Susan Swan: Michael Crummey’s fictional truth $6.50 Vol. 27, No. 1 January/February 2019 DAVID M. MALONE A Bridge Too Far Why Canada has been reluctant to engage with China ALSO IN THIS ISSUE CAROL GOAR on solutions to homelessness MURRAY BREWSTER on the photographers of war PLUS Brian Stewart, Suanne Kelman & Judy Fong Bates Publications Mail Agreement #40032362. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to LRC, Circulation Dept. PO Box 8, Station K, Toronto, ON M4P 2G1 New from University of Toronto Press “Illuminating and interesting, this collection is a much- needed contribution to the study of Canadian women in medicine today.” –Allyn Walsh McMaster University “Provides remarkable insight “Robyn Lee critiques prevailing “Emilia Nielsen impressively draws into how public policy is made, discourses to provide a thought- on, and enters in dialogue with, a contested, and evolves when there provoking and timely discussion wide range of recent scholarship are multiple layers of authority in a surrounding cultural politics.” addressing illness narratives and federation like Canada.” challenging mainstream breast – Rhonda M. Shaw cancer culture.” –Robert Schertzer Victoria University of Wellington University of Toronto Scarborough –Stella Bolaki University of Kent utorontopress.com Literary Review of Canada 340 King Street East, 2nd Floor Toronto, ON M5A 1K8 email: [email protected] Charitable number: 848431490RR0001 To donate, visit reviewcanada.ca/ support Vol. 27, No. 1 • January/February 2019 EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Murray Campbell (interim) Kyle Wyatt (incoming) [email protected] 3 The Tools of Engagement 21 Being on Fire ART DIRECTOR Kyle Wyatt, Incoming Editor-in-Chief A poem Rachel Tennenhouse Nicholas Bradley ASSISTANT EDITOR 4 Invisible Canadians Elaine Anselmi How can you live decades with someone 22 In the Company of War POETRY EDITOR and know nothing about him? Portraits from behind the lens of Moira MacDougall Finding Mr. Wong by Susan Crean conflict photography FICTION EDITORS Judy Fong Bates Shooting War by Anthony Feinstein Basil Guinane Murray Brewster Cecily Ross 6 A Quiet Miracle COPY EDITOR Jewish life has survived and thrived in 24 Right Out of Tosca Patricia Treble Canada—against all odds The sprawling, multi-generational history of CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Seeking the Fabled City by Allan Levine a family that is a window to the strangeness Bronwyn Drainie, Beth Haddon, Suanne Kelman and richness of Quebec Mohamed Huque, Andy Lamey, Mark Songs for the Cold of Heart by Eric Dupont Lovewell, Molly Peacock, Robin Roger, Bardia Sinaee 7 Julio Alison Gzowski A poem PROOFREADERS Cristina Austin, Suzanne Mantha, A.J. 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January/February 2019 reviewcanada.ca 1 “LOVING, FUNNY, AND BEAUTI­ FULLY—Ronald Wright, author ofTOLD.” A Short History of Progress The Organist: Fugues, Fatherhood, and a Fragile Mind by Mark Abley “ ‘What does a life add up to?’ This question is central to Mark Abley’s haunting family memoir . he ventures bravely into territory that is, for almost everyone, mysterious: what our parents were like before we, their children, became (so we like to imagine) central to their lives. 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Use them wisely. It’s a maxim I generally embrace, but I happily forgive my predecessors for spending the LRC’s allotment in those early days. I also admit to using more than my share of exclamation when the magazine offered me the opportunity to help shape “the best discussions” of today. It wasn’t until November 1992, with the eleventh issue, that the LRC ran its first editor’s note. Much has changed in the intervening years—for the magazine, for readers, for Canadian print culture— but that note’s seven relatively sombre paragraphs, run right on the front page, continue to ring true: The Literary Review of Canada was created to fill a serious void in Canada’s cultural landscape: insightful, substantive reviews of While the LRC has changed over the years, its mandate remains the same. Canadian books....Born the child of a severe PHOTOGRAPH BY BRYAN DICKIE economic crisis, and of a time when the American newspaper USA Today can boldly Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The Walrus, The to provide relevant cultural context that helps us advertise itself on Canadian street boxes as New Yorker, and many others through the various make sense of the news that is broken. To hold up a “the national daily” without even raising screens that punctuate my day. I am not one to mirror, as best as space and other constraints allow, eyebrows, the possibilities of survival for a read James Meek’s fascinating but lengthy review of to the widest possible range of Canada’s intellectual Canadian monthly dedicated to the explora- Alan Rusbridger’s Breaking News on my phone, but output. tion of the Canadian mind seemed slim. I am keenly aware of it because I follow the London I am deeply humbled to add my name to the Review of Books on Instagram. list of LRC editors—from Patrice Dutil to Sarmishta However slim the margins of survival were then, The LRC, on the other hand, is not what one Subramanian—who have shaped an indispensable the magazine and the cultural space it covers would would describe as an early adopter: The magazine’s forum for discussion in this country.