BOOKS FROM ALL OVER THE MAP

PEOPLE OF THE MIDDLE INVESTING IN PLACE MAKING MEANING OUT Economic Renewal in Northern OF MOUNTAINS An Archaeological History SEAN MARKEY, GREG HALSETH, AND DON MANSON The Political Ecology of Skiing ANNA MARIE PRENTISS & IAN KUIJT MARK C.J. STODDART Investing in Place is about creating the foundations The Middle Fraser Canyon contains some for renewing northern British Columbia’s rural Mountains bear the imprint of human activity. of the most important archaeological sites and small-town economies. Markey, Halseth, and Scars from logging and surface mining sit in British Columbia. Prentiss and Kuijt take Manson argue that renewal is not about nostalgic alongside national parks and ski lodges. Although readers on a voyage of discovery into the reliance on the policies and economic strategies of WKHHQYLURQPHQWDOH΍HFWVRIH[WUDFWLYHLQGXV- ancient history of the St’át’imc, or Upper Lillooet, the past – rather, it is about building a pragmatic tries are well known, skiing is more likely to bring a people whose struggles and successes are and innovative vision for development, one that to mind images of luxury, wealth, and health. brought to vivid life through photographs, artistic acknowledges both the opportunities and the 6WRGGDUWUHYHDOVWKHPXOWLSOHRIWHQFRQȵLFW- DQGȴFWLRQDOL]HGUHFRQVWUXFWLRQVRIOLIHLQWKH challenges posed by resource development and ing meanings attached to skiing by skiers, mass villages, and discussions of evidence from global and technological change. media, , industry leaders, and archaeological surveys and excavations. ȏ3DSHUEDFN environmentalists in British Columbia. ȏ3DSHUEDFN SDJHV ȏ3DSHUEDFN SDJHV $YDLODEOH-DQXDU\ SDJHV $YDLODEOH-DQXDU\ $YDLODEOH-DQXDU\

ARCHITECTURE AND THE THE RIGHT TO A HEALTHY SO NEAR YET SO FAR CANADIAN FABRIC ENVIRONMENT The Public and Hidden Worlds of RHODRI WINDSOR LISCOMBE Revitalizing ’s Constitution Canada-US Relations DAVID R. BOYD GEOFFREY HALE Architecture plays a powerful role in nation building. Buildings and monuments not only Canada has abundant natural wealth, beautiful So Near Yet So Far provides an in-depth look at FRQVWLWXWHWKHEXLOWIDEULFRIVRFLHW\WKH\UHȵHFW landscapes, vast forests, and thousands of rivers the multiple dimensions of Canada–US relations, the intersection of culture, politics, economics, DQGODNHV7KHODQGGHȴQHV&DQDGLDQVDVDSHRSOH particularly since 9/11. Based on almost 200 and aesthetics in distinct social settings and dis- \HWWKHFRXQWU\KDVRQHRIWKHLQGXVWULDOL]HG interviews with policy makers, opinion-shapers, WLQFWWLPHV)URPȴUVWFRQWDFWWRWKHSRVWPRGHUQ world’s worst environmental records. Renowned and interest group leaders in both countries, this city, this anthology traces the interaction between environmental lawyer David R. Boyd argues that book considers the interaction of domestic FXOWXUHDQGSROLWLFVDVUHȵHFWHGLQ&DQDGLDQDUFKL- &DQDGDPXVWFRQVWLWXWLRQDOL]HHQYLURQPHQWDO and cross-border politics at several levels: tecture and the infrastructure of ordinary life. rights and responsibilities if it hopes to improve political-strategic, trade-commercial, cultural- its environmental record. psychological, and institutional-procedural. ȏ3DSHUEDFN SDJHV ȏ3DSHUEDFN ȏ3DSHUEDFN 1RZDYDLODEOH SDJHV SDJHV $YDLODEOH'HFHPEHU 1RZDYDLODEOH

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2 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 LETTERS Sánchez chill BCTOP I JUST PULLED UP THE NEW ISSUE OF B.C. BOOKWORLD. SELLERS* the cover is so beautiful it gave me chills. As did the review, even though I had already read it in advance of publication. I love those rarely-seen photos of Celia The Canadian Pacific’s Esquimalt and Sánchez you have used to illustrate the piece. No way Railway: The CPR Steam for me to convey how emotional I feel about Celia, Years, 1905 – 1949 (Sono Nis and by extension what B.C. BookWorld (and your $39.95) by Robert D. Turner & great layout artist) have done to promote her story. Donald F. MacLachlan Rosa Jordan

Whitewater Cooks with Rossland Friends (Sandhill Book Marketing $34.95) by Shelley Adams Bowen 3

The Private Journal of I READ B.C. BOOKWORLD COVER TO cover, EACH TIME. Captain G.H. Richards: The I always find writers I know, and others I know of— Island Survey and learn about others for the first time. But the au- (1860-1862) (Ronsdale Press Novelist / singer-songwriter Spider Robinson with his daughter Terri and David tumn issue was a huge surprise. Three Bowen Island $24.95) edited by Linda Dorricott & Crosby of Crosby, Stills & Nash, backstage, thanking “Croz” for donating a Deidre Cullon writers, all with smiling photos. Wow. There was signed Martin D-28 to the benefit auction held on Bowen Island for Terri’s Amrita Sondhi with her healthy Ayurvedic cookbook successful cancer operation. Robinson and Crosby have written songs together. Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal on p. 3; and Pauline LeBel with her new book that Haven of Choice for the combines science, song, nature and spirit on p. 36. And there I am on World’s Mining Industries page 26 with two of my poems from Imagining Lives. Everyone writing (Talonbooks $29.95) by Alain Flypaper to help people have better lives. Was excited by the coverage, so I got our Deneault and William Sacher. THE COPY OF THE SUMMER ISSUE OF BCBW YOU SO KINDLY SENT ME HAS librarian to put a pile of B.C. BookWorlds near the sofa reading area in our Translated by Fred A. Reed and arrived here on Bowen Island—but I’m having a bit of trouble reading it. one local bookstore, Phoenix, to fill their doorway handout stand. I always Robin Philpot. The problem is, the autumn issue beat it in the door by a day....and the take sample copies of B.C. BookWorld to my creative writing workshops furshlugginer thing is so damned interesting, I can’t seem to put it down Nowhere Else on Earth— or literary talks as that is what informs writers of future markets and their long enough to even glance at its predecessor. Each page holds at least Standing Tall for the Great competition. Bear Rainforest (Orca Books one item of intense interest, and frequently several — I presume, and Bernice Lever $22.95) by Caitlyn Vernon hope, this phenomenon will cease when I reach the end. And resume Bowen Island when I pick up the summer issue..... [One week later] I was right. The summer issue was every bit as engaging as the autumn one. You produce fly-paper for the discerning eye. Fort Fraser I LIVE UP HERE IN FORT FRASER, ONE OF THE OLDEST EUROPEAN-NAMED Spider Robinson communities in the province, but I just read B.C. BookWorld in the Bowen Island waiting room of our medical clinic which is actually in the town of Fraser Lake, about 13 miles away. Most people consider us “way up north” so You may say she’s a dreamer it’s great to feel connected by B.C. BookWorld. Thanks for all the re- THANKS FOR FEATURING THE ENPIPE LINE, THE BOOK WE PUBLISHED TO views of B.C. books. I have made another list of things I want to read! help fight Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipelines pro- Most people don’t know Fort Fraser is a posal. Folks have contacted us about how happy they small town situated on Hwy 16, about an hour’s are to see the issue of tar sands oil in your pages. Freedom drive west of Prince George. It was established from fossil fuels is a dream shared by many. Opposition in 1806 by the ‘Norwesters,’ a combination of Caitlyn Vernon at the Victoria to the Enbridge plan has risen to 58 per cent in 2012, but the Northwest Fur Trading Company and the Book Prizes where she re- ceived the Bolen Books Chil- if we’re serious about stopping Enbridge (and Kinder XY Company. The fur traders originally came dren’s Book Prize for Nowhere Morgan’s tar sands pipeline and tanker traffic expansion), here to obtain fish from the natives, and finding Else on Earth. we need all the opposition we can get.Meanwhile The it rich in salmon and furs, they stayed and pros- America But Better: The Enpipe Line has been featured at various festivals, pered. Canada Party Manifesto launches, conferences and talks in Canada and the U.S. Janet Romain (D&M $16.95) by Chris Cannon and the book is now being taught at Simon Fraser Univer- Fort Fraser PHOTO

& Brian Calvert sity. Thanks for helping us get the ball rolling.

GARRY Letters / emails: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Christine Leclerc Christine Vancouver Noir (Anvil Press Leclerc Ave., Van., BC V6R 2S3 [email protected] $25) by John Belshaw and Diane Vancouver KAREN Letters may be edited for clarity & length. Purvey

Flavours of the West Coast site to provide news of B.C. literary arts on a daily basis (Touchwood $29.95) by Cedar- Our Readers’ Festival turns has, thus far, also been deemed unworthy of provincial wood Productions with Chef Steve 25 partnership. Walker-Duncan and guests e just passed the 10,000-author mark on our But Dave and I are rich in terms of the people we W abcbookworld.com reference site for and about B.C. serve—the literary community and our readers. Unlikely Love Stories authors, but we didn’t issue a press release. Dave and I won’t Apparently not everyone in Prince George pines to be ac- (Harbour $32.95) by Mike McCardell be making a fuss about our 25th anniversary issue either. cepted in Vancouver, and not everyone in Vancouver pines to We prefer to allocate coverage to new B.C. books and au- make a name for themselves in or , so we get The Principles of Tsawalk: thors. That said, it is appropriate to take a few lines just to say appreciation from people all over the province, on a daily basis. An Indigenous Approach to how fortunate we are to serve as the major cog in the infrastruc- B.C. BookWorld is a deep mirror of this province; we know Global Crisis (UBC Press $32.95 by E. Richard Atleo (Umeek) ture that supports book publishing and book writing in B.C. how much almost 100,000 readers per issue appreciate see- As a working partnership since 1987, David Lester and I ing their lives reflected on a quarterly basis, for 100 issues. And British Columbia Probate Kit have had the privilege of telling as many British Columbians as so we are grateful for all the books we get to see; all those (Self-Counsel Press $39.95) by possible, about as many B.C. authors and books as possible, books and authors we get to tell you about. Mary-Jane Wilson and that has made us rich. We have our own culture here, fascinating and diverse. No- Provincial support for this newspaper has decreased to less body has to have lunch in Frankfurt to keep it going. than 10% of our budget under the Liberals. After ten years, our Thanks to your eyes, after 25 years, we have become a * The current topselling titles from 11 major BC publishing companies, in no abcbookworld site, hosted by SFU, remains unfunded, despite vibrant Readers’ Festival of unrivalled proportions, 365 days of particular order. reaching 1,000 visitors per day. Our work-in-progress omnibus the year. — Alan

Publisher/ Writer: Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Advertising & editorial: Contributors: John Moore, Joan Givner, Sage Birchwater, Shane McCune All BC BookWorld reviews Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Mark Forsythe, Louise Donnelly, Cherie Thiessen, Writing not otherwise are posted online at Alan Twigg BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 Vancouver, B.C., V6R 2S3. credited is by staff. Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics www.abcbookworld.com • Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 Consultants: Sharon Jackson Produced with the sponsorship of Email: [email protected]. Photographers: Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk In-Kind Supporters: Editor/Production: Pacific BookWorld News Society. Publications Mail Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Tara Twigg Library; BC David Lester Registration No. 7800. BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Annual subscription: $25 Deliveries: Ken Reid, The News Group Vancouver Public Library. BOOKWORLD For this issue, we gratefully acknowledge the WINTER 2012-2013 unobtrusive assistance of Canada Council, a Vol. 26, No. 4 continuous partner since 1988.

3 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 GIVE THE GIFT OF READING

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George Littlechild The Salmon Twins Medicine Paint The Spirit Giggles Within Caroll Simpson The Art of Dale Auger George Littlechild, foreword by Ryan Rice Inspired by First Nations’ stories, Dale Auger A stunning retrospective of a career that The Salmon Twins tells the tale of Cree artist Dale Auger used art to portray has spanned nearly four decades features the transformation of young twins all manner of First Nations issues and more than 150 of George Littlechild’s works. and shows how working together themes, ultimately becoming one of Heritage House $59.95 hc | $24.99 ebook keeps a community healthy. Canada’s most evocative painters. Heritage House $24.95 hc | $11.99 ebook Heritage House $59.95 hc | $24.99 ebook

Cadillac Couches The Apple House The Tinsmith Highball Exit Sophie B. Watson Gillian Campbell Tim Bowling Phyllis Smallman As much a ballad to Canada as it is to Set in a small French village on the FINALIST FOR THE ROGERS WRITERS’ In the fifth book in the popular music, this marvellously quirky road trip West Island of Montreal during the ’70s, TRUST FICTION PRIZE Sherri Travis mystery series, Sherri’s novel takes readers across the country. this is a novel about language, family, A vivid and harrowing story that spans from investigation into a woman’s death Includes an original playlist. and life in a divided community. the American Civil War to the days of BC’s quickly descends into a dangerous world Brindle & Glass $19.95 pb | $9.99 ebook Brindle & Glass $19.95 pb | $9.99 ebook pioneer salmon canning industry. of drugs, sex workers, and corruption. Brindle & Glass $21.95 pb | $9.99 ebook TouchWood Editions $18.95 pb

Hidden Lives Backspin Finding Japan Scoundrels and Saloons Coming Out on Mental Illness 120 Years of Golf in British Columbia Early Canadian Encounters with Asia Whisky Wars of the Pacific Northwest, 1840 to 1917 Edited by Lenore Rowntree and Andrew Boden Arv Olson Anne Shannon Rich Mole With a foreword by Gabor Maté, MD, A comprehensive overview of everything While many studies have examined From British gunboat arrests to the this groundbreaking collection of golf-related in BC. This encyclopedic the experience of Asian immigrants tireless crusade of the Anti-Saloon League, essays offers honest, illuminating, and reference explores the growth of the game, coming to North America, this Rich Mole chronicles the tempestuous and sometimes painful first-hand accounts legendary figures and the golf courses of BC. book explores a fascinating range tragic struggles for and against having a of life with mental illness. Heritage House $28.95 pb of Canadian encounters in Japan. drink in the Pacific Northwest. Brindle & Glass $24.95 pb | $11.99 ebook Heritage House $22.95 pb | $11.99 ebook Heritage House $9.95 pb | $7.99 ebook

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4 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 LITERARYLITERARY BRITISHCOLUMBIA Group portrait on a Pontiac, Canada Day, Wells, 19 73. From Susan Safyan’s All Roads Lead to Wells

culture and architecture, religion and rituals across They were stardust, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Koppel in- they were golden cludes an account of kayaking through the ruins of a BAZAARroyal city built on an archipelago of islets off Pohnpei BAZAARmore than 1,000 years ago, as well as surprising information In the late 1960s, a generation of young people abandoned the dreams and bastions of modern society for what they about familiar travel destinations such as Hawaii, New Zea- hoped would be a simpler life in the country. Many headed land and the Galapagos Islands. [email protected]. for the hills in British Columbia—to the and Gulf 978-982-01-0888-2 Islands—and to rougher, outback communities like Wells, where cabins were available, rents were cheap and they im- agined there would be space to live an alternative lifestyle. A stickler for humour THE CONVOLUTED EXPRESSION “IRREGARDLESS” WAS ONE BY SAGE BIRCHWATER of Haida artist Bill Reid’s favourite intentional misuses of FTER SUSAN SAFYAN EDITED A BOOK OF MEMOIRS a word. The former CBC broadcaster often used the word for the 25th anniversary of the Vancouver Folk with a mischievous twinkle in his eye to see if his listener AFestival, she twigged to the fact that she could do “got it.” the same thing for Wells, near Barkerville, where she had Given raven/trickster traditions in indigenous cultures, lived from 1980 to 1985. the Bill Reid Gallery has highlighted humour in contempo- The memories and photos she collected on her return to rary First Nations art for Carrying on Irregardless ($25), the over an eight-year period now comprise All Roads a 120-page book/catalogue with a foreword and essay by Lead to Wells: Stories of the Days (Caitlin $26.95). Martine J. Reid, the late artist’s wife. Like a high school annual for an entire town, it’s a fasci- The Irregardless gallery exhibit and book are co–curated nating and intimate chronicle of how back-to-landers mixed by Tahltan artist, stand–up comedian and curator, Peter with rancher-types to make a remarkable community, one Morin, in collaboration with Reid, the gallery’s director of that has since evolved into one of the foremost centres for content and research, who proposed the original concept of the arts in B.C. the exhibition. The compendium features 60 works by PHOTO

“I loved those amazing, end-of-the-road stories,” she 28 artists for an exhibition at the Vancouver gallery

says, “from the days when the town’s population was still PALOVCIK until March 17. 978-0-9812341-2-0 around 300.” ANNIE All Roads pays tribute to oldtimers such as Lucky Tom Koppel on a trimaran on the Bay of Islands, Swede and Fred Ludditt (author of Barkerville Days); New Zealand, with Maori chief Hone Mihaka. then tells how Wells’ “first ” Brian Humber and Dale Ruckle established Filthy Larry’s Leather Shoppe in the late ‘60s as the area’s first “head shop” and hippie From Kon-Tiki to Koppel hang out. COLLECTION Initially newcomers with long hair encountered resist- AS THE FIRST CANADIAN TO WORK FOR A MAJOR RUSSIAN

ance from the old guard; then things kind of mellowed out as newspaper, Tom Koppel has had more than his share of PRIVATE . the hippies were integrated into the community and took on adventures.Now the Saltspring Islander’s fifth book of popu- PHOTO roles of responsibility. lar history and science elaborates on his years spent explor- NAGAI

All Roads Lead to Wells reflects what was happening in ing the South Pacific.

the macrocosm across North America. Most of the experi- In Mystery Islands: Discovering the Ancient Pacific KENJI ments at communalism splintered and disappeared, but there (University of the South Pacific Press $40), Koppel pon- “Coke-Salish” (Urban Totem Series) by has been a residue of idealism that survives. 978-1-894759-76-2 ders how ancient voyagers spread culture and language, agri- Sonny Assu, 2006. Light box, glass, neon, wood.

5 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 LITERARYBAZAAR BRITISHCOLUMBIA

Germinating terror CALIFORNIA DREAMING: HAVING HAD THE FORESIGHT TO HOME-RECORD TELEVISION Mustang Henry Fonda coverage of the 9/11 tragedy as it was occurring, North Caro- (centre) starred lina-born, Vancouver actor Stephen Miller has long-ges- as Tom Joad in tated a riveting novel about why and how anti-American alley the academy- terrorism festers. award-winning For his new novel The Messenger (Delacorte $31) IN HIS LATEST GLOBE-TROTTING film The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Miller takes the reader inside the heart and mind of a memoir, Rick Antonson about a young Islamic woman, Daria, posing as a journalist, who travels in a Mustang with his Depression-era has been trained to infiltrate the United States for a multi- son to find the remains of the family making an pronged germ warfare attack. exodus from highway that once linked the midwest poverty central U.S. to California, on Route 66. Route 66 Still Kicks: Driving America’s Main Murdoch’s BookShoppe in Mission has neatly summarized Street (Dundurn the travelogue through geography and history: “From Woody $26.99). Its title re- Guthrie to Will Rogers, from the TV show of the same fers to a 1960s tel- name to John Steinbeck and The Grapes of Wrath, the evision series Route connections with this highway are wide-ranging and intrigu- 66, with a theme ing.” That’s true. Antonson’s blend of nostalgia and song, “Get your kicks backroads exploration is also as an update on the sorry Rick Antonson on Route 66.” state of contemporary American society. 9781459704367

BC “As I said in my recently published book, Ultra Libris, BOOKWORLD I’m not at all surprised that the company is up for sale. I STAFF PICK Stephen Miller Ultra Libran think the company has been up for sale for about six months. “I think the company filing for [bankruptcy] protection It’s an unforgettable view of American society that dis- OKAY, SO ANY BOOK SUBTITLED POLICY, TECHNOLOGY AND is a tactical move so that it paves the way for the possibility turbingly enables the reader to feel empathy for a brain- the Creative Economy of Book Publishing is not going to be of foreign owners like HarperCollins, its distributor, to take washed terrorist-on-the-run during her 16-day ordeal, pursued everyone’s cup of tea. It’s fascinating, nonetheless, to read over the company...” by discredited Dr. Sam Watterman, an anthrax investigator Rowland Lorimer’s Ultra Libris (ECW $34.95) and Douglas & McIntyre has accumulated debts of who was ignored by the U.S. government. get a blow-by-blow summation of how the heck “The Cana- $6,265,250.68 in keeping with a statement of insolvency While the cross-continental adventures of the deadly dian Publishers,” M&S, lost their footing, and ended up signed on October 21, 2012.The Bowra Group Inc. is now “messenger” Daria provide the makings for a riveting cinema being owned by Random House, a multi-national. How on the designated Trustee pursuant to Subsection 50.4(1) of thriller, Miller has also done extensive research to reveal how earth did the Canadian government allow Random House to the Bankruptcy & Insolvency Act. ‘bioterror’ remains both relatively cheap and technologically acquire the portion of ownership ceded to University of “This is the last, large Canadian-owned trade book com- feasible. Toronto by philanthropic M&S owner and would-be savior pany to go down. McClelland & Stewart just went down The Messenger is a fascinating shocker, thoroughly en- Avie Bennett without paying a cent! Well, they say the last year... gaging, smart and eerily plausible. 978-0-345-52847-6 road to hell is paved with good intentions. Lorimer’s corre- “Toronto and set themselves up, beginning back spondence with Bennett and Random House’s Doug Pep- in the mid-90s…. to be a cultural capital, equal to New York, per has gleaned more than anyone in the press can glean, Paris, London, and so on…. So the government of Germinating hope and it’s still a mystery. Ontario has been ensuring there is not only a lot of Co-creator of the Canadian Centre for Studies in support for all cultural industries but also a stable Rahela Nayebzadah of Burnaby is an Afghan Cana- Publishing with Anne Cowan, Lorimer has pro- economic climate for them to thrive. It’s really dian whose autobiographical novel, Jeegareh Ma (Key vided a thorough account of how Canadian publishing highly competitive between provinces. B.C. has Publishing $19.99) is about dislocation and perseverance. has evolved from the Massey Commission and the On- followed to a certain extent, but there is not nearly When his wife dies of meningitis in Kabul, Afghanistan, tario Royal Commission on Book Publishing, and how it the same support in B.C. as there is in Ontario. widower Ghulam takes their six children back to Herat but dis- is now dis-evolving due to megalithic Chapters/Indigo, erod- “So it’s been very difficult. It’s a miracle, actu- covers life has changed radically ing government concern and changes in technology. ally, that D&M survived as long as it did in B.C. since the Soviet invasion. Seek- This is a necessary book for anyone who But there’s no doubt that Ontario wants to ing refuge in Iran, they encoun- knows that M&S stands for McClelland be the centre of publishing even more than ter severe prejudice as Afghans. & Stewart. it already is. That means, again, B.C. pub- Their prayers are answered ✍ lishers will be publishing more British when they are accepted as refu- ONE DAY AFTER B.C.-BORN PUBLISHER Columbia books, locally interesting gees to Canada. Nayebzadah is Douglas & McIntyre filed for bank- books, and a few Canadian titles, as a UBC Ph.D student in the ruptcy protection, Rowland Lorimer was Rowland well. faculty of arts. 978-1926780283 Rahela Nayebzadah interviewed for CBC Radio by Rick Lorimer “I don’t see a big change in that.” Cluff on October 23, 2012. 978-1-77041-076-3

6 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 Celebrating 44 Years of Publishing in Canada

BACK IN PRINT

The Canadian Pacific’s Esquimalt & Nanaimo The Esquimalt & Nanaimo Under the Wire Riding Through Fire Julie White Railway Railway Julie White The Dunsmuir Years: 1884–1905 The CPR Steam Years, 1905–1949 Reid Widmark is at the gate… Faye’s out horse jumping, and Kirsty’s doing chores. A cattle Donald F. MacLachlan At 16, Reid Widmark is on his Robert D. Turner & drive seems like fun—until the way to becoming a professional Donald F. MacLachlan This 168-page book, first wind changes. Suddenly, Kirsty jockey. Then his mother takes a published in 1986, is now back and Lancelot smell smoke… ISBN 978-1-55039-204-3 in print in a limited edition, fall—and suddenly, so does his softcover • $39.95 produced by the British Columbia future. How can he prove that An exciting new story from the ISBN 978-1-55039-206-7 Railway Historical Association. he’s got what it takes to win? stables of Hillcroft Farm! hardcover • $49.95 Distributed for the British Columbia 978-1-55039-198-5 • 5.25 x 7.75 978-1-55039-199-2 • 5.25 x 7.75 11 x 9 • 304 pages • 475+ photos Railway Historical Association. 184 pages • paper • $9.95 160 pages • paper • $9.95 978-0-9692511-0-1; 0-9692511-0-6 Also available as an ebook 8.5 x 11 • 168 pages • softcover Also available as an ebook $29.95

The Third Crop Ribbon’s Way Painting My Life Sebastian Sasquatch Sarah E. Turner A personal and historical journey A Memoir of Love, Art, and into the photo albums and Sylvia Olsen How will baby Ribbon manage Transformation Illustrated by Kasia Charko shoeboxes of the Slocan Valley with no hands and with small, Phyllis Serota 1800s to early 1940s Puddle Valley has everything a twisted feet? Everyone is in An outstanding art book and a Rita Moir young sasquatch needs—except for a surprise. This monkey is page-turning insight into the another sasquatch to play with. determined to do things her own A visual feast, with more woman behind the paintings. What happens when Sebastian way…Ribbon’s way. than 160 historic photographs goes looking for a human friend? 978-1-55039-188-6 • 8.5 X 9 beautifully juxtaposed with 978-1-55039-200-5 • 9 x 7.5 240 pages • 168 photos contemporary images. 978-1-55039-197-8 • 7 x 8.5 40 pages • full colour • paper full colour • paper 32 pages • full colour • paper 978-1-55039-184-8 • 9.25 x 8.5 $9.95 $28.95 $9.95 175 pages • 180 photos • paper $28.95

Working with Wool More English than the English The Riddle of the Raven All That Glitters A Coast Salish Legacy & the A Very Social History of Victoria A Sailing Ship A Climber’s Journey Through Cowichan Sweater Terry Reksten, foreword and Possessed by a Ghost Addiction and Recovery Sylvia Olsen revisions by Rosemary Neering Jan de Groot Margo Talbot The remarkable history of the A delightful collection of stories A perfect read for all those who A stirring testament to the power Cowichan textile workers and and sagas of the people who love tales about ships and the sea, of the human spirit and the their 21st-century successors, the fashioned a city on the rocks and and for those who are intrigued healing force of nature. women behind the Cowichan meadows of southern Vancouver by the paranormal. sweater today. Island. 978-1-55039-182-4 • 6 x 9 978-1-55039-183-1 • 6 x 9 192 pages • photos • paper 978-1-55039-177-0 • 8.5 x 9.25 978-1-55039-186-2 • 6 x 9 200 pages • photos • paper $19.95 328 pages • 165 photos 232 pages • 100+ photos • paper $15.95 Also available as an ebook hardcover $19.95 $38.95 Also available as an ebook

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

7 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 LITERARYBAZAAR BRITISHCOLUMBIA Forrest Gump Phospholipase A2 with you with brains BY RICHARD PICKARD David Gurr is a self-described charla- Rhona McAdam’s manifesto Digging the City: An tan and tango dancer whose autobiographi- Urban Agriculture Manifesto (Rocky Mountain Books cal novel The Charlatan Variations $16.95) stands out from other attempts to solve environ- (Quarry Press $32.95) consists of trun- mental crises for being an engagingly quiet book. It’s a manual, cated storylines, a six-pack that consti- a memoir and an informed testimony. tutes a moral history of the 20th century. For all its careful detail about global crises and local crises The young boy protagonist from an aris- from around the world, McAdam neatly manages to sound like she’s chatting with her reader, rather than lecturing. tocratic British family meets Albert Ein- I was hooked by the way McAdam so casually men- stein, Franklin Delano Roosevelt tioned Phospholipase A2. Of course you already know what and Amelia Earhart, but this narrative this is, but this was the first time that I’d ... oh, you haven’t is exposed as fiction after American troops heard of it? are described mustering for D-Day on the McAdam describes how the food industry blends ingre- English coast. dients in pursuit of profit through non-transparent food pro- Our hero in the second variation is a duction. Dry bread crumbs can be kind of sharp when they’re young pilot in the US Navy who crashes from home-made bread, but his plane into a volcano on Papua New commercial bread crumbs aren’t nearly as sharp. For Guinea. After a Jesuit priest in the third this softness we can thank variation tries to convert the cannibals who the good folks behind the protected the downed pilot, Gurr describes industrial development of a novelist who operates as a renowned phospholipase A2. It’s this ballroom dancer and spy, teaching tango enzyme that makes most aboard a cruise ship with Margaret commercially baked bread Thatcher and Noel Coward on board. so wonderfully soft. From With eight previous novels, Gurr sees McAdam we learn this en- zyme is sourced from pigs’ himself as a literary confidence man who Bred for soft bread David Gurr poses with Argentine tango god Carlos Gardel in pancreas tissue. pushes at the borders of fiction and fact, the Cementerio de la Chacarita in Buenos Aires. “Although Every time you enjoy a chewy, soft mouthful of indus- Gardel’s is always covered with flowers and lots of other art and reality. He was never really a spy trially baked bread, you’re eating a microscopic but distinct weird mementos,” says Gurr, “very few tango tourists go to but he most certainly loves to tango. His amount of a pig’s pancreas. Yum. this shrine. It’s quite a hike from downtown, whereas Eva book launch at Munro’s Books in Victoria I marvel at how McAdam can mention something like Peron’s grave, in the trendy district of Recoletta, is almost included tango dancing in the aisles, “for phospholipase A2, and move on to a helpful description of numero uno for the tour guides. The whole necrophilia thing of these cemeteries is not to my taste, but cats love it. Masses a moment of light amusement amidst the composting, without slipping into apoplexy. 978-1927330210 of them peeing on Eva.” gloom of publishing.” 978-1550823769 Richard Pickard reviews from Victoria

8 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 LITERARYBAZAAR BRITISHCOLUMBIA

Illustrations from David H.T. Wong’s Escape to Gold Mountain (Arsenal Pulp) From cruelty to apology

HINESE HAVE BEEN IN BRITISH COLUMBIA EVER SINCE THE RASCAL TRADER C John Meares brought labourers from China to help him build the first non-native vessel built in B.C. at Nootka Sound in 1788. Asian Canadian community activist David H.T. Wong is a bilingual architect whose descendants came to Canada from China 130 years ago. Wong’s new graphic history of Chinese in North America, Escape to Gold Mountain (Arsenal Pulp $19.95) is a comprehensive, documentary-styled inventory of the injustices and cruelty endured by Chinese in North America, with a focus on British Columbia and six generations of his family, culminating in the full apology that was rendered by Prime Minister Harper on behalf of the Canadian government on June 22, 2006 and U.S. resolutions of regret in the Senate (October 6, 2011) and Congress (June 18, 2012). 978-1-55152-476-4

9 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 Father August Brabant Saviour or Scourge? Jim McDowell In this insightful biography of Father Brabant, the first Roman Catholic missionary to work on ’s west coast during the colonial period, McDowell explores Brabant’s life among the Nuu-chah-nulth, his building of log churches, his many trips along the coast in dug-out canoes, and his mission to impose Euro-Canadian values. McDowell also records how Hesquiaht chiefs and their people fought back, sometimes successfully. With 40 b&w photos and maps.

978-1-55380-189-4 500 pp $24.95

The Flicker Tree Vladimir Krajina Poems World War II Hero and Ecology Pioneer Nancy Holmes Jan Drabek. How do we learn to be where we live? This is the question Winston Churchill personally thanked Vladimir Nancy Holmes asks of her home, the Okanagan valley. Krajina for his crucial espionage work in Czechoslovakia These are poems that explore our complicity in the during WWII. In Canada, Krajina became the father of destruction of, and our love for, the wild animals, the “ecological reserves,” now found across Canada. plants, and places around us. With 30 b&w photos. 978-1-55380-183-2 110 pp $15.95 978-155380-147-4 200 pp $21.95

The Opening Act Our Friend Joe Canadian Theatre History, 1945–1953 The Joe Fortes Story Susan McNicoll Lisa Anne Smith & Barbara Rogers. The history of the many theatres that made The first-ever biography of the black lifeguard Stratford possible in 1953, including Everyman, who won the hearts of Vancouver’s citizens, teaching Totem, The New Play Society, and Théâtre du their children to swim in English Bay and saving Nouveau Monde. With 50 b&w photos. the lives of many children and adults alike. 978-1-55380-113-9 7-1/2 x10 328 pp $24.95 With 30 b&w photos. 978-1-55380-146-7 182 pp $21.95

The Private Journal The Barclay Family Theatre of Captain G.H. Richards Jack Hodgins The Vancouver Island Survey (1860–1862) A superb collection of short stories by the winner of the Governor General’s Award Edited by Linda Dorricott & Deidre Cullon “Jack Hodgins’s stories do one of the best things fiction Published for the first time after 150 years, the journal is can do — they reveal the extra dimension of the real an exciting addition to the history of BC — with valuable place, they light up the crazy necessities of real life.” insights into the native peoples and colonial society. — With 30 maps and photos 978-1-55380-144-3 272 pp $18.95 978-1-55380-127-6 272 pp $24.95

Young Adult Books

Outlaw in I’ll Be Home Freedom Charlie India Soon Bound A Home Child’s Philip Roy Luanne Armstrong Jean Rae Baxter Life in Canada The fifth volume of the When Regan’s mother The final volume of the Beryl Young best-selling Submarine Outlaw mysteriously disappears from trilogy about the United The story of one of series takes Alfred in his the downtown core, 13-year-old Empire Loyalists sees 100,000 British children homemade submarine to India, Regan finds herself homeless, Charlotte sailing to who came to Canada as where he meets up with Raji, a living under bridges with street Charleston only to find indentured workers young Untouchable. Together they people, coping with drug dealers herself on the losing side between 1879 and 1938. tour the subcontinent, Alfred and the disbelieving police, of the war and searching learning to see India through as she searches desperately for for ways to help the black 978-1-55380-138-2 the eyes of a Dalit. her missing mother. slaves escape to Canada. 112 pp $19.95 HC 978-1-55380-177-1 978-1-55380-180-1 978-1-55380-143-6 978-1-55380-140-5 214 pp $11.95 194 pp $11.95 256 pp $11.95 112 pp $12.95 PB

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

10 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 TRANSPORTATION

A young couple, Don and Phyllis Horne, Crash course Full steam wait for an As the daughter of one of the sur- approaching train vivors of a deadly commuter plane at Saltair, north of Ladysmith, in 1942. crash in northern Canada, Vancou- ahead, ver journalist Carol Shaben has written Into the Abyss: How a Deadly Plane Crash Changed 1905-1949 the Lives of a Pilot, a Politician, a Criminal and a Cop (Random From the end of coal to the House $29.95) to recount the trag- start of diesel, E&N flourished. edy. As a former international trade consultant and CBC writer/broad- AVING WRITTEN 15 BOOKS ON RAILWAYS AND caster, Shaben says she received Hsteamships, Robert (Bob) Turner an offer from Random House within is considered the foremost authority on trans- two hours of submitting her pro- posal. Shaben has been nominated portation history in British Columbia. for three National Magazine Turner’s first book was about Vancouver Island rail- Awards, including Best New Maga- ways, in 1973. Almost forty years later he teamed with the zine Writer, and won two of them, late Don F. MacLachlan, a lifetime E&N railway a Gold Medal for Investigative Re- worker, whose father and brother were also railway engi- porting and a Silver Medal for Poli- neers on Vancouver Island, for The Canadian Pacific’s tics and Public Interest. Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway (Sono Nis $39.95), a fas- 978-0-307-36022-9 cinating and comprehensive history of the railway that was started by the Dunsmuir coal mining family in the late 1800s. RCMP course With almost 500 photos and 304 pages, this handsome com- Historic vessels from throughout panion volume to MacLachlan’s 1986 history of the E&N Canada included in Kenneth in the Dunsmuir era is a splendid tribute to the remote, westernmost end of the Canadian Pacific system and the John Haycock’s The History of lifeline of southern Vancouver Island. CPR replaced E&N’s the RCMP Marine Services (Pa- steam engines with diesel in 1949, giving rise to the third cific Marine / Heritage Group distri and final era of the railway. 978-1-55039-204-3 Locomotives, not lilies “Max is to trains what Robert Bateman is to wildlife,” Peter Vassilopoulos TERRY FERGUSSON, RAILWAY PRESERVATIONIST bution $59.95), edited by Peter Vassilopoulos, range from the CORNED BY HIS ART TEACHERS FOR HAVING early days of the Northwest San obsession with detail rather than using Mounted Police to present-day the broad, sweeping brush strokes they asserted RCMP operations including the Coast Guard and the Navy in peace were necessary to transmit the “feelings” of a le- times and during war. A special fea- gitimate artist, quit art ture is coverage of the St Roch II Max Jacquiard Many of Max Jacquiard’s paintings look eerily like photographs due to his precise school and went on to develop his own distinc- attention to detail. Here he portrays a passenger train (Nadon) ‘Voyage of Rediscovery’ along the shore of Gap Lake in the Rocky Mountains. in 2000 that circumnavigated tive artistic style and focus. North America. 978-0-919317-47-5 In his youth, steam locomotives fascinated him. So in- stead of the flowers and bowls of fruit of his art classes, Jacquiard painted steam locomotives in thundering action, Resolute course often set in dramatic mountain scenes in British Columbia In 2007, photographer Dianne or . Whelan of Garden Bay was the Today, railway-themed paintings and prints by Jacquiard first woman to accompany the Ca- grace thousands of homes and offices across North America. nadian Rangers—the regiment re- Jacquiard has also been inducted into the Railway Associa- sponsible for providing a military tion of Canada for his amazing artwork. presence in isolated Canadian com- Barrie Sanford has teamed with Max Jacquiard to munities—on a 2,000-kilometre jour- produce Train Master: The Railway Art of Max Jacquiard ney by snowmobile on Ellesmere (National Railway Historical Society / Sandhill $39.95). The Island, from Resolute to Canadian coffee table book displays 100 of Max’s finest paintings, Forces Station Alert, planting a Ca- along with background text and other illustrations. nadian flag at Ward Hunt Island en Jacquiard thoroughly researches the background of each route. They were the first to reach proposed painting to ensure the landscape is true to life and In Flyover: British Columbia's Cariboo Chilcotin Coast; an Aviation Legacy (Country the locomotive portrayed has the correct paint scheme and Light $39.95) the first aviation history of the Cariboo-Chilcotin, we learn Ward Hunt Island since American mechanical features it had in real life. He knows the wrath there were once thirteen planes based in 100 Mile, affording that ranching explorer Robert E. Peary in community bragging rights to having the most planes per capita in Canada. he will endure if he portrays a locomotive with a Worthington 1906. An NFB documentary film Clearly all sorts of aircraft played a significant role in “opening up” the feedwater heater when true train worshipers know that par- country for settlement, development and exploration. Photographer Chris about her experiences, This Land, ticular locomotive had an Elesco feedwater heater. Harris is known for his stunning coffee table books about under- has accompanied her memoir, This Barrie Sanford is one of only 150 authors named in appreciated parts of the province; co-author Sage Birchwater is the leading Vanishing Land: A Canadian independent journalist in the area. Harris’ images are matched with the Alan Twigg’s overview of B.C. literature from 1774 to Woman’s Journey to the Cana- memories and experiences of bush pilot pioneers. There are stories of 2000, The Essentials, due to his classic book on the Kettle intrigue, romance, humour and tragedy. 978-0-9865818-3-0 dian Arctic (Caitlin $28.95). Valley Railway. 978-0-9735602-2-0 978-1-894759-38-0

11 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 this winter, catch the ... FEVER ᨪ

...that only a good book can give!

Whitetail Shooting Gallery is a feverishly good novel about sexual awakening on the stark Canadian prairie from award-winnng author, and nominee, Annette Lapointe :: Budge, the latest novel from Tom Osborne is a story of addiction, rehabilitation, and the meaning of life :: Jim Christy’s Sweet Assorted is a trip down memory lane — forty years of it! A fabulous exploration of found things and the stories behind them :: Sensational Bearing Witness Victoria is just that, Eve Lazarus’s sensational stories Perspectives on War and Peace from from the legendary “garden city” — tales of bright lights, the Arts and Humanities red lights, murders, ghosts, and gardens :: Ed Macdonald’s Edited by Sherrill Grace, Patrick Imbert, and Tiffany Johnstone Mutant Sex Party is a collection of brash, brave, and confrontational plays dealing with the abuses of personal & A compelling and informative collection, Bearing Witness political power :: Trobairitz, Catherine Owen’s new sheds new light on the impact of war and the power of volume of poetry mashes Provençal rhythms & modern- suffering, heroism and memory, to expose the human day thrash metal to stunning effect. roots of violence and compassion.

McGILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS anvil mqup.ca www.anvilpress.com Follow us on Facebook.com/McGillQueens and Twitter.com/Scholarmqup

12 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 THEATRE

OON AFTER HER FATHER died, at age 55, SSusan McNicoll was sitting on his living room floor, sifting through yellowed newspaper clippings about his acting career in Canada from 1946 to 1952. Joy Coghill, circa 1953, The reviews arose from her father Floyd remains active in the B.C. Caza’s stints with Everyman Theatre in theatre community Vancouver and the Ottawa Stage Society. almost sixty years later. “I thought perhaps they were amateur productions,” she says, “but I looked at the names from the reviews and was stunned to see actors that I recognized— Christopher Plummer, Arthur Hill, Ted Follows, Murray Westgate and Joy Coghill. “I knew instantly not only was there a book in there somewhere, I was going to write it.” ✍

SUSAN MCNICOLL SCOURED ARCHIVES across Canada for years, and interviewed dozens of veteran actors such as Joy Coghill, Dorothy Davies and Thor Arngrim. Now Christopher Plummer has pro- Stage it and vided a jacket endorsement for her unprec- edented The Opening Act: Canadian Theatre History 1945-1953 (Ronsdale $24.95) “It was 1945,” said McNicoll, launching her book on Father’s Day, “there was this they will come huge blast of energy from all of these young people emerging from wars and universities The Opening Act not only records the past: it serves as an inspiring tonic and little theatres around the country.” for the beleaguered theatre of the present, recalling the self-sacrifice and In the ‘olden’ days, as The Opening Act makes abundantly clear, actors painted their ardour of brave who launched professional post-war theatre in Canada. own sets, dreamed up their own publicity stunts—and, yes, once had to pee into a car’s radiator on a frozen winter night to literally keep their show on the road. No doubt Floyd Caza would have much to say about the failure of the heavily subsi- Floyd Caza giving his dized Vancouver Playhouse in a city that best William Holden impression for a publicity wants to present itself as world class. BC shot, circa 1950. Caza’s ✍ BOOKWORLD death was the catalyst EVERYMAN THEATRE STRUGGLED FINAN- STAFF PICK for Susan McNicoll’s cially from day one, in 1946, but by Christ- The Opening Act. mas 1952 things were getting desperate. According to director Dorothy Davies, that’s when they decided to do Tobacco In those days if anyone filed a complaint “Faced with having to make the arrests “The management asked technicians, Road, leading to the biggest censorship case against a certain show, the police would be on stage in front of some one thousand pa- stagehands and even reporters, to jam the for post-war theatre in Canada. obliged to send a couple of officers to view trons, the police waited. During the second wings, making it even more difficult for the “Tobacco Road was a Jack Kirkland a performance. act the cast made entrances and exits through officers to reach the actors they wanted to adaptation of a novel with the same title by Officers attended the production on carefully calculated routes, thwarting the arrest. Police called for reinforcements, and Erskine Caldwell,” McNicoll recalls, Wednesday, January 15, and the next morn- police in their efforts. at the opening of the third act they marched “It opened on Broadway in New York to ing Everyman received a warning out on to the stage and made the poor reviews in 1933. Censorship problems from city police morality officers: arrests. seemed a certainty with its gritty and earthy clean up the production of Tobacco “The audience screamed and jeered, some depiction of poor tenant farmers in Geor- Road or close the doors. shouting ‘Gestapo,’ even as Sydney Risk gia.” “Everyman producer Sydney tried to keep them calm.” But the stark realism of the play eventu- Risk declared that the theatre While some actors were arrested and ally won over New York and played for would continue to run Tobacco taken to the police station, patrons were more than 3,000 performances, a record at Road, even if it was ordered to close given free coffee and there was impromptu that time. It still ranks in the top 20 non- or was faced with prosecution un- entertainment with the help of two fellow musical plays of all time on Broadway. der the Criminal Code of Canada.” actors in the audience—John Emerson The Niagara Barn Theatre staged the On the morning of January 17, and Bruno Gerussi. play in September 1951 and the Interna- city prosecutor Gordon Scott Close to midnight, those who had been tional Players of Kingston in the late spring confirmed charges would be laid. arrested arrived back at the theatre to finish of 1952. The Everyman production in Van- The only questions left were who the third act. They were greeted with a couver opened to capacity crowds in Janu- would be charged and when. screaming ovation from the audience, only a ary 1953. “That night, police were stand- few of whom had left. “The play was nearing the end of the ing by, waiting to arrest five of the Erskine Caldwell, author of Tobacco Road, met ✍ the Vancouver cast in 1953. At his own expense, first week of its run,” McNicoll writes, cast members when the first act was “SADLY MOST OF THE ACTORS AND he came to testify at their censorship trial. Most “when one or two members of the audience over and the curtain came down, defendants were found guilty (of obscenity) but directors I interviewed years ago are gone complained to the police about obscenity in but the curtain never came down the case was overturned on appeal. The Crown now,” says Susan McNicoll, “but their sto- the production.” that night. appealed and one actor was found guilty. ries are not.” 978-1553801139

13 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 THEATRE

Easily one of the most successful original plays in Canadian theatre history, John Gray and ’s two-hander Goes To War, about a World War One fighter pilot, premiered at the Van- couver East Cultural Centre in 1978. Billy + Billy Billy Bishop won the 1981 Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Award, the 1982 Chalmers Canadian Play Award, the 1983 Governor General’s Award for drama and an ACTRA John MacLachlan Gray award for best television program with a CBC/BBC co-production. on why he re-wrote The play has been produced over 400 Billy Bishop Goes To War times, including a presentation for German TV (West Deutschland Rundfunk) as Billy Bishop Stieg Auf. The play was the most- produced show in America for 4 years in the early 1980s according to the League of Re- gional Theatres. With Gray doubling as narrator and on- stage pianist, Soulpepper Theatre of Toronto revived the play in 2009 to sold-out audi- ences with Eric Peterson once more playing Bishop, as well as 17 other characters rang- ing from King George V to The Lovely Helene. Here John Gray explains why he chose to re-think and re-write the musical in 1998, Pianist and narrator TK adding a new song and presenting events John MacLachlan Gray through the eyes of an older Bishop recall- and Eric Peterson

PERMISSION as Billy Bishop ing his wartime experiences. ; in 2011 FILM Two combined versions of the play are newly available as Billy Bishop Goes To PRODUCTIONS War (Talonbooks $17.95). STRATA

IKE ALL DEVELOPMENTS IN FROM

the thirty-three-year- STILL and-counting evolution The trickiest question we faced was how This time, however, the whole central with the war. But now it’s become a meta- L to make sense of this radical re-casting of theme—survival and its ironies—was about phor for life. The price of survival is that of Billy Bishop Goes to War, the the principal role, in which an actor of sixty- to shift. There is a world of difference be- you experience the death of your friends.” opportunity to mount a new pro- two portrays Billy Bishop, who died in tween a man telling a story of survival at the Of course the difference between war duction in 2009 came from out of Florida (essentially of old age) at the age of, age of 30, and a man telling his story when and “normal life” is that war is way faster well, sixty-two. he is all too aware that, in the end, nobody and more compressed. A young man barely the blue. Mind you, the script was never cast in survives. out of his teens experiences in six months Albert Schultz, artistic director of stone. Hundreds of performances in North Using the same words, we found we were what the rest of us, if we’re lucky and wise, Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre, had a prob- America and Great Britain, and never did talking about something quite different. As process and understand by the time we’re lem: three days before the 2009 season was we stop tinkering with the thing, going so Eric put it, “Before, when Bishop sang about collecting our pensions—that, whether to be announced (website going up, press far as to replace an entire song in 1998. survival I took it as a romantic thing to do you’re young or old, survival takes courage. releases e-mailed, pamphlets at the printers, Theatre isn’t literature, it’s performance. The new Talonbooks edition of the play technicians signed, buckets of money spent), Shakespeare’s “plays” are really recordings Eric is therefore two scripts, depending on the Peterson an actor had abruptly cancelled his contract— of specific performances of a script that no as Bishop age of the storyteller. Differences appear as and not just any actor, but the star of a one- doubt changed over time, depending on who in 1980 explanatory notes and stage directions, while man show with piano accompaniment. was playing the lead and what themes the dialogue and the songs are the same (with “Could you and Eric possibly do Billy seemed current. the usual tweaking and that new song from Bishop?” came the enquiry from Schultz. In the case of Billy Bishop, the storyteller 1998). “Please say yes.” (I didn’t know you could defines the story. When we performed the The two endings are entirely different, PHOTO hear a man sweat over the phone.) piece in 1998 at age 52, our man was a pros- except for the final line: “All in all I’d have ERIKSON

Unthinking as always, we said yes, then perous businessman about to urge young men to say, it was a hell of a time.”

worried about it later. to join up in the Second World War. GLEN 978-0-88922-689-0

History Buff? Contribute to the BC Historical Federation’s new Online Encyclopedia of British Columbia History Your home town’s history, your pet historical subject, railways, buses, ships, it could be anything. If it is relevant to BC history then we want to know about it. Just text, or text and images. And you are credited as the author. For more information on how to contribute to this exciting project go to http://www.bchistoryonline.com

A project of the British Columbia Historical Federation

Old BC Hydro buses at Sandon, a ghost town in the Koo- tenays, photo- graphed in 2010

14 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 Brighten your winter with a BC Book

Father Pandosy Pioneer of Faith in the Northwest Edmond Rivére Translated by Lorin Card

Jean-Charles Pandosy is a little known BC pioneer, Blissful an Oblate missionary whose life story reads like an Raw Food Recipes adventure novel. From Marseilles, France to the Oregon and Washington Territories, then north to the Interior from Café Bliss of BC, Pandosy’s journey is an epic one, full of drama, Heather Cunliffe hardship and the faith of one man. 978-0-9881101-0-6 $19.95 pb Midtown Press Making Headlines With more than forty full colour photographs paired 100 Years of the Vancouver Sun with easy-to-follow recipes, this book is perfect for foodies and proponents of a raw food diet. Written Shelley Fralic by the owner of Victoria's Café Bliss, the array of Research by Kate Bird inspired, mouth-watering recipes highlight how raw Organized by decade, this fascinating book will strike food is not only bene¿ cial to our health but a complete The chords of nostalgia and memories of days past, from and decadent experience of the senses. Iron Horse World Wars to the ¿ rst man on the moon, from the glory 978-0-9876757-0-5 $30.00 pb days of Hollywood to Elvis and the Beatles in Vancouver Café Bliss Comes to the - it's all here. Packed with archival and full colour photos, the ample text and photos span signi¿ cant events in BC Klondike and around the world from 1910 to 2012. A perfect gift for National Bestseller! Eric L. Johnson history buffs and a BC Bestseller! 978-0919776-40-1 $34.95 hc The Vancouver Sun

Fueled by gold fever and economic opportunity, intrepid entrepreneurs brought the railway to the Klondike where they serviced the needs of miners and became a way to transport gold faster. This illustrated history documents the rise and fall of early railways in the North. 978-0-9681976-2-2 $16.95 pb Rusty Spike Publishing

Whitewater Cooks SIDETRACKED with FRIENDS The Struggle for TRAIN MASTER Shelley Adams BC's Fossils The Railway Art of Max Jacquiard Don't go into the holiday entertaining season without Barrie Sanford having this in your kitchen - you'll amaze your guests Vivien Lougheed with impressive, easy-to-make and delicious recipes. Bestselling railway historian Barrie Sanford has teamed And watch for it on Anna & Kristina's Shopping Bags with railway artist Max Jacquiard to produce one of Show Nov 20th! Shortlisted for a Taste Canada the most exciting railway books of the decade. Over Cookbook Award - collect all three in the Whitewater 100 dramatic colour paintings of steam locomotives Cooks series. 978-0-9811424-1-8 $34.95 pb are reproduced here including those of the Canadian Alicon Holdings Ltd National, Canadian Paci¿ c, Great Northern and the Paci¿ c Great Eastern. A beautiful collector's book for The discovery of the Kakwa dinosaur tracks by two hunters railfans. 978-0-9735602-2-0 $39. 95 hc National Railway Historical Society was a major scienti¿ c event in northern BC. Lougheed tells the story of this and other major fossil ¿ nds, many of which show how human nature and a lack of resources can diminish the science of paleontology. 978-0-9783195-5-7 $21.00 pb Creekstone Press

The Ballad of Mrs. Smith Poems Jancis M. Andrews You Are NOT What You Eat Better Digestive Health in 7 Simple Steps VANCOUVER ISLAND Van Clayton Powel Barkley to Clayoquot Matthew Maran According to research, none of us are digesting our food well. Bloating , gas, fatigue, arthritis and skin These narrative poems tell the story of an abused wife This spectacular coffee table book showcases problems are only some of the conditions that are who À ees her home in an upscale area to ¿ nd refuge Vancouver Island's major habitat zones and their most linked to improper digestion. Here's a clear road map in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Struggling as an iconic inhabitants, from black bears and eagles to old to changing how we eat - 7 steps that will lead to more alcoholic herself, she befriends drug addicts and sex growth forests and breaching whales. Stunning colour energy, vibrant health and a greater ability to eat what trade workers. Enlivened with humour and a keen eye for images capture the quintessential scenery of the far you want again, simply by enhancing your digestion. detail, the poems deepen our understanding of an often West Coast. 978-09568196-0-4 $49.95 hc 978-0-9879789-0-5 $19.95 pb neglected segment of society. Hemisphere Publishing Mind Body Fitness Books 978-1-926618-01-2 $16.00 pb Hedgerow Press

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15 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 HEALTH

MONICA ROLINSKI refineries and petrochemical interviewed David R. Boyd plants. After a couple of years for BC BookWorld on August of living and working there, she 22, a.k.a. Earth Over-Shoot started to experience serious Day, declared by the Global health problems, including a tin- Footprint Network to an- gling feeling in her fingertips and nounce the day each year when her toes. So she went to see her humanity has exhausted na- doctor and her doctor ran some ture’s budget for the year. tests, they came back saying that David R. Boyd of Pender she had very high levels in her Island is an environmental body of a chemical named tolu- lawyer and former director of ene which is a by-product of oil the Sierra Legal Defence Fund refineries. She was irate so she who has collaborated with went to see a lawyer. The law- David Suzuki and Tho- yer said, well, Argentina’s con- mas R. Berger. stitution does say that everyone His two most recent books has the right to a healthy envi- are The Environmental ronment. Then this woman, Rights Revolution: A Global whose name is Beatriz Mendoza, Study of Constitutions, Hu- gathered a bunch of her neigh- man Rights, and the Envi- bours and with the help of some ronment (UBC Press $34.95) lawyers filed a lawsuit which and The Right to a Healthy went all the way to the Supreme Environment: Revitalizing Canada’s David R. Boyd has advised the governments of Canada, Sweden, and Iceland Court of Argentina. In 2008, the Supreme Constitution (UBC Press $29.95). on environmental and constitutional issues and is the co-chair of Vancouver’s Court made the most extraordinary legal judg- Greenest City Action Team along with Mayor Gregor Robertson. He is a The Environmental Rights Revolution is member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) ment that I’ve ever read from any country the result of five years spent researching Commission on Environmental Law, the Global Network for the Study of ordering the municipal, provincial, and fed- 193 constitutions around the world, and Human Rights and the Environment, the Forum for Leadership on Water and eral governments to do a whole list of very court decisions of more than 100 nations, to the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW). A former Trudeau Scholar concrete things to decrease the pollution; re- at UBC, he has also taught at SFU and UVic. examine the impact that constitutional pro- store the water shed; and protect human visions can make on environmental protec- health from the environmental hazard. tion. BCBW: So there’s hope. He says the follow-up book, The Right TALKIN’ ABOUT A BOYD: I had no idea, despite being an en- to a Healthy Environment, “was almost like vironmental lawyer for over fifteen years a no-brainer.” It examines how and why simi- when I started this, that the idea of a healthy lar constitutional changes must be made to environment had been put into so many enshrine environmental protection in Canada national constitutions around the world. My as a basic human right. research found that we’re now up to 95 CONSTITUTION countries that have put the right to a healthy BC BOOKWORLD: I came across the Why David Boyd wants Stephen Harper environment into their constitutions. The term “rogue primates” in a book you edited, to burst the North American bubble. right to a healthy environment is the most The Northern Wild, and it’s also the title of rapidly adopted human right there’s ever John A. Livingston’s Rogue Primate: An Ex- been in a short space of time. ploration of Human Domestication (Key book, edited by a couple of guys from having a sustainable set of human values. BCBW: How do we fare in Canada when Porter, 2002). Harvard, called Sustaining Life (Oxford UP, These countries, and these regions, are ac- it comes to enshrining environmental integ- DAVID BOYD: That’s one of the best 2008) which is all about the way that hu- tually making progress towards a sustain- rity into our constitution? Canadian environmental philosophy books mans are dependent on the natural world. able future in ways that are hard for BOYD: Very little has been done. We think that has ever been written. His premise is Dr. Eric Chivian and Dr. Aaron Bernstein, to even begin to digest. that Canada is this great country and the that humans were the first domesticated both of whom are medical doctors, reached BCBW: After ten or so years of tracking reality is that Canada is a beautiful country species and that we have turned nature on the conclusion that our whole way of being them, what stands out? but our environmental laws, our environ- its head. That premise is a powerful beacon in the twenty-first century is the result of a BOYD: Sweden is widely regarded as hav- mental policy, and our environment are re- and it has had an influence on me. basic failure to recognize that we are an in- ing the strongest environmental laws and ally ranked behind the majority of From a broad perspective, human ethics separable part of nature; that everything we policies in the world. For example, impos- industrialized nations. have fallen behind our human technological do that damages or harms nature is actually ing taxes on all kinds of chemicals and forms We have terrible situations in Canada like prowess. We’re able to wreak incredible a form of damage and harm to ourselves as of pollution. They are attempting to trans- chemical valley in Sarnia, Ontario, where havoc on the earth in a way that past gen- well. It’s completely unscientific to think form the very basis of the economic struc- there are dozens of petrochemical plants erations simply didn’t have the capacity to that we could ever be separate from the natu- ture so that they create less pollution, use and oil refineries. The environment there is do. We don’t have the ethics or the institu- ral world. fewer resources. To their credit, they have contaminated almost beyond the imagina- tions to rein ourselves in. BCBW: But better resource management made progress. tion. You really have to experience it to un- As an environmental lawyer my path alone doesn’t seem to be enough. Costa Rica is one of the pioneers in this derstand how absolutely awful it must be has been searching for ways of altering this. BOYD: Because there’s a fundamental prob- field. Putting the right to a healthy environ- to live there on a full-time basis. In the beginning I was taking a very micro lem even with the language of resource man- ment into their constitution back in the early If changing things in a chemical valley approach, filing lawsuits against specific agement. When you look up resource in the 1990s. I have met many people there, envi- can happen in a poor neighbourhood in a projects, and I became frustrated with that, dictionary it’s something that’s meant to be ronmental lawyers, academics, people run- city in Argentina, because of the power of and the site specific nature of it, so I moved used. That really is not consistent with our ning convenience stores, people sweeping this constitutional law ensuring the right to on to think about how we need to change. understanding of our dependence on eco- the street, and almost to a person, they com- a healthy environment, I have every belief BCBW: And you’ve concluded…. systems from which we are currently over- mented on how that change twenty years that a similar shift should and could take BOYD: We need to change our environ- extracting our resources. Calling something ago had really marked a profound shift in place in Canada. mental laws to be stronger. But it’s not just a resource justifies the treatment as some- the way they saw their country. So now, That’s why I wrote the second book. the laws, it’s the entire system that we have thing that’s just there to serve us. Costa Ricans of all stripes really take a deep- With the first book I learned amazing things to transform if we’re going to stop behaving I talk about people living in the North rooted pride in the fact that their country about the transformative impact of the right like rogue primates, and start protecting the American bubble. We are completely fo- has this global reputation as an environmen- to a healthy environment around the world. earth. cused in Canada, and to a lesser degree the tal leader. I mean, they’re not perfect, they The second book takes those lessons and BCBW: We think that humans are not ani- United States, on extracting natural re- haven’t achieved the holy grail of shows how they can apply to Canada and mals and that somehow we live outside of sources; everything getting bigger and get- sustainability, but boy, they’ve made in- how we can learn from what other countries the natural world. ting better. Trading in your iPhone 3 for credible strides in that country. have done. BOYD: Yes, David Suzuki says we have your iPhone 4 and waiting for your iPhone In Argentina, one of the amazing stories Revolution 978-0-7748-2161-2; Healthy 978-0-7748-2413-2 evolved from naked apes to a super species, 5. It’s not like that everywhere in the world. that I came across was a neighbourhood in and he doesn’t use super in a particularly There are countries and regions that are Buenos Aires where a public health nurse Monica Rolinski is a freelance writer complimentary way. There’s a beautiful much closer to what I would describe as moved into this very poor area full of oil in Vancouver.

16 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 Christmas Gift Ideas 978-0-7726-6342-9 978-0-7726-6284-2

$24.95 $14.95

Sister and I Studio Billie’s Calendar from Victoria to London Emily Carr Share a year in the life of Billie dog Emily Carr’s hand-drawn, hand-written and “the missus”, and use this “funny book” recalling her 1911 trip perpetual calendar to write in your with sister Alice across Canada by own important dates. train and then overseas to Europe. 978-0-7726-6575-1 978-0-7726-6150-0

$14.95 $39.95

Nature Guide to the Victoria Region Images from the Likeness House Edited by Ann Nightingale and Claudia Copley Dan Savard Victoria Natural History Society Brilliant glass-plate photographs This beautiful book guides you to all highlight this history of the things natural in and around Victoria, relationship between First Peoples from mushrooms and dragonflies to and the photographers who made owls and whales, in full-colour. likenesses of them.

Royal BC Museum books are distributed by Heritage Group. www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/publications

The Natural History of Canadian Mammals by Donna Naughton

This beautifully illustrated, up-to-date guide is full of fascinating facts about all 215 known species of Canadian mammals — from polar bears to killer whales. With exquisite drawings and stunning photographs, The Natural History of Canadian Mammals is a perfect companion for students, animal lovers, and anyone wishing to gain a greater appreciation of Canada’s natural wonders.

‘This outstanding book will be the reference of first choice on mammals in Canada for many years to come.’ - Dr Ian Stirling, University of Alberta 9781442644830 | $69.95

Co-published with the Canadian Museum of Nature

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17 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 quarry pressQUARRY book release PRESS BOOK RELEASE David Gurr’s dŚĞŚĂƌůĂƚĂŶsĂƌŝĂƟŽŶƐ is a novel ĂƵƚŽďŝŽŐƌĂƉŚLJǁƌŝƩĞŶŝŶƚŚĞƚƌĂĚŝƟŽŶŽĨĞƌǀĂŶƚĞƐ͛ ŽŶYƵŝdžŽƚĞ, Sterne’s dƌŝƐƚƌĂŵ^ŚĂŶĚLJ, Melville’s dŚĞŽŶĮĚĞŶĐĞDĂŶ, and Thomas Pynchon’s 'ƌĂǀŝƚLJ͛ƐZĂŝŶďŽǁ. WƵƐŚŝŶŐĂƚƚŚĞďŽƌĚĞƌƐŽĨĮĐƟŽŶĂŶĚĨĂĐƚ͕ĂƌƚĂŶĚ ƌĞĂůŝƚLJƚŽĞdžƉŽƐĞŐŽŽĚĂŶĚĞǀŝůĂĨŽŽƚŝŶƚŚĞǁŽƌůĚ͕ dŚĞŚĂƌůĂƚĂŶsĂƌŝĂƟŽŶƐis a great romp through ůŝƚĞƌĂƌLJĐŽŶĮĚĞŶĐĞĚĞǀŝĐĞƐ͘ ĐĐůĂŝŵĨŽƌĂǀŝĚ'Ƶƌƌ͗ ͞tŝůĚůLJĂƵĚĂĐŝŽƵƐ͙͘ďƌŝůůŝĂŶƚůLJŝŶǀĞŶƟǀĞ͟ – Publishers Weekly ͞^ƚƵŶŶŝŶŐĂŶĚĞǀŽĐĂƟǀĞ͟– Quill & Quire

͞'Ƶƌƌ͛ƐǁŽƌŬƉůĂĐĞƐŚŝŵŝŶƚŚĞĐŽŵƉĂŶLJŽĨ͙ 464 pages, 6”x 9”, case bound DĂůĐŽůŵ>ŽǁƌLJ͕dŚŽŵĂƐWLJŶĐŚŽŶ͕hŵďĞƌƚŽĐŽ͕ foiled cloth, with jacket ĂŶĚzƵŬŝŽDŝƐŚŝŵĂ͟ʹĂŶĂĚŝĂŶ>ŝƚĞƌĂƚƵƌĞ ISBN 978-1-155082-376-9 $32.95 ŝƐƚƌŝďƵƚĞĚďLJ&ŝƚnjŚĞŶƌLJΘtŚŝƚĞƐŝĚĞĂŶĚ^

A retrospective look at one of Canada’s foremost printmakers ALPINE ANATOMY The Mountain Art of Arnold Shives Cloth in dust jacket, 128 pages, 75 full-colour plates, 4 photos With essays by Toni Onley, Edward Lucie-Smith, Bill Jeffries & others Trade edition $39.95 Limited edition $225 15 copies, with an original print, signed, slipcased Order from Tricouni Press Ltd ISBN 978-0-9811536-1-2 3649 West 18th Avenue Vancouver, BC V6S 1B3 A co-production of Tricouni Press, Burnaby 604-224-1178 Art Gallery, & Simon Fraser University Gallery [email protected]

Carrying on “Irregardless”: Humour in Contemporary Northwest Coast Art September 12, 2012 - March 17, 2013 An exhibition that marks a new beginning in appreciating Northwest Coast indigenous humour through a rich and provocative range of works by 28 accomplished Northwest Coast artists. A 120-page richly illustrated companion book is available at the Bill Reid Gallery Gift Shop.

Gallery & Gift Shop Hours: Wed - Sun, 11AM - 5PM 639 Hornby Street Vancouver, BC www.billreidgallery.ca | 604.682.3455

Beau Dick: Laughter Mask, 1973. Collection of Steve Loretta. Photo: William Neville

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18 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 A quarterly forum for and about writers; as well as a series about the origins # of B.C. publishing houses 48 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 • [email protected] Returning to Vancouver, we moved our operation into the downstairs floor of a house on the Upper Levels in North Vancouver, living in the upstairs portion. Eventu- LOOKOUTLOOKOUT ally we had eleven people working in that house, and the ACK IN 1971, IF YOU HAD one next door, before we moved in 1983 to an office/ wanted a simple uncon- The law helps warehouse down near the Second Narrows Bridge where we remain to this day. tested divorce, it would Back in the basement of that house we were expanding have cost you $800 in legal those who our legal titles into Alberta, Manitoba, and the Atlantic provinces. Increasingly our buying public was fees. Even though lay peo- asking us to publish easy-to-read information to help them Bple had the right to represent themselves, you self-help in their business ventures. We realized that the business still needed the services of a lawyer because titles of the day were American-based, written for MBA graduates and mostly published in hard cover. the legal profession guarded the process as well themselves The fact that 80% of all small business owners had as the necessary legal forms. only a high school degree convinced us to start producing step-by-step paperback titles for the small business per- That year I met a young articling law student named Self-Counsel Press was son on subjects such as accounting, sales, marketing and Jack James who had been approached by a lady friend the first in the world to business plans. Just trying to do my business on the phone who couldn’t afford the $800 for a divorce, so he coached produce a divorce guide or any with two little kids underfoot was a challenge. her and provided the actual forms. The name of any law My solution was to have a big bowl of Smarties on my firm being conspicuously absent, this divorce caught the do-it-yourself legal guide. desk and when the phone rang I would grab a fistful and attention of court reporters. Here co-founder and president throw them madly around the room for the kids to scram- By the time her court date arrived, the room was packed ble after them. Not too sanitary but it did buy me a few with local media. The judge, who perhaps would not have Diana Douglas recalls the minutes of quiet to conduct some business. been so gracious without them, played to this large audi- origins of her company. Jack, as a gift for me, had a small portable light table ence and helped her through the process. The cost of this built so that I could continue to paste up our books in bed divorce was $29 and it was widely reported throughout the same bookstore next to the New Westminster Public at night. Not romantic but effective. How many folks today B.C. We were besieged with mail from people begging for Library and the Dairy Queen where I would meet UBC can remember how we had to paste-up the book’s pages the “information.” librarian Basil Stuart-Stubbs for burgers. from the typeset material on thick lined paper? A double That was the start of Self-Counsel Press. From the At Self-Counsel Press we were hearing from many of spread was called “cats and dogs,” I think. All the typos or beginning the goal of the press was to empower people, at our divorce customers; they were thrilled to have success- corrections had to be glued in, line by line, really straight. an affordable price. This is still the goal today. fully represented themselves and saved lots of money in In 1983, my life-partnership with Jack was at an end. ✍ the process, but now they wanted us to help them ‘help We got our divorce under the Companies Act and it cost a I HAD STARTED OUT WORKING IN ALBERT BRITNELL’S themselves’ to incorporate companies, probate estates, lot more than $29. I bought him out of Self-Counsel Press. bookstore in Toronto. It’s long gone now but it was very write wills, handle small claims actions, real estate issues, In 1987, I hired a consultant, referred to me by my prestigious! Not only did I cause a customer to scream at landlord tenant problems. Most important of all, they father, to prepare a marketing plan to further our expan- me within the first week working there—how was I to wanted to know how to fight that traffic ticket! sion into the U.S. When the plan was presented to me I know you don’t ever, ever touch Glenn Gould’s We were dealing with a legal community that jealously asked this consultant to become my partner in the U.S. hands?—I also accidentally set off the fire alarm. The guarded their lucrative territory. Jack struggled to find operation and to put her plan into motion. So began a ensuing madhouse of lumbering fireman with big dripping lawyers with the experience and progressive attitude to wonderful business partnership. Self-Counsel Press ex- hoses snaking throughout the multi-level store, tripping write the guides. Mainly our authors were young, fresh panded and flourished under her management, but more up the Rosedale matrons, nearly gave dear Mr. Britnell, Sr. out of law school and willing to challenge the establish- importantly I had found a great friend in Pat Touchie, a heart attack. ment. Now they, too, are the establishment, as QC’s and who married Rodger Touchie, now her business part- We moved to Vancouver where I worked for Duthies’ judges. ner in the very successful Heritage Group. Books. I remember fondly Bill and Mackie Duthie. While Jack was out signing up the authors, I was busy Self-Counsel Press has enjoyed a history of attracting And of course I remember bookseller Binky Marks handling the production, sales, and distribution. And then really good people, many of whom worked with us for who ran the downstairs paperback section and who real- it hit us: we had to get to Ontario fast to duplicate this core decades before retiring. They took pride in the quality of ized his dream by dying in the arms of a hooker at a book list of legal titles before another publisher followed in our the titles they produced—justifiably so, as we have never show, or so the story goes. footsteps. We quickly packed up and moved to Toronto been sued in 40 years. Self-Counsel, through their efforts, I never worked in a publishing house but I learned for three months that winter, signing up authors and find- became a brand you could trust. I got into publishing what I knew by osmosis, just listening to my dad, Jim ing a sales rep. serendipitously... hey, I could have stayed Douglas and his stories, as he was starting up J.J. Doug- in dairy farming…and I realize now las Ltd.. It was a free education. Years later, after he had how incredibly lucky I have retired from Douglas & McIntyre, I was able to pay for been to spend a huge chunk his consulting advice but at the family rate. As we good of my life in the publish- Scots know, that is at least 25% higher than the going rate. ing community. Everything I really needed to know about running a publishing company I learned while running a dairy farm. Acceptance speech by Long hours, poor pay, shoveling you-know-what. As well Diana Douglas on April 19, 2012 at the as finding out that cows are not the docile and sweet ani- Arbutus Club, Van- mals that you think they are. couver, receiving the Jack and I became business partners and life partners, Jim Douglas Award but neither partnership would last. on behalf of Self- Our BC Divorce Guides were being cranked out as Counsel Press. fast as possible on an old AB Dick Press, which kept breaking down. We sold that AB Dick Press, without telling the bank that unfor- TWIGG PHOTO tunately held a collateral mortgage on it, and used the proceeds to pay for a decent-sized print run from an On- tario printer. The bank readily for- gave us as we were able to pay off the loan very quickly after that. I sold my bookstore in New Diana Douglas Westminster, and Jack and I with her father devoted ourselves full-time to Jim Douglas Self-Counsel Press. This was

19 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • WINTER • 2012-2013 FIRST NATIONS

sister Marilyn. My motto was to never give up. I didn’t, and now I have a huge extended family. “In First Nations cultures, there is no word for art I even discovered that I stem from some famous because art was in every aspect of life.” Alberta chiefs, such as Maskepetoon. Over time I began to address First Nations his- GEORGE LITTLECHILD Giggle,Giggle, notnot GoogleGoogle tory, and eventually mixed-race politics and realities in my art. First Nations history, since European set- tlers arrived, has been an uneven affair. SPANNING NEARLY FOUR DECADES OF WORK, My second great art adventure was obtaining a GeorgeGeorge Littlechild,Littlechild, Elements of this unfairness have created fodder George Littlechild: The Spirit Giggles Bachelor of Fine Arts from the College of and resources for my inspiration, fuelling me to cre- Art & Design. I had to prove to others as a First Na- ate images that tell that story of repression. It is a Within (Heritage $59.95) contains more tions man that I had the intelligence and drive to pur- artistartist asas detectivedetective story of survival, loss and reconstruction after en- than 150 of the biracial, Plains Cree art- sue and complete a degree program. It was a goal of during disease, reserve systems, residential schools mine—I did what, at one time, I thought was impossi- and the Sixties Scoop. First Nations peoples have ist’s mixed-media works, with commen- ble. In fact, for many years I tried to resist my calling persevered, despite being dominated by the federal tary by the artist. as an artist but the voice was too strong. Post-second- government’s Department of Indian and Northern ary education added the right information and skills to In his foreword, Mohawk artist Ryan Rice, Affairs (now called Aboriginal Affairs and Northern chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Na- help create the artist I would become. Development). tive Arts in Santa Fe, describes Littlechild as “an It was a good foundation that informed me about In First Nations cultures, there is no word for art amazing colourist—a magician who has the ability to art and art history. It was an important period of my because art was in every aspect of life. In spiritual create a rainbow. His colours defy darkness; when life and has remained with me since. practice, adornment and how a person conducted you close your eyes, you can imagine his kaleido- As a youth, I did not realize that I was biracial, themself, art was life itself. Art plays an important scopic palette lighting your path.” half Plains Cree and half white. I had not been told role in culture, and it is essential that artists create a Throughout his emergence as one of Canada’s fore- that my late father, James E. Price (1913–1966), was diorama for dialogue about issues that affect human- white or that my late mother, Rachel Littlechild most First Nation artists, George Littlechild ity. The artist or visionary has an acute awareness has been inspired by ancestral images. “I try to imag- (1929–1965), was of the Plains Cree First Nation. and understanding that allows him or her to stand up ine their experiences, their lives, who they were and All I knew was that I was Indian. I was raised in and raise awareness or make social change about things what they did,” he says. foster care, a victim of the Sixties Scoop, and I was and events that the public does not or cannot ad- Adopted as a child, George Littlechild has scoured labelled “Indian” by those around me. As a child, I dress. The artist’s stance is strong and full of insight, archives like a genealogical detective, incorporating fought racism and had a true understanding of “the creativity and commitment. Being an artist means his findings into his work. Raised by foster parents other,” not equaling or belonging. I embraced my situ- being political. The artist becomes the medium to in Edmonton, George Littlechild now lives in ation and found a way to speak out against racism translate issues and a conduit to create change and Courtenay, B.C. and ignorance through my art. My foster parents provoke thought. Here he recalls his origins as an artist. were Dutch–Canadian, and I am lucky to have been Over the years, I have been called on to conduct placed in such a loving home where I was accepted art workshops and residencies in schools and at con- Y FOSTER MOTHER, WINNIE, without reservation and encouraged to explore my ferences and art-related events. These opportunities said that when I arrived at First Nations heritage. It was only when I turned 17 have given me great joy as I witness art being created her home at the age of four, I that I learned of my white blood. It was then that I in youth and adults who may never have had such an was already drawing. She was started an 11-year sojourn to learn about my per- experience. To see the happiness that art creates within instrumental in seizing and sonal family history and to connect with my birth these gatherings, and the people who are part of these nurturingM my young talent. By the time I was in Grade family, thus creating a new identity. I am a blend of workshops, is beautiful. As a full-time artist and part- 3 or 4, Winnie had sought out an art teacher for me. many things. time educator, my art practice has provided me with Every Wednesday after school, I would sit in a room In my search to reconnect with my biological fam- ample projects over the years. I am always amazed at in the basement of an old Victorian home in Edmon- ily, I found myself at many archives—researching the varied art-related situations of which I have been ton’s Highlands neighbourhood. For 50 cents a les- people and dates, towns and censuses—and I placed a part and continue to participate in. son, my teacher, Miss Ethel Field, taught elderly ads in newspapers with requests, hoping to recon- In my work, I am committed to righting the wrongs women and children the basics of painting. nect with family members. I became an avid detective that First Nations peoples have endured by creating Miss Field had been a professor at the University in the process. Amazingly, some interesting and su- art that focuses on cultural, social and political injus- of Alberta, but when modern art started to dominate pernatural situations occurred while I was seeking “Aboriginal and Beautiful Too 2” tices. As an artist, an educator and a cultural worker, the scene, she retired. Her forte was painting por- my family. (mixed media 36 x 24” 1997) my goal is a better world. It is my job to show the traits of First Nations and Inuit people. She was my Without these events, I may have never even I used to visit my relative Tracey pride, strength and beauty of First Nations people first role model and mentor. found or met certain family members, including my when she lived in Vancouver. and cultures, and contribute to the betterment of This gorgeous photo is of her mankind. Art is my best friend. It has never let me mother, Elizabeth Lightning, the down through tough and good times. We have re- daughter of James Lightning mained united. I thank the Creator daily for this gift, and Marie Myicat from the Samson Reserve in Hobbema. the gift of art. 978-1-927051-51-1 The photo haunted me, and I had to incorporate this image into my art somehow. I learned more about the photo. Elizabeth IT’S GONNA TAKE A married Hans Busch, a German who had immigrated to Canada. He liked photography and took LEE MARACLE these wonderful photos. In Lee Maracle’s short stories in First Wives some, she looked like Elizabeth Club: Coast Salish Style (Theytus $18.95) are Taylor. In this photo, she is adorned in Plains Cree regalia, about single motherhood, activism, teaching looking so proud. I asked Hans and the experiences of First Nations women in and Elizabeth’s permission to Canada. “We’re socially locked in time,” she use the photo in my art—they once told Redwire magazine. “If we are burning both agreed. sage or saying million-year-old prayers, then we are OK; as long as we are back in the bush or spiritual mode we’re safe. If we’re doing any- thing else people want to erase us, they want to not see us. So my stories, I Having gathered genealogical facts and photographs, George Littlechild created Cross-Cultural think, allow people to see Examination: Ancestors and Descendants to gather four generations into one image, including us in a myriad of circum- himself at the forefront. Back row (great-grandparents), L to R: Clairville Price, Charlotte [Graves] Price, Richard Dunn, Jessie [Armstrong] Dunn, Alexandre Littlechild, Jenny [Cardinal] stances and once people Littlechild, Antoine Bruno, Peggy [Louis Natuasis] Bull. Middle row (grandparents), L to R: see us differently they John MacKenzie Price, Sarah Jane [Dunn] Price, Edward Littlechild, Bella [Bull] Littlechild. “ ” might hear us differently, Front row (parents and himself): James E. Price, George Littlechild, Rachel [Littlechild] Price. as well.” 978-1-894778-95-4

20 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • WINTER • 2012-2013 21 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • WINTER • 2012-2013 2012—Year of the Teen See what all the buzz is about!

Guilty Hummingbird Heart Norah McClintock Robin Stevenson 9781554699896 $12.95 pb 9781554693900 $12.95 pb YALSA QUICK PICKS NOMINEE JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD SELECTION “A perfect example of why Norah “A well-written exploration of McClintock is the queen of Canadian complex family relationships.” YA crime fi ction.” —CM Magazine —CanLit for LittleCanadians

Victorio’s War Pieces of Me John Wilson Darlene Ryan The Desert Legends Trilogy, 9781459800809 $12.95 pb Volume 3 “A thought-provoking portrait 9781554698820 $12.95 pb of young people living...on the “This is a fi ne time dodging arrows fringes of society.” —Booklist along the sunbaked trail.” —Booklist

The Prisoner of Way to Go Snowflake Falls Tom Ryan John Lekich 9781459800779 $12.95 pb pb 9781554699780 $12.95 “A fi ne addition to the ‘I think I’m gay’ “Dry humour, a slightly insane genre...It’s a story that absolutely needs imagination and a highly to be told, and the author’s approach personable hero make this novel succeeds beautifully. Excellent.” wholly refreshing.” —John Wetterholt, Follett Library —The Toronto Star Resources I, Witness Three Little Words Norah McClintock Sarah N. Harvey illustrated by Mike Deas 9781459800656 $12.95 pb 9781554697892 $16.95 pb “A quiet but moving story about the different forms family can take.” Teen graphic novel —Publishers Weekly “An effective thriller that raises questions about the complicity of silence on violence.” —Booklist

Redwing Holly Bennett 9781459800380 $12.95 pb Also available as ebooks! “An appealing fantasy with enough tension to fi rmly hold readers’ interest.” —Kirkus Reviews

22 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 reviews BIOGRAPHY Although P. K. Page regarded herself prima- rily as a poet, she was a painter who wrote more prose than poetry. Born at Swanage, Dorset, in the south of England, on November 23, 1916, she came to Canada in 1919 when her parents, Major General Lionel Frank Page and Rosa Laura Whitehouse, settled in Red Deer, Alberta. In Montreal in 1941 she became a member of the Preview Group with F.R. Scott and A.M. Klein, co-editing the literary periodical Preview. Page first lived on the West Coast from 1944 to 1946, partici- pating in the development of Alan Crawley’s Contemporary Verse. Here Joan Givner reviews Sandra Djwa’s new biography Journey With No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page in which Djwa traces Page’s quest for answers to the universal questions, “Who am I?” and “Where am I going?” According to Givner, P.K. Page’s psychic journey of inde- pendence began when she chose a year in England over a university degree, educated herself through self-directed reading and, at a time NOTRE GRANDE when most women of her genera- tion married, accepted an allowance from her father to find a place of her own in Montreal in which to write.

Journey With No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page by Sandra Djwa (McGill-Queen’s $39.95)

T WAS A MARK OF HER COM- mitment as an artist that P.K. I Page, at the age of eighty, chose a biographer with a profound understanding of her work and the ability to weave that knowledge ex- P K PAGE pertly into a compelling life story. “I am a traveller. I have a destination but no maps.”– . . Thereafter she cooperated with DAME Sandra Djwa, granting interviews invited to join the diplomatic corps department of Creative Writing. dame. Relations deteriorated fur- Hand Luggage, a book length au- over a ten-year period. as high commissioner to Australia. Skelton emerges in an unfavour- ther when Arthur Irwin fired tobiography in verse. In spite of the trust between The years in Australia and his able light, his exclusionary tactics Skelton from his position as art And the honours poured in. She them, the relationship was not with- subsequent postings as ambassa- seen as a disparagement of Cana- critic for the Victoria Daily Times. was given honorary degrees, sym- out tensions as the biographer’s dor to Brazil and Mexico broke the dian literature. Yet the territorialism The final row happened after Page posiums devoted to her work, art need to establish facts and dates momentum of Page’s writing, and of any literary community rivals learned of Skelton’s part in the Uni- shows, and many prizes. She took conflicted with the sub- this period has been de- that of the animal kingdom, and versity of Victoria’s decision to turn the designation of “National Treas- ject’s belief in the non-lin- scribed, somewhat inac- there were many reasons for the down the papers of Alan Crawley, ure,” in the Ottawa Citizen to be an ear nature of her curately, as her “decade animosity between the two. One founder of the poetry magazine, affirmation of her life’s work. How- experiences. Page saw all of silence.” Even though may have been Skelton’s sensitiv- Contemporary Verse. As reported ever, she became painfully aware time and events as simul- she had won the Gover- ity to the British upper class per- by Page, “I said, I don’t know what, of the insubstantial nature of such taneous—a precept of nor General’s Award for sona that Page projected. (Although ‘Go and boil your head,’ or “Go accolades, when she was short- Sufism, but hardly one her poetry collection, The she immigrated at the age of three, back to England...’ The whole party listed for the prestigious Griffin that a biographer could Joan Metal and the Flower, she she retained what her husband stopped and Skelton and I had a prize. She was dismayed not only follow. wrote little poetry and called “her god-damned Brit rip-snorting row, publicly.” by losing to Margaret Avison, a Djwa brought another GIVNER turned instead to drawing voice.”). After a long absence from She was isolated and pro- one-time rival, but by hearing great asset to her task because she and painting. She also kept a diary, Canada, “cosseted” in diplomatic foundly unhappy but eventually Avison declared a “National Treas- was the previous biographer of F.R. a version of which, entitled Brazil- circles, she had developed the in- found support beyond Victoria. She ure.” Scott, the poet, law professor and ian Journal, was published three timidating presence of a grande joined the League of Canadian Po- That was not the only honour legal activist, who was Page’s great decades later. When asked about the ets, gained an admirer in George that developed a sour note. She was love. Unable to cover the affair in ten-year hiatus, Page has explained Woodcock who edited Canadian given the Terasen Lifetime Achieve- the earlier biography, Djwa de- that she could find no vocabulary Literature; published Cry Ararat, ment Award before a large crowd at scribes it here for the first time. Al- for a Baroque world, and that not a new collection of poetry, and en- the Vancouver Public Library. But though Scott was married when the being immersed in the English lan- joyed public readings of her work. two years later a division of two met in Montreal, he fell deeply guage made it difficult to write po- At this time too, her interest in the Terasen Gas (formerly BC Hydro in love with Page, and she had every etry. She also found it hard to thrive mystical system of Sufism sharp- and Gas) was sold to a Texas group. reason to hope that the relation- outside a literary community. ened. She visited the enclave of Feisty to the end, Page registered ship would become permanent. If she hoped to find one after Idries Shah in England, and joined her objection to the sale of Cana- However, after eight years, he made she returned to Canada, Page was a group studying Sufism in Vic- dian companies by renouncing the the decision to remain in his mar- disappointed. When Arthur Irwin toria. award and donating the prize riage. accepted the job as publisher of the Perhaps the most extraordinary money to charity. The gesture was Page was devastated by the re- Victoria Daily Times, the couple feature of Page’s life is the longev- typical of the uncompromising jection. She was thirty-four at the settled in Victoria. The city did have ity of her creative energy. During honesty and outspokenness that P.K. Page, a thriving literary and artistic com- the last years, she continued to time, a scriptwriter at the National circa 1944 - characterized her entire life. Film Board, and when Arthur munity, but it was dominated by 1946 produce such original work as Holo- P.K. Page died at her Oak Bay Irwin, the commissioner of the Robin Skelton who excluded Page gram (1994) a collection of glosas home at age 93 on January 14, 2010. NFB, proposed marriage a few from his Thursday night salons and (a form invented by fourteenth cen- 9780773540613 months later, she accepted. Two from events at the University of Vic- tury Spanish poets), as well as fic- years after the marriage, Irwin was toria, where he had established the tion, new poetry collections, and Joan Givner writes from Victoria.

23 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 24 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 featureview BIOGRAPHY

BY DOUG MCARTHUR Minister, David Stupich, who ac- The Art of the Impossible: & complished a lot and was widely the NDP in Power 1972 - 1975 by Geoff Meggs & Rod Mickleburgh (Harbour $32.95) respected by his fellow ministers across the country for his record in ITH DAVE BARRETT’S agriculture. NDP election victory The authors say little about the W in 1972, the electorate performance of Barrett as his own was deeply and passionately di- minister of finance, perhaps be- vided. cause his foibles as premier over- Progressives predicted that the shadowed anything he did in the era of conservative, corporate- finance portfolio. friendly politics, long the hallmark Among the many travails of the of British Columbia government, Barrett government, this book pro- would give way to modernizing vides especially valuable insights social democratic politics, putting into two that one would expect an British Columbia into the forefront NDP government to handle with of social reform. ease. One was a frayed and eventu- Those of a more conservative ally poisoned relationship with or- bent, supported by much of the ganized labour. The other was the media, believed that disaster was deep anger of the expanding wom- ahead, and that the socialist hordes en’s movement. Both felt that committed to class warfare would Barrett never understood their destroy sacred institutions and rav- needs and their special place in the ish the economy in short order. NDP universe. So it was a polarized time, not Back in the From this book, it is pretty clear unlike many places in the world legislature after his that labour’s expectations were today, including our neighbour to landslide by-election unrealistic and ill-judged. Modest the south. Polarization and the chal- victory on June 3, but effective amendments to the lenges it created is just one of the 1976, Barrett is all labour code disappointed labour. themes underlying The Art of the smiles as he is escorted Things really came apart with back- Impossible by veteran reporter Rod to his seat by former to-work legislation and price con- cabinet mates, Mickleburgh and journalist- trols in 1975. The authors make the Bill King (left) and turned-city councillor Geoff Alex Macdonald. case that back-to-work legislation Meggs. Together they have fash- was realistic and price controls ioned an informative and delightful were inevitable given the economic telling of what actually happened conditions of the time. Labour re- during one of the most eventful fused to understand the impossi- periods in British Columbia’s po- HEREHERE FORFOR AA GOODGOOD TIMETIME ble position the government was litical history. in. ✍ The case of the women’s move- THE ART OF THE IMPOSSIBLE IS ment is different. It is hard not to based on detailed research into what conclude that Barrett at best had a was said and done by many of the tin ear and more probably had a key actors. As a result, its telling deep antipathy to the demands of has a deeply human dimension that NOTNOT AA LONGLONG feminists seeking equality for is often lacking in histories of this women. The women’s movement sort. The authors pull back the usu- was justifiably alienated by his and ally-drawn curtains and closed his government’s views. He just doors of the legislative building of- didn’t get it. fices and meeting rooms, permit- A question long posed by ob- ting us virtually to see and hear what TIMETIME servers of British Columbia poli- is happening, largely as told by tics is “what kind of government those who were there. The book is FOR YEARS, PARTISANS, SCHOLARS AND PUNDITS HAVE did Barrett actually provide?” jam-packed with tales of the Was it a radical left government manoeuvrings, missteps and politi- puzzled over how best to characterise the provincial intent on altering the fundamental cal adventures of the many larger- social and economic order, as many than-life characters that made up NDP government of Dave Barrett. It is fitting that, in the business sector claimed then the NDP cabinet, the caucus and and continue to claim today? other organizations of the time— on the 40th anniversary of Barrett’s election, as a pro- Or was it essentially a popu- none more colourful than the Pre- list, reformist government faced mier himself. vincial election looms, a carefully researched book ap- with the necessary but almost im- Dave Barrett was, we are told, possible task of modernizing, in a reporter’s dream. “Are we here pears about those tumultuous and reforming times. short order, a province that had for a long time?” he famously asked fallen badly behind, as many of the his colleagues, “or a good time?” New Democrat faithful claimed clearly implying he leaned to the caught the caucus and even some traction of a hilariously mis- The notorious and politically then and claim now? latter. He loved headlines. And he of the cabinet by surprise when an- conceived daylight savings plan damaging overspending of the re- Or was it simply a quixotic, in- was notoriously irreverent. nounced, included: for the whole province formed welfare budget is fairly pre- coherent band of political adven- Even media types were not im- • oil and gas price regulation A reporter calculated that sented regardless of the obvious turers, with generally good mune to Barrett’s take-no-prison- • new mineral royalties Barrett committed to forty-two respect Mickleburgh and Meggs intentions, thrown into government ers politics and ungovernable • public auto insurance new policies during his first forty- have for the minister, Norman unprepared and unequipped to cre- tongue. When a prominent female • a freeze on the rezoning of five days as premier and, during the Levy. Indeed, all the attempts at ate and manage a well-considered columnist pestered him about an agricultural land first session of the legislature, en- policy change are told with a keen agenda, only accidentally having ill-advised attempt to personally • creation of a new Agricultural acted ninety-six bills. That torrid eye for both the frequent creativ- done some good and enduring direct the supposedly independent Land Reserve pace continued in the ensuing years. ity of ministers and the screw-ups things, as some political analysts Egg Marketing Board (affording • a new petroleum Crown Cor- Nothing seemed beyond the reach that seem to have plagued most suggest? special treatment to a farmer he poration with a monopoly over of the new crowd in Victoria. everything the government touched. If you are searching for an an- thought had been wronged), the the purchase of all oil and gas It was a cabinet of large egos It is fairly clear that some min- swer as to which it is, you will not premier railed at her, “F— you. F— produced and big ideas. Many of the biggest isters are held in much higher re- find it here. But if you want a lively, you, you venomous bitch.” • a minimum income plan for and best initiatives were poorly gard than others. Labour minister readable, somewhat detailed, but This is a hard book to put down. seniors planned and badly-handled. Even Bill King and Minister of Re- very human story about a remark- The government was no sooner • a condemnation of oil tankers the great enduring successes like the sources and Environment Bob able time in British Columbia poli- elected than it embarked on a diz- off the coast Agricultural Land Reserve and the Williams come through relatively tics, this book is highly zying and hyperactive agenda • a ban on corporal punishment Insurance Corporation of British unscathed and enjoy obvious spe- recommended. 978-1550175790 seemingly intent on fixing all of the in schools Columbia involved potentially ca- cial respect. Ministers who come accumulated ills of society in a sin- • the purchase of the Ocean reer-ending fumbles by ministers. through as less than stellar include Doug McArthur is professor in the gle term of office. The press called Falls pulp mill and community To the credit of the authors, they Education Minister and Deputy School of Public Policy at Simon it “legislation by thunderbolt.” A • the purchase of a major pulp report faithfully the good, the bad Premier and, some- Fraser University. He is a former barrage of early new initiatives, and lumber company and the ugly, as well as the suc- what surprisingly, Agriculture Min- deputy minister to Premiers Mike many of which appeared to have • the imposition and then re- cesses. ister and, towards the end, Finance Harcourt and Glen Clark.

25 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 featureview FICTION PHOTO

Annabel Lyon CHIN

PHILLIP

ARISTOTLE’S ranged for her with Nicanor, an older BY JOHN MOORE veteran companion of Alexander. The Sweet Girl by (Random House $29.95) In Nicanor, Lyon gives us a sur- prisingly authentic and poignant NNABEL LYON’S portrait of post-traumatic stress The Golden Mean syndrome, ancient Greek style. He (2009) was an un- is a man who has followed his rest- likely bestseller. DAUGHTER less king onto far too many noisy After all, who battlefields and is desperate for Awrites a novel about a philosopher? In The Sweet Girl, Annabel Lyon has simple peace and quiet. Pythias’ Who reads one? Traditionally, writ- eventual acceptance of his hesitant, ers of historical fiction are drawn uncertain affections, his inexpress- to kings and queens, conquerors and emerged as a consummate professional ible loneliness and long silences, concubines whose documented signal her maturity, her decision to lives provide rich material for he- according to reviewer John Moore. make the best of her situation de- roic dramatization. spite its constraints. Aristotle may have authored Prose that is easy to read is the many of the seminal texts of west- “Amateurs write complex sentences,” hardest to write. Amateurs write ern civilization, but aside from complex sentences; pros write sim- teaching to pay the rent, he was a ple ones. Annabel Lyon has man who spend most of his life just he contends, “pros write simple ones.” emerged as a consummate profes- thinking. The hook, for Lyon and sional, combining an unerring grasp many readers, is that one of his stu- of the small telling detail—of dents was the prince of Macedon she might one day take over from On the death of Alexander, pre- it appears Alexander paid more at- weather or domestic routine—that who would become one of the him as head of the most prestig- tences are dropped and despite his tention to lectures on geography will bring a scene to life with pared most famous warlords in history— ious philosophical school in Greece. position and fame, Aristotle and his than to those on ethics. down prose that is evocative rather Alexander the Great. When , a young distant family are menaced and attacked in Lyon’s Aristotle receives speci- than laboriously illustrative. Lyon’s new novel, The Sweet cousin, turns up at their door seek- the streets. Wisely, he moves them mens sent from all over the con- At 256 pages, The Sweet Girl Girl, tells the story of Aristotle’s ing support from the family’s fa- to Chalcis, a small town with a quered world by the young king, isn’t a big novel, yet the characters last days from the point of view mous relative, Aristotle takes him Macedonian garrison, where the but no replies to his own letters of are large-as-life, bringing a rich of his daughter, Pythias. On the in and is all too willing to interpret choices for a girl now sixteen are advice. Even in ancient Greece, men sense of their whole lives with them brink of womanhood, Pythias is a his quick cunning as a sign of intel- even more limited than in cosmo- of action, men who do things, do onto the page. That said, if The precociously intelligent child en- ligence worthy of a prospective politan Athens. not like to be told what to do. Sweet Girl feels a bit light, I sus- dowed with her father’s relentless male heir. ✫ The decline and death of her fa- pect it’s because it may be the sec- curiosity and keenness of mind. Resentful but subdued, Pythias’ ANNABEL LYON’S ARISTOTLE IS A ther is inevitably a greater tragedy ond installment of what will prove At his symposia—drinking parties feelings about the young man are disappointed man, but not a sur- for Pythias than the demise of the to be a trilogy of novels. This one attended by the cream of Athenian complicated by a growing attrac- prised one. The historical Aristotle already half-legendary Alexander leaves you with the feeling there is philosophical society dominated tion that is anything but intellec- is said to have given up the chance because, without his protection, more to know about Pythias as her by her father—she is trotted out tual. to succeed Plato at the head of the she must find a way to live within father’s nature re-asserts itself in as a kind of trick pony, like a First a rumour, then a reluc- school of Athens to take on the job a society that offers almost no op- her with age. counting horse or talking dog, to tantly admitted fact, the premature of tutoring the son of a king regarded tions for an independent thinking Aristotle was the first critic to astonish the exclusively male in- death of Alexander in faraway Per- as a semi-barbarian by most Greeks. woman, no opportunity for rebel- codify most of the core-level dra- telligentsia, who simply don’t sia is a disaster for the Macedonian Aristotle believed philosophy lion against the status quo. matic conventions inherent in our know what to make of a female community in Athens. Acknowl- ought to be more than a parlour Pythias experiments with serv- culture. As he might have said him- who can think, write and dispute edged leader among the Greek city- game played by sophists and that ing in a temple, even tries to be- self, “It needs a third act.” like a man. states, Athens bore its defeat by by being the instructors of kings, come a courtesan despite her meagre 978-0307359445 Though her father encouraged Philip of Macedon at Chaeronea philosophers could make ideas a qualifications. Her infatuation with Pythias’ studies from early child- in 338 B.C., a battle in which Alex- force for good in the world. His in- her n’er-do-well cousin, Jason, John Moore is a novelist who hood, even he seems reluctant to ander played a crucial role, with fluence on Alexander is still debated gradually fades as she comes to ac- lives in Garibaldi Highlands, seriously consider the notion that muted passive hostility. by scholars, though on the evidence cept the marriage her father had ar- near Squamish.

26 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 reviews FICTION STIKINE & ASBESTOS LOVE IN THE FAST LANE, RAPIDLY Rock Reject by Jim Williams Lou Allin’s novel of a mother and daughter on the run. (Roseway $19.95)

T'S 1974 AND PETER HAS FLED FROM Contingency Plan by Lou Allin and did it ever really belong to his ting. Not surprisingly, many Toronto to take a job at a Stikine (Raven Books / Orca $9.95) mother? are murder and mystery titles. Iasbestos mine in northern B.C. Did he kill his first wife? Could Not everyone can devour text; shovelling split rock and dust onto AVING WRITTEN TWO DE- he be responsible for the death of so thrillers such as Contingency a conveyor belt. The company in- tective series since she Sandra’s beloved aunt? Plan allow slower readers to get sists the mine poses no health risks Hreceived her Ph.D. in Men like Joe often prey on de- into the literacy race. 9781459801141 to its workers or the residents of English Renaissance literature back pendent, timid and socially isolated Lou Allin the nearby First Nations commu- in 1975, Lou Allin has graduated women. Sandra, still in mourning Cherie Thiessen nity. Based on the experiences of to making things simpler. after the death of her beloved hus- reviews fiction novelist Jim Williams, Rock Re- ject is a realistic rendering of how In Contingency Plan, Allin’s band a year earlier, appears to fall from Pender a young man can't help but be- second contribution to into that category. Island come involved in the welfare of Orca’s Rapid Reads se- Is he going to kill her? others while he's emotionally ries, newly widowed And what are his plans stranded on a mountaintop. Sandra Sinclair discovers for his bright 12-year-old Jim Williams, born in Vancou- it doesn’t pay to go too stepdaughter? The wise ver, has received the 2011 inau- fast when it comes to always have a contin- gural Beacon Award for Social finding new love. A scant gency plan, and Sandra Justice Literature for this novel and few months after their turns out to be much is now a likely contender for the Cherie too-hasty marriage, suc- wiser than Joe antici- annual George Ryga Award for So- THIESSEN cial Awareness in B.C. literature. cessful and handsome pated. This novel will be reviewed in the lawyer Joe Gillette finds it out, ✫ next issue. 9781552665169 too. CONTINGENCY PLAN IS ONE OF THE Sandra and her 12-year-old latest offerings in Orca’s Rapid daughter, Jane, are in a quandary Reads series, a line of short novels familiar to many women. Without and non-fiction books dealing with resources, confidence, or close fam- contemporary themes and aimed at ily ties, how will they be able to adult readers. “We started publish- escape the abuse? They flee north ing them in 2010 because we had to a deserted cabin in more familiar great success with our shorter nov- territory, but have they covered els for teens,” says publisher their tracks well enough? Andrew Wooldridge, “and people Their predicament is beyond kept asking for books for older read- creepy. Who was the mysterious ers.” woman who claimed on the phone There are now 25 books in the Jim Williams to be Gillette’s mother? How did series. Plot-driven, these large print, Joe really get the family heirloom short novels can be read in one sit-

27 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 reviews FICTION BY MONICA ROLINSKI Duffy was convinced by his print The Unquiet Land by Ron Duffy publisher Manolis to separate that (Libros Libertad $23) work into a Northern Ireland tril- ogy, with The Unquiet Land serv- S A NEWLY ORDAINED priest, Father Padraig re- ing as volume one. turns on foot, at night, in He has also written a short his- A tory of Northern Ireland, called the dark, during a storm, to the Irish fishing village of Corrymore, in the Until the Troubles Started, meant Mourne Mountains area of County to complement the trilogy. Down, at the outset of Ron Prior to attending university, Duffy’s The Unquiet Land. Duffy wrote a four-volume “topo- Padraig’s mission is to convert graphical” history of his beloved his adopted father—the proud, pa- County Down, Northern Ireland, gan fisherman Finn MacLir— to now available at the Linenhall Li- Christianity, along with Finn’s beau- brary in Belfast. As a student at tiful daughter, Caitlin. Finn MacLir Queen’s University in Belfast when had rescued Padraig from an abu- The Troubles began, Duffy was sive life in Scotland and adopted soon immersed in student agitation Ron Duffy, for Civil Rights (a period to be de- him, as a nine-year-old orphaned outside the scribed in Volumes Two and Three epileptic. house where he Even before Finn dies as an ada- was born. of the trilogy). He has also self-pub- mant unbeliever, Padraig increasingly lished two paperback novels, focuses his attentions, both ecclesi- Crossed Lives and The Janus Web. astical and sexual, on his beautiful In 1988, McGill-Queens Uni- step-sister Caitlin. She begins to WHEN NORTHERN IRISH versity Press published his non-fic- question her morals and almost loses tion book The Road to Nunavut: her fiance, Michael Carrick, who the Progress of the Eastern Arctic objects to the ever-increasing amount EYES ARE CRYING Inuit since World War II written of time his beloved is spending with under the name R. Quinn Duffy. the good Father. Religious mania and political tyranny foment turmoil Pierre Berton quoted from it ex- When a vulnerable Caitlin seeks in Ron Duffy’s The Unquiet Land. tensively for his coffee table book, Padraig’s counsel one night, he acts Winter. in a decidedly unfatherly way. searching for Caitlin’s fanatical Re- traying human conflict in its most years in Canada. All of the names Duffy is currently writing an After Padraig and Caitlin spend publican brother-in-law, Flynn multi-dimensional form. These char- used in this tale of fiercely-held historical novel based on the life of a night together, Michael gives Casey, who escapes. Those clos- acters are believable, fragile and vi- beliefs and tragically-held preju- the 17th-century Ulster highway- Padraig a beating that almost kills est to him are brutally punished. brant, and he makes sure even the dices are fictitious—except for Bel- man, Redmond O’Hanlon. Visit him. No one is left unscathed. The antagonists get their say. fast and Dublin. www.ronqduffy.com for more in- These events are almost over- turmoil of the war, the shattered ✫ “I did this to spare the residents formation, and an interview Duffy gave to the Mourne Observer in shadowed by the arrival of the trust of loved ones, the violent deaths CORRYMORE IS BASED ON THE of these places any embarrass- “Black and Tans,” an auxiliary of of family; all contribute to a turbu- County Down fishing village of ment,” Duffy says. Northern Ireland. 9781926763200 the British forces, who raid lent and convincing drama about Annalong where Duffy has relatives Having initially e-published a Corrymore as Temporary Consta- political, moral and religious con- and spent holidays, an area that re- novel about Corrymore, close to Monica Rolinski is a freelance bles in the early 1920s. They are flicts. Duffy has a talent for por- mains his spiritual home after forty 400,000 words in length, Ron writer in Vancouver.

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ONE THOUSAND HELLO, CUTIE! THE NEW GRANVILLE MUSTACHES Pamela Klaffke ISLAND MARKET Allan Peterkin An irresistible full-colour COOKBOOK A lighthearted cultural guide to all things cute and Judie Glick & Carol Jensson history of the mustache, collectible. A BC Bestseller: a beautiful plus bonus style manual. 978-1-55-152-472-6; $19.95 cookbook from Vancouver’s 978-1-55152-474-0; $12.95 venerable Granville Island Market. 978-1-55152-439-9; $24.95

THE TASTES OF BULL HEAD FIRST SPRING GRASS AYURVEDA John Vigna FIRE Amrita Sondhi Powerful short stories Rae Spoon Amrita’s second cookbook set in the Kootenays. “An Transgender musician based on the principles important new voice in Spoon’s fictionalized of Ayurveda; now in its Canadian fiction.” memoir about growing second printing. —Vancouver Sun queer in Alberta. 978-1-55152-438-2; $26.95 978-1-55152-490-0; $15.95 978-1-55152-480-1; $14.95

Now available from ARSENAL PULP PRESS www.arsenalpulp.com READ OUR BLOG: arsenalia.com H 28 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 reviews FICTION BY MARGARET THOMPSON BRUTE LIT The Taste of Ashes by Sheila Peters ($24.95 Caitlin) Bull Head by John Vigna (Arsenal $15.95)

AKING ENDS MEET AS AN ohn Vigna’s debut story assistant manager of a collection Bull Head con- Mclothing store in tains eight linked stories bris- Jtling with restlessness and brutal- Smithers, 48-year-old Isabel Lee is a recovering alcoholic with three ity. Vigna tempers raw and at times children by three different men. The cruel rural masculinity with grace- ful prose and tenderness to illumi- pivotal experience of her life has nate the plight of men who belong been an affair with a young Guate- neither to history nor the future. malan Oblate priest named Álvaro In one story, we meet a line- Ruiz, who abruptly disappeared dancing aficionado who visits his from her life, leaving her pregnant. brother in jail in the hopes of mend- In Sheila Peters’ first novel, ing their relationship, and instead The Taste of Ashes, we also meet discovers his own unwitting role in Isabel’s daughter, Janna, who has his brother’s failed life. In another, gone to Vancouver to complete a after the death of his wife and chil- degree in accounting at UBC. Her dren, a logger tries to survive the Thanksgiving weekend on his own. mother steadfastly refuses to tell Other stories describe a delin- her anything about her father, the quent teen whose life is changed Guatemalan priest. forever by a work-camp placement Father Álvaro Ruiz is a broken with a violent older boy and a truck man, suffering from hideous flash- driver who seeks sanctuary from his backs after imprisonment and tor- abusive wife in a fantasy world of ture in Guatemala. Besieged by his strip clubs and personal ads. Vigna memories of betrayal and cruelty, writes, “He slammed the gas pedal LOSTLOST && FOUNDLINGSFOUNDLINGS to the floor; the cruel rush of night he has taken refuge at the Oblate community of St. Paul’s Province Life is not tidy, as Sheila Peters makes clear in The Taste of Ashes air blasted his face. The fuel light flashed red. He turned off the head- in Vancouver. lights, and sped faster, the wind In The Power and the Glory, completely unaware that he has a ing Isabel, Álvaro and Janna to- garden to bloom again another screaming in his ears as he lifted British novelist Graham Greene daughter because his mentor, Fa- gether, but the road to confronta- year. his hands off the steering wheel wrote, “When you visualized a ther Walter, has never told him. tion and reconciliation we anticipate Though Peters’ debut fiction is and hurtled through the darkness.” man or woman carefully, you could Peters gradually brings her char- is never straight; demons have to rife with suffering and her vivid 978-1-55152-490-0 always begin to feel pity.” This is acters together, unravelling their be faced, ghosts laid to rest, rela- descriptions of Guatemalan torture true of Peters’ characters. They are complex pasts in order to throw tionships tested. can be disturbing, The Taste of all caught in a net of misunderstand- light on their turbulent present. We feel compassion for Isabel, Ashes is a redemption song about ing. There is nothing pat or predictable Álvaro and Janna because they use the resilience of the human spirit. Isabel thinks that Álvaro de- about this, no sense of a forced their tormented pasts to create at 978-1-894759-77-9 serted her; Janna despises her happy ending. least the hope of a future connec- John Vigna mother and fears that she got all Fate, with the active interven- tion—just as Isabel salvages dor- Margaret Thompson is a freelance her DNA from losers; Álvaro is tion of family and friends, is driv- mant plants from an abandoned writer in Victoria

✦ ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ GEORGE SEFERIS – JAZZ WITH ELLA POEMS novel by Writing is poems by Jan DeGrass George Seferis During the summers of 1973 translated by and 1974 Jan visited Russia. She ✦ Manolis was young and daring; soon after she arrived in Leningrad WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA a Social Act! WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA With what heart (now St. Petersburg) she met a with what spirit man who became the subject ✦ Paperback 9 x 6 in Paperback 9 x 6 in what desire and what passion of this novel...

280 pages we led our life what a mistake 224 pages 9781926763231 so we changed our life... 9781926763248 $25.00 $23.00

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Finn MacLir and his daughter 9781926763200 Caitlin by converting them to 9781926763224 $23.00 Christianity... $18.00 ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA WATER IN THE SECRETS KEPT / ✦ WILDERNESS SECRETS TOLD

novel by novel by Doris Riedweg Ben Nuttall-Smith Happily married to her beloved Secrets Kept / Secrets Told, Pad- ASSOCIATE OF ARTS DEGREE Morley, Tyne Cresswell is con- dy’s story of Personal Growth, APPLY tent in her dual role of farmer’s relates a journey of healing,

wife and hospital nurse. Then a showing that anyone can heal ✦

IN CREATIVE WRITING TODAY Paperback 9 x 6 in late night conversation with one from abuse and PTSD, giving Paperback 9 x 6 in Creative Writing at Capilano University puts writers of poetry, fiction, ✦ 220 pages of her patients sets in motion a readers insight and hope. 252 pages 9781926763194 series of heartbreaking events 9781926763187 non-fiction, children's literature and other genres into contact with each $23.00 that neither she nor Morley $23.00 other. Public readings, magazine and book production, hands on editing, could ever have imagined. and workshops bring writers together. We offer introductory workshops VORTEX SMALL CHANGE

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Writing for the Stage. Manolis George Amabile ✦ An ancient music runs through This is a book about growing up FOR MORE INFORMATION WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA the poetry of Manolis, so it and coming of age in the inner Call: 604.986.1911 ext 2425 • www.capilanou.ca/creative-writing is appropriate that his work city, an unpredictable adven-

✦ should be presented with ture filled with risk, spontane- Upcoming information sessions will be announced at capilanocreativewriting.blogspot.com Greek en face. Vibrant, radiant, ous invention, bizarre hilarities, his poetry is steeped in an an- moments of grace... Paperback 9 x 6 in tique tradition and yet is thor- Paperback 9 x 6 in FACULTY OF ARTS & SCIENCES 149 pages oughly modern in scope and 150 pages 9781926763163 refreshingly new. 9781926763156 2055 Purcell Way, North Vancouver, BC. $18.00 $20.00 www.capilanou.ca ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ ✦

29 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 reviews FICTION BY CHERIE THIESSEN exhausted and operating like an au- The Tinsmith by Tim Bowling (Brindle & Glass Publishing $21.95) tomaton as he routinely saws off arms and legs with a bloody knife, HIS BOOK SHOULD COME tossing the limbs onto a growing pile, with a warning: Not for the and wiping pus and blood off his T squeamish. Tim Bowling face only when it obscures his sight. is uncannily expert in creating a His one positive encounter is sense of place, but the places he with a mysterious soldier, John, writes about are not places most of who brings him the wounded and us want to be taken. assists him in his hacking off of The American Civil War’s limbs. To Anson, this soldier, bloody Battle of Antietam in 1862 whose skin he perceives as “pale and the salmon carnage on the with a curious dark cast to it” is his Fraser River nineteen years later salvation, giving him hope for the reek of rot, guts and gore. All of the future. In the midst of so much fu- senses are assailed in what are two tile slaughter and suffering he wants very dissimilar and very similar to save this gallant young soldier, worlds: dissimilar in that they’re whom he suddenly recognizes as set in different places and times, needing his help. Assuming that but similar in their human conflict John is a runaway slave who has and charnel house imagery. just horribly mutilated and killed Why all the slaughter? Bowling his owner, the doctor gives him the says: “The idea of families fighting identity of a newly dead solder and on opposite sides—of blood loy- ‘John’ becomes ‘William Dare.’ alty versus principle—just haunts Bowling says that the charac- me. And then, the American Civil ter is very loosely based on John War is drenched in the romance of Sullivan Deas, a mixed-race man loss, which suits my melancholy from South Carolina who really was temperament somehow.” one of the first salmon canners on Readers may have encountered the Fraser. In Part 2, we find him this melancholy in some of the au- SLAUGHTERHOUSESLAUGHTERHOUSE there and once again in a battle, this thor’s bibliography: ten collections time against unscrupulous British of poetry, four novels and two non- thugs determined to run him off the fiction works, one of which echoes river. “And yes, I did want to bal- some of this novel’s sentiment, ance the battlefield scenes with the written in 2007 (The Lost Coast: river scenes. I did want the con- Salmon, Memory and the Death of tinuum of violence to be apparent. Wild Culture). TW0TW0 It is a dark and heavy book, which ✫ is exactly what I wanted.”

PHOTO “The idea of families fighting on opposite sides—of blood ANSON BAIRD IS A DOCTOR WHO 978-1-926972-43-5 leaves his sleepy medical practice loyalty versus principle—just haunts me.”—Tim Bowling WRIGHT in order to be of service in the war. Cherie Thiessen reviews fiction

Now, a year later, he’s chronically BRUCE from Pender Island.

Words, Words, Words Gardens Aflame Essays and Memoirs Garry Oak Meadows of BC’s South Coast by GEORGE BOWERING by MALEEA ACKER Find out what Canada’s first Poet-Laureate most cherishes about writers and writing: Victoria writer and environmentalist Maleea who Al Purdy was; what David McFadden’s Acker tells us about the Garry oak, its unique work pays attention to; when the world of and vanishing ecosystem, and the people who poetry changed; where Artie Gold appeared as have made it their life’s work to save this species a light fixture in our darkness; how bpNichol’s along with the environment ––– including the Martyrology legitimized the vernacular; human environment ––– it depends on. why we cannot read history without encountering Shakespeare.

Transmontanus 21

www.NewStarBooks.com www.NewStarBooks.com

The Shiva IKMQ by MICHAEL TREGEBOV by ROGER FARR

Set in Winnipeg’s Jewish community, The Avant-garde poetry infused with play and Shiva tells the story of a syndicate of buddies humour by Gabriola Island resident Roger Farr. from the local casino and their scheme to short- Follow the characters I, K, M and Q as they sell the 2008 mortgage crisis, and make a convert houses to commercial grow–ops, fortune for themselves. A hilarious, fast-paced, manufacture explosives, go all in on the flop, character-driven novel about greed and destiny, conduct meetings according to Roberts, plot a and two sons desperate for their aging mother’s prison break, score an all–important goal, get love. By the author of The Briss. the door for the pizza delivery boy, and get on with transforming the world through their revolutionary action.

www.NewStarBooks.com www.NewStarBooks.com

30 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 reviews POETRY Rodney DeCroo lives off My Father’s Watch SUSAN TAKES YOU DOWN Commercial Drive in Vancouver I fasten my father’s watch around my wrist. Desperately Seeking Susans edited by Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang (Oolichan $19.95) It dangles at the end of my arm like an oversized bracelet. I don’t adjust the clasp to make it fit. SUSAN TAKES YOU DOWN, TO A POEM BY THE RIVER… HAVING STUDIED I want to wear it as my father wore it. with Susan Musgrave, Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang has edited poems by women named Susan—or Suzanne, or Sue, or Suzie—for Desperately Seeking I watched him once when we moved homes. Susans. “The idea was born out of my love for Susans,” says Tsiang. I marvelled at his strength. He lifted boxes “One day I said to my husband ‘I’m thinking of a Canadian poet named two times larger than me. I’m a child Susan who I love. Guess who?’ After he fruitlessly named 12 Susans that dressed up in my father’s clothes. he knew I loved, it occurred to me that something weird and wonderful was going on. Though Susan was never number one on the baby name lists in We hadn’t talked for three years. Then cancer Canada, Susans have risen to the top of Canadian poetry. This anthology is grew tumours in his stomach. He’d call me really just a celebration of the ridiculous surfeit of talent we have in our after chemotherapy. I’m tired, he’d say. Canadian Susans. As for Desperately Seeking Sarahs, it really doesn’t have I’ve got to rest for a while. the same ring. I’m a Susanophile, and that’s that.” Tsiang’s second poetry collection, Sweet Devilry (Oolichan $17.95) recently won the Gerald It was pneumonia that killed him. He was right. Lampert Award. Meanwhile, Bill New’s YVR (Oolichan $17.95) has won The cancer wouldn’t claim him. The night the City of Vancouver Book Award for his poems about the city’s history, before he died he told me to stop worrying. geography and politics. New was simultaneously selected by a different Don’t turn this into a soap opera, he said. jury to receive the annual Mayor’s Award for literary arts in Vancouver. Susans: 978-0-88982-287-0; Sweet Devilry: 978-088982-273-3; YVR: 978-0-88982-280-1 I knew this was our last chance to talk but did as he said, hung up the phone. I went to bed and slept. Sarah Yi- Twelve people stood around him until the morning. Mei Tsiang They prayed and sang his favourite songs.

His eyes are blank as water. The hand that lifted lies battered on the sheet. The green band too large on his thin wrist would remind me of spring, but I won’t see him again.

Allegheny, BC by Rodney DeCroo SINGER/SONGWRITER RODNEY DECROO’S COLLECTION ALLEGHENY, BC (Nightwood $18) recalls his troubled past in a coal town outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsyl-

vania, along the banks of the filthy Allegheny River, as well as adventures in the bush of northern B.C. and young

adult years in Vancouver. ‘My Father’s Watch’ refers to his unpredictable father haunted by the Vietnam War.

The narrator struggles to come of age amid seedy bars and strip clubs, gradually approaching maturity despite his

circumstances. Rodney DeCroo’s recently released fifth album is also called Allegheny. 95 978-0-88971-274-4

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31 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 reviews INDIES

AS ALWAYS THE RANGE AND BC , BOOKWORLD quality of independently STAFF PICK published titles is stagger- ing. Here is a random sam- pling from more than 50 recent titles.

Bamfield Houses by Judith Phillips & Heather Cooper ($35)

IF THERE IS A MORE CHARMING BOOK “I think of my pictures as portraits, and this series as of the year than Judith Phillips’ an homage to a fast-disappearing way of life. The cedar- pastels, combined with clad houses hugging the forested inlets are treasures Heather that may soon fall victim to the same pressures that Cooper’s writing, for Bamfield have changed Tofino and Ucluelet so radically.” Houses, we have yet to see it. With — JUDITH PHILLIPS intelligence and grace, it describes and Reid-Hollow, 1930s, Brady’s Beach, West Bamfield illustrates 33 historical dwellings in the Bamfield area, making for a comprehensive trib- Adventures Over Sixty by Gail Boulanger ute to people, places and a community. Van- (Red Tuque $22.95) couver-born painter and ex-librarian Phillips WITH AN M.A. IN COUNSELLING PSYCHOLOGY, first visited Bamfield in 1985 and now owns a Gail Boulanger of Nanoose Bay is a life- home there; Cooper moved to live in Bamfield style coach whose reflective work of true sto- from the Kootenays in 1999. 978-0-9880387-1-4 ries, Adventures Over Sixty, serves as an

Strength of an Eagle by Lin Weich ($16.95) advisory guide to overcoming grief and engag- ing in physical pursuits, community building Half-Truths, Total Lies by Lin Weich ($16.95) and creative expression. 978-0-973080230

AN ADMIRER OF THE WRITING OF IVAN COYOTE Slow Curve on the Coquihalla by R.E. Donald and Jack Whyte, Lin Weich of Quesnel (Proud Horse $16.95) was inspired to self-publish her thriller, Ice on the Grapevine by R.E. Donald (Proud Horse $16.95) Strength of an Eagle, about the disappear- ances of women along the Highway of Tears R. E. DONALD’S TWO LATEST MYSTERIES and the drug smuggling problems in Northern featuring truck driver Hunter Rayne, a former B.C. A young sea kayaking guide named Maya RCMP homicide detective, are Slow Curve battles for her freedom after she is discovered on the Coquihalla, in which Rayne convinces in the wilderness by members of a drug cartel an outlaw biker to go undercover to bust a smug- who force her to cook and clean in a fish camp, gling operation, and Ice on the Grapevine, a where she is also beaten. Half-Truths, Total cross-border case in which the protagonist who Lies, her second novel, is a story of murder drives an eighteen wheeler must match wits and blackmail in a rural school. with the L.A. County Sheriff’s office. Eagle 978-1-77097-385-5; Lies 978-1-77097-388-6 Curve 9780988111806; Ice 978-0-9881118-1-3

111 West Coast Literary Portraits Photographs by Barry Peterson and Blaise Enright Text by BC Authors Introduction by Alan Twigg ‡SDJHV‡ , Taiaiake Alfred, Colin Angus, Julie Angus, Chris Arnett, Joanne Arnott, Jean Barman, Gurjinder Basran, Joanne Bealy, Thomas R. Berger, Bill Bissett, Arthur Black, Robin Blaser, George Bowering, Marilyn Bowering, Kate Braid, Brian Brett, Barry Broadfoot, Anne Cameron, Trevor Carolan, Norma Charles, Jim Christy, Marie Clements, Wayde Compton, Claudia Cornwall, Lorna Crozier, William Deverell, Hadani Ditmars, Phinder Dulai, Marilyn Dumont, Daniela Elza, M.A.C. Farrant, Mona Fertig, George Fetherling, Patrick Friesen, Maxine Gadd, Charlotte Gill, Terry Glavin, Kim Goldberg, Katherine Palmer Gordon, Shirley Graham, R. W. Gray, Amanda Hale, Keith Harrison, Diana Hayes, Robert Hilles, Jack Hodgins, Pauline Holdstock, Irene Howard, Edith Iglauer, Rick James, Sandi Johnson, Eve Joseph, Des Kennedy, W.P. Kinsella, Theresa Kishkan, Joy Kogawa, Larissa Lai, Tim Lander, Patrick Lane, Evelyn Lau, Peter Levitt, Pearl Luke, Derek Lundy, Vera Manuel, Daphne Marlatt, George McWhirter, Roy Miki, Alice Munro, Sheila Munro, Susan Musgrave, Peter C. Newman, Eric Nicol, Bud Osborn, Kathy Page, P.K. Page, Morris Panych, John Pass, Stan Persky, Al Purdy, Meredith Quartermain, Jamie Reid, Stephen Reid, Bill Richardson, Lisa Robertson, Ajmer Rode, Linda Rogers, Joe Rosenblatt, Jane Rule, Mairuth Sarsfi eld, Andreas Schroeder, Gregory Scofi eld, Goh Poh Seng, Doris Shadbolt, George Stanley, Robert Strandquist, Peter Such, George Szanto, Timothy Taylor, Sharon Thesen, Peter Trower, Alan Twigg, Fred Wah, Betsy Warland, David Watmough, Phyllis Webb, Evelyn C. White, Howard White, Paula Wild, Rita Wong, Caroline Woodward, Ronald Wright, Rachel Wyatt, Max Wyman, Patricia Young. Visit website for Exhibition info. CONGRATULATIONS!

to Claudia Cornwall for being a finalist in ´7KLVULFKO\LOOXVWUDWHGERRNLVORQJRYHUGXHµ ROBERT AMOS the 2012 City of Vancouver Book Award

At the World’s Edge THE UNHERALDED ARTISTS OF BC SERIES #5 Curt Lang’s Vancouver: 1937–1998 The Life and Art of Ina D.D. Uhthoff Claudia Cornwall Christina Johnson-Dean Foreword by David Beers. Intro by Greg Lang Introduction by Pat Martin Bates ‡ ‡ ,QFOXGHVIRUW\RI &XUW/DQJ·VUDUHVWUHHWSKRWRJUDSKV

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32 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 ENVIRONMENT

ImagineImagine sustainabilitysustainability

the international journal Local Environment ARK ROSELAND WAS WALK- Mark Roseland‘s new book is Towards Sustainable Communities: from its inception in 1995 until 2002. Solutions for Citizens and their Governments (New Society $34.95). He recently Ming through his Vancouver But Roseland has possibly been most represented Simon Fraser University at Rio+20. Behind him, on the mural influential for producing Towards Sustain- neighbourhood about 15 years ago of a Whiskeria, are Dorival Caymmin (seated), singer, songwriter, actor; able Communities: Solutions for Citi- standing (left to right) , musician, composer, flautist; when an unusual piece of graffiti Altamiro Carrilho zens and their Governments (New Society), posted on a telephone pole caught Pixinguinha, composer, flautist, saxophonist; The Girl from Ipanema newly released in its fourth edition. composer Tom Jobim (wearing a hat), singer, songwriter, pianist, guitarist; his eye — the words “Imagine No The new version provides new case stud- Nelson Sargento, composer, performer, artist, actor, writer; Paulinho ies and an expanded treatment of Cars” were scrawled on a da Viola, sambista, singer, songwriter, guitarist, cavaquinho, mandolin sustainability, in rural and urban settings, as homemade sign. player; Noel Rosa, songwriter, singer, guitarist, banjo player. well as contributions from a range of experts around the world. BC Contributors include The timing couldn’t have been better. As lation of essays from around the world about and harvested fruit trees on city streets and Oliver Brandes, Victor Cumming, a young professor at SFU, Roseland had creating ecologically sound cities. designed and built solar greenhouses. He had Spring Gillard, Todd Litman, Sean long been mulling over how to make envi- An eco-city is a concept rather than a also helped pass energy ordinances, estab- Markey, Dale Mikkelsen, Janet ronmentalism “sexy” and “cool” to the definition, according to Roseland. “Streets lish a bus line and promote alternatives to Moore, Jennie Moore, Britta Pe- broader public. for people, not cars. Destinations easily automobiles. ters, Coro Strandberg, and Jessica Later that evening Roseland sat down accessible by foot, bike and public transit. The notion of eco cities started to gather Woolliams.It also features Pando.sc, a and tried to imagine no cars. “I scribbled Health as wellness rather than as absence of real momentum with the publication of Reg- new online community for local down a few thoughts, then wrote new lyr- disease. Restoration of damaged wetlands ister’s seminal Eco-City Berkeley, in 1987. sustainability-focused researchers and prac- ics to the tune of John Lennon’s song and other habitats. Affordable housing for According to Roseland, it was “a visionary titioners to share knowledge, network, and Imagine,” says Roseland, who took his gui- all. Food produced and consumed locally. book about how Berkeley could be ecologi- collaborate. tar to the next meeting of Vancouver’s Eco- Renewable sources of energy. Less pol- cally rebuilt over the next several decades.” The volume shows how “community city Network and sang his version of the lution and more recycling. A vibrant local The momentum grew when the organi- capital” can be leveraged to meet the needs of song. In the audience that evening was a economy that does not harm the environ- zation held the First International Eco-city cities and towns for energy efficiency, waste member of the Vancouver Bicycle Choir who ment. Public awareness and involvement in Conference in Berkeley in 1990. More than reduction and recycling, water, sewage, trans- asked for the lyrics. decision making. Social justice for women, 700 people from around the world came to portation and housing, climate change and air A month later, Roseland was the final people of colour and the disabled. Consid- discuss urban problems and submit propos- quality, land use and urban planning. speaker at a national conference on sustain- eration of future generations.” als for shaping cities on ecological princi- Roseland launched Towards Sustainable able transportation. He put the lyrics to his ✍ ples. Since then, eight more international Communities in Brazil in conjunction with song on the overhead projector and was as- MARK ROSELAND WAS FIRST INTRODUCED conferences have been held in cities all over the United Nations Conference on Sustain- tonished when “a woman from the Bicycle to the idea of eco-cities when he met Rich- the world. able Development, a global gathering known Choir leaped out of the audience with a gui- ard Register in Berkeley, California in Cited by the Vancouver Sun as one of as Rio+20 because it occurred 20 years after tar and the somewhat astonished plenary 1979. Register proudly displayed a large, British Columbia’s top 50 living public in- the historic UN Rio “Earth Summit” in 1992. [mostly in suits] sang along.” older model car which he had gutted, filled tellectuals, Mark Roseland has since become There were hundreds of events associ- Since then the lyrics have been photo- with dirt and planted with vegetables. Director of the Centre for Sustainable Com- ated with Rio+20. Roseland’s main role in copied, faxed, emailed and published “in Register was active in the “car wars” munity Development at Simon Fraser Uni- Brazil was co-convening the Research Sym- more places than I can keep track of,” ac- campaign of the time, which gave “tickets” versity and Professor in SFU’s School of posium of the International Council for Lo- cording to Roseland. to cars for consuming fossil fuels, produc- Resource and Environmental Management. cal Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) – Local The story of Roseland’s song represents ing pollution, endangering civic life and As a Research Director for the City of Governments for Sustainability 2012 World the “think globally and act locally” para- uglifying the landscape. Vancouver’s Clouds of Change Task Force Congress, a few days prior to the formal digm which encourages individual action to A co-founder of the non profit organiza- in 1990, he led one of the first comprehen- Rio conference, bringing together more than achieve community goals. tion Urban Ecology, Register had helped sive municipal responses to global atmos- 1400 ICLEI members, partners, global strat- Roseland subsequently edited Eco-City bring back part of a creek culverted and cov- pheric change. Having edited RAIN magazine, egists, academics, businesses and NGOs in Dimensions (New Society 1997), a compi- ered eighty years earlier. He had planted he also served as North American editor of the city of Belo Horizonte. 9780865717114

33 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 is for Arnold is for Belshaw is for Drees

ACCOMPLISHED MOUNTAINEER ARNOLD LARGELY DEVOTED TO PHOTOS, JOHN AS CO-CHAIR OF THE FIRST NATIONS STUDIES Shives of North Vancouver is a former Belshaw and Diane Purvey’s Van- Department at Vancouver Island University, PHOTO protégé of Toni Onley. Shives’ impres- couver Noir (Anvil $25) examines Vancou- Laurie Meijer Drees of Ladysmith has sionistic renderings of rugged West Coast ver from the 1930s to1960s, an era in which gathered oral accounts from Aboriginal per- MUSEUM nature have been exhibited in galleries around order, conformity, structure and restrictions spectives on the history of tuberculosis in POLICE the world. Active in the campaigns to pre- were considered paramount. Simultaneously the mid-twentieth century for Healing His- serve the Stein and Carmanah Valleys, his the city was rife with gambling, smuggling tories: Stories from Canada’s Indian

fifty years of enchantment with B.C. moun- rings, grifters, police corruption, bootleg- VANCOUVER Hospitals (University of Alberta $29.95). tains and streams has resulted in a retro- gers, brothels and murders. John Vancouver Police detective from With input from patients, families and work- spective, Alpine Anatomy: The Mountain Belshaw and Diane Purvey pre- Vancouver Noir (Anvil Press) ers, Drees examines indigenous Art of Arnold Shives (Tricouni $39.95). viously co-authored Private understandings of story for her “intercultural Burnaby Art Gallery retains the largest Grief, Public Mourning: The history.” 978-0-88864-650-7 repository of Shives’ works on paper. Rise of the Roadside Shrine in 978-0-9811536-1-2 British Columbia (Anvil). is for Choy 978-1-897535-83-7 Equipped only with wonder, Arnold Shives IN CONJUNCTION WITH AN EVENT SPONSORED climbed to the summit by Project Bookmark Canada, a special trib- of Black Tusk, in ute evening for Jade Peony author Wayson Garibaldi Park, 1961. Choy was held in Vancouver’s Chinatown, co-hosted by Sheryl Mackay and Todd Wong, to honour the 73-year-old Vancou- Recovering ver native who was, among other things, the tuberculosis first Chinese Canadian accepted into the patient UBC creative writing program. The tribute was presented by The Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop, Gung Haggis Fat Choy, Historic Joy is for Elephant Kogawa House Society and Vancouver Asian WE HAVE IT ON GOOD AUTHORITY THE FIRST Heritage Month Elephant Mountain Literary Festival in Nel- Society/ son went swimmingly. At a wine-tasting explorASIAN. event, the emcee, owner of the B.C. wine outlet in Nelson, announced, “I don’t actu- ally read books. But if I did, I wouldn’t read any cheap, imported ones.” A spoken-word artist said, “When I turned 27, I realized I wouldn’t be young forever,” prompting head- liner, Sheri-D Wilson to quip, “I real- ized at a certain point I wasn’t going to be old forever.” Ernest Hekkanen of Nel- son has also written about the festival in the 30th issue of his unfunded New Orphic Re- view. Hekkanen’s most recent book of po- etry is Flesh and Spirit: The Rasputin Meditations (New Orphic Publishers $15). 978-1-894842-22-8

WHO’S BRITISHCOLUMBIA WHO PHOTO

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34 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 BC’s New Mystery Hero

Leanne Daniela Elza is for Francis McIntosh milk Dark Matter tooth TWO YEARS AGO, DAN FRANCIS’ HARDCOVER bane Selling Canada: Three Propaganda Cam- bone 978-0-9881118-06 978-0-9881118-13 paigns that Shaped the Nation recalled how Emilia Nielsen $16.95 350 pages $16.95 304 pages European immigrants were convinced to Surge Narrows HUNTER RAYNE HIGHWAY MYSTERIES populate the prairies, young Canadian men Poems from Planet Earth by BC author RE Donald were encouraged to enlist in World War I edited by Yvonne Blomer and and tourists were convinced to visit Cana- Cynthia Woodman Kerkham da’s natural wonders with the completion ProudHorsePublishing.com [email protected] of the CPR line in 1885. Re-released now in PUBLISHING POETRY ONLY PHOTO paperback as Selling Canada: Immi- Spring 2013 www.leafpress.ca MEMBER INDEPENDENT BOOK PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION ROSS grants, soldiers, tourists, and the build-

ing of our nation (Stanton Atkins & Dosil TOBYN $24.95), Francis reveals how these cam- A past president of BC Civil Liberties, photo by Mark Mushet paigns transformed the way Canadians and Craig Jones overcame his own civil libertarian leanings to oppose outsiders thought about Canada, inadvert- polygamy’s “cruel arithmetic” that ently providing the raw material for nation- harms women and children, as well hood in the process. He has simultaneously as society at large. produced Trucking in British Columbia: An Illustrated History (Harbour $49.95). Selling 978-0-9809304-6-7; Trucking 978-1-55017-561-5 is for Jones Annual Non-Fiction Contest* $1500 in prizes available, plus publication! is for Graham WITH A FOREWORD BY ANDREW COYNE, A $34.95 entry fee includes 1 year of EVENT Cruel Arithmetic, Inside the Case 5,000 word limit VANCOUVER-BASED ANARCHIST, HISTORIAN Against Polygamy (Irwin Law $39.95) by Deadline April 15, 2013 and writer Robert Graham has pub- Craig Jones is a new exposé of the po- lygamous community of Bountiful and the lished The New Anarchism: 1974-2008 Visit eventmags.com for more information (Black Rose Books $28.99), the third vol- trial of its leadership. Former lead counsel ume in his monumental series Anarchism: A for the attorney general of British Columbia, Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas. Jones has written a 400-page insider’s story Showcasing the different currents in anar- about how he and his colleagues developed chist theory and practice that have devel- their arguments against polygamy. This is oped since the 1970s, this 530-page volume the first book published by a Thompson Riv- includes writing by Murray Bookchin, ers University law faculty member. The TRU Self-Publish.ca Suspense / Thrillers Noam Chomsky and Mark Leier. Faculty of Law, in Kamloops, is Canada’s BY LIN WEICH 978-1-55164-336-6 newest law school and the first outside of a major metropolitan centre. 978-1-55221-297-4 is for Harvey

BORN IN CAIRO, STELLA LEVENTOYANNIS is for Krajina Visit our website to find out all Harvey founded the Whistler Writers you need to know about Group in 2001, which each year she pro- A LEADER OF THE CZECH RESISTANCE, self-publishing duces. Her first novel, Nicolai’s Daugh- botanist Vladimir Krajina escaped from The Vancouver Desktop ters (Signature Editions $22.95), profiles the the Gestapo and his group sent some 20,000 Publishing Centre 978-1-77097-385-5 pb 978-1-77097-388-6 pb tragedy-ridden Sarinopoulous family in the radio messages to London, alerting the Al- 978-1-77097-386-2 eb 978-1-77097-389-3 eb call for a free consultation village of Diakofto on the edge of the Pelo- lies to the pending invasions of the Balkans Strength of an Eagle and ponnese. According to publicity materials, and Soviet Union. He PATTY OSBORNE, manager Half-Truths, Total Lies 4360 Raeburn Street “Nicolai’s Daughters uncovers the secrets and escaped on skis along are realistic, suspense thrillers North Vancouver, B.C. v7g 1k3 the shame that fester in a family, refusing to with the family of set in Northern BC. Ph 604-929-1725 heal until the truth is revealed.”978-1897109-97-7 Jan Drabek, now www.self-publish.ca Available in paperback and a Vancouver-based all e-book formats. novelist, who has helping self-publishers since 1986 linweich.com • [email protected] chronicled Krajina’s Vladimir Krajina is for Isa equally remarkable ‘second life’ as a crusading professor at BORN A DISPLACED PERSON IN GERMANY IN UBC, who battled forest barons to halt clear- 1949, visual artist Isa Milman of Victo- cutting and slash burning, in Vladimir ria won the Canadian Jewish Book Award Krajina: World War II Hero and Ecology for poetry for her first two books. She grew Pioneer (Ronsdale $21.95). 978-1-55380-147-4 up in the United States and came to Canada continued on page 37 in 1975 to teach for a decade at McGill Uni- versity, while obtaining her Masters of Re- An independent bookseller in Vancouver for over 40 years! habilitation Science. Her third poetry title SACRED is something small to carry home THE SWEET GIRL Thursday, Nov 22 ECONOMICS (Quattro $14.95). 978-1-926802-94-7 6:30-8pm Wednesday, Nov 21 Talk/Signing Noon Isa Milman FREE at Banyen Talk/Signing is one of 27 ANNABEL LYON, FREE at Banyen authors at the award-winning author of CHARLES 28th annual The Golden Mean, will EISENSTEIN Cherie Smith speak on her much is the author of Jewish Book anticipated new novel The Ascent of Humanity and Sacred The Sweet Girl Economics: Money, Gift, & Society Festival, . . November 24-29, in 3608 West 4th Ave. Vancouver, BC 604-732-7912 banyen.com Vancouver.

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36 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 WHO’SWHOBRITISHCOLUMBIA continued from page 35 Dogger Bank on January 25, 1915. A few Henry K. Larsen (Tundra $19.95), a wry the brutal attempts of soldiers to dislocate Canadians had received DSO medals during but serious account of bullying. Of those 3,000 Awajun natives from Peru’s northern the preceding Boer War, but Peters is be- thirty titles, only one was published from Amazon after they had camped in protest is for Lowther lieved to be the first Canadian recipient in British Columbia: Renné Benoit of for two months in 2009. The violent con- the First World War. 978-1-926991-10-8 Ontario was nominated in the illustration frontation at Devil’s Curve, a notorious bend CHRISTINE LOWTHER OF CLAYOQUOT category for Big City Bees (Greystone in the highway, prompted the Squamish- Sound has co-edited a second anthology $19.95), published from Vancouver with based journalist Kopecky to uncover how about creativity and geography, Living Art- text by Maggie de Vries. the subsequent political unrest can all be fully: Reflections from the Far West is for Nielsen Larsen 978-1-77049-372-8; Bees 978-1-55365-906-8 traced to government efforts to serve the Coast (Key Publishing $32.95), with Anita interests of a Canadian-managed gold mine. Sinner. Writers, painters, carvers, and per- OUT OF THIRTY POSSIBLE NOMINATIONS FOR 978-1-55365-897-9 formers reflect on the private spaces of the English language Governor General’s Awards is for Owen arts—their inner worlds and natural envi- this year, six went to B.C. authors including is for Quartermain ronments—and public spaces for exhibit- screenwriter Susin Nielsen for her young ing, performing and sharing. 978-1926780146 adult novel, The Reluctant Journal of METALHEAD BARD AND BASSIST CATHERINE Owen combines her allegiance to the heavy POET MEREDITH QUARTERMAIN IS THE EIGHTH metal scene with poems about the imagined Vancouver Public Library writer in resi- is for McBride lives of two twelfth-century troubadours dence, a program sponsored by Yosef (poet/musicians) of Occitania (now annexed Wosk. She and her husband Peter to France) for Trobairitz (Anvil $18). The Quartermain have long operated a small ANCESTORS OF EX-JOURNALIST SAM cansos of the Arabic singer Senhal press imprint, Nomados Literary Publish- MCBRIDE include three premiers of Prince Fohlia are matched by the racey lyrics of ers, and she’s affiliated with the Kootenay Edward Island, Father of Confederation Col. La Comtessa da Dia, the best-known School of Writing. The new poet laureate John Hamilton Gray, shipping mag- female singer of that era–revealing why Ro- for the city of Vancouver is Evelyn Lau. nate Sir Samuel Cunard, B.C. engineer man Catholic authorities resented the free- Hon. Edgar Dewdney and dual war hero thinking singers who scoffed at conventional Captain Frederic Thornton “Fritz” marriage. A female troubadour was called a Peters, VC, DSO. The latter is the sub- trobairitz. 978-1-897535-97-4 ject of McBride’s The Bravest Canadian – Fritz Peters, VC: the Making of a Hero of Two World Wars (Granville Island $24.95). Peters received the Victoria Cross is for Peru for his pivotal role in the capture of the harbour at Oran, Algeria on November 8, Susin Nielsen reads THE BRAVEST BOOK OF THE SEASON COULD 1942, later recognized as a turning point in from The Reluctant well be Arno Kopecky’s debut non-fic- Journal of Henry K. World War II. Remarkably, Peters also re- tion work, The Devil’s Curve: A Journey Larsen at Word on Meredith ceived the Distinguished Service Order the Street. Into Power and Profit at the Amazon’s Quartermain (DSO) medal for bravery in the Battle of Edge (D&M $29.95), an investigation into

A COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD QUICKIES is an affordable advertising vehicle BC exclusively for writers, artists, publications & events. QUICKIES For info on how to be included: BOOKWORLD FOR INDEPENDENTS [email protected] www.myrtlesiebert.com www.loghousepress.ca www.emilymadill.com http://www.BrotherXII.com www.libroslibertad.ca Your ad here. George Seferis: from FJORD to From Sea to Call Collected Poems The Captain Joe Series Brother XII Translated by Manolis Floathouse Shining Sea by Emily Madill 604-736-4011 by Myrtle Siebert by Patti Kagawa by John Oliphant A Nobel laureate and one of Life lessons for children. or email Greece’s most important poets One family’s journey from the farm- A 52 year old woman’s cycling The strange odyssey of a 20th-century of the 20th century. 282 pages. prophet & his quest for a new world. lands of Norway to the coast of B.C. INSPIRATIONAL journey across Canada. ISBN 978-0981257907•$11.95 each [email protected] BIO- Coming out mid-October. MEMOIR ISBN 978-0-9880709-0-5 • $20 MEMOIR ISBN 978-0986936708• $14.95 KIDLIT Available from Amazon.ca GRAPHY ISBN 978-0978097202 • $24.95 POETRY ISBN 978-1-926763-23-1 • $25 www.gailboulanger.com www.davidtracey.ca thelistenergraphicnovel.wordpress.com www.gailboulanger.com blackrosebooks.net www.eberhardtpress.org

FINALIST for 2011 GRAPHIC NOVEL of the YEAR (Foreword Reviews)

Scratching the Life Goes On The New Anarchism: Losing, letting go & living again Adventures Over Sixty Memories of Tiger’s Belly The Listener 1974-2008 Chekhov by Ron Sakolsky by David Lester by Gail Boulanger by Gail Boulanger by Robert Graham “A dense and fiercely How to gently and effectively Reflections on living and aging Edited by Peter Sekirin A collection of hidden histories, A history of libertarian ideas intelligent work... all in a navigate your way through grief wholeheartedly; greeting each Accounts of Anton Chekhov from rebel poems, prickly rants, black since the 1970s, with writing by humour, subversive stories, lyrical and stirring tone.” and loss. Distributed by Red new challenge as an adventure. his family, friends & contemporaries. Murray Bookchin, Noam provocative parables and ideas. — Publishers Weekly (NY) SELF Tuque Books. SELF Distributed by Red Tuque Books. Chomsky, Mark Leier BIO- ISBN 9780786458714 • $45 IDEAS GRAPHIC HELP ISBN 978-0-9730802-1-6 • $22.95 HELP ISBN 978-0-9730802-3-0 • $22.95 POLITICS ISBN 978-1-55164-336-6 • $28.99 GRAPHY Published by McFarland IN ACTION ISBN 111-0-00009-248-1 • $9.95 NOVEL ISBN 9781894037488 $19.95

37 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 out as victims of violence, SFU criminolo- gist Karlene Faith won the Vancity is for Ryan Women’s Book Prize in 1994. When Faith’s is for eXasperating feminist publishing house Press Gang went into limbo, this ‘instant classic’ went out of U.K.-BORN, VANCOUVER-BASED RYAN ALL FIVE FINALISTS Frawley describes his first novel, Scar print. It has now been reprinted by Seven for the Governor- (529 Publishing $14.99) as “the gutsy, big- Stories Press in New York, with a new pref- General’s Award for idea kind of novel Russians used to write.” ace, as Unruly Women (Seven Stories English fiction are It’s the first-person narrative of schizo- $16.95). 978-1-60980-137-3 Ontario residents phrenic Dermot Fallon, an English-born de- with Ontario publish- scendent of Irish ancestors, who has ers. All thirteen of the First Nations elder Elsie Claxton and immigrated to Vancouver as a young adult long-listed titles for is for Vernon Violet Williams at Cordova Spit. and finds himself living in Vancouver’s this year’s Giller Downtown Eastside. Scar records Dermot’s Prize for fiction are published from Ontario. psychiatric sessions and recalls his recent SIERRA CLUB CAMPAIGNER CAITLYN The long-listed authors from B.C. are received the fifth annual $5,000 trip to Ireland to bury his father. 9780986901300 Vernon Annabel Lyon for The Sweet Girl, re- Bolen Books Children’s Book Prize at the is for WSANEC viewed on page 26, and Billie Victoria Book Prizes gala in October from Livingston for One Good Hustle. Samantha Bolen of Bolen Books. AFTER YEARS OF COLLECTING BOTANICAL Livington’s short stories in Greedy Little is for Sakolsky Vernon’s Nowhere Else on Earth: Stand- information from Saanich Nation botanical Eyes won the Danuta Gleed Award in 2011. ing Tall for the Great Bear Rainforest experts Violet Williams of Pauquachin, (Orca $22.95) introduces young readers to of Tsawout, SCRATCHING THE TIGER’S BELLY Elsie Claxton (Eberhardt Press $9.95) by Denman Island’s the importance of stewardship Christopher Paul and Dave anarcho-surrealist Ron Sakolsky is a for the Great Bear Rainfor- Elliott of Tsartlip, UVic’s Hakai is for Yamauchi collection of hidden histories, rebel poems, est. Madline Sonik’s Chair in Ethnoecology Nancy J. personal essays in Af- and Royal BC Museum prickly rants, black humor, slyly subver- Turner HAVING GROWN UP IN LUND, B.C., WILLOW sive stories, provocative parables and ideas- flictions and Depar- curator Richard J. Hebda Yamauchi made her debut with a tongue- in-action. The book is beautifully designed tures (Anvil $20) have, in turn, passed along that in-cheek survival guide, Adult Child of Hip- received the ninth knowledge of plants and and printed. 111-0-00009-248-1 pies, in which she described an invisible Tony Taylor annual City of Vic- their uses for future genera- minority that “needs to come out from be- toria Butler Book tions in Saanich hind the Bead Curtain.” Two years later, Prize. It was also Ethnobotany: Cultur- she has taken a similar approach, somewhat is for Thrasher shortlisted for the ally Important Plants of more seriously, for modern mothers. Bad Charles Taylor the WSANEC People Mommy (Insomniac Press $19.95) is an Alan Thrasher and Gloria Wong’s Award. (Royal BC Museum insightful, funny and all-too-real look at the Rainforest 978-1-55469- $24.95). Yueqi: Chinese Musical Instruments in 303-0; Afflictions 978-1- guilt trips that come with motherhood. She 897535-67-7 Performance (BC Chinese Music Asso- 978-0-7726-6577-5 and her husband have two children. “They ciation $25 plus shipping) includes an his- try not to traumatize them, but it is prob- torical survey of Chinese music in Vancouver. ably too late.” 978-1-55483-066-4 Thrasher, a professor emeritus of music at UBC, is a world-renowned scholar in Chi- nese music and has published numerous books and articles including, Sizhu Instru- is for Zero mental Music of South China (Brill 2008), and Chinese Musical Instruments (Oxford JAZZ MUSICIAN AND FORMER SUNSHINE COAST 2000). UBC graduate Gloria Wong studied publisher and author of Chainsaws: A His- the courtship songs of the Hani people in tory, David Lee has launched his first China for over ten years and recently com- novel Commander Zero (Tightrope pleted her doctoral research in this field. $19.95) about an injured, memory-less man She is also the conductor of the BC Youth who is revived by a rural community on the Chinese Orchestra. 978-0-9877201-0-8 West Coast after being found unconscious and drenched in the forest. Nicknamed “Zero,” Joseph Windebank packs is for Unruly Willow prawns at a local fish Yamauchi plant and gradually AFTER SHE GATHERED THE INFORMATION “celebrates finds the strength to firsthand for Unruly Women: The Politics of the parenting confront murky se- continuum Confinement and Resistance (Press Gang, between Joan crets and dark 1993), a ground-breaking study that con- Crawford and imaginings. David Lee cluded that most female criminals started June Cleaver.” 978-1926639475

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38 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 Ready for Hibernation

Imperial Canada Inc. Dispatches from the Tracing the Lines Minor Episodes / Legal Haven of Choice Occupation Reflections on Major Ruckus for the World’s Mining Garry Thomas Morse A History of Change Contemporary Minor Episodes documents the serial Industries Stephen Collis Poetics and Cultural Alain Deneault and William Sacher adventures of Minor, the ubiquitous Dispatches from the Occupation is Politics in “everymogul” who embodies the Why is Canada home to more than a collection of essays written during Honour of Roy Miki economic one percent and keeps 70 percent of the world’s mining and in response to the global Edited by Maia Joseph, Christine musically erotic quixotics on tap. Minor companies? The authors contend Occupy movement, from the Kim, Chris Lee, and Larissa Lai enters a “rent in time” that gives each that Canada’s imperial heritage author’s perspective as an activist chapter an alternate reality. offers the global extractive sector a Tracing the Lines gathers a wide participating in O ccupy Vancouver. Major Ruckus follows a frenzied struggle customized trading environment range of community voices working More broadly, it is also a meditation by various parties to obtain an essential that not only supports speculation in critical, poetic, visual, and hybrid on the idea of change as it moves time-travel component, a struggle that and enables capital flows, but also forms. Contributors take the life through intellectual history and is includes psychic “dicks,” universal call- provides government subsidies and work of cultural activist, poet, variously articulated across centre operators, Aboriginal eroticists, and a politicized legal haven from and critic Roy Miki as a starting disciplines. and lubricant heiresses, all to the litigation. point for analytical and creative $16.95 / 256 pp / Non-fiction reflections on key artistic, social, horrified fascination of hapless meta- $29.95 / 256 pp / Non-fiction 978-0-88922-695-1 and political movements of the writer Oober Mann. 978-0-88922-635-7 second half of the twentieth $16.95 / 288 pp / Fiction century. 978-0-88922-697-5 $24.95 / 256 pp / Non-fiction 978-0-88922-694-4

Seeds In Absentia Billy Bishop Goes to War Fronteras Americanas Annabel Soutar Morris Panych Second Edition American Borders Part courtroom drama and part Part mystery, part moving story of John MacLachlan Gray Second Edition social satire, Seeds documents the vanished love, In Absentia explores with Eric Peterson Guillermo Verdecchia 2004 Supreme Court of Canada the notion of disappearance, One of Canada’s most successful and Fuelled by equal parts outrage, showdown between Saskatchewan articulated in very personal terms. enduring musical plays, Billy Bishop intelligence, and wit, Fronteras farmer Percy Schmeiser and Through the tough, time-shifting Goes to War was first published in Americanas re-creates one person’s biotech multinational Monsanto action of the play, Colette reflects 1982 and went on to win the Governor struggle to construct a home between Inc., a David-and-Goliath struggle on her marriage and past love, General’s Award for Drama and the two cultures, while exploding the that cast Schmeiser as the offering rich associative memories Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Award. In images and constructs built up small-farmer underdog fighting the while also uncovering the hidden 2010, the celebrated story of the around Latinos and Latin America. unscrupulous major corporation. and inaccessible – that which is World War I flying ace was revised to This one-person play works through Monsanto accused him of growing made to disappear from view. Guilt frame the play as a retrospective. This bold juxtapositions and satiric their genetically patented and grief, infidelity and infertility, second edition provides the script for reference points: Simón Bolívar and Roundup Ready canola seeds on loss and longing are the deeper either the young Billy Bishop or the old Speedy Gonzales; Columbus and his property without paying the subjects Panych explores here. At Billy Bishop (as performed last year Fodor’s travel guides; Ricky Ricardo licensing fee they require. Through the same time, the play examines by Eric Peterson at Soulpepper and the Latin Lover; “La Bamba” and a suspenseful labyrinth of legal the desire to make connections in Theatre). Placido Domingo. Verdecchia twirls conflicts regarding patent rights life – thoughts to deeds, intentions stereotypes and clichés, offers and scientific showdowns about to outcomes – in scenes often $17.95 / 128 pp / Drama comparative histories, examines GM food, Seeds asks the essential enlivened by the playwright’s 978-0-88922-689-0 myths and mysticism, and provides question: “Can you patent a living trademark humour. lessons in language and dancing. thing?” $17.95 / 128 pp / Drama $16.95 / 80 pp / Drama 978-0-88922-702-6 $17.95 / 144 pp / Drama 978-0-88922-705-7 978-0-88922-701-9

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39 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013 40 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2012-2013