CLASSICSBC This Article Is the Sixth in a Series Celebrating Enduring B.C

CLASSICSBC This article is the sixth in a series celebrating enduring B.C. books.

fter languishing on the edges of politi- unemployable, but buoyed by a lively sense of Mixed blood & cal correctness for three decades, this humour and full of stories as a rustic philoso- A rough-hewn classic has been rescued pher. Although he was reduced to bingo, from oblivion and repackaged and retitled by Reader’s Digest, television and social assistance, a scholarly press as ‘Call Me Hank’: A Stólo Pennier retained a proud sense of accomplish- mixed feelings Man’s Reflections on Logging, Living, and ment for having worked extremely hard and One of the first unfettered Métis memoirs from British Columbia— Growing Old (UTP $24.95), edited by for having gained recognition as an excellent not a white-washed “as told to” biography—is Chiefly Indian: The Keith Thor Carlson and Kristina field lacrosse player. Warm and Witty Story of a British Columbia Halfbreed Logger Fagan. In his late 60s, while living on Nicomen “About the only good thing about being a Trunk Road, east of Mission, Pennier received (1972) by Henry Pennier, a Fraser Valley logger and raconteur. halfbreed,” he once said is, “I could buy liq- a visit from a Welsh-born linguistics professor uor.” from Simon Fraser University, E. Wyn Roberts, Hank Pennier was the who hoped to tape-record grandson of a Quebec busi- some “Indian stories” for a nessman who had arrived in linguistic project involving British Columbia in the “And all of us are the Halkomelen language. 1870s, then left his Aborigi- halfbreeds,” he Pennier was congenial nal wife and their son George but not easily controlled. He in order to return to Quebec. said, “not white basically wanted to tell his George Pennier, Henry men and not own stories instead. After Pennier’s father, grew up on several meetings and textual a Harrison River homestead Indian yet we collaborations, Roberts es- and married another look Indian and sentially abandoned his ini- halfbreed [Pennier’s term and tial plans for his linguistic spelling] named Alice Davis. everybody but approach and decided to Two of their eight children Indians takes us serve as Pennier’s unofficial died. agent. Not long after Hank for Indians.” Impressed by Pennier’s Pennier was born in 1904, his intelligence and wit, father was killed in a hunting Roberts approached Jack accident. Raised on an 87-acre homestead ad- Richards, an editor at the Vancouver Sun, sug- joining the Chehalis Reservation, Pennier be- gesting a weekly series featuring Henry came friendly with his new step-grandfather Pennier’s anecdotes and stories. Richards, in at Union Bar, a settlement about three miles turn, connected the Roberts/Pennier duo with east of Hope, and heard many Aboriginal sto- West Vancouver publisher and photographer ries from him. Herb McDonald. Chiefly Indian appeared Pennier was an altar boy at St. Mary’s mis- when Hank Pennier was 68. He died when he sion school, operated by the Oblates, but he was 91. was forced leave that school at age 13 due to Pennier’s self-penned memoir, complete over-enrolment. He attended a public school with some original spellings, erred on the side at Hope until age 15, then started logging in of being colourful and frank, but it provided 1922. Two years later he married Margaret many heartfelt comments by Pennier on his Leon, “a Harrison River Indian too except halfbreed status. there is just a little Chinese in her,” and they “Outside of my work I could not join the had eight children. white society, socially, and if I went to an In- “And all of us are halfbreeds,” he said, “not dian party and there was liquor involved I was white men and not Indian yet we look Indian taking a chance of being jailed regardless of and everybody but Indians takes us for In- whether I had supplied them with liquor or dians.” It was Pennier’s great hope that one not,” he wrote. day racial differentiations could be eradi- “If I had an Indian in the car and also a cated, “but I know I won’t be around sealed bottle of whiskey or a sealed case of beer then. Too bad because then there won’t and a cop stops me on a routine check I would “Being a halfbreed, I had to be any halfbreeds either and that will be be charged with kniving [conniving] which has a damn good thing.” several meanings like the intention of giving fend for myself.” — HANK PENNIER By the 1960s, serious logging injuries him a drink sooner or later.” had left Pennier reliant on a crutch and cane, 0-8020-9426-0

Contributors: Grant Shilling, Mark Forsythe, Sheila Munro, Joan Givner, Sara Cassidy, INDEX to Advertisers Louise Donnelly, Hannah Main-van der Kamp, BC Heather Ramsay. Barry Peterson (photos). BOOKWORLD Arsenal Pulp Press...19 Hignell Printing...42 SFU Writing & Publishing...16 Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. SFU Writers Studio...18 Autumn Issue Vol. 20, No. 3 Banyen Books...35 Houghton Boston Printers...42 BC Historical Federation...34 Julian, Terry...34 Sidney Booktown...40 Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Betty Twigg Bolen Books...38 Literary Press Group...27, 28 Sono Nis Press...6 Publisher/ Writer: Alan Twigg Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics Editor/Production: David Lester Book Warehouse...38 Morriss Printing...42 Talonbooks...4 Deliveries: Ken Reid Caitlin Press...32 NeWest Press...35 Temeron Books...29 Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Return undeliverable Canadian Crown Publications...38 New Society Publishers...11 Thomas Allen...15 addresses to: BC BookWorld, We acknowledge the assistance of Canada Council and the Douglas & McIntyre...2 New Star Books...25, 29, 35, 40 Thomson, Ann...34 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, through the Ministry of BC V6R 2S3 Community, Aboriginal, and Women’s Services. Douglas College/EVENT...40 Northstone...36 Tradewind...27 Ekstasis Editions...31 Ocean Cruise Guides...25 Transcontinental Printing...42 Produced with the sponsorship of Pacific BookWorld News Society. Ellis, David...34 Oolichan Books...28 UBC Press...20 Publications Mail Registration No. 7800. Vancouver Desktop...34 BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 First Choice Books...40 Orca Books...24 Friesens Printers...42 Penguin Books...16 Vancouver Writers Festival...14 Advertising & editorial: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., George Ryga Award...43 People’s Co-op Bookstore...34 Western Canada Wilderness...37 Vancouver, B.C., V6R 2S3 Givner, Joan...40 Playwrights Canada Press...35 Woewoda, James...34 Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 Granville Island Publishing...31 Printorium...42 Work Less Party...36 Email: available on request . Hagios Press...28 Ronsdale Press...8 Yoka’s Coffee...37 Annual subscription: $12.84 Harbour Publishing...44 Royal BC Museum...32 All BC BookWorld reviews are posted online at www.abcbookworld.com HarperCollins...19 Save-On Foods...35 TO ADVERTISE CALL Heritage House...12 Self-Counsel Press...32 604-736-4011

3 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 PEOPLE Risk peace

EVEN WHEN SHE WAS PRESIDENT OF THE International Physicians for the Preven- SALTY tion of Nuclear War—which won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize—Victoria physician Mary-Wynne Ashford knew dis- armament wasn’t the only answer. “We have to examine the roots of war SISTERS and try to understand why, for over 5,000 years, human groups have repeatedly Mary-Wynne Ashford chosen violence to dominate others,” Amanda Adams she says. “And perhaps more importantly, we must investigate what makes some societies choose looks at maritime not to use violence to dominate others.” With futurist and sustainability consultant Guy Dauncey, myths & mermaids Ashford has highlighted non-violent success stories of heroic individuals who have risked peace in Enough Blood Shed: 101 Solutions to Violence, Terror and War (New Society $23.95). It focuses on how ordinary people make a difference. “Working with Guy Dauncey has been a great pleasure,” she says, “because he is not just a problem solver, he is a problem seeker. He loves finding an issue that needs to be turned on its head and addressed in a new way.” 0-86571-527-0 Ruby, don’t take your gun to town

aised in Surrey, Ranj Dhaliwal has had more than a little first hand R experience with the Indo-Canadian “underworld,” the subject of his debut novel, Daaku (New Star $21), the Punjabi word for outlaw. “When you open this novel you enter the daaku’s world,” he says, “and when you close it you leave it—unlike the life of a real daaku whose only exit is death.” The story follows Ranj Dhaliwal Ruby Pandhar, “a teenaged street soldier gun- ning for a generalship,” who eventually struggles to extricate himself from the world of thugs, drug lords and terrorists. Born in Vancouver in 1976, Dhaliwal says he is disturbed by the number of Indo-Canadian gangland murders in Canada and believes (1909) stories such as Daaku are necessary to raise public awareness. He devotes some of his spare time to organizations that deal with at-risk Indo-Cana- COLLIER “Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white dian youth. 1-55420-027-X JOHN flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. BY

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. BABY

LAND I do not think they will to me.”— T.S. ELIOT YEAR OF THE DOG THE

“PEOPLE BORN IN 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994 AND 2006 ARE ALL BORN UNDER THE SIGN he mermaids were aloof in T.S. Eliot’s of the dog,” says Stanley Coren, citing the 12-year-cycle Chinese The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, but calendar, “and are supposed to have certain dog behaviours and person- alities. This makes them honest, loyal and champions of justice. They their sisterly songs have long enchanted can also be stubborn, worry too much and dislike crowds or noisy parties.” Stanley Coren’s books about dogs have been translated into many Amanda Adams, a UBC-trained Amanda Adams: No boyfriends, please languages and he has appeared on television programs that include The anthropologist who has gathered images Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, Dateline NBC and 20/20. While hosting a national television program called Good Dog!, Cohen and lore for a cross-cultural study, A Mermaid’s Tale (Greystone $32.95). also teaches at the Vancouver Dog Obedience Training Club and T currently shares his home with a cavalier King Charles span- “All of us are attracted to the mermaid’s open-sea liberation,” she says. “We know how free- iel, a Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever and a beagle. The UBC-based neuro-psychologist has also just published Why ing it feels to swim topless in the ocean, sea foam pushing up under our arms like a housecat Do Dogs Have Wet Notes? (Kids Can $14.95). Accord- nudging for affection. ing to Coren, dogs generally have an intelligence level on par with a two-year-old child. They can “We feel the wet hair down our backs and the shape of our shoulders in the setting sun. learn more than 100 words and signals; cats can manage about one dozen commands with the in- These ephemeral moments of connection to the air, the sea, the light, are the kind you telligence of an 18-month-old human. experience when you’re alone or in the company of women friends, not when your 1-55337-657-9 boyfriend is sitting behind you on the beach, drinking a beer and waiting for your return. They require a sense of the infinite. As does the mermaid.” Adams blames the medieval church in twelfth-century Europe for trans- forming sirens and mermaids into evil temptresses. According to Adams, the mermaid always possessed elements of danger and moodiness, but she had not yet been acquainted “with passionate sex and an insatiable hunger for love Stanley Coren exceeding all human limits—not until, that is, some leaders of the clergy decided she should be.” 1-55365-117-0

7 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 PEOPLE

family and friends, when he decided age to Come Back Award and The ate lively discussions among readers, and “Agents now tell their he should check out a disturbance Women of Distinction Award. particularly among earnest book club fiction-writing clients at the home of a neighbour who was ✍ members. No doubt they both have a to write narrative away on holiday. He found more These books are not without flaws. good chance to get onto Oprah Winfrey. than 100 teenagers, high on liquor They are frequently self-indulgent, sen- But the phenomenon of which they are non-fiction, compelling and drugs, engaged in a rampage. timental, humourless and self-serving. part invites certain questions. stories of autism, One partygoer struck McIntosh on Yet they have the merit of focusing at- The moral fables and cautionary tales alcoholism, abuse and the head, knocking him to the tention on our legal and justice systems. of the Middle Ages, the saints’ lives, the ground, another kicked him in the Both will likely gain attention in the conduct books of the nineteenth cen- Alzheimer’s (and we’re not head. McIntosh died instantly. media, largely because both women have tury, have always enjoyed a wide appeal. even through the A’s).” The core of this book is Katy televisual potential—a fact exploited by Only recently, however, have agents — MARTIN LEVIN, BOOKS EDITOR, Hutchison’s determination to endow the placing of their photographs on the touted such books above literary fiction, THE GLOBE & MAIL the pointless waste of a life with some front as well as the back flap of their book as Mr. Levin suggests. And the displace- transcendental meaning, and to move jackets. In the case of the Raincoast book, ment and devaluation of literary fiction BY JOAN GIVNER beyond the melodrama of villain/victim. video clips of the author performing on (as of all other art forms) is a worrisome She started out, equipped with compel- camera were distributed to the media; trend. It might be useful if agents were Kidnapped Mind (Dundurn ling visual aids, speaking to high-school in the case of the Dundurn book, the to remind their clients that along with $24.99) by Pamela students against the dangerous habits main author was described as a former such worthy non-fiction subjects as Pa- with A Richardson Jane that lead to the death of an outstanding television host. Their stories will gener- rental Alienation Syndrome and Re- and Walking After Mid- Broweleit athlete and lawyer, to the bereavement storative Justice, they consider night (Raincoast $32.95) by Katy of four-year-old twins, and to two teen- promoting literary fiction and risking both fall into the category Hutchison agers being convicted of murder. some restorative creativity. allegedly recommended by literary Recognizing that her hus- Whatever high-minded purposes agents [see quote above]. They are com- band’s murderer was a mere lie behind these books—consolation, pelling non-fiction narratives that re- teenager, capable of reha- inspiration, moral instruction— volve around turbulent teenagers. ✍ bilitation, and with a suf- they are not strong as literature. fering mother of his own, I wonder if the proliferation of Pamela Richardson’s story begins she reached out to him. such books feeds a genuine when her former husband gains custody She followed up a video hunger in the reading pub- of their four-year-old son. As a criminal message to him with a lic? Or does it fulfill a need lawyer, his legal knowledge and his influ- meeting in which she re- created by public rela- ential friends enabled him to sway the peated her message: “All tions and marketing de- presiding judge. Although this is a highly I want for you is what partments? subjective first person account, written you took from Bob—a Kidnapped 1-55002-624-0; after the former husband and son have happy and productive Walking 1-57224-503-4 died, it seems clear that Richardson’s de- life.” piction of the arrogance and blindness of She succeeded in es- Joan Givner has the judicial system has some foundation. tablishing a close rela- written on biography Judges persisted in favouring the fa- tionship with her and autobiography ther, in spite of evidence of his alcohol- husband’s killer, sup- for many years. ism and neglect. Their rulings were porting his parole ap- bolstered by reports by court-appointed peal, and allowing him to psychologists who recommended that participate in her speaking the child remain with his father even engagements. Her work in while they acknowledged the father had restorative justice has gar- “a drinking problem” and suffered from nered various awards Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. From such as The Cour- the beginning, he used the child as a means of tormenting his former wife, obstructed her legal access, and poisoned her relationship with her son. Some brave friends testified to the TELEVISUAL father’s misdeeds while many others (including one of the mother’s lawyers) backed off, allegedly intimidated by his threats of violence. When the courts AUTHORS WITH belatedly recognized the damage facili- tated by earlier decisions, it was too late. Court decisions can be reversed but not the years of damage they have caused. TRAGIC TALES Richardson brought in experts on Pa- rental Alienation Syndrome and used her considerable wealth in a last desper- History belongs to the survivors ate attempt to force him into rehab programs. She never gave up the battle for and those who can get on Oprah. her son, but she was helpless to prevent his downward spiral. At the age of six- teen he jumped to his death from the Katy Hutchison (above) Granville Street bridge. The book-jacket is recovering after her description of this story as “heart-break- husband’s murder; ing” is no hyperbole. Pamela Richardson ✍ (right) is recovering from In contrast to that downward spiral, the suicide of her son. Both have remarried; Katy Hutchison begins her true story both are going on tour. with a tragic event and proceeds upward through healing and redemption. The event, which received a great deal of media coverage, was the murder of her husband by teenagers at an out-of-con- trol party in Squamish. Bob McIntosh, a lawyer and captain of the Canadian triathalon team, was celebrating New Year’s Eve 1997 with his

9 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 ENDPAPERS

Annabel Lyon from Danielle Schaub’s Reading Writers Reading (U. of Alberta)

is for Danielle

aving completed her & Other Stories: Stories of Sex, Discovery, & Emancipation on the Canadian Shield exhausting task of is for Adderson is for Edwards (Anvil $18), a frankly confessional col- meeting and photo- H lection of short fiction. 1-895636-76-0 Nine more stories from Caroline graphing more than 160 Cana- Melissa Edwards has collected Adderson add to her growing repu- dian authors, Israel-based Can- full-colour, quirky maps of Canada that tation for compassionate writing in lit instructor Danielle have appeared in Geist magazine since Pleased to Meet You (Thomas Allen Schaub has finally released 1995 for The Geist Atlas of Canada (Ar- is for Gustafson $26.95), her fourth work of fiction since Reading Writers Reading: Cana- senal $24.95), a compendium of place 1993. Twice winner of the Ethel Wilson dian Authors’ Reflections (U. of names according to subjects such as Paula Gustafson, who was born Fiction Prize, Adderson has been lured meat, doughnuts, Atwood, world’s larg- in Abbotsford, died on July 11, 2006 Alberta $60) with 36 B.C. pro- into the screenwriting game of late, but est and hockey. 1-55152-216-0 after a brief battle with cancer. As one continues to gain critical acclaim for her files, including relative newcom- of Canada’s foremost writers about fiction. Her new book will be reviewed ers Lisa Grekul, Annabel crafts, she produced a monograph, in our next issue. 0-88762-129-5 Lyon (pictured above), Hiromi Salish Weaving (1980) and edited two Goto and Vera Manuel and vet- is for Farrell volumes of Craft Perception and Practice: eran standbys such as Spider A Canadian Discourse (2002, 2005) in is for Birney Robinson, George Bowering, A two-time winner of the Vancouver her capacity as editor of Artichoke maga- Nick Bantock and William Courier fiction contest and a recipient zine. She was a recipient of the first Jean of the 2002 Maclean-Hunter Endow- A. Chalmers Fund for the Crafts Award New. 0-88864-459-0 Esther Birney was a substantial ment Prize for non-fiction, Jenn for critical writing on Canadian crafts literary character in British Columbia be- Farrell has now published Sugar Bush and produced a history of the Crafts As- yond her marriage to Earle Birney, sociation of British Columbia called managing a long-running series of liter- Mapping the Terrain. ary lectures at Brock House. A major contributor to Elspeth Cameron’s 1994 biography of Birney, which depicted him as an egocentric womanizer, is for Hancock Esther Birney died on July 20, 2006. A new anthology of Earle Birney’s poetry After a 25-year-hiatus, outgoing ani- is due this fall, to be reviewed next mal lover Lyn Hancock has resur- issue. rected her animal companion story, Tabasco: The Saucy Raccoon (Sono $12.95), illustrated by Lorraine Kemp, to recall is for Carolan how she once took her newborn pet raccoon on a cross-Canada In 2005, Trevor Carolan began book promotion tour. It is pub- co-producing a revival of the Pacific Rim lished by Diane Morriss, Lyn Hancock Review of Books with Richard who remembered reading There’s Olafson of Ekstasis Editions in Victo- a Raccoon in my Parka, Hancock’s ria. This year he has accepted a new po- bestseller about her first pet raccoon, sition as the Banff Centre’s Director of Rocky, written back when Morriss was Literary Arts. Trevor Carolan at the Malcolm Lowry Marker in Deep Cove, North Vancouver a child. 1-55039-156-9

39 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 ENDPAPERS Daaku a novel by Ranj Dhaliwal The story of one man’s journey lowing her own death on December 11, through the Indo-Canadian gang scene 2003, in accordance with their mutual is for Ingeborg wishes, Ingeborg Woodcock has bequeathed an extraordinary $1.87 mil- Find it here Ingeborg Woodcock not only lion gift to the Writers’ Trust of Canada. knew how to keep her prolific husband As the Woodcocks envisioned, monies People’s Co-op Bookstore George Woodcock in line, she will be used to provide more than Duthie Books steered much of his thinking. The $100,000 annually to Canadian writ- Blackberry Books daughter of a Polish mother and a mi- ers facing financial crises. Spartacus Books nor German aristocrat, she was born Magpie Magazine Gallery Ingeborg Hedwig Elizabeth Linzer in Chapters 1917 in Austria. She fled Nazism in 1938 and arrived in London where she is for Jones Indigo Books + Music was briefly married to British journalist Frederick Roskelly. Coastal fishing maven Bob Jones Published by New Star Books In 1943, as Ingeborg Linzer Roskelly, has co-written Island Fly Fisherman she met George Woodcock, a like- (Harbour $21.95), with Larry E. minded member of the Berneri anarchist Stefanyk, and co-edited A Compen- dium of Canadian Fly Patterns (Gale’s Reading Service for Writers End Press $58.25), new & established writers with Paul C. Marriner. Six If you are a new writer or a writer with a challenging or troublesome manuscript, Event’s Reading Service for Writers may be of particular interest to you. years in the making, the latter is a full-col- Your manuscript will receive an assessment of 700 to 1000 words from Event’s editors, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of the writing with attention to our, spiral bound such aspects of craft as voice, structure, point of view, credibility, etc. That way hardcover that was you’ll see how one group of experienced editors reads your work. completed as a vol- Eligible manuscripts include poetry (8 max.) and short fiction & creative unteer fund raiser non-fiction under 5000 words. Drama, chapters of novels and journalistic non-fiction are not eligible. All manuscripts read are, of course, considered for the Youth Branch for publication. Expect to wait four to six weeks for the commentary to arrive. of Fly Fishing Event’s Reading Service for Writers costs a nominal fee: attach a cheque or money Canada, marketed order (payable to Event) for $100.00 (inc. GST) to each manuscript. You'll also only by mail and the Event receive a one-year subscription (or renewal) so you can check out 's award Internet. It prom- winning mix of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, reviews and notes on writing. pted guide fishing EVENT—The Douglas College Review author Ian Colin P.O. Box 2503, New Westminster, BC V3L 5B2 Visit our website at Phone: (604) 527-5293 Fax: (604) 527-5095 http://event.douglas.bc.ca James to write, e-mail: [email protected] “Rounding up alley Ingeborg Woodcock, seen here with the Dalai Lama in cats with a leaf Dharamsala, India, has bequeathed $1.87 million to benefit blower would have Canadian writers in perpetuity. been much easier than putting this circle. After World War II, they left the book together, yet the authors did one London literary scene to homestead in heck of a job... on the book, not the cats.” Island Fly 1-55017-400-2; Patterns 0-9733383-4-2 Sooke on Vancouver Island, partially at- More info at abcbookworld.com tracted by the notion of emulating Doukhobor pacifists. The nearest Doukhobor settlement was at Hilliers, near Parksville. is for Kluckner Not suited for subsistence farming, George and Ingeborg Woodcock lived Having gathered his paintings of her- temporarily with Doris and Jack itage buildings from around the prov- Shadbolt at their home in Burnaby. ince after several decades of widespread Both childless, the two couples became travels, Michael Kluckner was first lifelong friends, often sharing their runner-up for the BC Historical Federa- Christmases together. George Woodcock tion Book Writing Competition with proceeded to write and edit more than Vanishing British Columbia (UBC Press), 120 books. As a Buddhist friend of the his compilation of watercolours and lo- Dalai Lama, Ingeborg Woodcock cal history. persistently maintained her idealism af- For information on this year’s com- ter George Woodcock died in 1995. Fol- petition, see advertisement on p. 34.

Ellen is back, this JOAN GIVNER time with literary ambitions in... Ellen Fremedon: JOURNALIST by Joan Givner

($15.95 Groundwood) ISBN 0-88899-668-3 A young adult novel.

www.groundwoodbooks.com

40 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 ENDPAPERS

is for Leacock is for Xmas

Born in B.C. in 1953, Virginia Arthur Black has become one Bruckner published Gifts from the of only three recipients to have earned Heart: 450 Simple Ways to Make Your Canada’s top humour prize three times Family’s Christmas More Meaningful three in its 60-year history by winning this years ago and won the Canadian Can- year’s Stephen Leacock Memorial cer Society’s Community Champion Medal for Humour for Pitch Black Award. Proceeds went to cancer re- (Harbour $32.95). Another three-time search. It has been re-packaged as Gifts winner is British Columbian Eric from the Heart: Simple Ways to Make Your Nicol. Last year’s lone Leacock nomi- Family’s Christmas More Meaningful (In- nee from B.C. was Bob Collins’ self- somniac $19.95). 1-897178-30-1 published Summer of Wonder: The Misguided Romance of Hap Fitzpatrick (Stone Pillow Press). Pacific Mills’ loggers, Queen Charlotte Islands, 1945. From Up-Coast by Richard Rajala. is for Young

is for Matthews Victoria poet Patricia is for Queer is for Tullson Young’s debut Carol Matthews has worked as fiction collection of a hospital social worker, as Executive Di- Queer being a multi-use adjective to Diane Tullson’s third juvenile fic- fourteen stories for rector of Nanaimo Family Life and as an describe the first English language ver- tion title Zero (Fitzhenry & Whiteside Airstream instructor and dean at Malaspina Uni- sion of Roy & Al (Arsenal Pulp $14.95), $12.95) gives a subtle portrayal of an (Biblioasis $24.95) versity-College. The First Three Years of the popular ribald cartoon strip by gay otherwise successful teenager named Kas has gained her the a Grandmother’s Life (Ryerson $15.95) Patricia Young German cartoonist Ralf Konig, who struggles to conceal her eating dis- first “Metcalf- is her self-illustrated collection of col- packaged as a series of vignettes partially order. The novel includes an afterword Rooke Award,” as editor John umns from the perspective of a first-time narrated from the viewpoint of two dogs that outlines the warning signs of ano- Metcalf shifts his focus from The Por- grandmother in Relational Child and whose owners are frequently depicted, rexia and bulimia, as well as some com- cupine’s Quill to a new literary press, Youth Care Practice magazine. 1-894503-58-9 ah, dating. 1-55152-206-3 mon misconceptions about the victims Biblioasis, based in Windsor. 1-897231-01-6 of eating disorders. 1-55041-950-1 is for Neufeld is for Rubinsky is for Up-Coast is for Zio Elsie K. Neufeld lives on Sumas Set in the B.C. As a resident of Sidney, married to Mountain, just east of Abbotsford, from Interior, Beyond Richard A. Rajala has provided the Japanese-born painter Kimiko, where she has edited Half in the Sun This Point (M&S a history of logging from Bella Coola to Steve Zio has published his first (Ronsdale $21.95), a first-ever anthol- $24.99) by the Nass River in Up-Coast: Forest and novel Hot Springs (McArthur & Com- ogy of fiction, creative non-fiction and Holley Industry on British Columbia’s North pany, $24.95), about a former website poetry by 25 Mennonite-related writ- Rubinsky, Coast, 1870-2005 (Royal B.C. Museum developer named Jason who searches for ers of British Columbia including who lives in Kaslo $49.95). It chronicles how and why new connections while visiting hot Andreas Schroeder, Patrick and Arizona, ex- small-scale operations tied to the needs springs in Canada, England and Japan. Friesen, Barbara Nickel, Os- amines the lives of salmon canneries and early settlements Links to Zio’s promotional website are car Martens, Carla Funk and Holley Rubinsky of five women, were eclipsed by giant pulp-and-paper provided at the end of each of the 23 numerous emerging writers. including an un- companies such as Pacific Mills at Ocean chapters to enhance the text with musi- 1-55380-038-9 happily married teacher, an abused Falls. 0-7726-5460-3 cal offerings, paintings, an interactive young woman who is retreating from map, photos “and other innovative fea- prostitution with a child in tow, a mother tures.” 1-55278-564-5 of a rebellious teenage daughter, a young is for Osborne widow and the long-time lover of a is for Vij healer named Gabriel at the Centre for Tom Osborne’s follow-up to Light Awareness in Neon Bar. 0-7710-7854-4 You can eat your Vijtables at Vij’s, the Foozlers is another madcap romp through Indian restaurant in Vancouver that be- the Lower Mainland, Dead Man in the gan as a 14-seater in 1994, or you can Orchestra Pit (Anvil $18), this one about learn to prepare your own chapattis, three small-time crooks planning a ma- is for Stankiewicz pilafs and chutney from Vij’s (D&M jor heist to coincide with a Grey Cup $40), the cookbook prepared by pro- weekend and a Queen Elizabeth Thea- Political philosopher Wladyslaw prietors Vikram Vij and his wife tre production of La Traviata. 1-895636-72-8 J. Stankiewicz was born in War- Meeru Dhalwala. 1-55365-184-7 saw, Poland, in 1922. “Walter” Stankiewicz fought with the Polish Army-in-Exile in France (1940) and in is for Payton various Allied campaigns. He began is for Windh teaching at UBC in 1957 and lectured Prompted by a dream, Brian at more than 50 universities around the After gathering ten Payton decided to travel around the world. Several of his approximately 20 years of photos for The globe and meet the eight existing spe- books have been translated into other Wild Edge: Clayoquot, cies of bear. His memoir Shadow of the languages. Married to Marketa Long Beach and Barkley Bear (Viking $36) investigates the mythi- Goetz-Stankiewicz, he died in Sound in 2004, Tofino- cal relationships between man and bear, Vancouver General Hospital on July 21, based geologist and as manifested in culture and lore, and 2006. An overview of his work can be photojournalist recounts some of the dangers threaten- gleaned from The Essential Stankiewicz: Jacqueline ing the world’s bear populations around On the Importance of Political Theory Windh has compiled the world. 0-670-04409-1 (Ronsdale, 2001). The Wild Side Guide to Van- couver Island’s Pacific Rim “When a Yankee trader tells you that you are a tough negotiator, (Harbour $24.95), an illustrated guidebook for visitors to Long Beach, Jacqueline you know you have been taken to the cleaners.” —TOMMY Tofino, Ucluelet, Port Alberni, Nitinat Windh DOUGLAS and Bamfield. 1-55017-398-7

41 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 PEOPLE

Roy Lowther died in prison in 1985. “When the limelight was over After many years of silence, and his move we came to realize just what to Dundurn, Saskatchewan, Allan we lost in our lives.” Safarik was contacted by Anne — ALLAN SAFARIK SAFARIKON Henderson, a documentary film-maker who was working on a project about Pat n October 15, 1975, Pat Lowther’s daughters Beth and Chris. Lowther’s body was After Safarik reluctantly agreed to par- discovered five kilometres ticipate, his teary-eyed reunion with the south of Britannia Beach LOWTHER daughters was captured on film. Oat Furry Creek, badly decomposed. “My encounter with Beth and Chris Police concluded several months later in Jericho Beach Park thanks to Anne that Lowther was bludgeoned to death n “Watermarks,” the final chapter of his Notes from Henderson set me free from my feelings with a hammer wielded by her jealous of denial. I broke down in tears but I husband; a would-be poet. the Outside: Episodes from an Unconventional Life was able to talk freely with Beth and ✍ (Hagios $19.95), publisher Allan Safarik recounts Chris on camera and give them copies As a student at Simon Fraser Univer- of their mother’s publications that they sity, Allan Safarik first met Lowther in his friendship with poet Pat Lowther and his diffi- had never seen.” 1970 and later published several of her culties coming to terms with her murder. Relieved to be presented as the main poems in his Blackfish magazine, as well authority on Lowther in “Watermarks,” as an obscure collection of poetry, The After family members prompted au- ances at literary events to honour Safarik has broken his silence to start Age of the Bird. Ithorities to investigate more closely, po- Lowther, who became venerated as a anew. “In a sense we never had a chance As Pat Lowther’s reputation as a poet lice discovered 117 bloodspots on the tragic, Sylvia Plath figure for to miss her properly,” he writes, “be- began to eclipse her husband’s reputa- walls of the couple’s bedroom. Canada. “I was burnt out on cause we were always talking about her.” tion as a would-be author, Safarik some- Roy Lowther had taken the the subject and tweaking my ✍ times visited the Lowthers’ hostile home couple’s mattress to Mayne Is- memory gave me night- Notes from the Outside: Episodes from environment. Separated by about ten land, having washed on both mares,” he says. Rumours and an Unconventional Life also includes years, Pat and Roy Lowther were sides, but reddish stains re- misinformation appalled him, Safarik’s recollections of Dorothy sleeping at, and occupied, opposite ends mained. and Safarik resented the way Livesay, Milton Acorn, Anne of the house, remaining under the same Following the murder trial Lowther had been turned Szumigalski, Joe Rosenblatt, roof for their children, while constrained in 1977, Safarik became a into a “celebrity victim” by a Patrick Friesen and William financially. common target of inquiry for sensational trial, so he decided Hoffer, along with other personal es- “Pat stood up and dropped a section journalists and media people to no longer speak publicly says about growing up in Vancouver and of the newspaper on top of my working and made numerous appear- Pat Lowther (1935-1975) about the Lowthers. starting Blackfish Press. 0973972742 area and held her finger to her lips to warn me to stop what I was doing,” writes Safarik. “It soon became obvious that we weren’t alone. “Roy, quiet as their cat, Tinker, had snuck up the stairs and manoeuvred himself into a position behind a tall book shelf so he could listen and observe us before we could detect his presence. When finally he came out from his hiding spot he gave me the creeps. Soon he went back down into the basement again and Pat heaved a sigh of relief.” Safarik refers to Roy Lowther as de- mented, abusive, diabolical and a madman. “He wrote doggerel,” Safarik claims, “and was completely convinced that he was a misunderstood genius. It burned his ass to think that people saw more in Pat’s work than they saw in his feeble output.” Safarik is convinced that the final straw that led to Lowther’s murder was her invitation to a poetry reading at the Ironworkers Hall on Columbia Street, along with headliners Patrick Lane, David Day and Peter Trower. Already perturbed by his wife’s dabbling in an extra-marital relationship with a poet in eastern Canada, Roy Lowther was furious not to be allowed onto the stage to read. Four days before the event, Pat Lowther was dead by the hands of her hammer-wielding husband, who had been diagnosed prior to their marriage as paranoid schizophrenic. According to BC BookWorld reviewer Joan Givner, “The acquisition of a briefcase became in his eyes the hated symbol of her growing professionalism. He con- Allan Safarik (left) fessed that after he disposed of the body, he flung the briefcase as far as he could with poet Milton into the bushes. Acorn in 1983 at “It is a sad irony that the brief-case the Great George seems to have been the one private re- pository of her working papers for a Street Gallery in writer who had no office, room or desk Charlottetown. of her own.”

10 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 LOOKING UP & LOOKING BACK PaulPaul George,George, seenseen herehere onon LyellLyell IslandIsland inin thethe 1970s,1970s, hashas recalledrecalled 2525 yearsyears ofof conservationconservation strugglesstruggles inin aa newnew book.book. PHOTO “The more I explored South Moresby [in Haida Gwaii], the KRIEGER more obsessed I became with saving the place.”— PAUL GEORGE RICHARD ellow activist Guy Dauncey has likened Paul George’s history of the West- Fern Canada Wilderness Committee, Big Trees Not Big Stumps (WCWC $39.95) as “the War & Peace of the B.C. environmental movement.” Given Tolstoy’s own radi- calism as a campaigner for minority interests, he might have approved of such hyperbole, as well as George’s tireless role as a defender of nature. “If this book motivates even one person who has never experienced the mystic nature of wild places like Gwaii Haanas, Stein Valley, Carmanah Valley or Clayoquot Sound to be trekking gently through some wilderness,” says Paul George, “I’ll consider the book a success.” 1-895123-03-8

In our 36th year of Offering the Backup to Babylon Perennial Beauty of the World’s by Maxine Gadd Spiritual & Healing Traditions . for Find it here Pick up our catalogue, IGHT www.banyen.com BRANCHES OF L See People’s Co-op Bookstore all our books, reviews and Spartacus Books FALL AUTHOR EVENTS PB Cruise Bookseller Duthie Books Magpie Magazine Gallery Banyen BOoks Abraxas Books 3608 West 4th Avenue Marnie’s Books at Dunbar, one block east of Alma in Kitsilano, Vancouver Books 604-732-7912 Music/Gifts/Tkts 604-737-8858 Miner’s Bay Books Out-of-town orders 1-800-663-8442 Open Mon-Fri 10-9, Sat 10-8, Sun 11-7 Published by New Star Books www.banyen.com

35 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 INDIES ESCAPE ARTIST Carle Hessay: Opera lover, gymnast & fighter against Fascism.

arle Hessay was a Jack London-like Hessay also travelled the world as a seaman, became character who died from a heart attack an accomplished gymnast and chess player, worked as while dancing at a New Year’s Eve party sign painter in Langley, B.C. (after he first arrived there at the Sasquatch Inn in the Fraser Can- in 1950) and became a highly skilled painter of semi- Cyon town of Spuzzum on January 1, 1978. abstract landscapes. Born as Hans Karl Hesse in Dresden, Germany on According to Vancouver School of Art historian November 30, 1911, he had fought against the Fascist Leonard Woods, Hessay was an exceedingly vi- forces of Franco during the Spanish Civil War and as a vacious character, always willing to entertain by per- Canadian soldier in World forming hand-stands or War II. During the former diving feats. This gleeful na- war, when his ship docked in ture and unconventional Franz Kafka collage by Ernest Hekkanen Spain, he was captured and behaviour belied his sophis- imprisoned, but because he tication as an artist and op- spoke several languages, era-lover, and concealed his Franz as a cop-out Hessay was put to work trans- knowledge of science, my- ’s 36th lating letters. thology, ancient philoso- rnest Hekkanen “This gave him more free- phers and the Bible. E title, The Life of Bartholomew G, dom than the rest of the pris- Having served as the was about a man who becomes fool- oners under their Moorish principle speaker for a cel- guards,” says his publisher ebration of Hessay’s art in ishly obsessed with Kafka. In his 37th Maidie Hilmo, “so he Dawson Creek in 1984, title, Kafka, The Master of Yesno (New was able to organize a small Woods has provided the escape party. They stole a text for Meditations on the Orphic $25) Hekkanen criticizes the small boat and escaped to Paintings of Carle Hessay way scholars “have turned Kafka into Africa, and after a gruelling (Trail: Trabarni Publica- and thirsty ordeal in Africa, tions & Victoria: Treeline an industry at universities around the he finally made his way back Press $39.95), a slender cof- world.” He concludes that “Kafka took to Canada. A few of his Langley-based fee table book, edited by painter Carle the easy way out through tuberculosis paintings record the Spanish Hessay on his Maidie Hilmo, that records Civil War. One is called La boat, 1940s Hessay’s considerable art- and death rather than fulfill his prom- Passionaria (Dolores istry. 1-895666-27-9; ise as a truly great writer.” 1-894842-09-X Ibarruri).” See www.abcbookworld.com

est.1945 FIRST NATIONS O./ 24th Annual BOOKS 0 1 Lieutenant Governor’s Rare and out-of-print 20, 3 titles on the Award Aboriginal peoples of 34 P for historical writing of non-fiction books Western Canada published in 2006 by authors of B.C. history. (reprints not eligible) ( ) * + *, Entry deadline: December 31, 2006 David Ellis, Bookseller # Contact: #%781 4 [email protected] B.C. Historical Federation 0 3! 1391 Commercial Drive c/o Barb Hynek 97:;); Vancouver BC V5L 3X5 [email protected] or 604-535-9090 Vancouver 604-222-8394 (604) 253-6442 Self-Publish.ca Subscribe

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34 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 LETTERS Dreams come true THANK YOU is not sufficient to express how grateful I am for the full page article (BCBW Summer) about To Touch a Dream (Ronsdale), my wilderness adventure. I am also a subscriber to B.C. BookWorld. At 65 years of age I have been an avid reader since time began and, as such, when I read the article it made me want to read this book! The article was enticing. I am grateful with all my heart for the Sunny Wright recognition. To Touch a Dream is about the fact that anyone can make their dreams come true. It just happened to be my dream at that time to live in the wilderness. Now my dream is to write more books. None of us could survive without the support you give us. Sunny Wright Sardis Da Vinci Code lacks “homoiousian” nuance As a follow-up to your coverage of my book (BCBW Summer), Constantine, Christianity and Constan- tinople, I would like to mention that its contents debunk how The Da Vinci Code, both the novel and movie, have interpreted Roman Emperor Constantine. A character, Sir Leigh Tea- bing, in the real Chateau de Villette near Paris, states cor- rectly that in 325 A.D. Con- X & P: Constantine’s stantine conven- monogram for Christ ed the first meeting of Chr- istian bishops called the Council of Nicaea. But Dan Brown gives the misinformation that the Council endorsed the idea that Jesus was divine. Most scholars agree that the Council of Nicaea was called by Constantine to try and resolve the problem of the rela- tion of the divine Jesus to God. Arius, a bishop in Alexandria, taught the subor- dination of the person of Christ to the person of the Father—a challenge to the Trinity. Simply put: Jesus was not co-eternal and of one substance with God but had been created by Him as His instrument for the salvation of the world. After much discussion Constantine suggested the Greek word “homoiousian” [of the same substance or essence] to resolve the issue and this was accepted by the Coun- cil. It has come down to us today as “of one substance with the Father” in the Nicene Creed used by most Christian churches. Terry Julian New Westminster

Write to: BC BookWorld, 3516 W.13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 email: [email protected] Letters may be edited for clarity & length.

20 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 reviews NON-FICTION MYSTERIOUSMYSTERIOUS MISTRESSMISTRESS GETSGETS AA MAKEOVER Biographer John Oliphant MAKEOVER Pearl Luke spends most of her novel trying to suggest how Or a rural schoolteacher born as Mabel Edith Rowbotham might have become the notorious Mad- what’s a nice girl ame Zee. There are the visions that begin after her sister’s like you doing in a death in childhood, her growing interest in theosophy and cult like this? Madame Blavatsky, the preju- dice she encounters in the teaching world, and disillusion- ment with her marriage. We only get to her actual encounter with Brother XII and his disciples (by far the most fully-realized part of the novel) in the last hundred pages. Unfortunately, in the long build-up to the main event, there are too many unanswered questions, too many implausible scenes, too many indistinguish- able characters who fail to sustain our interest. Luke has done her research meticulously (as she mentions in her afterword) and there are some interesting forays into the world of spiritu- In Madame Zee, novelist Pearl Luke looks sympathetically at someone who partnered with two fraudsters and disappeared in the early 1930s. alism, clairvoyance, and other manifestations of the occult, but Madame Zee by Pearl Luke aggerated. According to Pearl Zee and the Brother XII lived Strange Odyssey of a 20th Century overall the story isn’t historically (HarperCollins $32.95) Luke’s fanciful character study, separately from the colonists, Prophet and His Quest for a New plausible. unsubstantiated tales of Mad- many of whom had donated World (Twelfth House Press) When free-spirit Mabel is ifteen years ago, BC ame Zee wielding a riding crop most of their savings to the theo- that Brother XII’s death certifi- booted out of one school for BookWorld columnist to terrorize her fellow cultists sophical (and racist) cause. Af- cate might have been faked; wanting to teach about F George Woodcock re- might have been mere gossip. ter a spate of legal battles, the Madame Zee might well Hanukkah, when she practices sponded to biographer John Instead Luke imagines Zee sym- Brother XII and Madame Zee have lived happily (and mindfulness and meditation, Oliphant’s extensive study of pathetically as a sensitive woman absconded with the Founda- clairvoyantly?) ever after. when she becomes a healer and Vancouver Island’s notorious beset by visions. tion’s savings on a boat that has naturopath, dispensing herbal Brother XII—aka Edward Some facts are provided in a been variously described as ei- remedies at Cedar-by-the Sea, Arthur Wilson, the dic- postscript: Madame ther a yacht or a tug. The cou- it’s more new age political cor- tatorial cult leader who Zee was born as ple reached Switzerland where rectness we’re hearing than charmed and fright- Mabel Edith the Brother XII reputedly died. 1920s sensibility. ened and conned his Rowbotham in Lanca- Woodcock summa- In the Brother XII section, followers on Vancou- shire, England, in rized: “In his own occult Luke does come up with some ver Island in the late 1890. She taught field he was clearly adept, intriguing speculations 1920s and early school in a series of and he wrote a persuasive about Madame Zee’s 1930s—by comment- prairie towns before prose to go with his charis- motivations, and she is ing, “he [Oliphant] marrying a former matic personality. He had the adept at exploring her makes plausible two SHEILA MUNRO North West Mounted kind of shipshape organizing heroine’s ambivalence, extraordinary charac- Police officer, John mind one might expect of an healthy scepticism alternat- ters, right out of melodrama, in Skottowe, a branch manager for old navigator. But how far was ing with irresistible at- Brother Twelve and Madame the Union Bank of Canada. His he a fraud and how far was he a traction to her chosen Zee. It strikes me that in these fraudulent manipulations at the sincere maniac? guru. In the end pages there will be material for bank forced the couple to flee “Even followers Brother though, it is the evil a good deal of local fiction.” to Seattle, where the marriage Twelve most mistrusted some- character described in Pearl Luke has proven Wood- dissolved. times talked of him with Oliphant’s book I will cock prophetic. Her second Mabel soon hitched her affection….We are all remember as the au- novel, Madame Zee invents a per- wagon to a former stage hypno- tempted by the enig- thentic Madame Zee, sonal history for the former prai- tist, Roger Painter, who had matic, by that voice whis- not the compassionate, rie schoolteacher who renamed gained a fortune as “the Poultry pering from another text misunderstood psychic herself Madame Zee and be- King of Florida.” After Mabel about human evil, ‘There Luke has created here. came the mistress of Canada’s Skottowe changed her name to are more things in heaven Madame Zee 0-0020-0513-1 ; Brother XII 0-7710-4848-4 most remarkable cult leader. Madame Zee, the couple visited and earth, Horatio / For the most part, Luke’s the Brother XII’s utopian settle- Than are dreamt of in [For more information on much-reviewed novel has been ment at Cedar-by-the-Sea, near your philosophy.’” the Brother Twelve, see favourably received as a bold, fic- Nanaimo, in 1929. Mabel stayed ✫ Edward Arthur Wilson at tional experiment to suggest on and became the cult leader’s John Oliphant suggests The www.abcbookworld.com] Madame Zee’s ‘scarlet woman’ mistress and overseer of in his newly re-released Brother Sheila Munro regularly XII reputation might have been ex- the colony. biography, Brother XII: The reviews fiction in these pages.

33 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 PEOPLE Author! Author! THREE PASSIONS OF Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! EMILY One hundred acclaimed authors at the 19th annual Emily Carr was an ardent gardener, Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival, including: she shared “oodles of love” with Ira Dilworth Caroline Adderson and she had heartfelt respect for First Nations.

Anita Rau Badami responding Influence: Selected Letters lack of intimacy in Dennis Bock of Emily Carr and Ira Dilworth (UTP Emily Carr’s life $60). Marilyn Bowering Of the more than 440 extant Carr/ A has long been a Dilworth letters written between early Dionne Brand troublesome subject. Was 1940 and Carr’s death in March of 1945, 195 were written by Dilworth Lynn Coady she the victim of childhood and 250 by Carr. “God bless you, Emily!” wrote Fiona Farrell abuse? an overwhelmingly Dilworth, while sending her “oodles of egocentric artist? a les- love.” Bill Gaston For five years the pair were devoted bian? Who did she love? to one another, as if they had been lov- Kate Grenville ers in the flesh. Carr’s often hasty and The reasons for Carr’s prickly man- randomly punctuated letters reveal her Anosh Irani ners will likely never be unravelled, but intrepid and uncompromising nature. Wayne Johnston Linda Morra has at least revealed the She once told Dilworth that for a “letter extent to which Carr to be a correspond- Gautam Malkani yearned for, and ap- “Dear Emily. ence [there] must preciated, friendship It was a be a spontaneous Colum McCann and intimacy. ‘delicious’ loving outpour By gathering the visit.” from one to an- —Ira Dilworth, 1943 Jon McGregor twilight correspond- other[.] How can ence between Emily you ‘respond’ if Maile Meloy Carr and her literary there is not a ‘co’?” mentor, Ira In Emily Carr’s Lisa Moore Dilworth, regional last will and testa- director of CBC ra- ment, addressed to Bharati Mukherjee dio, Morra has un- Dilworth, she con- masked the Eden Robinson Ira Dilworth brought Emily Carr's first book to the cludes, “Forgive me sentimental side of the attention of Oxford University Press; he edited dear for all the times Javier Sierra West Coast’s most en- her later books and was her literary executor. I have been unrea- igmatic artist in Cor- sonable or petulant Madeleine Thien

Richard Wagamese Poor old Willow how they sentimentalize, how they exploit you through your catkins. Even standing ankle deep in water as you do in spring, human hands reach to grab the army of furry coated little catkins that October 17 –22 you send out while it is yet cold to drive away the end of Winter. Your wrenched and broken boughs people take home and stick in jugs where they collect household dust. Perhaps the at various venues on Granville Island. Six days of the catkins will sit there till you make more written word—readings, book signings, interviews. next spring. They cannot go on with flowering, they cannot die, they are Tickets on sale September 18 at all Ticketmaster outlets, paralyzed. People prattle about “swamp kitties” and paste one fat catkin charge-by-phone at 604.280.3311 or online at for a body and one smaller on top of it WOODS

www.ticketmaster.ca. Information: www.writersfest.bc.ca for a head, onto cardboard pencil a tail EMILY

or call 604.681.6330 and whiskers to the thing and call it a cat. Please notice these pigmy PAINTED

AS monstrosity, catkin cats always have ) Presenting a world of words their backs turned as if they intimated, on Granville Island “Pshaw! can’t we be honest catkins? SCOULERIANA Why must we mock cats.” SALIX

( —by Emily Carr in Wild Flowers (RBC Museum) WILLOW

S ’ SCOULER

14 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 featureview FICTION

Robert Wiersema: a first novel about the hellish and PHOTO bizarre aftermath of a hit-and-run DENTON accident. DON MIRACLES WILL HAPPEN “The key to the book was that it was unplanned, that I had no idea... where it was going,” says Robert Wiersema

BY CHERIE THIESSEN tiful and younger “other” limbo. Henry’s words immedi- The domestic situation is com- Before I Wake by Robert Wiersema (Random House $32.95) woman, who works for Simon, is ately following the accident were plicated by the twisted plans of relatively unconcerned about prophetic. “I didn’t kill that lit- a misguided soul, a false priest aving established his reputation as a prolific book reviewer the consequences of her affair. tle girl,” he said. “She just floated who attempts to discredit Sher- and event coordinator for Bolen Books in Victoria, Robert Henry Denton, the hit-and- away.” Believing Sherry has ry’s miracles and, when that fails, HWiersema has now published, Before I Wake, a first novel about run driver, cannot escape the gained the power to heal while to destroy the family. the hellish and bizarre aftermath of a hit-and-run accident. image of Sherry flying up in suspended in her unconscious Writing this novel, Wiersema The impetus for Before I Wake Karen has previously sacri- front of his truck; so he tries to state, sick and dying “pilgrims” was amazed by the way his char- was a Vancouver Sun article that ficed herself, working during blot out this recurring image by begin to visit Sherry’s bedside. acters shaped the plot. “The key Wiersema read about a religious the couple’s first few married attempting suicide. But his Ruth, a home care nurse as- to the book was that it was un- family caring for their little girl years to help put Simon through hoped-for death is arrested by sisting Karen, is the first to be planned, that I had no idea, reduced to a catatonic state. law school, waiting patiently to an unseen hand. He must re- healed by Sherry. One day she from day to day, where it was “They began noticing strange have her beloved child. She be- main in a living Purgatory until suddenly realizes that her crip- going,” he says. “I was surprised, things happening around their comes madonna-like in her de- he, too, finds a way to resurrect pling arthritis has disappeared. for example, when Simon left daughter,” he says, “like weep- votion and forgiveness. When himself. She instigates the parade of the the hospital to collapse at ing madonnas and bleeding cru- her husband leaves home to live Sherry should have died sick and the dying to the home. Mary’s. Similarly, I was surprised cifixes. with his lover, Karen is doubly when taken off life support, but Should Karen allow these poor when Henry tried to kill himself, “Word began to get around devastated, but Mary, the beau- instead she inhabits an eerie souls access to her daughter? and when he couldn’t.” that perhaps their little girl was Many readers may be con- miraculous. So this family began cerned that the book is too de- taking reservations from believ- JACK’S HARDBACK pressing, but miracles can ers around the world, and once mitigate sorrow, and, according a week they would take her out Jack Whyte has launched a new trilogy about the original nine Templar to Wiersema, Before I Wake is to the backyard, under a tent, Knights, commencing with the madness and cruelty of the First Crusade mainly about forgiveness and and allow these pilgrims access.” in 1088. His 456-page Knights of the Black and White (Penguin $36) redemption. He hopes Simon’s In the novel, Simon and follows the fortunes and misfortunes of Hugh de Payens, who, as a journey back to the family, and Karen Barrett struggle to main- disenchanted member of a powerful, secret allegiance of French knights, to a new level of understanding tain their marriage, barely able of himself, will keep the reader decides to dedicate his military skills to protecting pilgrims on the road to to cope with their grief, after hooked as Wiersema orches- their three-year-old daughter Jerusalem, so he founds The Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ. 0-670-04513-6 trates his tale with the shifting Sherry has become comatose, Jack Whyte points of view of the main char- struck by a hit-and-run driver. acters, placing the reader out- Simon initially behaves con- BILL’S THRILLER side the family, almost—you temptibly, abandoning his wife First introduced in Bill Deverell’s The Dance of Shiva, crafty defence could say—looking down at and daughter in the hospital lawyer Arthur Beauchamp reappears in Deverell’s 14th title, April Fool them and their lives. It’s ulti- within hours of the accident in mately an optimistic view from (M&S $36.99), recently selected by the Crime Writers of Canada for the order to seek comfort with his up here, if you don’t feel dizzy mistress. 2006 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel. zooming in and out of so many “It’s essential that, early on, While his new wife decides to live atop a tree in order to protect eagles people’s heads. readers hate Simon,” Wiersema from loggers, Beauchamp is again retrieved from retirement from fictional Magic, miracles and mirages says. “And they do. The terms Garibaldi Island to defend a notorious jewel thief on murder and rape aren’t for everyone. 0-679-31373-7 that I’ve had female readers use charges. Deverell lives on Pender Island and near Quepos in Costa Rica. to describe him are often ob- Bill Deverell 0-7710-2711-7 Cherie Thiessen is a freelance scene, and certainly passionate.” writer on Pender Island.

30 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 reviews KIDLIT ONCE UPON A STURGEON ALSO RECEIVED

South Side Sports by Jeff Rud (Orca Tale of a Great White Fish by Maggie de slave and the youngest of a $8.95) 1-55143-532-2 Vries (Greystone $19.95) sharecropper’s five children, Terror at Turtle Mountain by Penny Draper Robinson was a natural athlete, (Coteau $8.95) 978-1-55050-343-2 ick Hansen remembers excelling in football, basketball, Things are Looking Grimm, Jill by Dan being on the banks of baseball and track. Bar-el (Orca $7.95) 1-55143-400-8 the Fraser River as a boy He protested for black rights R The Vacation by Polly Horvath and witnessing the spectacular during his army stint, played (Groundwood $12.95) 416-363-4343 sight of an enormous fish leap- professional baseball in the Ne- Seraphina’s Circle by Jocelyn Shipley ing free of the muddy water. gro Leagues and, when the (Sumach $10.95) 1-894549-51-1 Today, he’s chairman of the president of the Brooklyn Dodg- Flower Power by Ann Walsh (Orca $7.95) Fraser River Sturgeon Conserva- ers asked him to take part in a 1-55143-386-9 tion Society and work- “noble experiment,” Spoiled Rotten by Dayle Campbell Gaetz ing to safeguard these he endured abuse (Orca $7.95) 1-55143-474-1 “precious” fish—stur- from teammates, Sturgeons like this 1,000-pound specimen caught in 1925 were once Breathless by Pam Withers (Orca geon—and their be- other players and quite common in the Fraser River. $7.95)1-55143-480-6 leaguered aquatic fans—including hate Yellow Line by Sylvia Olsen (Orca $7.95) ecosystem. mail, assault and Half-white, half-black, 1-55143-462-8 Maggie de Vries death threats. knowing nothing of syna- Crazy About Canada by Vivien Bowers evokes the precarious ✍ gogues or Shabbas can- (Maple Tree $19.95) 1-897066-48-1 existence of the giant LOUISE DONNELLY “Get lost, white- dles, and as a Yankees’ white sturgeon in Tale bread,” the black kids fan trapped in Dodgers’ of a Great White Fish. The hero- taunt Joey Sexton in his 1947 territory, Joey also en- ine, Little Fish, is spawned in the Bronx neighbourhood. “We dures the whispered and late spring of 1828. Thirty years don’t want no crackers in our not-so-whispered gossip later she is Fish and, ripe now game.” about his mother who ran with thousands of eggs, begins Joey just wants to play a little off with a trumpet player. the arduous journey upstream schoolyard baseball. Then his When Joey, caught to release her eggs on the rocky mother, only occasionally “off wearing his Yankees cap, river bottom where she was the drugs,” dies and fatherless returns home after a scuf- hatched. Joey is shunted off onto relatives fle, his grandfather takes Jackie Robinson reaching third base Eighty-five years later, over he’s never known in Brooklyn. one look at the filthy twelve feet long and weighing In the Jewish commu- clothes and bleeding face says. “I never knew an African- 800 pounds, Big Fish, the giant nity of his Aunt and pronounces American person, other than white sturgeon, is ready to spawn Frieda and Joey a “wild my parents’ housekeeper, until for the sixth time. This time “the grandfa- thing, a dis- black kids were bussed to my riverbed shakes, water tumbles” ther, he’s grace.” junior high school.” called ✍ Schwartz became involved in and “other fish, alive and dead, ’s Nigger Ellen the civil rights movement and, NAN GREGORY fly past.” The construction of a I’ll Sing You One-O (Thomas railway has caused the Hells Gate Boy. Schwartz later, delving into Robinson’s life th Allen $16) is a novel about a Slide and the falling rock grew up story just prior to the 60 anni- changes the water flow. in New versary of that momentous base- 12-year-old removed from her Big Fish searches for a new Jersey in ball game, discovered, as does loving foster parents to live spawning ground. By 2005, at the 50s young scrapper Joey, the more with relatives she doesn’t twenty feet long and close to and 60s she learned about the man, the know. 0-618-60708-0 1700 pounds, Big Fish still mi- where more she admired his dignity Stanley’s Wild Ride by Linda Bailey raculously endures despite pol- “society and pride under great adversity. (Kids Can $14.95) 1-55337-960-8 lution, scarcity of food and was largely Two other Schwartz titles to Squirt by Trudee Romanek removal of vital sand and gravel segre- be released this fall include (Kids Can $14.95) 1-55337-776-1 from the river bottom. gated,” she Abby’s Birds (Tradewind Once Upon a Crime… by Wanda Cassidy & Ruth Yates Renné Benoit, who illus- $22.95), illustrated by Elizabeth (Detselig) 1-55059-298-X trated Goodbye to Griffith Street, Shefrin, and Yossi’s Goal (Orca Black-and-White Blanche by Marj Toews captures the two-century adven- $7.95), a sequel to Jesse’s Star, (Fitzhenry & Whiteside $19.95) ture of Big Fish and the epic which chronicles the further ad- 1-55005-132-6 Nikki Tate struggle for survival of an an- ventures of a Russian Jewish im- Alphabad by Shannon Stewart cient and magnificent creature. migrant family living in (Key Porter $19.95) 1-55263-729-8

Maggie de Vries is also the au- Montreal in the 1890s. Sensational Scientists: The Journeys and thor of Missing Sarah, shortlisted 0-88776-765-6 Discoveries of 24 Men and Women of Louise Donnelly is a Science by Barry Shell (Raincoast for a Governor General’s Award $24.95) 1-55192-727-6 and winner of the George Ryga freelance writer in Vernon. Award for Social Awareness in BC Literature. 1-55365-125-1 BREAKING THE BI- NIKKI TATE GAL-ERY COLOUR BARRIER Jo’s Journey by Nikki Tate (Orca $7.95)

Stealing Home by Ellen Schwartz o’s Triumph introduced Nikki Tate’s plucky or- (Tundra, $12.99) phan Joselyn Whyte, who was left by her brothers at the Carson City Home for Unfortu- n the spring of 1947, Jack J Roosevelt Robinson stepped nate Girls. She ran away, disguised herself as a boy Iup to the plate for the and joined the Pony Express riders. Brooklyn Dodgers as the first The sequel Jo’s Journey takes Jo and her friend black baseball player to play in Bart from San Francisco to Fort Victoria and then on the major leagues. a perilous trek to the Cariboo gold country of 1862. That’s the historical back- ground for Ellen Schwartz’s “He’s one of the lucky ones. He died right fast,” an Stealing Home, about nine-year- old timer tells Jo, when a treacherous switchback old Joey who needs to belong out of Lillooet gives way and her pack horse tum- somewhere, anywhere. bles down the mountainside. Upon reading American novelist Don DeLillo’s Underworld Horsewoman Tate, who also pens the PHOTO which richly evokes baseball, StableMates series and rode a portion of Nevada’s Schwartz decided to write a old Pony Express route, delivering letters to schools WILLIAMS book related to the game. from BC kids, infuses Jo’s tale with horse lore and

She soon found Jackie COLIN Robinson’s story irresistible. gritty detail. 1-55143-536-5 Born in 1919, the grandson of a

26 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 featureview FICTION

off together in a bor- rowed boat. Nathan hopes to work in a gypo logging camp but the bulls (cops) are regularly on the lookout for deserters. As their despair increases Nathan and Leah hope to find some refuge on Broughton Island. Once again they are confronted with the isolation of their ideals when their friend on Broughton Island turns down their request In his first novel, to hide out because her son is off fighting in the Michael Poole recalls the Great War. Great War and a great love. Leah and Nathan are forced to head back to Silva Landing. Nathan is resigned to going overseas until a note arrives from an old friend who asks if he would consider going LOVERS IN A into hiding in a deserters’ encampment on the mountain above Silva’s Landing. Poole provides DANGEROUS TIME the novel with a powerful and necessary twist at the end, based on an actual Rain by Morning by Michael Poole “I don’t believe I take un- Canadian nurses. Fair enough, ride and she chooses to feed incident at a real deserters’ (Harbour $24.95) charitable dislikes to people, but but it is worth noting that Ernest him. Her actions lead to her camp on the Sunshine Coast. I cannot help feeling anger and Hemingway’s classic A Farewell to eventual banishment from the The characters for Poole’s s the number of Cana- resentment toward Sister Arms set in World War I is the military and nursing, but not necessary novel are inspired by dian soldiers killed in Robuchaud, the Mistress of Dis- great love affair of a nurse without a fight. When she re- those deserters who lie buried A combat in Afghanistan cipline. I believe she takes pleas- (granted not Canadian) and a turns to Nathan, who has been in an actual deserters’ cemetery, climbs, Canadians are asking— ure in punishing us. wounded soldier. injured in a logging accident, now mostly overtaken by forest, why go to war? That question, She plays favourites, Once out of the she is more determined than located on a Sunshine Coast and what Michael Poole de- and I am certainly not convent Leah and ever that he not go off to fight mountain. scribes as the enduring stigma one of them. She told Nathan enjoy a brief in a war she has witnessed. As Poole writes in his notes, of desertion in World War I, are me that I have a “re- idyllic fling among the Alienated by his community although descendants of those the basis for Rain by Morning, an bellious and inde- hidden estuaries and for remaining behind while oth- conscientious objectors still live old fashioned romance of lovers pendent nature” islands of the West ers serve, Nathan is angrily con- in “Silva Landing,” so enduring in a dangerous time. which she intends to Coast before return- fronted by townsfolk he has is the stigma of desertion in Set in the fictional town of break. If she keeps rid- GRANT SHILLING ing to Silva Landing to known all his life. In an ex- World War I that their lips re- Silva Landing on the Sunshine ing me, there will be face their uncertain change with Leah he indicates main mostly sealed to this day Coast in 1913, Rain by Morning trouble and I won’t stand for it.” future. Leah is shipped off to a that his will has begun to about the events of 1918. In at- tells the tale of a dangerous liai- Poole is particularly inter- nursing school. When World weaken: “Look, Leah I’m just so tempting to give voice to their son between young Nathan and ested in the role of individuals War I breaks out, she is sent to a goddamed tired of it all, sick to silence Poole has provided us Leah, as their love at first sight in the service of institutions and hospital near Etaples, France. death of nasty looks, the re- with much to think about when endures against unlikely odds, country, and the ethical and Nathan, a conscientious ob- marks, having to explain considering the overseas con- parents’ wishes, war and dis- moral decisions one is faced with jector, takes on the dan- myself, all that crap.” flicts of today. tance. in serving those forces. In his gerous work of a high She replies: “As Rain by Morning is a welcome War is hell but its nothing previous book, Romancing Mary rigger in a logging camp. chance would have it, I novel of ideas that only occasion- compared to lovers spurned, or Jane: A Year in the Life of a Failed In France Leah expe- know exactly how you ally trips up on its exploration at least delayed. Leah is shipped Marijuana Grower, Poole ex- riences the horrors of feel. You see, Nathan, I of various themes in the guise off to a convent school while plored the ethics and perils of war first-hand and only didn’t leave France vol- of characters. 1-55017-412-6 Nathan considers going to uni- growing pot on the Sunshine occasionally hears untarily. I was thrown versity. Poole develops Leah’s Coast. from Nathan. Her out for breaking the Grant Shilling lives in Cumberland, voice—one of the novel’s great As Poole mentions in his au- faith tested, Leah rules. I was an outcast, burial place of World War One con- strengths—while she is in the thor’s notes no shortage of reaches out to a pointed at, scorned, just scientious objector Ginger Goodwin, convent. In a letter Leah writes books have been written about young British de- like you.” a labour martyr. He is the author of to Nathan we get a glimpse of World War 1, but what has gone serter she discovers United as outcasts, The Cedar Surf: An Informal His- her character and future: missing in action are accounts of while out on a bike Michael Poole Leah and Nathan set tory of Surfing in British Columbia.

Ambiguous Selves by Melanie Fogell This investigation into individual identity explores TRANSMONTANUS 15 notions of Jewishness in Israel and in the Canadian Clam Gardens Diaspora. Fogell fascinates the reader with her candid Aboriginal Mariculture on Canada’s West Coast discussion about life in the era of fragmentation. by Judith Williams ISBN: 1-55059-327-7, $26.95, pb Find it here

The Canadian Journey Crown Publications by William Rayner Blackberry Books By recounting the deeds and misdeeds of key Duthie Books Canadian politicians, workers, soldiers, and voters, this Abraxas Books episodic book covers the scope of Canadian politics. Pollen Sweaters, Lund ISBN: 1-55059-313-7, $26.95, pb Marnie’s Books Miners Bay Books Available at your local bookstore, or contact: Salt Spring Books Temeron Books Inc. tel: 403.283.0900 fax: 403.283.6947 [email protected] www.temerondetselig.com Published by New Star Books

29 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 reviews POETRY THE SOUNDS OF GIRLS SWIMMING WITH HORSES Elizabeth Bachinsky’s wallop of teenage angst, boredom and risky sexiness

Home of Sudden Service by Elizabeth have made room for us, / surround go home again.” Bachinsky (Nightwood $16.95) our sounds, the sounds of girls / Zieroth skillfully avoids swimming with horses. / How far cynicism and nostalgia, en- slight book that packs a we are from the town. / How we grossing the reader in a wallop of teenage angst, animate ourselves.” memory album that is not A boredom and risky sexi- Not all of the numerous teen- narrative, although narra- ness, this collection is set in the age moms and dads in the Fraser tives are implied, as he de- back seats on the back roads of Valley feel stuck; there’s the kids scribes his young father as Mission, Cultus Lake in the title poem who “learning unselfishness and all those roads awkwardly work it out, among the nest of us.” He that end at Hope. It’s hesitant. But for every also recalls: an unusual and highly one of those tentative “The women and their con- accomplished use of “gonna-make it” kids, nection/with eggs of hens, form by a young poet there are teenage ducks, geese/ carrying in their Elizabeth Bachinsky: on the subject of loose moms at the Valley red hands/ the delicate life/ al- malls, necking, girls and the freeway MAIN-VAN Mall who know preg- cruelty and tragedy ways close to the hurt things culture of malls, neck- HANNAH DER KAMP nancy means “his lov- first/ the first to know.” ing, cruelty and trag- ing is over.” A halfbreed muskrat edy. A chilling poem called “Wolf life voiced in colloquial lan- characteristic of all good writing trapper and his family are “no- Elizabeth Bachinsky demon- Lake” recounts the rape and guage. The poet betrays herself; but the long poem form is par- mads/ never worried about/ seeds strates more skill in a couple of murder of a teenage girl in the posing as a tough girl with a ticularly suited to the rambling washed away/ or choked out.” sonnets and villanelles than po- victim’s voice, so poignant be- smart-ass mouth, she unwittingly nature of childhood memories. Loneliness, family ties, farmyard ets twice her age do in a couple cause the lake where her body reveals the sensitivity required The poet/child is in no hurry slaughter and schoolboy pranks; of books. She writes: “Your faults is dumped is the place where for finely tuned writing. Miss and can unfold details and take this is a loving but not mawkish are mine and mine / yours. When she and the murderer used to Fraser Valley gets out of her detours. David Zieroth begins reminiscence. The undertone we kiss, you light my vacancy. / swim as teenagers. tacky gear and turns out to be this account with the night of is an awareness of death that in- yours is the trailer park fire of the “This boy / I’d camped with an Alice Munro in poet guise. his own conception, continues sures against the sentimental. mind, / a vinyl-sided wet dream.” every summer since we were twelve, 0-88971-212-3 through early childhood to With tenderness for the boy About her teen love of /the lake so quiet you could hear the schooldays and ends with his he was, the poet returns to his The Village of Sliding Time horses, growing up in Maple sound / of a heron skim the water at by David Zieroth (Harbour $16.95) family’s move to B.C. Taken by sixty-something West Coast Ridge, Bachinsky writes: dusk, or the sound / of a boy breath- the hand by his young alter-ego identity and has learned, “I “Is it possible that such a beast ing.” successful long poem is who has “the gift of sliding haven’t left behind what came can swim? / He weighs a ton (at Most striking in this explicit an immersion, a trance, time,” he leaves North Van and with me.” It amounts to an en- least) but here / he is, his expectant collection is the contrast be- A an emotional time cap- revisits the Manitoba farm where gaging and highly readable ears pricked forward, / forward, as tween the accomplished tech- sule which leaves the reader Zieroth grew up in the 1950s, memoir. he glides through murk. / The trees nique and the harsh realities of changed, “been away.” This is disproving the adage, “You can’t 1-55017-388-X Workers Of The World RELAX

Workers of The World RELAX

The Simple Economics of Less Industrial Work

By Conrad Schmidt

“... an eyewatering kick in the crotch for anyone who believes the world economic system - and its twins, capitalism and globalization - is sustainable now or into the future.” Matthew Burrows, Georgia Straight

Distributed by Sandhill Book Marketing. Tel: 1-800-667-3848 $15 ISBN 0-9739772-0-5, pp 143 www.WorkersOfTheWorldRelax.org

36 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 Maxine Gadd in the 1970s PHOTO

BRIERE ALSO RECEIVED ELAINE

Backup to Babylon by Maxine Gadd night” It’s good to have her (New Star $20) voice recovered and collected. 1-55420-024-5 allucinatory when not nightmarish, Writing the Tides, New and richly textured and Selected Poems by Kevin Roberts H (Ronsdale $16.95) cheerfully anti-conventional, this collection of three shorter works brings back the late six- George Whipple big book at a very at- ties in Vancouver’s Downtown The Peaceable Kingdom by tractive price (how George Whipple does Ronsdale do Eastside. So did New Star (Penumbra $18.95) 1894131924 A Books take a risk extracting it?), Writing the Tides covers Whiskey Bullets: Cowboy & more than three decades of these pieces from the moth- Indian Poems by Garry balls to give them a fresh ex- Gottfriedson (Ronsdale varied and accessible poetry $14.95) 1-55380-043-5 posure? Well, no. Mostly it’s for arm-chair travelers. While energizing to be startled by Tacoma Narrows by not stretching the boundaries Mitchell Parry (Goose of language, Kevin Roberts is this bygone craziness. Lane $17.95) 0-86492-450-X Who remembers the always personal and never ob- Flicker by Rob Budde scure. Woodwards Food Floor? Or (Signature Editions $14.95) who cares to remember? 1-897109-05-9 “Cobalt 3,” a group of poems about his experience of Backup to Babylon is street- Ink Monkey by Diana smart mythology that fre- Hartog (Brick Books $18) 1- cancer treatment, is highly 894078-50-0 quently champions the poor recommended reading for or the marginalized. Though Hand Luggage: A Memoir in everyone whose lives have Verse by P.K. Page been touched by cancer. concrete poetry does not give (Porcupine’s Quill $ 16.95) the same amount of buzz as it 0-88984-288-4 “At first you’re frantic / swim madly for shore / but you’re too once did, the over-the-top Strike/Slip by Don McKay rawness (influenced by the (M&S $17.99) 0-7710-5543-9 weak / in the tide rip’s / all mind- less muscle /you tread water.” Kootenay School of Writing Save A Baby, Hereo (an way back when?) is still strik- anthology of sorts) Edited by Writing the Tides concludes Christine Gibson (No with about fifty new poems: ingly original. Thanks Prod.) 0-9738594-0-7 Sometimes completely un- surfing and aging in B.C., intelligible—probably pur- Australia and Thailand. posefully so— Maxine Gadd’s Roberts con- poems can also be evocative cludes, “And so as in a lovely coastal poem en- we all surf, sit in titled “spring moves fast now.” rows / seek the per- In another piece about cold- fect wave . . . to ness, this one entitled “I will dance us down to sell my soul? for warm hands,” some imagined the poet evokes hardships that shore.” 1-55380-036-2 today’s neo-hippies could not imagine. Hannah Main- This writing is the opposite van der Kamp of carefully worked finesse. keeps an open Gadd is anarchic, a poet who mind in Victoria likes to “praise bad things.” and the Sunshine She writes: “so i / must go for it Coast. again / for an answer/ compat- Kevin Roberts ible / with my humanity / before daybreak / in the black winter

37 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 LOOKOUT #25 a forum for & about writers 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 • [email protected] LOOKOUT WE CAN WORK IT OUT Work Less Party founder Conrad Schmidt believes anyone not owning a car should be allocated gardening space equal to two parking spaces.

BY MARTIN TWIGG

IRST HE STOPPED WORKING ON Fridays at his job as a soft- Fware engineer; then he abandoned his Jeep. Now Conrad Schmidt—creator of the World Naked Bike Ride in Vancouver in 2004 to protest cli- PHOTO mate change —believes that work KOWAL

sharing will lessen our imprint on the earth and help us enjoy life more. JAIME Schmidt’s call for a common-sensical “As people in middle to upper income headlines and fifteen-second sound dustry and our need for locally sustain- revolution, Workers of the World Relax: brackets work less,” he writes, “more op- bites.” able agriculture, some of Schmidt’s ar- The Simple Economics of Less Indus- portunities to move up the income scale The United States is the hardest guments appear quite novel and may trial Work (Sandhill/Work Less $15), will present themselves. Not only will working country in the world in terms surprise even the most radical of activ- contains short essays on work, happiness people have the potential to earn more, of average hours worked. Its media is ists. and consumerism in a global economy. less people will compete for minimum frequently criticized for catering to the Schmidt, for example, views the en- Its inspirational message can be con- wage jobs. This will also help inflate lowest common denominator. Many ergy crisis as a potentially good thing. densed to: “Work less, produce less, con- wages. In reality, if we work less, the Canadians are alarmed by statistics that His greatest fear is not the world run- sume less and live more.” value of our labour increases along with reveal a high percentage of Americans ning out of oil, but rather the discovery Whether he’s riding naked on his wage negotiating powers.” still believe Saddam Hussein had con- of a new, cheap energy replacement bike to garner attention for climate Less time spent working can trans- nections to Al Qaeda, or that he pos- that will allow us to sustain our envi- change, or baking a cake for the BC late into more time spent eating and ex- sessed weapons of mass destruction. ronmentally destructive levels of pro- Progress Board to spread awareness for ercising properly, reducing stress, Schmidt points out something new; the duction and consumption. the benefits of a shortened work week, enabling citizenry to become more ac- five nations with the highest percentage “Today, as in the 1970s, many re- Schmidt typically presents his ideas in a tive in democracy and generating more of people working longer than 50 hours spected academics are predicting that friendly, easy to understand and non- informed public debate. a week—the United States, Japan, UK, rising oil prices will result in the collapse threatening fashion. But behind each It’s not just fanciful theorizing. “In Australia and New Zealand—were all of the economy and civilization. As public stunt is a well-informed political countries like France, Germany, Den- willing to send troops to Iraq. usual, they are wrong. I am not saying philosophy that has led him to found the mark, Holland and Schmidt’s focus a collapse is impossible; simply that it Work Less Party. Sweden,” he says, The five nations is not only limited will likely be a consequence of cheap Without gimmicks and marketing “which already in- to his “work less” energy prices and not high energy ploys, Workers of the World Relax explains corporate reduced with the highest maxim. He touches prices. A rising cost of energy is a good how and why our cultural emphasis on work weeks, there percentage of people on energy use, thing.” production and consumption is having is a trend for the working longer than transportation, city In his modest but empowering 143 disastrous consequences for the health media to cater to 50 hours a week—the planning and com- pages, Schmidt does not limit himself of the Earth, as well as our own mental well-informed parative studies of to the role of doomsayer, a common and physical well-being. Citing the likes readers. [Whereas] United States, Japan, cultural levels of pitfall in much activist writing. Instead of environmentalist David Suzuki and in nations with UK, Australia and happiness. While he levels constructive criticism at the economist John Kenneth Galbraith, longer workweeks, New Zealand—were many of his points myriad of problems facing our danger- Schmidt uses footnotes, photos and lu- the trend is for in- may seem familiar, ously wasteful society and responds with cid prose to convince the reader how the formation to be all willing to send such as the negative policy alternatives that are thoughtful, reduced work-week can become the an- presented in the troops to Iraq. environmental ef- well-researched and, most importantly, tidote to industrial overkill. form of catchy fects of the cattle in- practical. 0-9739772-0-5; wlp-publishing.org

21 BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • AUTUMN • 2006 A MEETING IN MONGOLIA

Renaissance man Galsan Tschinag, still living in the High Altai Mountains of central Asia, has published more than 30 books, mainly in German, although he makes a point of also publishing some titles in his native language. As both a shaman and a political leader, he reflects his complex culture in a new autobiographical memoir of boyhood, The Blue Sky (Oolichan $24.94). Oddly, Tschinag is one of the few headline acts at this year’s Vancouver International Writers Festival currently published by a B.C. publishing house. His translator Katharina Rout of Vancouver Island will accompany him during his interview with Mark Schneider on Granville Island, October 21, at 1 pm, and later that same day at the Poetry Bash, at 8 pm. Galsan Tschinag will also read on Tuesday, the 24th, at the Vancouver Westside German school, and lecture at UBC on Wednesday, October 25th as part of the Mongolia Lecture Series sponsored by the Inner Asia Institute, to be followed by literary events at Malaspina University-College in Nanaimo and Camosun College in Victoria.

Here Katharina Rout recalls meeting Galsan Tschinag in the remote steppes of his own domain.

n 2001, I fell in love with Galsan tain backs, broad valleys left behind by glaciers, and snow-covered peaks in the Tschinag’s work. My first e-mail distance. ‘Altai,’ Galsan Tschinag has written, comes from ‘ala,’ multi-coloured, and reached him two days before the fall ‘dag,’ mountain. As the winds drove of the Twin Towers, his reply to me clouds across the sky, the mountains seemed to move under the changing pat- PHOTO two days after. He called my hope to terns of sun and shadow, and it was easy MEIER to understand the Tuvans’ veneration for translate The Blue Sky one day a small sun, shin-

I the Altai. ERNST ing from the West, and sent me a large herd of For the next few hours we kept climb- ing. From time to time, a Kazakh or good spirits. Coming from a practising shaman, Tuvan yurt could be seen in the distance. In a few valleys, herders were making hay the wish for good spirits meant a great deal. from small patches of green: struggling Two years later, I met Tschinag when he was in for every blade of grass. Towards evening Germany on one of his many reading tours. Im- we arrived in the Tsengelkhayrkhan mediately he inquired about my family and be- mountain range. Towering over three gan sharing the story of his. He spoke of life, death, yurts on a ridge at the end of a valley near family, love, and the heart. Before dinner, I learned the Black Lake was the 4000 metres high about his horses, after dinner, about how as a sha- sacred mountain. The Tuvans call it Galsan man he heals people, even with a life-threatening Haarakan, Great Mountain, because Tschinag (left) injury inflicted by a horse. A bit of Mongolia had awe and respect forbid them to spell out with a Tuvan arrived in Germany. He takes some Altai soil with the proper names of what is divine or dan- him wherever he goes. gerous. This was the furthest the jeep wrestler In 2004, my husband and I went to visit Galsan could go. To meet us, Galsan Tschinag MONGOLIAN in Mongolia. From the first moment, we were im- had left the neighbouring valley and rid- pressed by the hospitality. His children had been den across a mountain through hours of a lashing to Ölgiy, people gathered to say farewell. Each instructed to guide and take care of us. In rain storm. We saw him from afar astride his white was blessed by Galsan Tschinag, the shaman, with Ulaanbaatar, they put us on the plane to Ölgiy, horse waiting on the ridge. He welcomed us into the traditional sprinkling of milk. And because where we were met by another son who had spent a yurt especially made for us—a brand-new, shin- my husband and I were the first North Ameri- two days coming down from the Altai to pick us ing white yurt we were invited to take back to cans to come to the Tuvan land in the High Altai, up. From Ölgiy (elevation 1700 metres) we trav- North America. We were offered different kinds we were given special gifts to take home. The elled by jeep towards the distant mountain range. of cheese and fried dough, and invited to drink Cold War is ending, people had repeatedly said We were near the Russian border, and skirmishes from the silver bowl that has come down to him to us in the days before. When we laid our cus- in response to political borders that arbitrarily from his ancestors—as has his snuff bottle, his sil- tomary three stones on the ovoo, we had reason cross ancient tribal lands were common. ver flint and the silver sheath of the dagger he to be grateful indeed. read from the second, thinner yak-leather strap After hours of driving through the steppe and wears on his silk saffron belt over his blue velvet bridges—honoured by a man who is a most ex- we watched Galsan Tschinag work as chieftain each family and their animals. As a result of four Before I left, Galsan made one final observa- foothills—there are hardly any roads in Mongo- coat when he is in the Altai. His son came to play traordinaryRHAPSODY bridge builder himself: As a shaman, and shaman, and as host of a group of Europe- catastrophic winters and unusually dry summers, stretched across the cradle. It allows visitors to tion: “I am convinced that our corner could avoid asking painful questions and instead find lia—we reached a windy mountain pass with a a concert for us on the horsehead fiddle. He had he mediates between his community and the spirit ans who, like us, had come to the Altai to learn the nomads in the Altai had lost two-thirds of their quickly turn into a Karabakh or Kosovo,” he gentle and empathetic words. For every birth of large ovoo, a cairn of sacrificial stones that marked brought the mail with him from Ölgiy, which in- world; as a chieftain, he connects Tuvans with each about the Tuvans. herds in the previous decade. Galsan Tschinag’s warned, “if in a country such as ours, with a col- a boy, a sheep’s right ankle bone is tied to the the beginning of the traditional land of the Tuvans cluded an invitation by the President of the other; as a writer, he forges links between the oral Every day Galsan took us to visit Tuvan and visits and the European visitors he has brought ourful mix of peoples and a leadership that glo- strap, for every girl, a left one. For every child and, as the Mongolians say about this part of their Republic of Tywa, who hoped Galsan tradition and epics of his people and the literate Kazakh families in the valley. Each had prepared into the Altai for the last fifteen summers have cre- rifies violence and war, the Tuvan people were that has died, the bone is removed, but the knot country, the roof of the world. The air smelled of Tschinag would join him for the cel- world outside; as a politician, he negotiates a fu- a spread, mostly of meat and dairy products, but ated employment and income opportunities. We to glorify their own and denigrate their neigh- remains. sage, and before us lay ebrations of the republic’s tenth an- ture for his minority Tuvans among a sometimes also of fried dough and sweets, and each offered never left a yurt without him handing over a sub- bours’ cultures.” Bridges have to be built from Bones connect life and death, the material and an awe-inspiring niversary; he would be offered a hostile majority of Kazakhs and Mongolians; as a us salted, buttery milk-tea and—since it was the stantial stack of tugrik bills, but we also watched both sides of a river, though. While Galsan the spiritual. They were read by our host, by the ocean of greenish- place of honour next to Putin. translator and teacher, he crosses, and enables oth- foaling season—both fermented and distilled him engaging with every adult in the family; in- Tschinag promotes foreign-language learning shaman who provided guidance and support, blue velvety moun- Clearly, we had arrived at the court ers to cross, the linguistic borders of Tuvan, mare’s milk. In one yurt, a whole wether had been troducing the children to us; stroking, massaging, among the Tuvans, he also gives one manuscript and who taught us to read in the book of na- of a prince. And we were honoured Kazakh, Mongolian, Russian, and German; and slaughtered for the occasion. These were celebra- and caressing the sick and aged; praising (and a year for publication, royalty-free, to a Mongo- ture. A rock face, so forbidding from a distance, because translations build as a host, he opens his small yurt in the Altai, and tions, but they clearly were also opportunities translating into German) outstanding events and lian publisher, hoping to sew the seeds of respect shows fracture lines close up: nothing is forever, his large yurt—the Altai and the steppe itself— Galsan Tschinag created to braid together the achievements; and making everybody feel encour- for Tuvan culture among his fellow Mongolians. everything changes. Birds that breed their young to guests from abroad. Tuvan and Kazakh families who have to share the aged and important. His stories, he says about all his books, are not The next day, we continued our journey on sparse resources of the land. He was always given In the process, we heard people’s stories. We at a lake near the foot of Haarakan’s glacier grieve Katharina Rout his stories alone: they are the stories of his peo- horseback. Across steep, rocky terrain and a ridge learned how mothers on horseback carry their when one of the couple dies. The shaman trans- and Galsan the seat of honour at the North end of the yurt, ple. lated: love is the key to life, and the cause of suf- Tschinag more than 3000 metres high we rode for hours and while the guests were offered delicacies such baby’s wooden cradle when the family moves: on And they are stories for the world. fering. Do as the birds. to reach the juniper valley, the summer pastures as the fatty tail of a sheep, he inquired—in Tuvan, a leather strap around the neck. More impor- for a number of Tuvan and Kazakh families. There Kazakh, or Mongolian—about the well-being of tantly, we learned how a family’s history can be The morning we started our two-day trip back 0-88982-232-8

22 BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • AUTUMN • 2006 23 BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • AUTUMN • 2006 “Adderson achieves a remarkable effect with her prose. Its clarity is so overwhelming that it becomes intoxicating.”

— The Globe and Mail

Emily Carr in her garden in Victoria, 1918. From Emily Carr (D&M). or weepy. I have loved you Images of She maps Carr’s first en- truly & shall as long as I can EMILY CARR counters with First Na- [.] Thank you for the love tions communities you have given to me. God with her animals, during her painting trips bless you—goodbye.” according to Gerta through 1913 and 0-8020-3877-8 Moray, have distracted analyses the work that re- ✍ attention from her sulted. At age 69, having suf- seriousness as an “We do not immedi- fered a stroke, botany en- artist. ately think of Emily Carr thusiast Emily Carr wrote as a person who read the 21 vignettes about wildflowers. Be- anthropology of Franz Boas and queathed to Ira Dilworth, these jottings Marius Barbeau,” Moray says, have remained out of the public eye un- “and who pored over reports of the Jesup til the publication of Wild Flowers North Pacific Expedition published by (Royal BC Museum $17.95). the American Museum of Natural His- Accompanied by illustrations by tory.” Nine razor-sharp stories Emily Woods (1852-1916), one of Moray’s view of Carr—a notoriously Carr’s early drawing instructors, Carr’s bad speller who required Dilworth’s help unflowerly prose about flowers originally in her literary endeavours—re-jigs the from one of Canada’s served her as a self-proscribed tonic for eccentric Victoria-based landlady into a her bedridden condition. far-sighted artist with anthropological in- most accomplished writers. Carr’s manuscripts and Woods’ art- tentions and humanitarian sentiments. work are held by the British Columbia “…the Emily Carr that I portray Archives. An unpublished story by Carr thought of her paintings of Native villages entitled ‘Small’s Gold’ is also included in and totem poles as a record, addressednot Morra’s volume. 0-7726-5453-0 only to the settler population, but also to ✍ future generations of Native peoples in Pleased to Meet You According to Gerta Moray, British Columbia.” 0-7748-1282-6 Caroline Adderson Emily Carr made more than 500 works ✍ of art in response to First Nations com- Earlier this year Ian M. Thom, $24.95 Trade Paperback munities. Moray spent two decades trac- Charles Hill and Johanne ing Carr’s career for Unsettling Lamoureux edited Emily Carr Encounters: First Nations Imagery in (D&M $75) to coincide with the cross- the Art of Emily Carr (UBC Press $75). Canada Carr exhibit co-created by the Released to coincide with a Carr ex- National Gallery and the Vancouver Art www.thomas-allen.com hibit touring Canada in 2006 and 2007, Gallery. 1-553665-173-1 Unsettling Encounters suggests Emily Carr consistently worked to champion For a complete list of books by and about Emily Carr, visit www.abcbookworld.com First Nations peoples and their traditions.

15 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 PEOPLE

This adult story contains graphic scenes of sexual and physical violence, including a HATS OFF TO TILLY rape scene with the heroine clutching her teddy bear. Among those acknowledged by Tilly for nyone who can resist the lure of Holly- their support are film director Mike wood in favour of parenthood deserves Nichols and the Vancouver Young Adults Kidsbooks book club. some respect, so hats off to Meg Tilly for ✍ turning her back on a Golden Globe-win- Tilly also has a forthcoming children’s ningA career and returning to live in B.C. in 1994. book, Porcupine (Tundra Books), due in 2007. It’s about a family who moves from Rather than be known for her roles in movies such as The Big Chill their home in Newfoundland to the grand- and Agnes of God, nowadays Tilly would prefer some credit for writing parents’ home after the father dies in Af- a riveting and explicit novel, Gemma (Syren $15.95 U.S.), about the ghanistan. It culminates in the daughter’s abduction and sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl. Due in October, realization that a family can be made in Gemma explores the dynamics between a sexual predator and his prey many different forms. whose resilience has already been tested by abuse suffered at the hands Tilly’s debut novel, Singing Songs, origi- of her alcoholic mother’s boyfriend. nally published by Penguin Putnam in Nabokov’s Lolita was never so bold. All-too-believable, Gemma re- 1994, is being reissued this fall by Syren. lates a cross-country journey made by low-life kidnapper Hazen Wood It’s about a young girl, Anna, trapped in a with his captive, Gemma Sullivan. Wood is captured halfway through dysfunctional family, and containsMeg a Tillynew the book. After a miscarriage, Gemma must find the courage to speak foreword by Tilly, reflecting on how the out against her abuser in a Chicago trial. story came to be written. Gemma 0-929636-61-9 TIL MUSKEG DO US PART A honeymoon skiing o get their marriage off on the right foot, newlyweds protect the herd in advance of expanded oil drilling. TKarsten Heuer and Leanne Allison decided they “Throughout the process of writing this book,” he says, “and trip with caribou escorts should walk and ski alongside a herd of Porcupine caribou for while Leanne edited and co-directed the film, we both won- for Karsten Heuer & five months, travelling more than 1500 kilometres, over four moun- dered whether it was a eulogy we were producing or a suc- tain ranges and dozens of rivers in northern Yukon and Alaska. cessful call to action. Time will tell, I suppose, but unfortunately Leanne Allison Heuer, a wildlife biologist, and Allison, a filmmaker, joined time is running out.” 123,000 caribou for their Although the migrating caribou are protected in Canadian annual 2,800-mile trek from territory, the Bush administration in Washington is eager to winter feeding grounds to exploit oil supplies beneath the calving grounds within the their calving grounds on the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. Heuer claims drilling in Alaska would oil-rich coast off the Beau- reduce the United States’ dependence on foreign oil by only fort Sea in 2003. 4%, or approximately six months worth of oil. The couple endured Approximately sixty percent of the Porcupine caribou calves mosquitoes, blizzards, griz- are born in the refuge area that oil companies hope to develop. zlies and wolves to produce Heuer previously worked in the Banff and Jasper national Allison’s award-winning parks in the Rockies, in Slovakia and Poland, and in the NFB documentary Being Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa. A recipient of the Caribou and Heuer’s con- Wilburforce Conservation Leadership Award, he wrote Walk- servation memoir, Being ing the Big Wild: From Yellowstone to the Yukon on the Grizzly Caribou: Five Months Bears’ Trail (2002). The U.S. edition of Being Caribou won the with the Arctic Herd (M&S Karsten Heuer and Leanne Allison Grand Prize at the 2005 Banff Mountain Book Festival. $26.99), in their efforts to 0-7710-4122-5

CHAUCER BY CHOICE urists might dismiss The Rap Canterbury Tales (Talonbooks $24.95) as Chaucer for Dummies, but P Baba Brinkman’s hip-hop-hearted transpositions of Middle English into performance raps, illustrated by his brother and stage manager Erik, are justified by the Vancouver rapper. “The Canterbury Tales,” says Brinkman, “has been preserved in dozens of manuscripts from the fifteenth century, but there are no surviving pages that were written during Chaucer’s lifetime. “Since we have no text written by his own hand, every edition of Chaucer’s poetry must therefore admit the possibility of editorial corruption, either by the copying scribe, or in printed versions by the editor….This edition is no exception, but its primary purpose is to offer an interpretation of the Tales for the general reader.” Brinkman, who has tested his material at the Edinburgh Festi- val, cites rap music as the embodiment of what poetry should be, Giving Chaucer a good rap: and once was. He notes that Chaucer presented his various tales “No person I haven’t met has in the context of a storytelling contest to unite a contingent of pilgrims riding on horseback from London to Canterbury. affected me more, or taught “The clearest analogy for this storytelling contest model in hip- me more about how to exist in hop culture is the phenomenon of the freestyle battle,” he writes, the world.”—BABA BRINKMAN “a live performance event that underlies the majority of recorded rap lyrics either in style or content.” 0-88922-548-6

5 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 PROFILE

The photographer did his best, but THE INCONVIENENT TRUTHS Robert Strandquist wasn’t keen to smile. OF AN UNCOMFORTABLE So we sent Tamara Letkeman over to his house to make a nui- sance of herself. Here is her report from the trenches. SOOTHSAYER BY TAMARA LETKEMAN

obert Strandquist twirls the ice around in his glass R of black coffee, the cubes clinking together in a pleasant staccato. The home he shares with his partner of five years, Maria, is neat and well-ordered, from the woven placemats that lie on the little wooden table where we sit to the pieces of antique stained glass leaning against the panes in the bay window from which pale winter light spills through. Strandquist, in his early 50s, is also neat, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and a well- trimmed, seal-coloured beard. Nothing about him or around him hints at one of the strongest PHOTO recurring themes in his fiction— the world in collapse. The colours PETERSON of the world are dark these days,

he says. “And if you want to paint BARRY a picture, that’s your palette. No- body believes in anything anymore.” Darkness is emphasized in The Shift, a three-part, apocalyptic short story that appears in A Small Dog Barking. “There’s no moon in the sky,” he says, “and that’s basically a metaphor for God: There’s no God in the sky.” Meanwhile Strandquist does yoga, practices Zen, and is inspired by Zhuangzi, a 4th-century B.C. Taoist philosopher, whose ideas strongly influenced Chinese Buddhism. For Strandquist, to deny the existence of God—or Allah or Yahweh or Brahma, whatever name you use—is absurd. “We blithely Robert Strandquist wonders if perhaps men have gone and buried their walk around thinking that there is no God,” he says, and because of it we are heads like so many resigned ostriches, leaving women to run the show. teetering on the brink of oblivion. Darkness is never far away. Had he dystopian mess we’re in has much to do Concurrently, Strandquist suggests “We’re so close to the abyss,” says the not discovered meditation in 1980, al- with the destruction of indigenous cul- western culture has reduced the mod- soothsayer, “we’ve got to save us from coholism might have killed him. As well, tures by western colonialism and impe- ern-day male to the likes of Homer ourselves. Here we are on this great ship during his first two years of being a full- rialism and extends to what Strandquist Simpson, a notorious “goof” who is an that’s about to run into an iceberg.” time writer, he was beset by terror and calls the destruction of our indigenous alien to his children. “Most men are like Nor does Strandquist have the an- anxiety, constantly grappling with the selves. It comes from the West’s pen- Homer swers either. “His fiction’s complaint [has] question: Why am I doing this? chant for trashing religions—particu- Simpson. And no particular object or centre,” says Brian Kaufman, Strandquist’s larly Islam. This is a sin, Strandquist says, that’s a ruined Gaston. “Nor does it offer solutions, so editor at Anvil Press, prefers to view that will come back to haunt us. thing; that’s not a in this way it feels so accurate.” The Strandquist as a kind of soothsayer. “His “We have no right to be so destruc- complete form. appeal of many of Strandquist’s stories seem to talk in the sense of parative when somebody’s got something that It’s a mutation of characters, Kaufman says, “is bles. They’re like a warning sign telling they value so much they’ll give up their something natural.” they’re just like you and me, and us we’re going to hell, and we’d better lives to protect it,” he says. And then, Strandquist believes you see how close any of us are to do something fast.” Novelist Bill with a wistful air, looking down at the women are gen- falling through the cracks.” Gaston concurs, calling Strandquist table, brushing away invisible crumbs, erally more on the ball, but Leo, the protagonist in a West Coast Kafka. “I guess because one he adds, “I wish we had something that he is is not confident that Strandquist’s novel The Dreamlife of senses in his work, as a sort of backdrop, we valued that much in our culture. If either sex has what it Bridges (Anvil Press, 2003), gets an existential burden, that there’s a kind we did, we’d be way better off. We takes to bring the caught in a tailspin through the of nasty trick going on.” wouldn’t be teetering on the world forward— According to Strandquist, this edge of oblivion.” or set it right. continued on page 18

17 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 PROFILE

Robert Strandquist has unleashed his third book in five years, A Small Dog Barking continued from page 17 of Lethbridge, and later at UVic, he real- loss of job after job, and home after ized his course had to be writing. “It lit a ete had noticed bar codes appearing on things long before the scan- home, until he eventually ends up on fire under me that’s still going today.” ners appeared in the stores. In prison he tried to make the connec- the streets. His son has committed sui- Now holding an M.F.A from UBC, tion, but the iceberg it was the tip of floated just out of reach. In jail you live in your head, but Mete had always lived in his head. Jail cide, and his tools—the only possessions Strandquist has banished his demons. Mwasn’t a big change. He tried to make the connections but there were none. Church he still retains once he’s homeless—get The terror he felt upon becoming a full- was a conspiracy to keep you from God. Families ensured you never had intimacy consumed by fire. For renewal to hap- time writer has dissipated, and he no with anyone. Justice, a jury of your peers, just one more extinction event. Lazarus pen, for healing to happen, we have to longer asks himself, why am I doing this? raised from the dead should not be in charge of the nursery. start all over again. “And in the deepest It’s as if he’s come to an understanding One night the wrath of God trampled all over his imitation Persian rug, breaking sense, we have to start from nothing,” with God, struck a deal with Him, and several of his fingers, landing him in a cell where he was immediately raped by a Strandquist says. “We have to throw it has every intention of holding up his end chalk outline. Jail was where you were force-fed time. The biggest thing that never away, throw everything away and begin of the bargain. existed, they pushed it down your throat. It was all you had to think about, that and again.” “It’s a reciprocal thing with nature,” your crime, if you were lucky enough to have one. In the early days family visited, Growing up, Strandquist bounced he says. “If you make a decision to go in bringing their baskets of memories. As their visits became more around B.C. with his family, and his early a particular direction, then the impulse strained, they wanted him to confess to the poor woman’s mur- education was a disaster. He failed classes. is yours, but all the rest of it is up to na- der. They were tired of making the trip, but naturally they denied He went from a middle-class high ture—or Brahma, or whatever.” There it. Mete was glad when they stopped coming. It was like when school in Kelowna to Surrey where there is a certain kismet to his thinking, a everyone knows something they’re not telling you, something they were students smoking in the halls. Dis- karmic philosophy that keeps his “ass in know about you, something too appalling to tell you about your- heartened by his new surroundings, he the chair.” It tells him God is working self. Tidy resolutions, adherence to irrefutable absurdities. started skipping classes and eventually away on his behalf to help him in his Just remember to take cell doors at a crouch, and the chairs dropped out when he was in Grade Ten. chosen pursuit, and so prevents him kill your back if you try and relax in them, all the while trying to Three years later, Strandquist entered from abandoning it to do something else block the clatter out, elbowing suspicious bowls of meal. Every- Douglas College in New Westminster when things get tough. where, propaganda proclaimed that revenge had been eradicated from the face and steered himself towards the arts, in- “I’ve learned the hard way. You get of the earth, but they never told you about the vial they’d lost somewhere in the cluding writing, even though he was something good happening and for files. functionally illiterate. whatever reason, you decide it’s not the Already one parole hearing was a file folder; his test score grid didn’t line up to “It’s kind of fascinating why I chose right thing anymore, and you go off in the machine’s, so they turned him down. When they told him, he just nodded like they made all the sense in the world, relaxing his muscles, taking it in. The warden to do something that I didn’t know any- this direction and, boy, do you pay a had to placate the guards’ union, the government mandarins, the news media, his thing about,” he says. “I would have price. So that’s why I keep writing. This wife. Somebody had to pay for it all. been much wiser to choose music or en- little voice says, just do it. So I do it.” DNA was no sooner coined when it turned up in forensics. He could see it coming gineering, which is what I was really in- 1-895636-69-8 and then it overtook him, like bar codes. Ambitious smalls were always making terested in.” Eventually, at the University Tamara Letkeman is a Vancouver writer. everything smaller; it was the great stone, the great uphill. What occurred occurred because of the completely unrelated connections between things. It was the warden, claiming rashly, in public, that no wrongly accused men were being held in his facility. It was the urine sample of fate, a piece of meat on the head of a pin. Some pinching and probing, and a few tests and sword dances later, the odds were in his favour, ranging in the billions to one. The DNA tests were conclusive and the warden was out on his ass, but it took months before Mete staggered down into the valley a free man. There had been no hoopla, nobody on the outside waving in. City administration threatened him and lawyers shouted. A priest whispered that he should forgive God. And the only free shrink found him repellent. He rented a room in his old neighbourhood and relaxed in his gonch. What it was simply went on. The public found his vague innocence troubling. Slowly he resigned himself to the traumas in the walls and the not insignificant reigns of gar- bage. It didn’t matter; he’d become an old madman long ago, anyway. One night after he’d turned out his lamp it all started again. He thought he was having a dream: his door flying open, six Navy seals framing him in watertight pis- tols. They called him a terrorist motherfucker, bound his wrists with zap-straps and were about to drag him down the stairs when a bright light in the crowd realized Robert Strandquist: they were in the wrong room, on the wrong floor. This revelation was followed by a is the guest editor of considerable pause. One of them reluctantly reached out with his bayonet and, PHOTO subTerrain magazine with a flick, cut the zap-strap. Covering each other, they withdrew. A minute later #44: Strong Words for A there was a crash on the floor below, a cry of protest cut short. A small dog barking. PETERSON

Polite Nation. —Excerpt from A Small Dog Barking (Anvil Press). BARRY

18 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 PEOPLE WHISTLING PIXIE It is impossible not to feel sympathy for Tim Lander when he describes sleeping under the Burrard Bridge and waking to discover his false teeth were stolen.

FTER DECIPHERING THE TINY ITALICIZED TYPE in Tim Lander’s self-published memoir The Magic Flute, the lingering impression one feels is admiration. AThe sophisticated manner in which the guileless Lander portrays himself simultaneously as a harmless simpleton and a gentle wise man makes the 68-year- old street poet seem like an over-grown sprite or an undiscovered Tarot card character who invites complex interpretations. “I was an aged man,” Lander writes, “a paltry thing, travelling every week with my pack on my back, my hat on my head and my piccolo in my pocket, over on the ferry from Nanaimo, to play around the market and craft shops of Granville Island.” A penny whistler for your For years Lander refused to submit to Nanaimo’s thoughts:“And in Nanaimo, the humiliating by-law that requires all buskers to audi- licensed musicians, wearing tion in front of a by-law officer to obtain a license, and their official photo identity name tag. Unwilling to play his penny whistle or pic- cards, play on designated colo legally on the streets of his hometown, he began spots, on designated days, busking in Vancouver instead. according to some code of “At night I would unroll my sleeping bag on a thick, by-laws dreamt of by City soft growth of ivy under the Burrard Street Bridge, with Hall.”—Tim Lander the ever-present noise of traffic thudding above me. “I reckoned that if I made a few dollars, why spend it on a cheap bed? I had no shame in sleeping like a hobo. I’d always secretly admired the ‘gentlemen of the Lest anyone underestimate Tim Lander, or even pity George Orwell tried to get to the root of things in road’ and by nature I’m a penny-pincher.” him, he is perfectly capable of dropping sly references Down and Out in Paris and London. Tim Lander tries While some youngsters have belittled him as a hag- to Yeats when he’s not conducting his erudite, one-man to get to the root of things on a daily basis. gard version of Father Christmas on the streets, most campaign to assert the validity of the humble chapbook Few writers in our midst have the strength of char- passers-by have responded kindly. as the purist vehicle for poets, “not dependent on the acter to run the risk of saintly behaviour, of being ridi- “If you can play me some Jethro Tull,” says an Abo- good will of the government.” culed as naïve. riginal man in a Pink Floyd t-shirt, “I’ll see if I can find Lander remains leery of what he calls “the hierar- But Lander, who grew up in England, describes him- you a buck.” Lander replies he’s just an old hippy who chical filter of the Canada Council system of Approved self as a coward, not as a rebel. He knows he can’t only plays music off the top of his head. The man gives Editors and Publishers.” change the world. him his box of take-out food anyway. “Chapbooks can be printed in small quantities, as “I am an old man, time moves on, and the rock mu- Another time a cop encouraged him to keep play- needed,” he says, “and they do not require a huge out- sicians with their enormous amplified sound systems ing, even after a noise complaint was made. lay of cash. They are cheap, unadorned, designed to are telling the politicians how to run the world, and Then one morning Lander woke under the bridge, be traded with other poets, and they are affordable to the politicians pretend to listen, smile for the cameras, put his hand in his hat and discovered his false teeth the kind of aficionados of poetry who attend readings, and go back to their agendas. What magic, what truth were missing. It was a few weeks prior to Christmas the educated underclass.” can emanate from all that digital, solid state circuitry and the malicious thief had ruined his ability to make Chapbooks have added the advantage of display- and strutting, grandstanding rock and roll tub thump- his meagre living. He searched desperately in the bram- ing the hand, judgement and design sense of the poet. ers? bles to no avail. He couldn’t play his flute properly with- Most of Lander’s chapbooks over the years have been “… Still the ancient struggles will not go to sleep out his teeth. deftly illustrated with whimsical, minimalist sketches. and the armies march away to war, to disappear like “Then, thinking about what had happened…I re- Having just published his first ‘legit’ book called water in the sand. alized that is was absolutely the funniest thing that had Inappropriate Behaviour (Broken Jaw Press $19), he “The tide of entropy and the breaking wave of his- ever happened to me,” he writes, “and the humour of was recently alarmed to read the page proofs and real- tory are irresistible, but a line of music in the street can the whole predicament filled me with light.” ize he would soon be spreading thoughts from between give the harassed mind a small beautiful place to dwell. Lander decides he can play his piccolo even better six and thirty years ago. “The magic of the flute is a small magic, like a little without his teeth. “I could do things with the note that The psychic remedy for this trauma was to release white flower among the pebbles by the roadside, a life- I never could do before. This was my Zen moment, his umpteenth chapbook, Elegy Ritten in an ORL Nite line thrown to the poor benighted people of the city in this was my satori. My flute and I, we had discovered Café. As always, it contains Lander’s advice regarding the deep heart of their suffering.” each other like two lovers.” copyright: “Do not reproduce without love.” 1-55391-038-9 KIDLIT

Wearing a costume based on a photograph of Ginger Goodwin, John Wilson participated in Miners' Memorial Days in Cumberland. “I haven't hung out with so many socialists since GINGERGINGER university,” he said. WE BARELY KNEW YA FTER 18 TITLES FOR YOUNG READERS ABOUT COMPLEX POLITICAL SITUATIONS ABROAD, after being wrenched from his home Italy to be saved from the Holocaust. John Wilson has brought his fiction formula close to home with in Canada, Jack is plunged into mu- In France, close to 12,000 children Red Goodwin (Ronsdale $9.95), an introduction to the life and times tiny, siege and massacre. Jack man- were saved by priests and nuns. In Po- land, even though providing assistance of the socialist folk hero Ginger “Red” Goodwin who was forced ages to make new friends, but will to Jewish people was punishable by to seek refuge in the woods around the coal mining community of any of them survive? Red 1-55380-034-6; Four Steps 1-55337-704-4; death, some priests and nuns hid Jewish CumberlandA due to his activities as a union organizer. Where Soldiers Lie 1-55263-790-6 children. ✍ While Rogow documents specific Following the death of his father in its the city now known as Volgograd According to Sally Rogow’s re- cases of heroism and compassion, her World War I, young Will Ryan is sent to through the experiences of a German search for They Must Not Be Forgot- book reminds young readers that Nazi live with his uncle, a mine manager at tank commander named Conrad, a pa- ten: Heroic Catholic Priests and Nuns racial laws deprived Jews of their citizen- Cumberland on Vancouver Island. Will’s triotic Russian soldier named Vasily and Who Saved People From The Holo- ship, stripped them of their civil rights chance meeting with the outlaw Red an eight-year-old boy named Sergei who caust (Holy Fire Publishing $11.99), and robbed them of their possessions. Goodwin in the forest prompts him to tries to survive in the rubble. some 155 Catholic institutions in Italy During Krystallnacht in 1938, Jewish consider the legitimacy of the miners’ In an afterword, Wilson notes the opened their doors to Jewish refugees shops were destroyed by government unionized protests and Goodwin’s radi- starving and freezing remnants of the and made it pos- troops and paramilitary units. cal view that the conflict between Brit- German army under Field Marshall von sible for the In 1939, at the outbreak of World ain and Germany has capitalist origins. Paulus finally surrendered on February majority of War II, Jews were forced to wear the Along the way Will befriends a Chinese 2, 1943. “The dead were burned in piles Jews in Star of David. In Eastern Europe, they boy and learns about racism, and he falls on the open steppe and the survivors were robbed of their belongings and in love with a beautiful Scottish girl marched off to a captivity from which forced to live in ghettos. Beginning in whose family is helping Goodwin sur- few returned,” he writes. The battle of 1940, Jews in all occupied countries vive in the woods. Stalingrad remains under-acknowledged were arrested and deported to concen- Wilson’s preceding young adult novel in the West because American, British tration camps. By 1942, the killing of Four Steps to Death (Kidscan $19.95) and Canadian troops did not participate. Jews in gas chambers was underway. revisits the horrific encounter between Wilson’s forthcoming young adult According to Rogow’s press material, the troops (and egos) of Hitler and Sta- novel is Where Soldiers Lie (Key Por- 5,962,129 Jews were murdered, more lin during the battle and siege of ter $15.95). Set in the exotic than 1,000,000 were children. 63% of Stalingrad, 1942-1943. Resulting in world of British Imperial India, European Jews were killed. Death rates more than one million deaths, this 229- it charts the adventures of Jack per country: Poland 3,000,000; Hun- day impasse was the turning point in O'Hara through the tumultuous gary 596,000; France 200,000; Belgium World War II, after which the Germans summer of 1857. With barely Sally Rogow 36,800; Italy 7,630. never won a major battle. Wilson revis- time to adjust to his new world 0-9767211-6-3

Find the anchorages dreams are made of TRANSMONTANUS 14 "The ultimate cruising guide to the South Coast of B.C." – Pacific Yachting Best Anchorages of the Inside Passage covers Basking Sharks over 200 anchorages from Victoria to Cape Caution, and includes passes and ports. More by Scott Wallace & Brian Gisborne than 120 maps; over 450 colour photographs and illustrations. Written by former Pacific Yachting Find it here columnist Anne Vipond and William Kelly, based on their 25 years of cruising the Inside Passage. Whether you are cruising the Strait of Georgia or Mermaid Tales, Toﬁ no Queen Charlotte Strait, you'll find the best The Net Loft, Bamﬁ eld anchorages with this new book. BC Ferries 320 pages, over 500 photos and maps. Colour photography throughout. Duthie Books ISBN: 0-9697991-7-9 $44.95 Crown Publications Miners Bay Books Pollen Sweaters, Lund 325 English Bluff Rd. Ph. 604-948-0594 Magpie Magazine Gallery Delta, BC v4m 2m9 Fax 604-948-2779 email: [email protected] Published by New Star Books www.oceancruiseguides.com

25 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006 PEOPLE

stella Hannah Carroll, the sub- ordered her released. There were no fed- eral prison facilities for women anyway. ject of Linda J. Eversole’s THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE BUBBLY AT In September 1908 Stella purchased biography Stella: Unrepent- E her most splendid home. This was ant Madam (Touchstone $19.95), ar- Rockwood, designed by the architect rived in Victoria in 1899 to spend John Teague for the pioneer brewer, Christmas with a friend. The Christ- Joseph Loewen. It was a 12-acre estate mas dinner was a sumptuous feast adjacent to the Victoria Gardens Hotel STELLA’S in the Gorge area. It suited her pur- of game and poultry prepared by pose very well. She could keep the Her- two cooks, lots of champagne, spir- ald Street establishment but if things got its, music and merrymaking lasting PETTICOAT JUNCTION too dangerous she could transfer her en- well into the night. tire operation to Rockwood. How a Victoria madam prospered in the skin trade. In spite of the grand houses, the beau- It was actu- tiful gowns and jewels purchased dur- ally more than a The Broad Street madams moved to “I object. I would point out to Your ing European travels, Stella’s personal life seasonal festivity, other locations, and Stella migrated to Honour that you cannot consider the was far from decorous. She gravitated for the friend two properties on Chatham and Her- previous convictions.” to violent men and the police were called was celebrating ald Streets. The opening of the Empress “Oh yes I can.” several times to defend her from the as- the transfer of Hotel in 1908 brought an in- “Oh no you can’t.” saults of husbands and lovers. The worst her home—an crease in business, but she So it went on until Jay handed GIVNER incident was a shooting at Rockwood. It JOAN upscale was subjected to constant down a $90 fine. Aikmen de- was probably not the accident that she brothel—to a harassment for viola- clared his intention to appeal. and her lover subsequently claimed, and new owner. When the new owner fell tions of the liquor rul- Jay’s reply was “Next case.” it resulted in the amputation of part of downstairs in the early hours of the ing. She appeared in She was sentenced to jail her leg. After a long convalescence, she morning, she died instantly. Stella was court so often that it several times but managed to returned to work, racing in her horse- shocked, but the accident provided a was said Magistrate avoid doing time, though on drawn buggy between her businesses. wonderful business opportunity. George Jay saw more one embarrassing occasion But eventually, her businesses went In San Francisco she had acquired all of her than her cus- she was escorted to the prison downhill, debts accumulated, and she the skills necessary for running a “par- tomers did. He got so at New Westminster. She ar- lost all her Victoria properties. Even lour house” with a very genteel clientele. fed up that he hardly rived to find that the Attor- Rockwood was registered in the names However, that city was already well- listened to the evi- ney General, William Bowser of her brother and sister. served with high-class brothels, and dence against her. (later premier of B.C.) had In 1920 she returned to California Stella was ambitious. Her early life had On one occasion he and operated a legitimate boarding been hard. At fourteen she’d become the found her guilty more Stella Carroll’s first brothel in house. She even married again, for the protector of three younger siblings, and or less because she’d Victoria was on the top two floors fourth and last time. In spite of an out- she’d raised them in a sod house in Kan- been found guilty of of the Duck Block on Broad Street, burst of jealous rage against her sister at sas. Now she aspired to be nothing less the same charge the pre- notorious for its brothels and the wedding (the groom complimented than the top madam in her city, presid- vious month. At this, her saloons at the turn of the century. the sister a little too enthusiastically), the ing over an elegantly furnished house lawyer James “Tod” Aikman marriage was a happy one. and offering fine food, good wines, and sprang to his Stella was devastated by her husband’s beautiful women. Victoria seemed the feet: death twelve years later. When she died ideal place. at the age of 73, she was poor, lonely, The establishment that fell so con- and in pain. She lived alone in a small veniently into her lap was on Broad rented frame cottage with bare floors Street between Yates and Pandora, an and poor furnishings. For company she area of small, quiet brothels and saloons. had only cats and rabbits, and memo- There she occupied the two upper floors ries of the days when she swept to the of the Duck building, named for entrance hall to greet her guests, calling Simeon Duck, a colourful character out, “Company, ladies,” to signal the known as a freethinker and believer in arrival of clients. the spirit world. A businessman who This is a beautifully produced book served in the legislature periodically, he full of fine photographs, many of them appreciated the profits that came from the legacy of Stella’s personal vanity. She renting buildings for “sporting houses.” was photogenic as well as handsome, and Stella operated her place like a board- adored posing in her elaborate outfits ing house, renting out rooms and mak- on all ceremonial occasions. The pictures ing money from food and liquor while are also the result of the author’s tireless the girls kept their earnings. The city fa- efforts in seeking out material. Eversole thers turned a blind eye to the red light spent 20 years researching Stella’s life, district in the city centre, as they did to traveling to California to meet the de- the quiet places at the south end, which scendants of Stella’s siblings, and gath- catered to the influential businessmen ering archival documentation. In the who were members of the Union manner of all good biographers, she Club. Then everything began to manages simultaneously to tell a life- change. story and evoke a historical period, and Simeon Duck died. The San Fran- to make both narrative strands very cisco earthquake brought an influx of lively. 1-894898-31-1 madams and their employees to Victo- ria, and the moral reformers gained Biographer and novelist Joan ground. The Temperance and Moral Givner has written critical stud- Reform Association was joined by ies of female characters, includ- groups such as the Purity League and ing Katherine Anne Porter and the Christian Temperance Union. In Mazo De La Roche. 1906 Alfred James Morley was elected Mayor. A racist and avid proponent of Asiatic exclusion, he also closed saloons Police mug shots of the on Sunday, and decreed that no prostitutes Lizzie Cook and house of prostitution should be al- Martha Roberts who both lowed to sell liquor. He became worked at Stella’s Herald Stella’s nemesis. Street brothel.

13 BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2006