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VOL. 35 • NO. 2 • Summer 2021
TOMTOM BERGERBERGER photo (1933(1933 -- 2021)2021) bowie
HeHe listenedlistened toto thethe NorthNorth geoff
and he was vital in validating #40010086 and he was vital in validating
Indigenous land claims. agreement
Indigenous land claims. mail photo
page 7 bowie
publication geoff CEDAR BOWERS HARD LIQOUR HOWARD WHITE Raised in a commune, a Artisanal distilleries Fifty humorous sketches woman takes on city life. 23 on Vancouver Island. 14 of West Coast life. 5 t t
PRINTED??????/TARA / BEV o rc om abook.c Let’s celebrate kids and teens (and puppies) being themselves!
9781459831377 PB $24.95 9781459826380 HC $19.95 9781459824843 HC $19.95 Stories, essays, art and poetry “A compassionate look at dysmorphia… “[A] sheer delight. Highly—and created by trans youth aged 11 to 18. and how family support can encourage proudly—recommended.” Our lives. Our voices. self-acceptance and self-love.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review —School Library Journal, starred review “Successfully testifies to the warmth and power of queer community.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Look for these books and more at your favourite bookstore.
Orca Book Publishers is proud to now distribute… Flamingo Rampant Flamingo Rampant produces feminist, racially-diverse children’s books that celebrate LGBT2Q kids, families and communities, in an eff ort to bring visibility and positivity to the reading landscape of children everywhere. We make books kids love that love them right back, bedtime stories for beautiful dreams, and books that make kids of all kinds say with pride: that kid’s just like me!
9780987976352 • $15.95 • PB 9780987976383 • $15.95 • PB 9780987976345 • $15.95 • PB
2 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021 BC TOP PEOPLE SELLERS
Richard Wagamese A Perfect Likeness: Two Novellas . inc ShuswapShuswap (Orca Books $19.95) network
Carol Anne Hilton Indigenomics: One of B.C.’s most Taking a Seat at the
successful outlaws, postmedia Economic Table of BushmanBushman (New Society $19.99) John Bjornstrom, at his main camp, 2001. division Colleen Macdonald a Let’s Go Biking , sun Okanagan & Beyond (Sandhill Book Marketing $19.95) vancouver Janet Gallant & .
Sharon Thesen photo
The Wig-Maker
(New Star $18) steeves
Terry Watada t dale Mysterious Dreams of the Dead ritish Columbia has Bjornstrom, and read court and RCMP (Anvil Press $20) been home to many transcriptions for The Bushman’s Lair: Surviving L. Jane McMillan fugitives—train rob- On the Trail of the Fugitive of the Truth and Conviction: ber Bill Miner, la- Shuswap (D&M $22.95), which answers without GPS Donald Marshall Jr. and the bour leader Ginger why Bjornstrom went into hiding, how Mi’kmaw Quest for Justice Goodwin, Gitxsan he eluded capture and what eventually riving to the Grand Canyon in (UBC Press $29.95) B trapper Simon Guna- happened to him. the U.S. from B.C., 13-year- Bitten Acherman noot—but none as mys- The story has more twists than a D old Francie’s dad finds out the hard way not to rely on GPS, in Lost in Barkerville terious as the ‘Bushman of the Shuswap’. switchback road including a bizarre, top- (Ronsdale $12.95) His real name was John Bjornstrom secret U.S. military program that recruited Penticton-based Frances Greenslade’s and he made headlines around the coun- people like Bjornstrom who supposedly first novel for young readers, Red Fox try twenty years ago as he evaded the had psychic abilities, and involvement Road (Penguin $19.99). with the $6 billion Bre-X gold mining The GPS shortcut road he decides to RCMP for two years hiding in the Shus- wap Lake wilderness. The Bushman dug swindle of the 1990s. At the heart of it is take isn’t on Francie’s mom’s map. Turns an elaborate 900 sq. ft. cave out of rock Bjornstrom, a hyperactive son of Romani out, it’s a logging road that gets rougher and serviced it with solar energy power, refugees and later adopted by an out- and rougher until they hit a rock, taking propane tanks and water from the lake. doorsy couple from Norway who helped out the truck’s oil pan. They are stranded. He re-stocked his supplies by raiding him develop survival skills. Bjornstrom After a night in their tent, Francie’s dad summer cabins to get food, clothing, tools, died in 2018 at the age of 58. 978-1550179224 hikes out to get help. With little food left,
weapons and whatever else he needed. He Francie puts her survival skills to work
also harvested the land for grub including making fires and fir needle tea. squirrels and hares. t Anti-vaxxer Noir Bjornstrom taunted the police when he snuck out of the bush for media inter- Entering the second summer of the Co- Alison Tedford views or to buy a McDonald’s burger on vid-19 pandemic as nerves get frayed his birthday before slipping back into the and tempers lost is a bit like being in Chronic Profit: Building forest. Some admired his survival skills, Your Small Business While one of Daniel Kalla’s medical thrillers. Managing Persistent Pain others thought he was a common thief. The practicing emergency physi- Eventually caught by police posing as (Self-Counsel Press $26.95) cian and head of St. Paul’s Hospital ER reporters, Bjornstrom was cooperative department became a best- Pat Henman and willing to share information, much seller with his first novel, Beyond the Legal Limit: of it startling: Surviving A Collision Officer One: “You look very healthy. Pandemic (Forge Books, With a Drunk Driver
So you’d just bathe in the lake and 2005) based on his clini- (Caitlin Press $24.95)
cal experience dealing Frances stuff?” Greenslade Howard White Bjornstrom: “I had a hot tub. with the 2003 SARS crisis. t Here on the Coast: Officer One: “Hot tub?” In his latest novel, Reflections from Officer Two: “You had a hot tub?” Lost Immunity (Simon & the Rainbelt Years later, houseboaters hiking Schuster $22) Kalla tackles A few mornings later, Francie finds a (Harbour $24.95) the surrounding hills discovered the issue of vaccine hesitancy note left by her mom: “Dear Francie, I’ll be the Bushman’s cave just back for you. Don’t go anywhere. I know Sylvia Olsen and the potential impact on a as he had left it with you’ll be brave. Love, Mom.” Title: Unravelling Canada: global outbreak. And yes, A Knitting Odyssey food, books, lights, a Left on her own, Francie makes do the book was inspired (D&M $24.95) bed, small washing while remembering her beloved grand- by Kalla’s time work-
machine and other Daniel mother and twin sister (both now dead),
Cheryl Alexander amenities. It spurred ing on the medical the stuttering boy next door who saved her Takaya: Lone Wolf Kalla frontlines of the Co- author Paul McK- t from bullies and others in her life. (Rocky Mountain Books $30) vid-19 pandemic. endrick to interview On the ninth day, Francie must decide M.A.C. Farrant people who had known 9781982150150 if she should hike out too. 9780735267817 One Good Thing (Talonbooks $19.95) Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Annual subscription: $25 Richard Cannings, Return undeliverable Canadian Indigenous Editor: Latash-Maurice Nahanee Tom Aversa, & BC addresses to: BC BookWorld, 926 West 15th Ave., Vancouver, BC Canada V5Z 1R9 Contributing Editors: John Moore, Heidi Greco, We gratefully acknowledge the unobtrusive Hal Opperman BOOKWORLD Mark Forsythe, Caroline Woodward, assistance of Canada Council, a continuous Birds of British Columbia Produced with the sponsorship of Valerie Green, Sage Birchwater. partner since 1988, and creativeBC, a provincial partner since 2014. and the Pacific Northwest: Summer 2021 Pacific BookWorld News Society. A Complete Guide, Volume 35 • Number 2 Publications Mail Registration No. 7800. Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics Second Edition BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Publisher: Accounts: Ingela Kasparaitis (Heritage House $29.95) Beverly Cramp Advertising & editorial: Consultants: Sharon Jackson, Kenneth Li BC BookWorld, 926 West 15th Ave., Photographer: Laura Sawchuk CANADA BOOK FUND The current topselling titles from Vancouver, BC Canada V5Z 1R9 Proofreader: Wendy Atkinson major BC publishing companies, Editor/Production: In-Kind Supporters: in no particular order. David Lester Tel: 604-736-4011 Deliveries: Ken Reid, Acculogix Simon Fraser University Library; [email protected] Vancouver Public Library; University of BC Library
3 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
?????????/TARA / BEV FICTION SHORT STORIES riveting memoir escapist fiction & pandemic poetry
MEMOIR POETRY bc • womenby
AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL INDEPENDENT /caitlinbooks @caitlinpress BOOKSTORE OR ONLINE AT CAITLIN-PRESS.COM @caitlinpress.daggereditions •
A handbook for teens— a compassionate, honest, and personal guide to empowering yourself, and others, for a safer and more inclusive world.
“ Girlvana helps readers release unworthiness and step into Vancouver greatness! is is a timely book author! with an empowering message.”
—G B, #1 New York Times bestselling author
4 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021 bait, they could be chuckling and nod- HUMOUR REVIEW ding to a voice that cleverly convinces us there is no place like home. “Nobody on my side of the family could carry a tune in a wheelbarrow,” White writes. Describing the late logger Here on the Coast: poet Peter Trower, B.C.’s bard of the Reflections from the Rainbelt by Howard White woods, he suggests, “That he lived to (Harbour $24.95) age eighty-seven is a testament to the human liver… Pete never learned to drive, which was a good thing.” As White’s friend, Lorna Crozier unshine Coast is states, “Howie White’s story-telling such a goofy voice is intimate, funny and oh so name, it borders smart.” Howard White writes like a wry on asinine. In the angel, leaning on a garden gate, seem- opening pages of ingly in no hurry. He also happens to his charming, new be one of the kindest people one can S collection, Here on hope to meet. Readers who encounter the Coast, Howard White, the latter- him as a storyteller will ultimately be day Mark Twain of B.C. literature, mystified. Who is this guy anyway? deftly explains how the name crept into There is a great deal more to How- common parlance. ard White than sagacity and humour. “It took a lot of gall to nickname a You have to be oh so shrewd to figure piece of certified rainforest ‘the Sun- out how the heck you can manage to shine Coast’…The blame for that usu- operate Western Canada’s most-estab- ally goes to Harry Roberts, the pioneer lished publishing consortium (Harbour who put Roberts’ Creek on the map in Publishing, Douglas & McIntyre and the 1900s.” Nightwood Editions) from tiny Pender Doing his best imitation of a country Howard and Mary White. He will be at the Sunshine Coast Harbour rather than Winnipeg, Regina, farmer, chewing the fat, not up to any- Festival of the Written Arts in Sechelt, July 4 - August 15. Calgary, Edmonton or Vancouver. thing special, maybe hanging around t outside the general store, or swatting flies in a rocking chair, White proceeds to draw us into his hilarious world of WET-COASTER cagey yarns and sly wisdom by talking about the weather. We learn that the nearby town of Gibsons (formerly called Gibson’s Landing, where they made The Beach- WIT combers TV series) actually gets just ¾ of an inch more rain annually than Roberts Creek so, for a joke, the pio- neer builder Harry Roberts erected a & facetious sign on his steamboat dock, WARMTH circa 1930: The Sunshine Belt. This prompted a less-than-scrupu- lous realtor down in Gibsons to extend During a pandemic, it’s good that misnomer to describe the entire, rugged coastal zone from Gibsons to to have a book that convinces Egmont (where you catch a ferry to t Powell River) as the Sunshine Coast. us there’s no place like home. At least Long Beach is actually long. Medal for Humour. As a contributor disappeared into the drink with it. O Howard White, 1970s i f y ou ca r e a bout be i ng a br i t i s h to the regional magazine Coast Life, Yes, Michelle Pfeiffer really did Columbian, you want to know such White has continuously developed his buy getaway property at Leask Cove, An autobiography should come next. things. So fast forward to the early own sophisticated and original style to below Fawn Bluff, in Bute Inlet, some Meanwhile, if more people nowadays 1970s when Howard White returns make his stories in Here on the Coast fifty kilometres beyond the end of the could tell you who Stephen Leacock from the Big Smoke (a.k.a. Vancouver, hilarious and easy to read with zero nearest road. Yes, Princess Louisa Inlet was, this collection could have been where he attended UBC) and co-founds artifice. This is no mean feat. used to attract Hollywood types like called Sunshine Coast Sketches. It’s in Harbour Publishing with his wife Mary. Yes, the family vehicle – a three-ton John Barrymore, William Powell and keeping with a literary tradition in B.C. She would serve in every capacity from Ford gravel truck – really did slide off Mack Sennett. Yes, a Frisbee really that dates back to M. Wylie Blanchet’s typesetter to bookkeeper to editor to de- the back of a Black Ball Ferry called was thrown at Madeira Park in 1957. A Curve of Time (coached into existence signer before retiring from active duty the Quillayute (the first car ferry to Once upon another century all by Hubert Evans), followed by the in 2019. White also decides he wants provide regular service to Gibsons from newspapers used to have a humour likes of Don Hunter’s Spinner’s Inlet, to pay tribute to authentic West Coast Horseshoe Bay) in October of 1959 and columnist. Jim Spilsbury’s Spilsbury’s Coast and history and eccentric working char- into Horseshoe Bay and, yes, for a few Here on the Coast is such an engag- The Accidental Airline (both co-written acters like his dad, Frank White, by dreadful minutes, the White family ing and proudly non-urban collection with White) and more recently Pat Car- starting a regional history publication. and the equally horrified ferry workers you’ll want those days to return. While ney’s On Island: Life Among the Coast (It helps to know that Frank White— really did believe his sister must have billions are being distracted by click Dwellers. 978-1-55017-924-8 who makes cameo appearances in Here on the Coast—was a jack-of-all-trades gyppo logging outfit operator and EXCERPT: Here On The Coast by Howard White mechanic who later ran the Pender Harbour gas station and wrote two hings as deeply entrenched in our Bicycles were supposed to disappear at the ap- coastal bestsellers at age 99 and 100, psyches as books don’t disappear over- pearance of the first motor car. Horses, too. I read after he married New Yorker journalist night just because some propeller-head somewhere there are more horses in B.C. today Edith Iglauer.) comes along and announces he’s made than there were in 1900, and they are leading much The absurdity of Sunshine Coast as a name prompted Howard (he’s a better mousetrap. If that were so, happier lives. Dogs and cats were first domesticated known as Howie) and Mary to choose Tpainting would have stopped the minute photography for very practical reasons and I can show you vet the name Raincoast Chronicles for his was invented. Instead, we have more art galleries bills to prove they account for a much larger share acclaimed ongoing digest of coastal than at any time in history and a painting of someone of the GDP now than when they actually earned lore. In contrast to the phoniness of having a bad day selling for $120 million. their keep. that RealtyWorld moniker, he ventured Sailboats didn’t disappear the minute the Easthope When you think about it, we are surrounded by deeper into realism by giving us The brothers announced their first marine engine. A ferry things that once we only kept out of dull practical- Encyclopedia of British Columbia and trip across Howe Sound on any sunny summer day ity but we now keep because we darnwell feel like publishing about 1,000 other books, earning the Order of B.C. and Order will confirm there’s more rag-hangers afloat than it. The very fact books and libraries have become of Canada. ever, no matter if they spend 99 per cent of their technologically obsolete may mean their best years It might be more pertinent to know time motoring. are just beginning. he has also won the Stephen Leacock
5 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
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Victoria Unbuttoned Craigdarroch Castle Wagon Road North Always Pack a Candle A Red-Light History of BC’s Capital City in 21 Treasures The Saga of the Cariboo Gold Rush A Nurse in the Cariboo-Chilcotin Linda J. Eversole Moira Dann Art Downs, Ken Mather (ed.) Marion McKinnon Crook A nuanced history of prostitution in An approachable museum guide that takes A newly revised and updated edition An adventurous young nurse provides Victoria told through newly uncovered readers into the family history, local lore, of the classic pictorial account of the much-needed health care to the Cariboo- stories of women who lived it. and oddities of Victoria’s beloved landmark. Cariboo Gold Rush trail. Chilcotin in the 1960s. $20 pb | $12.99 ebook $20 pb | $12.99 ebook $26.95 pb | $13.99 ebook $22.95 pb | $11.99 ebook TouchWood Editions TouchWood Editions Heritage House Heritage House
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6 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021 COVER OBIT
homas Berger, one of the most influential THE GREAT British Co- lumbians, was best known as the com- T missioner of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, sometimes called the Berger Inquiry. His dual professional life in law and politics fundamentally enhanced the LISTENER concept and viability of self-govern- ment for Indigenous people since the 1960s. Trail-blazing lawyer Thomas Berger (1933-2021) Born in Victoria on March 23, 1933, fought for Aboriginal rights in Canada by hearing directly of Swedish descent, Thomas Rodney Berger gained respect for the law from Indigenous peoples, often in their own language. from his father who was in the RCMP. After his early schooling in B.C. and Saskatchewan, Berger attended high Berger’s integrity influenced the that took us from the Alaska National federally for the NDP. He persevered school in North Vancouver, earned a nature of future negotiations with Wildlife Refuge, to Tuktoyaktuk, to and was later elected to serve the con- law degree from UBC and was called Indigenous people, ushering in a new Fisherman Lake near Fort Liard in stituency of Vancouver-Burrard, both to the bar in 1957. standard for respect. “The Elders really Dehcho Territory. federally (1962-1963) and provincially The following year the Ironworkers liked to talk to him because he wanted “[Berger] helped Indigenous people (1966-1969). Then, in 1969, Berger Union retained his services for a ju- to listen and he encouraged people to in their struggle to have their rights narrowly defeated Dave Barrett for dicial inquiry into the tragic collapse speak in their own language,” said for- recognized. A noble service indeed.” leadership of the B.C. NDP only to re- of the Second Narrows Bridge that re- mer Dene national chief Bill Erasmus. In Berger’s book Fragile Freedoms: sign later that year after losing in the sulted in the deaths of 18 construction “People had never heard from our El- Human Rights and Dissent in Canada provincial election to the Social Credit’s workers. Soon, Berger was battling the ders before in such a setting. I learned (Clarke, Irwin & Co., 1981), he recounts W.A.C. Bennett. Workmen’s Compensation Board, try- from him. Letting people speak is very, his abiding concerns for civil rights and “I first met Tom Berger when he was ing to get a pension for a miner named very powerful.” in A Long and Terrible Shadow (D&M, campaigning against Dave Barrett for Luis Battaglia who suffered from Filmmaker Peter Raymont, now 1991) he surveys European-Aboriginal leader of the BC NDP,” says Howard silicosis. This case led to the creation White, President of Harbour Publish- of a Royal Commission to investigate ing and Douglas & McIntyre. “I was the WCB. impressed by his high mindedness but It was an auspicious beginning. worried about his diffident, wooden In the shadow of his achievements manner. Charismatic he was not. as a social activist and a lawyer, Thom- He beat Barrett but was creamed by as Berger was a productive author. W.A.C. Bennett in the general election. His memoir One Man’s Justice: A It was the best thing for him because it Life in the Law (D&M, 2003) spans 40 opened the way for him to serve in ways years of precedent-making cases since that better suited his talents, first as 1957 and includes the landmark case a judge, then as commissioner of the of [Frank] Calder v. British Columbia landmark Mackenzie Valley Pipeline in 1971, during which Berger asserted Inquiry, then as a tireless advocate that Aboriginal rights must have a and author for the rights of Indigenous distinct place in Canadian law. By peoples. In this last role he did as much 1973, the Supreme Court of Canada as any Canadian to advance the cause concurred. Berger’s approach in the of First Nations. It is hard to think of Calder case laid the foundation upon a public figure in Canada who earned which most modern treaty-making more universal respect.” cases have been argued. Berger served as a B.C. Supreme As the commissioner of the Mack- Court judge from 1971 to 1983, during enzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, Berger which time he conducted the aforemen- wrote an extensive report, Northern tioned pipeline inquiry. Frontier Northern Homeland (Queen’s Accorded more than a dozen honor- Printer, 1977), which sold more cop- ary degrees, Berger also served as chair ies than any other federal government of SFU’s J.S. Woodsworth campaign, publication. which set out in 1984 to raise $1 mil- The report’s work involved Berger Thomas Berger with David Suzuki in 2004, near Tuktoyaktuk, NWT to film an lion for the J.S. Woodsworth Endow- compiling 40,000 pages of documen- episode for The Nature of Things. Photo taken by director/producer, Geoff Bowie. ment Fund in the Humanities, and he tation, visiting all 35 communities received the Order of Canada in 1990. along the Mackenzie River and holding president of White Pine Pictures, was relations in the Americas since 1492. He was accorded Freeman of the City hearings that were augmented by CBC in the North researching a film for the Berger’s interest in the moral and le- status in Vancouver in 1992. coverage in six languages. It led Berger National Film Board at the time. As gal rights of Indigenous peoples spread After 12 years as a judge in the to strongly urge there be no pipeline quoted in the Globe & Mail, Raymont his influence beyond Canada. In 1991, Supreme Court of British Columbia, built across the Northern Yukon for said, “Justice Berger was unfailingly he was appointed deputy chairman of Berger returned to the practice of at least ten years, essentially stalling polite, patient and respectful. He had the first independent review commis- law and represented the province in industrial development. a gift for listening. His inquiry was sioned by the World Bank to examine a lawsuit against tobacco companies. “If it were built now,” he told the transformative.” the implementation of resettlement and “I always made my way back into law Liberal government, “it would bring Around 2004, a new Mackenzie environmental measures in the Sardar practice,” he once wrote. limited economic benefits, its social im- Valley pipeline was being considered. Sarovar dam and irrigation projects Berger is the subject of a biography pact would be devastating, and it would Filmmaker Geoff Bowie made a docu- in India. He co-authored a 360-page by Carolyn Swayze, Hard Choices: A frustrate the goals of native claims.” mentary with Thomas Berger for CBC’s report critical of the World Bank’s sup- Life of Tom Berger (D&M, 1987). He re- When the report was released, sev- The Nature of Things titled Ghosts of port for a project that would displace mained active in the B.C. Civil Liberties eral negotiations were underway over Futures Past: Tom Berger in the North. nearly 100,000 people, Sardar Sarovar: Association throughout his life. Indigenous land claims and Berger’s “We took Tom back to several Indig- Report of the Independent Review (Re- Berger also wrote Village Journey view was that pipeline construction enous communities where he had held source Futures International, 1992). (Hill and Wang, Farrar Strauss, 1985) should be delayed until those claims his famous Berger Inquiry in the ‘70s,” In 1997, he was part of an interna- and Northern Frontier Northern Home- were settled. He also argued that the says Bowie. “Thirty years had passed, tional human rights team that went to land Revisited (D&M, 1988). previous pipeline process had not three of the four Indigenous groups in Chile to assess the social and environ- “Tom was a great champion of Indig- taken Indigenous culture seriously the valley had signed comprehensive mental impact of a major dam project enous peoples and rights,” says Jody and that any development needed to land claims agreements and Tom was on the Biobio River. Wilson-Raybould, Vancouver Granville conform to the wishes of those who asking them how they felt now about a Berger took his first run at politics MP, “a true trail-blazer.” lived in the North. pipeline. It was a wonderful film project in 1962 although he failed to win a seat Berger died on April 28, 2021.
7 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
????????????????/TARA/ BEV MEMOIR REVIEW
Sharon Thesen (left) and Janet Gallant 80,00080,000 HAIRSHAIRS
The Wig-Maker She is rejected countless times in by Janet Gallant and Sharon Thesen Janet Gallant transforms this search but Gallant is made of (New Star $18) tough stuff and she persists in her BY CAROLINE WOODWARD search, including DNA ancestry sourc- her story of abuse and alopecia es. These investigations are included in magine neighbours Gallant’s and Thesen’s memoir-poem, gathering during into a state of grace with the ultimately leading to a mysterious heal- a hot, dry sum- ing process through the telling itself. mer in a home O high above help of Sharon Thesen janet gallant found sharon thesen Lake Okanagan by chance. Thesen’s husband, Paul, I to wait for a fire and Jim, Janet’s current life partner evacuation order. A “Janet’s telling was going to compose suicide just before his fourteenth both love to cycle year-round, solid wildfire bears down on them but they the entirety of the text—her telling birthday after a particularly horrible bicycling buddies. At the time of the are hoping for the wind to change, for processed through my ears, my heart, beating. It’s about finding a way to threatening wildfire in 2017 however, their homes to be cupped in the hands my hands.” memorialize her older sister Penny who Sharon and Paul were aware that of a merciful God. O absorbed the worst of the sexual abuse Janet Gallant’s partner was away on In the meantime, the hosts serve janet gallant’s life story to date is from the erstwhile father but this did business in Alberta. So, although they chips and salsa and wine. The hours about surviving as the daughter of a not shield the two younger daughters don’t know Gallant well, she is the first tick by and two women begin a conver- Black woman with a mental illness who for long. of the neighbours to be invited down to sation that will continue for months, abandoned the family when Janet was Gallant’s story also leads us to her wait among friends and acquaintances. one that will change their lives and three years old. Gallant and her siblings kind young husband, a best friend, It proved to be fortuitous as Gallant that will result in a remarkable book, were left in the care of their father: a confidante, and father of her two be- had been searching for the right person The Wig-Maker. white, poorly educated, binge-drinking loved daughters to whom this book is to tell her story to. Fortune had led One woman is the wig-maker, Janet soldier who found ways to physically, dedicated. Tragically, Gallant’s hus- her to Thesen, a master poet with an Gallant, who works from home on sexually and emotionally abuse his band is struck down by the ticking time acutely sensitive ear for language, its her painstaking creations. Black and children and future adult partners. bomb of a hereditary condition. rhythms, its hesitations and how an white photos of Gallant’s wig-making Doreen, another Black woman with The autoimmune disorder of alo- empathetic soul might be a skilled con- are featured throughout this slim book a young daughter of her own, answered pecia then claims Gallant’s glorious duit to transfer those lines of speech of connected poems that charts her his ad for a ‘housekeeper’ and moved in African mane of hair within the next and the heartbreaking stories therein journey overcoming a tragically abusive as a stepmother. Doreen was the kind six years. Ill-fitting wigs bought off-the- to the page. Gallant and Thesen’s con- upbringing. who ignored blatant child abuse hap- rack only add to the discomfort of this versations took place over the next two Gallant starts telling her life story pening right in front of her. So, these inner/emotional and outer/physical and a half years. to one of the wildfire party hosts, Sha- poor kids were, in a sense, abandoned health condition. A line from The Wig-Maker describ- ron Thesen, who happens to be an yet again by a mother figure to the After working in Calgary busi- ing the storytelling, alludes to a form of editor and poet with a dozen books to miseries of life with a monster. nesses as an executive assistant for grace that Gallant so deservedly finds: her credit, no less than three of which No faraway family intervened. No twenty-five years, Gallant takes up the “The music is indeed here. Lyrics of have been nominated for the Governor- concerned friends stepped up on behalf nearly-solitary world of wig-making. By truth, and notes of healing, are there…. General’s Award. The two decide to of these children. The frequent trans- knotting up to 80,000 hairs in singles, You and Sharon are singing together.” work together on a book about Gallant. fers of army life mitigated against any doubles and triples to create one trans- 978-1-55420-171-6 “I remember how easy it was to talk sort of outside investigation by social formative wig, Gallant contemplates to Sharon. There was no small talk. I agencies outside the military bases of larger life issues yet again. She wants Caroline Woodward’s most recent book can’t explain it, my heart trusted her that era. to find family members. She wants to was A West Coast Summer (Harbour, heart,” says Gallant. Gallant’s story is about wanting to know the truth; she wants photos and 2018), a children’s picture book about “I could not, would not, try to write find a way to remember her brutalized any stories family members may or may summer on the Pacific Northwest coast it in the third person,” says Thesen. older brother, Billy, who committed not choose to share. illustrated by Carol Evans.
8 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
?????WENDY/TARA / BEV telling is like that. But we need some- one to reveal what happens behind the MEMOIR REVIEW scenes. He was a lead federal negotiator on the Nisga’a Treaty, the first modern treaty in British Columbia. The quest for a formal agreement within the AFTER Nisga’a Nation started over 100 years Peyakow: Reclaiming Cree Dignity, ago. I am married to a Nisga’a woman A Memoir by Darrel J. McLeod who is the daughter of a high-ranking (D&M $29.95) Chief who was also a senior negotia- tor for the Nisga’a negotiating team. BY LATASH-MAURICE NAHANEE MAMASKATCH Also, starting in the mid 1980s, I was an editor and writer with a provincial arrel J. McLeod’s First Nations newspaper and reported Peyakow takes An extraordinary Cree man on the Nisga’a treaty negotiations. So, the reader on his describes how his people overcame I can verify that it was a long, arduous personal odys- process. sey and reveals “dystopian lives” in Peyakow. A few years later, McLeod is once the history of a again a lead federal negotiator. This D country with a time he is trying to negotiate a treaty dark colonial mind- with the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Nation on set regarding Aboriginal people. It’s he achieved much by coming to the their suicide rates four times the na- the west coast of Vancouver Island. On the follow-up to his first memoir, the coast, it also led McLeod farther from tional average, their children making the table are issues related to land, eco- best-seller Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming his family and culture. up half of the kids in government care, nomic development, fisheries, culture of Age (D&M, 2018) about the impact of Eventually earning degrees in with gross overrepresentation in pris- and language. And there is also the colonization on McLeod and his family. French Literature and Education from ons, a lower life expectancy than other question of an apology from Canada We witness in these new stories UBC, McLeod began a career in teach- Canadians, poor educational outcomes to those members who were forced to McLeod’s dignity and intelligence as ing. He climbed the ladder to become at all levels and low economic participa- attend an Indian residential School. he faced the tsunami-like impact and principal of a school in northern British tion. If any minority group ever faces a But the federal government of Canada destruction caused by the draconian Columbia. The conditions of this school crisis remotely similar to what we are was initially opposed to issuing such Indian Act, which brought about cul- were appalling. The federal government facing, I hope government will seriously an apology. In the end, the Canadian tural genocide to First Nations people underfunds many aspects of Aborigi- consider their proposals.” government relented and did issue an all across Canada. nal education in Canada and McLeod As executive director of interna- apology to the Nuu-chah-nulth vic- It has taken courage to stand up to experienced this firsthand. Federally tional affairs for the Assembly of First tims of physical, sexual, spiritual and a country that took control of land and operated schools built on a tight budget Nations, McLeod leads an Indigenous cultural abuse suffered at residential resources from Indigenous people. It fall apart within a few years. delegation to the United Nations in schools. didn’t stop there. The Indian Act sought McLeod, then moves on to work for Geneva. With courage and unstop- McLeod understood the impacts of to eradicate Indigenous languages and the federal government and the As- pable determination, he helps draft such abuses. It’s inspiring to learn how culture. Leaders like McLeod have sembly of First Nations, the national the United Nations Declaration on the he was able to overcome his own chal- stood up and said enough is enough. body of elected Aboriginal politicians. Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP). lenging obstacles to become a school “I now grasp how my extended fami- His meteoric rise in the ranks of the He tells us that Canada, Australia and principal, a treaty negotiator, a jazz ly, once proud and strong, independent civil service brings him into roles and New Zealand strongly opposed this musician and raconteur. and thriving, became disenfranchised situations that draw out the best in his universal declaration of the rights of Peyakow is a page turner. Take the and impoverished while the society warrior spirit and intellect. Indigenous People. As countries that time to read and understand the his- around us grew increasingly affluent,” One of his first government jobs were once colonies of Great Britain, tory of Indigenous people in Canada he says. “In the pages of this book, I involved convincing senior decision- from their early days they suppressed through books such as this. write what I’ve come to understand makers to fund new Aboriginal certifi- the rights of Indigenous people. Canada 978-1771622318 about the colonization of my people and cate and degree programs in colleges was among the last of the western tell the story of how I struggled to turn and universities. “My colleagues, all countries to sign the UNDRIP. Latash-Maurice Nahanee is a member around our dystopian lives, striving to white—policy analysts, economists McLeod’s honest account of his life of the Squamish Nation. He has a B.A. salvage some degree of happiness and and accountants—made the same ar- and work is brutal at times. Truth- degree (Simon Fraser University). well-being not only for myself and my gument: if they agreed to fund special family but also for Indigenous individu- programs for “Natives,” they would als and peoples in Canada and other have to do the same for other minori- parts of the world.” ties—Chinese Canadians, South Asian McLeod grew up in an impoverished Canadians, Ukrainian Canadians and Cree First Nations community in Treaty so on,” says McLeod. 8 territory in Northern Alberta. He tells His comeback argument was: of the painful legacy of his impover- “With respect, other ‘groups’ ished youth, at times struggling with aren’t victims of rapid and bru- self-destructive behaviours and later tal colonization, their culture the deaths of some of his siblings. He and language methodically endured the bullying of white class- suppressed, their territory mates, and coped with physical and and birthright usurped, sexual abuse. McLeod moved to Vancouver to pursue his educational goals. While herb
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courtesy
photo
Darrel J. McLeod, Port Renfrew; (inset) recent portrait. Peyakow is Cree for “one who walks alone.”
9 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
??????????/TARA/ BEV CONNECT WITH US ONLINE: www.douglas-mcintyre.com ∙ facebook.com/DMPublishers ∙ instagram.com/douglasmcintyre2013 ∙ twitter: @DMPublishers FOR TRADE: All Douglas & McIntyre titles are available from University of Toronto Press Distribution
10 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021 MEMOIR REVIEW
Two Pieces of Cloth: One Family’s Story of the Holocaust by Joe Gold (Page Two $21.95)
fter three days and two nights in a cattle car EXODUS crammed with from Auschwitz & Bergen-Belsen to Vancouver 100 people shar- ing a single buck- A et for waste and a single pail of water, David Goldberger arrived at Auschwitz on April 20, 1944. Dr. Josef Mengele directed him to the right. He could live. All his possessions were confis- cated. Goldberger stood naked with the other lucky ones while their heads were shaved and the crevices of their bodies were searched for valuables. It wasn’t until David Goldberger’s Vancouver-raised son Joe Gold was himself in his seventies that his father’s story of faith, perseverance and family love made its way into print as a book, Two Pieces of Cloth: One Family’s Story of the Holocaust. Much of the text that Joe Gold prepared to honour his family’s story was gleaned from interviews conducted Aurelia Gold with David Goldberger decades before by Robert Krell. be dressed as a girl in case we were O ever stopped by the gendarme. They in remembrance lies the secret of would check any suspicious boys for redemption. That idea is from the circumcisions.” teachings of the Polish mystic Rabbi Although the story is mainly told Israel ben Eliezer who is regarded as from the perspectives of the separated the founder of Hasidic Judaism. David couple, it opens with Joe Gold, as a Goldberger always knew he had a story child, discovering a book of concen- to remember and tell. He just never tration camp photographs hidden found a voice for it. in his father’s fabric store. “It made After the home and the textile sense that my father, upon arrival in business of the Goldberger family in Canada in 1948, would open a fabric Spisske Vlachy was confiscated be- store,” Gold says. “Having successfully cause they were Jews, the Slovak managed and owned textile businesses government proceeded to solve its twice (both before and after the war) in so-called unemployment problem that his native country of Czechoslovakia, ensued by deporting Jews in the spring it was the natural way for him to make of 1942. a new start once again.” This precious
The first train to Auschwitz from and rare photo album that Joe Gold the Poprad transit camp in Slovakia first saw in 1952 went missing for departed on March 25, 1942 carry- t seventy years until he traced its origins ing 1,000 unmarried Jewish women just before Two Pieces of Cloth went between the ages of sixteen and forty- to press. five in cattle cars. Family transports In the camps, David Goldberger vowed that if he survived he would arrange to be “For as long as I can remember,” commenced on April 11. Jewish males buried in Jerusalem. His many trips to Israel included the Wailing Wall in 1975. Joe Gold says, “I have thought of the were dispatched to labour battalions Holocaust every day.” ing were lethal. He opted to take flight life again.’ Three metres of fabric would in 1943. He says the inspiration to complete with a group of men to reach Hanover, be sufficient to make a suit. It was with David Goldberger first worked as his family story arose from a poem writ- 50 kilometres away, in northwestern these two pieces of cloth that my father a slave labourer in 1944 in one of the ten by Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis in Germany. It was there he was given was able to barter for other merchan- 32 factories of the Manfred Weiss Steel the High Holy Day prayer book, Back- two pieces of woollen cloth that would dise and necessities and to move on and Metal Works. (The wealthy Weiss wards and Forwards: family had been allowed to immigrate enable him to begin anew. and support his family once again.” to Portugal but their enormous art col- “My father noticed a large build- In Two Pieces of Cloth, we learn Looking backward, we recall our lection was confiscated.) ing which housed a textile company,” that several thousand Jews fled from ancestry. Looking forward, we confront our David Goldberger was ultimately his son Joe Gold says. “He recognized Czechoslovakia to Hungary aided by destiny. transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen- the name of the company as one of Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ungar. In the Looking backward, we reflect on his woollen fabric suppliers before voice of David Goldberger, his son Joe Belsen on February 17, 1945. Exactly our origins. 303 days after he boarded the cattle the war. He walked inside and intro- Gold recounts his father’s successful Looking forward, we choose our car, he was liberated from Bergen- duced himself to the owners. When return to Budapest after the Holocaust path. Belsen among 60,000 ghostly inmates. asked how they might be able to help to find his wife Aurelia and their first- Remembering that we are a tree By then, David Goldberger— him, my father replied ‘If born son, Andrew, who had been in of life, not letting go, known as Deszer, or Deszy— you are able to give me hiding with false Christian identities holding on, and holding to, we weighed sixty-five pounds. two pieces of cloth—two Andrew was disguised as a girl. walk into an unknown, Yugoslavia was the only times three metres—I “Andrew’s hair was long and beau- beckoning future, with our past beside us. government that came swiftly will be able to start my tiful. It was imperative that Andrew to rescue its Jews. Seemingly After David Goldberger eventually too skeletal to travel, Gold- “For as long as I can remember, emigrated to Canada with his family, berger was told by the camp’s he changed his last name to Gold and liberators to wait for the arrival I have thought of the Holocaust became highly successful in Canada’s of Slovakian troops. The con- t clothing sector with a prominent store, centration camp was rife with every day.” j o e g o l d Gold’s Fashion Fabrics on Granville typhus. The risks of remain- Street in Vancouver. 9781989603826
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???????WENDY/TARA/ BEV MEMOIR REVIEW
Chiru Sakura — Falling Cherry Blossoms A Mother & Daughter’s Journey through Racism, Internment and Oppression by Grace Eiko Thomson (Caitlin $24.95) BY CAROLINE WOODWARD
rom 1993—2001, my husband and I ran the Moth- erlode Bookstore in New Denver, museum
F B.C. where we had, amidst signs desig- national nating the usual books about wood- nikkei working, gardening, and fiction, one sign with these three words: issei nisei
sansei. In the early ’90s, those shelves courtesy contained books like Ken Adachi’s / photo groundbreaking non-fiction title, The Enemy That Never Was, Joy Kogawa’s leonard luminous novels and one of her books for children, Barry Broadfoot’s oral frank history, Years of Sorrow, Years of Shame, post-modern poetry volumes by Roy Miki and Gerry Shikatani, and several general titles about the history A mother and daughter’s of the Slocan Valley where there were ten internment camps for Japanese- bittersweet memoirs Canadian citizens in 1942. Today, those shelves would be museum packed with many more Canadian explore generational books, from the sansei/third genera- national tion in particular. And it would contain trauma during the nikkei
many copies of Chiru Sakura—Fall- ing Cherry Blossoms: A Mother & Daughter’s Journey through Racism, racism of the war years. courtesy Internment and Oppression, at once
Sawae Nishikihama was required by law to carry this registration card at all times; (top) A train carrying Japanese Canadians from SHATTERED Vancouver, stopped in the Slocan Valley, circa 1942. a conversation between issei/first and nisei/second generation immigrants to Canada, a decades-long argument between mother and daughter, and a close-up, personal history of dreams shattered and self-worth battered by the Canadian government’s decision to treat 22,000 citizens as “enemy aliens.” DREAMSher family, who had thrived molestation by older white her teenage daughter, Grace, treasured In the “orchard half” of New Den- in the lively, pre-war Pow- men, and recalling happier the factory-made sweaters and neck ver in 1993, once one of B.C.’s WW2 ell Street neighbourhood times as well, with kind- scarves given to her by a friend more internment camps, work was nearing of Vancouver. First, they nesses shown to the family than the exquisite ball gowns made by
photo completion on the Nikkei Internment were sent to Minto City, by other Canadians, most her mother. a mostly-abandoned gold t notably Jewish friends Grace wanted the Hit Parade tunes Memorial Centre, given National His- nishi toric Monument status in 2007. mining town near Lillooet, from Winnipeg. to sing along with while Sawae recalled In the summer of 1994, the film for three years. Then they vivien Since her older sister Ikebana floral arrangement lessons. cast and crew for The War Between Us were persuaded to go east Grace Eiko Thomson had been sent to Japan to A timid but bright and lovely little directed by Anne Wheeler, descended to Manitoba, to work on farms. live with a grandmother long before- girl, Eiko (Grace) came to demand on bucolic New Denver and provided Culture shock does not begin to hand, Grace inherited a list of daily her first name be anglicized to Grace work for carpenters, horse wranglers, describe it. chores from the age of ten onward. because an ignorant teacher made and local professional and amateur Grace’s mother, Sawae Nishiki- These included looking after her two a point of mangling her two-syllable actors including a number of former hama wanted her family to know about younger brothers and one sister and Japanese name every time he had to Canadian-Japanese internees and this life, including being faced with making simple meals for the family. utter it publicly. their descendants who had stayed the prospect of living in a barn during Both parents worked constantly This world is still full of injus- when the war ended. Other B.C. in- Manitoban winters. She began writ- to support their family on inadequate tices. Stories like these, painful and ternment camp residents had been ing her memoirs at the age of 84. Her wages and dealt with an older fam- shameful and hopeful, too, help us ordered to go “east of the Rockies or be second of five children, Grace, was by ily member who was, by my reading, understand the cost to our humanity sent back (sic) to Japan” as the govern- then a nationally respected curator of constantly taking financial advantage of racist government policies. Through- ment didn’t want them staying in the art exhibits, a gallery director, a leader of “third brother’s family” through co- out, Grace Eiko Thomson returns to province. But New Denver was the only of Japanese Canadian associations and ercive methods. her mother’s teachings of hope and internment site to which this rule did mother of two, married to a Scot. She Sawae was a gently raised and resilience symbolized in the cherry not apply and the cherry trees in the had also been taught the Japanese educated woman when she left Japan blossoms around what was once their orchard and many beloved and highly language and script from an early age to marry her handsome, hardworking home in Vancouver. 9781773860411 esteemed former internees blossomed so she began translating her mother’s fiancé, by then a naturalized Canadian, after the harsh war years. memoirs. in 1930. He worked at every manual Recently retired as a lighthouse keeper O Grace found herself adding her labour and service job that came on Lennard Island, Caroline Woodward fate and family pressure had other own reflections in response, from her his way while she became a skilled lives and writes from somewhere on the plans for Grace Eiko Thomson (whose very different perspective as a child dressmaker. It is one of the inevitable road in a mighty BigFoot motorhome. maiden name was Nishikihama) and enduring racism from all quarters, conflicts in this bittersweet book that Eventually she’ll return to New Denver.
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???????WENDY/TARA/ BEV AVAILABLE FROM YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE - PHONE OR EMAIL TODAY AND NOW...THE COOKBOOK WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR... WHITEWATER COOKS together again Shelley Adams Cookbook fans have been waiting for this one! Once again, Shelley Adams demonstrates her skills in elevating simple ingredients to new, wonderfully delicious heights. Shelley continues her innate ability to take easily sourced fresh foods - coaxed expertly with fresh herbs, creative seasonings and cooking techniques - to result in recipes cooks will want to return to time and time again. This is the 6th book in the Whitewater Cooks series - ask at your local bookstore and collect them all. Paperback, 180 pp, all colour 9780981142449 $36.95 Alicon Holdings • Available in stores in July
POLENTA ON THE BOARD Italian Family Cooking Abruzzese style The GIRL AND THE SUN FOX IN A BOX ON BEING YUKIKO Valerie Mitchell Jeff Chiba Stearns Featured on CBC’s NorthxNorthwest, this Ashley McIntosh Eva Klassen Lillian Michiko Blakey sumptuous recipe collection follows the Socks and rocks and blocks and clocks, Fox loves Through the blending of two unique artistic styles, traditions of Abruzzo, a region of Italy Each of us has a sun that lives in our heart, and recognized for its unique dishes such as a cloud that lives in our mind. In this beautifully everything in his box hidden deep in the forest. this exciting graphic novel tells an intergenerational But when he realizes he can no longer fit inside, story of family history and cultural identity. 12-year- stracci (Abruzzese crepes filled and baked in a illustrated book, a little girl is happy and the succulent sauce) and polenta sulla tavols (slow sun shines brightly in her heart. But one day, a Fox decides he must take action! Fox learns to part old Emma learns about her Japanese roots when her with his collected objects by thoughtfully giving Ba-chan tells her the true-life story of her great-great cooked cornmeal covered with a rich sauce and rain cloud comes into her world and suddenly eaten communally). Seasoned and novice cooks things begin to make her feel bad - sometimes them to his friends and learns that happiness is grandmother Maki, a Japanese picture bride, who found not in the accumulation of things, but in journeyed to Canada at the turn of the 20th century. alike will enjoy these easy-to-follow recipes. mean even. She tries to get rid of the cloud, Learning at her Nona's side, Valerie Mitchell but nothing works. Sad and depressed, she lays the people we love and the gift of giving. Fox in a Maki’s story of extreme perseverance and sacrifice Box has 40 glorious pages of full colour illustrations inspires Emma, who identifies as a quarter Japanese, has created a timeless addition to any cookbook down in the forest and stares up at the sky. But collection. then something happens to make the cloud with a secret map of Fox's forest that kids will to discover a deeper connection to her Japanese 9780973285109 $21.95 pb V Mitchell disappear and her sun begins to glow again... love. Ages 4 – 8. Canadian identity...and on being Yukiko. Ages 4 – 8 9781777017903 $21.95 hc 9781999244804 $24.95 Big Mind Books 9781775234333 $19.99 hc Meditating Bunny
TALES OF THE KVR The Kettle Valley Railway Common BIRDS ALONG THE SHORE Remembered of Coastal British Columbia AND THROUGH THE TREES BC Bestsellers! Barrie Sanford J. Duane Sept by Colleen MacDonald Des Davidge Drawing largely from his interviews with These beautiful route guides have something Common WILDFLOWERS A telegraph line runs the length of Vancouver railroaders over the past 50+ years and his for everyone whether on a bike or on foot - of the Pacific Northwest Island’s rugged west coast, from an iconic own research, Sanford presents fresh stories cycle, run or walk. J.Duane Sept lighthouse on Estevan Point to the small Nuu- and fresh photographs to give the Kettle Valley chah-nulth community of Ahousaht on Flores Railway its due as a product of a generation Island. This is the story of two lives – two memoirs Let’s Go Biking Two great guides in the Calypso Nature Series! of wild west BC adventurers. Here are the – tied together by that line. Des Davidge recounts OKANAGAN and BEYOND Common Birds of Coastal BC is the perfect stories of Hurricane Hawkins, the engineer companion for outdoor walks to allow quick, clear his time spent as a radio operator at the remote Easy Rides, Hikes, Walks & Runs Estevan Point Marine Radio Station. It is also the whose trains were always perfectly on time, and accurate identification of birds common to the of Minnie Engen who hailed from Minnesota, 9781775308126 $19.95 pb Let's Go Biking Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island. And don't story of his wife, Rosina Adeline Ada Rae Arthur of Bunkhouse Bill who guarded sleeping go out this time of year without this beautifully who accompanied her father, the man who engineers in the little town of Brookmere, BC Also available: photographed identification book on wildflowers spent over three decades surviving hardships - and stories of many others. Told as a series of Let’s Go Biking to be found in the Pacific Northwest. $14.95 ea and wilderness to maintain that same line. Set in an isolated corner of British Columbia, this is a long and short pieces, Sanford has assembled AROUND VANCOUVER • Common Wildflowers 9780995226616 pb compelling story of history, geography, friendship, living social history carefully preserved by one Easy Rides, Walks & Runs • Common Birds Coastal BC 9780995226630 pb and love. of BC’s foremost railway history experts. 9781777392901 $19.95 pb Davidge 9781775308102 $24.95 pb Let's Go Biking Calypso Publishing 9780973560237 $21.95 pb NRHS BC Div
Sandhill Book Marketing Ltd ~ Distribution for Small Press & Independent Publishers Unit #4 - 3308 Appaloosa Road, Kelowna, BC V1V 2W5 • Ph: 250-491-1446 • Email: [email protected] www.sandhillbooks.com
13 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021 ARTISANS REVIEW
The Distilleries of Vancouver Island: IN GOOD A Guided Tour of West Coast Craft and Artisan Spirits by Marianne Scott (Touchwood $25) BY ALEXANDER VARTY
ust this weekend I spent a happy SPIRITS hour with Betty and Veronica, Discovering Betty and Veronica hanging out in a warehouse abut- at an artisanal hard liquor distillery J ting a sheep farm and a brewery just on Vancouver Island. a few short minutes outside of down- town Parksville. Reggie and Archie were there, too, although they stuck demurely to one corner of the space, as if aware that the ladies were and would always be the true stars, sparkling and shining and adorned with copper and crystal. Bartender Cam Watson of Victoria Now, before you conclude that I’m Distillers in Sydney. either a senile fantasist, obsessed with Riverdale cosplay, or have been booked the alchemical process of turning grain to play Pop Tate in series 7 of the popu- into a cheering dram. lar TV show, let me explain. Betty and More to the point is that I willingly Veronica are the two Chinese-made spent the first swimmable Saturday of stills that Shelly Heppner uses to pro- 2021 in a warehouse rather than on duce her Bespoke Spirits line of vodkas the beach, for it’s an indication that and gins, and they are undeniably Marianne Scott’s The Distilleries of gorgeous, standing tall and elegant Vancouver Island serves its intended amid a steampunk array of condens- purpose perfectly. In the spirit of pre- ers, boilers, piping, tanks, and gauges. vious island guides such as Elizabeth Reggie and Archie are considerably t Levinson’s An Edible Journey: Explor- more utilitarian, but gleam with care ing the Island’s Fine Food, Farms, and nonetheless: they’re the two 1000-litre Vineyards and Don Genova’s Food fermenters that handle the first part of Distiller Kevin Titcomb explains the grains in Devine’s Ancient Grains Whisky Artisans of Vancouver Island and the
THE SUNSHINE COAST FESTIVAL OF THE WRITTEN ARTS PRESENTS AN ANTHOLOGY OF NEW WORK BY 16 CANADIAN ARTISTS
CONTRIBUTORS SSEN. Amber Dawn Lucia Misch E Michael Christie Charly Mithrush Jillian Christmas Michelle Parise Ivan Coyote Bill Richardson Farzana Doctor Paul Seesequasis
Aislinn Hunter Laura Trethewey OOK DESIGN BY DEREK VON Harold R. Johnson Jack Wang B Sarah Leavitt Iona Whishaw RLY MITHRUSH.RLY
For more information about this project A and to purchase a copy, please visit www.writersfestival.ca/monday, send an email to [email protected] or call 1-800-565-9631 ART BY CH
14 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
???????WENDY/TARA/ BEV Gulf Islands, it’s designed to help read- the equipment is in common, and so it’s ers plot their own self-guided regional not been a big leap for Victoria-based tours, not only alerting them to off-the- Phillips Fermentorium Distilling Com- beaten-track delights but providing pany to diversify into whisky and gin, them with the background information or for Merridale Cidery & Distillery to necessary to fully understand what make various brandies from the same they’ll see en route. photogenic pommes and pears that Until very recently there would surround its Cobble Hill plant. have been very little need for a book And if there’s any doubt that Van- of this particular kind. Organic farms, couver Island craft distilleries are on small-scale smoking and canning the verge of the kind of international operations, and even craft breweries recognition that has greeted this prov- have been a part of Vancouver Island ince’s wineries, consider the surprising life for decades, and in a sense so have rise of Sooke’s Sheringham Distillery. artisanal producers of hard liquor. But After only four years in business, interview requests would likely have owners Jason and Alayne MacIsaac met with the sharp end of a shotgun; and their team won a “world’s best the legendary moonshiners of Lasqueti contemporary gin” award in 2019. It’s or the Prohibition-era rum chemists a well-deserved honour. of Jordan River were not only flying Scott’s straightforward style is ef- underneath the government’s radar, fective in conveying the science behind but indulging in an activity as legally t the distilling process, and the stories dubious as heroin importation or the behind the distilleries themselves. It’s counterfeiter’s trade. perhaps unfortunate that she doesn’t Changes to government regulations Alayne MacIsaac and Jason MacIsaac, Sheringham Distillery, Sooke offer more colourful descriptions of at the start of this century have now the beverages on offer; The Distilleries made small-scale distilling legal, if sub- of Vancouver Island doesn’t say much ject to strict controls, and Scott’s book about taste or mouthfeel or aroma. But covers all 21 producers now operating that might be for the best. As Scott on Vancouver Island, Salt Spring and notes, “What might be my favourite gin Hornby. These range from one-woman tastes like gasoline to others.” operations like Heppner’s, the most The thirst this book provokes is recent craft distillery to open here but more for personal discovery than for surely not the last, to Saanich’s 23-acre expert guidance, and with that in mind Devine Distillery & Winery, bankrolled I’m already plotting post-COVID field by co-owner John Windsor’s suc- trips to Sheringham, Island Spirits, cessful career as an Ontario property and several other facilities, including developer. Distilling seems an ideal re- a return visit to Betty and Veronica. tirement project for some, like Hornby This time I’ll ask about Jughead. photo Island’s Island Spirits Distillery, run by 9781771513326 former ferry captain Peter Kimmerly; phillips for others, it’s a natural outgrowth of Alexander Varty is a musician operating a craft brewery or cidery. marc and writer living on unceded Many of the techniques and some of Shelter Point Distillery’s massive Forsyths pot stills in Campbell River. Snuneymuxw territory
TALONBOOKS SUMMER 2021
ANYWHERE GABRIEL DUMONT’S STILL THEN NOW BUT HERE WILD WEST SHOW by Anahita Jamali Rad by Daphne Marlatt / LE WILD WEST by Carmen Aguirre A powerful follow-up to Jamali Written in response to the Anywhere but Here is an external SHOW DE GABRIEL Rad’s for love and autonomy, still discovery of letters by Marlatt’s representation of the inner tur- DUMONT proposes an alternative to action, father, these poems explore moil of exile. Using magic realism by Jean Marc Dalpé & David a way to jam the signal by refusing a sense of place and home tropes, it follows a family on a Granger & Laura Lussier & receptivity. still disclaims language, on Canada’s West Coast journey back toward Chile from Alexis Martin & Andrea Menard writes without writing, divests in now on the brink of global Canada & Yvette Nolan & Gilles Poulin- itself, is nonliving and unlife. This climate change. Denis & Paula-Jean Prudat & book begins and ends in emptiness. 978-1-77201-290-3; $16.95; DRAMA Mansel Robinson & Kenneth 978-1-77201-283-3; $16.95; POETRY T. Williams 978-1-77201-285-9; $16.95; POETRY
This bilingual flipbook is a flamboyant epic, constructed as a series of tableaux, about the struggles of the Métis in the Canadian West.
978-1-77201-319-1; $24.95; DRAMA Talonbooks
15 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
???????WENDY/TARA/ BEV CONGRATULATIONS to the finalists of the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes
Thank you to the publishers supporting this year’s submissions
Allen Lane Canada • Annick Press • Arsenal Pulp Press • Atheneum Books for Young Readers • Brindle & Glass • Douglas & McIntyre • ECW Press • Figure 1 Publishing • Hamish Hamilton Canada • Harbour Publishing • HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. • Knopf Canada • McClelland & Stewart • Nightwood Editions • Orca Book Publishers • Puffin Canada • Random House Canada • RMB | Rocky Mountain Books • Simon & Schuster Canada • Talonbooks • TouchWood Editions • Tradewind Books • Tundra Books • University of Alberta Press • Viking Canada
16 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021 HISTORYEXCERPT Entrance to St. Michael’s Residential School, Alert Bay, 1970. t St. Michael’s Residential School: Lament & Legacy by Nancy Dyson pushed four children into the & Dan Rubenstein room. “Here they are,” he said (Ronsdale $21.95) proudly. “I had quite a struggle getting them out of Bella Bella. A granny put up a fight but I 037992 n 1970, two a got ’em.” He wiped his hands , young, re- vigorously on his pant legs. Neo-no cently wed Then, frowning, he examined his idealists, hands, front and back, to see if per anthropology
Nancy of they were soiled before hurrying
Dyson up the stairs and disappearing. museum I and Dan The children, two girls and
Rubenstein ubc two boys, clustered together : arrive at the Alert Bay Student with their heads lowered and Residence as childcare workers. eyes downcast. Their chests rose courtesy The Residence used to be the . in quick, shallow breaths. The
photo small girl clutched the hand of
St. Michael’s Indian Residential School and that was the name it the bigger girl. The matron used carter was still called although the ac- a heavy glove to open the boiler tual schooling had been moved door and, as air whooshed into to the Alert Bay public school anthony the firebox, the flames turned a and the high school in Port McNeill. fiercer shade of orange. The children Nancy and Dan’s jobs were to look looked up with fear. The matron pulled after the children before and after a pair of heavy shears from her apron school and on weekends. Within days pocket and grabbed the smaller girl. of starting their new jobs, Nancy and TELLING IT She quickly cut the child’s hair and Dan were exposed to the ugly truths of let it fall in a dark mass at her feet. what happened to Indigenous children Then the matron cut the clothes from there. It was more than they could bear the girl’s small body until the child and they left four months later, hardly stood naked and trembling. The other LIKE IT WAS children gasped. able to speak of what they saw. When the Truth and Reconciliation Dan protested, “Is this necessary?” reports came out in 2015, divulging Two childcare workers reveal ugly She gathered the hair and clothing survivor’s stories about Canada’s resi- and threw them into the fire. dential schools, Nancy and Dan were truths from a half century before. “Lice,” she said. “They all come in shocked. “When we read the survivors’ with lice.” statements and realized the lasting, “But they’re frightened,” I said, tragic legacy of the schools, we felt shaking. compelled to share our story.” The matron ignored me and went on Encouraged by Chief Robert Jo- Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.” His “Again and again, former students to the next child. When all four were seph, Ambassador of Reconciliation Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as spoke of how hungry they were at shorn and naked, she pushed the chil- Canada, Nancy and Dan published he spoke. He reminded me of the char- residential schools. Students who spoke dren to a wall where six shower heads St. Michael’s Residential School: acter of Ichabod Crane in “The Legend of hunger also spoke of their efforts to ran along a galvanized pipe. The ma- Lament & Legacy. “You must tell your of Sleepy Hollow.” improve their diet secretly.”—The Sur- tron carefully took off her white apron story,” Chief Joseph counselled the The older students began ladling vivors Speak, A Report of the Truth and hung it on a hook, then put on a couple. “Tell what you witnessed so no soup from metal pots into Melmac and Reconciliation Commission of rubber smock. She turned on the show- one can deny what happened. This is bowls. The bowls were passed, hand to Canada, p. 7. ers and washed the children’s heads so important to the survivors.” hand, to each child. A basket of white O and bodies with harsh soap. The little Here are two excerpts from the Wonder Bread was also passed down girl cried out. tell-all book, written primarily from the tables and each child eagerly laid WE START HERE “Stop, please stop,” I repeated. Nancy’s point of view and including two slices beside his plate. The bread But the matron shook her head. “I passages from the Truth and Reconcili- disappeared quickly, unlike the watery [Shortly after their first evening, Nancy guess you’ve never seen a hundred kids ation reports relating to the couple’s and tasteless soup. The children, their and Dan witness the induction of four with lice,” she said. “Well, I have. All it experiences. eyes fixed on their bowls, ate in silence. children into the Residence] takes is one child. Then, pretty soon, The meal was meagre and I thought the they’ve all got lice.” THE FIRST SUPPER children must be hungry. “We start here,” the matron Dan and I grabbed towels from a “Is there any joy here?” I asked said crisply. row of pegs and wrapped them around At five o’clock, Dan and I fol- myself. We heard footsteps and a man the children. lowed the children down a steep flight “It’s okay,” I mumbled senselessly. of stairs to a dark, musty dining room “It’s okay.” in the basement of the residence. The The matron led us to the second children sat on metal chairs at long, floor. The children shuffled barefoot, grey folding tables. Bare fluorescent still wrapped in towels. From time to bulbs cast a green light over their faces. time, a soft sob rose in the little girl’s Dan and I sat at a table with a group throat and she wiped her nose on her of little boys. When they looked at us arm. The matron unlocked the infir- and smiled, there were gaps where they mary, which doubled as a storeroom. had lost their baby teeth. I guessed that “Pull those wet towels off the chil- they were young, five or six years of age. dren,” she told us as she opened a “Ahem.” A white-haired man in a locked cupboard. She eyed the children black suit stood and cleared his throat. and selected clothes roughly the right His face was thin with a pointed nose size for each of them. For the girls, two and a tic contracted his features into sets of underwear, two pairs of leggings a grimace. As he brought his hands and two shirtwaist dresses sewn in together for prayer, his bony wrists the style of the 1950s. For the boys, extended well past the cuffs of his two pairs of briefs, two pairs of pants jacket. He cast his eyes around the and two checked shirts. Socks, rolled rubenstein room, warning all to be quiet. Then he into pairs, filled a wicker basket on the
dan
intoned, “O Everlasting God, Who hast of floor. “Give each of them a pair,” she
ordained and constituted the services told us. She motioned for the children of angels and men in a wonderful order; t to sit down on a bench while she found courtesy mercifully grant that, as Thy holy an- them shoes, shoes that were used and gels always do Thee service in heaven, photo scuffed but serviceable. so by Thy appointment they must suc- Nancy Dyson and children from St. Michael’s Residential School “That should do for now,” she said. cour and defend us on earth. Through watching preparations for a potlatch, Alert Bay, 1970. 978-1-55380-623-3
17 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021 YOUNG PEOPLE LITREVIEWS
Polly Horvath’s Pine Island Home is a finalist for a 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award. canada
puffin / photo
horvath
polly
ORPHANS GENIUSES &ooks for young people, often referred Pine Island Home by Polly Horvath Double or Nothing (Puffin Canada $19.99) to as young adult literature (YA), by Brooke Carter (Orca $10.95) AGES 9-12 start children and teenagers on AGES 12-18 isters Fiona, Marlin, Natasha ssie Tomasi starts college at and Charlie find out the hard the road to developing good read- the age of fifteen. By eighteen, way they are orphans. Having she is already taking advanced Srecently lost their missionary B ing habits and they are also tools Ecourses. It’s clear that Essie and parents in a tsunami in Indonesia, the her identical twin Aggie are geniuses. four arrive at their great-aunt Martha’s for understanding life’s moral dilemmas, contem- What no one knows is that Essie has farm in B.C., who volunteered to take a serious gambling addiction. them in, only to find she is nowhere porary issues and matters of health and wellness. In a third-year English class where to be found. Essie is supposed to be watching the Checking in with the nearest neigh- BC BookWorld’s summer selection of YA and kidlit movie Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are bour, a number of red flags should Dead, looking for particular themes, she have deterred them. A dilapidated includes titles about the importance of family and thinks about a thousand other things trailer in a forest clearing has a torn during a scene where the characters screen window, broken steps and an community, racism, fascism, addiction, ecology are talking about the odds of coin flips. old refrigerator and bathtub clutter the In Double or Nothing by Brooke front lawn. A man with uncombed hair, and compassion. Carter, readers see what is going a dirty white undershirt and ripped through Essie’s mind in her interior pants bangs open the screen door, monologue: “I’m thinking about coin gruffly wanting to know who they are. combinations on the screen. I’m think- “Our great-aunt lives next door,” of- ing about probability theory. I’m think- fers 14-year-old Fiona, the eldest sister. common in literature for young people. ing about the odds of my coin match- “Not anymore she doesn’t,” says the Famous classics include Cinderella ing the flips the characters make. I’m man. “She buried herself two days ago.” (of which there are many versions but thinking about Hamlet and the sucky Turns out great-aunt Martha had the popular one was published by the life he’s living. To be or not to be, dude. unexpectedly died of a massive heart Brothers Grimm in their 1812 folk tale Yeah, that is the question.” attack. In her will, she leaves the farm collection Grimms’ Fairy Tales), Oliver But mostly, the monologue reveals to her nieces. Despite seeming to be Twist by Charles Dickens, the Harry Essie is thinking about her online a curmudgeon, the neighbour, Al is Potter novels by J.K. Rowling and, gambling and stock trading apps, and clearly upset at Martha’s passing. But closer to home, Lucy Maud Mont- the several windows that are open on the sisters now have more pressing gomery’s Anne of Green Gables. Pine her computer waiting for her attention. matters to worry over. They don’t want Island Home has vague similarities to “Every second that goes by, I’m losing to be separated by social services. the endearing classic, Little Women by money,” says Essie. Fiona hatches a plan to keep them Louisa May Alcott as it emphasizes Her gambling gets so bad that Essie together at the farm by pretending that four daughters without at least one wrangles a dorm room to herself rather Al is their guardian. They find a way parent (their father was away in the than rooming with Aggie. Essie tells her to get him to go along with the scheme American civil war) and the girls are family that she needs space to figure
and enroll in the local school. Fiona left to make important decisions about out who she is besides a twin. But it’s
takes over as head of the household, their futures. Orphan stories are also really so that she can gamble in private. Marlin turns out to be a good cook, give an archetype that stresses the impor- It gets to the point where Essie or take the odd culinary disaster, and tance of family and of belonging. t makes a bet she can’t cover and Aggie they all pitch in with other household Fiona is mature and wise enough comes to the rescue, making a danger- chores. Polly Horvath’s Pine Island to know that she and her sisters will ous deal herself. Together the two have Home rolls along, pitching the sisters eventually get caught in their ruse. Brooke Carter earned her MFA in to find a way out of their gambling mess from one challenge to another. Only a true guardian can keep the creative writing at UBC and lives in or face daunting consequences. The theme of orphaned children is family together. 978-0-73526-862-3 Maple Ridge. 978-1-45982-381-5
18 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
???????????????/TARA / BEV Tainted Amber ing her latest title When We Are Kind. belong,” writes Ritchie. “Now Lilliana Painted Fences by Gabriele Goldstone (Ronsdale $12.95) According to the book’s back notes, knows, too.” by Sara Cassidy (Heritage House $19.99) AGES 9 AND UP Smith’s aim was “to prompt a dialogue The story is based on Ritchie’s mem- AGES 4 - 8 among young people, their care pro- ories of exploring Camosun Bog in Van- t’s hard to beat the context of viders and educators about kindness couver’s Pacific Spirit Park as a boy. alking with her great- wartime for focusing a reader’s and the importance of the connections Ritchie admits that he, too had brought grandfather Afi on his attention on matters of good and children make with their friends, class- wild chorus frogs from the woods to birthday when the air is evil. A servant girl, Katya, work- mates and families.” his parent’s house: “I made a home Wfilled with the scent of I When We Are Kind celebrates acts for them under my backyard stairs spring blossoms and fluttering petals, ing on a horse breeding estate in East Prussia in the pre-war year of 1937, is of everyday kindness. Elegantly simple but they escaped through the chicken Esther is surprised when he starts to at the core of Tainted Amber by Gabri- phrases such as “I am kind when I wire.” Ritchie’s hope is that his book tell her a story about one of the peeling ele Goldstone. Katya travels one hot share with my friends” and “I am kind inspires readers to explore nature but paint colours on a nearby fence. summer day when I bring food to my Elders” speak leave it outside. 9781550179347 “What if I told you a boy painted it with her good to the importance of a child’s commu- Pride Puppy! here 75 years ago, with a paintbrush friend Minna nity. And “I am kind when I only take By Robin Stevenson (Orca $19.95) sneaked from a neighbour’s shed? All to a spa town from the earth what I need,” demon- AGES 3 - 5 because he wanted some meatballs,” on the Baltic, strates the value of respecting ecology. said Afi. looking for a Gray also shows how receiving kind- n Pride Puppy!, a rhyming al- “You can’t know that!” replies Es- special piece ness brings positive results: “I feel loved phabet book, Robin Stevenson ther. of amber. The when my Elders are kind to me.” describes a young child, a sibling “Oh, can’t I?” chuckles Afi. “Listen girls are ac- Dual language copies are available Ibaby, their parents and their to this story …” companied in English and French, and English puppy celebrating Pride Day. They And with that, Afi regales Esther by the estate and Diné. 9781459827530 meet up with Grandma, make new with tales of what it was like living dur- owner’s two Lilliana and the Frogs friends in the crowds of people wearing ing WW2 in 1945, when fathers were sons, Helmut and David. But terrible by Scot Ritchie (Harbour $22.95) everything from feathers, cowboy hats, overseas fighting and times were hard things happen on the trip, turning AGES 3 - 5 flowered hats, bunny ears to tiaras, and for little boys—like Bob and his friend the amber into a bad talisman. After enjoy snacks like ice cream as it melts Charlie. Their clothes were patched, Minna suddenly leaves for Vienna, the cot Ritchie’s picture book Lil- in the hot sun. their shoes had holes and it was diffi- servant hired to replace her is a fervent liana and the Frogs is about Stevenson de- cult to make money to buy extras. Food Nazi supporter, who catches the eye of a young nature lover who scribes the event in was rationed and had to be bought with Helmut and they marry. David, whom Sdecides to capture frogs and straight forward but ration tokens. Katya loves, and who will have noth- keep them in her bedroom. lively sentences that Bob is off to get meat for a special ing to do with Nazism, has an epileptic Lilliana’s bedroom is already full of portray the event: “E meatball dinner his mother is making seizure. According to the country’s new frog posters and frog toys. One night, for everyone under for his birthday. He meets up with race laws, David must be sterilized. while lying in bed listening to chorus the sun. F for feath- Charlie and they run to the butcher’s Katya learns that the piece of amber frogs singing outside, Lilliana decides ers, for flags and for shop. But Bob loses the ration token from the Baltic is a symbol to Minna to bring some of these sweet-sounding Robin Stevenson fun.” he needs to get the of her rape by Helmut. War is about to creatures to live with her. Suddenly the meat through a hole break out and life gets even more com- After an adventure collecting the young child realizes that their puppy in his pocket. plicated for Katya. 978-1-55380-614-1 frogs from a local pond the next day, has been lost in the parade. Being in Charlie agrees to she takes them back to her bedroom a supportive community, other people help Bob make some When We Are Kind where she has made a cage for them. help find the puppy and bring it back money so they can by Monique Gray Smith (Orca $19.99) Then she goes to the kitchen seeking to his family. get the meat any- AGES 3 - 5 food for her new friends. But when she With vibrant illustrations by Julie way. They salvage gets back, the frogs have disappeared; McLaughlin, the story is helpful for Sara Cassidy some paint, borrow ome of Monique Gray Smith’s they have escaped to other parts of young readers learning to recognize paintbrushes from favourite topics include resil- the house. letters of the alphabet. It is an LGBTQ+ Charlie’s Uncle Zing’s shed (who, like ience and reconciliation. Her Luckily, Lilliana and her parents inclusive book where identity is not the Bob’s father is away fighting in the Sbackground is Cree, Lakota find a way to get the frogs out the door focus but rather queer community- war), and look for a neighbour who and Scottish and she has written sever- and back into nature. focused and the family is intentionally can afford to pay the boys to repaint al books covering reconciliation includ- “Chorus frogs know where they not gendered. 9781459824843 their fence. Just as they finish, there is excite- ment on the street. It has just been announced that the war is over. At this point in the story, Esther realizes that Bob is really her Afi. Now she wants to paint a fence like Charlie and Bob did, starting with some salvaged paint. Painted Fences by Sara Cassidy, is a cleverly disguised history lesson for young people. The book’s blurb describes it this way: “From a memory revealed in a chip of paint comes a story of friendship, hardship, and hope for the future.” Illustrated by Sydney Barnes, the pictures creatively separate the current story (using multi-colours) from the past story (using monochrome hues). Sara Cassidy’s previous book Nevers (Orca) has been noninated for a 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award, 9781772033519 ALSO NOTEWORTHY
YOUNG ADULT: Tremendous Things by Susin Nielsen (Penguin Teen) Green Glass Ghost by Rae Spoon (Arsenal Pulp) On the Trapline by David A. Robertson, illustrated by Julie Flett (Tundra)
PICTURE BOOK: We All Play by Julie Flett (Greystone)
GRAPHIC NOVEL:
Bubble
illustrated by Tony Cliff t (First Second Books) TARTARUS #9 by Johnnie Christmas Illustration by Nicole Neidhardt from When We Are Kind by Monique Gray Smith (Orca). (Image Comics)
19 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
???????????????/KATYA / BEV ECOLOGY REVIEW British Columbia Divorce Kit - NEW 3rd edition by Aman Khalon, LAWYER
• UPDATED with the Divorce Act family law changes that came into effect March BEAVERING 1st, 2021 • Do it yourself! No lawyer required • Save hundreds of dollars in legal fees • It’s 100% legal and easy! $39.95 | Guidebook + AWAY Download Kit | 88 pages An ingenious builder of dams, Separation Agreement - NEW 5th edition this odd-looking rodent creates by David R. Greig, LAWYER wetlands essential to many • UPDATED with the Divorce other animals and plants. Act family law changes that came into effect March 1st, 2021 Beavers: • You can do it all yourself - Radical Rodents and Ecosystem Frances Backhouse Engineers by Frances Backhouse and taxidermied no lawyer required (Orca Wild $24.95) beaver • Clarify your responsibilities • Includes a separation agreement for same-sex eavers are the world’s second couples largest rodent. Only Capybaras $29.95 | Paperback + found in South
America are big- photo
Download Kit | 128 pages B ger. Rodents they may be, but bea- marshall vers are also a keystone species that support many other animals and keep
Power of Attorney Kit - NEW 11th edition christina ecosystems healthy and functioning by Peter J. Georgas, J.D., M.B.A. properly. If they are removed, the change the shape of valleys. They can ecosystem is weakened and can break gnaw right through the trunks of trees • Plan your future - your way down completely. that are as tall as flagpoles. And they • Assign authority to act on Pretty important for an animal that do all this with nothing more than their Frances Backhouse describes as “kind sharp front teeth, nimble paws and your behalf of goofy-looking” in Beavers: Radical powerful muscles.” • Cover all aspects of your Rodents and Ecosystem Engineers, a Typically about three feet from nose life not just medical crossover book for young adult readers to tail tip, and weighing about 16 to 32 aged 9–12 and older people interested kilograms (35 to 70 pounds), beavers • Appoint someone you trust in nature. “They have big orange buck- are known for cutting down trees and to manage your affairs teeth, front feet that don’t match their building dams, which no other animal back ones and a tail that looks like it does other than humans. Beavers do $26.95 | Paperback + was run over by a tractor.” so because, as semi-aquatic animals Download Kit | 104 pages Backhouse also calls beavers amaz- graceful and fast in the water, they are ing. “They can build structures that awkward movers on land and vulner- are visible from outer space,” she says. able to enemies like wolves, coyotes, “They can turn streams into lakes and cougars and bears. “If they meet one of these predators So You’ve Been Appointed Executor onshore, their chances of escaping on NEW 4th edition foot are slim,” says Backhouse. “Bea- by Tom Carter and vers can gallop for a short distance Elyssa Lockhart if necessary but their normal gait is a slow waddle. A cornered beaver is LAWYERS unlikely to win a fight, even though its tree-cutting incisors can slash like • Understand your role a knife.” But venture onto land they must in • Deal with tax issues order to get to their food sources and • Handle bills and debt gather building materials for the lodges they build to live in, surrounded by the $26.95 | Paperback + safety of water. However, not all beaver lodges are in Updates Page | the middle of ponds as “some locations 152 pages aren’t suitable for this kind of construc- tion,” notes Backhouse. “Beavers that live in wide, fast-flowing rivers or deep lakes have to settle for a home that is photo
anchored to land on one side.”
www.self-counsel.com These bank dens, as they are called, commons t are usually temporary homes. Beavers
1-800-663-3007 wiki have evolved to change their environ- North American beaver ments with dams that spread water out
20 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
?????WENDY/TARA / BEV across the land, making shallow ponds the ponds had dried up.” with slow-moving water. It is in such Lala’s biggest wish was to have the New from places beavers can make their ‘castles old habitat restored and “give it back encircled by a moat’. to the beavers.” University of Toronto Press “Beavers often build a series of In Beavers, a story is recalled by [dams] along a stream or river, creat- Veasy Collier of his father Eric (who ing a chain of ponds like beads on a had immigrated from England at the string,” says Backhouse. In the process age of 17) meeting Lala when she was of forming their ponds, beavers create nearly 100 years old. “Eric learned a lot wetlands that are “among the world’s about his new home from Lala,” writes most biologically productive ecosys- Backhouse and Lala inspired him to tems, right up there with rainforests repair the old beaver dams. Collier was and coral reefs,” says Backhouse. only seven when he helped his father Wetlands provide essential habitat and mother laboriously use hand tools for many plants and animals as well as to fell trees, drag them to the dams and purifying water by filtering it through put them into place. “When the next plants. Plankton and insects nurtured rains came, the old beaver pond began in the ponds feed fish and tadpoles, to refill. Then the first ducks splashed which are in turn eaten by herons, down. Success!” kingfishers, minks and racoons. Bea- Eventually park wardens helped vers also provide safe living spaces for the Colliers re-introduce beavers to turtles and other mammals. the area to carry on the work that the Many wetlands and mature beaver family found so hard to do. meadows were lost after the beaver Today beaver populations have re- was almost hunted to extinction for covered in North America. Now, some its furs in the nineteenth century. people consider them pests because Called “brown gold”, beaver pelts were as Backhouse notes, “there is no de- historically valued by Europeans to nying that they can make trouble for make hats. their human neighbours.” Beavers fell Indigenous stories tell of the chang- trees that many people would prefer es wrought by such ecological destruc- to see alive and upright. And beavers CLOTH 9781487509095 tion including those from a member of occasionally attack swimming dogs the Tsilhqot’in First Nation nicknamed because they resemble predators like Lala. She was born around 1830, wolves, especially if there are beaver “If you care about Canada’s relationship with its “about the time the fur trade and Eu- kits nearby. Indigenous peoples, then you need to understand the ropean settlers reached [the Chilcotin But there are many ways to ame- Plateau],” writes Backhouse. “She had liorate the negative effects of beavers. central importance of the term ‘sovereignty.’ witnessed big changes to her people’s Groups of people have sprung up to This biography of the idea is a terrifi c place to start.” way of life during her early childhood.” promote the peaceful co-existence of Lala told her children and grand- people and beavers. children about the beaver ponds that “These radical rodents are always ROBERT VIPOND had been home to enormous trout and worth celebrating and helping,” says University of Toronto abundant wildlife “including muskrats, Backhouse. “Because if we are there for minks and otters. In the spring and fall, the beavers, they’ll be there for us and migrating ducks and geese covered the all the other living things that benefit water. But those days were over. Fur from their remarkable ecosystem engi- seekers had killed off the beavers, and neering.” 9781459824690
Doris Forbes with Mickey, her 70 pound pet beaver manitoba
of
archives , archives
PAPER 9781487526535 company
bay
s ’ “A rich, nuanced account of power and resistance,
hudson with ambitious themes drawn out by close MICKEY THE BEAVER attention to the everyday.”
n Beavers, Frances Bakehouse relays the story of how Doris RONALD NIEZEN Forbes met her pet beaver Mickey in 1939 when it was brought McGill University Ito her as a baby near death. It recovered and lived with the Forbes family in Red Deer, Alberta for the rest of its life. Sleeping in a kennel during the day, Mickey played with the family in the kitchen in the evening where he built dams using pieces of firewood and the family slippers. While they slept, Mickey continued playing in the garage with logs and boards. Beavers were still rare then and Mickey attracted news reporters and magazine writers, and the CBC told his story on national radio. “He’s the best pet I ever had and I love him with all my heart,” Doris once said. Today, most people understand it is better to take @utpress orphaned animals to wildlife rescue centres where they can receive expert care and be set free back into the wild when they recover.
21 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
?????WENDY/TARA / BEV NEW STAR BOOKS SUMMER READING WITH GEORGE BOWERING COULD BE SOFT ZIPPER NEW POEMS OBJECTS, FOOD, ROOMS
In Could Be: New This engaging memoir Poems, gathering work relates stories about since his close call five George Bowering’s years ago, Bowering small-town BC shows off a wiser, upbringing and his though not necessarily parents, while at the mellower, aspect same time honouring alongside the wit and the author’s other unerring ear readers “parents”: Gertrude have come to expect Stein, Charles Olson, from one of our greats. and Roland Barthes.
Poetry :: 9781554201785 Non-Fiction :: 9781554201723 120pp :: $18 160pp :: $19 June 24, 2021 March 25, 2021
available from UTP Distribution | www.newstarbooks.com @newstarbooks.vancouver @newstarbooks Summer Heat
“A darkly engrossing and Joachim Foikis, Vancouver’s WINNER OF THE 2020 Spanning a quarter century of “Clint Burnham’s “engaging on all levels, in artfully composed sequence Official Town Fool had a RELIT NOVEL AWARD! Friesen’s work, the poems in microfictions are both a terms of verbal dexterity, of stories from a contemporary mandate to “spread joy and Outlasting the Weather speak symptom and antidote to humour, telling images and a “Screamingly hilarious, master of the form.” confusion” while at the same to what is meant by “a life our age of iPhone-enabled kind of unexpected liveliness politically incorrect and — Lee Henderson, time “mock the four pillars of lived in poetry.” distraction. In spare, telling that you don’t often see these occasionally touching... author of The Man Game society: money, status, prose, White Lie takes the days.” Blouin does not write “Whether touching upon the respectability, and conformity.” ligaments of narrative and — Gary Geddes “These are tough, ruined, ordinary books. He never beauty in a still life or the frees them from their inevitable lives portrayed “a lively, colourful, illuminating, bores... every book gets thunder in the heavens; the “a wizard of tongues” bodies of character and plot with a skill and grace … and sometimes heartbreaking nominated for some kind memory of history or the — bill bissett to reveal the expanse of life This collection should tale about one of Vancouver of award.” ‘gossip of the dead,’ these are that’s spent half-noticing.” $18 | 978-1-77214-175-7 cement Madeline Sonik’s most peculiar residents.” —ArtsFile evocative poems from a poet — Kevin Chong, place among Canada’s — Charlie Smith, to be reckoned with.” Poetry “Blouin writes with spare author of The Plague finest short story writers.” The Georgia Straight — Allan Safarik prose, every word perfect…” — Bill Gaston, author of $18 | 978-1-77214-174-0 $18 | 978-1-77214-146-7 — The Mirimachi Reader $20 | 978-1-77214-153-5 Just Let Me Look At You Stories Nonfiction Poetry $20 | 978-1-77214-118-4 $20 | 978-1-77214-148-1 Novel Stories
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22 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021 FICTION REVIEW THE CELESTIAL FARMGIRL
“From where I live, we share everything. It’s better that way.”
Astra by Cedar Bowers (Penguin $24.95) BY PORTIA PRIEGERT ne big challenge for emerging writers is structure. You have a story— but how to tell it? Chronologi- O cally? A series of flashbacks? Or something more elaborate? In Astra, Cedar Bowers of Victoria develops an elegant solution for her debut novel —a series of loosely linked vignettes based on the perceptions of 10 people who pass through the life of the titular character. They range from Raymond, the reluctant and incompetent father left Cedar Bowers grew to parent Astra after her mother dies up on Galiano Island in childbirth at Celestial Farm, a rural B.C. commune, through to Astra’s own where she continues child, Hugo, and his father, Dom, as to live part-time. well as some of the people Astra meets when she adapts, as best she can, to mainstream life away from Celestial. photo This structure lets readers see As- tra, a complex figure, through multiple christie lenses. Each vignette adds to our un- derstanding, even as her life shifts and loops forward. The book is character- michael driven, something Bowers handles with tack as a young child, a visible marker ment disorder but is a survivor. Later like them, and left-over kids like us.” aplomb. These people feel real and that echoes the invisible wounds she in life, caring for her father as his mind Circling back to structure, the book linger in your mind. Their struggles bears. She is tough and fiercely in- clouds with dementia, she wonders: is remarkable in how it replicates the and their joys play out against common dependent, a product of her environ- “Is he even aware I’m here? Has he way we get to know people in real themes of the West Coast experience. ment. Talking to her childhood friend, ever been?” life. We watch them and talk to them, Perhaps that’s not surprising: Bow- Kimmy, she lectures about the perils The story, ultimately, is a critique of listen to others telling stories about ers grew up and still lives part-time of sugar, uses “complicated words” like the idealists and misfits who seek es- them, perhaps study their photos or on Galiano Island, which has a long consumerism, organic and oppressive, cape, redemption, a simpler life, what- read something they have written, history as a counter-culture haven for and borrows a favourite sweatshirt with ever, as an alternative to mainstream and, through all that, piece together writers. seemingly little intention of returning consumerist culture and the ravages of an understanding. However fractured The book’s first chapter, an intro- it. “Where I live,” Astra tells Kimmy, “we capitalism. Yet, dream as they might, or contradictory, these shards are all duction to the themes that will mark share everything. It’s better that way.” Bowers’s renegades mostly seem adrift we have, and our sense-making is Astra’s life, needs a tighter edit, a But as Astra heads into the world and confused, as they replicate patri- informed by who we are as much by problem that crops up periodically else- beyond Celestial, she seems naïve and archal systems that relegate women to who these people might be or believe where, as does a tendency, at times, vulnerable. She is prone to let others cooking, cleaning and caregiving, leav- themselves to be. Indeed, readers who to tell a little too much, rather than take care of her, whether the creepy ing a trail of collateral damage in their seek to understand Astra will be hold- letting the story reveal its insights manager at her first job, who lets her wake. As Astra tells Dom, who spent ing a mirror to their own most basic more organically. But these are minor crash at his place, or the husband she his early years at Celestial but ends assumptions. 9780771012891 quibbles, and easier to overlook once eventually divorces. The repercussions up as an emotionally remote financial the scene is set and the narrative mo- of her unorthodox childhood become manager in Toronto: “We come from Victoria-based Portia Priegert is the mentum begins to build. increasingly apparent. She is working the same sort of place … a place that editor for Galleries West and a former Astra, who mostly raises herself, through neglect and childhood trauma isn’t real, that only exists as an idea. A reporter for the Ottawa bureau of the has scars on her face from a cougar at- and seems to have some sort of attach- place filled with irresponsible dreamers Canadian Press.
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Five Ways to Disappear by R.M. Greenaway (Dundurn Press $17.99) BY JOHN MOORE ou could speed read R.M. Greenaway’s latest mystery, Five Ways to Disappear, to make sure, Y but-—despite sev- eral murders and the memory of another—there isn’t a single reference to firearms in this novel. That doesn’t make it unique. Guns are also much less common in British crime fiction than in the American genre, but like the previous novels in Greenaway’s B.C. Blues series, this novel is what’s often called a ‘police procedural’ where you might expect the occasional mention of duty side arms carried even by detectives in Canada. Greenaway has clearly sussed that not having a smoking gun every half- dozen pages has advantages. It spares the reader having to wince at yet an- other erroneous evocation of the ‘smell of cordite’ in a room where shots have been fired. (Note to readers, cordite hasn’t been used since WW2 and then mainly by the British). Back in the days of cordite, Agatha Christie discovered going gun-less also compels an author to invent methods of murder that are both more imaginative and more real- R.M. Greenaway istic. The killing that opens Five Ways has worked to Disappear combines the banal and in nightclubs, bizarre in equally intriguing measure. darkrooms and On one of the suburban streets BIZARRE courthouses. that dead-end on the steep-sloped forested margins of ‘development’ in North Vancouver, at the hour most people have breakfast, a man is found pinned to his front lawn by a long iron murders pole rammed through his throat. The pole is surmounted by an amateurish painted wooden whirly-gig of the car- than the cheap suits worn by their toon character Porky Pig, one of a row protagonists. Legal strictures govern- and a police of equally tacky ‘artisan’ creations dis- ing police investigations inevitably played for sale along the fence. RCMP make them repetitive and make police investigators aware of the demographic protagonists like Simenon’s Inspector varies the formula by creating a triangle of their patch suspect the murder may Maigret look like dull birds compared triangle of characters, Leith, Dion and their have been the result of an escalating to ever more eccentric amateur ‘con- female colleague JD, held together by dispute over neighbourhood ‘aesthetic sulting detectives’ that followed in the the shared inherent stress of police values’ and start looking for suspects footprints of Conan Doyle’s eminently R.M. Greenaway’s work and indefinable emotional ten- among the more upscale residents of imitable Sherlock Holmes. sion. As friends do, they love but don’t the street. From Hercule Poirot and the vil- always like each other. While it may No Spoilers Alert: you’ll have to read lage busybody Miss Marple, to Philip latest murder be elegant and stable in mathematics the book to find out how this case con- Marlowe, Sam Spade and Nero Wolfe, and engineering, in human relations nects to two subsequent murders, one amateur or private detectives could mystery has no the triangle is unstable and potentially as comically bizarre as the first and conduct intuitive ‘asymmetrical’ inves- explosive. In Five Ways to Disappear, the other so ruthlessly calculated it’s tigations and flaunt personal quirks smoking gun, Leith is considering an undercover as- more terrifying for being almost mun- that endeared them to readers by focusing instead on signment that would improve his career dane. The absence of all but the most making them seem almost ordinary prospects but break up the team, while fractionally circumstantial evidence people the reader could identify with. the lives of three JD and Dion recognize their mutual linking the crimes reflects how the Their authors usually employed police attraction despite the secret guilt that institutional professionalism of police characters as stereotypical stooges, troubled police torments Dion. officers isolates them from the very crude bullies or robotic straight-men Five Ways to Disappear succeeds people they try to protect and serve, typified by “Inspector Plodder,” meme officers as they because Greenaway subordinates the sometimes leaving them dependent of all fictional British flatfoots created internal, personal and professional on old-fashioned human intuition and by mystery writers, in the finest film solve crimes. drama of the relationships of the cops dumb luck to uncover the tragic truth. send-up of the genre, Sleuth, (1972), and never loses sight of the real hu- O starring Michael Caine and Laurence writers responded with P.D. James’s man tragedy at the novel’s core: the five ways to disappear is the fifth Olivier. Adam Dalgliesh, Ruth Rendell’s In- relationship between an aged arthritic instalment of the adventures of North Greenaway follows the model cre- spector Wexford and Colin Dexter’s social misfit and the great-grandson he Vancouver RCMP officers Cal Dion ated by police procedural writers, who Inspector Morse. They set the stage hardly knows and didn’t expect to love. and David Leith, so readers new to the countered by writing novels that focus for Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh cop, John Pandemic reading recommendation: series may feel like they’ve arrived at on the often-troubled personal lives of Rebus, whose rebellious persona and get a copy of Greenaway’s first novel, the theatre in the middle of the second police officers instead of procedure. tangled private life Rankin has detailed Cold Girl, and catch up. 978-1-45974-156-0 act. Early authors and film directors Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels pio- in more than a dozen best-selling of ‘police procedurals’ quickly realized neered this genre in the fifties, followed novels. John Moore’s most recent book is Rain that the novelty of showing how police by Joseph Wambaugh’s novels in the Taking Rankin as her model, (you City: Vancouver Essays (Anvil, 2019). officers solve crimes wore thin faster sixties and seventies. British crime could hardly find better) Greenaway He lives in Garibaldi Heights.
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?????WENDY/TARA / BEV FILM REVIEW Harold and Maude & Heidi Why a love affair with a 1960s movie endured for half a century.
Glorious Birds: classic Harold and Maude is a coming-
A Celebratory Homage to of-age, oddball comedy directed by Hal
Harold and Maude Ashby. It was chosen in 1997 for pres- by Heidi Greco (Anvil $18) ervation in the National Film Registry t BY JANE CURRY of the Library of Congress for cultural, historical or aesthetic significance. The s it possible to write plot focuses on a suicide-obsessed 20 Ruth Gordan and Bud Cort in Harold & Maude, 1971 a love letter to a year-old, Harold Parker Chasen (Bud movie? In her Cort), and his friendship and eventual digital streaming through your local suppose you might call it a special new book Glo- romantic relationship with a 79-year- library.) Greco also warns that she is fondness—one that’s based in emotion rious Birds: old, Maude (Ruth Gordon) a holocaust “not a film critic, or an academic who but that also takes into account the A Celebratory survivor who teaches Harold about the is trained in scholarly research” and many elements director Hal Ashby’s I Homage to Har- importance of living life to its fullest. takes responsibility for all her errors. film manages to accomplish in such old and Maude, Greco is a poet, and clever in the Next up Greco provides a useful cast remarkable fashion. Impeccable cast- Heidi Greco sets out to share every- structure of her book. The first page list of ‘The Players’ and ‘The Collabora- ing, erasing the fourth wall to create thing she knows about her favourite is a framed, untitled spoiler alert to tors.’ These clues aid our navigation of that special sense of intimacy with an movie’s production, casting, characters her audience that includes several her dense research. audience, and soaring above it all, the and place in history. In the process disclaimers. She recommends that The body of Greco’s writing takes emotional effect achieved through the she includes us in her own personal readers “take the time to see it [the on the form of a play, complete with score and the soundtrack both of which journey and 50-year relationship with film], before you begin reading.” (If three chapters (or acts), beginning are creations of the artist known then her beloved film. you haven’t seen it yet, or want to with: ‘Coming Attractions,’ where she as Cat Stevens.” First screened in 1971, the cult watch it again, it’s on Kanopy via presents her rational for writing. “I continued on next page New from Ronsdale Press
ST. MICHAEL’S St. Michael’s Tainted Amber RESIDENTIAL Gabriele Goldstone SCHOOL Residential School LAMENT & LEGACY Nancy Dyson & Dan Rubenstein When her best friend flees Germany because she is Jewish and the boy she loves is deemed a threat One of the very few accounts of life in a residential to Aryan purity, Katya sees the cruel parallels school by caregivers who witness the shocking Tainted between breeding perfect horses and breeding discipline, poor food and harsh punishment for perfect people. the children’s use of their native language. Amber GABRIELE GOLDSTONE NANCY DYSON JONATHON JACOBS 978-1-55380-614-1 (PRINT) & DAN RUBENSTEIN 978-1-55380-623-3 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-615-8 (EBOOK) 320 pp $14.95 978-1-55380-624-2 (EBOOK) 220 pp $24.95 Solidarity Awesome Wildlife ESOM AW E
SOLIDARITY David Spaner Canada’s Unknown Revolution of 1983 Defenders Wildlife
In 1983, B.C. Premier Bill Bennett unleashed DEFENDERS Martha Attema an avalanche of anti-union, anti-human rights When Rebecca and Cedar, an Indigenous student, legislation. The Solidarity movement erupted, are paired up for a project with the endangered uniting the province’s labourers and leftist northern spotted owl, their partnership could activists for the first time. help Rebecca and Cedar’s complicated family life.
978-1-55380-638-7 (PRINT) martha attema 978-1-55380-647-9 (PRINT) DAVID SPANER 978-1-55380-639-4 (EBOOK) 220 pp $24.95 978-1-55380-648-6 (EBOOK) 280 pp $12.95
Service on the Skeena Lost Lost in Barkerville Geoff Mynett in Bitten Acherman BARKERVILLE Service on the Skeena describes the life of Horace Zach, Kyle and Miss Reid, their eccentric teacher, Wrinch, who served as the first resident doctor are transported back to 1866 at the height of at Hazelton in the northern interior of BC, where the Cariboo gold rush in Barkerville. There, they he helped build a hospital with his own hands. have to save their friend Theo from hanging at the hands of Judge Matthew Begbie. SERVICE on the With 50 photos and maps. SKEENA 978-1-55380-611-0 (PRINT) Horace Wrinch, Frontier Physician 978-1-55380-575-5 (PRINT) GEOFF MYNETT 978-1-55380-576-2 (EBOOK) 450 pp $21.95 BITTEN ACHERMAN 978-1-55380-612-7 (EBOOK) 438 pp $12.95
Available at your favourite bookstore or order from PGC/Raincoast Ronsdale Press www.ronsdalepress.com
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???????WENDY/TARA/ BEV FILM REVIEW
continued from previous page selves outsiders and reject prevail- ing cultural norms.” “Also, cult films In her second chapter ‘Feature Pre- should challenge mainstream sensibili- sentation’ Greco includes the bulk of ties in some way and transcend typical her research and explores what makes ideas about good and bad taste.” Harold and Maude special. She com- Harold and Maude was, in many pares the film to other films from the ways, ahead of its time as one of “the same period, as well as placing it in the earliest films to point its finger at context of the past century of cinema war… to give us a full-on philosopher/ history. Her comparison with Mike environmentalist in the character of Nichols’ film The Graduate, released Maude” and to include “the concept of four years earlier in 1967, is the most computer dating.” comprehensive. She examines To probe the history of the turbulent times of the
Illus. Carol La Fave the film even further, Greco late 1960s and early 1970s, includes an interview with ac- concluding that Ashby’s anti- tress Ellen Greer who played war messages and “embedded Harold’s third date; and a com- visual links to this era of such ical, fictitious interview with significant cultural change” the deceased Dame Marjorie are why this film continues to Chardin (aka Maude). resonate today. Heidi Greco In the final, third chapter Greco also examines the in- ‘Behind the Lens’ Greco com- novative and meticulously detailed art pletes her research with a scene by direction, describing it as “letter-per- scene breakdown of the film and a fect.” Ashby relied on the talents of the bibliography. film’s artistic director, Michael Haller Greco first saw Harold and Maude to decorate the rail car where Maude when she was in her twenties and a lived. “The details for this task involved university student. Her love for the film Rockwood Centre | Sechelt creating not only a memorabilia-filled, has endured for half a century. Now and homey environs, but Maude’s in- a writer, editor, critic, literary activist ventions had to be included—and to at and instructor, Greco acknowledges least appear to function according to the film had a profound affect on her. “I specs.” Maude’s ‘Odorifics’ fragrance can’t help but think the movie inspired July 4 to August 15, 2021 device and Harold’s retrofitted Jaguar- me and helped me be brave enough to For more information about summer hearse are legendary. become the person I am today.” In a quest to define cult films, Greco 978-1-77214-171-9 programming, please visit our website quotes Christopher J. Olson, author of 100 Greatest Cult Films: “He points Jane Curry is head of the Joe Fortes www.writersfestival.ca out that audiences for cult films often branch of the Vancouver Public tel: 604.885.9631 consist of people who consider them- Library system. toll free:1.800.565.9631
Amber Dawn Billy-Ray Belcourt Michael Christie Jillian Christmas The Life of Sti’tum’atul’wut, a Cowichan Woman “Ruby Peter brings to life the Claire Finlayson cultural training and protocols that have sustained her Michelle Good Cowichan community for generations.” Aislinn Hunter —Wendy Wickwire, Harold R. Johnson author of At the Bridge Daniel Heath Justice Sarah Leavitt Lucia Misch Bill Richardson Iona Whishaw Ruby Peter Howard White in collaboration with helene demers Celebrating 39 years in 2021
$24.95 paperback $11.99 ebook
Find it at rbcm.ca/books at the Royal Museum Shop or at your favourite bookstore
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???????WENDY/TARA/ BEV ESSAYS REVIEW
Susan Olding t
when she was sixteen, “during the Big Reader: Essays by Susan Olding height of second-wave feminism” (Freehand Books $22.95) in the seventies that she defended the married Anna Karenina heroine BY MARY ANN MOORE who fell in love with an army officer in Leo Tolstoy’s novel. Upon read- rom the time Su- ing the book later in life, Olding san Olding was has now had more life experience a child, she has with which to connect to Tolstoy’s had a book on adultress as she herself has been the go. She is, an ‘adulterous adult’ involved in her as the title of own ‘scandal.’ The essay is beauti- F her new book ful and revelatory, ending without suggests, a big reader. the tragedy of Anna Karenina. One of her earliest memories is see- Olding is an astute writer and ing images of “ordinary garden veg- researcher, evident in Library etables with some letters beneath Haunting in which she blends her them.” The little girl connected particular ‘haunting’ with the his- those letters to words. It was an ex- torical. The title of the essay reflects citing discovery which led Olding to the title of Virginia Woolf’s story, more pleasures later in life: reading Street Haunting. as a student, a book store employee, Many of the essays are award a library haunter, a teacher, and not winners such as A Different River least, as a writer. that won the Edna Staebler Award As an adult, writing essays be- for the Personal Essay in 2017. came Olding’s forte. Her debut col- Each section of the segmented es- lection Pathologies: A Life in Essays say bears the title of a Toronto river, (Freehand, 2008) was selected by stream or creek including Taddle 49th Shelf and Amazon.ca as one of Creek, which has been covered over 100 Canadian books to read in a life- on the grounds of the University of time. Her work has won a National Toronto. Metaphors notwithstand- Magazine Award and other honours. ing, Olding openly writes about her Olding’s follow-up book, Big relationships with a boyfriend and a
Reader: Essays references her photo gay man, intertwining these stories
love of reading and contains writ- cyr with Toronto’s cholera epidemic in ing that is as intimate as personal 1832, the works of Oscar Wilde,
helene letters combined with the lyricism UNPACKING the casualties of AIDS and her of poetry. She illustrates the be- own depression. As Olding says: guiling multiplicity of the personal “Rivers can’t help showing us that essay form and celebrates the life- everything is connected.” enhancing aspects of reading. In Unpacking My Library, Olding The other meaning of ‘Big Read- HER LIBRARY describes a move from Vancouver er’ is a machine similar to an old- to Vancouver Island in the spring of fashioned microfiche reader that Susan Olding on 2020. She makes note of the writ- can magnify words onto a screen. Olding writes about ings of George Orwell, Joan Didion, James Baldwin, her mother being introduced to the huge and awkward being “human” and Alice Walker and Mary Rich and upon reflection machine when her sight was failing. The Big Reader says: “Essays told stories, essays were concrete and proved to be far removed from the tactile nature of a the joys of reading. intimate instead of abstract and forbidding, essays book in one’s hands. “To lay a page in that device, to made me feel smart instead of stupid. They made me see the words taking shape on that big screen, would Olding frequently refers in her essays to one feel, period.” have stripped a veil from the past and reminded her or more books that have influenced her life, such Olding’s essays offer honesty, intellectual curiosity of all she had lost,” writes Olding. as Anna Karenina, A Rake’s Progress, The Golden and impeccable research. Big Reader is a splendid ex- Olding’s essays are full of this sort of poignant Notebook, Oliver Twist, Middlemarch and the poetry ample of how our own life stories are enhanced by and perception. Most of them are preceded by a prose of John Keats. There are several more noted in her interconnected with the characters we meet in books. poem, or a “short” as she calls them. For example, in addendum and include the novels of Indigenous 9781988298818 Billy, Olding writes this following short about books: writers Katherena Vermette and Tanya Tagaq, “Carry your treasures home, pile them beside the bed, and the poetry of Billy-Ray Belcourt and Michelle Mary Ann Moore is a poet, writer, writing mentor and place them under the living room chairs, set them on Poirier Brown. avid reader who lives in Nanaimo. She’s writes a blog every table, on every counter, on every windowsill.” Olding’s first essay, In Anna Karenina Furs recalls at apoetsnanaimo.ca NEW BOOKS from UBC PRESS
5 1971–2021
available at your local bookseller and online at ubcpress.ca
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"Through our own Indigenous stories, we discover our roots." ~Terri Mack, author POETRY REVIEW "There is medicine in these stories, stories that could only be told by those who lived to tell. Some still seek restitution, long for healing, and to bring home the bones of their ancestors” ~Jónina Kirton, Indigenous author of An Honest Woman
“This ongoing commitment to further the remarkable growth of Indigenous literature can only be applauded.” ~Alan Twigg, author- Aboriginality: The Literary Origins of British Columbia, Vol. 2 Matsuki Includes Indigenous colour artwork/photos Masutani ISBN: 978-1-7753019-1-2 t PB: 6x9 148pp $18.95 rebelmountainpress.com photo
grogan
brian WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU RISK, LONG TIME YOUNG MAKE RISK THEATRE Literary Theory’s Finest Hour and Home of the World’s Largest Competition for the SUDDENLY OLD Writing of Tragedy (risktheatre.com) A life’s worth of poetry in 110 pages.
I will be more myself in the next world that the nurse calls “a baby bottle.” by Matsuki Masutani Nonetheless, he makes a resolution: “I (Mother Tongue $19.95) must make my life more worthy.” He survives only to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. His wife tells ublishing a debut book him, “You were young for a long time of poems in his sev- and suddenly, poof, you’re an old man.” enties, Matsuki Ma- In the final poem, Masutani watches sutani of Denman his newborn granddaughter sleeping. Island had plenty of “Sometimes she shudders like a bewil- P material to work with: dered insect, a mystery from the other growing up in Japan, marrying a Ca- world.” 978-1-896949-87-1 nadian, moving to Vancouver and later the Gulf Islands, experiencing old age, Gold in the Shadow: ill health and grandchildren. Twenty-Two Ghazals and a Cento for Phyllis Webb by Diana Hayes He covers all these life phases in I (Rainbow Publishers $24.95) will be more myself in the next world with a unique minimalist style through which he manages to express his rumi- nations with the sparest of words. The ong an admirer of Phyllis effect is one of deep meditation. Webb, Diana Hayes was His first poem gives the book its honoured in 2017 to as- title: “I am/ more than/ my body/ L sist with the cataloguing more than/ what I think./ I am/ more of the poet’s other artistic work: her paintings. Available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook. than/ what I do/ what I did/ and what I will do./ It led to a much profounder engage- “Actually/ I am/ more than/ what I ment and Hayes says that she was am/ in this world/ and I feel/ I will be soon “lost in exotic and unfamiliar “Valuable for scholars, directors, and playwrights” more myself/ in the next/world.” worlds beyond the Theatre History Studies In addition to being a poet, Masu- canvas.” tani is also a translator and one of the The result is “Impossible to put down” early artists he worked with was the Hayes’s poetic multidisciplinary painter, photogra- homage to Phyllis NJ Drama Australia Journal pher, poet Roy Kiyooka (1926 – 1994). Webb (both women photo
It was Kiyooka who encouraged Ma- live on Salt Spring lam
sutani to write poetry in English and Island), using the
Japanese, and both languages are ramona form that Webb included in this collection. Diana Hayes has made her Masutani often ends his poems own—the ghazal, with an unexpected twist. In describ- or rather a Canadian form pioneered ing how he met his wife while travel- by John Thompson. “The paintings ling in Kathmandu and how the two provided the maps for my journey into continued to wander around together the ghazals,” says Hayes in her intro- for many months, he says they stayed duction to Gold in the Shadow. in “the travellers’ lifestyle” even after Hayes cross-referenced Webb’s po- raising their children. “We are still in etry and experiences with her own vi- travellers’ mode bumbling around in sions, often working through the night cafes and thrift shops in the neighbour- and emerging from her studio at dawn, hood,” he writes before concluding, “disoriented and exhilarated.” “going nowhere.” It was a journey that took Hayes to Masutani shares that he ran away the various places and people encoun- from his father in Japan, “to find out tered by Webb including Montreal, who I was.” Forty years later, “I look Paris, Egypt, and Russia; and writers, back at my father and wonder, who artists and composers such as Leonard he was.” Cohen, Paul Bowles, Thomas Merton, Undergoing cancer treatment and Jan Garbarek and Cristobel de Morales. feeling like he is dying, Masutani is told Diana Hayes published her book on to “embrace” the chemo bottle around April 18, 2021—Phyllis Webb’s 94th his neck. But he is afraid of the bottle birthday. 978-0-9734408-7-4
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bohigian
amy Jane Byers has co-written two award-winning documentary films, Only In Nelson and Conceiving Family. t
A IS FOR ANDERSON F IS FOR FREEDMAN The York Factory Express (Ronsdale Recovering from a near-fatal accident
$24.95) by Nancy Marguerite Ander- t on her 27th birthday, up and coming son portrays voyageurs that, between artist Eve Gold is desperate to return to 1826-1854, paddled boats up the Co- her old way of life in S.M. Freedman’s lumbia River for a thousand miles east psychological thriller, The Day She to Jasper’s House, 3,000 feet above sea Died (Dundurn $18.99). She wants level. Their grueling job was to quickly to resume her successful art career, move Hudson’s Bay Company depart- finally marry the man who once broke mental correspondence and personnel, her heart and try to have a baby. But not the bulkier furs and supplies that brain damage leaves Eve confused went on other boats. From Jasper’s S.M. Freedman by repressed memories of a troubled House, the voyageurs carried on much childhood destroyed by lies and even further to York Factory on the shores of a suspicious death. Does she cling Hudson Bay. In total, it was a stagger- to stories that helped her survive her ing climb and descent, which they did upbringing or unearth the secrets she in reverse on the way back home to the buried? 9781459747401 mouth of the Columbia. 978-1-55380-578-6 Nancy Marguerite Anderson G IS FOR GUNN B IS FOR BYERS driver. Ryder must also deal with his own vicious half-brother, a strained The short stories in Genni Gunn’s Per- After two books of poetry and a chap- relationship with his father, and the manent Tourists (Signature $19.95) book, Nelson-based Jane Byers has after-effects of his previous brush with are linked although they take place written the memoir Small Courage: A murder. 978-1-988732-92-3 Judy Thompson’s grandfather’s mittens in an array of geographical loca- Queer Memoir of Finding Love and tions across Canada, USA, Thailand, Conceiving Family (Caitlin $24.95) D IS FOR DEVERELL beaded canvas mittens adorned with Cambodia, Mexico and Italy. Gunn about her childhood, coming out, find- moose hide and beaver fur. “The mit- describes her characters as “less thrill- ing love and adopting two children. Her In his 19th nov- tens symbolize so much to me …/The seeking tourists on vacation than they newly found parenthood with her wife el, Stung (ECW knowledge and wisdom of our Ances- are P.K. Page’s terrible tourists ‘with Amy became daunting when threat- $32.95) William tors./The love between generations./ their empty eyes / longing to be filled ened by homophobia. “Pre-kids we only Deverell’s crafty The slipping away of our language./ with monuments.’ What they’re look- caught the eye of other lesbians,” writes defense lawyer, Ar- The grasping on to our language ing for cannot be found in Byers. “We are so clearly a unit now, thur Beauchamp before it is too late./And the any postcard desti- kids yelling ‘Look, Mama! Look, Mom!’ defends seven en- courageous and tireless nation.” We get stared at.” 978-1-77386-040-4 vironmentalists ac- work our people are car- 978-1773240-80-0 William Deverell cused of sabotaging rying out/In order to an Ontario plant keep our language C IS FOR CAREW that pumps out a pesticide linked to alive.” In his debut novel, The Killer Trail the mass death of honeybees. The story 9780994730299 (NeWest, 2014), crime novelist D.B. moves between Toronto, where the trial Carew introduces takes place, and Arthur’s West Coast Chris Ryder, a Van- island home, where he finds himself couver psychiatric arrested for fighting his own environ- social worker who mental cause: the threatened destruc- gets drawn into tion of a popular park. 978-1-77041-595-9 the mind games of
a murder suspect. t In Carew’s second E IS FOR EDÔSDI Genni Gunn: D.B. Carew thriller, The Weight Edôsdi is a member of the Tahltan Na- before becoming of Blood (NeWest tion who also goes by the English name a full-time writer $18.95), Chris Ryder is called in to Judy Thompson. Edôsdi’s poem, My she played bass guitar, piano and learn as much as he can about a se- Grandfather’s Cherished Mittens in the sang in a variety verely autistic young man who has poetry collection In Our Own Aborigi- of bands been found covered in blood at the nal Voice 2 (Rebel Mountain $18.98) scene of a murdered ice cream truck is an homage to a pair of intricately
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?????WENDY/TARA/ BEV WHO’S WHO BC
Jen Sookfong Lee was born and raised in East Vancouver. She now lives in North Burnaby. photo
kanavaros
kyrani The remarkable Holocaust survival moves to the mountains from the prai- H IS FOR HARRISON ries, she struggles at first. But when tale of a BC business legend. she visits her cousin Rosie in Saskatch- To advocate for mu- ewan, who has never seen a mountain sical work in the or mountain wildlife, Marisa realizes Downtown Eastside, her home is unique. Now that she has and elsewhere in the a friend to share her experience, Marisa world, as a means looks forward to Rosie visiting her. Il- to promote human lustrations are by Chelsea O’Byrne. rights and develop- 9781927018910 ment of the poor, Klisala Harrison Klisala Harrison G. Shimi has written Music Kang Downtown Eastside: Human Rights & Capability Development Through Music in Urban Poverty (Oxford Univ. Press $29.95). The book emerged from her research in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside about the human dignity people get from the arts, particularly music-making, which is readily acces- sible. A 1997 graduate of UVic’s Music History program, Harrison now holds a PhD. 978-0-19-753507-3 I IS FOR IVAN 20 plus For an inveterate traveler and per- K IS FOR KANG Yoka former like Ivan Vancouver-based, Harvard-trained varieties is reading & Coyote, the Cov- psychiatrist Dr. G. Shimi Kang has recommends: id-19 pandemic ini- written The Tech Solution: Creating Nature Out tially proved to be Healthy Habits for Kids Growing Up of Balance confining. The non- in a Digital World (Penguin Random by Merrie-Ellen binary writer turned House $29.95) about the short-term Wilcox Ivan Coyote to their file of special and potential long-term consequences (Orca Books). letters and commu- of tech use for children. She also offers ISBN: 9781459823952 niques they had saved over the years advice for tackling specific concerns from readers and audience members such as tech addiction, anxiety, cyber- including Facebook messages, emails bullying and loneliness. She is the re- and notes written-on-the-run. Coyote cipient of a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond began answering those letters, eventu- Jubilee Medal for her years of outstand- ally combining both the originals and ing community service. 978-0-7352-3954-8 their responses in Care of: Letters, Connections, and Cures (M&S $25). As a whole, the compilation came to L IS FOR SOOKFONG LEE reflect many of the central themes of Having written many fiction and non- Coyote’s past writing: compassion and fiction books, Jen Sookfong Lee has empathy, family fragility and identity. now released her debut collection of Ivan Coyote’s Rebent Sinner (Arsenal poetry The Shadow List (Wolsak & Pulp Press, 2019) is a finalist for the Wynn $18), in which she creates a 2020 non-fiction Governor General’s narrator describing what it’s like to live #5 - 1046 Mason St. Victoria, B.C. V8T 1A3 Literary Award. 9780771051722 as a woman of colour and a caregiver. (just off Cook Street) 1-250-384-0905 She is a person with few societal op- • Hand sorted for premium quality • Full selection of exotic teas portunities, yet the poems are filled • B.C. honey and Belgian chocolates • Mail orders welcome J IS FOR JOHNSON with desire. SookFong Lee’s narrator PremiumAffordable Quality Pricesat Kamloops-based George M. Johnson also questions the politics of who gets www.yokascoffee.com has published his second picture book to choose and who doesn’t. She makes for kids, Marisa and the Mountains hidden lists of what she really wants. (Simply Read $21.95). When Marisa 978-1-989496-28-2
30 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
?????WENDY/TARA/ BEV WHO’S WHO BRITISH COLUMBIA
Salma decides that a homemade Syrian meal might cheer up her mama, but M IS FOR McLEAN she doesn’t know the recipe, or what to Years after retiring from his 35-year call the vegetables in English, or where newspaper reporting career, Bruce to find the right spices. With help from McLean published his debut novel The friends and her new community, Salma Mañana Treehouse (Thistledown $20) shows her mama that even though about an aging couple coming to terms things aren’t perfect, there is cause with Alzheimer’s disease. It is inspired for hope and celebration. The book by McLean’s memory of his late wife represents Syrian culture and speaks who spent the last seven years of her life to the power of cultivating community with Alzheimer’s. The novel’s final lines in challenging circumstances. are poignant: “Yesterday has vanished 978-17732137501 and any thoughts of tomorrow are out of the question. It’s today and we’re getting somewhere with it.” S IS FOR STEEVES
9781771872058 Gary Steeves, a social and envi- N IS FOR NEIL ronmental activ- ist, wrote Tran- Oliver-based quility Lost: Danial Neil has The Occupation published the of Tranquille & historical novel Battle for Com- Dominion of munity Care in Mercy (NeWest B.C. (Nightwood $20.95) about Gary Steeves $21.95). It’s a a young woman firsthand ac- leaving Edin- count of the occupation of the Tran- burgh, Scotland quille residential complex for people Danial Neil in 1917, where with developmental disabilities by she made a living workers at the site when the provincial as a prostitute, to move to Anyox, B.C. government announced its closure in to work as a nurse for injured soldiers the summer of 1983. It marked the returning from the war. Living on the beginning of a groundswell of activism frontier turns out to be more challeng-
uniting community and labour groups ing than the dark streets of Old Town
in B.C. that came to be known as Op- back home and the heroine must use eration Solidarity. 9780889713864 her smarts to survive. But in her time, t women are not encouraged to reveal quick intelligence. 978-177439-020-7 T IS FOR TREGEBOV Rachel Rose has written four books of poetry and a memoir, The Dog Lover Unit which Michael Tregebov’s Winnipeg-based was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis award for best non-fiction crime book in 2018. novels continue with The Renter (New O IS FOR OCTOPUS Star $18), the story of a Jewish man in Having made her mark as an award- the late 1960s who is hoping to marry winning poet, Rachel Rose has turned up. During an era when it was both to short stories with her collection, common and even socially acceptable The Octopus Has Three Hearts (D&M to deal in soft drugs, Bret Yeatman, $22.95) about fringe characters who all our Duddy-Kravitz-of-Manitoba pro- have better relationships with animals tagonist, is seeking romance and social than people. The pet companions in- redemption for his family at Winnipeg clude an octopus, rats, deer, bats and Beach, formerly the “cottage country” the more traditional dogs and kittens. preserve of the province’s WASP elite. Rose’s characters are vividly drawn and The target for both his ambitions and her premises, original. She explores affections is the delectable Sandra issues such as parenthood, sexuality, Sugarman but our man-on-the-make identity and fidelity, and looking for a will have to renounce his easy, promis- place to belong. 9781771622882 cuous life in the drug trade. Tregebov earned his MFA in Creative Writing
P IS FOR PALADINO from UBC and studied at SFU before
moving to Spain in 1982, where he “There are constantly unique images, t t works as a translator. 9781554201631 angles or moments that burn away in my mind and the only way to be rid of them is to try to bring them to life,” says Christine Quintana Danny Ramadan photographer Marcus Paladino in Cold Comfort: Surf Photography from phers. While Paladino’s writing appears way that prevents this from happening Canada’s West Coast (RMB $45). His in his new book, it’s his images that in the first place?” images have appeared in publications take center stage. Paladino grew up Quintana is a Siminovitch Prize around the world, making him one of on Vancouver Island, where he earned Protege winner for playwriting and Canada’s most desired water photogra- a diploma in photography in 2010. a founding member of the Canadian Later he moved to Tofino for a summer Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition. Born job and stayed. Paladino’s work has in Los Angeles to a Mexican American been featured in various publications father and a Dutch British Canadian around the world, including SURFER, mother, Quintana holds a BFA in Acting Surfing Magazine, The Surfer’s Journal, from UBC and is currently playwright- Explore magazine, Tracks, and Carve. in-residence at Vancouver’s Tarragon 9781771603997 Theatre. 9780369101259 Q IS FOR QUINTANA R IS FOR RAMADAN
Christine Quintana has written Selfie Vancouver author, activist and former
(Playwrights Canada $17.95) about Syrian refugee, Danny Ramadan has Marcus how sexual assault against minors can published his first children’s book, t Paladino happen in any community. “The ques- Salma the Syrian Chef (Annick Press tion I want to pose,” says Quintana, $21.95) with illustrations by Anna “is how can we talk about consent in a Bron. Newcomer to Canada, little Michael Tregebov
31 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021
?????WENDY/TARA/ BEV RAVEN CHAPBOOKS POETRY WINNER “Kyeren Regehr gives us the body locked in the torment of WHO’S WHO BC beautiful movement in this insider’s revelation of a dancer’s life. Her language–trim, muscled, momentumed—soars. The sequence is unforgettable." —Tim Liburn
ISBN 978-0-9734408-8-1 $19.95 NOW AT: SaltspringBooks.ca (250 537 2812) and dianahayes.ca/ravenchapbooks/
NEW FROM RAINBOW PUBLISHERS Terance
Young is thet author of six books.
part of the title of the third edition U IS FOR UNIVERSE of Nancy Turner’s classic, Plants of Haida Gwaii: Xaadaa Gwaay gud gina Seventeen-year-old Michael ends up k’aws (Skidegate), Xaadaa Gwaayee in an alternate universe when he guu ginn kaw’s (Massett) (Harbour visits his mad-scientist uncle who $29.95) representing over half a cen- works on time-travel experiments tury of ethnobotanical research into in his lab in Arthur Slade’s new YA over 150 plant species native to the novel Mr. Universe (Orca $10.95). Haida people’s homeland. The new Michael must fend for himself in this edition comes after a fire destroyed new world where he encounters lizard the remaining stock of books of the men dressed in gray suits. But he 2010 edition published by Sono Nis also meets a girl, Emily who needs his Press. Turner has updated the Haida help even though she is confident and writing system in this new edition and sassy. Emily turns out to be key to Mi- acknowledged the new Chiefs’ names. chael finding his way back to his own 978-1-55017-914-9 dimension. 9781459826885 t Nancy The gaze of the poet…integrates and celebrates the work of two women V IS FOR VICKERS Turner artists, the meditative weaving together here, yes, “Gold in the Shadow”, and humbling, challenging, refl ective. “Let me begin with a warning” heads Cathy Ford one of Janet Vickers’ new poems in Sleep With Me: Lullaby for an Anx- Like the vesper fl ight of swifts, these poems recalibrate on the wing, ious Planet (Ekstasis $23.95) because orienting themselves to the echoes of a beloved poet—at the same time not all these verses are gentle lullabies. they are perfectly themselves. They are enough. They are more than They have been described as poetry enough. The bones are rising with the moon. Gravitas. She is praised. like a cold shower and a warm towel all rolled into one; but that ultimately —Eve Joseph assert we can act against the forces for destruction. Vickers lives on Gab- GOLD IN THE SHADOW ISBN: 978-0-9733408-7-4 $25 riola Island and this is her fifth poetry Y IS FOR YOUNG for Phyllis Webb Now at: collection. 978-1771713603 SaltspringBooks.ca 250 537 2812 Having retired from teaching English by DIANA HAYES and [email protected] and creative writing at St. Michael’s W IS FOR WEBSTER University School, Terence Young With access to court transcripts and has published a spellbinding collection many related documents, Helen of poems, Smithereens (Nightwood Webster has written the true story of $18.95) in which he finds the extraor- four-year-old Susan, beaten to death in dinary in everyday things—the last the name of discipline, A Question of raspberries of summer, a ferry trip that Intent: Child Abuse and the Justice is detoured, watching TV shows from System (FriesenPress $27.99). Beat- the past, a family car that lasted twenty ings had started when Susan was only years, a child’s picture lost in a fire, a five months old and continued until bear at the cottage. All are bits of life just days before her fifth birthday. The that Young turns into “shining artifacts question central to the court case was of memory,” a phrase he quotes from whether or not her parents meant to Leonard Cohen in one of his verses. kill her. The author does not attempt 9781550179439 to second guess the results of the trial, but simply presents the evidence and Z IS FOR ZIEGLER the legal arguments, leaving the reader to decide. 978-1525579813 Robert Ziegler’s second novel The Telling Method (Self-published $24.95) explores a relationship be- X IS FOR XAADAA tween two writers, both with mental Xaadaa Gwaay gud gina k’aws is the health conditions, and tells how they traditional name of Skidegate and manage to heal themselves through Xaadaa Gwaayee guu ginn k’aws is their story telling. Ziegler has worked the traditional name of Massett. These as a therapist in the Prince George two Haida Gwaii communities form region for thirty years. 981777362003
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33 BC BOOKWORLD • SUMMER 2021 QUICKIES A COMMUNITY LETTERS BULLETIN BOARD FOR INDEPENDENTS
QUICKIES is an affordable advertising Mary Fox (with Amy) has been vehicle for writers, artists & events. The last is the best a potter for forty-plus years. Her book, My Life as a Potter: For info on how to be included: Thank you so very much for the t Stories and Techniques was marvelous coverage that you gave [email protected] published in 2020. to my book, My Life as a Potter [BC BookWorld, Spring 2021]. It was such a wonderful review and a real treat to Secret Agents see so many photographs included Defang a Dragon with it. I especially love the last para- by Philip E.K. graph which I confess to reading over Symons and over again. What an outstanding Four teens uncover a political publication you have created for book plot to destroy the very fabric of Canada and develop a readers everywhere. plan to foil it. Mary Fox $19.95 • ISBN: 976-0-9734928-2-8 Available from Red Tuque Books Ladysmith distributor & philipsymons.ca TEEN NOVEL A special cover I’ve long intended to thank BC Book- Direct Action World for the space and attention Gets The you’ve given my work over these years. Goods What an important and amazing role A Graphic History of the Strike in Canada you fill. I still remember the excite- by The Graphic History ment of making the cover for Saltwa- Collective ter Women at Work [BC BookWorld, $14.95• 9781771134170 Autumn 1995]. That issue’s cover is Between The Lines ous: The Story of British Colum- www.btlbooks.com framed and hangs And I borrowed my son’s credit card bia’s World-Class Undersea to order books! Yes! We love the BC- GRAPHIC NOVEL on the wall over my desk. Please keep Technology Industry published BookLook website too and explore up the great work. by Harbour, will be out this every single corner of it. Gawd, what Food Floor: Writers and readers Fall.—Ed.] a delight. Thanks for existing. Titia Jetten My Woodward’s Days need you now more Ladysmith by Margaret than ever. Handbag treasure Cadwaladr Vickie Jensen Vancouver I just got BC BookWorld Send letters or emails to: Memoir of working as a BC BookWorld, grocery cashier at Woodward’s newspaper in the mailbox. I in Vancouver in the 1960s. 926 W. 15th Ave, [Vickie Jensen’s snatched it before my family Vancouver, BC V5Z 1R9 $15.95 • ISBN 978-1-9995465-1-9 www.foodfloordays.com new book, Deep, could and I carry it around [email protected] & selected bookstores Dark and Danger- Vickie Jensen in my handbag as a treasure. Letters may be edited for clarity & length. MEMOIR
James Heneghan (1930 - 2021) 1919 A Graphic History Born in Liverpool on October 7, 1930, James Heneghan of the Winnipeg OBITS came to Vancouver in 1957 where he eventually began writ- General Strike by The Graphic History ing fiction for young people. His historical and realistic YA Collective and David Lester Jack Whyte fiction won many prizes including the Sheila Egoff Award $19.19 ISBN 9781771134200 (1940 – 2021) for children’s literature three times, one of which was for Between The Lines his most acclaimed novel, The Grave. In 2017, he was www.btlbooks.com GRAPHIC NOVEL At age 52, Scottish-born awarded the Phoenix Award for his novel, Wish Me Luck, Jack Whyte burst onto the which was also nominated for writing stage with The Sky- a Governor General’s Award. No Ordinary Jack Whyte stone (1992), the first of a Many of his books appeared Seaman A Memoir projected quartet of Arthurian novels in a series dubbed on the American Library Asso- by Gary H. Karlsen A Dream of Eagles (but called The Camolud Chronicles in ciation’s lists of Best Books for Beckoned by the sea: tales the U.S.). He wrote many more historical novels, achiev- Young Adults, the New York of a young man shipping out of Vancouver in 1965. ing sales of over a million books and became one of B.C.’s Library lists of Best Books, $22.95 • ISBN 978-1-7752669-0-7 most successful authors. An entertainer and orator, Whyte the Junior Library Guild list noordinaryseaman.com eBook at Amazon & Kobo was also an avid golfer and he was able to sing in eight and the VOYA Top Shelf Pick SEAFARING MEMOIR languages. After a long battle with liver cancer, Jack Whyte list. James Heneghan died on James Heneghan died in Kelowna on February 22 at the age of 80. April 23, 2021.
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