PUBLICATION MAIL AGREEMENT #40010086 WINTER 2013-2014 UNPRECEDENTED VOL. 27 UNCOUTH YOUR GUIDETO John Moore,page 9 See featurereviewby Doug doesBorat. Vancouver Gallery. Art show atthe precedes hisone-man Ever. Person. Worst. newnovel called bizarre, Coupland’sDouglas BC BOOKWORLD

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DAVID LEVERTON PHOTO 2 bc bookworld winter 2013-2014 BCTOP* SELLERS PEOPLE

The Deerholme Mushroom Book: From Foraging to Feasting (Touchwood Tofino translator helps Editions $29.95) by Bill Jones

Tilly: a Story of Hope revive the smouldering & Resilience (Sono Nis Press $19.95) by Monique Gray Smith stories of Patagonia

Tax Me I’m Canadian! he most endangered indigenous people in the world, the Yagan, are also the A taxpayer’s guide to southernmost. For uncounted centuries the Yagan—or Yámana—were nomadic your money and how politicians spend it fishers and hunters who traveled as families in the cold and turbulent waters south (Sandhill Book Marketing of Tierra del Fuego (Chile), often carrying their fire with them in their canoes,

$21.95) by Mark Milke PHOTO

smouldering upon a bed of mud and sand. They Called Me Number One:

Sweden calls PETERSON

The last remaining pure-blooded Yagan person alive, Cristina Calderón, is the only remaining Secrets & Survival at an T Alice Munro

Indian Residential School BARRY speaker of the Yagan language. She and her late sister Ursula Calderón have recounted traditional (Talonbooks $19.95) Yagan stories, in their native tongue, for Hai kur mamashu chis: I Want to Tell You a Story by Bev Sellars Munrovia in Victoria (CreateSpace $18), a folklore collection illustrated with woodcuts by Chilean artist Jimena Saiter.

The Great Bear Sea: On his 83rd birthday, while marking 50 These unique “Survivor for real” stories were compiled by the Calderón’s Spanish-speaking Exploring the Marine years of bookselling in B.C., Jim Munro Life of a Pacific Paradise granddaughter Cristina Zárraga and translated into English by Jacqueline Windh of Tofino. (Orca Books $19.95) by Ian of Munro’s Books in Victoria learned his “The Yagan have a lot McAllister and Nicholas Read. first wife Alice Munro will soon be the first Photos by Ian McAllister Canadian and only the thirteenth woman of cultural similarities to to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. the coastal people here Sensational Victoria: Alice Munro was visiting Bright Lights, Red Lights, [Nuu-chah-nulth],” says Victoria at the time. On her Murders, Ghosts & Gardens Windh, “which is one of (Anvil $24) by Eve Lazarus behalf, one of her daugh- ters will receive a docu- the reasons I became so FireDrakes: Chronicles ment confirming her $1.2 interested in their sto- of the Daemon Knights million-dollar prize from (Red Tuque Books $16.95) ries.” Windh spent by David Korinetz King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden on December 10 in Jim Munro twelve months in Stockholm. Born in Ontario southernmost Patagonia, as Alice Laidlaw, she emerged as a writer travelling with Cristina while living in B.C. and became the elev- Zárraga to Navarino Is- enth recipient of the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstand- land, the last stop north WOODCUT

ing Literary Achievement in B.C. in 2005. of Cape Horn. Earlier this year she was awarded the SAITER

978-1492180593 $10,000 Harbourfront literary award. For This Chilean woodcut depicts a story from I Want To Tell You a Story, For more info contact: capturing the last oral remnants of the disappearing Yagan.

more, visit www.abcbookworld.com [email protected] JIMENA Aidan Coles

Life in the Fast Lane: Renée Sarojini Saklikar’s children of air India True Confessions of a (Nightwood $18.95) is the literary equivalent of tossing Tow Truck Driver AIR INDIA ELEGIES wreaths into the sea. After a 20-year investigation culmi- (Promontory Press $11.99) by Aidan Coles or Renée Sarojini Saklikar, wife of NDP leader nated in a high-profile trial that ended with the accused FAdrian Dix, the loss of a provincial election in May being acquitted, she has blended elegiac sequences that Svend Robinson: A Life in was far from being the worst thing that could happen to explore private loss and public trauma. (New Star Books $24) Politics her family. In 1985, at age 23, she learned her aunt and The Air India tragedy continues to get short shrift in the by Graeme Truelove uncle had been murdered aboard Air India Flight 182. public imagination given that most Canadians feel more Inventing Stanley Park: It was the worst mass murder in Canadian history. strongly about the 9/11 attacks that killed New Yorkers. An Environmental History Relatives from B.C. flew to the tiny community of Ahista, Renée Sarojini Meanwhile the County Cork Council has purchased that (UBC Press $29.95) Saklikar by Sean Kheraj located on the coast of Ireland, between Durrus and wreath-tossing site on the Sheep’s Head peninsula and Kilcrohane, on the Sheep’s built a memorial garden—with a sundial that marks the How Happy Became Head peninsula, where exact minute of the tragedy. Irish locals and Indo-Cana- Homosexual & Other they threw wreaths into the dian relatives gather there, annually, in June, to com- Mysterious Semantic Shifts (Ronsdale Press $19.95) sea. Bodies of only half of memorate the dead. by Howard Richler the 329 victims were recov- Blending poetry and prose, Saklikar has made her ered. own monument around which readers can gather, search- Haunting Vancouver ing for dignity and meaning. Inconspicuously erected, (Harbour $32.95) by Mike McCardell children of Air India is a Canadian literary sundial. 978-0-88971-287-4 No Easy Ride: Reflections on My Life in the RCMP (Heritage House $19.95) by Ian T. Parsons

Hollyhock: Garden To Table (New Society Publishers $24.95) by Moreka Jolar & Heidi Scheifley 2012

* The current topselling titles

from major BC publishing PHOTO

Sheep’s Head peninsula, companies, in no particular order. County Cork, Ireland TWIGG

Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 COMING SOON Publisher/ Writer: Advertising & editorial: Contributors: John Moore, Joan Givner, Sage Birchwater, Shane McCune All BC BookWorld reviews Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Mark Forsythe, Louise Donnelly, Cherie Thiessen, Carolne Woodward. are posted online at Alan Twigg BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 Vancouver, B.C., V6R 2S3. Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics www.abcbookworld.com • Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 Consultants: Christine Rondeau, Monique Sherrett, Sharon Jackson Produced with the sponsorship of Email: [email protected]. Photographers: Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk In-Kind Supporters: Editor/Production: Pacific BookWorld News Society. Publications Mail Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Tara Twigg Simon Fraser University Library; BC David Lester Registration No. 7800. BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Annual subscription: $25 Deliveries: Ken Reid, The News Group Vancouver Public Library. BOOKLOOK For this issue, we gratefully acknowledge the WINTER 2013-2014 unobtrusive assistance of Canada Council, a A DAILY NEWS SERVICE Vol. 27, No. 4 continuous partner since 1988.

3 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 Give the Gift of Wigrum! We Have a Winner, Maleficium! Wigrum Daniel Canty This month Talon celebrates Martine Desjardins, Translated by Oana Avasilichioaei winner of the 2013 Sunburst Award! We also It’s October 1944. During a brief respite from the aerial bombardment of congratulate Fred A. Reed and David Homel, the London, Sebastian Wigrum leaves his small flat and disappears into the fog expert translators of Desjardins’s four novels. for a walk in the Unreal City. This is our first, and last, encounter with the The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian enigmatic man we come to discover decades later through the more than Literature of the Fantastic is a juried award one hundred everyday objects he has left behind. celebrating the best in speculative fiction Introducing readers to a new form of fiction – an inventory! – Wigrum published in Canada the previous calendar year. explores the limits of the novel. Having absorbed the logic of lists and the The award celebrates the best of genre fiction principles of classification systems, the Wigrumian narrative teeters on the that includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, boundary between fact and fiction, on the uncertain edge of the real and magic realism, and surrealism. the unreal. A book for both the bibliophile and design lover, Wigrum appeals Maleficum also won the 2010 Prix Jacques to the latent collector in all of us. Brossard and was a finalist for the 2010 $14.95 / 200 pp / Fiction / 978-0-88922-778-1 Governor General’s Literary Award (French Fiction).

Maleficium Martine Desjardins Martine Desjardins delivers to readers of Maleficium the unexpurgated revelations of Vicar Savoie, a heretic priest in nineteenth-century Montreal. Braving threats from the Catholic Church, Savoie violates the sanctity of the confessional in a confession-within-a-confession, in which seven penitents, each afflicted with a debilitating malady or struck with a crippling deformity, relates his encounter in the Near East with an enigmatic young woman whose lips bear a striking scar. As these men penetrate deep into the exotic Orient, each falls victim to his own secret vice. The men’s individual forms of punishment, revealed through the agency of the young woman, are wrought upon their bodies. $14.95 / 160 pp / Fiction / 978-0-88922-680-7

The Place of Scraps They Called Me Number One Jordan Abel Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School The Place of Scraps revolves around the writing of Marius Barbeau, an early- Bev Sellars twentieth-century “salvage” ethnographer, Xat’sull Chief Bev Sellars spent her childhood in who studied many of the First Nations a church-run residential school whose aim it cultures in the Pacific Northwest, including was to “civilize” Native children. In the first Jordan Abel’s ancestral Nisga’a Nation. full-length memoir to be published out of Drawing inspiration from Barbeau’s St. Joseph’s Mission at Williams Lake, BC, canonical book Totem Poles (1950), Abel Sellars tells of three generations of women explores the complicated relationship who attended the school, interweaving the between First Nations cultures and personal histories of her grandmother and her ethnography. His erasure poems mother with her own. She recalls hunger, simultaneously illuminate Barbeau’s forced labour, and physical beatings, and also intentions and navigate the repercussions the demand for conformity in a culturally alien of the anthropologist’s actions. institution where children were confined and denigrated for failure to be White and Catholic. $19.95 / 272 pp / Poetry / 978-0-88922-788-0 $19.95 / 256 pp / Non-fiction: Autobiography 978-0-88922-741-5

Rogue Cells / Carbon Harbour The Vestiges Garry Thomas Morse Jeff Derksen Rogue Cells / Carbon Harbour resumes The Vestiges moves across the geography of The Chaos! Quincunx novel series and the present, linking historical moments when presents two ironically dystopic visions of quarters of cities were squatted, when social the speculative future: a “First” nation at change boiled and the future was up for grabs. war with the mysterious territory Nutella Covering a wide terrain of research, The Vestiges amid fundamentalist celebrity terrorism; mines various texts, from the Craigslist auto and a “green” world of aquaculture, parts section to Jane Jacobs, from Marx to bio-material, and grim labour conditions Marcuse, and from historical accounts of cities where hardcore gamers pay for “pollution to real estate promotions. fantasies” with carbon credits. $16.95 / 128 pp / Poetry / 978-0-88922-794-1 $19.95 / 448 pp / Fiction / 978-0-88922-776-7

The festive banner at the top of our ad features the forthcoming MY TWP Plays, by Jack Winter, which includes five plays he wrote during his time with the ex- perimental theatre company Toronto Workshop Productions. Stay tuned!

4 bc bookworld winter 2013-2014 PEOPLE Daddy does Darwin

MBARRASSED TO HAVE HIS STUDENTS LEARN HE HAD not ever seen many of the creatures he was Electuring about, wildlife biologist Cameron MacDonald opted to take his two young children, his wife—who prefers sushi to wilderness—and their pancake-eating dog on a four-month, 16,000-kilome- tre camping road trip. Their eyewitness encounters with endangered species, dingy motels, ravenous insects and other family vacation hazards are recalled with humour and pride in The Endangered Species Road Trip (Greystone $19.95). While describing the scaven- ger hunt for rare species he’s trying to photograph on the way to Florida—such as the Swift fox and the Basking shark—the Langara College instruc- tor resembles Chevy Chase in those National Lampoon's Vacation movies. Not exactly Origin of the Species, but charming. 978-1-553-65935-8 When Agatha Christie was writing a mystery set in the Caribbean, she had to remove Caribbean from the title—changing it to Nimrud and Its Remains—due to her frustrating inability to spell Caribbean. Making sense of dyslexia From Albert Einstein to Jane Austen to Winston Churchill

BY ERIC WILKINS had trouble learning foreign languages.” One of the points stressed by Siegel throughout the book T IS OFTEN PRESUMED THAT ALBERT EINSTEIN is that all of these unfortunate situations are, if not some- Iwas an eccentric who had learning disabilities. thing one can overcome, they can at least be manageable. With Agatha Christie, the key was her unwillingness to give Linda Siegel’s Understanding Dyslexia Minivan Man & daughter Brora at Toronto Zoo. up; she kept on with what was most difficult for her. and Other Learning Disabilities (Pacific Edu- ✍ PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH NATIONAL DYSLEXIA cational Press $29) makes short work of the myth. Awareness month, Understanding Dyslexia and Other Learn- Taken to cleaner “As a young man working in a patent office,” she writes, ing Disabilities is a helpful guide to a wide range of learning “he [Einstein] edited poorly written and ungrammatical ap- disabilities, how to identify them and how best to deal with AVING BEEN RAISED IN AN ABUSIVE HOME IN plications. A person with dyslexia could not have done this them. northern England, Jancis M. Andrews ran Haway and was classified as a juvenile type of editorial work.” For literary types, it’s especially intriguing because Siegel delinquent. At age 53, she gained a creative writing That’s not to say that other famous figures, such as comfortably references Jane Austen and George degree. Ten years later, her husband left her, refusing Winston Churchill and Agatha Christie, didn’t have Eliot, and she has corresponded with Ruth Rendell to pay alimony. After her life cascaded from the British severe troubles in school. Hans Christian Andersen about how Rendell, a novelist without dyslexia, could have Properties in West Vancouver to the mean streets of was terrible at spelling, math, geography and foreign lan- fashioned such a convincing portrait of someone with dys- the Downtown Eastside, at age 65 she had to lie guages. William Butler Yeats was dyslexic. So is Ol- lexia in her novel A Judgement in Stone. about her age to get a job as a cleaner in a boys’ ympic gold medal diver Greg Louganis who twice As a professor in the Department of Educational and school in England. Now living in Sechelt at age 78, attempted suicide after he was bullied at school—mainly for Counselling Psychology and Special Education at UBC, Siegel she has penned a bristling poetry-memoir about a stuttering. holds the Dorothy C. Lam Chair in Special Education and fictionalized character named Throughout her study, Siegel reflects upon the work and she has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the Uni- Mrs. S. who undergoes lives of remarkable people to illustrate how having dyslexia, versity of Gothenburg (Sweden). In 2012, she received the similar experiences. Jancis or other learning disabilities, is not remarkable. inaugural Eminent Researcher Award from Learning Difficul- M. Andrews’ angry and In the case of Churchill, she elaborates on the specifics of ties Australia. fascinating The Ballad of his early struggles, from his endless stream of tutors to his She challenges the use of complex and time-consuming Mrs. Smith (Hedgerow $16) dismal report cards. His chronic failures in math were obvi- testing that is currently used to diagnose learning disabilities was nominated for the City of ous. She suggests that Churchill may have had a mathemat- and provides alternate, pragmatic techniques for testing for Vancouver Book Award. It ics disability called dyscalculia. disabilities in reading, mathematics, spelling and writing. Her PHOTO

brims with grit, anger and Agatha Christie suffered from developmental output fail- study also provides first-hand accounts of people living suc- intelligence. 978-1-926618-01-2 PEHME ure. Growing up she was “a poor speller, she had terrible cessfully with their learning disabilities, having overcome

Jancis M. Andrews BETTY handwriting, she made many mistakes in arithmetic, and she deep feelings of inadequacy. 9781926966298

Northwest Coast Reading Suggestions

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5 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 6 bc bookworld winter 2013-2014 Books for the Holidays reviewsMEMOIR

Mark Leiren-Young is the 2013 The Natural History of Canadian Mammals laureate for the Jewish Literary by Donna Naughton Laureate Project, a vision of Yosef Wosk’s. Leiren-Young is Best of the Best from the University Presses - American Library Association one of the featured authors First Place, Reference Category - New York Book Show at the Cherie Smith Jewish Best Reference - Sciences - Library Journal Book Festival, Nov. 23-28.

‘The Natural History of Canadian Mammals tells this country’s story in lively ways that are unexpectedly wonderful and warm-blooded.’ - Randy Boyagoda, The National Post PHOTO

‘It can be read and enjoyed by readers all over the planet from inquisitive middle school students and HAYWARD

- interested adults, to the scientific community.’ - Gay Ann Loesch, American Association of School Librarians

‘I recommend this book to the widest audience possible in hopes that it might stir in readers an awe for nonhuman life as deep as Naughton’s.’- Rosemary-Claire Collard, BC Studies WATERHOUSE

ALEX Co-published with the Canadian Museum of Nature HEAVY METAL, BLACK MAGIC & First Peoples of Canada Masterworks from the Canadian Museum of Civilization ALMOND OIL by Jean-Luc Pilon and Nicholette Prince Mark Leiren-Young’s quest to become rich and famous and finally lose his virginity

BY ERIC WILKINS parties, often as a gorilla or a rabbit. These Free Magic Secrets Revealed by Mark Leiren-Young bizarre gigs give him a taste of theatre, or at (Harbour Publishing $26.95) least entertainment, but they border on hu- miliation. He always keeps his rabbit or go- T SOME POINT IN MOST rilla head on his shoulders, not wanting to be male teenagers’ lives, a unmasked. Once he speaks and someone sus- girl will be the motivating pects his identity, he makes a hasty exit. A While mounting Black Metal Fantasy, factor for some completely hare- Leiren-Young soon discovers the harsh reali- This beautifully designed book showcases 150 unique artifacts produced by Canada’s First brained scheme. For 17-year-old ties of show business, such as the difference Nation Peoples and offers a rare opportunity to experience a celebrated exhibition that has between a promoter and a producer. It turns toured the world, yet has never been shown in Canada. Mark Leiren-Young, that girl was out Rainbow is strictly a promotion company a long-time crush who had placed and they won’t pay the bills. Meanwhile Mr. in collaboration with the Canadian Museum of Civilization him in the dreaded friend-zone. Rabbit Head’s troubles with the fairer sex con- tinue. In a candid, often painful, but always amus- A girl comes to his house, bringing wine Partners and Rivals ing memoir of post-pubescent ambitions for and almond oil. Leiren-Young informs her he The Uneasy Future of China’s Relationship with the United States fame and love, Free Magic Secrets Revealed is allergic to nuts. She tells him the oil is not by Wendy Dobson (Harbour $26.95), Mark Leiren-Young recalls for eating. A massage session ensues. “I was how he set out to win the heart of—or at least about to go right there,” he recalls, “when we the attention of—Sarah Saperstein, by pro- heard the key in the lock. It was Randy. The ducing his own rock & roll magic show. only time I’d ever put out the coat hanger and It is established early on that our lanky the selfish bastard ignored it.” protagonist is definitely not one of the cool Amid other cringe-worthy anecdotes of kids in school. While the self-described “built frustration, confusion and failure, teasing and to be beaten up” Leiren-Young fails to achieve mixed signals abound. Throw in the unceasing the lofty status of jock-dom, or the fantasized presence of drugs and alcohol, and Leiren- Nirvana of rock-dom, he does have one re- Young perfectly captures the awkwardness deeming factor: he can write. of teenage lust and peer-group shenanigans. Our nerdy hero manages to become the None of the humour in Free Magic Secrets writer and director of Black Metal Fantasy Revealed is of the mawkish, laugh-out-loud In Partners and Rivals, acclaimed economist Wendy Dobson, examines the central role that (the company he dreamed up with friend and variety; rather this is a continuously endear- China and the United States will play on the global stage in the next half-century. magician, Randy Kagna) for a production that ing confessional in keeping with the play- a big-name promoter, Rainbow, is going to take wright’s preceding memoir, Never Shoot A on. Stampede Queen (Heritage 2008), winner of Everything is bright and rosy. A prospec- the 2009 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. tive financier is in place and, better still, at- Leiren-Young will appear twice at the Jew- tractive females have been cast for the roles. ish Book Festival, on November 24 and 27. Fame and fortune beckon from the proverbial See www.jewishbookfestival.ca 978-1-55017-607-0 horizon. Rainbow promises them a tour. utppublishing.com Meanwhile Leiren-Young is working part- Eric Wilkins is a non-magician who time by dressing up in costumes for children’s attends Douglas College.

7 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 UNDAUNTED is a non-fiction collection featuring some of the best articles from BC BookWorld in celebration of its 25th anniversary.

Like the newspaper, this anthology has something for everyone — Lionel Kearns describes the time he was Fidel Castro’s catcher for a baseball game in Cuba; Birute Galdikas writes about saving orangutans. Other contributors include W.P. Kinsella, Joel Bakan, Jane Rule, George Woodcock, Stephen Vizinczey, Mark Forsythe, John Moore, Shane McCune and Joan Givner. “I have never before encountered a book journal as engaging as BC BookWorld.” JACK MCCLELLAND

$19.95 • ISBN: 978-1-55380-253-2 • e-book ISBN: 978-1-55380-254-9 PDF ISBN: 978-1-55380-255-6 • 6” x 9” Trade Paperback • 200 pages • Nonfiction WWW.RONSDALEPRESS.COM

8 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER2013-2014 featureview FICTION

WHEREAS YOU’D NORMALLY in the man’s death on the plane. On cheer for the underdog in a landing, he discovers the man was the producer of the show on which comic novel, in Douglas he is to work. This pretty much IF HUGH GRANT sets the tone for everything that Coupland’s new novel follows. The difference is that you’re hoping he will be run when you’d normally cheer for the over by a garbage truck. underdog in a comic novel, in Worst. WAS THE DEVIL Person. Ever. you’re hoping the Worst. Person. Ever. underdog will be run over by a Gar- by Douglas Coupland (Random House $30) Douglas Coupland has purposefully created a boorish bage Truck. Very. Soon. OUGLAS COUPLAND HAS ✫ kept his finger on the Brit who is a self-centred, supercilious arse-boil. HAVING CREATED A CHARACTER Dprostate of pop culture who is a self-centered, supercilious ever since his 1991 debut, Genera- chap some of his fellow Having to be grateful for promptly beaten down and forced arse-boil, Coupland sets out to save tion X: Tales for an Accelerated Londoners would de- the latest bone she tosses to lick the filthy sidewalk. When him and his equally odious other Culture, inspired critics to dub him scribe with a multi-exple- him, an assignment to be he has to hire a personal assistant half, Fiona, who has hidden the fact “spokesman” for a generation that tive phrase ending in a on the camera crew of an and realizes he has no friends, he that Raymond fathered two beau- spent the social revolution of the word that rhymes with episode of the unkillable seeks out the homeless philosopher tiful children, raised in the electroni- Sixties in diapers and came of age his last name. TV series Survivor, being Neal, who owes much to Nick cally innocent isolation of the Outer to the polarized sound-tracks of An underemployed John shot on an infinitesimal Nolte’s role as the brilliant, irrev- Hebrides. As successive catastro- disco and punk rock. film and TV cameraman, MOORE speck in the Pacific Ocean erent vagrant-by-choice in the film phes overwhelm the Survivor Coupland’s subsequent literary Raymond is reduced to whose name is almost Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Kiribati set and crew, Raymond and output has been a predictably post- begging work from his estranged longer than its shoreline (The Re- Accidentally seated next to an Fiona are transformed into an un- modern mixed bag, from the intro- wife, Fiona, who launched her public of Kiribati), puts him in such enormously obese man on the first likely Adam and Eve; flawed par- spection of Waiting for God, a wildly successful casting agency at a funk that he snottily baits a home- leg of his flight into his personal ents united by their determination collection of John Cheever-ish tales his suggestion and lives to pack salt less man who accosts him after the heart of darkness, Raymond’s sly, to raise children better than them- of spiritual yearning in the desert into his gaping psychic wounds. conjugal interview. Raymond is sneaky nastiness eventually results selves. of materialist suburbia, to novels In its way, Worst. Person. Ever. like Microserfs, set among compu- is a perverse paean to the “family ter coders—the invisible Morlocks values” so cynically referenced by who slave in the digital mines to current political demagogues. It is enable and maintain the electronic a kind of fable, a post-modern par- world most of us now interact with able which suffers from all the out- more frequently than the “real” one. rageous gaps of logic and continuity The oddly titled Worst. Per- such tales are heir to, yet touches son. Ever. (pronounced with teen- on a fundamental human truth. age neo-Valley Girl emphasis on Coupland’s alter-ego, the visual each word) may not make it into artist, is the eminence gris that links the canon of early 21st century his sometimes superficially dispa- English Lit, but it’s a whooping, rate literary works. No writer since high-speed joyride through the Oscar Wilde has so clearly under- post-millennial Blandscape. The stood that it is the visible surfaces main characters are British be- of things that reveal the truth, not cause—as anyone who ever some academic safari into presumed watched BBC comedy series on intellectual depths. public television knows—their ab- It’s no accident that Raymond surd sensitivity to outdated social and Fiona are both agents of the class distinctions and obsolete im- industry that manufactures the perialist cultural arrogance makes pixel-deep images that have become Brits more fun to take the piss out the archetypes of our virtual cul- of than any other people on the ture, or that they become involved planet. with the television series Survivor, Coupland’s literary models for in which contestants attempt to Worst. Person. Ever. are modern “outwit, outplay and outlast” each British humorists, Evelyn Waugh, other in primitive environments for P. G. Wodehouse, Kingsley Amis, monetary and celebrity rewards. J.P. Donleavy and the under-rated After more than a decade, the bla- Leslie Thomas; writers who made tantly contrived faux-reality pro- irony an occasion for laughter in- gram is still produced in the U.S. stead of classical tears. He pays lip and clones are made under franchise service to the central convention of in more than fifty countries world the British comic novel—the well- wide. meaning innocent who suffers a Pull out your ear-buds and lis- picaresque series of misadventures ten. That sound you hear is the at the hands of sinister representa- ghosts of Darwin and Wilde, laugh- tives of the status quo—but gives ing their asses off. 978-0345813732 it a typically post-modern twist. Our hero, Raymond Gunt be- Fiction columnist John Moore lieves himself to be “a reasonable writes better than nearly everyone enough citizen. You know; live life else from Garibaldi Highlands. in moderation, enjoy the occasional YouTube clip of frolicking otters The first major survey exhibition and kittens, perhaps over tip a of Douglas Coupland’s COUPLAND waitress who makes the effort to work as prolific designer and tart herself up a bit, or maybe just visual artist, everywhere is any- After Douglas Coupland won the art DOUGLAS where is anything is every- make the effort to try to be nice to © and design contract for the Canadian Firefighters thing, will be presented at the

the poor…”, yet with every sen- Memorial in Ottawa in 2010, he was asked to pose for PHOTO Vancouver Art Gallery from May tence of his tale of woe, Raymond this promotional photo on behalf of the firefighters. WEIR .

J 31-September 1, 2014. . reveals himself to be the kind of D

9 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 RAISING THE BAR

Standing Up with Ga’axsta’las The Canadian Rangers Boundless Optimism Jane Constance Cook and the Politics of A Living History Richard McBride’s British Columbia Memory, Church, and Custom P. Whitney Lackenbauer Patricia E. Roy /HVOLH$5REHUWVRQZLWKWKH.ZDJXȇĄ*Lxsam Clan For more than six decades, this dedicated Devout imperialist, loyal Canadian, and Standing Up with Ga’axsta’las is a compelling group of citizen-soldiers has quietly served dedicated British Columbian, Richard McBride conversation with the colonial past, initiated as Canada’s eyes, ears, and voice in isolated served as British Columbia’s premier from by the descendants of Kwakwaka’wakw leader coastal and northern communities. Drawing 1903 to 1915. His vision of a modern, indus- and activist Jane Constance Cook (1870- RQRɝFLDOUHFRUGVLQWHUYLHZVDQGSDUWLFLSD- trialized, and wealthy province helped shape 1951). Working in collaboration, Robertson tion in Ranger exercises, Lackenbauer reveals its institutions and its place in the British and Cook’s descendants open this history ZK\WKH5DQJHUVKDYHHYROYHGLQWRDȵH[LEOH world. Boundless Optimism brings McBride’s WRR΍HUDQXDQFHGSRUWUDLWRIDKLJKUDQNHG inexpensive, and culturally inclusive way to political career into focus, chronicling his many woman who was a cultural mediator, devout promote sovereignty and security. accomplishments and putting his activities Christian, and activist. into historical context, while recognizing the 978-0-7748-2453-8 ȏ PAPERBACK downsides of optimism. 978-0-7748-2385-2 ȏ PAPERBACK 978-0-7748-2389-0 ȏ PAPERBACK FINALIST | %&%RRN3UL]HV

Where Happiness Dwells Inventing Stanley Park “Don’t Be So Gay!” A History of the Dane-zaa First Nations An Environmental History Queers, Bullying, and Making Schools Safe Robin Ridington and Jillian Ridington in Sean Kheraj Donn Short collaboration with elders of the Dane-zaa First Nations Sean Kheraj traces how the tension between Exploring how students’ own experiences, popular expectations of nature and the LGHDVDQGGHȴQLWLRQVRIVDIHW\PLJKWEH At the request of the Doig River First Nations, volatility of ecosystems helped transform the WUDQVODWHGLQWRSROLF\UHIRUPWKLVERRNR΍HUV anthropologists Robin and Jillian Ridington landscape of one of the world’s most famous a fresh perspective on a hotly debated issue. present a history of the Dane-zaa people XUEDQSDUNV7KLVEHDXWLIXOO\LOOXVWUDWHGERRN 'RQQ6KRUWFRQVLGHUVWKHH΍HFWLYHQHVVRIVDIH based on oral histories collected over a half depicts the natural and cultural forces that school legislation and concludes that it is more FHQWXU\RIȴHOGZRUN7KHVHSRZHUIXOVWRULHV shaped the park’s landscape. responsive than proactive. Moreover, cultural not only preserve traditional knowledge for LQȵXHQFHVDQGSHHUSUHVVXUHPD\EHPRUH future generations, they also tell the inspiring 978-0-7748-2425-5 ȏ PAPERBACK powerful than legislation in shaping the school story of how the Dane-zaa have come to environment. VXFFHHGDQGȵRXULVKLQWKHPRGHUQZRUOG FINALIST | &LW\RI9DQFRXYHU 978-0-7748-2327-2 ȏ PAPERBACK 978-0-7748-2296-1 ȏ PAPERBACK %RRN$ZDUG

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10 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 reviewsFICTION FLASH CONCISION IS BRIDGMAN’S WAY According to reviewer David Stouck, one page evokes a full-length short story; ten pages read like a novel.

Standing at an Angle to My Age by P.W. Bridgman “De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum” is a father- (Libros Libertad Publishing $20) son story in which a late middle-aged man

OT ALL AUTHORS HANKER FOR PUB- from B.C. revisits the wartime scene of his licity. A precious few adopt pseu- Manitoba childhood with a painful clash of N donyms and avoid the limelight like cultures between his fiery Irish Catholic the plague. One such anomaly is P.W. mother and his pacifist Mennonite father. Bridgman, a nom de plume for someone with The skills of an adept satirist are evident undergraduate and graduate degrees in psy- in the lengthiest piece in the collection, “Cake, chology and law. He has no publicist, no Bang and Elm,” structured around two points Facebook page, no Twitter account. Until re- of view: the narrator as an observant child in cently, there has been no author photo. London, England, and as an adult college P.W. Bridgman’s first fiction collection, teacher from Canada. The child’s view is reg- Standing at an Angle to My Age, thrives on istered in the cartoonish Dickensian names concision. The very shortest stories, referred of the characters he meets and hears about in to as “flash fictions,” compress within as few London: Mr. Cake, Mrs. Paper, Mr. Boil, words as possible a setting, a way of life, and Jack Cat, Mr. Gland, etc. The adult, returned the potential for dramatic action. many years later, comes to see these bizarre In just two-pages, “Trading Places” charts figures in a wholly different light. “So and two English couples over a lifetime in terms Not Otherwise” is a lively satire of academic of education, health and class. life at UBC, its aspirations and shortcom- In less than a page, and in language as taut ings. Both these stories conclude in a gently serious vein. as an Emily Dickinson poem, “The Mars ✫ Hotel” encompasses a lover’s journey that be- gan with his mother’s proffered finger until, THE STORIES IN STANDING AT AN ANGLE TO MY AGE, “javelined by Airbus from London to Paris,” while sometimes set abroad, are nonetheless he is united with his beloved. markedly Canadian, some with specifically Among the experiments is the telling of a B.C. settings and references. They inhabit a story backwards. The machinery of plot is wide range of genres and modes, but are distin- put into reverse in “Turning in the Trap,” guished by the steady craft of an elegant liter- wherein the narrative of a soldier’s long, un- ary stylist. Each piece is an experiment and happy marriage and his suicide are presented Bridgman is a writer of exceptional talent. in brief segments each dated earlier than the The stories “The Mars Hotel” and “Suit- preceding one. ably Framed” both appeared in 2011 in the The title for “Ad Te Clamamus, Exsules, Scottish anthology, Story.Book, published by Filii Hevae,” another one-pager, can be trans- Unbound Press of Glasgow. “The Mars Ho- lated as “To thee we do cry, poor banished tel” was also shortlisted for the U.K. Bridport children of Eve.” The context here is Catholic Prize, flash fiction category, in 2010. guilt. The speaker/narrator sits at the dinner The volume has been fittingly produced table with Nuala, her six-year-old brother and by Libros Libertad with careful attention to their father, while the mother hurriedly ladles design layout and typography. 9781926763255 out lamb broth soup. The exact relationship between the speaker and Nuala is not de- David Stouck is one of the foremost literary fined—but the concluding sentence suggests biographers in Canada. His new book is menacing possibilities framed by sin and vio- Arthur Erickson: An Architect’s Life (D&M). lence. The Irish father mutters “Jay-sus, Mary and Joseph.” The speaker ob- serves the older man’s thick fin- gers “roughly tapping the table in synchrony with the beat- ing of our newly post-coi- tal, runaway hearts.” The longer pieces are also foremost about the craft of writing. The selection of the right word is as the- matic as it was for short story writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, or Ivan Bunin (the now almost forgotten first Russian winner of the Nobel Prize for literature). “Our Secret” is a mother-daugh- ter story in which the daughter learns the story of her paternity. The perfectly-crafted sentences convey a way of life in northern Ontario that is P.W. Bridgman hard-bitten but comes out of hiding. intensely alive.

11 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 BRIGHT LIGHTS THIS SEASON

The Land of Heart’s Delight Early Maps and Charts of Vancouver Island Michael Layland With more than 120 maps, charts, and illustrations dating between 1566 and 1914, The Land of Heart’s Delight tells the fascinating story of how Vancouver Island and the surrounding area came to be mapped, and reveals the motives, constraints, agendas, and intrigues that underpinned the creation of these maps. TouchWood Editions $39.95 hc | $29.99 ebook

Beauty by Design Cocktail Culture Harold Mortimer-Lamb Hometown Inspired Gardening in the Pacific Northwest Recipes & Techniques from Behind the Bar The Art Lover Out and About in Victoria’s Neighbourhoods Bill Terry & Rosemary Bates Shawn Soole & Nate Caudle Robert Amos Written by Anny Scoones Bill Terry and Rosemary Bates visit eleven In this exquisitely produced book, world-class His name appears in almost every Canadian art Illustrated by Robert Amos sublime gardens in coastal BC and Washington bartenders have compiled more than 110 history book, but Harold Mortimer-Lamb’s place A fresh perspective on a beautiful and lively State. Through the gardeners’ own words, original and cutting-edge recipes for the in the art world has never been easy to define. West Coast city. Beloved storyteller Anny illustrated with beautiful photography, Beauty experienced and beginner bartender alike. With access to personal letters, clippings, and Scoones sets out to discover the quaint and by Design captures their perceptions, ideas, Includes gorgeous colour photos, a glossary notes from family and friends, Robert Amos illu- quirky charms of Victoria. Illustrated with 120 and sources of inspiration. Their artistry will of glassware, garnishes, and techniques, and minates this exceptional life in a beautiful book original watercolours by acclaimed artist Robert inspire all who love to paint with plants. definitions of the various spirits. illustrated with Mortimer-Lamb’s own photos and Amos, Hometown presents Canada’s most TouchWood Editions $24.95 pb | $19.99 ebook TouchWood Editions $19.95 pb | $14.99 ebook paintings as well as the art he collected. livable city as the locals see it. TouchWood Editions $24.95 pb | $19.99 ebook TouchWood Editions $19.95 pb | $14.99 ebook

Winter Wise The Legend of the Buffalo Stone The Salmon Twins Enemy Offshore! Travel and Survival in Ice and Snow Written by Dawn Sprung Caroll Simpson Japan’s Secret War on North America’s West Coast Monty Alford Illustrated by Charles Bullshields When new twins are born into a mythical Pacific Brendan Coyle and Melanie Arnis Scientist and mountain guide Monty Alford It is winter in the Blackfoot camp. The Northwest village, everyone celebrates. But This dramatic narrative tells the story of Japan’s shares a lifetime of experience and how-to buffalo have gone away and the people are the twins become greedy and are turned by incredible and little-known WWII campaign knowledge for surviving and travelling on ice growing hungry. Young Hanata has a dream Thunderbird into a Two-Headed Sea Serpent. By to terrorize North America’s West Coast, and and snow. Includes scientific descriptions of the that will lead her on a quest for a magical learning to work together the twins will regain of the local militias formed of fishermen, First characteristics of winter weather and instructions stone with the power to bring the buffalo their human form. Includes a glossary of West Nations, and “wilderness warriors” who allied for building sleds, shelters, and stoves. An back. Based on a traditional Blackfoot story. Coast supernatural creatures. with the Canadian and American militaries essential resource for northern travellers. Heritage House $19.95 hc | $11.99 ebook Heritage House $12.95 pb | $11.99 ebook to defend our western shores. Heritage House $16.95 pb | $14.99 ebook Heritage House $9.95 pb | $7.99 ebook

The Earth Manifesto The Homeward Wolf Finding Jim The Cariboo Trail Saving Nature with Engaged Ecology An RMB Manifesto Susan Oakey-Baker A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia An RMB Manifesto Kevin Van Tighem In the spirit of books like Joan Didion’s The Agnes C. Laut David Tracey Wolves have become a complicated comeback Year of Magical Thinking and Maria Coffey’s Originally published in 1916 and written by We live in critical times. Years from now children story. The lonesome howls of the legendary Fragile Edge, Oakey-Baker writes eloquently one of the few female historians of the time, will ask their elders, “When the planet was predator are no longer mere echoes from our of her efforts to understand her husband’s this captivating history of the 1860s Cariboo burning, what did you do?” Problems as big as frontier past: they are prophetic voices emerging death, to defy the pain that such a loss Gold Rush brings to life the period, the gold the world are daunting, but solutions are at hand. from the hills of our contemporary reality. causes and embrace the healing power of rush, and the Cariboo region. RMB | Rocky Mountain Books $16 hc | $7.99 ebook RMB | Rocky Mountain Books $16 hc | $7.99 ebook mountains, adventure, and wilderness. TouchWood Editions $12.95 pb | $9.99 ebook RMB | Rocky Mountain Books $25 hc | $11.99 ebook

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12 bc bookworld winter 2013-2014 reviews MEMOIR • FICTION BY HEIDI GRECO ON HIGH ALERT TO DANGER & Everything Rustles by Jane Silcott (Anvil Press $18)

ANE SILCOTT IS A FEMINIST and makes no apologies for John Schreiber Jthis stance in Everything BEAUTY was an elementary Rustles, a collection in which she school teacher- writes honestly about hormones Jane Silcott’s feminism forges a path counsellor for 27 years and menopause and giving birth— to sanity in a crazy world the many transitions women’s bod- ies go through—as a woman, day-to-day routine, camping trips book of essays than memoirs. Sure, mother, wife, teacher; all those also do present her with some out- the essays are based in the author’s multi-tasking roles so many of us of-the-ordinary situations—being personal experiences, but they read lost as well as being near at hand play. more as thought-inducing contem- The Junction: Stories of Land and Place in The Devil’s Making by Seán Haldane In keeping with her feminist re- for what the park ranger calls “an plations—in some cases, medita- the BC Interior by John Schreiber (Caitlin (Red Tuque / Stone Flower $21.95) incident of domestic violence.” $24.95) solve, Jane Silcott serves as a ‘prac- tions—than recollections of a life LINICAL NEUROPSYCHOLO- tice patient’ for “nurses, midwives While the word “rustle” comes lived. But what they are doesn’t HE TITLE STORY OF JOHN C gist Seán Haldane did the and naturopaths as they learn to up regularly throughout the book, matter so much as that they are. T Schreiber’s third story col- research for his novel The Devil’s do pelvic exams.” I bet many of us, it’s a camping trip that provides That’s how deliciously good this lection, The Junction: Stories of Making while living in Victoria, even those sure of ourselves and one of the resonating sparks that collection is. 978-1-927380-41-3 Land and Place in the BC Inte- B.C. in the 1980s. Set in Victoria in confident in our bodies, would hesi- makes the book’s title so memora- rior, refers to the place where the 1869, it follows the adventures of tate to climb the table, spread our ble. Lying under the stars beside Heidi Greco is a poet and commu- great Fraser and Chilcotin Rivers a newly-arrived policeman from legs for a parade of strangers, espe- her husband, she hears a rustling nity organizer in Surrey. come together south of Williams England, Chad Hobbes, who must cially when they’re strangers bear- sound near her head. Her mind races Lake. Other Cariboo-Chilcotin lo- discover why the mutilated body ing instruments they intend to poke through the list of possibilities, and cales include Big Bar Mountain, of Dr. McCory was found in the us with. when she turns on her flashlight, Empire Valley, Churn Creek and woods. The apparent murder vic- Please though, don’t mistake her she’s confronted by a pair of Ts’yl-os [Mt. Tatlow] south tim was an American ‘alienist’ book for some gynecological show- eyes which she immediately of the Nemaiah Valley. whose methods included phrenol- case. It’s about seeing beauty in the believes must belong to a There are also two stories ogy, Mesmerism and sexual-mys- world, getting along with your hus- snake. As it turns out, the set in the lower tical ‘magnetisation.’ band even when he refuses to argue eyes aren’t those of a snake, Similkameen (“one of One of the murder suspects is back, trying not to swear in front though the point is made: B.C.’s magic places,” Wiladzap, a Tsimshian medicine of your kids when they’re little. there’s a reason we’re alert according to Schreiber) man, who is immediately arrested. Or, even harder, getting used to the to all those rustlings around and two focused on the But the ‘savagery’ of the Aborigi- idea that those same perfect kids us. Stein Valley and Writ- nals is all too easily blamed, and might not love you any more when If a thing is alive, it rus- ing-on-Stone in south- Hobbes must look deeper into the they reach their teens. tles. And this book definitely ern Alberta. His society and himself. How much rustles. Everything Rustles is also about ✫ previous collections are does so-called civilization serve as trying to get by as well as you can Old Lives (Caitlin 2011) a guise for savage natures? SOME DAYS IT SEEMS AS IF EVERY in a world that sometimes seems and Stranger Wycott’s 978-0-991-90730-4 so crazy you want to scream, and body’s writing their memoirs. Al- Place (New Star 2008). though Everything Rustles has been Always Love A Villain on San Juan Island by how important it is, in the midst of 978-1-927575-21-5 George Szanto & Sandy Frances Duncan (Touchwood 14.95) it all, to look and to see and to ap- classified as “memoirs,” I suspect that’s more to accommodate the preciate. ITH GEORGE SZANTO, world of marketing niches we’re The characters she sketches are Sandy Frances Duncan now all supposed to squeeze into, W so clearly defined, they practically is co-writing a series of mystery as it seems much more to be a cast shadows. Many of them will novels set on the Gulf Islands. seem familiar as neighbours, loud Never Sleep with a Suspect on talkers in coffee shops, fellow trav- Gabriola Island, Always Kiss the ellers of various sorts. Or, my fa- Corpse on Whidbey Island and vourite, the fellow in Gastown she BC Never Hug A Mugger on Quadra BOOKWORLD refers to as “Lurching Man.” Island have been followed by Al- STAFF PICK Although Silcott is clearly ways Love A Villain on San Juan rooted in urban Vancouver, it’s dur- Island in which a university pla- ing some of her camping trips that giarism case leads to a kidnapping many of her most wonderful ob- of a professor’s daughter. The ran- servations occur. While this may in Jane Silcott:Not afraid of being a feminist som required is a piece of intellec- part be due to being away from the tual property. 978-1-77151-024-0 TURN US AGAIN

BY Leanne Daniela Elza McIntosh milk CHARLOTTE tooth Dark Matter MENDEL bane bone 9781552665701 $20.95 Emilia Nielsen Winner of the Beacon Award for Social Justice Turn Surge Narrows Us Again is an exquisite work of literary fiction. – Halifax Media Co-op Poems from Planet Earth edited by Yvonne Blomer and ROSEWAY Cynthia Woodman Kerkham PUBLISHING

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13 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 review geography

The Land of Heart’s Delight: Early Maps and Charts of Vancouver Island by Michael Layland (Touchwood Editions $39.95)

any know that the dour Scot James MDouglas, when the Hudson Bay’s head honcho in 1842, described the southern end of Vancouver Island, at Fort Victoria, as “a perfect Eden” and even the harsh taskmaster George Vancouver called it, “the most lovely country that can be imagined.” Fewer know Vancouver Island was frequently called “Quadra or Vancouvers Island” [sic] on various maps after the two sea captains met at Nootka Sound and made a gentlemanly agreement to encourage Spain and England not to go to war over it. That’s one of the hundreds of fascinating details to be found in Michael Layland’s The Land Michael Layland of Heart’s Delight: Early Maps and Charts of Vancouver Is- land, a visual treasure chest for invaded Mexico City, and these anyone curious to know how materials “were overlooked, bur- British Columbia evolved into a ied among the viceregal papers, unique political construct. for more than two centuries.” Layland’s assemblage of ob- Maps of our eden The Land of Heart’s Delight scure maps about “the back of the is sumptuous evidence that multi- world”—as Vancouver Island was Michael Layland gets the lay of the (is)land award-winning historian Derek also called—or “the ragged green Hayes has not cornered the mar- edge of the world”—as novelist English fur trader John Meares veracity of unproven claims that couver Island by any European ket on gloriously bizarre and Jack Hodgins called it—will was a nefarious rascal who fudged Sir Francis Drake could have on August 5, 1774, at around fascinating books of maps about engage even those for whom the the truth for self-advancement at reached Vancouver Island, as 49 degrees north, while sailing British Columbia—and he’s the word geography is only slightly every turn, so it’s hardly surpris- outlined in a somewhat fanciful northward—after Pérez and his first to agree. less daunting than a trip to the ing to learn his map was an at- map made by B.C. land surveyor crew had met Haida canoes off ✫ dentist. tempt to confirm the existence of a Richard Bishop in 1939. the north-western tip of the Queen in his foreword, derek hayes Who knew that Chief Ma- Northwest Passage to the Atlantic. Similarly, he deftly skims Charlotte Islands/Haida Gwaii describes Layland as the foremost quinna at Nootka Sound once But how many of us know ex- over the more convincing argu- two weeks earlier. map historian of Vancouver Is- sketched onto a Spanish map a naval officer George Dixon—of ment that a Greek mariner from Included in The Land of Heart’s land. Any reader who encounters version of the route his men took Dixon Entrance fame—vehe- the island of Kefalonia, Ioannis Delight is the first map of Vancou- the sophisticated concision of across the island to trade with the mently refuted Meares with a Phokas, better known in Span- ver Island and the Canadian Pacific Layland’s commentary will be Cheslakees? scathing broadside that likened ish as Juan de Fuca, almost coastline to be made using data hard pressed to imagine other- Who knew Cornelis de Jode Meares’ phoney map to “the certainly was the first European from a substantiated voyage, “in wise. We get the comfortable published the first map focused on mould of a good old housewife’s to see Vancouver Island in 1592. accordance with observations and feeling that Layland might like the Pacific Northwest in Antwerp butter pat”? (The English letters of Michael surveys of [Pérez].” Drawn by his maps more than he likes people. in 1595? Beyond the visuals, Layland Lok, in 1596, record that Juan de fellow pilot and explorer Josef de Michael Layland is president Who knew there’s a map from outlines the history of the British Fuca claimed to have discovered Canizarez, and likely based on of the Friends of the BC Archives a Russian atlas, dated 1849, that Columbia coastline—as it is re- “a broad inlet of the sea, between Pérez’s diary while he was in San and a member of the Society for provides a more detailed view of vealed chronologically by his ar- 47 and 48 [degrees],” now called Blas between his two voyages, it the History of Discoveries and the coast north of Victoria than ray of strange maps from various Juan de Fuca Strait.) was only recently discovered in the the International Map Collectors’ James Douglas likely had at the expeditions and fur traders—with Layland is more forthcom- U.S. National Archives in 1989. Society. He has eight entries in the time? a clarity and seeming ease that is ing when claiming the Spanish Back in 1846, American forces two-volume Oxford Companion A few thousand British Co- enviable, instructive and wise. captain Juan Pérez made the had grabbed the map and accounts to World Exploration. lumbians might already know Layland neatly sidesteps the first recorded sighting of Van- of the Pérez voyage when they 978-1-77151-015-8

M MOTHER TONGUE Creating a Legacy PT PUBLISHING LIMITED of Art and Literature

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14 bc bookworld winter 2013-2014 The Left in British Columbia A History of Struggle Gordon Hak This comprehensive history of the left in BC from the late 19th century to the present explores the successes and failures of individuals and organizations striving to make a better world. Hak examines the fight for union representation, women’s suffrage and equality, human rights, Canadian nationalist visions, racial equality and environmental protection. It includes both the old and new lefts. With 20 b&w photos.

978-1-55380-256-3 284 pp $21.95

Undaunted He Moved a Mountain The Best of BC BookWorld The Life of Frank Calder and the Edited by Alan Twigg Nisga’a Land Claims Accord The contributors in this “Best of” include Jane Rule, Joan Harper George Woodcock, W.P. Kinsella, Stephen Vizinczey, The first biography of Frank Calder, the Nisga’a broadcaster Mark Forsythe, and biographer Joan chief who brought the “Calder Case” to the Supreme Givner, with illustrations by David Lester. Court of Canada, the blueprint for world-wide 978-1-55380-253-2 242 pp $19.95 aboriginal land claims. 20 b&w photos. 978-1-55380-227-3 202 pp $21.95 A Night for the Lady Late Moon Joanne Arnott Pamela Porter “Joanne Arnott uses the poem as a way to expand her This collection of lyric poems by GG-winner Pamela neighbourhood, even caressing it as ‘a home for our Porter brims with a deep longing, an abiding thirst for truth, and finally, acceptance and peace as when losses.’ A Night for the Lady is very much a ‘poethic’ kind of poetry, clearly articulated as a ritual ‘striving for there is “a choir of foxes, out from their hollow / balance,’ looking for the right way to treat the world. in the early dark, / yipping, yipping and singing, / And these poems do, and are a treat.” —FRED WAH praising the bright, the unkempt world.” 978-1-55380-250-1 122 pp $15.95 978-1-55380-236-5 122 pp $15.95 The Resurrection How Happy Became of Joseph Bourne Homosexual Jack Hodgins Howard Richler This new Ronsdale edition of the GG-award-winning An informative yet humorous account of the novel makes available to readers once again the mirac - ever-changing meanings of words in the English ulously life-giving world of Port Annie, teetering on the language. Learn how “gay” morphed into “homo - edge of the northwest coast of Vancouver Island, forever sexual” along with hundreds of other examples. threatening to slide into the sea — only to be reborn. 978-1-55380-230-3 164 pp $19.95 978-1-55380-239-6 286 pp $18.95

Young Adult Books

Seas of South Whatever Hannah & the Cursed by the Africa Ann Walsh Salish Sea Sea God Philip Roy Sixteen-year-old Darrah Carol Anne Shaw Patrick Bowman knows it was wrong to pull the The sixth volume in the The second book in the The second volume in the fire alarm, but she doesn’t “Submarine Outlaw” series “Hannah” series begins with trilogy that retells Homer’s know how wrong until she finds takes Alfred and his crew into a poachers moving into Odyssey, as seen through herself part of a Restorative confrontation with pirates along Cowichan Bay, forcing Hannah, the eyes of Alexi, a Trojan Justice circle, along with an the east coast of Africa, followed Izzy, her new First Nations boy who has been enslaved RCMP officer, and has to by a trip overland to Soweto friend, and boyfriend Max by Odysseus. Vol. I was face the consequences where he discovers both the into a desperate struggle to a nominee for the Red of her actions. violence and the beauty of save the lives of the Maple Award. post-Apartheid South Africa. 978-1-55380-259-4 endangered animals. 978-1-55380-186-3 214 pp $11.95 978-1-55380-247-1 978-1-55380-233-4 208 pp $11.95 250 pp $11.95 272 pp $11.95

Available from your favourite bookstore or order from PGC/Raincoast Ronsdale Press Also available as eBooks ½ www.ronsdalepress.com

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16 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2013 featureview ARCHITECTURE

Born in Vancouver on June 14, 1924, Arthur Erickson studied at UBC and McGill, began working professionally as an architect in Vancouver in 1953, and became the only Canadian to receive the American Institute of Architecture’s gold medal. Although he had a jet-set lifestyle and befriended Pierre Trudeau and Elizabeth Taylor, he eventually filed for personal bankruptcy in 1992. THE CONCRETE He died at age 84 in 2009. PHILOSOPHER BY SHANE MCCUNE Rogatnick (at one time a teaching colleague of Erickson’s at UBC) Arthur Erickson: An Architect’s Life by Canada’s flamboyant BC David Stouck (Douglas & McIntyre $34.95) BOOKWORLD touched on a criticism that would STAFF PICK dog Erickson throughout his career, T MUST BE A DILEMMA “philosopher- architect” that of pandering to the rich. for any biographer of “There is a touch of Versailles here,” Rogatnick wrote. The dra- a creative person: Arthur Erickson frequently spoke of matic lines and flourishes “all cul- How much do you concrete as the marble of our times. minate in the kind of inevitable I formality which fine clothes, epicu- focus on the life and how petent, cook, social convenor and Arthur’s accomplishments and edu- In the summer of 1949 he rean tastes, and a luxurious atmos- much on the work? arts patron who helped found the cation, but also of his adventures worked with a Vancouver architect phere unconsciously impose. This The problem is magnified in the Vancouver Art Gallery. with friends and even of his whose commissions included Park house will be hated by Puritans, as case of Arthur Charles Erickson, Once, after a quarrel, Arthur’s thoughts. Royal in West Vancouver, the first it will be loved by purists.” Canada’s best-known architect. younger brother Don killed all the Stouck says in an author’s note covered shopping centre in Canada. But Erickson didn’t hit the big Because in addition to all that iconic fish in Arthur’s aquarium. The fam- that the biography is “grounded” And from this juncture architecture time until he and partner Geoff concrete and glass, there’s a lesser- ily couldn’t afford to restock the in a series of interviews with projects become the principal plot Massey won the competition to known private life that is positively tank, so at his mother’s urging Erickson in the four years preced- driver of Stouck’s book, along with design Simon Fraser University. baroque. Arthur painted fish on his bedroom ing his death in 2009. But he has the incessant travel that became a That caffeinated project — just 28 In Arthur Erickson: An Archi- walls instead. also spoken to dozens of the archi- constant in Erickson’s life. months in the making from design tect’s Life, David Stouck wisely “He began by copying two fish tect’s friends, family and associates, One of Erickson’s first and most competition announcement in May takes the middle road, a more or from photographs in National Geo- going back to his adolescence in the celebrated commissions was the 1963 to opening classes in Septem- less chronological approach that graphic and then, with growing 1930s. Fortunately, several key fig- Filberg House in Comox, designed ber 1965 — would embody the opens and closes with insights into confidence, covered all four walls ures lived into their 80s with their for the heir to a lumber fortune, who best and worst of Erickson: His the man and the people he loved, of his room with underwater scenes memories in good shape, as well as intended it to be a conference cen- bold vision and self-assurance, with stops in between at the major featuring sunken wrecks, Jessie Binning at age 100. tre for world leaders. his defiance of authority and events, encounters and works of a seahorses, sharks, shrimp.” Despite lacklustre UBC grades, The design incorporated, as above all his impatience with tri- half-century career. Impressed, his father bought the Erickson was accepted into the ar- Stouck relates, “elements from fles like leaky roofs. The early chapters are a revela- boy his own set of paints. Arthur chitecture program at McGill Andalusian Islamic architecture — Stouck insists the leaks weren’t tion. Arthur’s parents, Oscar and then painted his brother’s room in thanks to the intercession of delicate filigreed screens to fend off a product of Erickson’s design but Myrtle Erickson, were an ebullient a jungle theme, making it a favour- Lawren Harris, who was part of the direct sun, highly polished ter- caused by substitution of materi- and eccentric pair straight out of You ite hangout for neighbourhood his mother’s arty set in Vancouver. razzo floors, and a reflecting pool.” als and poor work by subcontrac- Can’t Take It With You. Despite los- boys. Then one of Myrtle’s friends Erickson was especially taken with It was by all accounts a stun- tors. But he doesn’t mention that a ing his legs in the First World War, paid the budding muralist $50 to Mies van der Rohe’s expansive use ning design that boosted Erickson’s legal wrangle with the university Oscar was a dynamo at his dry paint an English hunting scene in of glass and Le Corbusier’s work reputation, especially after a photo dragged on until a 1976 settle- goods business, a keen sportsman her basement. with concrete — two media that spread in Canadian Architect maga- ment, the terms of which were and an amateur painter. Myrtle was The book includes strikingly would dominate Erickson’s major zine. Yet Stouck notes that the ac- not disclosed. an enthusiastic, if not entirely com- detailed accounts, not only of designs. companying text by Abraham continued on page 18

17 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 featureview ARCHITECTURE continued from page 17 Sutherland, Richard Gere, sun- as is only fair for a book subti- Other Erickson projects, includ- dry counts and contessas, arms Arthur tled An Architect’s Life. It’s an ing the courthouse at Robson Erickson dealer Adnan Khashoggi, Prince adventure story and a moral- Square and the Waterfall Building with his Charles and Princess Diana. ity play, and David Stouck is in downtown Vancouver, devel- mother Charitable works? Not so much. smart and skilled enough not Myrtle oped leaks. Eventually Kripacz took up to paint the lily. 978-1-77100-011-6 ✫ with a teenaged student (identified IN CHAPTER 12 DAVID STOUCK only as Jan) and Erickson with a Shane McCune writes from Comox introduces us to Francisco young married man named Allen Kripacz, “a dark-skinned, hand- Steele. PREVIOUS BOOKS ON some boy of about 19” whom By the end of 1990 both Jan Erickson met at a party in 1961. and Allen would be dead of Within a year they would become AIDS-related illnesses, and in ERICKSON “partners” (for some reason Stouck 1992 Erickson declared personal The Architecture of Arthur doesn’t call them “lovers”). bankruptcy. Erickson (Tundra, 1975; Most of Erickson’s friends took ✫ Douglas & McIntyre, 1988) by a strong dislike to him, though TOWARD THE END OF HIS CAREER Arthur Erickson examines his Stouck suggests this may have been to be sensational he wanted it to be bailiffs. Clients’ payments to the he worked for a former employee career as the one who designed because it forced them to acknowl- frank. He hoped, on the other Toronto office were shifted to L.A., and designed the new Portland Ho- Simon Fraser University, Toron- edge that Erickson was gay. hand, that I would limit the details where Erickson and Kripacz tooled tel, a public housing project in Van- to’s Roy Thomson Hall, UBC’s Stouck himself seems less than of his bankruptcy, but placed no around in a Maserati and couver’s Downtown Eastside. For Museum of Anthropology and fond of Kripacz, but he holds back, restrictions.” Lamborghini, respectively, and once he stayed within budget while the Robson Square Complex. perhaps out of respect for his sub- Ultimately the book is more spent almost $1 million on renova- demonstrating genuine thoughtful- ✫ ject. frank about the bankruptcy than tions to an office with a three-year ness in designing living spaces that Erickson is also the subject of “I visited Arthur and showed the relationship, although Stouck lease. would withstand rough treatment Edith Iglauer’s Seven (Harbour, 1981), ex- him the biographies I had written clearly links the two. Stouck acknowledges all this, while affording as much privacy Stones cerpts of which appeared in of writers Ethel Wilson and Erickson opened an office in Los yet always plays up the humane, and dignity as possible. The New Yorker. Sinclair Ross, and he was espe- Angeles to prepare for a massive even humble character of his sub- Fans of architecture might ar- ✫ cially interested in my handling of downtown renovation project, and ject. That’s hard to reconcile with gue that the discussions of style In 2006, an overview of Ross’s bisexuality,” Stouck wrote he bought a house among the movie the way Erickson squandered his and design Stouck raises with each Erickson’s best work was written project do not sufficiently address in the Globe and Mail shortly after stars in Bel-Air. backers’ money on himself and and edited by Nicholas Erickson’s death. some of the biggest criticisms lev- “Arthur was easily seduced into Kripacz while his staff ran out of Olsberg of Arizona for Arthur “He wanted to know how I this good life as Francisco arranged office supplies. elled at Erickson’s public works — Erickson: Critical Works would tell the story of his long it, and in the 1980s, they lived in There is much about hobnob- that they are monumental, imprac- (Douglas & McIntyre, 2006), fea- friendship with the designer, Fran- extravagant luxury,” Stouck writes. bing with Rock Hudson, Elizabeth tical and cold. turing photographs by Ricardo cisco Kripacz, and he made it clear As the decade progressed, there Taylor, Shirley MacLaine, But in the end, the narrative L. Castro of Montreal. that while he didn’t want the story were episodes with sheriffs and Katharine Hepburn, Donald of Erickson’s life carries the day,

18 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 A quarterly forum for and about writers; as well as a series about the origins # of B.C. publishing houses LOOKOUTLOOK50 OUT 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 • [email protected] Following the death of her husband, Leslie Hill lived Four years later I decided it was past time to scatter for more than five years in the educational and spiritual his ashes, which had been sitting in a box on a bookshelf New Age community at Findhorn, east of Inverness, in ever since the week after the funeral. On a sunny summer Scotland. At the SFU Writers Studio in Vancouver she day I drove north and hiked along the Bruce Trail until I found a high place overlooking Georgian Bay, where we subsequently honed her memoir, Dressed for Dancing: had spent wonderful days hiking, camping, swimming and My Sojourn in the Findhorn Foundation (Incite Press sailing in our eight years together. I sat down on the $18.95) that traces her recovery from grief over a period rocks with the container of ashes in my lap. A warm of fifteen years. Here is a précis. wind blew through a forest of green pines, cedars and poplars below me. The water shone blue and AST NIGHT I SAW A SHORT TELEVISION restless beyond the trees. I opened the black spot on the animals in the local Hu- plastic box. Then I froze. What I wanted to do was to strip off my mane Society. Within seconds I was L clothes, lie naked on the rocks in the sun- in tears. The program lasted all of ten minutes. shine and upend the box of gritty gray I cried for half an hour. Am I incurably senti- granules over me, inhaling the dust, absorbing the grit. I wanted him, on mental? Hormonally challenged? I don’t think top of me, inside me, in my hair so. I think I’m experiencing old grief. and eyes and in every sweaty crease in my body. I wanted No one tells you about the gritty underside of grief. to roll in what was left of They think they do, in the achy breaky, hurting songs of him so thoroughly that failed relationships, that transcend the pain with rhythm his essence could never or humour or beauty, but nothing can describe the daily be washed away. I damage of living with grief. wept as I hadn’t Sometimes people don’t know what they’re feeling at wept in months, the time because they don’t have permission. My parents convulsed with were really invested in happy children. When pets died or grief. we moved, I saw that my parents couldn’t cope with my feelings of loss. I tried not to make it harder for them; I cried in secret and swallowed my tears as much as I could. They thought and I imagined, that I was dealing with sad- ness well. But years later when I see lost or abandoned animals on TV, I weep for Fluffy, Goldie, Frisky, Robin and a host of other childhood losses. Grief doesn’t go away because we repress it. It’s in our bones. The good news is that grief diminishes with time, al- DANCING FOR though it diminishes with agonizing slowness. The bad news is you have to go through it. It can’t be boxed up permanently. The other news is, the world will never be the same. With the first loss we lose our innocence. Even- tually it becomes clear that everything goes, pets and peo- ple, parents, friends, lovers and children. That’s life’s guarantee: we’ll lose everything. They die, we die. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross points out that loss can take us into adulthood. Perfectly true, only I didn’t want to be adult. I wanted to stay young, happy and safe. I was GRIEF twenty-eight when my mother died at fifty-two. She’d by Leslie Hill been in a coma caused by a brain tumour for nearly two weeks; her death was a release, not a surprise. What was a surprise though, was the change in our family dynamic Leslie Hill once she’d gone. I hadn’t realized until then that my mother was the heart of the family, the sun at the centre of its universe. Without her strong gravitational pull, the rest of After an hour or so I calmed us were mere planets, spinning further and further away down enough to tip the ashes into from each other. By the time my father remarried, nine the trees below me. But the moment acceptance, understanding months after her death, we seemed more like polite ac- wasn’t the completion I had imagined. and maturity. I wear those quaintances than the close-knit family I had known. So in It was a marker of how little I had moved on. “pearls,” like a necklace, losing my mother I lost my sense of place, the feeling of The ashes were scattered but the grief remained without regret. I value my coming home, of belonging, of family. I inherited guilt with just under the skin of my life. life. Grief does change, and the grief too, because I’d never known how important my Eventually I left my life in Canada and moved we change with it. Now I’m mother was to the whole until after she died. to the Findhorn Foundation, a New Age spir- aware of the winter to come There was no family dynamic to lose when my hus- itual community in northern Scotland. It’s a place and every day feels like au- band died. We had no children, only each other. But I where people are open, accepting and compas- tumn, full of colour and light learned, in the months and years following his death, that sionate. I lived there for nearly six years, con- and beauty. everything that had once been important to me, the shreds fronting all the feelings that I’d denied most ✍ of my birth family, my friends and my work, no longer of my life. By the time my visa had ended DRESSED FOR DANCING IS AVAILABLE mattered. I couldn’t “live” for any of them and I wasn’t and I returned to Canada I could feel at Peoples Co-op Books on Com- PHOTO interested in living for myself. I tried, until every day was that the bits of grit from the past mercial Drive and Banyen Books on BERZ more exhausting than the day before and I could barely get that I’d imagined clinging to me for- 4th Avenue in Vancouver, 32 Books in out of bed. I found a therapist and assumed that I must be ever, had become pearls. The natural North Vancouver, or can be ordered JULIAN

getting better as the months passed, even though I still kind, lumpy and irregular, but my through www.lesliehill.ca

MICHAEL walked through my days like a robot. own. Grief and denial have become 978-0-9866127-5-6

19 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • WINTER • 2013-2014 M EMOIR

EW STAR BOOKS, AS THE FOREMOST EXPONENT OF COUNTER-CULTURAL apply for an exchange student scholarship from the account—from Columbia to Colombia—that rivals literature in B.C. during the 1970s and ’80s, remains a small, gallant World University Service in 1957—to study in Ni- his Nigerian memoir for depth. INTO geria. The Bight of Benin couldn’t be much worse Rolf Knight successfully defended his disserta- press, having recently survived a fire on its premises. Occasionally it JOURNEY KNIGHT than the Rogers Sugar factory, even if he had to pay tion in the spring of 1968, landing his first teaching honours its socialist origins—before government grants, when politi- his own fare there and back. job at the University of Manitoba at age thirty-two. Knight’s 40-page memoir of life and first love in Winnipeg was uninspiring but hugely significant. It cal change seemed viable—with books such as Rolf Knight’s memoir. “In retrospect, writing was the tropical West Africa, long before Nigeria became the was where he met his wife, Carol, who had grown N most powerful nation in that continent, is shrewd, up on a northern Manitoba farm. Like George Wood- ROLF KNIGHT’S ENGAGING AUTOBIOGRAPHY Knight’s parents stayed together for forty years single endeavor which I ever compelling and surprisingly free of self-glorification. cock’s wife, Ingeborg, who sternly told her husband Voyage Through the Past Century: A Memoir in a marriage that “rested on a loyalty built up through His two-year relationship with the beautiful Bisi NOT to write about her in his memoirs, the much (New Star $24) is a much-improved version of an the many difficulties they’d gone through together. found to be truly fulfilling and Archer lasted until the day he left Nigeria with ma- younger Carol forbade Knight from describing their earlier privately published memoir that dignifies Respect and loyalty are emotions at least as strong as laria. With typical reserve, he comments, “Bisi stayed still-surviving marriage in this new book. Instead, Knight’s lifelong political disaffection by curbing his love.” through which I ever contrib- with me the last week and brought me out to the Knight gives us two stanzas. penchant for rants. It goes a long way to validate Not prone to self-revelation, Knight mentions, in airport to see me off. A very emotional scene. But we Oh you can give marriage a whirl Knight’s inclusion in the only expansive, critical sur- just one sentence, that he watched his father’s last uted anything worthwhile. didn’t maintain contact, and I don’t even know how If you’ve got some cash in your purse. vey of B.C. literature, The Essentials, 150 Great B.C. wrestling match at Exhibition Gardens when his fa- her life played out.” But don’t marry no one but a Prairie girl Books and Authors (Ronsdale Press 2010). ther was forty-eight years of age. No context, no ROLF KNIGHT More labouring jobs ensued, this time in Fort St. ‘Cuz no matter what happens she’s seen worse. Knight can be deemed an “essential” in B.C. let- details. The narrative realm is more sociological than John and the Peace River country, as well as a torrid Carol has been the most important person in Rolf ters because he has been the province’s foremost psychological. love affair in California. He met beatniks and hitch- Knight’s life since they met. When Knight later turned working class intellectual author. Renouncing cozy At age fourteen, Rolf Knight got his first job as a hiked into Mexico, then shuffled back and forth be- his back on lucrative teaching jobs at both Simon university life, Knight has produced ten important mess boy and baggage handler on a small coastal pas- tween Berkeley and UBC where eminence gris Fraser University and the University of Toronto, it but seldom-heralded books, including his classic In- senger-freight boat, Gulf Wing, by faking his age. At anthropologist Cyril Belshaw told Knight he was was Carol who helped him do the typesetting and dians at Work, the first study to assert and document fifteen, he worked for a B.C. Forest Service crew in unfit to pursue a Ph.D. layout for his first six books with New Star. the integral and widespread role of First Nations’ Kamloops building some of the first roadside camp- In the spring of 1961 Knight made his first visit to Briefly Knight had a well-paying job as a member labour in B.C. sites in B.C. Chicago where he participated in a small and of an Air Canada ground crew; then he had two short- There’s still fire in his belly. “Whereas Canada “I felt the migratory workers were to be emu- cautious peace demonstration. Several hundred lived stabs at working on trollers, but by 1979 he was once seemed capable of maintaining an independent lated,” he writes. “... Today, I understand somewhat protestors were threatened with violence and vili- back driving cab for MacLure’s for four years, four stance in the world,” he proclaims, “since the end of better that it was making a virtue of a necessity.” fied. “It was the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a days a week, working long hours for low pay. “I the Trudeau era our nation has progressively become Although he appreciated attending Britannia High lynch mob,” he writes. wasn’t driving cab to learn anything,” he writes, “I a Quisling-led bum boy to the Americans. School in East Vancouver because it lacked rah-rah With his new love, Mary, he took up residence in just couldn’t find any other work.” “The provision of oil and other resources, the emer- school spirit, he was largely self-educated at the a decaying black tenement district in Southside Chi- Knight’s autobiography contains a ten-page rec- gence of unchecked free trade, the provision of Cana- Carnegie Library on Hastings where he could read cago. “By the time I had lived in Nigeria for four ollection of how and why professors were purged dian soldiers for American adventures abroad have novels by John Steinbeck, or teach himself about months I knew scads of people,” he writes. “But I from the allegedly radical Department of Political Sci- become almost automatic for Canadian governments. Mexican history, the Spanish Civil War, the Wobblies never truly got to know anyone who was part of the ence, Sociology and Anthropology at SFU in 1970, “We are evolving into an unchecked free-enter- (Industrial Workers of the World) and socialism. Southside.” but he devotes only six pages to “the single endeavor prise state with potentially devastating consequences In 1952, at sixteen, he was stymied by American Knight undertook his first real anthropological which I ever found to be truly fulfilling and through for ordinary people in Canada.” border officials when he tried to reach Mexico. He field work in two Cree communities east of James which I ever contributed anything worthwhile”—his Born in Vancouver in 1936, the son of an itinerant returned to Kitimat. In 1953, he took buses across Bay for the National Museum of Canada between literary output. cook, Knight grew up in B.C. logging camps, mining the northern U.S. to board one of the oldest passen- the spring of 1961 and the fall of 1962. He later ✍ camps and East Vancouver. He later engaged in bouts ger ships sailing to Europe, buying a dormitory class worked for the Department of Northern Affairs study- A VERY ORDINARY LIFE (1974) WENT THROUGH THREE of wanderlust, including a first-time love affair in ticket from Quebec City to Bremerhaven. ing a so-called “model village” built for an Ojibwa printings and sold some eight thousand copies. He Nigeria in 1957-’58 with a local woman who spoke “Dormitory class was far preferable to traveling band on Wunnimin Lake in northwestern Ontario. approached twenty-seven publishers with the manu- Yoruba, Hausa and Lagos pidgin English. She was by luxury liner,” he recalls, “because of the better All of which led him to pursue his doctorate at Co- script before he brought it to Barb Coward and Steve eighteen; he was twenty-one. class of people one met on the Arosa Kulm.” lumbia University. Garrod at New Star, from which he did not receive Knight gained his M.A. in anthropology at UBC Seeing the decimation of Berlin, almost ten years ✍ royalties (according to his account). in 1962, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in after the war ended, was a rite of passage. Too shy to IN 1962, ROLF KNIGHT LOVED NEW YORK. IT PROVED Stump Ranch Chronicles (1977) tells the survival 1968. His career path changed when he collaborated ask a girl on a date, he describes himself as “a bump- to be the easiest place to make friends he had ever stories of ranchers Arnt Arntzen and Eve Koeppen; with his Berlin-born mother for A Very Ordinary Life tious seventeen-year-old Canadian without any par- lived in. It was also, in his eyes, “the Rome of our and A Man of Our Times (1976) recollects the life of (1974), tracing her difficult life from Germany to ticular purpose or official connections and speaking age, the booming, festering, smug, corrupt, cosmo- eighty-nine-year-old Issei fisherman, union organizer goldpanning in Lillooet and hardscrabble work in an ungrammatical German with a Berlin dialect I was politan heart of the greatest imperial power in the and newspaper editor, Ryuichi Yoshida. Along the camps. After its release, Knight left his university trying to accentuate.” world.” No. 20 Line (1980) contains reminiscences of the Van- teaching career, repulsed by the narrowness of his At eighteen, Knight joined a skeleton crew re- It helped that he fell in love, twice. First there was couver industrial waterfront in the late 1940s. fellow academics and the ignorance of his students. opening the La Joie construction camp at Bridge River Jane, a native Manhattanite, in her late thirties, with Indians at Work (1978) is backed by 800 citations While his wife held down a steady job at SFU where, by the 1950s, only the Bralorne and Pioneer two children. She was a fellow anthropology student from 300 sources, but it didn’t receive any reviews (not mentioned), Knight grudgingly drove a mines remained. In late 1954 he left Bridge River to at Columbia, the most fulfilling university he has from Canadian history journals. MacLure’s taxi in Vancouver, simultaneously pro- attend University of British Columbia. Less than five known. “All major American universities have sinis- Even more remarkable was Knight’s self-published ducing a string of books that show the complexity of per cent of working class children went to college. ter elements,” he writes. “So do most Canadian ones.” bibliographic survey of left wing novels from around working class people, particularly migrant workers “I became enthralled by the university,” he writes. But the air was electric with the rise of Black Power the world, (the unfortunately titled) Traces of Magma: like his father and mother. “For three years I just about lived in the bowels of and the civil rights movement. Change was afoot, An Annotated Bibliography of Left Literature (1983), “In retrospect,” he concludes, “it would seem that the library.” along with a rising tide of Bohemianism. which contains annotated references to three thou- writing was the single endeavor which I ever found to In retrospect, Knight now sees how much The And then there was Vivian, a “red diaper baby,” sand books by fifteen hundred writers from ninety be truly fulfilling and through which I ever contrib- Fearful Fifties—as independent newspaperman I.F. someone reared with Jewish Communist beliefs. Their countries. Again, hardly anybody noticed. Even so- uted anything worthwhile. Stone once dubbed that decade—had infused even five-year relationship further broadened Knight’s po- cialists couldn’t care less. “Finally, I have not fundamentally changed what remote UBC as another bastion for Cold War schol- litical education, far beyond the realms of Cyril Knight published Traces of Magma with his own I believed about the world and the forces in it. I am arship. Knight’s retrospective commentaries about Belshaw’s UBC cloister, acquainting him with po- imprint called Draegerman Books. The term still a socialist and will remain so regardless of the universities in general frequently give rise to some of groms in Ukraine and Yiddish history. Draegerman refers to rescue teams that went under- worldwide defeats, treachery and retreats imposed his most insightful and lively writing: “It was an era By the summer of 1967, Knight was marching ground to bring out the living and the dead after min- by the forces of reaction to it. So be it.” of systematically fostered, epidemic Babbitry.” with three hundred thousand people from Central ing disasters. ✍ He supported himself with menial jobs, including Park to the U.N. Plaza. Busloads of the NYPD Tac- Any discerning reader of Knight’s uneven, fas- ROLF KNIGHT’S MOTHER, PHYLLIS, WAS MUSICAL, a stint at the old B.C. Sugar Refinery factory on tical Police were waiting. Disorganized, the peace cinating memoir will hope literary draegermen will adamantly anti-militaristic and disliked cooking. She Powell Street (“It turned out to be the worst, the protestors were easily clubbed and dispersed. “It was rescue him from the bowels of cantankerous ob- had worked since age thirteen in Berlin, surviving most mindless and exhausting bull labour I ever did in so humiliating,” he recalls, “not the physical con- scurity, finally according the respect and credit he famine and “a plague of nearly medieval proportions my life. The plant was straight out of the nineteenth frontation, but the fear of tackling the police.” deserves. during the end of the First World War.” century.”) and a job at Western Fish Oil, a fish Before returning to Canada in 1968, Knight spe- Rolf Knight also wrote or co-authored Work Camps Knight reveals much less about his labourer and processing plant beside LaPointe Pier emptying out cialized in Latin America anthropology for his doc- and Company Towns in Canada and the United States camp cook father, Ali, an immigrant migrant worker. five-gallon tins of half-rotted dogfish livers. toral work, making two field trips to a sugarcane (New Star 1975), Voyage Through the Mid-Century PHOTO “During the half dozen years after the end of the As a Vancouver Parks Board labourer he helped workers’ hamlet in the Cauca Valley of southern Co- (Draegerman Books 1988) and Homer Stevens: A Life MOSER war,” he writes, “my parents were in a pretty con- pack rocks for a new seawall being built around Stanley lombia. He spent nine months in a semitropical high- in Fishing (Harbour Publishing 1992). Rolf Knight, circa 1960s stant state of dispute with each other.” Park. All these jobs provided incentive for Knight to VIVIAN land valley of the Andes, leading to a 30-page 978-1-55420-068-9

20 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • WINTER • 2013-2014 21 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • WINTER • 2013-2014 Red Tuque Books Book Distributor For The Small Canadian Press - Ensuring Canadian Readers Literary Diversity

www.redtuquebooks.ca HST & The People for Democracy Bill Vander Zalm 778 476 5750 This book is dedicated to over 705,000 British Columbians who signed the HST Initiative Petition. Through unprecedented determination, and relentless hard work, they proved that a people [email protected] united could force the government to respect the voice of the people they represent. Bill Vander Zalm ISBN-978-0-9921415-0-9 $18.99 www.hstbook.com

The Devil's Making Objects of Affection Life Goes On Adventures Over Sixty

Seán Haldane Julie Cosgrave Gail Boulanger Gail Boulanger This is a detective mystery and more. Victoria, 1869. A Saturday afternoon in late summer. Another This is a practical book about how to gently and This book offers encouragement for living and aging The ramshackle capital of British Columbia is one of wedding. Another ordinary day in the life of Pauline effectively navigate our way through all types of wholeheartedly, with our full attention, and greeting the last colonies in North America. A mutilated body Thorne. Until it isn’t. ‘...humor, surprise and warmth grief and loss. Throughout our lives, we become each new challenge as an adventure. The captivating is discovered in the forest and Chad Hobbes, just ... filled with people who ring true with their own attached to people, places, pets, events and things. stories are drawn from the author’s personal arrived from England, is the policeman who must strengths and flaws. ... handled with grace and wit’. When that attachment is broken, we grieve. Grieving experience, and others, all carefully woven together solve the crime. - Kirkus Reviews. is a natural, normal, healthy process. with her own practical philosophy.

Stone Flower Press Julie Cosgrave Notch Hill Books Notch Hill Books ISBN-978-0-9919073-0-4 $21.95 ISBN-978-1-470-16426-3 $14.95 ISBN-978-0-9730802-1-6 $22.95 ISBN-978-0-9730802-3-0 $22.95 www.seanhaldane.com www.redtuquebooks.ca www.gailboulanger.com www.gailboulanger.com

Dancing in the Heart of the Dragon Pewter Angels Just Stay Running From Cancer A Memoir of China Angelic Letters Series A Couple's Last Journey Together a tilted memoir Ramona McKean Henry Ripplinger Jennifer Fazakerley, DebiLyn Smith A Western Woman’s Near Death in Rural China: Pewter Angels is the first novel in Henry Ripplinger’s Helen Butlin-Battler, Grace Bradish ‘You can run...but you can't hide’ is the beginning “A true hero’s journey. Don’t start reading at bestselling series. Hailed by readers as one of the Jennifer and Rob's personal story of receiving a of this blunt breast cancer journey that will wake bedtime or you’ll be up all night! A powerful story most inspiring works of fiction they have ever read, terminal diagnosis and creating a legacy of love and you up to taking a stand against cancer now, of one woman, two countries and a heart that Henry and Jenny’s tumultuous journey through life hope with those they love. Far from being a tragedy, before it catches up to you. Funny and inspiring. learns to embrace both.” June Swadron, author is both rivetting and life-changing, with an ending Just Stay shows powerfully how the forces of life, ‘Five Stars! A must read book.’ - Reader’s Favorite of Re-write Your Life. only angels can bring about. hope, and love can have the last word, even in death. Book Review.

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Canine Confessions A Nightingale Sang Frenchiehi DiDiva : FFollow ll ThThe BBlog The Thing I Say I Saw Last Night Book 3 of the Frenchie Series Bernadette Griffin David E. Burnell Mary L. Laudien Wendy McKernan An erudite dog’s perspective on life in and around Set with painstaking accuracy against the backdrop Will Sissy become the next canine celebrity A Christmas Story picture book for children aged 3 Montréal and the Laurentians during the 1970s of the battle for air supremacy, the D-Day invasions, sensation? Ethan and Grandma Sis are counting on to 8, this humorous, rhyming story will appeal to unearths a meticulously crafted tale about the and the V1 rockets, is the story of a battle-weary it! Sis (the 72 year old CHER look-alike) is convinced both boys and girls, as well as to any adult who can human condition. Canine Confessions gives us a Canadian Spitfire pilot and the daughter of the local she'll be discovered, as well. Ethan's tumultuous still remember the magic of Christmas. Also available mind and heart-expanding view of the world as doctor, who are both determined to build a future teenage world with its Frenchie drama continues to in hardcover. experienced by man’s best friend. together despite the odds. entertain (and alarm) his FBF blog followers. LOL Wendy has numerous TV producing credits. Little Dragon Publishing Laskin Publishing Vivalogue Publishing TwoCanDo Books ISBN-978-0-9866204-1-6 SC - $12.95 ISBN-978-0-9879300-6-4 $16.99 ISBN-978-0-9881142-7-2 $16.95 ISBN-978-1-4905652-9-3 $8.99 ISBN-978-0-9866204-0-9 HC - $19.95 www.laskinpublishing.ca www.davideburnell.com www.twocandobooks.com www.littledragonpublishing.com

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22 bc bookworld winter 2013-2014 featureview TRAINS BY DAVID R. CONN quired extra bridge rebuilding and the line were replaced by Budd Vancouver Island’s Esquimalt & Nanaimo track maintenance, it kept average Dayliners. They were self-pro- Railway: The Canadian Pacific, VIA Rail and Shortline Years, 1949-2013 by Robert D. speeds low and led to a number of pelled diesel units operated sepa- Turner and Donald F. MacLachlan accidents. Turner and MacLachlan’s rately from the freight trains. Again, (Sono Nis $49.95 / $39.95) final volume Vancouver Island’s this change was implemented for S EVERY SCHOOL KID IS Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway: the sake of efficiency. The CPR supposed to know— The Canadian Pacific, VIA Rail also hoped to attract more passen- A but often doesn’t—the and Shortline Years, 1949-2013 gers with the faster, air-conditioned transcontinental railway made begins with conversion to diesel- Dayliners. Canada possible and the train re- electric locomotives, then charts Vancouver Island had become mains a vital freight link. the long decline of the once- much more populous and devel- Vancouver Island’s segment of proud E&N. It’s a feast for rail oped since the Great Depression. our national dream was a 250-km enthusiasts, and also documents New pulp mills generated welcome ribbon of steel along the southeast part of the industrial history of business for the E&N. However, coast. That Vancouver Island rail Vancouver Island. by the 1950s, the Nanaimo coal line over the Malahat and through ✫ mines were exhausted, and accessi- the rainforest was originally con- AFTER MANY PROFITABLE DECADES, ble old-growth forests cut down. structed by coal baron Robert The cover photograph shows a Baldwin locomotive pulling freight, baggage, the E&N’s steam fleet was sud- mail and passenger cars across the Arbutus Canyon bridge in 1949. Long-time freight customers gradu- Dunsmuir’s syndicate. Donald F. Photocredit: Nicholas Morant, Archives of the Canadian Rockies. denly scrapped. According to the ally closed, moved away, or changed MacLachlan’s The Esquimalt and co-authors, new Baldwin diesel- to trucking. Many passengers aban- Nanaimo Railway: The Dunsmuir electric locomotives were much doned train travel to use the im- Years, 1884-1905 (Sono Nis 1986) more efficient on this line. The proved highways. recalled that pioneering era. Prop- THE ONCE AND FUTURE rapid conversion was a cost/ben- The authors describe and illus- erty granted as an incentive efit decision made by CPR man- trate many hazards E&N crews had totaled 4000 sq. km., one-tenth RAILWAY TRILOGY agement. Other technical to cope with: floods, washouts, of Vancouver Island, including improvements included control slides, blizzards, forest fires and rights to minerals and vast stands A third volume recalls how the once-proud of several locomotives by a sin- fallen trees. In 1964, a series of tsu- of prime timber. More was and prosperous E&N went off track gle engineer. nami waves, generated by a huge granted later. The postwar loss of the rail- earthquake off Alaska, caused ex- The Canadian Pacific Railway freight and carrying passengers. The CPR Steam Years, 1905-1949 way’s mail and express package tensive damage to rolling stock and acquired the E&N and its lands, CPR rail ferries connected the E&N (Sono Nis 2012). contracts was a major blow. In spite infrastructure at Port Alberni. constructing branch lines to Port to the company’s mainland lines. As the railway most remote of improved technology, the E&N’s Used General Motors locomo- Alberni and Lake Cowichan, and This period of growth and consoli- from CPR headquarters in Mon- operations remained slow and geo- tives were an improvement over the extending the main line north to dation was the subject of treal, the E&N was rarely issued graphically limited. The CPR’s own Baldwins, but then the CPR ap- Courtenay. The railway serviced MacLachlan’s and Robert D. new equipment. There was a lot of truck and bus lines were, in effect, plied to Ottawa to cease E&N many logging operations and lum- Turner’s The Canadian Pacific’s making-do with refurbished gear. part of the competition. passenger service in 1975. ber mills, while distributing general Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway: Challenging terrain not only re- In 1955, the passenger cars on continued on next page

23 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 featureview TRAINS continued from previous page freight is still moving on the E&N, The Canadian Transport Commis- but only on the trackage between sion ordered it to continue. Soon Duncan and Parksville. All the serv- after, federal Crown corporation ice is based at Nanaimo.” VIA Rail took over all CPR pas- That seems to be the end of the senger service. Commuter trains E&N as Islanders have known it. might have been viable around Vic- However, Turner believes the rail- toria, but VIA had no mandate for way won’t disappear. There is still transit operations. VIA attempted a possibility of funds for one-time to end E&N passenger service in upgrading. Many stations and some 1990. Rail passenger numbers were equipment are being preserved, and in decline across North America, but the right-of-way, if not renewed, all the uncertainty didn’t help busi- may eventually become a recrea- ness. tional trail. According to Turner, “It In 1998, the CPR sold a reor- is a complicated puzzle to put to- ganized E&N to RailAmerica, a gether, and the ICF is certainly try- short line operating company based ing to make it work.” in Florida. RailAmerica tried a tour- In its 125 years of operation, ist excursion service, but there the E&N has experienced many Derailed Unit 808 weren’t enough passengers to keep booms and busts. Most recently, engine being pulled out it viable. As freight volume contin- suburban sprawl and proliferating of Seton Lake, near Lillooet in 1981. ued to decline, the company at- roads have sidelined this stubborn tempted to close down the railway. holdout from another era. However, Finally, in 2006, RailAmerica and if that newer infrastructure is not of them in colour) illustrate every- the CPR donated all their E&N as- sustainable, someday the island day scenes, and some special Track and fieldwork in hardhats sets to a new nonprofit organiza- may require a prime travel corri- events, along the E&N. Many are Railway Rock Gang by Gary Sim (Sim Publishing $78) tion, the Island Corridor dor. Perhaps it will carry passen- from Turner’s own collection. “It’s Foundation, in return for tax cred- gers once again, in electric trains, a little startling sometimes to think ailway Rock Gang is a sophisticated memoir by Gary its. hyperloop air cushion capsules, or that photos I took 45 years ago are Sim about nine years work on the BC Rail “rock gangs” The ICF includes municipal, other post-carbon technologies. in the book,” says Turner. between 1978 and 1987. The 196-page hardcover book has over 130 never-before-published colour pho- regional and First Nations govern- Co-author MacLachlan, who HC 978-1-55039-213-5; SC 978-1-55039-212-8 R ments. The Southern Railway of had a long career as an engineer with tographs from that period, and drawings by the author. Heavy salvage and special blasting projects are included, as well as Vancouver Island now operates the the railway, died in 2011. Lead au- Retired librarian David Conn has an extensive glossary, index, and list of railway references. Gangs line for the foundation. In 2011, thor Robert D. Turner’s meticulous recently edited Raincoast Chroni- drill, blast, scale and salvage from Horseshoe Bay to Wolverine passenger service was suspended, research traces E&N operations, its cles 22: Saving Salmon, Sailors and Camp. There is no railway book like it. For more info, visit Gary as the track bed was no longer con- equipment, and key personnel over Souls - Stories of Service on the B.C. Sim’s extensive entry on ABCBookWorld. 978-0-9732542-5-9 sidered safe. Turner notes, “Some decades. Many photographs (half Coast (Harbour $24.95).

24 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 In the Company of Heroes Rufus: e Life of the Existence: Science, Ted Hunt Canadian Journalist Who Spirituality & e epic WWI tale of a mutinous Interviewed Hitler the Spaces Between brigade, a forbidden love and the Colin Castle Brett Hayward hiding of a Czar’s fortune as the Follow the journey of one of An enaging inquiry into Russian revolution erupts. Canada’s brightest investigative humankind’s destiny and the “One hell of a story!” journalists amidst one of meaning of life, embracing both - Sean Connery history’s most tumultuous times. science and spirituality. 978-1-926-9911-84 $24.95 978-1-926-9913-37 $24.95 978-1-926-9911-15 $18.95

A Walk on Broken Glass: e Bravest Canadian: Fritz Dutch Gentlemen Elizabeth, Empress of Peters, VC -- e Making of Adventurers: Austria a Hero of Two World Wars In Canada -- 1811-1893 Gloria M. Allan Sam McBride Jan Krij & Herman Ganzevoort Experience the moving story of A treasure trove of letters provide Compiled for the  rst time, one of Europe’s most intriguing new insight into the thrilling life experience 19th century Canada members of royalty and how she and adventures of one of Canada’s and Arctic through the journals helped save an empire. greatest war heroes. of sophisticated Dutch travellers. 978-1-926-9912-90 $24.95 978-1-926-9911-08 $24.95 978-1-926-9913-20 24.95 Order from your local bookstore or online New Authors are always welcome! www.granvilleislandpublishing.com [email protected] Trade Represented by Publishers Group Canada Tel: 604-688-0320 Toll Free: 1-877-688-0320 Distributed by Raincoast Follow @GIPLbooks on Twitter

25 bc bookworld winter 2013-2014 26 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2013 reviews ART

The Life and Art of Edythe Hembrof- universal feeling for all trees. It does Schleicher by Christina Johnson-Dean (Mother Tongue Publishing $36.95) not live among the other trees. It must breathe, have spirit!...You will A LIFE PROJECT OFTEN UNDER- learn more when we go into the taken by biographers is woods together. There you will see SATED A to write on subjects who trees, think only trees and feel only were overshadowed by more illus- trees.” trious partners or family members. The account of her time with WITH ART The challenge is to prevent the Emily Carr is the liveliest part of Harold Mortimer-Lamb: The Art Lover major figure from dominating the Edythe’s story, partly because by Robert Amos (Brindle & Glass $24.95) biography as she or he did in life. Emily’s unconventional habits al- e was no Medici, but Harold In The Life and Art of Edythe ways make good copy, but mainly Mortimer-Lamb had a pro- Hembrof-Schleicher, biographer because the relationship is so richly H found fostering presence in West Christina Johnson-Dean sets documented. out to present her subject not ✫ Coast art. Harold Mortimer- Lamb: The Art Lover is Robert merely as an expert on Emily Carr, WHEN EDYTHE MARRIED AND LEFT but as a talented artist in her own Victoria for Vancouver after four Amos’ profusely illustrated trib- right. years, the two corresponded regu- ute to the photographer, writer, Born in Moose Jaw in 1906, larly until Emily’s death. During the painter and promoter who was a Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher grew last part of her life, Edythe returned patron and friend to artists who up in Victoria, and emerged from from nineteen years in Ottawa to included A.Y. Jackson, Emily Carr five years of gynaecological prob- Victoria, where she devoted herself and Jack Shadbolt. lems and excruciatingly painful to bolstering Emily’s legacy. She As a friend to both painter treatments, determined to become became the recognized authority, Frederick Varley and his young Beach Beauty by a serious artist. Her family’s afflu- and was awarded sizable grants by student Vera Weatherbie, Edythe Hembrof- Mortimer-Lamb, at the age of sev- ence allowed her to study art for Schleicher, 1968, oil the B.C. government and the three years in California, and then 24 x 17 3/4”, from the Canada Council to act as “Special enty, eventually married the oft- for two years in Paris at a time Art Gallery of Greater Consultant on Emily Carr,” and to painted, oft-photograhed Vera Victoria Collection when it was said artists outnum- continue her research. In 1969, she when she was thirty. bered the working population. published a memoir M.E. A Por- She was twenty-two when she trayal of Emily Carr, and in 1978, and her American friend Marian Emily Carr: The Untold Story. Allardt moved to Paris. This was Johnson-Dean succeeds in main- not la vie boheme, but neither was taining a steady focus throughout it a dilettante’s holiday. The two were EDYTHE on Edythe’s work. Illustrations of hardworking students who used work appear on almost every page, their extensive tour throughout Eu- supplementing the text, and telling rope to amass portfolios of sketches. their own story. These include pho- In Paris, they studied with Andre & EMILY tographs of Edythe at various Lhote, a distinguised teacher as well How a friendship blossomed in “the most stages of her life—with family and as an artist; they supplemented the her two husbands—as well as lessons by setting up a studio and sleepily behind spot on earth for art.” sketches and etchings. The fine full- hiring their own models. page colour reproductions of her In the early days, benefit of the indignant Edythe claimed to be unim- paintings reveal her as an artist of Harold Mortimer-Lamb, portrait Emily championed response, and chuckled pressed by the modern art she saw remarkable talent. These were se- by John Vanderpant exhibited: “Don’t talk to me about Edythe’s work, espe- all the way home. lected from the more than a hun- Picasso and Matisse and less about cially when it was com- Edythe was interested dred donated to the Art Gallery of “The purpose of this book,” Matisse than Picasso. At least Pi- pared with that of Max in art history, which Greater Victoria after Edythe’s Amos writes, “is to shine a light on casso can draw if he wants to.” Maynard or Jack Shad- Emily Carr considered death. the remarkable and tightly inte- When she returned to the fam- bolt, whom Emily called Joan “footle”; she liked work- [Note: In general I dislike the grated art collection donated by ily home in Victoria (“the most “conceited young pup- GIVNER ing in her studio while habit of referring to women artists Harold and Vera Mortimer-Lamb sleepily behind spot on earth for pies.” She persuaded Emily preferred the out- by their given names, while male to the Art Gallery of Greater Vic- art”), her activities were featured Edythe to submit her “Quatre doors; she painted figures, while artists are referred to by their sur- toria in 1977. in the society pages, along with a Nus” to the annual Island Arts and Emily tried to convert her to paint- names. However, the unwieldy “Almost every major event in glamorous photograph. The cover- Crafts Society exhibition. It was a ing trees. Edythe concluded later repetition of a double-barrelled sur- Mortimer-Lamb’s life is illustrated age had one significant result—a painting guaranteed to shock not that Emily had done harm by name within the confines of a short by significant works of art created phone call from Emily Carr invit- only because of the nudes but also trivializing her subject matter. Af- review makes the choice of the first by the participants, often present- because it was cubistic. (In spite of ter getting Edythe to paint a tree, ing multiple views of the same situ- ing her to a garden tea party. Edythe name expedient.] 9781896949277 went along reluctantly and found her dismissive comments, she was she was highly critical of the re- ation.” conversation with her host difficult, not impervious to modern influ- sult: Joan Givner writes regularly on The gallery passed along not only because of the other ences). The mischievous Emily “It’s only the portrait of that biographies and autobiographies. Mortimer-Lamb’s papers to guests, but because of Emily’s me- stood near the canvas to get the full one tree. It does not express any She lives in Mill Bay. B.C.Archives in 1992. 9781771510189 nagerie—a white rat, a Persian cat, two dogs, and the obstreperous monkey, Woo. Their second meeting, at which TRIO HITS BIG TOME the women smoked and drank hot aving written a tribute to Kwakwaka’wakw artist and mentor chocolate, was more successful. In HDoug Cranmer in 2012, Kesu: The Art and Life of Doug spite of a 35-year age gap, they be- Cranmer, Jennifer Kramer has now co-edited one of the big- came close companions, working gest books ever published in B.C., if not the biggest. side by side, and taking picnics and At 960 pages, Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of sketching trips together. It was Changing Ideas (UBC Press $195) spans 250 years of writing Edythe who, in 1933, raised the about Northwest Coast art. Excerpted texts from both published money to establish the Emily Carr and unpublished sources, some not previously available in Eng- Collection of the Province of B.C., lish, are arranged thematically. now at the Royal BC Museum. She The other editors are UBC history and visual arts profes- also raised the money for Emily to sor Charlotte Townsend-Gault and Nuu-chah-nulth his- purchase “the elephant,” the cara- torian and poet Ki-ke-in who has forty years experience as a van in which she made painting Co-editors Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Ki-ke-in and Jennifer Kramer speaker and ritualist. 9780774820493 trips around B.C.

27 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 20 plus

varieties Customer Katrin Horowitz just dropped off a copy of her new novel The Best Soldier’s Wife (Quadra Books).

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MODERN NATIVE THE SIMPLYRAW FEASTS KITCHEN Andrew George Jr. Natasha Kyssa Contemporary Gluten free and (mostly) interpretations of First raw recipes for healthy Nations cuisine by the living. “The SimplyRaw author of A Feast for All Kitchen is simply fabulous!” Seasons. —Janet Podleski H 978-1-55152-507-5; $21.95 978-1-55152-505-1; $21.95

UNIVERSAL HUNKS VANCOUVER WAS BLUE IS THE David L. Chapman w. AWESOME WARMEST COLOR Douglas Brown Lani Russwurm Julie Maroh A lively, wide-ranging An entertaining collection The controversial graphic visual history of muscular of stories and images novel, adapted into the men from around the from Vancouver’s pre- Palme d’Or-winning film world. gentrification past, produced released in November. in conjunction with 978-1-55152-509-9; Vancouver Is Awesome. 978-1-55152-514-3; $19.95 $29.95 978-1-55152-525-9; $24.95

BLOOD, MARRIAGE, ANATOMY OF A GIRL 0 WINE & GLITTER GANG S. Bear Bergman Ashley Little “A memoir that confronts “A thrilling, frightening, ARSENAL PULP PRESS all sorts of difficult ideas fast-paced read.” about family and love.” —Vancouver Weekly —National Post arsenalpulp.com 978-1-55152-529-7; $16.95 READ OUR BLOG: arsenalia.com 978-1-55152-511-2; $18.95

28 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 reviews TEENLIT BY ERIC WILKINS folk until they die…” Whatever by Ann Walsh (Ronsdale $11.95) As Darrah navigates the quag- POLLY IS A mire of adolescence and learns the S A TEENAGER, FEELINGS importance of family, responsibil- CRACKERJACK are awkward, bodies are ity and accountability, that casual constantly changing. The F ASKED TO NAME ONE OF THE A throwaway remark common to winningest authors of B.C., few world is both against you, and re- teenagers — “Whatever” — disap- people would know to include volving around you. Throw in a I pears from her vocabulary. Polly Horvath, this year’s recipi- good dose of apathy and it can be a 978-1-55380-259-4 ent of Victoria’s sixth annual Bolen strained existence, even when Books Children’s Book Prize, for Burning from the Inside by Christine things are going well. Walde (Cormorant $14.95) One Year in Coal Harbour Take, for instance, Darrah (Groundwood Books). Patrick in Whatever by YA vet- CHRISTINE WALDE OF VICTORIA HAS The Metchosin kidlit author has eran Ann Walsh. When her epilep- written Burning from the Inside, quietly won a National Book Award PHOTO

for The Canning Season, a Boston tic little brother, Andrew, suffers a a young adult novel about a graffiti Globe-Horn Book Award for The artist who is asked to infiltrate and seizure, 16-year-old Darrah is en- RAWLUK

Tolls, three Sheila A. Egoff Chil- listed by her mother to bring him inform upon a radical group of fel- Ann Walsh dren’s Literature Awards, the to the hospital…causing her to miss MICHAEL low artists called the G7. Newbery Honour, the Mr. Christie a very important audition for a 9781770862463 Book Award and the CLA Young Adult Book Award. play. Upset, she vents her frustra- The Lynching of Louis Sam tion by pulling a fire alarm. THE KIND by Elizabeth Stewart (Annick $12.95) One Year in Coal Harbour was also shortlisted for the TD Cana- Unbeknownst to Darrah, this FOR AGES 10-14, ELIZABETH dian Children’s Literature Award. act of frustration was caught on LEADING THE BLIND Stewart’s first YA novel The In her ac- camera. Worse, in her haste to flee Lynching of Louis Sam is inspired ceptance the scene, she accidentally knocked The story of 16-year-old Darrah, her by the true story of a murder in speech, Horvath over an old woman in the stairwell. epileptic brother and responsibility Washington State, in the late 1800s, noted,“Mother A police constable comes to the after which a young member of the Theresa said none of us can house and she is presented with party, Mrs. Johnson, two af- As Darrah starts to be- Sto:lo First Nation (or tribe, in the do great things two choices: prepare for court or ternoons a week for two- come more selfless and un- U.S.), named Louis Sam, was pur- but all of us can participate in a “Restorative Jus- and-a-half hours. derstanding with her BC sued into Canada by vigilantes, Polly Horvath do small things tice Circle.” Reluctant at first, BOOKWORLD family and Mrs. J., a seized, and hung without a fair trial. with great love. Choosing the latter was a no Darrah begins to discover STAFF PICK greater problem arises: The lynching was recently acknowl- I think you’re lucky if you get to do brainer, but the repercussions are some enjoyment in her time Mrs. J. is going blind. Darrah edged as an historical injustice by the small thing you love [writing].” Polly Horvath grew up in more challenging than she expected. with “Mrs. J.” Between learning to promises to keep her secret safe, Washington State. 978-1-55451-356-7 Darrah winds up cellphone-less, bake powder biscuits and make stew, but Mrs. J. knows that eventually Kalamazoo, Michigan, attended college in Toronto and lived in New computer-less, grounded, and to top she becomes acquainted with Robin, she’ll be found out and sent to one Eric Wilkins of Delta is sports York and Montreal before settling it off, she is obliged to serve as a Mrs. J.’s 17-year-old college-bound of, “Those warehouses for old editor for The Other Press at on southern Vancouver Island. personal assistant to the injured grandson who is easy on the eyes. people… places to store old Douglas College.

29 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 ✦ ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ “Buckerfield—a resource STANDING AT AN ANGLE TO MY AGE GEORGE SEFERIS – POEMS book for BC’s cultural history short stories poems by and also an engaging by P.W. Bridgman George Seferis translated by Manolis domestic narrative.” This fictional writing explores ... everyone is in need of —Mary Ann & David Stouck ✦ universal all the others. We must

themes of forgiveness look for man wherever we WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA and redemption, can find him. When on his WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA of love and loss, of hope way to Thebes Oedipus

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TAmy Buckerfield, tells not only her story but that of her hus- ✦ WATER IN THE WILDERNESS THE UNQUIET LAND band, Victor, and parents along with engaging tales of relatives and a novel by a novel Doris Riedweg by Ron Duffy personages who played a part in their lives. She also chronicles the Happily married to her The newly ordained rise of her father’s business, Buckerfield’s Feeds Seeds and Ferti- beloved Morley, Father Padraig returns Tyne Cresswell is content to his home village of lizers, which became a household name throughout much of British in her dual role of Corrymore as its new ✦ Columbia. Lavishly illustrated, this generous book is sure to delight farmer’s wife and hospital priest. nurse. The mission he has set WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA a variety of readers and prove a valuable addition to the social his- Then a late night himself in addition to his WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA tory of Vancouver and B.C. conversation with one parochial duties is to save ✦ of her patients sets the souls” of the proud, 8 x 10. 334 pages. • ISBN 978-0-9877491-0-9 • $25.00 (No HST!) in motion a series of pagan fisherman ✦ Paperback 9 x 6 in heartbreaking events ✦ Paperback 6 x 9 in Finn MacLir and his [email protected] ✦ 220 pages that neither she nor ✦ 250 pages daughter Caitlin by ✦ ISBN: 9781926763194 Morley could ever ✦ ISBN: 9781926763200 converting them to Hager Books (in Kerrisdale) 2176 West 41 Ave., Vancouver B.C. ✦ $23.00 have imagined. ✦ $23.00 Christianity... 604.263.9412 • [email protected] • www.hagerbooks.ca ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ ✦

Small Apartments Savage 1986-2011 a novel by Chris Millis Glossolalia a novel by poetry by now a major motion picture Marita Dachsel Nathaniel G. Moore starring Matt Lucas!

Atomic Storybook a novel by Ed Macdonald from NEWANVIL Wood PRESS poetry by Jennica Harper

Everything Unus Mundus Rustles poetry by memoirs by Mari-Lou Rowley Jane Silcott

This Day in Vancouver a history by Jesse Donaldson www.anvilpress.com • [email protected] available to the trade from pgc/raincoast • at great bookstores almost everywhere!

30 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 reviews POETRY

The new Ooligan imprint in Port- ten wake to their boisterous heck- land has released a Pacific North- ling across the Tantramar Marsh. west anthology, Alive at the THE TOMORROW BIRDS Others were annoyed by the Center (Ooligan $18.95), with a “noise” but I heard the possibili- Vancouver section by more than ties for a new day in those voices. 50 B.C. poets, edited by Daniela Sandy Shreve finds something to crow about. Yet I’d never written about them; Elza. Among the B.C. contribu- at most, crows made a passing ap- tors is Sandy Shreve. Here she overgrown garden, the collapsing I’d been aware for some time, story; the ones that relied more on pearance in a few of my poems. comments on the origins of her fence. Then he told me that when though, that much as I was per- metaphor than description. While I knew about and admired poem “Crows.” 978-1932010497 we die, crows come to escort our fectly happy with the whole col- As I thought about this, it their intelligence, I’d never read up souls to heaven. He hoped, when lection, my favorite poems were the clicked. The poem I wanted to write on what they might stand for in NE OVERCAST FEBRUARY the time came, they’d show him ones that suggested rather than was to be found, not in that after- world cultures or religions. Given afternoon in 1998, an the way, too. elaborated a particular event or noon’s encounter per se, but in what the man I’d met earlier in the Oolder man walking ahead The man and his whatever it seemed to day had said, I realized I needed to of me slowed to a saunter as if wait- words stayed with me. Crows by Sandy Shreve represent for me. The look into this, so I turned to one of my favourite reference books—The ing for me to catch up to him. Eventually I came up Romans regarded the crow as a symbol of the future because poem I wanted to write When I did, he peered at me from with an anecdotal poem it cries Cras, cras (Tomorrow, tomorrow). — Barbara G. Walker had to begin at the end of Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols under his nondescript cap (beige, that conveyed the tender Out of all four corners of the world, the anecdote I held in my and Sacred Objects by Barbara G. like his baggy trousers and jacket) care the man had expressed these ancients with tomorrow on their tongues hand. Walker —and read every crow en- and pointed to a couple of vacant for his neighbour, the gather one by one, I’ve long been fond of try. I learned, among other things, lots beside us, asking if I’d noticed comfort he’d found in the cackle from whatever throne crows. Growing up in that to the Roman ear the crow’s there were more crows around than crows’ visitation. The im- they find to occupy — New Brunswick, I’d of- call sounded like their word for to- usual. ages, the details, the story at the edges of our eyes, the crows’ morrow—and so, to them, this bird Then he told me how hundreds all seemed to work—and Sandy was “a symbol of the future.” feet etch our every smile, Shreve upon hundreds had arrived earlier yet, I was deeply disap- as if the only thing in life that matters Considering my own enchant- that day, covering the field, the pointed. Something was is our laughter. ment with crows, their generally bad reputation (as messy, trees, the street—and then took off, missing—but what? Creatures of both earth and sky, they do not darkening the sky. “I think they My third book, Be- care if we believe them evil, as loud, as bullies and thieves), and came for my neighbour,” he said, longing, had been pub- dread them as death’s messengers the old man’s comments, I picked nodding at an old house across the lished the previous year up my pen and began again… or simply scorn them for the mess they make way. “She died last night.” and I was still finding my scavenging through garbage in the park. Newly minted Ooligan Press in Port- We walked along for awhile as way into new work. Be- Always dressed for funerals, he talked about his neighbour, how longing was family-cen- land and venerable Oolichan Press, crows know they are the pallbearers for our souls, based in Fernie, were both named he’d known her for decades, that tred; the poems were their gift, to find the glitter in what we leave behind. for the same oily fish, with different she’d been a kind and generous mostly in the narrative spellings. Ooligan is a part of Port- woman. She’d been ill for some and anecdotal veins and Reprinted with permission in Alive at the Centre (Ooligan Press, 2013) from Suddenly, So Much by Sandy Shreve (Exile Editions, 2005) land State University’s Masters in time, which perhaps explained the had been well-received. Publishing program.

31 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 32 bc bookworld winter 2013-2014 reviews POETRY tions (Oolichan $22.95), celebrat- ALSO RECEIVED ing the watershed that feeds the Peel FROM BUD Late Moon (Ronsdale $15.95) River which flows into the Mac- by Pamela Porter 978-1-55380-236-5 kenzie River. 978-0-88982-269-6 ------TO BRAD ✫ milk tooth bane bone (Leaf Press RAINBOW STAGE-MANCHURIA $16.95) by Daniela Elza 978-1-926655-60-4 HE FIRST POET TO WIN THE (Oolichan $19.95) is an odd, three------City of Vancouver Book tiered offering in which Steve I Don’t Feel So Good (Book Thug Award was Downtown Noyes first presents a 1973 rock $16.00) by Elizabeth Bachinsky T 978-1-927040-54-6 Eastside activist Bud Osborn for concert in real time by the psych------Keys to Kingdom in 1999. William edelic Winnipeg band The Next as Song & Spectacle (Harbour $18.95) New did it last year for his collec- “a broad wink at the conventions by Rachel Rose 978-1-55017-585-1 tion, YVR. ------of rock and the silly cosmologies The Monument Cycles (Talon $16.95) Now Brad Cran has a chance of the seventies.” The second sec- by Mariner Janes 978-0-88922-751-4 to become the third poet since 1989 tion called Manchuria is a long and ------to win that award, as well as its first In The Dog House (Talon $16.95) sarcastic lament about the possi- by Wanda John-Kehewin two-time winner, with Ink on Pa- bilities of alternative histories by 978-0-88922-749-1 per (Nightwood Editions $18.95). an exiled woman in Northern China. ------Coping With Emotions And Otters

Cran first won the 2008 City of PHOTO The final section is called The (Talon $16.95) by Dina Del Bucchia Vancouver Book Award for his non- Marais, which covers dystopias, 978-0-88922-764-4

fiction book Hope in Shadows: Sto- HAYWARD - medical policy, raptors, and ries and Photographs of human frailty. 978-0-88982-288-7 Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside ✫ WATERHOUSE

Brad Cran (with Gillian Jerome), a social FOUNDER OF INTERMEDIA PRESS IN justice initiative, sold on ALEX 1969, ever-vital Vancouver Islander streetcorners, that has reportedly LIQUIDITIES: VANCOUVER POEMS TO MARK THE 2012 DEATH OF Ed Varney continues to print raised $50,000 for marginalized Then and Now (Talonbooks Burnaby-born poet Daryl Hine, and sell “strange and beautiful hand- people in Vancouver’s Downtown $16.95) gathers many of Daphne who grew up in New Westminster, made books for advanced readers” Eastside. Marlatt’s poems from her 1972 The Malahat Review dedicated its from Courtenay, including Perro As a Poet Laureate for the City collection Vancouver Poems, in Winter 2012 issue to Hine’s Verlag’s alluring The Book of of Vancouver from 2009 some cases substantially memory. Five of his last poems Nada, a petite philosophical trea- to 2011, Cran first made revised, and follows accompanied an excellent interview tise that Varney found in his ar- Lorne Dufour the news when his criti- them with “Liquid- by Malahat editor John Barton chives dating back to the early cisms of the 2010 Olym- ities,” a series of recent with Hine’s literary executor Evan 1970s. Varney has also printed 300 The Silence of Horses (Caitlin $16.95) by Lorne Dufour 978-1-927575-09-3 pics Games (in an essay poems about Vancou- Jones, the editor of Hines’ post- copies of his own prose in Dream------called Notes on a World ver’s incessant decon- humous collection, A Reliquary ing With One Eye Open (Vortext Surge Narrows (Leaf Press $16.95) Class City) went viral on struction and recon- (Fitzhenry & Whiteside $14.95). #3 $9) and a chapbook of his po- by Emilia Nielsen 978-1-926655-59-8 ------Hines began studying classics at the internet, raising the struction, its quick ems, Bird (Poem Factory, 2011). Dark Matter (Leaf Press $16.95) by hackles of Olympic or- Daphne Marlatt transformations both on McGill University in 1954. Since Nada 978-1-897243-80-0; Leanne McIntosh with Jack Sproule Dreaming 0-9738334-2-4; Bird 1-895593-29-5 ganizers. His new volume the ground and in urban 1962, he taught comparative litera- 978-1-926655-57-4 ✫ ------of Vancouvercentric verse ture at the University of Chicago, imagining. In 2012 she She Draws The Rain SFU ENGLISH PROFESSOR DAVID most notably contains his was awarded the George where he had obtained his Ph.D. (Thistledown Press $15.95) by ’s The Wheel of Lan- civic poem, Thirteen Woodcock Achievement He published a novel, a travel book Coley Carole Chambers 978-1-927068-42-7 guage; Representing Speech in ------Ways of Looking at a Grey Award. 9780889227613 and fifteen poetry titles. ✫ Middle English Poetry, 1377– Philosopher At The Skin Edge of Being Whale and Ending with a ✫ (Signature Editions $14.95) by Susan ADRIENNE GRUBER HAS 1422 (Syracuse University Press Andrews Grace 978-1-92742-604-3 Line from Rilke. ALONG WITH NATIVE ELDERS, won the 2012 bpNichol $37.50) analyzes works by ------978-0-88971-281-2 environmentalists and other artists, The Survival Rate Of Butterflies in Adrienne Gruber Chapbook Award for her Chaucer, Marian Lyrics by ✫ Brian Brett and photographer the Wild (Hagios Press $17.95) chap-book Mimic, pub- Thomas Hoccleve, and by Murray Reiss 978-192671020-4 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF POET, Fritz Mueller par- lished by Leaf Press of Lantzville. John Gower’s ------and cultural activist Roy Miki When Lipstick Press, also of ticipated in camping Confessio Amantis, For the Boy with the Eyes of the Virgin: Selected Poems (Nightwood Editions served as the impetus for contribu- Lantzville, began as a self-publish- and canoeing expedi- by utilizing methodol- tions of a wide range of literary of- tions along the Wind, $19.95) by John Barton ing outlet, it printed two small ogy drawn from speech- 978-0-88971-270-6 ferings in Tracing the Lines: books of poems, You Were There, Bonnet Plume and Snake act theory. ------Reflections on Contemporary Rivers, later collabo- This Isn’t The Apocalypse We in 2006, and Arcana by Janet 978-0815632733 Poetics and Cultural Politics in rating for an illus- Hoped For (Caitlin $16.95) Vickers of Gabriola Island, in by Al Rempel 978-1-927575-08-6 Honour of Roy Miki (Talonbooks 2008. Vickers has proceeded to trated poetry ------Brian Brett $24.95), edited by Maia Joseph, publish Impermanence (Ekstasis travelogue, Songs from the Hive (Ekstasis , , The Wind Editions) by David Watmough Christine Kim Chris Lee 2012). Mimic: 978-1-926655-30-7; 978-1-897430-96-5 and Larissa Lai. 978-0-88922-694-4 Impermanence: 978-1-897430-90-3 River Varia-

a anad s: C ord O ssw PUZZLES FICTION Cro k 14 Boo Gwen Sjogren Strip NEW Andrewovel ÿBinks ÿa n uared OOD e Sq Cub NIGHTW Christianovel ÿ McPherson EDITIONS ÿa n

ia: POETRY d ns of airterjectio in ildren d in chibits an thorized exh ries un/au Renée Sarojini fSaklikar Facto Us o oodeditions.com ind s em oem nightw at R Danny Jacobsti-P s th An ong s & S Poem fall ’13 : X Shane Rhodes

33 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 A QUIXOTE ISLAND SAGA A novel by V. L. GREENE WHO’SWHO Set in the Gulf Islands with BRITISH COLUMBIA • an erotic love affair • a dogmatic fight over the forestland • a conspiracy to ruin a giant forest company and more is for Anvil

All skillfully interwoven with interesting IN SEPTEMBER WE REPORTED THAT ARSENAL characters into an exciting, Pulp Press in Vancouver is the North Ameri- page-turning story. can publisher of Blue is the Warmest Col- our, a graphic novel that is the basis for a movie of the same name that has won this Available wherever books & e-books are sold. year’s Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festi- 978-1-62550-004-5; 5.5” x 8.5” • 236 pages / paperback val. Now Anvil Press in Vancouver boasts a new edition of Chris Millis’ Small Apartments (Anvil $16), a Sony Entertain- ment movie of the same name. Directed by Grammy Award winner Jonas Akerlund, it’s a dark comedy starring Billy Crystal, Matt Lucas (of Little Britain fame), Johnny Knoxville, James Caan, Rebel Wilson and Amanda Plummer. Anvil first pub- lished Small Apartments after it won the 23rd Annual International 3-Day Novel Writing Contest. 978-1-927380-63-5

Carellin Brooks

Dina Del Bucchia on the Poetry Bus at WORD Vancouver.

is for Del Bucchia

WITH AN MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING FROM UBC, Fruitvale-raised Dina Del Bucchia has written a monthly column for Canada Arts Connect and created her own one-woman show Not a Shiksa. She has been a finalist for the 2011 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writ- ers. She read from her new book Coping with Emotions and Otters (Talonbooks $16.95) during this year’s soggy WORD Vancouver gathering and later hosted the Real Vancouver Writers series in October. is for Brooks 978-88922-764-4

IT WAS DOROTHY PARKER WHO HEARD A is for Edwards telephone ring and announced, “What fresh hell is this?” In her fifty-two meditations KATE EDWARDS OF KAMLOOPS IS ONE OF on mothering, Fresh Hell (Demeter $14.95), nine B.C. writers among the sixteen con- Freudian scholar, Wreck Beach historian and tributors for 13 chapters and two endings Vancouver Public Library trustee Carellin in a collaborative novel, At The Edge (Un- Brooks has provided entertaining bleats limited Editions $20), edited and published and provocative analysis about the under- by Marjorie Anderson and Deborah recognized roller-coaster ride of maternal Schnitzer of Winnipeg. The story concerns child-rearing in the 21st century. Dorothy a dangerous and unguarded construction hole would approve. 978-1-927335-32-1 on a university campus into which one per- HEDGEROW son falls. Collaborators range in age from their thirties to their eighties. The other B.C. is for Chang contributors are Gail Anderson-Dargatz, The p e s Blanche Howard, Jack o t Hodgins, Matthew White THE VENERABLE UBC CREATIVE WRITING Hooton, Arwen Crow department will soon be getting an infusion smart * Brenneman, christine CHRISTINE SMART of $75,000 from Penguin Random House; Elissa Frittaion,

Christine Smart p o e m s The White Crow (2013) meanwhile the SFU Writers Studio is the Heather Jessup ISBN 978-1-926618-02-9 hotbed on the rise. Taiwanese-born Janie and K.W. Dyer, is their latest SFU grad making a Chang 978-0-9919609-0-3 * major splash, drawing on 36 generations of JANCIS M. ANDREWS her families’ recorded genealogy for her de- The Ballad of Mrs Smith but novel that was inspired by her grand- Janie

H

E

D

G

H

E E Chang: R D (2012) O

G

W mother, Three Souls (HarperCollins E

R

O W ISBN 978-1-926618-01-2 another

6 9:00 $19.99). The main character is the ghost of 13-06-0 “Powerful poem SFU “Read this book both tough ands, Leiyin who was captivated by a left-wing for its bravery and * Writers its beauty.” sensitive.” poet as a teenager during Chinese civil strife Studio www.hedgerowpress.com in the 1930s. Denied entrance to the after- success life, she must reconcile three souls: her story HEDGEROW scholarly yang soul, her romantic yin soul and her wise hun soul. 9781443423908

34 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 is for Fandrich is for Milke

THE THOMPSON RIVER GUIDE BOOK BY ELEVEN YEARS AGO, MARK MILKE, AUTHOR Bernie Fandrich, whose family oper- of Barbarians in the Garden City: The BC ates the Kumsheen River Rafting Resort in NDP in Power, went on a national roll with Lytton, was featured on the Rick Mercer his Tax Me - I’m Canadian (2012), a sting- Report this year. A former university in- ing indictment of how federal tax dollars are structor and co-author of an earlier spent. His distributor, Thompson River guidebook, Fandrich is a Sandhill, shipped the pioneer of the whitewater rafting industry entire first print run of in Canada, having started Bernie’s Raft Rides 5,000 in the last four on the Thompson River in 1973. British weeks before Christ- Columbia’s Majestic Thompson River: mas and it sold 9,000 Km by Km Guide, Events, and Tales copies overall. Now (Nicomen House / Sandhill $29.95) is for he’s back with 80% Mark Milke rafters, kayakers, anglers and anyone trav- new content for a new elling alongside the river that was named by edition,Tax Me – I’m Canadian (Sandhill Simon Fraser for David Thompson. $21.95). Now a Senior Fellow with the Fraser 978-0-9917345-0-4 Institute, Milke is a former director for the BC Taxpayers Federation in BC. His cross- Canada tour in October was sponsored by is for George the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. 978-0-9687915-2-3 WET’SUWET’EN CHEF ANDREW GEORGE OF Surrey was a member of the first Aborigi- nal, Canadian gold-medal team at the World is for New Culinary Olympics in Frankfurt in 1992. By 2010 he was head chef at the Four Host IN BILL NEW’S FANCIFUL SAM SWALLOW AND First Nations pavilion at the 2010 Winter Bernie Fandrich: the Riddleworld League (Tradewind Olympics. The recipes in his third cook- pioneer of whitewater $12.95), a baseball-mad boy who also book, Modern Native Feasts: Healthy, In- rafting in Canada loves anagrams stumbles on his way to a novative, Sustainable Cuisine (Arsenal Little League tryout, hits his head and $21.95) emphasize nutrition and include tumbles into Riddleworld not unlike Alice Asian touches with dishes such as bison ribs descending into Wonderland. Finding him- with Thai sauce, venison barley soup, buf- self transformed into a bird, he must solve falo tortiere and sea asparagus salad. is for International is for Kalla puzzles and escape from riddle-making 978-1-55152-507-5 cats in order to return to human form. Illustrated by , it has been de- WORLD FRENCH RIGHTS FOR SEVEN, THOSE VANCOUVER PHYSICIAN DANIEL KALLA Yayo seven connected teen novels by seven au- continues his trilogy about German Jews in scribed as a novel for ages 9-11. is for Howe thors, published by Orca Books, have been Shanghai with Rising Sun, Falling 978-1896580-98-2 sold to Editions Recto-Verso. Korean rights Shadow (HarperCollins $24.99), the con- AFTER WATCHING HER MOTHER AND GRAND- have also been sold and, in India, Eurokids tinuing story of Dr. Franz and Soon Yi mother drift away from her on a raft of for- International will be publishing Seven in Eng- (Sunny) Adler through 1943, the bleakest is for Oakey-Baker getfulness with one of the most common lish in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh year of the war in Shanghai, when Allied forms of dementia, Alzheimer’s, Tanya and Nepal. Seven has reportedly sold 100,000 citizens were interned and tens of thousands SUSAN OAKEY-BAKER’S FINDING JIM Lee Howe opted to DO SOMETHING. copies in North America. A follow-up called of German Jews were crammed into a ghetto (Rocky Mountain $25) is a memoir about With compassion and wisdom, she has Seven Sequels will appear next fall. already teeming with impoverished locals. recovering from the death of her first hus- crafted a down-to-earth guidebook for other The Adlers risk their lives to support the band, renowned mountain guide Jim families, Supporting Parents with Alzhe- cause of the Chinese Resistance while star- Haberl, the first imer’s (Self-Counsel $19.95). ing down a threat from local Nazis. The novel Canadian to summit Then she asked a good friend to bicycle is for Janis delves into both heroism and the treachery the most difficult across Canada that can result when ordinary people find mountain in the world: K2. with her, spread- ONLY ONE MONTH AFTER JANIS HARPER themselves facing extraordinary dangers. For fifteen years ing the word that had arrived in India, guru Sai Baba named 9781443404686 research funding a local school in her honour on Christmas she and Haberl took risks around the for this modern Day, 2008. Now her publisher is donating Susan Oakey-Baker scourge is ab- $1 from each sale of her new book to World world: skiing the surdly low. Literacy Canada, an organization that pro- Himalayas, rafting in Nepal and moun- Three years motes literacy among women in India. Co- taineering in North America. ago the director of founder of the short-lived The Republic of They planned on having a family but the Mayo Clinic East Vancouver newspaper, Harper has ed- he was killed in an avalanche in the Uni- Alzheimer’s Dis- ited Emails From India: Women Write versity Range of Wrangell-St. Elias Na- Tanya Lee Howe made it ease Research Home (Seraphim $19.95), a collection of tional Park in Alaska. She visited the place to Nova Scotia before a Center noted that 37 stories about travelling in India, told by in Alaska where he died; returned to the serious encounter with cancer research in 27 women writers from Canada, the US, and Queen Charlotte Islands where they the pavement. the U.S. was get- the UK, including Harper who helped start a had met when she was sixteen; and ting $5.6 billion school in Puttaparthi, in Andhra Pradesh. Af- trekked to the summit of Mount Kili- per year, heart disease research was getting ter Sai Baba died in 2011 and his foreign devo- manjaro where they had gone the year $1 billion per year, and Alzheimer’s research tees stopped coming to Puttaparthi, the before his death. 978-1-927330-70-8 was getting just $500 million even though school was moved to a neighbouring village more people will die from Alzheimer’s next where it is flourishing. 978-1-927079-21-8 Jack Lohman year than from cancer or heart disease. Someone has to speak up. There is al- is for Parsons ready a shortage of geriatric specialists and the problem will only increase as the Baby is for Lohman AFTER SERVING AS A COP FOR 33 YEARS FROM Boomers start to flood the nursing homes. Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, Ian of Courtenay has provided his So families must educate themselves, sooner HAVING WORKED FOR SOME OF THE WORLD’S Parsons rather later, about eldercare. greatest museums—in London, Cape Town insider’s view of Canada’s iconic police force That’s why Howe has gathered her own and Warsaw—Jack Lohman, chief ex- in No Easy Ride: Reflections on My Life family’s experience for a manual that helps ecutive of the Royal BC Museum, incorpo- in the RCMP (Heritage $19.95) with a fore- caregivers reduce triggers that cause mood rates his particular expertise as a professor word by Rodger Touchie. Tales of swings in Alzheimer’s patients, find activi- of museum design to share his views in es- smalltown policing are coupled with cri- ties for AD patients, prevent elder abuse, says about how best to adapt museums to tiques of how the RCMP has failed to mod- prepare in advance for the progression of Janis Harper at the school in changing times with Museums at the ernize from his perspective as a retired the illness and to avoid caregiver burnout. Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, where Crossroads? (RBCM $19.95). inspector. 9781927527160 978-1-77040-149-5 guru Sai Baba had his ashram. 978-0-7726-6698-7 continued on page 36

35 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 WHO’SWHOBRITISHCOLUMBIA continued from page 35 English, and who were sent to the “evil city” of Vancouver very reluctantly by their con- servative parents from families that had re- is for Unprecedented is for Wilson is for Quatsino cently fled from Stalin’s Russia. “There was only one motive for the parents,” says THE 26-YEARS-YOUNG VANCOUVER WRITERS PAINT: THE PAINTED WORKS OF LYLE WILSON Derksen Siemens, whose mother, aunts and HERE’S HOW THE WORLD WORKS: Fest scored a major coup by hosting an (Bill Reid Gallery $25) affords a compre- cousins worked as maids in Vancouver, “to currently doing a stint at the Quatsino Light- event with 28-year-old New Zealander hensive visual record of a recent Lyle pay their travel debt to the CPR or to those house on Northern Vancouver Island, BC Eleanor Catton, the youngest writer Wilson exhibition, plus 30 essays by the who had sponsored them.” 978-0-9917117-0-3 BookWorld contributor Caroline Wood- ever to win the Man Booker Prize. In spe- artist about his paintings. Born and raised ward first met poet and novelist cial recognition of her achievement, the fes- in the Haisla community of Kitamaat,along Paulette Jiles in 1983 at David tival added another event to its lineup—An with novelist Eden Robinson, Wilson Thompson University Centre in Nelson. is for Town Hour With Eleanor Catton—on the final maintains a keen interest in the Haisla lan- They collaborated on Starving Artist Din- day of its schedule. Born in Canada, Catton guage. Other Paint contributors include ner parties, the Kootenay School of Writing is also nominated for the Governor Gener- Barbara Duncan of the Maple Ridge IT HAPPENS MORE THAN YOU MIGHT THINK— and CBC radio pieces. When Woodward al’s Literary Award for her second novel Art Gallery, Karen Duffek of UBC an author brings out two books around the worked as a publicist for Polestar Press in The Luminaries. Museum of Anthropology and Gary same time. Late last year Florida Ann the Kootenays, in the late 80s, Jiles had just Wyatt of Spirit Wrestler Gallery. Town published an adult novel, The Cop- published Sitting in the Club Car Drinking Visit Billreidgallery.ca for more info. per Trail (Bookus Press), about Adain, a Rum and Karma Kola and several books of Scythian boy, and Kaleen, a First Nations poetry with them. Over many decades, they girl, who learned to communicate, cooper- is for Vander Zalm stayed in touch. When Woodward sent Jiles is for eXclusive ate and escape captivity four thousand years one of her partner Jeff George’s annual ago. Their travels took them to landmarks THE SON OF FORMER PREMIER BILL VANDER wall calendars, Jiles loved his spooky, fog- THIS YEAR THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE that still exist in North America, such as an Zalm, Wim Vander Zalm of Port bound night image of the Lennard Island came all the way out to UBC’s Museum of open pit copper mine. (Recent archaeologi- Coquitlam has managed a gardening centre Lighthouse near Tofino, which she had vis- Anthropology to announce its longlist of cal findings suggest the Vikings were not since age 19. He has been a long-time guest ited while researching her latest book. Jiles thirteen titles, all published in Ontario. B.C. the first ‘European’ visitors to the North on Fanny Kiefer’s Studio 4 television emailed the image to her New York editor. authors produced more than 100 new works Now HarperCollins has bought the image of fiction last year but only Ontario titles so it can adorn Jiles’ new dystopian novel, from Doubleday (2), Hamish Hamilton (2), Lighthouse Island (HarperCollins $19.95), HarperCollins (2), House of Anansi (3), set in a formidable North American future. Knopf (2), Patrick Crean Editions and In- Larry McMurty has bought the screen visible Publishing were included. Lynn rights for Jiles’ previous novel, The Colour Coady’s short stories from Anansi won. of Lightning. Lighthouse 9780062293596 is for Younging is for Russwurm AS A MEMBER OF THE HE’S NOT CHUCK DAVIS QUITE YET, BUT Opsakwayak Cree Vancouver blogger Lani Russwurm is Nation in North- making a name for himself by contributing ern Manitoba, Greg stories and archival photos about his city to Young-Ing came to the Vancouver Is Awesome website, result- Penticton’s En’owkin ing in a “pre-gentrification” pictorial his- Centre in 1990 and served as the pub- tory called Vancouver Was Awesome Greg Younging (Arsenal $24.95) with 175 images ranging lisher of Theytus from vaudeville to punk. Russwurm, who Ballerina’s at the hollow tree in Stanley program and the host Books until he left in 2004 to pursue a Ph.D. has SFU degrees in political science and his- Park, from Vancouver Was Awesome of CKNW’s Garden in the Department of Educational Studies at tory, has been reviving Vancouver’s history Talk. His Just Ask UBC. Dropping the hyphen, Greg for a new generation since 2008, “from American continent. That could explain why Wim! Down-to- Younging has now edited contemporary Rudyard Kipling to Mr. Peanut.” Mr. there were open pit copper mines in the Earth Gardening essays on First Nations of Canada for Peanut ran for mayor; Kipling was a racist Lake Superior region 5,000 years ago.) This Answers (Harbour Transmissions (Theytus $22.95). who bought property in Vancouver, only to year she has published On the Rim $26.95) covers horti- 978-1-926886-32-9 learn years later he had been swindled. (Dundurn $19.99), a novel for adults de- Bill Vander Zalm cultural concerns 978-1-55152-525-9 scribed as “a tale in the Eat, Pray, Love about all kinds of vein.” It follows the story of Ellen, a 40- plants. Meanwhile Bill Vander Zalm has is for Zomparelli year-old British Columbian woman who, followed his self-published 615-page auto- is for Siemens after the collapse of her 20-year-marriage, biography with a 180-page softcover on his WITH CHEEKY AND INSOUCIANT WIT, attempts to regain her balance in life remarkable and ultimately successful fight Davie Street Translations (Talonbooks Ruth Derksen Siemens’ study of through cycling. Town, at 81, remains ac- to rid B.C. of an unpopular tax, HST & the $16.95) by Daniel Zomparelli brashly Mennonite maids in Vancouver from 1931 tive as a competitive outrigger canoeist, People for Democracy (Red Tuque and slyly celebrates the gay culture of Van- to 1961, Daughters in the City (Fernwood competitive swimmer, dragon boat racer $18.99), “dedicated to over 705,000 Brit- couver’s West End in a series of poems that Press $24.95), describes the lives of young speak directly to, and for, those with gay and cyclist. Copper Trail: 9781461064015; ish Columbians that signed the HST Initia- sensibilities. 978-0-88922-683-8 women and adolescents who spoke little On The Rim: 978-1-45970-518-0 tive Petition.” Wim 1-55017-587-5; Bill 978-0-9921415-0-9 Strange Possession at Viner Sound 31th Annual Lieutenant- A novel by Robin Percival Smith This is a story of spiritual possession and Governor’s Award reincarnation that uses the traditional cul- for Historical Writing of non-fiction books published in 2013 ture of the Kwakiutl aboriginals on the Brit- by authors of B.C. History. (reprints not eligible) ish Columbia west coast. The spirit of Jojo, a young Kwakiutl boy, possesses Matti, a single handing sailor on board his sailing Entry deadline: December 31, 2013 vessel, Windsong, to tell of his captivity at a secret Japanese radio base on the west British Columbia Historical Federation coast during WWII. All entrants must contact William Morrison before submitting books. CONTACT: [email protected] www.robinpercivalsmith.wordpress.com [email protected] or 250-245-9247 www.createspace.com/3648661 for story synopsis and author biography. Winner of 2012 Lieutenant-Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing: ISBN 10: 1478320745 • ISBN 13: 9781478320746 Derek Hayes The book may be downloaded from Kindle bookstore. author of “British Columbia: A New Historical Atlas”

36 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 PRINTERS & SERVICES

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37 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 LETTERS

25 ‘n’ counting Kids included MOST WRITERS THAT I KNOW, IF MEAS- THANK YOU FOR THE LOVELY REVIEW ured by Myers Briggs standards, lean of Allegra in the Fall issue. I really toward introverted. I count myself appreciate your ongoing support of among that bunch. Bookseller’sBookseller’s books for young people, a genre that Launching a novel feels a bit like too easily gets overlooked. And con- walking up to strangers, shoving your CornerCorner gratulations on the 25th year anni- baby under their noses, and cooing versary of BC BookWorld! I always about how cute it is. It requires stom- look forward to receiving my issue ach-churning chutzpa. and I keep pen and paper handy as I The BC BookWorld coverage of my read through it, noting the must-read first novel, A Nose For Death, made it gems that I find in those pages. more than bearable. John Moore’s Shelley Hrdlitschka thoughtful review provided an entré. North Vancouver Now, when I speak to librarians and booksellers about hosting readings, Invermere cheer Self-Publish.ca they’ve heard about my baby. I SOLD MY OWN WEEKLY NEWSPAPER In a world of constant information Black Bond Books The Columbia Valley Pioneer in flow, BC BookWorld is an author’s Independent Booksellers, Celebrating 2010, so I understand the challenges best friend. At a time when government arts 50 years, 1-15562-24th Ave, Surrey of publishing. You have such a great product, funding has been sliced and diced to small Bestselling New Local Book: I hope it survives the transition to the digital bits, it’s only because of the dedication of Harem Midwife by Roberta Rich world or remains successful in its current the people behind BC BookWorld and “She has been great to us and format. I pick up BCBW at my local library our staff love her books.” Visit our website to find out all abcbookworld that the broad spectrum of in Invermere but I am one of those individu- you need to know about books published in this province garner the als who would pay for a digital subscription. self-publishing notice that they do. Elinor Florence I hope BC BookWorld is around for an- Invermere The Vancouver Desktop other twenty-five years. Publishing Centre Glynis Whiting Sticky-note laden call for a free consultation Port Moody BC BOOKWORLD IS STILL THE MOST RELEVANT PATTY OSBORNE, manager Roberta and compelling literary magazine in Canada. 4360 Raeburn Street Rich Letters or emails contact: Each issue inspires me to visit my favourite North Vancouver, B.C. v7g 1k3 Bestselling Local Book: independent bookstore (Volume One in Ph 604-929-1725 BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 Raven Brings the Light Duncan) and buy several books reviewed in www.self-publish.ca email: [email protected] by Roy Henry Vickers the latest issue. “Our favourite kids pick.” helping self-publishers since 1986 Letters may be edited for clarity & length. Perhaps the most important aspect Favourite BC Backlist Title: Making Headlines by Shelley Fralic about BCBW is that it reviews books and “This one continues to sell.” profiles authors not seen or heard from else- community-minded but globally connected where; often these are the very authors and Lax library? books I find most intriguing. I don’t miss any of the stodgy review I LIVE QUITE NEAR THE NELSON PUBLIC journals that used to cross my desk when I Library. I used to be able to go in there and was a librarian for 25 years; BCBW was the easily find BC BookWorld in a stack of cop- only publication I ever took home for fur- ies. Gradually that stack has dwindled to ther reading. just five or three copies. Now I keep look- We are proud Thank you, BCBW, for promoting pride to be nominated ing for it and asking for it, but receive vary- and engagement in our West Coast literary for a Libris award ing answers from the staff. “They don’t scene. For me, this somehow translates into for Bookseller send as many;” “I’m not sure;” or “We have of the Year! a greater hope for arts and culture in our whole changed things around.” I use BCBW to teach country. And thank you for printing copies my students; it’s also a stimulant to my on paper. My current issue has 12 sticky- own writing. It is a seasonal pleasure from O penOpen year-round year-round with with over over 25,00025,000 titles titles plus plus great a great selection selection notes protruding from the pages…off to the of Canadian authors, used books, art supplies, and gifts. which I draw inspiration. I am very tired of of Canadian authors, used books, art supplies, and gifts. bookstore we soon will go! accepting excuses from the librarians when Visit us at www.galianoislandbooks.com Susan Yates I know BCBW is supposed to be freely avail- V isit us at www.galianoislandbooks.com Gabriola Island 250.539.3340 • [email protected] able in public libraries.What on earth is hap- 250.539.334076 Madrona Drive, Galiano [email protected] Island, BC V0N 1P0 pening? We need BCBW to learn about what Please Join Us 76for ourMadrona Annual Drive Literary Galiano Festival Island • www.galianoliteraryfestival.com BC V0N 1P0 ticks in this province. Adrian Rollins Nelson [B.C. libraries can still receive as many cop- ies as they like. Some librarians have lost sight of the need to foster B.C. culture in an internet era. Sad but true.—Ed.] Mommy nearest Nadine Jones has been asked to speak WHEN THE SUMMER ISSUE OF BC BOOKWORLD at Brock House in Vancouver in early appeared, my friend in North Bay, Ontario 2014. She has yet to commit: “At my got a b’day present from her parents in Vic- age I don’t even buy green bananas.” toria and it was wrapped in my naked body. Surprise! She hung it on her fridge (!!) until her husband said: “I’m just not really com- Correction fortable getting the stare down from naked AN AUTUMN BC BOOKWORLD ARTICLE ABOUT Angie every time I go for a glass of milk.” Nadine Jones stated she “uncovered the My husband said, “Look kids! It’s only known mutiny in the Canadian Army” mommy in the newspaper... wearing noth- involving a revolt by the 15th Brigade in ing but her birthday suit. What’s she think- Terrace, in 1944. In fact, on December 21, ing about? Silly mommy.” Oy-vay!! 1918, French-Canadian soldiers mutinied in Angie Abdou the streets of Victoria, B.C. en route to be- Fernie ing sent to Vladivostok.

38 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2013-2014 photo by Mark Mushet QUICKIES A COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD FOR INDEPENDENTS

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