BOOK REVIEWS Unmarked: childhood and young adulthood. Each Landscapes along Highway 16 of the sixteen chapters is a beautifully crafted essay, loosely connected with Sarah de Leeuw the others but able to stand alone, on the Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2004. complexities and sadness - there is little happiness in this book - of life in the 118 pp. $19.95 paper. settlements through which de Leeuw's JOCELYN SMITH journey pulls her. De Leeuw draws her University of British Columbia characters and their sorrow and anger with deft, economical strokes: "They auctioned orfjeskatla, piece by piece ... n 1982 SARAH DE LEEUW'S father put I remember clearly the look of Leaha's on a suit and tie - "a rare sight," (1) I father. Sportsmen Unfiltered cigarette de Leeuw writes - and then left for the cradled gently between fingers, sitting airport. He returned on the evening of legs apart, elbows on knees, on the the third day to tell his family that he hood of his gold Cadillac. A stunned had at last found a job. The journey to look of resignation, the same look this new job would take the family away I had always imagined might flash from Duncan, beyond Prince George across a faller's face the instant he and Burns Lake, beyond Terrace and cut into a widow maker, those terrible Prince Rupert, across the Hecate Strait trees who in such a long split second to Port Clements. For eight-year-old rip out to take a man down" (20). de Leeuw, this journey, "three days Writing of her years in Kitimat, she travel and two nights sleep away from sums up an entire adolescence with the people I have left behind," (9) is just a handful of well-chosen phrases: a journey to a place on the edge of "The steep corner around the bridge nothingness. where your brother had his first and Unmarked: Landscapes along Highway last car accident ... where you passed, 16 is de Leeuw's account of her life over and over, vowing each time was on that edge of nothingness and your last, each time to move away. Far her journey back along Highway 16, away. Far away from endless Friday through Juskatla, Kitimat, Kitwanga, nights of bootlegging booze from the Rosswood, the Nass Valley, through manager of the restaurant where you BC STUDIES, no. 145, Spring 2005 IOJ so$ BC STUDIES worked, leaving after long shifts, hair Encyclopedia of Literature thick with the fatty scent of cheese and in Canada pizza dough, cheap wine and parents who take their children to the one and Edited by W.H.New only family restaurant, exhaling their Toronto: University of Toronto cigarette smoke over their kids' heads Press, 2002.1,347 pp. $75.00 cloth. and directly into your green and white uniform. Any goddamn place that isn't RICHARD J. LANE here, even if it's just over there, is far Malaspina University College enough for you. It's away" (48). But the main presence in Unmarked HE TASK APPEARS straightforward is the landscape of northern British T- in this case, to read W.H. New's Columbia, and de Leeuw's evocation monumental Encyclopedia ofLiterature in of that landscape is the greatest Canada for information on BC writing. achievement in this wonderful book. There is, usefully, an entry on British Whether she is describing "the Zoo" Columbia (unsigned, meaning "written at Cranberry Junction or the hills by New"): it gives pertinent historical, that surround Prince George or the political, and social information, and beaches of Tlell, de Leeuw writes then lists some significant writers. The with a compassion and insight that list does not claim to be exhaustive, reveal an extraordinary and subtle but there are seventy-one names in talent. She served recently as the the entry, and that is a great deal more research coordinator for the University than some people might expect to see. of Northern British Columbia's task Of course there are some names missing, force on the effects of substance abuse but - here goes, into the labyrinth - that on children, and is currently working does not mean that the names do not on a PhD in cultural geography at appear elsewhere. Queen's University. The question A minor popular fiction writer with that must be asked is whether she will whom I am familiar, Bertrand William continue to write creative nonfiction. Sinclair, does not appear in the list, but Unmarked: Landscapes along Highway he is in the encyclopedia: "Novelist; b 16 is a remarkable book, and to sustain Edinburgh 9 Jan 1881, d Pender Harbour, its momentum in future writings will BC, 20 Oct 1972" the entry (written by be a challenge. There is no reason to James Doyle) tells me; further: "His 12 think that de Leeuw cannot meet that novels are tales of adventure featuring challenge, but even if she never writes cowboys, prospectors, and fishermen, another word of creative nonfiction, she celebrating individualism while has already produced an outstanding criticizing monopoly capitalism. His best testament to lives lived in northern work is Poor Man s Rock (1920), an attack British Columbia. on the corporations controlling the Pacific salmon fishery, within a romantic plot of a war veteran who by his personal and commercial decency wins economic success and the heroine's love" (1,048). "Enough already," I can hear the reader of this review saying. By what criteria does Sinclair warrant so much space in Book Reviews sop the encyclopedia or in this review? But Deverell, Brian Fawcett, William there's the rub: by what criteria should Gibson, Allerdale Grainger, he (or any other "minor" author) be Stephen Guppy, Roderick Haig- either marginalized or left out? Sinclair Brown, Robert Harlow, Christie appears, for example, in some recent Harris, Robert Heidbreder, Jack critical work: Dagmar Novak's Dubious Hodgins, Mark Anthony Jarman, Glory: The Two World Wars and the John Jewitt, Pauline Johnson, Canadian Novel (2000), Laurie Ricou's Surjeet Kalsey, Lionel Kearns, The Arbutus/Madrone Files: Reading Joy Kogawa, Betty Lambert, Sky the Pacific Northwest (2002), and in an Lee, Sing Lim, Dorothy Livesay, important essay by Lindsey McMaster, Malcolm Lowry, Pat Lowther, Lee "The Urban Working Girl in Turn-of- Maracle, Daphne Marlatt, Bill the- Century Canadian Fiction" (2002; McConnell, George McWhirter, see Lane 2002 and 2004). Another BC Susan Musgrave, William New, writer not on the list is the Kwantlen Eric Nicol, Frederick Niven, Lucy First Nation dramatist and poet Joseph Ng, Howard O'Hagan, P.K. Page, A. Dandurand; however, he can be Morris Panych, Bill Reid, Harold tracked down, via the supplementary Rheinisch, Harry Robinson, index, to the entry on First Nations Carmen Rodriguez, Linda Rogers, literature (written by Lally Grauer): Jane Rule, Robin Skelton, Paul St. "The poems of Joseph A. Dandurand Pierre, Ron Smith, Sharon Thesen, (Kwantlen) in looking into the eyes of my Audrey Thomas, Peter Trower, forgotten dreams (1998) convey intense Michael Turner, Guillermo feeling in a spare, meditative form" Verdecchia, David Watmough, (373). Should these two authors - one Sheila Watson, Phyllis Webb, a popular fiction "genre" writer of the Howard White, Ethel Wilson, past, the other a vibrant, up-and-coming Carol Windley, Jim Wong-Chu, author of the present day - be on the George Woodcock, L.R. Wright, J. periphery of the Encyclopedia^ I need Michael Yates, and Paul Yee (155) another entry, on Region, Regionalism (written by Laurie Ricou) to answer In the Encyclopedia all of the above that question: "Differing typologies surnames are capitalized, indicating a of, and critical approaches to literary separate entry; one small oddity is that regionalism suggest some of the ways the entry for Vancouver poet Sharon place and identity interrelate" (948). Thesen appears to have gone astray. Four entries so far, to track down and Thesen, who was born in 1946, moved perhaps makes sense of the placement to British Columbia in 1952; winner of just two BC authors. of the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for A Pair of Scissors (2000), Thesen Perhaps it is time to turn to that list has published books of poetry and of seventy- one authors : anthologies, and edits the Capilano Caroline Adderson, Jeannette Review. Many of the authors in the Armstrong, Irene Baird, Nick list are discussed elsewhere in the Bantock, Robin Blaser, George Encyclopedia', for example, Christie Bowering, Robert Bringhurst, Harris is also mentioned in the lengthy Anne Cameron, Emily Carr, Awards and Literary Prizes entry George Clutesi, Douglas (written by R.G. Siemens), the Book Coupland, Jeff Derksen, Bill Design and Illustration entry (written iso BC STUDIES by Richard Cavell), the Children's literature entry (mentioned above) is Literature in English entry (written by essential reading for anyone grappling Adrienne Kertzer), her author entry for the first time with the indigenous (Christie Harris, unsigned), and finally writers (and speakers) of British the Ireland entry (written by John Columbia and Canada. Moffatt). Not all of the BC authors get Inevitably, the question of which BC such extensive coverage, from so many authors got "left out" entirely becomes different critics, but the many different an issue; for some reviewers, this is contexts and perspectives work overall where the critical fun starts (i.e., the to form a rich palimpsest. critic can get nasty). For this reviewer, Other related entries are of use to considering that the Encyclopedia as a the BC researcher, for example the whole is a landmark achievement in entry on Archives, Manuscripts, and the criticism of Canadian literature, Special Collections (written by Joann listing some of these omitted authors is McCaig), which mentions the poetry simply a way of encouraging their future collection at the National Library of inclusion in a second or updated edition.