAIN POSTAL OUTLET  VICTORIA, B.C. V8W 3S1

8 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 THE WAY WE WERE

Vanessa Winn SHADES consulted letters and journals to write about matrimonial intrigues within the family of OF JANE John Work. Vanessa Winn’s debut novel explores pride and prejudice in Victoria, 1858-1861

he elegant declarative sen- tence with which Vanessa Winn begins her first novel about pre-colonial British Columbia, The Chief Fac- tor’s Daughter (Touchwood $19.95), recalls the familiar Topening of a novel by Jane Austen: The Fraser Gold Rush breathed the air of possibility into the village of

Victoria, and while the men pros- PHOTO

pected for gold and speculated on SAWCHUK

land, the women speculated on pros- pects of another kind. LAURA As with Austen’s unmarried heroine suspects that it is not admiration so much donate the fashionable hoops that have vour of the times—the muddy roads, the Elizabeth Bennett in Pride & Prejudice, as a curiosity about her mixed racial back arrived on a recent boat to poor girls encampments of natives and gold-seek- Winn’s heroine Margaret Work ground that makes him stare at her fore- who have none, their own dresses hang ers, the rivalries between the first fami- numbers among her sisters one close head. down awkwardly. Lieutenant Wilson lies, the modes of transportation, and the confidante near to herself in age, and Her suspicions are confirmed later concludes that the “half-breeds” are ig- social events. With its graceful style and one tiresome, flirtatious, younger one. when she overhears him wondering norant of current fashion and incapa- appealing characters, it provides a great Historical figures and events are aloud if the daughters of Governor ble of dressing elegantly. Yet with introduction to an historical study of present—the Pig War on San Juan Is- Douglas have had their heads flat- familiarity, his prejudice evaporates. He British Columbia for readers of all ages, land, the conflicts in the church (the tened. The governor’s wife was in fact is awed by Margaret’s riding skills, much and should be a popular addition to bitter rivalry between Bishop Hills half Cree and Margaret’s mother was re- superior to his own, and he relishes the every school library. and Reverend Edward ferred to as having ‘Spokane’ lavish hospitality of Hillside and becomes Winn prefaces each of her thirty Cridge), and the influx of blood. But Margaret is shocked a regular guest. chapters with a paragraph from a his- gold miners from Califor- to hear Lieutenant Wilson re- Margaret’s marital prospects are not torical document—a diary or a letter— nia—but these form a back- fer to the local women as half- easily resolved. The officers’ furloughs, and shapes the subsequent chapter as a drop to the matrimonial breeds and as “les belles postings to distant parts of the province, fictional gloss on the extract. In it, she prospects of three daughters sauvages.” Her immediate reac- and returns to England are not condu- fleshes out the characters of those men- of marriageable age among tion is that she would rather be cive to stable relationships. Moreover, a tioned and dramatizes the exchanges the five still at home. JOAN GIVNER considered ugly and civilized wife of mixed race from the colonies is a between them. Thus she deftly weaves It amounts to a well-re- than beautiful and savage. Then liability for those returning permanently together history and fiction to form an searched story that traces a pattern of she realizes that a rival local family with to England. The Work sister who goes informative and engrossing story. An pride and prejudice. Some of the preju- marriageable daughters (probably the to England writes of feeling alien and epilogue gives an account of the subse- dice is that of Lieutenant Charles Langfords) has tried to turn Lieutenant homesick. Nor is Margaret herself will- quent fortunes—births, deaths, trag- Wilson, a supercilious British officer Wilson against her with rumours of ing to settle for a supercilious English- edies—of the Work family and the of the Royal Engineers who is one of Flathead blood. man or a boring widower in search of a division of the Hillside property. 978-1894898935 seven Boundary Commission officers There is vast scope for misunderstand- mother for his brood. who arrived at the Colony of Vancou- ing between the officers and the colo- With its wealth of domestic details, Joan Givner writes regularly from ver Island to map the shifting bounda- nists. When the Work girls generously the book conveys a vivid sense of the fla- Mill Bay, north of Victoria. ries between British and American territories. Winn’s account covers two momen- TRUE TO HIS NAME tous years at the end of the sixth decade of the nineteenth century, and their ef- nyone familiar with Victoria’s streets will 1852), Work later moved to a farm in Hillside, fect on the life of the oldest unmarried Arecognize names of characters in now part of Victoria, and served on the Work daughter, Margaret. At the ad- Vanessa Winn’s The Chief Factor’s Legislative Council of Vancouver Island. vanced age of 24 she is in danger of be- Daughter—such as Douglas, Dallas, Remarkable for his endurance, Work , , , . coming a spinster which held the risk of Begbie Helmcken Tolmie Finlayson survived a near-fatal attack by a bull, contracted and Wark, although it is unclear whether Wark malaria, had recurring eye troubles, inflamed poverty as well as the humiliation of en- Street was actually named after John Work. tonsils (“quinsy”) and a near-fatal fall from a tree tering drawing rooms behind younger Born as John Wark near Derry, Ireland in that tore open his stomach and spilled some of sisters whose married status gives them 1792, he joined the Hudson’s Bay Company in his intestines. Work put his guts back into place precedence over her. 1814 and reached the Pacific Northwest in 1823. and overcame the injury. Lieutenant Wilson eagerly claims the He explored the lower Fraser River in 1824 as a Work remained on the Board of Management clerk for , keeping the allotted three dances (the number is ra- James McMillan John Work, father of Vanessa for the HBC at Fort Victoria, co-signing an tioned) on Margaret’s card at a ball on expedition’s journal, then oversaw construction Winn’s heroine, bought 583 important letter dated November 24, 1858, that of Fort Colville where he served as a clerk first listed the HBC’s land claims in B.C. board H.M.S. Plumper, moored in acres north of Fort Victoria in (1826–1830). 1852. He later became True to his name, John Work was a stalwart Esquimalt harbour. While her sisters ob- Having managed the HBC’s most northerly Vancouver Island’s largest employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company until serve with envy his intent gaze at post in New Caledonia, at Fort Simpson (1835– landowner. the day he died in December of 1861. Margaret’s face during the dances, she

9 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 10 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 THE WAY WE WERE

had played in , with full nudity, and no charges had been laid. Hey, if SHAKIN’ Toronto could handle it…. Café Kobenhavn at 968 Main Street was run by the Satan’s Angels biker Miss Lovie at gang. By 1972, when dancers and staff ALL Club New were charged with presenting an ob- Delhi as scene performance, The Province enter- advertised in tainment reporter Michael Walsh The Vancouver testified on the club’s behalf by noting OVER Sun, 1969 he had counted 29 females and 111 males sunbathing nude at Wreck Beach. An academic lays bare The genie, or Jeannie, was out of the the facts of showgirls there was usually a watchman on the roof We learn that as early as 1945, head- bottle. to sound the alarm. The Filippones made liner Yvette Dare at the Beacon So-called peeler clubs mushroomed. ten failed applications for a legit liquor Theatre had a trained parrot named Jeta By 1975, there were thirty locales fea- s UBC sociology professor Becki license before they succeeded in 1968. that helped her disrobe on stage. Her turing full nudity in Vancouver, as well L. Ross will be the first to tell Ten years later, Sun columnist Denny show was billed as a Balinese dance to as countless venues in the Lower Main- you, the storied Penthouse night Boyd reflected, “It was the place to go the bird god. land, such as: No. 5 Orange, Austin, A club at 1019 Seymour Street after hours to get a steak, mixer for your Cumulatively, Burlesque West is a su- American, St. Helen’s, Royal, Niagara, merits a book of its own. bottle, see a show, run into a friend or perbly researched chronicle of how Van- St. Regis, Drake, Marr, Nelson Place, Opened by the four Filippone broth- find a hooker. Make no mistake about it, couver, a city with some of North Balmoral, Castle, New Fountain, Fraser ers in 1950, the Penthouse used to at- hookers came to The Penthouse. So did America’s most stringent and puritani- Arms, Marble Arch, Piccadilly, Yale, tract up to 600 patrons per night as a other club owners, musicians, lawyers, cal liquor laws for decades, became one Cobalt, Dufferin, Vanport, Barn, Cecil ‘bottle club’ (BYOB) to see the likes of safecrackers, corporation presidents, Hol- of the hotspots for stripping in the and The Factory. Tony Bennett, Sophie Tucker, lywood starlets, cheating husbands, stock- 1970s and 1980s. Just as television had threatened the Sammy Davis Jr., Liberace, brokers, school principals, gamblers, For the record, the Club Zanzibar demise of The Penthouse in the fifties Harry Belafonte and Ella plainclothes RCMP surveillance team, (formerly Torch Cabaret), the Factory and sixties, back when folks could stay Fitzgerald. PTA presidents, surgeons, drug-users, and Café Kobenhavn introduced so- at home and watch Dean Martin Ross Filippone was general short-order cooks and—I suspect—the called ‘bottomless’ dancing in the fall of and Jerry Lewis on The Ed Sullivan manager; Mickey ran the bar (natch), odd man of the cloth.” 1971. Eventually even Isy’s nightclub on Show for free, exotic dancers in beer Jimmy was the maintenance man, life- ✍ Georgia Street would become Isy’s Strip parlours for the price of a beer made for long bachelor Joe was the flashy front Becki L. Ross’s Burlesque West: City. even stiffer competition than tv. man and sister Florence was the Showgirls, Sex and Sin in Postwar Van- Burlesque West is a rare academic Ross Filipponi told Becki Ross: “The bookkeeper. The Filippones were dis- couver (University of Toronto Press, work, ground-breaking, accessible, lu- hotels started to bring up top-line girls. criminated against as Italians, for hiring $29.95) necessarily chronicles the col- cid and completely serious. The fact that They were giving the public what they black entertainers and for providing a ourful Penthouse but her scope is much its author generated a minor stir when wanted. No cover charge.” The Pent- safe haven for more than 100 prostitutes more ambitious and informative than she received a major research grant to house and other nightclubs had a cover on any given night. mere nostalgia or rear-view voyeurism. undertake the study merely proves the charge and could only stay open from 7 The city’s “oldest stationary funhouse” Glitzier, westside hangouts like Isy’s need for a frank and public examina- pm to 2 am, whereas a beer parlour in a started as one of precious few places in and The Cave were not allowed to over- tion of burlesque and its offshoots in the hotel could have dancers from noon to staid downtown Vancouver where one shadow the eastside clubs such as the first place. ✍ 2 am. could get a decent steak. Police raided New Delhi Cabaret and the Harlem As St. Regis Hotel manager Larry the place frequently, but patrons were Nocturne run by Choo Choo G-strings came off with the election Thiesson told The Province, “hotels given hiding places for their booze and Williams and Ernie King. of the NDP in 1972. The musical Hair continued on page 13

UBC professor Becki L. Ross, author of Burlesque West

11 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 12 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 THE WAY WE WERE

continued from page 11 aren’t churches.” And so it was that Vancouver—somewhat bizarrely—sud- THE CARPENTER WORE denly became one of the best places in North America to find bump & grind. Ross’ academic approach, tinged with feminism, does not overlook the fascinating range of characters, such as notorious entrepreneur Gary Taylor, now in his late 60s. Taylor started his career as a teenage drum- mer backing dancers at clubs like the PINK Smilin’ Buddha, and at the PNE’s girlie PINK shows. “It was rumoured that Taylor was a smooth, fast-talking operator who bet strangers on the street that he could get a woman to take her clothes off on his stage,” Ross writes. “A long- Gary Taylor, 1977 time friend joked that Taylor could talk a nun into going on stage.” BC Most of the larger-than-life club BOOKWORLD owners such as Ernie King, Ross STAFF PICK Filliponi and Richard Walters KATE BRAID (living in California) reached old age. “I laugh at bad jokes. Make good money.”— Isy Walters died in his club of a heart attack. Joe Filipone died in his OBS WERE SCARCE ON A GULF ISLAND IN Turning Left to the Ladies refers to learned from men, beyond reading club with a bullet in his head. 1977. Kate Braid, at age thirty, that awkward moment after work, when blueprints and banging nails. Braid ✍ Jwas desperate to stay. At a party, some- everyone is raising a pint, when she feels muses on the need for more women to Somewhat nostalgic for the olden one piped up, “I just quit my job as a she has parachuted into male territory, write and talk overtly about their own days, and always admiring of the art- carpenter on the new school. Apply for when they are talking shop, and she slips private parts, the way men do. “Here’s a istry and courage of the performers, that.” away from the raucous camaraderie and toast to our pink taco rose garden our Ross’ examination of burlesque as a Braid had never hung a door, never deftly turns left, entering the women’s Southern belle tongue magnet wunder- business proves equally engaging. We mixed concrete, but everyone convinced washroom, “only a small slip under the down-under French pleat…” A poem learn that when top-line American her she should apply. radar.” by a woman who wore size ten steel-toed dancers such as Sally Rand, There is liquid courage and there is She placed a sticker on her hard hat boots. Gypsy Rose Lee, Ricki also liquid logic. that said Wild Woman but she knew she Making a spectacle of oneself can be Covette, Lili St. Cyr and Just lie, they told her. had to be very careful. One guy liked to a political strategy and an act of cour- Temptest Storm performed in She met the crew boss. She had no drop things on her head. Another co- age. Although she never strategized to Vancouver during the 1950s and construction skills, no training, but he worker wanted to protect her. One be a feminist pioneer, that doesn’t lessen 1960s, they were earning up to $5,000 hired her. Years later Kate Braid found couldn’t wait to tell his best dirty joke. her courage. When Braid endures one per week even after they turned forty out why. His crew had been slacking off, To deflect them all, she started to wear job for six months, and all the men have years of age. “While most female service so the foreman thought having a pretty pink. “First, little pink embroidery flow- fully accepted her as a colleague, and she workers were woman on the site might increase their ers so small you could hardly see them can share their jibes and humour, she paid low wages, motivation to look good at their work. on my coveralls. then a pink realizes it’s the most radical thing she has earning 57 per ✍ mackinaw… ever done. cent of what men Now Kate Braid has looked back at her ✍ One of the best poems is one of the earned doing fifteen years in construction with both This is mature, reflective, investiga- shortest. Braid describes the confusion similar work,” nostalgia and a critical eye in Turning Left tive writing that ventures far beyond she lately feels on the sidewalk whenever Ross writes, “only to the Ladies (Palimpsest Press $18). It self-glorification. There is much to be she passes a construction site, having left Joe Filippone, 1982 a small number recalls her progression from her first job the trades. She momentarily yearns for of women in cor- as a neophyte construction labourer on a the men to recognize her as a former porations and in the professions of law Gulf Island to building houses and Something Lost equal, to acknowledge that she knows BY KATE BRAID and medicine matched the income of bridges on the Lower Mainland as an ap- what they do, who they are. But the ‘white features’ following World War prentice carpenter, then as a journeyman schism of conventional thinking, of sex- These days, construction II.” carpenter, surrounded by men. ism, divides her and she feels invisible to workers are small Erotic dancing can be a profession. Eventually Braid became the first fe- them. Someone from a different species. hard-hatted jewels dangling It’s not perhaps the oldest profession, male member of the Vancouver union A woman. from the necklace of a crane. but perhaps close to it. local of the Carpenters and the first Braid ran her own renovation com- And for a few decades, Vancouver, woman to teach building trades full-time Sometimes I slink past, pany, Sisters Construction, before turn- like it or not, was a hip-swivelling and at the BC Institute of Technology. Along head down, as if ashamed. ing away from hammers in favour of the gyrating Mecca for women who plied the way, she had a love/hate relationship I have lost my right to be there. literary life. In 2006 she was Woodward their skin trade as dancers. with her work, cherishing her compe- Sometimes I wave—Hi, boys! Chair at SFU where she coordinated a And through it all, The Penthouse tence and resenting her loneliness. Remember me, a sister? research project on the number of remains open at the heart of the city, In this finely-wrought memoir, she women in trades in B.C. “That number They never wave back. sixty years young, a bastion of bur- recalls how she felt intimidated, other is the same now as it was in 1980—less Or if they do, lesque. In a nutshell, Ross has com- times privileged, other times supported. than three per cent,” she says. “It made it’s one of those waves they bined thorough research with a She learns the beauty of men; and she me realize the importance—still—of give to all the girls, clear-eyed sensibility that looks beyond sees their failings. Men have posters of telling tradeswomen’s stories.” a whistle, a leer. “a puritan ideology that is at once fas- naked women in the lockers. She sees Hence Turning Left to the Ladies. Ul- cinated and repulsed by female nudity how they can treat women like hunting I have lost something—the smell timately, Braid urges other women to and sexuality” to prove that erotic danc- trophies. of the pitch, the certainty follow suit, to learn to build, to add new ers who work full-time deserve to have “Mine is the experience of prey, of of nails. Those men? They were meaning to the word homemaker “as we their vocation respected and appreci- the fish and the deer, of being entered a magnifying glass build the new world, one nail, one wall, ated as work. 978-0802096463 into, of a space within meant for wel- in which I saw myself, tenfold. one woman at a time.” come.” 97800-9784917-0-3

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14 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 THE WAY WE WERE

mour and opinions Victoria seep into the narra- IN cartoonist Adrian tive, but in a light, Raeside finds his measured way that grandfather’s does nothing to de- bunk in the tract from the SEARCH preserved Terra storyline. In fact, Nova hut, Cape Raeside’s style gives it Evans, 2008. a more personal, vis- OF ceral and meaning- ful feel. Useful injections of irreverence re- GRAMPS mind the reader that polar exploration Adrian Raeside retraces was not entirely fuelled by selfless his grandfather’s footsteps patriotism or the in the Antarctic summer quest to expand hu- of 2008-2009. man knowledge. PHOTO

According to Raeside, the success- OGAWA BY DICK BOURGEOIS-DOYLE ful polar explorer MARI was the rock star of eized by the drama and glory of Antarctic. The most arresting and haunt- the period, rewarded by “the lecture cir- polar adventure, Charles ing images of the expedition are perhaps cuit, girls, a bigger ship, bigger girls.” Seymour Wright was just a those shot from within a towering “ice Raeside notes Sir John Franklin was Slad from “the colonies,” a Cana- cave” featuring Charles Wright and a and is “the Elvis of Arctic explorers— dian graduate student at Cambridge in portrait-style close-up of Wright’s blis- and just as dead.” 1910, when he marched fifty miles to tered and beaten young face upon his Return to Antarctica links Wright’s London and gained his place in the return from his “Southern Journey.” adventures to his personal background, Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole As a physics student from Toronto, within the fuller context of the times. led by Robert Falcon Scott. Wright used his experience for essentially Raeside has also benefited from access Wright’s role in that epic and tragic founding the field of glaciology, the to personal records, family contacts, and expedition has now been fully and af- multidisciplinary study of ice. Wright be- a lifetime within the atmosphere of the fectionately acknowledged by his grand- came Sir Charles and received many Charles Seymour Wright: “The most God- Terra Nova story. Two of his great-un- son Adrian Raeside, long-time honours prior to his death in 1975. forsaken country this is. If I ever get clear cles as well as his grandfather were key political cartoonist for the Victoria-Times Evidently Wright was a hard man to of it, I never want to see it again.” players and survivors of the expedition. Colonist, in Return to Antarctica: The dislike. He was considered by Scott to For Canadians who would like to see Amazing Adventure of Sir Charles be “very thorough and absolutely ready Raeside outlines his grandfather’s sci- themselves as a people of determination Wright on Robert Scott’s Journey to the for anything.” The captain said of his entific and military career in his final and competence with a capacity for South Pole (Wiley $34.95). young Canadian comrade that “Noth- chapter. As impressive as the story of pleasantness despite adversity, Return to Terra Nova was the name of the Lab- ing ever seems to worry him” and that Wright’s role in the Antarctic is, his other Antarctica makes for good and inspir- rador-based sealing ship that was pur- he could not imagine that Wright “ever life as a researcher and science leader ing reading. chased from Bowrings of Newfoundland complained of anything in his life.” might out-weigh it as raw material for It is an eminently readable and a well- for what would be Scott’s final journey. In recent decades, a broader under- another kind of book. referenced primer for those unfamiliar The expedition is famous for Scott’s standing of Wright’s role in the expedi- As a student prior to his departure with the early era of great polar gruesome death and that of the four oth- tion has surfaced in selected magazine for the Antarctic, Wright worked on adventure. 978-0-470-15380-2 ers who had accompanied him to the articles, bolstered by the publication of novel radiation technologies including Pole in January 1912. Silas, an edited version of Charles a measuring instrument that pre-dated Dick Bourgeois-Doyle is Director At the pole, Scott and several com- Wright’s diaries—the title of which is the the patenting of the Geiger Counter. of Corporate Governance at the panions were confronted with the sight enduring nickname he picked up on the ✍ National Research Council of Canada of a flag, a tent, and other heart-break- journey. The New Zealand-born Raeside’s hu- (NRC) in Montreal. ing evidence that their Norwegian com- petitor Roald Amundsen had beaten them to their goal by thirty-four days. In search of rutting musk ox, flatulent elephants and Bengal tigers Scott and his compatriots railed at their misfortune, then starved, froze, and fi- nder-celebrated and unassuming, Spain walker nally expired on the trek back to the UAnthony Dalton rivals the likes Cape Evans base camp on the coast. of Wade Davis and Jim Delgado n Rooster in the In November of that year, with as one of B.C.’s most-travelled authors. I Cathedral (Shoreline Wright acting as their “Navigator,” a Many of Dalton’s global escapades are Press $26), Presbyterian search party finally located Scott and two retold in Adventures with Camera and minister Paul Myers of his ice-encrusted comrades. It was Pen (BookLand $24.95) as he searches walks the ancient Wright who spotted a tiny point poking for polar bears on the shores of Hudson pilgrimage route that through the snow about a kilometre Bay, evades rutting musk ox, meets leads to the Cathedral of away, veered off from the others, and flatulent elephants and tracks Royal Santiago de Compostela, Bengal tigers in Bangladesh. Dalton dug into the drifts to eventually locate Spain. Neither a travel- affably recounts his journey to the salt the frozen bodies, the tents, equipment, ogue nor a guidebook, mines north of Timbuktu with a CBC- and—most influentially—the dead Rooster is a series of TV film crew, buying camels in Oman men’s notes. meditations on personal and rescuing a Canadian from Nigeria. These notes not only told the story of challenges and the larger, He doesn’t look like Indiana Jones, but sometimes intractable, Scott’s arrival at the Pole, but also con- he’s a man for all climates, from Norway firmed Amundsen’s achievement and issues of life. Myers has to Namibia. His new River Rough, conveyed the heroism and drama of the River Smooth (Dundurn $32.99) delivered over 750 public adventure. retraces the path of explorers on addresses, and appeared The drama was made more compel- Manitoba’s Hayes River which runs for on numerous regional and ling by hundreds of photos taken by more than 600 kilometres from near national television professional filmmaker and photogra- Norway House to Hudson Bay. Avid sailor & intrepid photographer Anthony Dalton has received broadcasts. pher Herbert Ponting who pro- Camera 978-0-9784395-2-1; River 978-1-55488-712-5 the 2009 Surrey Board of Trade Special Achievement Award. 978-1-896754-78-9 duced two widely-seen films about the

15 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 THE WAY WE WERE T-t-t-t-t-talking ’bout a generation

awrence’s Aronsen’s forthcoming social history City of Love and Revolution (New Star $24) will recall the so- called hippie era in Vancouver when psychedelia and Lthe illusion of free love generated an ebullient counter-culture. As the naive ideals of Haight Ashbury spread north to white- bread Vancouver, giving rise to the Georgia Straight newspa- per, music blossomed along with confrontational politics, culminating in the birth of Greenpeace and the Gastown Riot. Aronsen’s account is illustrated with photos, drawings, and ad- vertisements drawn from the newspapers—both straight and Georgia Straight—that chronicled the era. 9781554200481

Nurse-lieutenants march along Government St. in Victoria, 1915. BACK TO THE FRONT Not all war heroes wear boots. Some wear skirts & boots. Maureen Duffus’ Battlefront Nurses in W.W. I: The Canadian Army Medical Corps In England, France and Sa- lonika, 1914–1919 (Town and Gown $29.95) is the true story of four years in the lives of two nursing sisters who enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Esquimalt, British Co- lumbia, in the summer of 1915. Duffus has showcased the diary of Nursing Sister Elsie Collis, a memoir by Nursing Sister Ethel Morrison and photograph albums from 1915 to the end of their service in 1919, along with relevant excerpts from recollections of nurses and doctors from other Led Zeppelin for a ticket price of $3. Canadian medical units. Political and military situations re- Korky Day sells The Georgia Straight quiring their services have been summarized to put overseas (top). Publisher Dan McLeod is postings into context. Both Collis and Morrison served over- arrested on “investigation of seas in England, Salonika and France as lieutenants with the vagrancy,” a non-existent charge. Canadian Army Medical Corps. 8978-0-9733809-1-0 All images from The Georgia Straight.

16 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 THE WAY WE WERE

Olympic Run in 1979—the Espresso THE BIRTH Express—is typical. “As a teenager,” he writes, “I remember emerging from the fog- OF FREESTYLE enshrouded lower run and seeing this beacon Whistler history traces evolution from of civilization; a hybrid hippie hangout to gorbie gulag of hippie bus and fine European café with a ost local histories are written by Once upon a time, not so long spectacular view of the people over age fifty—and that’s ago, before Whistler was a place landfill.” Ma fine thing. for freedom and outlandish The Espresso Ex- Stephen Vogler is under fifty partying. Old-school European press is accorded seven and his Only in Whistler: Tales of a alpinists shared the slopes with pages. The history of the Mountain Town (Harbour $24.95) is snow-hippies who lived rent-free Snow Goose fleet of radically different. in rough squatters’ shacks where buses merits eleven For starters, its unusual cover literally folks listened to a lot of music, took pages. shows four ski bums; four women wear- a lot of drugs, and basically didn’t There are games of ing only skis and boots, preparing to ride conform to mainstream (ie. Van- Ace “Longstocking” shinny on Alta Lake, the ski-lift. Although this “non-frontal” couver/Victoria) values. Mackay-Smith the Party Barge, wet T-

nude cover has prevented the book from Vogler has been a resident of PHOTO perpetuates the party- shirt contests, Black- being displayed on some shelves, it does Whistler since he arrived there as hearty atmosphere of comb’s 1987 Sextath- KAWANO not misrepresent the contents. a child in 1976. He’s young Whistler by hosting a rave. lon (possibly the world’s

The free spirit of Whistler in the sev- enough to clearly and unflinch- TOSHI first free-skiing compe- enties and Eighties was audacious—and ingly recall when Whistler had only 500 questions, on the final page, how the tition) and the town’s vibrant live music Vogler proves it. year-round residents and all weekend ever-expanding infrastructure of Whis- scene. Whistler, after all, is the birthplace visitors were disdained as “gorbies.” tler will impact the lives of his three chil- Vogler also offers an in-depth record of freestyle skiing and home to the At age twelve, his “de facto teen cen- dren. of the Whistler Answer newspaper started world’s first snowboarding medalist, tre was the pinball machine at the 76 Along the way Vogler, a journalist, by Charlie Doyle after he came Ross Rebagliati, the pot smoker gas station.” carefully chronicles some hilarious an- across a magazine article in Banff enti- now running for office with the federal Since then Vogler has witnessed the tics and remarkable characters. tled, ‘Ski Bumming is Humming at Liberals. Free-style skiing and evolution of the Whistler experiment The story of how a 19-year-old Whistler.’ snowboarding are sports that arose from (hatched by the New Democrat govern- squatter, and third cook at The Keg, Twenty years from now, if someone free spirits, from the people that Vogler ment of Dave Barrett) to the named Nigel Protter started the writes a history of Whistler, most of the makes legendary. present day. Although he is never overtly town’s first cappuccino service in a con- details in Only in Whistler would likely ✍ opposed to the Olympics in his text, he verted bus parked at the bottom of the disappear. 978-1-55017-504-2

17 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 THE WAY WE WERE BABES ON THE RANGE How women have kept the world turning in the Cariboo and Chilcotin

Edited by Sage Birchwater, the life stories of thirty-seven women in Gumption & Grit: Women of the Cariboo Chilcotin (Caitlin $24.95), are an eye-opener to conditions that were long considered ‘normal’ in decades when a horse was often the only mode of transport. Here follows an edited excerpt from one memoir by Gerry Bracewell, born in Half-Way Lake, Alberta in 1922. From 1950 onwards, when she wasn’t guiding, she was a fully ca- Gerry Bracewell adopted a male sounding first name in order to become pable rancher, building cabins, viable as the Chilcotin’s first accredited female A-Guide outfitter. roping, branding and castrating calves alone in the range corral. and ether poured onto it. I zonked out. reset by the wonderful Graham family. not fall. The lamp in the window was a She broke her own horses, A wild dream, all in technicolour, Hodgson’s stage finally arrived and took halo of gold. Grandpa Moore was wait- built a twenty-four-room log lodge took over…. Then I heard a baby cry. me into the Williams Lake Hospital. My ing up for us. He lovingly accepted his and found time for motherhood, I was awakened to see a light bulb baby was admitted, but not me. grandson from my weary arms. raising four sons. spinning crazily overhead. As it slowed Dr. Pump was the only resident doc- The war soon ended. My husband and steadied, I saw Dr. Mackenzie tor, but he was a good one. He re-broke returned to ranching and a baby brother splinting my baby’s leg. My son was de- my baby’s leg, taped small square blocks for Marty was born in June. But this idyl- y first birthing ex- livered alive after seventy-four hours of onto the soles of his feet and screwed cup lic family life was not to be. Interference perience turned hopeless labour. His right femur had to hooks into the blocks. Long strings were separated us. My husband left to aid his out to be impossi- be broken mid-thigh to deliver him feet- fastened to the hooks, with the other mother with her ranch, and she found ble. It was January, first. It was a partial breach. ends holding weights dangling off the him another soul mate. Eventually he so the stage had Hodgson’s stage wasn’t due to come end of the crib. The baby lay on his back filed for divorce…. Mquit running. There were no snow through for two weeks. Within two days with both feet up at a right angle to his Grandpa was a Class A guide, which ploughs. We had only our team and I developed a devastating fever with body. In a month I would be al- permitted him to take hunting clients sleigh to get me thirty-seven kilometres chills, which I fought with lowed to take him home. after whatever big game was in season. out to Tatla Lake where I was to meet every fibre of my being. Hodgson’s stage re- Whenever I could find a neighbour lady with a doctor. A neighbour had ridden These were the days turned us to Tatla Lake, to watch over my boys for the day, I’d go on horseback to the only phone, a party before antibiot- where our team, along to learn the business…. line, relayed halfway to Williams Lake ics. I couldn’t sleigh, and a driver Grandpa had apprenticed as a guide by Alexis Creek, to get a doctor for me. die now, I had awaited us. It was a outfitter with Ralph Edwards of Lone- The doctor had to come with Bill Sharp, a baby to care long, cold thirty- some Lake. With spring bear hunting the village police officer in Williams Lake, for. Every day seven kilometres, mostly and fall moose, mule deer, and bear by car, often shovelling through drifts my baby’s in the dark, on Febru- hunting, he needed an assistant guide…. along the 230 kilometres of Chilcotin splints ary 24, 1944. Within a One day Grandpa Moore asked, “So Road. worked down mile of the ranch, we how about it? I want to quit.” When one of our team became ex- and had to be had to abandon the Advertising consisted of writing thou- hausted from pulling the sleigh through sleigh and my box of sands of letters. There were no phones eighteen inches of snow, Mr. Moore (the apples because the road back then…. Thinking I was on the right grandpa-to-be), borrowed a neighbour’s was too icy for the track, I put an expensive ad into Out- horse. Our other horse, a mean-spirited horses. The teamster door Life magazine, and received a dozen ex-rodeo bronc named Blackoby, after took them up onto letters from US hunters. The letters I Mr. Moore’s banker, soldiered on. He brushy hillsides to find typed and mailed listed animals available, won much praise from all of us. We ar- safe footing. I carried dates, rates, maps, and a list of suggested rived at sundown in Tatla Lake ahead of my baby in the freezing clothing. I also stated that I was a woman the doctor. dark over that icy road, guide outfitter. Bad idea. Not one an- The hospitable Graham family put praying that we would swered. From then on, letters to Gerry me into the master bedroom off the Bracewell were addressed to me, “Dear kitchen. I lapsed into sleep several times, Gerry Bracewell: “I Sir.” finally aroused by much hustle and bus- carried my baby in the On arrival, my guests accepted the tle when the doctor arrived. He was freezing dark over that fact that their guide outfitter was a washing his hands at the bedroom sink. icy road, praying that woman…. After five years of me learn- They had forgotten the rubber gloves. we would not fall.” ing the business, Grandpa said, “You can A washcloth was draped over my face take over. I’m retiring.” 978-1894759373

18 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 Strange Bedfellows The Invention The Private Lives of Words of theWorld ½ Howard Richler Richler’s wit and erudition make his fifth book on language a Jack Hodgins must-have for all those intrigued by the the English language’s reputation for “sleeping around.” 978-1-55380-100-9 6 x 9 160 pp $19.95 Skin Like Mine ½ Garry Gottfriedson A native poet like no other, Gottfriedson reveals what it feels like to live First Nations in the changing landscape of band politics and environmental degradation. 978-1-553380-101-6 6 x 9 100 pp $15.95 Follow the Elephant ½ Beryl Young In this young adult novel, a boy accompanies his grandmother to India and establishes a mysterious relationship with the elephant god, Ganesh, teaching him how to cope with his father’s A new edition of the novel that defined recent death. British Columbia. “In the beginning” a giant bull 978-1-55380-098-9 5-1/4 x 7-5/8 248 pp $10.95 begets a sky god who brings an entire Irish village to Canada. In the end, the whole of Survivor’s Leave Vancouver Island and perhaps the entire country ½ Robert Sutherland attend a rural wedding whose extravagance This young adult novel features two Canadian sailors whose ship propels everyday life into the extraordinary epic is torpedoed at sea during WWII and whose shore leave takes them world of modern myth. to a country house where they uncover a dangerous Nazi plot. 978-1-55380-097-2 5-1/4 x 7-5/8 176 pp $10.95 978-1-55380-099-6 6 x 9 356 pp $18.95

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

19 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 THE WAY WE WERE AS BIG AS CALIFORNIA ne hundred years ago, George Eastman be- O gan selling the world’s first, widely affordable, easy-to-use camera. Coincidently, amateur photographers were able to record the last great land rush in North America: the white re-set- tlement of the Peace River region. Consequently, Donald Pettit of Dawson Creek has uncovered literally tens of thousands of black and white un- published prints during his research, se- lecting the best for The Peace: A History in Photographs (Sandhill Some of the $79.95). 68 competitors in the “Mostly they documented personal annual Babyville sports things: births and deaths, first homes of day event, sponsored by sod and log, first harvests, community the Better Babies Contest and family gatherings. We see faces ex- Committee, Sunset Prairie, hausted by tragedy, glowing with tri- B.C., 1934. umph, shining with hope and pride. These are the pictures that fill my book. When you look into their eyes, you can As big as California, the Peace con- feel them looking back.” tains one of North America’s great rivers, WE WERE STARDUST, WE WERE GOLDEN Shortlisted for the Roderick Haig- the mighty Peace, 2000 kilometres long. et in 1969, Tom dent—break into a Brown Prize, Pettit’s collection of archi- “It’s a sad fact that for many people who Wayman’s first novel mothballed missile silo to val photos tied for a gold award in the have not traveled to the north,” says S Woodstock Rising commandeer a nuclear war- IPPY (Indepenent Publisher Book Pettit, “the concept of the Peace River Re- (Dundurn $21.99) is a black head, hoping to put their Awards) prize for Best Regional Book, gion draws a blank in terms of its land- comedy in which counter-cul- own satellite into orbit in Western Canada, and also received an scape, climate and history. It’s a region ture students in Laguna homage to the recent honourable mention in the Eric Hoffer that must be seen to be appreciated.” Beach, California—including Woodstock music festival. Tom Wayman Book Prizes in the Art category. 978-0-9736678-4-4 a Canadian graduate stu- 9781550028607

Archaeology, goats and dogs, honor, ethics, lies and betrayals are what can happen when two cultures abrade. From HOPEACE PRESS Janey Bennett’s Award-winning novel

$21.95 at your bookseller now ISBN: 978-0-9734007-2-4 Distribution by Steller Press

20 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 a forum for & about writers # 38

3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 • [email protected]

LOOKOUT Once I’d set the date for the book LOOKOUT launch, I wasn’t about to back out. The SAGA Public Art Gallery was booked, invitations and press releases sent, even as I felt the sickness of self-doubt gnaw- ing at my insides. About one hundred people showed up. Something happened that night. I think it was the love and support I felt coming from family, friends and the community because I transcended the nerves that had plagued me my entire “Call me life. The Shuswap Association of Writ- ers sponsored my launch, writers do- naïve, but nated time and baking, The Dust I’ll take it— Puppets played their toe-tapping music, I’ll take all Patrick Allwood wrote and per- this joy.” formed a very funny skit with my em- cee, Clive Calloway. Everybody was KAY MCCRACKEN brilliant. If there was a highlight it was Bonnie Thomas’s talk. I’d given her the manuscript to read. Her mother, Dr. Mary Thomas, a highly respected Secwepemc First Nations elder, was in a couple of scenes in the book. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t offending. She gave such a moving tribute to my book at the book launch that many people were in tears. My friends Deanna and Alex also did themselves proud, reading from their own books soon to be published by Gracesprings. During the intermission, I signed books and everything felt right. I wasn’t hiding anymore. I’d thrown off the cloak of invisibility and everywhere I went after that people stopped to say how much they loved the book or could TWIGG PHOTO ININ BOLDBOLD PRINTPRINT they buy a copy from me. Emails began flooding in. People I didn’t know How ex-bookseller Kay McCracken called me at home. Praise for “Raven” was heady stuff. It was better than any drugs I’d ever tried. I basked rescued her uncensored self. in feelings of worthiness because it was apparent that I’d written something that was touching people at a DON’T KNOW WHAT IT WAS EX- deep level. Writers should be forewarned not to expect their lives will greatly change if The next day actly that pushed me over the they publish a book. However, Kay McCracken, has proved to be an ex- Deanna and I visited ception to the rule. Alan Twigg. I told him edge but I pulled up stakes and No, her self-published account of running a bookstore was not optioned for what I had told people moved to a small town in south a Hollywood movie starring Meryl Streep. at the Banyen event. The Oprah Book Club has yet to call. And she hasn’t been invited to the Publishing this book Icentral British Columbia known as Vancouver Writers Festival. had changed my life. But thanks to friends and family in Salmon Arm, the former bookseller has “The idea that one can Salmon Arm to start a bookstore. The felt herself transformed into someone who can boldly speak her own uncen- be happy is a radical time had come to make a change. I felt sored truths. one,” he said. “Maybe After a joyous book launch in her hometown for A Raven in My Heart: A you should write about if I didn’t do it then, I never would. Memoir (Gracesprings Collective $27.95), McCracken travelled to Vancou- it.” ver for a modest reading at Banyen Books where, for one hour, she and her It has been five What happened over the next five-and-a-half years Shuswap Valley friend Deanna Kawatski entertained a respectful gathering of months now since I was great material for a book. My bookstore, called a dozen people in a cramped but comfortable corner of the store. launched Raven and my Reflections, was peopled by quirky and wonderful It was enough. life has changed. As I go human beings, one ghost, and mysterious happen- about the business of ings—a story that begged to be told. After closing Arm—the presence of active white supremacists for promoting and distributing my book, I’ve noticed a Reflections (the irony was that I never had time to one—that the city fathers (and mothers) were not trait that wasn’t there before. Boldness! Radical bold- reflect on much while I was managing it), I spent the going to appreciate. Would I be stoned as I walked down ness! It grows stronger every day. It comes from a will- next ten years reflecting and writing about the experi- the streets? ingness to believe in myself, and what I’ve written. ence. And what about my family and friends? How Call me naïve, but I’ll take it—I’ll take all this joy Hundreds of drafts later I finally had a book and a would they react to seeing themselves portrayed on that comes from allowing my uncensored self to have title to hang on it: A Raven in My Heart: A Memoir. the page? Should I have dredged up the family se- a say. The symbol of Raven, the great Trickster, was most cret? Luckily, I had the support of the Gracesprings Life dishes up enough heartache, so I’ll grab the appropriate and that becomes even more apparent Collective authors behind me. Alex Forbes, joy while I can. when you read the book. Caroline Woodward, Deanna Kawatski All my fears and insecurities flooded back the and I had formed the collective about a year and a [For more info on Kay McCracken and A Raven in My closer it came to print deadline. This was a very per- half earlier, mainly to take control our work and to Heart: A Memoir, visit www.gracespringscollective] sonal story and I was divulging things about Salmon work in a spirit of cooperation. 978-0-9809608-2-2

21 BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • SPRING • 2010 THE WAY WE WERE

Here we continue our series about the origins of publishing ters about Charlie. Through her efforts, Buddy course of Russian-Jewish immigration to the Ca- enterprises by focusing on the life and times of recalls, “he got out on parole and went onto a nadian prairies over 100 years. It includes stories methadone program.” and memories of her relatives including her Cherie Smith. After Summer of the Black Sun and Tillie’s Punc- grandfather Solomon Steiman. Janina Stajic and researcher Helen Clay, both tured Romance, the formal association with Mendel’s Children received glowing reviews in Print Futures: Professional Writing students from Douglas PRISM was dropped. By the early 1970s a group the The Midwest , The Montreal Ga- College, have recovered the story of how Cherie Smith, a 36- of publishers, including Cherie, began meeting zette, and from Wayson Choy: “Cherie year-old mother of two, started November House in 1969, releas- to discuss the possibility of forming a professional Smith’s family chronicle is written with such sto- ing twenty-one titles, against a backdrop of male chauvinism, as association. At that time, Buddy Smith owned rytelling skill, with such an honest and compas- B.C.s first female book publisher. Harry Sons & Co., a book wholesaling company, sionate clarity, that the reader turns page after so men still dismissed her as Buddy’s wife. Many page with growing fascination.” of the formative meetings were held at Cherie’s In 1998 Cherie was diagnosed with cancer. home, and she would often welcome her guests By the end of the year she was living at home HERIE SMITH CAME FIRST. AS ONE OF THE FIVE FOUNDING MEMBERS OF THE with goodies. The gesture backfired; under the care of a hospice nurse. De- organization that became the Association of Book Publishers of B.C., Cherie became known as “Mrs. Cook- spite urgings from the nurse to “let go,” “shy, internal Cherie” was seemingly dependent on her husband Buddy ies.” Cherie stayed with the group long Cherie Smith held on. Even though enough to see November House be- she was bedridden and could barely Smith, whom she married when she was 18—but she had an ardent come a founding member of the West- speak, she wanted to wait for the birth love of literature, an adventurous spirit (her recipe for a happy voyage ern Canadian Publishers’ Association, of her third grandchild. When her known today as the Association of Book granddaughter was finally born, her on their boat included a complete state of undress) and a significant family history. C Publishers of B.C. Unwilling to toler- daughter-in-law came straight from ate sexist attitudes, she left the group the hospital to Cherie’s bedside and As her friend Alice Zilber says, Cherie Cherie was delighted. But not everyone ap- not long after it was fostered in her placed the tiny baby next to her. And Smith had an inner chutzpah that helped her plauded. Buddy Smith, Cherie’s friends and col- home. Harry Rankin then everyday after that, she would stand her ground. That chutzpah partially arose leagues take great pleasure in telling the story of Cherie Smith published another bring the child to lie with Cherie in from her Jewish heritage. what happened next. They were all at a party 19 books including Allan bed. Once the baby was born, the Cherie Smith’s grandfather Solomon when a belligerent, SFU poetry professor ran up Fotheringham’s first book, Col- nurse again urged her to let go; she’d Steiman was sent to Viatka in the Urals, 450 to Buddy and declared, “You keep your wife on lected & Bound, in 1972, along with seen her grandchild. But she had to miles north-east of Moscow, in 1914, as a politi- a leash, or she’ll be in trouble.” David Evanier’s The Swinging fulfill one more wish—to celebrate her cal exile. His wife and family later joined him Buddy was flabbergasted. “First of all,” he Headhunter. In 1973, November and Buddy’s 47th wedding anniver- there. recalls, “I didn’t like him saying that. Second, I House published Sister Roxy, a first sary, which she managed to do on June Born in Latvia in 1898, Cherie’s father Iser don’t like anybody waving their finger in my face. novel by Albertan Kenneth Dyba, 29th, before passing away on July 13, Steiman was sent to Canada in 1912 when So I told him, ‘Take your finger out of my face another ex-student of Jacob Zilber. 1999. he was 14. His experiences as a teacher in north- before I break it off!’” November House went on to publish Cherie Smith was never particularly ern Manitoba, starving and freezing, are con- The man had marched up to Cherie, inter- Dyba’s children’s book Lucifer and Allan Fotheringham interested in the ground-breaking na- tained in the one book Cherie Smith wrote, rupted her conversation with a group of friends, Lucinda (1977) and The Long (and ture of her achievements. She simply Mendel’s Children. and then demanded to know, “what business she Glorious) Weekend of Raymond (and Bingo) loved literature and was determined to encour- As a physician he started King Edward Hos- had publishing a piece of crap like Summer of Oblongh (1983), one of its two final titles. age local writers by publishing books of high pital in Kamsack, Saskatchewan, where he mar- the Black Sun?” Harry Adaskin, a violinist, broadcaster, quality. And she continues to encourage budding ried Laura Shastky. Their daughter Cherie With the author Bill O’Brien standing right teacher and first head of UBC’s music depart- literary talent. The Cherie Smith Prize in Crea- was born November 13, 1933. behind them, Cherie Smith tried to reason with ment, became a November House author after tive Writing, a grant of $500, is available to crea- ✍ the unwanted critic, but he simply wouldn’t lis- Cherie, relaxing in a bath, heard him on CBC tive writing students at UBC, and the literary November House began at UBC, where Smith ten. Feeling she was being “verbally raped,” she Radio. She called him up, and November House festival she founded now bears her name. The earned her Honours degree in English Litera- defended her author and herself by slapping her ended up publishing two of his books: A Fid- Cherie Smith Jewish Book Festival celebrated its ture, about ten years after creative writing teach- verbal assailant—twice—across the face. dler’s World: Memoirs to 1938, in 1977, and A 25th anniversary in, appropriately, November of ers Jan de Bruyn and Jacob Zilber had After Summer of the Black Sun, manuscripts Fiddler’s Choice: Memoirs 1938-1980, in 1982. 2009. decided to found PRISM in 1959. It was one of came pouring over the transom. “98 percent Harry Rankin, a hugely popular city coun- the few literary magazines west of Toronto. Zilber, were bad,” says Buddy Smith, “and the other two cillor, was also approached by Cherie, and in November House Titles a friend of the Smiths, asked Cherie Smith to percent [were] not very good.” When Charlie 1975 Rankin’s Law: Recollections of a Radical hit help. She took on the most difficult job, selling Leeds’ manuscript, Tillie’s Punctured Romance, the bookstands. FICTION advertising for a literary periodical. Ten years later, was put into her hands by another UBC profes- Bill T. O’Brien: Summer of the Black Sun (1969) During its 14-year-run, November House Charlie Leeds: Tillie’s Punctured Romance, & out of the blue, Jacob handed her a manuscript sor, Cherie knew she’d found November House’s published an eclectic mix although Cherie tried The Love Song of Rotten John Calabrese, plus

second book. PHOTO selected short subjects (1970) by Bill T. O’Brien, one of his students. “Why to focus on non-fiction, controversial subjects and David Evanier: The Swinging Headhunter (1972) don’t you start a small publishing company and Not only did Cherie publish Charlie’s book, books about B.C. Cookbooks such as Denny Kenneth Dyba: Sister Roxy (1973); Lucifer and make this your first work?” he said. “We’ll co- she helped get him out of prison. Boyd’s Man on the Range: or, How to Survive in Lucinda (1977); The Long (and Glorious) Weekend

COLLECTIONS of Raymond (and Bingo) Oblongh (1983) publish it with you.” Charlie Leeds was a jazz musician who had the Kitchen Without Really Crying (1973) were Robert G Sherrin: The Black Box (1976) Cherie Smith consulted her husband and been sentenced to 25 years in a maximum secu-

SPECIAL published alongside First Nations’ stories, Legends decided she’d give it a go. That’s how 1,000 hard- rity prison in New Jersey, having been arrested UBC of the River People (1976), and local tales of in- NON-FICTION cover copies of Bill T. O’Brien’s novel Summer of for breaking into a drugstore at 3am. Charlie had Barry Broadfoot: Stanley Park: an Island in the terest: Stanley Park: an Island in the City (1971). City — photography by Ralph Bower; text by the Black Sun were published by “PRISM inter- faced a zero-tolerance-to-drugs judge. Luckily for One of the last books from November House was Barry Broadfoot (1971) national in association with November House.” Charlie, his book somehow found its way to Feldafing (1983), the story of inmates from a con- Jack Wassermann: Vancouver on 5,000 Calories a Day: a Guide to Dining Out (1971) She chose the name simply because her birthday Cherie and, after publishing it in 1970, she be- centration camp who, after the war, took over Allan Fotheringham: Collected & Bound (1972) gan a correspondence with his prison warden. TRY TO REMEMBER THE KIND OF Harry Rankin: Rankin’s Law: Recollections of a was in November. O’Brien’s fictional account of what had been a wealthy town in Bavaria in or- a man in a mental institution garnered rave re- She sent the prison warden Charlie’s book with Radical (1975) der to heal from the trauma of war. Harry Adaskin: A Fiddler’s World: Memoirs to views from the likes of Joyce Carol Oates, a note saying, “You know you have in that prison Cherie Smith liked to say publishing was like 1938 (1977); A Fiddler’s Choice: Memoirs 1938- Margaret Laurence and this man who is a great writer.” Eventually the 1980 (1982) fishing. It was “incessant expectation followed by Julian Smith: Rules to Keep the Rascals Out (1978) (who had published her first book the year be- warden agreed that Cherie and Buddy could visit perpetual disappointment.” She kept a picture Simon Schochet: Feldafing (1983) fore) who described it as “terrifying, desperately Charlie. of two hands on the edge of a cliff, hanging on funny.” Produced with the help of a Canada Buddy recalls the prison as a horrible place, by the fingernails, representing the publishing COOKBOOKS Denny Boyd: Man on the Range: or, How to Council grant, Summer of the Black Sun was se- “We had to visit him through thick glass and by business. Cherie was publisher, editor and liter- Survive in the Kitchen Without Really Crying lected by the Ministry of Education for B.C. for telephone.” After the visit, Cherie was even more ary agent. And she made hors d’oeuvres for book (1973) inclusion in the high school curriculum. Paper- determined to get Charlie released. She un- National Council of Jewish Women of Canada: launches. Dealing with disgruntled authors and The Council Cookbook: a Treasury of Jewish back rights were sold to Simon & Schuster who earthed the name and address of the judge who applying for limited Canada Council funding Recipes. 5th Ed. (1974) printed another 10,000 copies. had sentenced him and began sending him let- was hard work: “Douglas & McIntyre have had DRAMA a very rocky history,” says Buddy Smith. “Even Betty Keller: Trick Doors and Other Dramatic Female book publishers in B.C. have included Cherie Smith’s closest contemporary, NOVEMBER in Toronto, McClelland and Stewart had a diffi- Sketches (1974); Taking Off: a Practical Handbook cult time…” for Teachers of Creative Drama (1975); Opening Diana Douglas (Self-Counsel Press), as well as Michelle Benjamin (Polestar Trick Doors: a Guide to the Use and Production of Press), Catherine Edwards (Pacific Educational Press), Maralyn Horsdal November House closed its doors in 1983. the Sketches in Trick Doors (1975) (Horsdal & Schubart), Vici Johnstone (Caitlin Press), Anita Large (Theytus In 1984, Cherie Smith founded the Jewish Book Festival and turned her hand to writing her fam- FIRST NATIONS Books), Ruth Linka (Touchwood Editions), Diane Morriss (Sono Nis), Naomi The life and times of Cherie Smith Norman H Lerman: Legends of the River People Wakan (Pacific-Rim Publishers), Carolyn Zonailo (Caitlin Press) and the women ily memoir, Mendel’s Children (University of (1976) Diana Douglas who collectively managed Press Gang. Calgary Press, 1997), a history that charts the

22 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • SPRING • 2010 23 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • SPRING • 2010 24 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 featureview FICTION

tance between the audience and horrific events that makes it possible for us to face our worst fears and experience a cathar- tic emotional resolution. Hu- mour is one way of making the unbearable bearable; we laugh at the moronic screw-ups of Trailer Park Boys because we grew up knowing guys like Julian, Ricky and Bubbles and secretly remember that the messes they generated were any- thing but funny at the time. As Raymond Chandler once said of the life on the mean streets he chronicled, “It reads better than it lives.” In Kaspoit! the criminals are no brighter than the low-lifes who populate Bolen’s Barry Delta novels, but the humour is of the Hell’s Dark Roast variety as the various characters—in- cluding a couple of visiting hit- men from the Montreal mob, a DARKNESSDARKNESS ATAT THETHE senior RCMP officer and an ambitious Eurasian cocktail wait- ress—attempt to exploit a power vacuum created by a police sting back east (Google Project Colisee) that temporarily upsets the apple-cart of organized crime. Abandoning the breezy cyni- cal narrative commentary of the Barry Delta novels, here Bolen restricts himself to the more challenging toolkit of the dramatist and scriptwriter: de- EDGEEDGE scriptive action and dialogue carry the plot alone, with none of the gratuitous cheats of the TOWN “psychological novel” or the in- ofof TOWN terminable self-indulgent narra- tive commentary that is such a soporific feature of so many Ca- Reviewer John Moore says nadian novels produced by hold- Dennis Bolen’s dialogue-driven novel ers of MFAs in creative writing. Bolen’s stripped-to-the- Kaspoit! is as shocking as frame, dialogue-driven story will “a slap in the face with a be as shocking to CanLit-condi- tioned sensibilities as a slap in the bag of cold nails.” face with a bag of cold nails, but PHOTO it is a brilliant exercise in

SAWYER minimalism that shows how much can be evoked with just a

CAROL few lines of authentic dialogue BY JOHN MOORE and talking business while wait- ing about why women were go- eral parole officer, knows how and ‘narrative’ that amounts to ing for Friendly to return with ing missing from the Downtown the system operates, what its pri- little more than stage direction. Kaspoit! by Dennis Bolen (Anvil Press $20) a carload of compliant or des- Eastside for years before the Van- orities are, and how blurred the A novel written almost en- perate women scooped from couver Police or RCMP ap- line between tolerance and col- tirely in dialogue plays on the ir- aspoit!—that’s the noise the sidewalks of the Downtown peared to notice. That’s the lusion can become. The novel resistible human temptation to made by opening a beer Eastside. question Bolen tries to answer implies that even if Pickton’s pig eavesdrop and to continue to lis- K can, a crisp flatulence As a result of these de- in Kaspoit! farm had been under 24/7 sur- ten, with guilty shadenfreude, even so familiar it ought to be incor- bauches, women sometimes suc- It’s a novel about perception veillance, it would ultimately when what we hear appalls us. porated into O Canada, a sound cumb to excesses of alcohol and and agendas, about how what have made no difference be- In his quirky film, My Dinner that’s usually evocative of barbe- drugs or to the bizarre sexual we see, and what we think we cause the cops would have been with Andre, director Louis Malle cues, beach parties or the end proclivities of some of the mem- know, are determined by what clocking the comings and goings demonstrated the seductiveness of a hard day. bers. As host and hog-butcher we’re looking for. of gangsters, not doing a head- of dialogue in a two-hour film But after imbibing Dennis to the underworld, Friendly’s In the novel, local RCMP are count of women who inciden- consisting of two old friends talk- Bolen’s Kaspoit! you’ll never pop job is to clean up the mess. well aware of the pig farm’s role tally came and went—or didn’t. ing over dinner. Philip Roth another Canadian or Blue with- Of course this plot will ring as an ad hoc social club for the In three earlier novels featur- achieved a similar effect in a dull, out cringing. In his latest and alarm bells with anyone who has scum of Vancouver, who refer to ing his parole-officer alter ego, somewhat plotless novel that darkest tale set among Vancou- followed the case of William the cops contemptuously as Barry Delta—Stupid Crimes (An- consisted of nothing but the dia- ver’s criminal underclass, Bolen, Pickton, now our nation’s most “Ruckmumps” from the acro- vil Press), Krekshuns (Random logue between a man and his who has five previous books of notorious serial killer. nym of their insignia. In prac- House Canada) and Toy Gun (An- mistress in bed. gritty fiction under his belt, uses The women are not the main tice, police forces routinely vil Press)—Bolen developed a sig- In Kaspoit!, Dennis Bolen has the sound to punctuate some of focus of the plot; they are not permit certain bars or impro- nature style, a mix of Raymond created a terrifying and sus- the most squalid dialogue ever even characters as such—an as- vised social clubs where known Chandler wit and Trailer Park Boys penseful thriller out of the kind put on paper, rendered all the pect of the novel that has al- criminals gather to continue to goofiness you can’t quite call gal- of table talk you could overhear more horrific by its very banality. ready caused some critics to be operate because, in the face of lows-humour (since Canada re- in certain clubs and bars no In the novel, a Fraser Valley concerned with making sure undermanned detachments pealed capital punishment), but more than a twenty minute drive pig farm owned by a not-too- their politically correct jock- and tight budgets, it’s a cost-ef- a sort of squalid slapstick that from your house. 9781897535059 bright character named straps are in place. But they’re fective way of keeping track of makes the antics of his criminal Friendly serves as a private social missing the point. the bad guys. characters as pathetically funny John Moore, in Squamish, remains club for assorted Lower Main- After William Pickton was ar- Bolen, a career veteran of the as they are scary. one of British Columbia’s most origi- land gangsters, who stand rested, media and activist Canadian justice system after Literary and dramatic arts tra- nal and un-self-censored book review- around bonfires popping beers groups had a field day speculat- more than twenty years as a fed- ditionally create a critical dis- ers and fiction writers.

25 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 New & Recent from the Royal BC Museum Ten new stories from one of our most accomplished writers

Images from the The Box Likeness House Dan Savard George Bowering In this picturesque and insightful book, Dan Savard explores the relationship between First Peoples Blackberry Books • People’s in BC, Alaska and Washington FIND IT HERE and the early photographers who Co-op Bookstore • Pulpfi ction captured their likenesses on glass Books • Abraxas Books, Denman Island • plates and nitrate film. Galiano Island Books • Sorensen Books • The book features more than 250 photographs in a variety of Pollen Sweaters, Lund • Chapters • Indigo • formats, from 1850 to the 1920s. chapters.indigo.ca • amazon.com It is not only an important book about photography, but a visual $39.95 NewStarBooks.com statement about perception (and misperception), cultural change ISBN 978-0-7726-6150-0 and survival. Available in May 2010.

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26 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 reviews POETRY

SHORT LIST

is a door by Fred Wah (Talon $17.95)

aving been one of the founding CONNECT Heditors of the UBC poetry newsletter TISH in the 1960s, Fred Wah became a pioneer of on-line publishing in midlife, THE UKES mentoring younger writers. “Of all the writers who have developed out of the TISH experience,” his long- time friend George Bowering God of Missed Connections by Elizabeth Bachinsky once wrote, “Wah was & is the (Nightwood $17.95) most poetical.” Wah’s latest poetry collection is entitled is a door. “THERE IS NO ONE DEFINITION OF WHAT IT IS TO BE 978-0-88922-620-3 Ukrainian,” says Elizabeth Bachinsky. “It’s not a new story, nor an unknown one, but there are over one million persons who claim Ukrainian heritage living in Canada today.” Suspecting many of her generation don’t know historical truths about Ukrainians, Bachinsky, has shared her exploratory self- education in her third collection of poems, God of Missed Connections. Bachinsky is unafraid to divulge her im- pressionable nature as a seeker of truth, rather than a professor of it. Many poems are strikingly original and candid; others can be coy, opaque. At its best, Bachinsky’s work is a shining example of how poetry can be Fred Wah more revelatory than prose.

Possibly to avoid typecasting as an ethnic Three Blocks West of Wonderland by writer, there is no clear indication of the sub- Heather Susan Haley (Ekstasis $18.95) ject matter in the packaging of the book, but it has been shortlisted for the $25,000 oet and musician Heather Kobzar presented biennially PSusan Haley’s latest col- lection is Three Blocks West of to a Canadian writer who best presents a Wonderland which includes dy- Ukrainian Canadian theme. 978-0-88971-226-3 namic place and travel poems al- luding to post 9/ The Coast Mountains Trilogy: Mountain Poems, 1957-1971 by Dick Culbert (Tricouni $15.95) 11 angst and guilt written in STYLISTICALLY LIKE ROBERT SERVICE‘S POETRY, BUT her characteristi- more in the tradition of Earle Birney’s poem Elizabeth Bachinsky searches for Ukrainian historical truths. cally insightful David, Dick Culbert’s poetry in The Coast style. Previously, Haley was pub- Mountains Trilogy: Mountain Poems, 1957- 1965, updated in 1969. The period from Stephen Bett’s Extreme Positions lisher of the 1971, illustrated by Arnold Shives, reflects 1960-1975 has been dubbed by others as ‘The (NY: Spuyten Duyvil Books $14) Edgewise Café, one man’s relations with nature and his Culbert Era in the Coast Mountains.’ Heather Susan Haley ACCORDING TO PUBLICITY MATERIALS, one of Canada's maturation process to adulthood. Culbert earned a Ph.D in geophysics Stephen Bett’s Extreme Positions is a soft- first electronic literary magazines. Born in 1940 and raised in West Vancou- from UBC in 1971 and has long worked in porn spoof in which “each poem begins with In 2009, she toured her spoken ver, climbing legend Dick Culbert provided South America in his profession of mineral a simple blank-face, stark word CD Princess Nut in Canada one of the first authoritative guides to ma- exploration. He lives in Gibsons. naked line drawing of and the U.S. 978-1-897430-47-7 jor climbs in the West Coast Mountains in 978-0-9811536-0-5 ‘boy & girl next door’ fig- ures in utterly physically LIVESAY impossible sexual ‘posi- tions.’ REMEMBERED Accompanying the To recognize Dorothy “Dee” text are witty cultural or Livesay’s residence on the North Stephen Bett literary allusions, a calorie Shore for approximately twenty burn count for ‘him’ & years during the thirties and forties, ‘her,’ equipment required (deodorant, the North Vancouver Library has al- etc.), cautions & hazards (such as requiring located part of its new public plaza on Lonsdale Avenue to be engraved a lawyer & /or chiropractor).” 978-0-923389-78-9 with four lines from Livesay’s best- Marigolds by Daniel Rajala (Nanaimo: Match Stick known poem, ‘The Unquiet Bed.’ A Publishing $12.50) ceremony was held on November 29 with of her work by MARIGOLDS BY NANAIMO’S DANIEL RAJALA IS A and collection of love poems and meditations cov- Pierre Coupey Jamie Reid. North Van mayor Darrell ering 1998-2009. Mussatto attended. Livesay’s Raised in a working class family in grandson Randall McNair will be Campbell River, he at- taking over ownership of Oolichan tended the Vancouver Books from founder Ron Smith. School of Art in 1973. Im- pressed by the impact of a streaker at a Beach Boys concert, he tried streak- ing one night, running naked down Barclay Daniel Rajala Street in Vancouver’s West End. He has contin- ued streaking as a theatrical event. In 2009 he cited Love Palace as his 27th self-published book, but Marigolds is his first perfect-bound collection. The title poem of Marigolds concludes: "Even though my life can feel / like a war ravaged land at times, / received his Governor General’s Award for Poetry, David Zieroth there is some reassuring calmness to / be for The Fly in Autumn (Harbour $18.95), from Her Excellency The Right Dorothy Livesay as found with something beautiful, / that I Mrs. Duncan McNair in Honourable Michaëlle Jean, 27th Governor General of Canada. brought into the world to look / at, on a North Vancouver, circa 1949 bright sunny Fall afternoon.” 978-0-9865051-0-2

27 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 ‘Th is book keeps you guessing, laughing and dropping your jaw at the weird insights and awesomely daring prose. Go read it. Or watch it. Or listen to it. Or whatever it wants you to do with it, just do it.’ — Rebecca Brown More House Hannah Calder

FIND IT HERE Pulpfi ction • People’s Co-op Bookstore • Blackberry Books • Little Sister’s Book & Art Emporium• Cadboro Bay Books, Victoria • Sorensen Books, Victoria • Book Bonanza, Quadra Island • 32 Books, North Vancouver • Chapters • Indigo • amazon.com • chapters.indigo.ca NewStarBooks.com

Flesh in the Inkwell poems by Winona Baker “Poems from a life” by B.C.’s internationally celebrated haiku and senryu poet.

So Large an Animal poems by Bibiana Tomasic An awakening from the silence a child embraces growing up in a Communist country where only certain things are ‘say-able.’

www.leafpress.ca

The Malahat Review Far Horizons Award for Poetry 2010 est. 1945 Dare to Dream!

Canada’s premier Follow in the footsteps of Don McKay literary magazine invites and Lorna Crozier… entries from everywhere to Canada’s only national contest for aspiring poets who have yet to publish a book of their own. Submit up to three poems per entry, each poem no more than sixty lines long.

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Send your most $500 winning entry to: (plus $40 per page) The Malahat Review Far Horizons Award Deadline: May 1, 2010 for Poetry (postmark date) University of Victoria 1391 Commercial Drive Box 1700, Station CSC Vancouver, BC V5L 3X5 Complete guidelines: Victoria, B.C., Canada malahatreview.ca V8W 2Y2 (604) 253-6442

28 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 reviews NON-FICTION

diately by a description of the bird holding his catch like an ice cream cone, chewing the face of the still-wriggling fish. But it’s not all gore and guts. There’s the crow that teases the dog and the mouse so fearless Brett can’t bear to kill it. There are Zen-like reflections on chop- ping wood and weeding. (“If you have a goal in a garden, you’re doomed.”) There are Rabelai- sian accounts of casual breakfasts and extravagant feasts. There are misadventures such as the time his tractor ran out of gas as he was using it to “fluff up” a fire, and Brett and his wife Sharon had to push the machine out of the flames. There are the local charac- ters and the politics of the com- munity fair. For some reason Brett and his friends get big yuks watching every member of a work crew bang his head on the same projecting beam. For all I know Brett may be an incompetent farmer—he cheerfully admits his estate is a money-loser—but gawd, he sure knows a lot about crops and live- stock and how they have been cultivated and bred around the world. As he rambles purposefully around Trauma Farm on this 18- year day, extraneous facts drop from his discourse like crumbs from a ploughman’s lunch. Did PHOTO you know that Edward Jenner’s experiments in inoculation, PETERSON

while successful against small- pox, probably spread other dis- BARRY eases including tuberculosis, which killed most of his family? Or that “salaam,” Arabic for phic about animals. Fortunately peace, evolved from a word for this is utter nonsense, as he negotiations over salt? MISSING LAMBS & OTHER makes a convincing case for the These little nuggets are as intelligence and individuality of addictive as beer nuts, but Brett’s horses, dogs, pigs and even editors might have reined in his chickens. But he can also be didactic streak a little. Was it re- clinical or barnyard blunt. Some- ally necessary to explain that times he is all three at once: sashimi is sliced raw tuna? If Trauma Farm held none of At Trauma Farm our fastidious RURAL BLEATS this information, or if all of it horse, LaBarisha, politely craps in were wrong, it would still be the same general area each day, pro- Rustic philosopher and social critic Brian Brett worth reading just for Brett’s viding manure. The sheep waste poetic turn of phrase. “As sum- of Salt Spring Island has won the Writers’ Trust of Canada hay, pulling it recklessly from the mer drives its hot fingers into the racks in their sheds and shitting on Non-Fiction Prize for his Trauma Farm. earth . . . the sky was a propane- it. This provides another excellent fire blue . . . the pale armour of compost. Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural over-regulation (bye-bye Salt the farm. Again and again he a crayfish haunting the stones in Life by Brian Brett (Greystone $35) Spring lamb) and corporate points to the promiscuous pro- Into the first of a couple of the creek bed;” every chapter agribusiness (hello battery fusion and interconnectedness chapters on chickens (entitled, has a dusting of these gems. f you’ve lived in B.C. for hens). of plant and animal life on the alas, “Fowl Play”) Brett shoe- True to his love for the heed- more than a couple of years The book is subtitled A Rebel farm (and the planet)—and to horns a history of the bird’s do- less, wanton nature of nature, Iand you’re not a vegetarian, History of Rural Life, although it’s the consequences of our es- mestication, the rise and fall of Brett resists the temptation to tie chances are you have fond hard to say just what Brett is re- trangement from that vitality. its gene pool, an appreciation of up his treatise with a tidy moral. memories of Salt Spring Island belling against. Or maybe what Brett’s anger and its barnyard society, “Absurdity has lived with the lamb. he isn’t rebelling against. frustration at the con- another condemna- planet since the first cell di- You may be wondering why Contrarian, curmudgeonly and version of food pro- tion of modern vided,” he asserts. While he is they are only memories. often hilarious, he invites us to duction from megafarms, and re- nothing if not spiritual, he sees The end of viable commer- join him on a one-day tour of the hands-on vocation to flections from Sappho no personal god in “the gore, cial sheep production on Salt farm that spans nearly two dec- soulless factory output and Kenneth Rexroth the parasites, the gorgeous Spring is but one of many sad ades. is palpable. on the perfection of birthings, those green leaves af- and infuriating lessons in Brian The conceit of an 18-year day the egg. ter a rain, the rusty nail in the The unrelenting assembly Brett’s award-winning Trauma is just that, a narrative fig leaf in Then he describes foot, a nasturtium blossom close lines force the workers to SHANE McCUNE Farm, an immensely satisfying place of plot. Which is good. It in detail how he up, and the babies born head- clean and gut up to a meditation on farm life. [The frees Brett to let fly with obser- slaughters chickens. “That was less while a tidal wave ap- steer a minute . . . It often leads to title is derived from the name vations and opinions on a extreme,” gasps a college stu- proaches.” accidental piercing of the stomach of his farm.] gallimaufry of topics in a corre- dent who witnesses this proce- The only symmetry he offers and the spraying of shit and intes- It’s a vigorous meditation, if sponding panoply of forms— dure, and so it is. Elsewhere the is that at the end of this elon- tines and their bacteria all over the there can be such a thing. polemical rants, a smidgen of killing of a pig, and the reaction gated day, as at the beginning, meat. By the time we see that steer Brett’s confident prose, by turns poetry, elegiac essays, and vi- of its sibling, sears the mind in he pads naked into the woods. it’s washed and wrapped in plastic. earthy and lyrical, jaunts gnettes as short and sharp as a two or three stark sentences. 978-1-55365-474-2 The bacteria aren’t necessarily elimi- through the history of farming Post-It note. (Note to would-be A comical description of an nated. Then we eat it. from the ancient domestication authors: This is why you keep a osprey nagged by its mate into Shane McCune is non-agricultural, of the chicken to the twin journal.) The author claims not to be snagging a goldfish from the non-trendy, former Province column- juggernauts of bureaucratic But everything leads back to sentimental or anthropomor- pond’s farm is followed imme- ist who writes from Comox.

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30 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 reviews FICTION SHORT LIST NECESSITY Song Over Quiet Lake by Sarah Felix Burns (Second Story $18.95)

OF In her twenties, Sylvia Hardy is stymied by her guilt about a traumatic incident when she was a thirteen-year-old KINDNESS babysitter in Medicine Hat. Eighty-two- year old Lydie Jim is a Tlingit elder from Wonder and delight the Yukon who is soon to receive her degree in women’s studies. Set in Van- in the life of a remote couver during a wet spring in the late African community. 1990s, Sarah Felix Burns’ Song Over Quiet Lake concerns the unlikely friend- ship between these two students at BY CHERIE THIESSEN UBC. After her experiences in residen- The Moon’s Fireflies by Benjamin Madison tial school and losing her sons to foster (Oolichan Books $18.95) care, Lydie still finds comfort from the song her mother sang to her on the rained as an anthropolo- shore of Quiet Lake. Born in 1977, the gist, Benjamin Madison author, who met a Tlingit woman much Tlived in several West Af- like Lydie while studying at UBC, was rican countries for seventeen raised in a village outside of Sault Ste. years, working in education and Marie. Her first novel Jackfish, The Van- development. His 16 stories in ishing Village won the 2009 Northern The Moon’s Fireflies chiefly arose Benjamin Madison wears a turban in India, while the boy on the left plays with a toy gun. Lit Award. 978-1-897187-67-8 from his stint as an English Wax Boats by teacher in Nigeria at Udong Smith was sufficiently impressed villagers. In the final story, time provided to let these Sarah Roberts Community School. by the stories that he offered to ‘Unique Data,’ the extreme ig- stories crystallize. I also needed (Caitlin $17.95) The title arises from the lo- issue them anew after Madison norance of two foreign workers physical distance. I found it The debut story cal language, Oron, in which had self-published a collection is exposed too blatantly, lacking much easier to write about Af- collection by stars are named after fireflies. In from Trafford called Night Stud- the gentle irony to which I’d rica when I was not there.” Sarah Roberts English nta-nta affiang means ies in 2004. become accustomed. The Moon’s Fireflies is wrapped of Gibsons, Wax the moon’s fireflies. This deli- “I had seriously underesti- Some things, like Cabernet in nostalgia, and a gentle yearn- Sarah Roberts Boats, mainly cious derivation would never be mated the challenges of self- Sauvignon, need time to de- ing is diffused into the humour. concerns the ac- known if Madison had not been marketing,” says Madison. “Very velop their flavours. Benjamin For some, the charming grace tion within a rural island community on studying Oron, something his few copies were sold and the Madison feels that way about his of Alexander McCall Smith’s the West Coast. Roberts thanks her colleague, Clifford, feels is a book came and went without stories derived from events No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency se- teachers Jack Hodgins, Pat Lane and , as well as waste of time, as only 50,000 notice.” more than twenty years before. ries, set in Botswana, might eas- Andreas Schroeder editors and friends Nadine Petersen people speak the language. Two additional stories have “I missed Africa terribly and ily come to mind. So pour that and Patricia Wolfe, with a significant Knowing some of the local been added and the collection writing about it was a way of re- glass of Cabernet and settle nod of appreciation to the Hammond tongue opens doors and univer- was re-edited. In a story called turning,” he says. “We often take down for a mellow evening of family, “the finest clan of writers/heroes/ sally adds smiles to faces. Thus ‘Clifford,’ Madison skillfully years to fully understand reading about the necessities of artists I have ever known.” Her Sunshine the title captures what is mainly employs wry humour to counter- intense experiences, and often tolerance and kindness. Coast stories of rough-hewn characters the tone of the book: wonder balance the ignorance and ar- an experience will only be fully 978088982-263-8 are within the local tradition of Dick and delight in the life and peo- rogance of some foreigners who understood in light of later Hammond’s oral narratives and the ple of a remote community. have come to ‘help’ with the gra- events. Cherie Thiessen reviews fiction hijinks of The Beachcombers. 978-1-894759-40-3 In several stories, readers’ ciousness and generosity of the “I needed the distance that from Pender Island. chuckles will disappear as Madi- son describes some of the starker realities of the ‘happy, simple WHEN YOU WALK THROUGH A STORM life.’ Malaria is just as common as those fireflies, routinely tak- ing children away. BY CHERIE THIESSEN Calf’) or the ‘rotating balloons’ that In another story, there is a Walking on Water by Jancis M. Andrews’ first made up Kathy’s gargantuan bum. sudden tragedy and murder; Jancis M. Andrews collection of short fic- (‘Scheherazade at Noon’). (Cormorant $21) the teacher tackles his fear of tion, Rapunzel, Rapunzel, A stronger impression is made by the au- monsters with his smile and is Let Down Your Hair, was tobiographical ‘Country of Evil’ which won rewarded, only to realize in the published by Ronsdale Press in 1992. Sev- Event Magazine’s creative non-fiction con- end that the menace he per- enteen years later, she has returned to print test. It focuses on the blitz of London and ceived was very real indeed. with ten stories that comprise Walking on the realization of a seven-year-old girl that Madison’s stories are time Water. evil is ubiquitous and faceless. capsules, enclosing a culture In the title story, Lucy Gustavson has been Raised in England during W.W. II, Jancis and past way of life. “Although the lead soprano at St. David’s Church for M. Andrews ran away from a violent home many Africans still live in villages forty years—so no wonder she can’t hit all when she was 14, so there’s little doubt she like those in the book,” he says, the notes anymore. Now the church choir has had first-hand experience of the evil

“one of my motivations for writ- will be singing before the Queen, and poor PHOTO she writes about—or the disappointment. ing these stories was to record Lucy has just learned that someone else will Having joined the Women’s Royal Navy PEHME some valuable aspects of a world sing her Easter solo. at 18, serving in Malta as a radio operator,

that was rapidly changing.” Lucy overcomes her crushing disappoint- BETTY Andrews married a sailor at age 21 and im- In a story called ‘Affiog,’ stu- ment by finding meaning in happenstance, Jancis Andrews: meanings in happenstance migrated to Canada with her family in 1965, dents in Office Studies are learn- and even takes advantage of it. Life is full of at age 31. She moved with her family to ing how to answer imaginary struggle and dashed hopes, so Andrews is characters in this collection seem stereotypi- West Vancouver in 1971. At 36 she went telephones and use old typewrit- much concerned with glimmers of redemp- cal, I loved this feisty senior. The story is back to school to finish her last four years ers, devices they have never tion. sadly humorous, the characters and their of high school. At 53, she went on to obtain seen in their village. In ‘Balancing,’ Annie, a housewife and actions are credible, and Miss Firth stands her M.F.A. from the University of British All of the stories, set in the mother trapped in an abusive relationship, alone in her heroic and ludicrous nobility. Columbia. present tense, reflect some as- tries to find an emotional outlet by anony- ‘Scheherazade at Noon’ gives readers a “My husband walked out after 43 years,” pect of a vanishing way of life in mously hurling back as good as she gets. close-up of an obese, obsessed woman, and she has written, “wouldn’t pay wife support, the tiny southeastern Nigerian Luckily, she’s thrown a lifeline by the sym- the sister who tries to save her from a law- so at age 65 I worked as a cleaning lady to village of Akai Ison. Criss-crossed pathetic and saint-like doctor she has tar- suit. help me buy my little house here in by footpaths, not roads, and geted for her vitriolic phone assaults. In ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew You,’ school- Sechelt, where I invited two homeless cats filled with magic and juju (black In ‘Phoenix Rising,’ Phoebe crawls up mates Johnny and Marjorie reunite far too to live with me. Now the three of us sleep magic), it’s a place where travel and out from her devastated marriage to late. Johnny realizes that for years he has in the same bed, which is highly uncom- is mostly on foot or in a seven- try for a little of that elusive happiness, and been brushing up against the love of his life. fortable (for me, not them).” metre canoe ‘taxi.’ Electricity is with a title like ‘Phoenix Rising,’ it appears I wish I could care more about Johnny Jancis M. Andrews can still hit the high non-existent and running water her attempt may pay off. and Marjorie, or Phoebe, or those prickly notes in fiction. But the strength of ‘Coun- is only in the rivers and streams. In ‘The Hour of Miss Frith,’ Megan sisters in ‘Scheherazade at Noon,’ but ulti- try of Evil’ makes the reader wonder if per- There’s so much love and Smith of Ladies Hats in the crumbling mately it’s only Miss Frith who rose up to haps more autobiographical works are longing in Madison’s pages that Laidler’s Department Store puts up a he- claim my affections. Some of Andrews’ im- meant to follow. 978-1-897151-17-4 readers may find their mood roic defense as she and her hats go down in ages are too obtuse. For example, I had dif- suddenly growing mysteriously dignified defeat. Although some of the ficulty with ‘workmanlike teats’ (‘Moon Cherie Thiessen reviews fiction from Pender Island. melancholic. Publisher Ron

31 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010

MATERNITY ROLLS Pregnancy, Childbirth and Disability HEATHER KUTTAI 9781552663424 $18.95 The body with disabilities is often seen for what it cannot do. Author Heather Kuttai, who has been ANVIL spinal cord injured since childhood, took on the role of mother and found that it gave her body a different value, status and worth. ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY The Working-Class PRESS Alternative to Capitalism ALLAN ENGLER 9781552663462 $15.95 Vancouver’s Al Engler argues that the working class should and can democratically replace new titles competitive capitalist entitlement with equal human entitlement, plural social ownership Coming this spring from... and workplace democracy. FERNWOOD ABOUT CANADA: ANIMAL RIGHTS Kaspoit! | Dennis E. Bolen JOHN SORENSON 9781552663561 $17.95 PUBLISHING Adopting Mahatma Gandhi’s idea that “the critical books for critical thinkers greatness of a nation and its moral progress can “a tour de force of thug-life horror, the book be judged by the way its animals are treated,” this is a fictionalized account of what might have www.fernwoodpublishing.ca book considers the status of animals in Canada. gone on at a certain Port pig farm where the DNA of 32 women was found during a massive forensic investigation. If you’ve ever felt that the publication ban on Haida Eagle Treasures Robert Pickton’s speedy trial and conviction Tsath Lanas History and Narratives smelled strongly of cover-up, this is for you.” Pansy Collison —Alex Varty, The Georgia Straight ISBN 978-1-897535-05-9 Pansy Collison, a $20 | 258 pps. | available now Haida Eagle A Room in The City | Treasure Haida woman, Gabor contains an speaks for Gasztonyi eclectic her people A Room in the City represents Gasztonyi’s collection of and to her five-year project of photographing the writings that people in this residents of the Cobalt, Balmoral, Regent, capture the illuminating title. and Sunrise Hotels in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. They are represented culture and life in private moments, with respect and of the Haida people Isbn: 978-1-55059-388-4; dignity. Gasztonyi’s style continues in the from the perspective $25.95; pb; 200 pages; great tradition of Josef Koudelka, the ISBN 978-1-897535-28-8 of an insider. b&w; illustrated. photographer of the Roma. $45 | 200 pps. | April Detselig Enterprises · 210 1220 Kensington Road NW, Calgary, AB · The Devil You Know | Jenn Farrell p. 403-283-0900 · f. 403-283-6947 · www.temerondetselig.com These stories deal with the familiar territory of sex, love, work, birth, and death. The characters in The Devil You Know are tested by their circumstances, whether it’s the sudden death of a parent, an unintended pregnancy, or the painful realization that a friendship is not what it seemed. These life changes bring them to new realizations about themselves and their role in the world. ISBN 978-1-897535-06-6 $18 | 176 pps. | April The Waterbird | Robert Strandquist Tess and June have flown to Hawaii: one to find love and the other to write a novel. The novel is about a clairvoyant detective by the name of Justin Chase, who just happens to be on the case in Hawaii. Hired by romance novelist Teresa Swimming to track down a mysterious anti-freeze magnate named Olor Columbianus, Chase soon finds himself in charge of saving the world. Meanwhile, loves blooms within a nearly happy ending. ISBN 978-1-897535-07-3 $18 | 168 pps. | April Wombat | Rod Filbrandt This is a moving Down those rain-slick, neon-lighted story about tolerance, streets Chandler sent Philip Marlowe; compassion and the meanwhile, a few blocks over, several power of family ties. decades later, Vancouver’s Rod Filbrandt sent his own knight errant and holy fool—a man in a porkpie hat, a sportshirt, and pants that can only be Ellen’s Book described as trousers. A man known by a single name only: Wombat. ISBN 978-1-897535-06-6 —John Armstrong (AKA “Buck Cherry”) of Life $18 | 168 pps. | April From the Introduction   Contemporary CanLit with a Distinctly Urban Twist ($17.95 Groundwood) ISBN: 978-0-88899-853-8 anvilpress.com A young adult novel.    

32 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 interview THEATRE

Another Home Invasion and establishes that contact. by Joan MacLeod (Talonbooks $16.95) It’s her shot, her opportunity to tell her story. [Director] Ri- or anyone who has fol- chard Rose calls it her com- lowed Joan MacLeod’s plaint. Fvigorous, humane and BCBW: Ric Knowles, in his in- much-acclaimed work as a play- troduction to the book, notes wright, from her 1991 Govenor how breaking down the fourth General Award winner Amigo’s wall like that traps the audience Blue Guitar, about a Salvadoran in the story. We can’t see where refugee, to the GG-nominee the unreliability is with the nar- Shape of a Girl, written in the wake rator. of Rena Virk’s brutal murder in JM: Yes. You don’t have any Victoria, to Homechild, about Brit- other characters so you have to ish children shipped to Canada go with her version. And make as indentured labourers around your own decisions. And she’s the turn of the last century, it’s got her blind spots, she’s not a not surprising to learn her new- self-aware character, so you have est play presents the voice of to do some of her work for her. someone dealing with injustice. BCBW: You dedicated Another But in Another Home Inva- Home Invasion to your husband. sion, MacLeod for the first time Why? allows a character to directly ad- JM: Because it is about mar- dress the audience. Another riage. Ultimately it’s a love story. Home Invasion is a deliciously And he manages the fort when readable monologue. I’m running off to rehearsal... Jean is an elderly B.C. woman BCBW: In 1987, you played the who is unable to care for her protagonist in your own play, home or her ailing husband. Jewel, about the Ocean Ranger She must decide what to do disaster, when the actor hired when the government decides for the part left the show at the only available solution is to dress rehearsal. How did that have them live separately. affect you as a playwright? The play’s title seemingly re- JM: it was really lucky for my ca- fers to a stranger’s chaotic incur- reer; critics knew who I was, that sion on her doorstep. But it soon I’d stood up and done this thing. becomes clear--as Jean describes And it teaches you to edit, that’s her beloved, yet erratic and de- THEATRETHEATRE OFOF THETHE for sure. And just to know what pendent husband, a flippant an audience feels like was really granddaughter, a distracted valuable for me, because it’s very daughter, and a steel-cold social different on the stage than it is worker--that Jean’s home secu- sitting in the audience. I’m like rity is being threatened on mul- most playwrights: I’m all para- tiple fronts. noid, feeling responsible and a MacLeod created the role of little out of control. When Jean for actor Nicola Lipman, you’re acting you actually have who dazzled at the play’s open- UNPlaywrightHEARD Joan MacLeod a little control over the material. ing at the Tarragon Theatre, and UNHEARD

PHOTO But there’s just a sense of good- will now perform the play on a looks at home invasions—from the state—in terms will that comes from the audi- cross-country tour. ence, and I didn’t know anything SAWCHUK The warm and down-to-earth of how we care, and don’t care, for our elders. about that. It’s just fabulous. It

Joan MacLeod was interviewed LAURA was very uplifting. They’re not by Sara Cassidy at the Univer- so still throughout the play, it’s my mom’s rest home is typical: apart and I find the character’s out to get you. They’re not wait- sity of Victoria where MacLeod quite powerful watching Nicky 85 per cent are women. They own event, if that makes sense. ing for you to make a mistake. is a full-time professor in the do it. It’s hard to go down on nursed their husbands, looked BCBW: Jean never turns BCBW: Do you have what you Writing Department.✫ your knees on the floor when after them until they died, and around and says anything about would call a writing life? you’re old. then they’re on their own. What the health care system. JM: Not lately, being a full-time BC BookWorld: You insist BCBW: You trigger the play a strong bunch of women. What JM: No, that wouldn’t be her professor. I don’t write at all dur- that your writing students get on with this incident of a stranger a silent bunch of women. I just way at all. She’s not used to say- ing the academic year. There’s their feet and perform their barrelling into Jean’s life; but found that moving. ing what she needs and what she just no time. Teaching’s de- work. That they move…. that isn’t the primary story. BCBW: I’m tempted to refer wants in a loud, clear voice. manding. Good demanding. I Joan MacLeod: Yes, I want You’re exposing a home inva- to you as a political writer, but That’s just not on the radar for love it. But we have four months to remind them that theatre is sion very different from the kind the label always lands wrong. It her. When she’s pissed off at the where we don’t teach, and that’s a physical art form. we read about in the cheats your work. social worker, she says someone my writing time. I love teaching. BCBW: But Jean in Home Inva- papers. JM: I do write about pulled the wool over me and I only wish I didn’t have to give sion is elderly—there’s minimal JM: It’s about how the real life events and she’s mad, but that’s as direct as grades to people. physical action. health care system is try to get inside that character is ever going to BCBW: Is there anything you’d JM: Yes. An old lady sitting in a failing people, in our headlines. But ulti- get. like to add? Maybe about the arts chair! It doesn’t sound like risky province in particular, mately I hope they’re Some plays really are a call to in general? theatre, but it is risky theatre! I and the effect health deeply humane plays action, but not mine. I don’t re- JM: Well, damn all these fund- didn’t want this to be a play cuts have had on sen- and pieces of art, as ally think that much about it. I ing cuts. It’s awful. We’re really where she’s making coffee for iors. I reference Frank SARA CASSIDY well. just want (the audience) to have going to see how it affects thea- invisible people. It’s a direct ad- and Fanny Elbow in BCBW: Can politics a good night in the theatre, to tre with the upcoming season. dress to the audience. She’s got Princeton, who were separated compromise the literariness of listen, and take away what they There’s going to be less new a story and she wants to tell it. and how they were both dead a written work? will. I like to get to the heart of work, less money for things, a lot And she’s old. In her eighties. within two weeks. What a trag- JM: It sure can. I’ll start a play someone and tell her story. And of small companies folding. So She’s in good health, but it takes edy. Similar scenarios played out upset about something, so I sometimes that crosses onto po- certainly, less opportunities for pretty much everything she has two or three times while I was guess that’s a political stance— litical turf and sometimes it my students. Ironically, it’s prob- to tell her story. writing the play. wanting to change something. doesn’t. ably a good time to be an estab- Old people are still a lot of Jean is really ready to move But characters take over and BCBW: Your protagonists are lished playwright with a the time. So in the play, she gets into a place; she needs help. they’ll hijack that intent many often women whose stories one-person show. So that’s kind up, I think, three times. And for That mantra—keep people in times over before the play is fin- haven’t been told. of depressing. And you know, a couple of those times it’s kind their homes as long as possible— ished. JM: Yeah, there’s not a lot of theatre goes on no matter what. of incidental, she’s got some has been abused. My mom was BCBW: And you allow that to Jeans on the stage right now. And So there’s also a bit of to hell with aches and pains. And then there in her apartment way longer happen. I like that. She’s getting her time them in terms of funding. Peo- is one time she is imagining she than she should have been. It JM: Yeah, I want to be true to and Nicky makes sure she uses it ple will still make theatre. is with her husband, and she was hard on her, hard on her the character. So the character well. When we were premiering 978-0-88922-622-7 goes down on the floor, beside family. She needed help and she and the event that inspired the in Calgary, she takes her time and him. And because she had been didn’t get it soon enough. And play get further and further makes eye contact with people Sara Cassidy writes from Victoria.

33 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 reviews

by Tanya Lloyd Kyi art by Ross Kinnaird TROUBLED TEENS A red-hot feast of fiery facts for ages 9 and up. At-risk girls; escaping a convent; confined to a wheelchair; and the mystery of stolen dinosaur bones

Best Laid Plans by Christine Hart (Lorimer $9.95) The Girl in the Backseat by Norma Charles (Ronsdale $10.95) S AN EMPLOYMENT COUNSELLER MEET- ing at-risk youths, Christine Hart of LIKE HER BOOK RUNAWAY IN WHICH A GIRL FLEES Victoria has written her second from a convent, Norma Charles’ The Girl | annick press | www.annickpress.com | available from your favourite bookseller A in the Backseat is a YA novel of escape, young adult novel Best Laid Plans about a teenage girl, Robyn, who tries to leave her but this time on a larger geographical scale. family in order to attend university even Trapped within a repressive Bountiful- though her parents want her to stay in the style religious community (in which young Okanagan and work on the family's fail- girls are forced into marriages with much ing, 20-acre apple orchard at Coldstream. older men), a young girl named Toby takes “I had been exposed to at-risk youth as flight from her marital fate by hiding in a high school student," says Hart, “and then the back seat of a mini with the help of later as a working professional. In both Jacob and Minerva, black children of a Car- cases, I was repeatedly meeting young peo- ibbean mother who has recently remar- ple who were being held back by their own ried a penny-pinching Englishman. As parents. I wanted to communicate how dif- they make their way towards Winnipeg, a ficult it can be for young people when it’s place in which Toby will take refuge with your parents who are the barriers to your her sympathetic aunt, the threesome future plans.” 978-1-55277-446-5 share adventures and expand their hori- zons, literally and figuratively. Wheels for Walking by Sandra Richmond 978-1-55380-056-9 (Groundwood $12.95) Dinosaur Fever by Marion Woodson (Dundurn $11.99) BORN IN INDONESIA IN 1948, SANDRA RICHMOND was a mother of two and schoolteacher IN MARION WOODSON’S LATEST TEEN NOVEL, who died of breast cancer in 1998. Based Dinosaur Fever, 15-year-old Adam Zapotica on her own accident that made her into a of Calgary befriends a 15-year-old girl quadriplegic, Richmond’s teenage novel named Jamie on a contemporary dinosaur Wheels for Walking, first published in dig—even though participants are sup- 1983, is about a young heroine posed to be eighteen years of age who is confined to a wheel- or older. Together they uncover chair after her spine is the mystery of who has been damaged in a car acci- pilfering some of the im- dent. Royalties from portant finds made by the the new edition will paleontologists on Milk benefit the BC Can- River Ridge near Writ- cer Society and GF ing-on-Stone Provincial Strong Rehabilita- Park in southern Al- tion Centre’s spinal berta. 978-1-55002-690-0 research program. 978-0-88899-866-8 Christine Hart: “I think my setting is unique, for young adult readers, in that I try to authentically represent rural British Columbia.”

A wildly entertaining and poignant novel,   explores, on a personal level, family relationships, and on a political level, the continuing debate about Jewish identity and its connection to Israel and Palestine. The Briss Michael Tregebov People’s Co-op Bookstore FIND IT HERE • Pulpfi ction • Blackberry Books • Cadboro Bay Books, Victoria • Hager Books • Tanners Books, Sidney • Abraxas Books, Denman Island • 32 Books, North Van • Chapters • Indigo • amazon.com • chapters.indigo.ca PHOTO

NewStarBooks.com BOYNTON

DANI

34 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 KIDLIT

Th e fi rst new book in fi ve years from Dorothy Livesay Poetry Award winner Barry McKinnon Annabel Lyon In the Millennium

FOR YOUNGER READERS FIND IT HERE Books & Co., Prince George • Misty River Books, Terrace All-Season Edie by Annabel Lyon (Orca $8.95) Grim Hill: The Secret Deepens • Galiano Island Books • Pulpfi ction by Linda DeMeulemeester (Lobster Press $10.95) IN ANNABEL LYON’S FIRST WORK OF JUVENILE FIC- • People’s Co-op Bookstore • Blackberry Books • tion, All-Season Edie, eleven-year-old Edie LINDA DEMEULEMEESTER’S THE SECRET OF GRIM HILL, Cadboro Bay Books, Victoria • Sorensen Books, Victoria • Chapters • responds to the illness of her beloved finds heroine Cat Peters uncovering the Indigo • chapters.indigo.ca • amazon.com grandfather by acting out—trying to prac- truth behind , a mysterious, tice witchcraft, ruining her older sister’s posh, private school that is offering schol- NewStarBooks.com party, learning flamenco dancing and arships for the winners of a Hallowe’en meeting Zeus at the mall while Christmas soccer match. After Cat discovers an en- shopping. 978-1-55143-713-2 tire soccer team disappeared many years ago, she confronts diabolical fairies to save Shin-chi’s Canoe by Nicola I. Campbell and a spellbound town. Inspired by Celtic my- Kim LaFave (Groundwood $18.95) thology, it was nominated for the RAISED IN THE NICOLA VALLEY, NICOLA I. CAMPBELL Library Association’s Silver Birch Award. of interior Salish (Nle7kepmx, Nsilx) and In DeMeulemeester’s sequel, Grim Hill: Métis ancestry, along with illustrator Kim The Secret Deepens, Cat’s little sister, LaFave of Roberts Creek, has won the Sookie, unwittingly unleashes a brutal win- $25,000 TD Canadian Children’s Litera- ter and a strange sickness when she dab- ture Award, presented by the Canadian bles in magic. Cat must accept help from Children’s Book Centre, for their second her rival on the boy’s soccer team in or- book, Shin-chi’s Canoe, about a young girl der to again save the town. 978-1-897073-97-1 named Shi-Shi-etko’s return to residen- Princess Annabella by Jessica Ellenor tial school for a second year, this time ac- (PublishAmerica $14.95) companied by her six-year-old brother Shin-chi. It’s for ages 5-8. 978-0888998576 JESSICA ELLENOR, WHO’S WORKED IN FILM PRODUC- tion, and as an overseas nanny, looks for Graffiti Alphabet by Olga Campbell (Blue Truck Press $22.95) stories wherever she travels. The daugh- ter of a professional story teller, she found OLGA CAMPBELL’S GRAFFITI ALPHABET IS A COM- inspiration in a German medieval castle. pilation of her photographs of graffiti The heroine of Princess Annabella, bur- taken in Metro Vancouver. It celebrates dened with a shockingly long nose and the creativity and energy of this urban art bound by a parental and royal decree that form. The 96-page book is suitable for she marry before her next birthday, en- children, but is also an art book for adults. dures an endless parade of foul-smelling, 978-0-9812911-1-6 large-eared, goat-bearing, shiftless and deceitful suitors. 1-60441-940-7 Old Mother Bear by Victoria Miles (Chronicle $16.95) The First Beaver by Caroll Simpson (Heritage $24.95)

VICTORIA MILES HAS WON A HENRY BERGH CHIL- CAROLL SIMPSON’S SELF-ILLUSTRATED STORYBOOK dren’s Book Award, administered by the for ages 6-11, The First Beaver is about a American Society for the Prevention of girl born with brown hair—instead of Cruelty to Animals, in the category of Fic- black—who becomes strong in spite of her tion Environment and Ecology for her pic- difference from others. The book includes ture book Old Mother Bear. Illustrated by a glossary of crests and their significance Molly Bang. 978-0-8118-5033-9 in First Nations culture. Simpson taught Native art and drama for many years be- A Whale Tale by Frieda Wishinsky fore buying Ookpik Wilderness Lodge, a (Maple Tree $6.95) fishing lodge on Babine Lake, in northern FRIEDA WISHINSKY’S CANADIAN FLYER SERIES IN- B.C. She sees her work as a celebration of volves two children, Emily and Matt, who the legends and art of the First Peoples of are time travellers in Canada courtesy of the Northwest. 978-1-894974-50-9 the Canadian Flyer, a magical, antique red Captain Jake by Ben Hodson (Orca $6.95) sled. Eighth in the series, A Whale Tale takes the pair to Nootka Sound in 1778, ILLUSTRATED BY BEN HODSON, CAPTAIN JAKE (ORCA coincidental with the arrival of Captain $6.95) is a fanciful story for juvenile read- James Cook, where they meet Chief ers about a contemporary boy who accepts Maquinna and a protective mother whale an offer from an invisible friend—the pi- and her baby. Illustrated by Dean Griffiths rate Captain Kidd—to be a cabin boy on of Duncan. 978-1-897349-16-8 his ship the Adventure Galley. 978-1-55145-896-2

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36 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 WHO’SWHO BRITISHCOLUMBIA

is for Aiken

When Sean Aiken of Port Moody de- cided to take a myriad of jobs to figure out his career path, he kept a blog, along with video clips, resulting in publicity through- out North America. After stints as a veteri- narian’s assistant, a Hollywood producer, a firefighter and an astronomer, Aiken’s memoir of his 52 one-week jobs is One- Week Job (Penguin $25). 978-0-14-317051-8

is for Baird/Bowering

Jean Baird and her husband George Steven Bowering have co-edited The Heart Galloway: Does Break: Canadian Writers on Grief Ryga winner and Mourning (Knopf $29.95), contain- ing twenty original essays about respond- ing to the deaths of loved ones. She’s a former magazine publisher and director of is for Galloway Canada Book Week for the Writers’ Trust Sean Aiken of Canada. He has just published a new edi- ’s The Cellist of tion of his comic novel about the racist hangs out: Sarajevo (Knopf $29.95) has received the pursuit, capture and hanging of the McLean an apple a day, 2009 George Ryga Prize for best book Gang in the B.C. Interior, Shoot! (New a job per about social issues by a B.C. author. Set Star $19) as well as a collection of ten new during the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, stories, The Box (New Star $19). week. The Cellist of Sarajevo portrays a loner Heart 978-0-307-35702-1; Shoot 9781554200412; named Dragan who trades bread for shel- Box 9781554200450 ter, and a family man named Kenan who must make a weekly trek through the war- torn streets to get water for his family. 978-0-307-39703-4 is for Hodgins

Recently invested into the Order of Canada, the 12th Woodcock Lifetime is for Democracy is for Ferguson Achievement Award recipient Jack Hodgins will soon see his first novel re- Allan Engler’s Economic Democracy: Written in four months, Julie H. turned to print, fittingly with a B.C. pub- The Working-Class Alternative to Capi- Ferguson’s condensed biography lisher, as The Invention of the World talism (Fernwood $15.95) identifies capi- James Douglas: Father of British Colum- (Ronsdale $18.95), to be followed by a talism as a system of socialized labour, with bia (Dundurn $19.99) includes fictional- Ronsdale version of his Spit Delaney’s Is- privately owned capitalist collectives (cor- ized excerpts from Douglas’ letters and land. In May, Hodgins will also publish a porations) and the workplace (dictator- journal to trace the story of how a mixed- new novel, The Master of Happy End- ships). Engler proposes economic race boy from British Guiana became the ings (Thomas Allen $32.95). democracy as an alternative form of organi- most powerful man in British Columbia. Invention 978-1-55380-099-6; Master 978-0-88762-523-7 zation. Working for many years as a cook 978-1-55488-409-4 continued on next page on coastal towboats, Engler was also presi- dent of Local 400, International Longshore & Warehouse Union. 9781552663462

George Bowering: is for Eriksson portrait of an artist as a Ann Eriksson was one of more than young man 25 authors who participated in the first an- nual Galiano Literary Festival held Feb- ruary 19-21 at the Galiano Inn, coordinated by Galiano Island Books. Before moving to Victoria in 1990 to complete a biology

degree, she lived on Galiano for ten years. PHOTO is for Charleson Her newly released third novel Falling from Grace FERGUSON Long associated with Book Warehouse as a (Brindle & Glass JULIE consultant for marketing, Mary $19.95) con- ;

Charleson has self-published Five- cerns a three- LEFT ; Minute Marketing (Trafford $35 hc, $25 and-a-half-foot PHOTO sc), a collection of previously published ar- tall female scien-

ticles on marketing from Business in Van- NEWS tist doing ento- couver, Marketing Magazine, Strategy mological

Magazine and the Toronto Star. “It’s aimed research in the KAIETEUR at the time-starved,” she says. “Each article tallest trees on This bronze statue of Governor James Douglas was erected in the village can be read in five minutes or less.” Vancouver Is- of Mahaica, Guyana, by the Guyanese government. It’s an exact replica Ann Eriksson 9781426905797 land. 9781897142462 of the larger-than-life statue of Douglas at Fort Langley (right).

37 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 WHO’SWHOBRITISHCOLUMBIA Smoke and Mirrors • Financial myths that will is for Isitt ruin your retirement dreams • Retire comfortably – Challenging conventional memories of it costs less than you think! World War I, UVic historian Benjamin Isitt tells the little-known story of how • Stop making RRSP and why some 4,200 Canadian soldiers payments — pay down were sent from Victoria to Vladivostok in 1918 to help defeat Bolshevism in From debt fi rst Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada’s Siberian $21.95 book and CD-ROM Expedition, 1917-19 (UBC Press $85). 978-0-7748-1801-8 Write Your Legal Will in 3 Easy Steps is for Johnson • It’s 100% legal – written Genevieve Fuji Johnson of by a Canadian lawyer SFU’s political science department has co- • No lawyer required; save edited Nuclear Waste Management in Kevin Loring accepting Governor legal fees Canada: Critical Issues, Critical Perspec- General’s Award for Drama from tives (UBC Press $85), an examination of Michaëlle Jean. • Protect your loved ones, the social and ethical issues pertaining to and your estate nuclear energy, in conjunction with the ter comes home after two decades to con- more often discussed technological issues. front her father about the past. The play $24.95 book and CD-ROM 978-0-7748-1708-0 was re-staged at the Belfry Theatre in Vic- toria in early 2010. A remount of this pro- duction, in association with the playwright’s How to Find Work in the own company, The Savage Society, was se- 21st Century lected to tour as part of the 2010 Cultural Olympiad. • Find hidden work As an actor Loring has performed in opportunities numerous plays across Canada including Marie Clements’ Burning Vision and • Become a better networker Copper Thunderbird, and George • Create a 21st Century Ryga’s classic The Ecstasy of Rita Joe. Loring has been invited to serve as Play- résumé wright-in-Residence at the National Arts $22.95 book and CD-ROM Centre in Ottawa in 2010. 978-0-88922-608-1

The Border Guide is for Manuel/Marchak • Live, work, and invest across the border Vancouver-based Secwepemc-Ktunaxa Shane Koyczan playwright, poet and storyteller Vera • Save money with cross- Manuel died at Vancouver General Hos- border fi nancial planning pital on January 22 at the age of 61. She was the eldest daughter of Grand Chief • Understand tax and is for Koyczan George Manuel, the first president immigration laws of the National Indian Brotherhood. Vancouver slam poet Shane Manuel’s works include The Strength of $24.95 book Koyczan became known around the Indian Women, a play about residential- world on February 12, 2010 when he per- school life that was staged throughout formed segments of his previously recorded North America and published in Two Plays Canadian Legal Guide poetic dissertation on the nature of Canada, about Residential Schools (along with a play for Small Business We Are More, towards the end of the lavish by Larry Loyie). and inventive opening ceremonies for the M. Patricia Marchak (1936- • Answers all your small- 2010 Olympics at BC Place Stadium. The 2010), a UBC professor of anthropology business legal questions event also included Donald Suther- and sociology, published ten books, co- land’s voice reading brief segments of authored two and edited one. Her early • Save money on legal fees writing from Alberta novelist W.O. works dealt with socio/economic issues in • Written in non-technical Mitchell’s Who Has Seen The Wind? as the B.C. and global forest and fishing in- language well as excerpts of verse from Pauline dustries. Her other books concerned glo- Johnson and some phrases reputedly balization, ideologies, resources and $29.95 book and CD-ROM written by Chief Dan George; plus economic development, and human rights renditions of Leonard Cohen’s Hal- issues. Marchak was a Fellow of the Royal lelujah—as sung by K.D. Lang—and Society of Canada. Marchak died in Van- Personal Budgeting Kit Joni Mitchell’s Clouds, two of the couver on January 1. most successful, ‘literary’ pop songs Canada • Learn where your money has ever produced. Prior to the opening, is spent Vancouver Poet Laureate Bran Cran is- sued a press release criticizing VANOC for is for Nugent • Trim spending painlessly its contract that prohibited artists hired for • Learn to budget, save, the Olympics from making any public criti- An impulsive dog and a near-sighted dog and invest cisms. are the odd couple of buddies in Cynthia Nugent’s Fred and Pete at the Beach $16.95 book and CD-ROM (Orca $19.95). Left at home because they misbehaved, the canines want to accompany is for Loring their human Ron to the beach, so Pete per- Get 15% off suades his reluc- all Self-Counsel books and forms For a rising star in B.C. writing, look no tant pal Fred to on our new website! further than Kevin Loring. A mem- sneak onto a ber of the N’lakap’mux First Nation in Canada Post truck, Use coupon code: “bcbookworld” Lytton, the Vancouver-based actor and then a baby cart, playwright won the Governor General’s then a bus. A frol- Award for Where the Blood Mixes (Talon icsome tale in- www.self-counsel.com $16.95), also nominated for five Jessie spired by Nugent's Richardson Theatre Awards. Where the Yorkshire terrier Blood Mixes examines the residues of resi- Emma. 1-800-663-3007 Cynthia Nugent dential school in one family when a daugh- 978-1-55469-126-5

38 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 is for Olsen is for Wakan

When she wasn’t busy challenging the Hud- Gabriola Islander Naomi Beth son Bay Company’s ripoff of Cowichan In- Wakan’s advice to emerging writers past dian sweater designs, Sylvia Olsen was the age of fifty, Late Bloomer: On Writing completing her historical novel for teens, Later in Life, has been followed by personal Counting on Hope (Sono Nis $14.95), essays about her literary life, Compositions: about a pre-colonial friendship between Notes on the Written Word (Wolsak & young people of different racial origins on Wynn $19). To celebrate its release, the B.C. coast. “I knew as soon as I read Nancy Crozier made a sculpture of historical records of the confrontation be- Naomi Beth Wakan out of shredded cop- tween the British navy and the Lamalcha on ies of her books. Wakan was glad to see her Kuper Island in 1863,” Olsen says, “that it publisher’s name on her right eyelid. was the perfect setting for just such a story.” 978-1-894987-25-7 For twenty-five years Olsen raised her chil- dren on the Tsartlip reserve. 1-55039-173-9 is for Explicit PHOTO is for St. Pierre Performance artist Amber Dawn has one of the more unusual curriculum vitae CAMPBELL

Sylvia Olsen Not many B.C. writers get their mug on a among UBC creative writing grads. Her Canadian stamp, but then not many B.C. ROB ‘docu-porn’ film Girl on Girl has been authors were Liberal MPs. Paul St. hundreds of memorable extracts from op- screened in eight countries; she has thrice Pierre, who wrote one of the classics of eras; accurate word-for-word translations; toured with the Sex Workers’ Art Show in B.C. literature, Breaking is for Reed phonetics and stress patterns; detailed exer- the U.S. and she was voted Xtra! West’s Smith’s Quarter Horse, cises; commentary about historical back- Hero of the Year in 2008. Her first novel is now being signed, Not all of Talonbooks’ numerous Gover- ground, operatic themes, composers’ lives, Sub Rosa (Arsenal $22.95) features a teen- sealed and delivered nor Generals’ Awards are for poetry or nuances contained in the original Italian age runaway heroine named Little whose throughout the coun- drama, such as the drama GG for play- which do not translate well, if at all, into descent into the sex trade is both surreal and try, courtesy Canada wright Kevin Loring’s Where the Blood English; and links to specific audio-visual chilling. 978-1-55152-361-3 Post. St. Pierre is alive Mixes. Swiss-born Francophone Thierry examples on Web sites.” In 1992, Thomson and well and writing Hentsch’s Truth or Death received the self-published a book of operatic Italian en- in Langley. GG for best translation from French to Eng- titled Italian for the Opera. www.godwinbooks.com is for Yip lish in 2005 and now Middle East expert Fred A. Reed has repeated the feat for Retired teacher and avid bird photographer is for Queers his translation of Hentsch’s Empire of De- is for Urefe Mike Yip has self-published his third vol- sire (Talon $29.95). 978-0-88922-587-9 ume of a full-colour series on birds that he started in 2005, Vancouver Island Birds As well as publishing Sapphistries by Leila Nigerian-born Frank A. Urefe of Van- ($34.95). Yip is also a columnist for the couver was the eldest of seven children, J. Rupp and The Canadian War on North Islander. www.vancouverislandbirds.com which in the African tradition meant he 978-0-9738161-2-9 Queers by Gary Kinsman and is for Schofield Patricia Gentile, an examination of took financial responsibility for the family. how the state has spied on, interrogated and Jack Schofield flew for 20 years as a At 6’ 7”, his pursuit of success in basketball harassed gays and lesbians from the 1950s commercial seaplane pilot along the full in Germany and North America is the ba- is for Zimmerman to the late 1990s, UBC Press will publish stretch of coastal B.C. and throughout sis for his revised and reissued How To Awfully Devoted Women (UBC $85), much of North America and the Arctic. He Achieve Your Sports Dreams (Days Widowed, a single parent and a grandpar- billed as a “nuanced” portrait of middle- founded and edited B.C. Aviator magazine, Springs $19.95). 1926652029 ent of four adult grandchildren at age 85, class lesbianism in the decades preceding the then sold it to OP Publishing (Pacific Yacht- Lillian Zimmerman is a powerful gay rights movement in English Canada, ing, BC Outdoors) in 2002. “People who advocate for the dignity and rights of mid- by Cameron Duder of Capilano Uni- fly airplanes on this coast will always have dle-aged and older women. She has put her versity. 978-0-7748-1738-7 stories to tell,” he says. Schofield has reis- is for van Oort energies into making gerontological research sued his memoirs, Flights of a Coast Dog findings available to a more general com- (Sono Nis $29.94). 978-1-55039-169-5 Anyone with an interest in Japanese treat- munity. Derived from her interviews as an ment of captured aliens during the forties associate with the Simon Fraser University should read Boudewyn van Oort’s Gerontology Research Centre, Baglady or sophisticated family memoir about the Powerhouse?: A Roadmap for Midlife is for Thomson Dutch in Indonesia, Tjideng Reunion, A (Boomer) Memoir of World War II on Java Women (Detselig In the summer 2009 edition of Opera (Trafford $32). Worthy of a trade publisher, 2009) includes America, Alexa B. Antopol reviewed this well-researched investigation into in- case histories of Robert Thomson’s Operatic Italian ternment camps in Badoeng and Batavia courage and dis- (Godwin Books $35), praising his efforts (now called Jakarta) by a Rhodes scholar crimination, not Cover art for “to bring clarity to the Italian language as culminates with remarkable post-war reun- without optimism Awfully Devoted Women used in librettos by using a variety of teach- ions that eventually brought van Oort’s par- and humour. Lillian Zimmerman ing techniques and visual aids, including ents to B.C. 978-1-4251-5159-1 9781550593648

photo by Mark Mushet

Annual Non-Fiction Contest* Three winners will receive $500 each plus publication! $29.95 entry fee includes 1 year of EVENT 5,000 word limit Deadline April 15

Visit http://event.douglas.bc.ca for more information

39 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 letters

audio books and the Without Walls program. It has , and it scary implications. We spent quite a bit of Much ado would be foolhardy time discussing that very issue at our TWUC for authors, publish- regional meeting in Victoria on the week- ers and libraries to end. The meeting passed a motion for about Elcock ignore this trend. It TWUC to go kick Access Copyright in the makes sense to take pants and get them to investigate and police I will leave it to others to address the advantage of a re- this thing if it constitutes copyright infringe- misconceptions on the public library’s role newed interest and ment (which it certainly seems to). in providing access to digital books in enthusiasm for read- Kim Goldberg Michael Elcock’s article “Stealing Atwood” ing, and to support Nanaimo efforts to provide (BCBW Winter 2009-2010). I will con- [Michael Elcock has since noted: Matt fine my comments to a major misunder- Canadian content in standing in the essay on how Public Lending all formats. The re- Frisch of CNN reports that Amazon.com Right functions in Canada. cent agreement be- sold more digital copies through its Kindle PLR is a cultural support program which tween the store than it sold hardcover editions of Dan compensates Canadian authors for the pres- Association of Book Brown’s The Lost Symbol during the first ILLUSTRATION ence of literary works (broadly defined) in Publishers of BC few days after its release. Pirated copies and BC libraries to public library collections. Elcock quotes FARRIS were discovered online within 24 hours, provide libraries David Godfrey as stating that public librar- and within days, the novel had been ies will be motivated to discard print cop- JOSEPH with digital copies downloaded for free more than 100,000 ies of books when they have an electronic the circumstances described in Mr. Elcock’s of BC published non-fiction is an excel- copy to “avoid PLR payments.” This is sim- article. Our priority in digitization is to lent example of cooperation resulting in times. ply not true. PLR operates under the aegis provide public access to rare material that increased exposure and access to BC books. Tom Spring, PC World, reports, of the Canada Council and all PLR funds has a significant research value. For exam- If Mr. Elcock is truly concerned with “PCWorld found that one-third of Pub- come from the Dept. of Canadian Herit- ple, we have digitized a collection of his- the dominance of Google in providing elec- lishers Weekly’s 2009 top 15 best-selling fic- age. There is no financial implication for a toric photos and due diligence was used to tronic information, perhaps he will find it tion books were available for illicit obtain permission for their reproduction comforting to know that there is an age- public library whether it owns or does not download through a growing variety of own a book eligible for a PLR payment. and dissemination. Similarly, we digitized old institution, well schooled in the art and book-swapping sites, file-sharing services, For decades public libraries have worked a series of 19th and early 20th century BC science of collecting, managing and pro- diligently with the PLR staff and Commis- city directories to provide improved access moting literature, which does so for the and peer-to-peer networks.”] sion to maximize the return to authors for local genealogical researchers. public good - your local public library. We ✍ through this program. This will continue The implication that the proliferation are part of the solution for writers, not part You did it! You included Set in Stone in to be the case as long as PLR continues to of eBooks is detrimental to authors is mis- of the problem. the latest edition! Wow! I’m so excited and be funded by the Federal Government. leading. eBooks are simply another form Anne O’Shea, Assistant Manager, so grateful!!! I love the photo you chose to Paul Whitney of distribution – not fundamentally differ- Collections & Electronic Resources go with it and I love your introductory City Librarian - Vancouver Public ent from , hard cover and audio Online Information & News, VPL paragraphs! Such a creative title, too. Love Library, Member Public Lending copies. publication can provide an ✍ it. I must notify the mayor. They’re very Right Commission and PLR author with additional revenue and a Thanks for the coverage of Red Zone, my aware of the great publicity Trail is getting Executive (2000-2008) broader readership. At the moment there is book about civil liberties in Nanaimo. And because of the rock walls. WAY TO GO! ✍ a strong appetite among readers for mp3 that was a great article by Michael Elcock on FABULOUS magazine! I read Michael Elcock’s article “Stealing Eileen Pedersen Trail Atwood” with great surprise. As the librar- ✍ ian charged with overseeing Vancouver Pub- lic Library’s electronic resources, I can assure Rupert, we hardly knew ye I read your magazine fairly regularly and you that libraries respect copyright and con- Talk about serendipity. I was reading BookWorld and in the article entitled Gregor’s I was wondering about your A to Z fea- tractual agreements. Gift there is a mention of the English poet Rupert Brooke’s visit to Vancouver. It con- ture. Is the selection based on your research First, and most importantly, BC Librar- cludes with his sentence, “Nature here is half Japanese.” I have a new book of haiku and or reader input? I check the “L” listing to ies are not digitizing books off the library senryu poems called Nature Here is Half Japanese. see whether you might feature my father shelves to provide as eBooks. The BC Li- Your article mentions his looks. My copy of Brooke’s book 1914 & other Poems has Alan Edward Longworth who has written brary Without Walls initiative allows BC his photograph in front. Clearly he was a beautiful man. He seems to have been one of a number of books such as I Never Saw public libraries to purchase books in digital those people blessed with everything: beauty, smarts, good at sports, appealing person- My Father Smile (Trafford, 2007) and 24 form, not to create digital copies of our ality, great parents etc. Hours in Hell. He lives in Okanagan Falls, existing print holdings. eBook titles are His poems are dated, of course, but I’m speculating he near Penticton. I’d be interested in know- purchased from reputable vendors who le- was wildly popular with everyone because he seems to have ing how you compose those small features. gally obtain electronic distribution rights been a happy person that anyone would like being around. Patrick Longworth from the publishers. These rights are sold His lasting fame is due to his much-quoted poem ‘The Surrey by country, and BC libraries only purchase Soldier’ that begins with the line, “If I should die think only [With difficulty. – Ed.] titles for which the Canadian electronic this of me….” ✍ rights are secured. Rights holders are com- Rupert Brooke wrote that poem after he immediately Wow! Love that new online version of pensated for the library’s purchase of elec- joined up for the 1914 War to End all Wars. He was on his the newspaper. But I still depend on the tronic copies through their publishing way to the front when he died suddenly of some mysterious paper version for its window display prop- agreements. The question of how and when disease. So he never arrived at any battlefront or saw the erties. It’s essential ferry and ferry-line-up an author is compensated is negotiated be- horror there. Those who recite the poem in schools, at Ar- reading. I’m too old to read enjoyable things tween the author and their publisher, not mistice Days, etc., never mention this. on a screen. with the library. Winona Baker Susan Yates Vancouver Public Library does under- Nanaimo Vancouver Island Regional Library take digitization initiatives, but not under Nanaimo                 ! "  $% &% " O                                                        !   "      #     $      %  O&                     ' "        &             (        P""&  * # ##  !""#    

40 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 letters

You have done ✍ spectacular work all I feel as if I know you, having read BC these years with BC BookWorld for many years. I always look BookWorld. I’ve al- forward to picking up my copy at my li- ways enjoyed its di- brary as soon as it’s out. I read it from cover rect, informational to cover. style. Bonnie Baker Rudy Wiebe Nelson Rudy Wiebe Edmonton ✍ ✍ I am appalled to see your funding has I watch for and have read (as far as I so peremptorily been reduced to zero. Please know) every issue of BC BookWorld that accept support from me as an Ontario has been published. When I was working writer who is being published in B.C. as a teacher-librarian, I used it in my work. Jean Rae Baxter Now that I am in my eighth year of retire- Hamilton ment, I read it for enjoyment and to lead ✍ me to good titles by B.C. authors. Hope- BC BookWorld is one of the few peri- fully our government will come to its senses odicals I actually take time to read from

and reinstate support. . cover to cover—even the ads. It is incred- C . B

Mercedes Smith , ibly short-sighted that our provincial gov- Delta ernment would WELLS ✍ , withdraw STUDIO

BC BookWorld is just too good to be $31,000 from a shuffled off to Buffalo. society that SPACE Esther Darlington Macdonald does so much— Cache Creek on a shoestring AMAZING ✍ , budget, too!—

HORNE to strengthen I believe in BC BookWorld. I believe in the effort it makes to promote B.C. cul- BILL our writing and ture. In spite of the governments we seem Heather Peters is completing her Ph.D in social work. Bruce Self is a former street nurse. publishing in- to persist in electing, there is a vibrant Ca- Mort is a Chesapeake who likes to hunt grouse mano a mano. dustry. nadian artistic community. Our leaders So I am en- closing money should respect it. Marisa Alps Beryl McLeod to pay for a sub- New Westminster scription for Gordon Campbell. After re- ✍ Eat local, read local ceiving and reading four issues of BC BC BookWorld plays a crucial role in pro- BookWorld, how could he not see the value moting B.C. writers, booksellers and pub- e enjoy books as much as we enjoy hunting in BC’s rugged Cariboo- and the vitality of the publication? It makes no sense to me how this prov- lishers. It is especially crucial for promoting Chilcotin. One of the pleasures of hunting is curling up with a novel ince can keep funding a national book B.C. books on a national level because the at night. Or later in the winter after a meal of deer or moose. literary scene in Toronto often overshad- W award, presented by the premier, that in- We feel fortunate to not only know where our food has come from, but to have ows the vibrant scenes elsewhere in the cludes a fancy, free luncheon for VIPs at country. harvested it ourselves, in our own region. A large portion of our diet comes from the Pan Pacific, when less than half of that Amanda Lewis within a short radius of where we live. event’s budget could provide the necessary Toronto support for BC BookWorld all year-round. ✍ We support the concept of home-grown, 100-mile culture, too, and have No sense whatsoever. amassed a collection of books by B.C. and Canadian authors. So we’re upset Marisa Alps Thanks for do- about recent cuts to the arts in BC. Halfmoon Bay ing such a great job all these years. Why on earth has the provincial government removed all funding from the Phyllis Webb Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia, BC BookWorld newspaper, Saltspring and the BC Association of Magazine Publishers? It defies economic sense. Thank you to all Island ✍ Many BC writers, such as Douglas Coupland (Generation X) and William Gibson (Neuromancer), along with authors of national stature like Margaret Atwood, our loyal readers Phyllis Webb What can I say except that I have have spoken out against the provincial government’s cuts. Gibson has decried always enjoyed your publication!! You have the policies as “guaranteed to rot the fabric of our province’s future.” brought B.C. books to my fingertips when Ironically, BC has one of the highest book reading rates per capita in Canada, We ought to I worked the front lines and continue to yet the province’s funding for literature is among the lowest in the country. have a word in give me a great book list to keep my family the dictionary in B.C. reading material. Heather Peters, Bruce Self Earle Legault Quesnel for a surfeit of Harrison Hot Springs support. ✍ I just want to add the sentiment of most ✍ Is that a I love your B.C. writers. There is a glue that holds com- Readers in our library enjoy your quar- David Lester wellwishorium? magazine and, as an munities together. Art is primary. It is there, terly publication and we have found it to Or a congenialium? present, always nearby like a warm sweater. avid reader of B.C. be an invaluable tool for collection devel- We’ve received more than 400 Hopefully this funding impasse is tempo- opment. I hope you can continue to pub- books and an au- letters of support—and indigna- thor, I don’t know rary and BC BookWorld will thrive into the lish this fine resource. tion—in response to the sudden where B.C. would future. Sometimes struggles serve to illus- Kimberly Partanen be without BC trate what is most essential about us. Director, Fort St. John Library and complete withdrawal of provin- Danial Neil ✍ cial funding late last year. Cathy Converse BookWorld. I will be writing to Premier South Okanagan Thank you, BC BookWord, for all you Oddly, this funding crisis has Campbell, the culture minister and my lo- ✍ do for us writers and for promoting literacy turned into a morale boost. cal MLA. Thank you for hanging in there with and literature. Current politics be damned. We’re still the same size, 44 Cathy Converse BC BookWorld. I have always appreciated Here’s to your continued success. pages, with more than 900 out- your help to me and to all B.C. writers since Kathleen Cook Waldron Victoria lets—still Canada’s most self-sup- ✍ you entered the scene in 1987. We welcome 100 Mile House porting literary publication—and I am so sorry to hear about the funding your future help. ✍ cut. Arts, in all forms, music, books, thea- Betty Pratt-Johnson I love BC BookWorld, I love reading it we’re optimistic our partnership tre, ‘our stories,’ are all essential to a healthy Kaslo from cover to cover. It takes a few reads to with the province can be renewed. society and a functioning democracy. ✍ absorb everything. It’s so newsy and in- Life is good. We love what we Irene Allison Life would just not be the same with- formative. Never an issues goes by where I do for you. And we will not stop. out BC BookWorld. don’t buy a book or two or three! What a Burns Lake✍ If you want to help us Lynde Downs misguided move on the government’s part keep going, read the North Vancouver to remove funding. message at the bottom Letters or emails contact: ✍ Karen McIver of page 36. Onward. BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., The recent funding cut is indescribably Delta Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 short-sighted. There is no better resource ✍ David Lester email: [email protected] to find out about B.C. books and culture. I would be lost without BC BookWorld. Designer/editor Letters may be edited for clarity & length. Janet Andison Stewart Marilyn Klizs Ottawa Duncan

41 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 PRINTERS • EDITORIAL SERVICES • PUBLICITY

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42 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010 This early, balmy spring finds us publishing eight new poetry titles—the most we’ve ever released in one season. Governor This spring General’s Award-nominee Weyman Chan is back with Hypoderm, a collection of poems that draw on cosmologies as at Talonbooks disparate as molecular biology, Chinese and Mayan celestial cycles, and the conflict of Horus and Seth in Egyptian mythol- 2009 ended with some notable firsts for Talon’s publishing ogy. We also have a book by Canadian environmentalist poet program. We released a Japanese/English bilingual edition of Ken Belford, entitled Decompositions. These poems catch their Daphne Marlatt’s beautiful new play, The Gull, winner of the readers up in a surprising social engagement that is at once larger prestigious Uchimura Naoya Prize and the first Canadian play and other than the consumer discourse of trade and ownership. staged in the ancient, ritualized tradition of Japanese Noh. The Formalism is returning to poetry, but with new rules of the play dramatizes the historical link between the fishing town of poets’ own making. For My Darling Nellie Grey, George Steveston, home to many first, second, and third-generation Bowering wrote a poem a day for a year, adhering to certain Japanese Canadians, and the coastal Japanese village of Mio. formal rules he assigned to each month. derek beaulieu’s How Another first was Talon’s publication of Captain James Peters’ to Write contains ten pieces of conceptual prose, ranging from photographs of the “Riel Rebellion”—the world’s first battle- the purely appropriated to the entirely recomposed. In Bardy field photographs taken under fire. Michael Barnholden has Google Frank Davey constructs prose poems using Internet collected them in Circumstances Alter Photographs. By 1883, 978-0-88922-637-1 $16.95 search protocols. SFU professor and poet Steve Collis constrains

978-0-88922-631-9 $16.95 978-0-88922-634-0 $39.95 978-0-88922-629-6 $16.95 978-0-88922-636-4 $16.95 978-0-88922-632-6 $17.95 photographic technology had advanced to the point where himself to poems that each have four stanzas of four lines in the “naturalist” cameras could be carried over the shoulder and “4x4” section of his new book, On the Material. hand-held photography was possible. Through these images, Among our new titles are two poetry books of a more Barnholden examines the moment when the eighteen-year-old prosaic nature. In After Jack, Vancouver cause célèbre Garry country of Canada turned away from becoming a Métis Nation Thomas Morse realizes beaulieu’s contention that all writing is by declaring war on its own people. rewriting. Morse rewrites Jack Spicer rewriting García Lorca; Two other December arrivals we’re pleased to announce are their voices interweave, transform, and become inexorably Annihilated Time by Jeff Derksen and Strange Comfort by entangled with a fresh and undeniably peculiar, disturbingly Killam Prize-winner Sherrill Grace. profane, and authorial voice. Poet Ken Norris returns with SFU professor Jeff Derksen is revered in North American Asian Skies. Composed like a dark novel-in-verse, this is an poetic circles for his politically infused books of poetry, such as unsettling story of the deficiencies of love that have produced Transnational Muscle Cars. In this new critical , subtitled 978-0-88922-630-2 $18.95 our commoditized and globalized world. Poetry and Other Politics, Derksen explores poetry (“that under- All eight poets will read at our gala Talon Spring Poetry achieving commodity”) against the backdrop of what he calls night on Wednesday, April 28 at the Heritage Hall, located at “the long neoliberal moment.” We’ve already noticed the drums 3102 Main Street (at 15th) in Vancouver. Admission is free. beating (or is that Tweeting?) in poetic and academic circles that Doors open at 7:30, readings begin at 8:00. Derksen’s long-awaited volume has arrived. Strange Comfort We have just released Canadian theatre superstar Morris compiles for the first time Sherrill Grace’s many essays on the Panych’s adaption of three classic comedies, Still Laughing,and life and work of Malcom Lowry, and offers a fresh look at his will publish a new play by him this spring, The Trespassers—a attempts to apprehend and portray the writer, writing. Stratford Festival favourite last year. Theatre-goers in Vancouver know well the innovative work of playwright Kevin Kerr. Skydive, to be published later this spring, aims to increase audiences’ understanding of the disability experience. Skydive was created to be performed by one able-bodied and one 978-0-88922-633-3 $16.95 differently-abled actor. Using the technology of Sven Johansson’s ES Dance Instruments (a seventeen-foot, counterweighted lever that allows a performer to fly in all directions) the show is written to be staged almost entirely in the air. We conclude with our two spring non-fiction titles. Readers can embark on a journey of cross-cultural comprehension and enrichment with the release of The Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack, by socio-cultural anthropologist Dr. Dorothy Kennedy 978-0-88922-635-7 $29.95 and ethnologist/linguist Randy Bouchard. This book records and re-contextualizes many Lil’wat stories as told to these ethnologists by respected Lil’wat elder Charlie Mack over a two- decade period of friendship and research. Finally, Imperial Canada Inc., a multi-author collaboration led by Alain Deneault, sets out to ask a simple question: why is 978-0-88922-628-9 $16.95 Canada home to more than seventy percent of the world’s mining companies? The answer, the authors contend, is that the Canadian imperial heritage continues to offer the extractive sector worldwide a customized trading environment that supports speculation, enables capital flows to finance questionable projects abroad, pursues a proactive diplomacy which successfully promotes this sector to international institutions, opens fiscal 978-0-88922-640-1 $24.95 pipelines to Caribbean tax havens, provides government subsidies, and, most especially, offers a politicized legal haven from 978-0-88922-638-8 $16.95 litigation. Let the debate begin.

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43 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010

44 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2010