I Think We've Been Here Before: Facing the End of the World, in Saskatchewan

I Think We've Been Here Before / Suzy Krause
Regina, SK: Radiant Press, c2024.
309 p.

It's the end of the world -- with advance notice. Scientists have discovered some kind of cosmological burst that will reach Earth in two months, just around Christmas time. They announce it to the world. So, prepare for the end. 

Marlen and Hilda Jorgensen receive this news differently. Marlen has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, so for him it's the end either way; his wife is struggling with their own reality, never mind the apocalypse. Their daughter is in Berlin, and it's not certain she'll be able to return home, what with transportation being knocked off-kilter by the panic and chaos. She has her own issues, meeting someone in Berlin who feels strangely familiar to here. Meanwhile, Hilda's sister is in complete denial, which makes it hard for her husband and teen son to cope, never being allowed to talk about it. 

This was a very unusual take on the end of the world. Set mostly in rural Saskatchewan (with side scenes in Berlin), it focuses deeply on the emotional state of its characters. There is a certain numbness which permeates the story; the world around these characters is quiet -- even in Berlin, we don't really see, hear from, or interact with other characters. It is like these particular characters are insulated somehow. 

But I found this thoughtful, with some intriguing elements that would be very discussable. There are funny bits, and touching bits, too. I loved the daughter's story, and found this an engaging read. I am originally from Saskatchewan so it is nice to see a story like this taking place, rooted in small town Saskatchewan. For me, this was fresh and interesting, even if I'm still not quite sure about that ending! Well worth searching this one out, in my opinion. 

 

Blossoming of a Ukrainian Canadian: Savella Stechishin

Blossoming of a Ukrainian Canadian: Savella Stechishin
by Natalie Ostryzniuk
Bloomington, IN: Trafford, c2009.
236 p.

I decided to read this biography, fortunately available through interlibrary loan, as part of my Ukrainian Canadian reading. Savella Stechishin Savella Stechishin is best known for her comprehensive cookbook Traditional Ukrainian Cookery (now very hard to find at a reasonable price!) But she was active in a lot of other areas as well, and this bio, written as a master's thesis, covers much of her life and work in Saskatchewan. 

As she was such a big part of the Ukrainian Canadian community, particularly in Saskatchewan, I was hoping I might find some mention of some of my relatives or people I knew in this. No such luck! Not a peep. That could be because she was solidly planted in the Ukrainian Orthodox tradition, and none of my family was religious at all. Nonetheless, this book was fascinating; her life was unusual and so busy. She immigrated to Canada at age 9 with her family, in 1913. And she was the first woman to graduate from the University of Saskatchewan, with a degree in home economics. She wanted to make life easier for women, so spent a lot of time travelling around the province teaching women better domestic skills to improve their lot. This is while she was married herself, with 3 children. Her husband Julian was rector of the Petro Mohyla Institute in Saskatoon, and a writer himself, but also did his share of childcare and more while she was working. 

She founded the Ukrainian Women's Association of Canada in 1926, and the Ukrainian Museum of Canada in 1936. Both are still running, nationwide. She travelled to women's conferences across the country, in the US and in Ukraine, meeting some of her more famous contemporaries. But she always stayed committed to the work she was doing in Saskatchewan. Savella Stechishin had a lot more to her than I'd known before reading this book - I'm so glad someone wrote about her while she was still around to interview. My degree was in Canadian History, but no mention of people like her back then. I'm happy to rectify that by reading history like this now. 

The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour

 

The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour / Dawn Dumont
Calgary: Freehand Books, c2021
304 p.

I've been looking forward to this novel by the very funny and sharp Saskatchewan writer, Dawn Dumont. I read it as soon as it was released, and loved it. It's a return to the zany caper energy of her earlier Rose's Run, a novel I also greatly enjoyed. 

This story is set in the 70s, and it follows a ragtag group who heads to Europe to fulfill a dance tour commitment, when the real dance troupe comes down with food poisoning just before they are about to leave. John Greyeyes, retired cowboy and brother of the band chief, is arm-twisted into running this makeshift tour. He's in charge of two female dancers -- Edna, a middle aged woman with arthritis, and Desiree, her niece -- and Lucas Pretends Eagle, an American who is supposed to be a star dancer. John has to shepherd them to Europe, keep on their itinerary, teach Edna and Desiree to dance in the meantime, and get them all home again, on just a few hundred bucks upfront. Just a tiny challenge. 

There are shenanigans right from the start. From their flight to Europe which does not go as planned, to their performances at the Indigenous World Gathering and on into Germany and Italy, John is performing damage control. And it's Edna, who is keeping a journal of their trip which appears at the beginning of each chapter, who becomes the surprise star of the story (at least for me!) 

Dumont takes on many serious issues in this novel -- from misogyny, racism, the fetishization of "Indians" by Germans in particular and Europeans more widely, residential school effects, religion, and sexual orientation, to the way society turns Indigenous people against themselves, and questions of ownership of Indigenous artefacts and culture. But the book is also hilarious. In one unexpected turn after another, something nutty is happening. Beyond the plot devices, there are also sly digs at every stereotype you can think of, and Edna in particular has the same habit of sarcastic commentary as Rose did in the earlier novel mentioned above. I laughed out loud in parts, and thought the characters were engaging even while being embroiled in slightly ridiculous events. 

But there are also serious bits, and parts where you just feel for the characters, each suffering their own secret difficulties. Edna is in constant pain from arthritis but is also deeply religious due to her residential school upbringing, which is a dissonance in her life. John, a handsome loner, finds a connection with Per Ollman, their Swedish guide to the Indigenous World Gathering in Kiruna, Sweden. He is startled by his reactions to Per, and by Per's matter-of-fact recognition that they are both gay. John struggles with this but by the end of the book he's starting to accept this new understanding of himself. 

I really enjoyed the writing style, and the mix of serious and silly in the book. It was fun, entertaining, enlightening, and has a great cast of characters. Definitely one to draw out lots of discussion and opinion, and one which engages the reader and zips by. If you enjoy Thomas King or Drew Hayden Taylor's sharply humorous novels, I think you might really like this one too. 

Glass Beads

Glass Beads / Dawn Dumont
Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, c2017.
266 p.

After so much international reading last month, I've returned home -- back to Saskatchewan where I grew up, in fact! 

But this is a different Saskatchewan experience than mine was - it's the story of four Indigenous characters --  Everett Kaiswatim, Nellie Gordon, Julie Papequash, and Nathan (Taz) Mosquito --  all living in Saskatoon, the first among their families to live off the reserve.

In a set of interconnected short chapters, Dumont takes us through a couple of decades, from the 90s to the 2000s. The characters develop from shy or wild younger people to slightly older and more experienced ones, who have a deeper understanding of themselves and the elements of their lives. It's a quiet novel, in a way, often concerned with domestic decisions, and the mundane daily round of life. But this is what makes it shine.

From first dates (ie: Julie's first date with a white guy, supported by her roommates) to Everett's landlord being imprisoned for domestic violence, to their own experiences with violence, racism and figuring out who they want to be (independent? married? politician? businessperson?) the characters share a range of personalities and desires. 

As usual, I found the women more interesting; they had twice as much to manage, with sexism playing a role in their lives alongside everything else. They all seemed strong enough to survive, in their own ways, though. I did feel like Nellie was the heart of the book; from the beginning pages to the conclusion, she observed, and reset herself, and managed to find her space. 

While earlier novels I've read by Dumont had a lot more humour in them (she's a very funny writer), this more serious overview of a quartet of relationships was touching, believable, and very readable. I was involved in these lives, wanting to see how they'd sort it all out. I loved the setting, and oh, that cover! 

Definitely recommended; reflecting the concerns and desires of a particular group of people we don't hear from enough, it's honest, clear and the construction of it means you can read it bit by bit and not miss anything. Great for picking up in those short bursts of time you might have available.

It's also a nominee for the 2018 Evergreen Award, so Ontario readers, get into your libraries this month and remember to vote for your Evergreen choice! 

Corvus by Johnson

Corvus / Harold Johnson
Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, c2015. 
277 p.

I first read Johnson's The Cast Stone some years ago, and was always interested in finding a copy of this one as well, a novel which takes the collapse of the world's environment into 2084 to see the outcomes.

This year, with all the dystopian fiction I've been reading, I thought it was time to fit this one in! 

In this world, two wars over resources have been fought, and people have overwhelmingly moved north in search of water and soil that can still grow things. Most of the previous fertile soil of the prairie farmlands has been rendered into desert, dead earth, by the practices of chemical farming in the 20th/21st century. Water has dried up as the glaciers melted,  and the setting, the northern town of La Ronge, Saskatchewan, is no longer a small town of 3000 or so residents -- it's now quite a large city, with suburbs, a slum called Regis, and elite suburbs tethered in the sky above the massive storms that regularly hit these days. There's also an ashram just out of town, in which we find some of our main characters.

There's Lenore, a prosecutor and troubled war veteran, and George, a coworker who she has her eye on, who both live in La Ronge. The ashram gives us Richard, a war vet, and Katherine, a woman taken in by the ashram at 17 and who seems to be a natural, though unofficial, leader.

As the story opens George has a disappointment at work and ends up buying himself an expensive ORV (organic recreational vehicle). These are partly organic and partly tech - George buys himself a raven and takes to regular flights when he needs to think. In one storm, he crashes near an Indigenous settlement far from town. Experiencing their hospitality as he recovers, and the wisdom of an elder, Two Bears, changes the way he thinks about his life. 

Richard works on the land on the ashram and spends summers harvesting algae from the lake. He has a brief affair with Lenore before she settles on George and he settles on Katherine, but this links their stories throughout. 

Johnson tackles things that were issues in 2015, but in 2018 are scarily top of mind. Intrusive tech, government surveillance, the widening gap between rich and poor, climate change & its resultant extreme weather and soil/water conditions, valuing the economic story over the human one, and much more. He extends all of these things to likely outcomes, and it's quite plausible, and also alarming. But he uses creative storytelling to provide a way to take all this in, and includes brief segments from the viewpoint of Raven, giving an overview of history in a sense.  

There are many philosophical asides, which simultaneously are the point of the book and slow down the narrative. There is much Indigenous wisdom shared, in a natural way, during these asides. But the thing that most niggled for me was the role of Lenore and Katherine - their stories are dramatic and could have been explored much more deeply, but it's the men who get the guidance and insight here.The women are more valued for their ability to give life.  I'd hope that dynamic would have changed by 2084. There's also George's last case in which begins to think he should no longer punish people and take part of their lives away as a prosecutor - the circumstances of this crisis of faith didn't sit well with me at all. 

Still, this was a fresh take on a likely future if we keep going the way we are -- he points out that leadership is lacking politically in our world, that chasing the economy is destroying the earth and our relationship with it -- all quite resonant today. The story didn't so much build a world as explore our current world from a wider vantage point. The focus was on these characters and their existential journeys. It was intriguing, and a good addition to the world of  "Cli-Fi". He was ahead of his time in tackling this!

Where I Live Now

Where I Live Now / Sharon Butala
Toronto: Simon & Schuster, c2017.
192 p.

This newly released book was a beautiful and bittersweet read. Butala is a writer known for her descriptive powers, as she has published many books about the small area of Southern Saskatchewan that she relocated to from the city, decades ago when she met her husband Peter. Many of her books lyrically describe the landscape of the very large Butala ranch and its environs, and talk about the particular codes of this isolated rural community. This one does the same, but in a more overtly elegaic manner. 

The story starts with Butala having to leave the land that has become a part of her over 30 years. This is because, unexpectedly, her husband becomes terminally ill, and there is no way for her to stay on alone. The chapters in which she discusses her husband's illness are emotionally fraught, and when she describes the final moments they had together, I was overcome and had to put the book down for a couple of days. 

But I had to go back to it. Her writing ranges from the history of the land (ancient to current) to examinations of her marriage to thoughts about her place in this rural community, and in the new community she finds herself making in Calgary, of all places. As usual, the writing is measured, thoughtful, and philosophical, while being utterly grounded in the physical world. She can describe the beauty of sunsets, fields, skies, and history itself, while retaining a sense of humour about herself and her enthusiasms - like the time she thought she'd discovered a large dinosaur bone (tip: it wasn't).

She gives the reader a candid account of her journey through grief and loss, and does so in a way which comforts through her understanding of the larger sweep of existence. Looking back and speaking of the life and the person she's lost bring vibrancy to them once again. 

Her story also provides a sense of how the loss of both a spouse and a way of life untether a person, how it takes time to find a place for oneself again.

I found this book both beautiful and heart-breaking. Butala is, as always, honest and heartfelt in her writing, and it is very powerful here.

Bird's Eye View

Bird's Eye View / Elinor Florence
Toronto: Dundurn, c2014.
384 p.

This is an unusual war novel: it features Rose Joliffe, a young Canadian girl from Saskatchewan who goes to England to join the war effort, before Canadian women could join our own country's armed forces.

She ends up working for the British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force as an aerial photographic interpreter -- she examines photographs of the landscape of Europe taken by pilots, aiming to notice anything unusual. Of course she discovers that she's really good at interpreting the sometimes mystifying images that her group of women receive, but I guess that's why she's the heroine ;)

Rose has gumption; she goes to England, she faces the devastation and daily fear of war in a way that those in Saskatchewan were not -- even if there was also an air base in her hometown, at which English pilots were trained. So perhaps her family was closer to war than some others. 

I thought this book was well-researched, giving a new perspective on wartime and women's roles. Rose was a good protagonist; interesting, involved, determined. She does get a little lonely in England, though, and falls into an affair with a married man who is clearly (to the reader) a complete cad. I didn't feel the affair subplot added much to the story, other than length. Rose's journey to find her role in wartime was plenty of plot, and was powerful. 

If you're looking for a straightforward historical novel, one which provides a new vantage point on the ways that women were involved in WWII, try out this read. I particularly liked the descriptions of Saskatchewan and of Rose's homesickness -- I thought that these were captured very well and added a new angle to stories of war. Rose's actual job as an aerial photographic interpreter is also really fascinating, and fits in with her background and experiences. I enjoyed learning details about this occupation and how it was used during wartime. 

The feel of the story reminds me of a tv show I'm watching now, the rather soap opera-ish "The Halcyon" on BBC -- mostly for the young woman who is a main character in that show, also set in the early years of WWII, who joins the women's voluntary service. She also resembles the cover model of this book, strangely enough!

I enjoyed this novel, learning new elements of war work that I hadn't known of previously, and also discovering a great new character who was daring and inquisitive. It's nice to see another side of women's work in these years.

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Further Reading:

For another tale of Canadian women in wartime, also connected with flying (but told in a saucier tone) try Jeanette Lynes' The Factory Voice. Set entirely in Ontario, this read about factory workers building planes in Northern Ontario is snappy and strongly female-oriented as well.

Liberty Street by Dianne Warren

Liberty Street / Dianne Warren
Toronto: HarperCollins, c2105.
384 p.

I absolutely loved Warren's Governor-General's Award winning  novel, Cool Water. So I was very pleased to see this book when it was published, even though it took me a little while to actually read & review it. 

Liberty Street is a bit different from the last one; it also takes place in Western Canada but this time Warren focuses mainly on one character, Frances Moon.

It's set in the very recent past, starting in the past decade as 50-something Frances blurts out a secret to her partner of 20 years -- she had & lost a baby at 19, and she's probably still married to the man she'd married then. Her partner understandably leaves in shock, and Frances returns to her hometown, the small town of Elliot, Saskatchewan, to revisit those things she'd hidden for so long.

We then discover via flashback Frances' life in Elliot from her childhood on up. We meet many side characters who have affected Frances and made her what she is -- her parents, teachers, neighbours, renters of her family's house on Liberty Street, and perhaps most powerful for her, Dooley Sullivan, a rebel with whom she went to school.

He's so important that we learn his story interwoven with Frances', and unlike any of the other characters he gets a whole chapter from his POV. Unfortunately, I felt that this didn't fit with the overall book, and wonder if perhaps my satisfaction with this novel would have been higher if it had been a collection of interlinked short stories, with more character variety. I just found Frances a little dull and the antithesis of proactive. She drifts, lets things happen around and to her, and only discovers now, rather late in life, both that she can perhaps have a little agency in her own life, and that she is not unlike other human beings in her life choices.

As usual with Warren's books, the writing is very fine, very polished and has lots to admire about it. The setting is beautifully and realistically drawn; she knows Saskatchewan & evokes it fully. But even for literary fiction this one is slow moving, and I didn't really feel that anyone gained any resolution by the end -- not Dooley, not the family of a wronged man Frances knew as a child, and certainly not Frances herself. It just didn't satisfy my readerly curiosity in the end.

So while this is a good read, I'd recommend Cool Water first, if you're looking for a great read.

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Further Reading

This novel reminds me of a few other Western Canada set novels I've read in the somewhat recent past, for their focus on families & growth in women's lives. I'd suggest you might want to check out Blue Becomes You by Bettina von Kampen for another woman of a certain age resolving her disappointments about the past, or Jacqueline Baker's A Hard Witching for short stories set in the same region.

Rose's Run

Rose's Run / Dawn Dumont
Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, c2014.
302 p.

Now this book was just a crazy read -- hilarious, dark, feminist, and totally entertaining. I've had this on my TBR for a while, but have only now got a copy in hand. I eagerly started it, noticing from the author bio that Dawn Dumont is a stand-up comic, which shows in this story. She's also Plains Cree, and from my home province of Saskatchewan, so I was also interested in the setting -- a reservation in Saskatchewan.

Rose Okanese is overweight, with two kids and a deadbeat of a husband who has just run off with her cousin - which means she is also suddenly carless, and thus jobless. She heads down to the band office for help, and runs into the new chief, her high school crush Taylor . Somehow she also gives the impression that she's a runner, in training for the reserve's annual 10K marathon, held in just four months. And with her reluctance to lose face, she has no choice but to begin training.

Her newfound confidence and running skill come in useful in ways she could never have expected, as her daughter Sarah and Sarah's best friend Ronnie somehow awaken a vengeful female spirit who possesses all the women on the reserve, with the exception of Rose, her children, and Ronnie's mother Jane. Rose must fight back against this hungry and violently anti-man spirit, luring her away through the woods on a wild, frantic run at one point.

With the help of her own mother's spirit and her own inability to take herself too seriously, Rose saves the community. But she can't help herself from always commenting on what's going on around her; she has, you might say, a problem with focus. The writing is pretty straightforward in this book, it doesn't have an elaborate literary style. It's more about the characters and the cheesy horror film plot in the end. It's hilarious -- Rose's asides were cracking me up -- and also uplifting in its look at friendships, the power of mother love, and personal growth.

Since this is the start of Christmas week, I'll also share a tidbit from near the end, when Rose is leading the insurrection against the possessed women of the reserve, which occurs quite late in the year. This is typical of her attention span:

The house was humid with the smoke. Rose smelled mint, lavender, and something else she didn't recognize. It was sweet and cloying and slightly burnt her nostrils. Jane sat at her table, a rolled smoke in one hand and her hunting knife in the other. Her ashtray was overflowing onto the red and green tablecloth. Rose noted the poinsettia design.

"I gotta start my Christmas shopping!" Rose blurted out.

Sarah turned her head and performed the slowest, most tired eye roll Rose had ever witnessed.

"I always get so behind and then I'm running from store to store on Christmas Eve," Rose babbled on. "I keep wanting to try online shopping but then I'd have to get the Internet and I'm not even sure they have it down my road. Also, what happens if you buy the wrong size -- do you send it back? And who pays for that? What if it's something big like a fridge? I mean, I couldn't afford to mail a fridge."

Everyone stared at her.

"How about focusing on the end of the world right now?" Monty suggested.

I enjoyed reading this: for farcical humour with a leavening of sentiment, and a large dollop of the supernatural, this one is a good bet.

Wild Rose: a prairie novel

Wild Rose / Sharon Butala
Regina: Coteau, c2015.
395 p.

Looking for a slow-paced, character-driven story of a Quebec woman who moves to Saskatchewan back in the wilder 1880s, and survives a number of devastating reversals to become a powerful woman in her own right? Feeling in the mood for a literary, descriptive style as well? You've found your book.

Sophie Hippolyte grows up in Quebec with her stern grandparents, and rebels by marrying Pierre, a lower-class neighbour who her grandparents disapprove of. To make something of themselves as a young couple, they decide to go west and homestead. Pierre discovers that he is not made of stern enough stuff to thrive as a westerner; Sophie, however, is.

Starting from her childhood and moving into her own life as a mother, the story shows Sophie's resilience and determination to survive, in any way necessary. The power of her character drives the book. Butala is also well known for her ability to viscerally evoke the landscapes of southern Saskatchewan in particular, and this is a strong element of the novel. The descriptive passages are strong in detail, allowing the reader to almost smell the dust and heat, or the bone-deep cold of a drafty shack in the midst of winter.

Sophie's character development, from young girl to mature, determined woman, is the point of the story. However, I did find at times that this was quite slow-moving, and had to just keep reading to get back into the narrative. I was also slightly disappointed by the ending, which seemed a bit deus ex machina, like a modern-day lottery win allowing Sophie to shake the dust of this small town from her feet. 

But I did enjoy the book. It was a story I haven't seen that often in CanLit, at least not recently -- the movement of Quebec settlers to the West, creating a French community in Saskatchewan in this case -- a community which still thrives. If you like historical novels that deal with the interior lives of characters, do try this one. 

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Further Reading

Ivan Doig's The Whistling Season also evokes the West (this time 1900's Montana) and focuses on both character and landscape as key elements of the book. A strong woman makes her own way forward in this novel as well.

Another book set in the same general area of Saskatchewan, though set 50 years after this one (but Sophie could still be living nearby!) is Connie Gault's A Beauty. It focuses on the way that one young woman, also a newcomer to the province, takes action to change her life, and affects those around her as she does so. The literary style and through-line of one woman's life are similar to Wild Rose, though the pace is a bit quicker.

Connie Gault's Beauty

A Beauty / Connie Gault
Toronto: McLelland & Stewart, c2015.
336 p.

This novel immediately appealed to me; set on the Canadian prairies, centred on one woman's journey, a bit of eccentricity and some unexpected occurrences -- sounds like my kind of story!

And it was good. Gault tells a story of Depression-era Saskatchewan that manages to be light and entertaining and quirky even while also being serious, exploring loneliness and sadness.

Elena Huhtela is a Finnish girl, living with her father in Trevna, a small village in the south of Saskatchewan which is primarily Swedish. Now, to those of us on the outside, the distinction might seem minor, but it matters to those who live there. Elena is also motherless, and as the story begins her father has disappeared as well. It's assumed that the pressure of the drought has got to him, and the pity people feel for Elena increases.

Elena, though, doesn't want pity. She wants escape. So at the next community dance, when a city stranger appears, she takes advantage of the situation and skips town with him. The story then ranges through many towns, hotels, and grain fields as Elena finds ways to survive and to decide how to get where she wants to go. While she does so, she touches and influences many other lives, even if she is unaware of her role. There is a particularly strong connection between Elena and a young girl named Ruth, who picks up the story later on, once Elena has mostly vanished from its pages.

This book strongly reminds me of Dianne Warren's Cool Water -- a tale of intertwining prairie lives, told with a long view. But it's a different kind of prairie novel, focusing on Swedish and Finnish immigrants. While Elena is the "beauty" of the title, the girl who is envied because of her ability to get away, she's also a cipher to those she grew up among. And she remains pretty inscrutable even to the reader -- she makes no effort to explain her actions or give any reason for her longings. The ending of the novel is touch unsatisfactory because, even as we meet up with an older Elena, there is no big resolution with Elena spilling all her secrets. She remains as she always was, silent and self-contained. While this can be a bit frustrating when you just want to know what drove her to do the things she had done, it is also very, very realistic, reminding me of other older prairie women I have known. They just don't chatter or share their inner lives with anyone.

Anyhow, a long review which can be encapsulated by saying -- great characters, wonderful writing, and a memorable hot and dry Saskatchewan setting. I liked it. This Globe & Mail review seems to share the same view of the novel as I do, and in much better depth too.

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Further Reading:

Cool Water by Dianne Warren, as I've mentioned, is another Saskatchewan novel that circles around itself and reveals glimpses of the inner lives of a wide cast of characters based in Juliet, Saskatchewan. It is told in the same kind of lovely, descriptive prose too. And it's one of my own favourite books.

In some ways I was also reminded of Marina Endicott's The Little Shadows -- while it's about 3 sisters in vaudeville, it is also focused on a prairie setting, and women escaping some of the expectations on them in a pre-WWI timeframe. It looks at a number of characters, with stories intermingling, in the same poetic style.

Dollybird

Dollybird by Anne Lazurko
Regina: Coteau, c2013.
256 p.

Going west was always a driving force for many families looking for a better life. But in Dollybird, our main character Moira didn't really choose to go west -- she was banished from her Newfoundland home in 1906, sent off to an uncle in Saskatchewan, when it was discovered that she was pregnant.

The other party in this pregnancy gets off scot free, of course: quite literally, as he is sent to medical school in Edinburgh. Poor Moira, on the other hand, must fend for herself in the wild new frontier of the Saskatchewan prairie. When it turns out her uncle doesn't want her around after all, she takes on the dubious position of "dollybird" to a widowed settler with a son. He needs a housekeeper and childminder, and she needs a home. At this time, the phrase "dollybird" could mean such a housekeeping position, but it could also have shades of "mistress" to it. Nevertheless, she takes on this challenge to make a home for herself and for her soon-to-arrive child.

Thankfully, Lazurko doesn't fall back on the easy, romance novel solution of having Moira & her employer fall in love. They are both about the same age, but they become friends only after a prickly start. They both receive emotional support from other, new friends. And there are a variety of such -- from other settlers nearby, to the "fallen women" that Moira gets to know after she is summarily fired from her first housekeeping job in town.

Moira's character is strong and resilient, and her resistance to being caricatured as an unwed mother in this society is admirable. She negotiates relationships with her distant family as well as with the small society she has landed in, and finds a respectable place for herself, refusing to give in to censure.

The landscape itself is also a character -- the storms that pass over are stunningly told, especially one near the end of the book. Nature is very powerful, and has an enormous effect on whether or not these new inhabitants of this vast landscape will succeed or fail, and Lazurko shows that clearly.

This was an historical novel lightened by the fresh scent of modernity, which also has cross-Canada appeal. If you like prairie stories with a strong female lead, this will be a good choice for you!

Also, Coteau's cover designer hits another homerun with this one... really beautiful and a touch of visual trickery makes for perfection here (it reminds me of another fabulous Coteau read...)

I'll Be Watching

I'll Be Watching / Pamela Porter
Toronto: Groundwood, c2011.
280 p.

This is a novel in verse by the award winning author of The Crazy Man, another verse novel aimed at a juvenile audience.
This book is classified YA in my library, but I would caution that it is for mature readers as it deals directly with some serious issues -- abandonment, incest, sexual assault, thievery, and so forth. And it does have some "language" in it if that kind of thing bothers you.

For my part, I loved this book. Loved it. So powerful and the verse simply carried me along. It faintly reminded me in its tone and structure of the classic Spoon River Anthology. It takes place in the 40's, in Argue, Saskatchewan (Western Canada). The Loney family is in a bad way: mother Margaret has died, and father George has just frozen to death after being locked out by his new wife Effie for coming home drunk. Effie takes off with a travelling bible salesman, leaving the four Loney children to make it on their own. And I do mean on their own -- the town is full of self-righteous people who refuse to help these layabouts and do nothing but gossip about how dirty, heathen, etc. they are.

The oldest, Ran, is 16 but lies about his age to get into the army, thinking that he will at least be sending money home. Nora, 14, takes on the care of her two younger brothers, going out to work as a live-in maid for one of the town's leading families at one point, before something so nearly awful happens that she runs home again.

Nora and the two younger boys turn to scavenging and even minor theft to survive, and tear their house apart for firewood, living in one room together with the stove. Effie returns in the spring and is so angry about the state of "her" house that she boots them all out. Fortunately, by this time the local schoolteacher has noticed what is happening and comes to the rescue. Ran, thankfully, also returns and their future seems to be looking up. But this book shines in its structure: the characters all speak about their experience, even some of the minor characters in town. The name of the speaker is noted at the top of each section, and it has the effect of being a chorus, sharing perspectives on the hidden problems, flaws, and failings of an insular community. It is powerful and moving. The creativity of the Loneys in trying to get by is quite abundant, as evidenced by the section excerpted on the back of the book, a timely excerpt as they figure out how to make the Christmas season work for them:

One of the things that I found particularly interesting about how Porter sets up the story is the narrators she includes. The title comes from the fact that Margaret and George, now spirits, follow their children and intervene in dire moments to keep them safe and sound. It doesn't feel gimmicky, rather, it was quite touching and sometimes even amusing. 

This is a very well done book, with pathos, humour, sadness, and the strength of family all shining through. I'd recommend this one for a look at the end of the depression years in an isolated prairie town, far above Sinclair Ross' As For Me and My House. Especially for those high school students who still get Ross on the reading list. And anyone who already finds novels in verse appealing will be impressed with this one.

Blood and Salt

Blood and Salt / Barbara Sapergia
Regina: Coteau Books, c2012.
448 p.

This is a book that I knew I'd be fascinated by: it tells the story of Ukrainian Canadians who were placed in internment camps during WWI, under the mistaken assumption that they belonged to the AustroHungarian empire and were therefore enemy aliens.

The fact that there were Ukrainian internment camps comes as a surprise to many people; but there were, both in Western and Eastern Canada. (another book that deals with this issue, though aimed at children, is Marsha Skrypuch's Prisoners in the Promised Land It looks at the eastern camp of Spirit Lake which was again different because it held whole families, not just men.)

This is a book written in a simple, conversational tone. It isn't fancy. It tells an important story in a way that feels as if you're sitting listening to someone talk. The main character is Taras Kalyna, who immigrated with his parents after they feared he was going to have to fight in an upcoming war for Austria. Taras' true love Halya immigrated ahead of him with her father and grandmother, and Taras swears he will find her.

The Kalynas get to Canada and take a long train ride west to their new land. As they settle in and begin to make a life for themselves, WWI begins, and Taras, as a young healthy man, is arrested and interned at the Castle Mountain Internment camp (although there is some question as to who turned him in and why...) He and the other men interned are required to hack through forests and dig rock to build a new highway, the Banff-Laggan (Lake Louise) road, summer or winter. Some of the guards are decent men, some are typical of those guarding others -- power hungry and abusive. There are many men in the camp, and Taras finally finds his own private circle, a varied group of men he befriends through proximity. The kinds of men -- a socialist, a teacher, an artist, for example -- in Taras' circle allow for the story to insert elements of the Ukrainian Canadian story in a natural way. And there is a lot of history in this book; I felt that Sapergia was able to weave the facts and the "lectures" into the story very naturally, and give it a meaningful context so that it didn't feel like a textbook or a clumsy history lesson. Each of the men has a past and a particular interest, and their relationships with each other and with the guards develop naturally to provide a complex picture of the situation.

But this book is something more than a history of internment camps. The back story and the incidental side characters are both developed fully, allowing for a lot of mystery and resonance in the telling. We learn about  life in Ukraine that led many to emigrate, we see, taste and smell Western Canada as it looked to immigrants in the early part of the century, we learn fascinating social realities and meet Ukrainians who are not all the same, who are not a faceless mass of "peasants in sheepskin coats" but are individuals with particular habits, mannerisms, fears and joys, likes and dislikes. Not only Taras' story is told, but also Halya's (she is a great character) Through her we get a glimpse at women's lives during this era. Taras' friends in the internment camps also have stories before and after their experience there. His parents make their own way through this new land, befriending Moses, the local "black Ukrainian", an orphan from an African American immigrant family who was adopted by a childless Ukrainian man and grows up to be both black and Ukrainian by language and culture.

It's a rich tale that is paced well and reveals injustice and horror, as well as loyalty, friendship and true love. You don't have to be Ukrainian to enjoy it, but you will certainly learn about the Ukrainian Canadian experience if you do read it! I'd be shocked if this book didn't end up on the shortlist for the Kobzar Award, as it raises awareness of Ukrainian Canadian culture in a beautifully readable way. Highly recommended for anyone looking for stories of Canadians that have remained untold for many years.

**there is a monument to the Ukrainians who built the road, right alongside the highway at the site of Castle Mountain Internment Camp. It reads "Why?" in English, French and Ukrainian.

author website here

A Reckless Moon

A Reckless Moon / Dianne Warren

Vancouver: Raincoast, c2002.

237 p.

This is the final book I read for the Canadian Book Challenge, and it just squeaked in under the wire for inclusion this year! It is a collection of short stories by the author of one of my favourite books so far this year, Cool Water.

It was an excellent read, with seven stories that are all distinct. I enjoy Warren's writing, the way she exhibits traits of each individual, and the way the stories aren't 'about' something, the way they aren't neatly tied up at the conclusion into some kind of lesson. They are open ended and yet endlessly intriguing.

I can't go into each story or this review would run into hundreds of words... so I'll just talk a little about my favourites.

The Bone Garden is a story of two teenagers, disaffected and parted when the girl Carmen, has to go to Saskatoon with her family for her brother's soccer tournament. Moe, her boyfriend, feels compelled to see her and ends up stealing a car belonging to Daisy, a social worker, who tracks him down. These three characters intersect and we learn more about each of their lives, even while poor Carmen is left alone in the hotel and goes for a walk. She experiences a very strange hotel, full of a garden with a stream and a revolving restaurant and a tearoom. (this hotel has shades of one I know of in Saskatoon so it isn't all that far fetched, just a little exaggerated perhaps!) Carmen finds that she isn't necessarily the troublemaker in all situations, and the surreal nature of the hotel makes the events of the story perfectly plausible. Moe and Daisy both appear in the end, having tracked her down, right after she has jumped into the pool fully dressed. There is no judgement given, just the thoughts of Daisy and of Carmen's mother as they see what is happening. When I first started the story I wasn't too taken by it, and skipped it to go back to later. But I couldn't get the characters out of my mind, and I ended up really liking it.

The title story reminds me of Cool Water in a way -- there are horses and family disagreements involved. Warren's characters draw you in even if they aren't obviously appealing. They are drawn so fully that each feels real, even those who aren't the main focus of the story. I love the background she adds in so gradually, and the twists at the endings of her stories. Perhaps I enjoyed this one particularly as they pass through my hometown on their road trip, and the roads they are travelling were all too familiar.

In any case, each of the stories in this book stand alone as a separate reading experience. My least favourite was Tuxedo, a story of a girl whose best friend's father (a doctor)has been charged with sexual improprieties. She knows only too well that he is guilty, but can not say anything. Although I say this was my least favourite, it is just a matter of degrees, as I found every story in this collection well done and satisfying reading.

Definitely worth reading if you are in the mood for some good short stories. And don't forget Cool Water if you are in the mood for a wonderful novel.

A Saving Grace

A Saving Grace: the collected poems of Mrs. Bentley / Lorna Crozier
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, c1996.
98 p.

I mentioned this collection earlier this week: having just reread Sinclair Ross' As for me and my house, I wanted to also reread this set of poems which were inspired by the novel. Thankfully, Lorna Crozier wrote the poetry, which automatically meant I loved them much more than I did the novel! ;)

It is a brief book, with the poems speaking to and expanding on the story of Mrs. Bentley, the nameless journal keeper and narrator of the novel. She is a character who gets under your skin a bit, making you wrestle with you she really is. Unreliable narrators will do that to you. Here Crozier takes on some of the things that Mrs. Bentley leaves out of her version of the story.

While I very much enjoy Crozier's poetic voice, and her images are often unexpectedly sharp and exact and wonderful, I am not sure you would be able to fully benefit from this set of poems if you were unfamiliar with the inspiration behind them. Some of them stand alone quite perfectly, while others seem to need the background knowledge to shade them in a bit.

A few of the poems speculate that Mrs. Bentley was not so innocent as she claimed in her journal. I didn't really care for those, but that is perhaps because I had just finished the novel and was, truthfully, a bit tired of Mrs. Bentley and her circuitous manner of storytelling. Are Crozier's poetic speculations supported by the original text? Not altogether. But honestly it doesn't matter to me; I didn't like the original text all that much, and prefer Lorna Crozier's poetry over most other writing anyhow!

This collection has just been thoroughly examined by Person of Consequence over at Experimental Progress. And that discussion brings up many points I loved - ie: at one point it 'seems to dip slightly into fan fiction'. For an interesting look at this collection from the viewpoint of an English PhD student, take a look at that post.

I must say I enjoyed these poems, for the most part, as is usual with this fabulous author.

As For Me and my House: Sinclair Ross Reread

As For Me and My House / Sinclair Ross
Toronto: New Canadian Library, 1991, c1941.
216 p.

I first read this in high school, and Hated. It. So I thought it was time to reread it, as a mature adult with a vaster pool of literary experience for comparison's sake. Well, I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.

This novel is set in Saskatchewan in the Dirty Thirties. I come from Saskatchewan so I had all of Ross' work shoved at me in high school (especially since he came from a small town very near to where I grew up). This really does him a disservice, I think. This book in particular is eminently unsuited to appreciation by teenagers. No wonder I hated it at age 16 -- it would have been meaningless in its emotional landscape of bitterness and obsession and misery.

And it is full of misery. Hoo, boy, it is practically overflowing with misunderstandings, bitterness, selfishness, codependence, poverty, need, as well as unfulfilled longing for emotional and sexual connection, for a child, for a solvent life, for culture.

It is narrated by Mrs. Bentley (we never learn her name), and is told in journal format. I liked this aspect of it; reading her journal gave us insights into her unreasonable and obsessive love for her mealy-mouthed, selfish, childish husband. I really, really did not like Philip. But reading the story as presented in Mrs. Bentley's journal also makes her into a complex and unreliable narrator. How much of what she is telling us is the objective truth? Can we believe her take on the way their lives have turned out?

The story takes place during one year, from the time the Bentleys move to a new parish (Philip is a minister) to the time they leave once more. The town of Horizon is the same as all the others Philip has worked in; small, inbred, gossipy, and demanding, especially for the tortured and stifled artist that Mrs. Bentley presents Philip as being. Apparently they always leave the towns once the surroundings become too much for them, but looking at Philip's behaviour during their year in Horizon I think it much more likely that their previous churches have strongly encouraged the Bentleys to move on. There are the usual characters of a small town, the doctor and his more worldly wife, the bossy matron who makes trouble, the single school teacher, the farm families surrounding the town who are worried about the drought. Philip drops into this setting and proceeds to mope around the house, incapable of doing any physical labour to smooth his wife's life, glaring at her and giving the silent treatment to end all silent treatments. And yet she continually makes excuses for his behaviour and tries to smooth it over with their new parishioners.

This is the reason I still dislike this book. Mrs. Bentley is clearly in a codependent relationship with her emotionally abusive husband, a useless, mean and selfish creation. He is rude to her, he shuts her out continually, he carefully waits until she is asleep to come to bed, he insults her appearance although it is his lack of income which limits her possibilities, he prefers the company of their briefly adopted 'son' to hers, and he repeatedly and unfoundedly accuses her of an inappropriate relationship with the schoolteacher while he himself has had an affair with a church member and impregnated her. Mrs. Bentley is unable to speak to him about his rages, in fact she records how they silently move around each other in the house, constantly on eggshells, and when she finally breaks out into accusations once or twice she fall down crying and begging for forgiveness.

Ross seems to harp on the way he thinks men and women should behave and how they are just irredeemably 'different'. He has Mrs. Bentley constantly saying, well, that is just the way men are, and a woman will thus do this or that to be a good wife. Ross seems to me to be trying to restrain Mrs. Bentley every time her journal comes close to breaking out of his mold.

There are some very skilled descriptions of the surrounding landscapes and the effects that drought, sudden rain and blizzards have on the community. The situations of farmers, ranchers and townspeople are all explored. This book does reveal the stifling sameness required of individuals in a small town, and especially the excessive expectations held for a minister's family.
But there are flaws in the tale, besides my visceral reaction to Philip and Mrs. Bentley's slavish adoration of him. One example is the convenient death of Mrs. Bentley's rival at the end of the story, freeing them up to leave Horizon and move to the city, leaving the church altogether. It is also very, very unlikely that such a person as Philip is going to make a living in the city opening a second hand bookshop. I can tell you right now that a venture such as that, with Mrs. Bentley herself saying that she is the better businessperson but will let Philip take charge as she doesn't want to be a domineering female, won't have a chance. She herself expresses uneasiness at the viability of her idea, near the end of the book.

But Mrs. Bentley seems happy to have to care for her failure-prone husband as if he is a spoiled child. At the end of the book, when they finally have the son they've been longing for, she decides to name him Philip. Here is the response:

"Another Philip?" the first one says, "With so many names to pick and choose from, you don't need that again. Two of us in the same house you'll get mixed up. Sometimes you won't know which of us is which."

That's right, Philip. I want it so.

Alright, maybe I did hate it almost as much as the first time I read it. This time, at least, I can appreciate the format of the book -- I do like fiction in journal form, and it is used well here, to create an unreliable narrator. Structurally it is a fascinating creation. I can also appreciate the setting and realize what he is trying to get across, even if I found it rather heavy handed.

But the relationship between the Bentleys just results in such an emotional reaction from me that I can not enjoy this book. I feel stressed and stifled and angry; perhaps Ross was aiming for such a reaction, who knows. But I am frustrated by Mrs. Bentley and don't enjoy reading misery memoirs, fictional or otherwise. So, still not a favourite of mine. Perhaps I will try one of his other books and see whether it is just Philip that ruins this book for me, or if it is a larger theme running through his writing. I have also read some of his short stories (again, in high school) and perhaps will take another look at those as well.

But, judge for yourselves. Read an excerpt from the publisher, or some of these other recent reviews.

Alexis at Roughing It in the Books has read it three times!

Susan Bartlett thinks Mrs. Bentley is living "a quietly tragic existence"

Melanie believes it is "Good in that dark, musty, depressing way that only good Canadian Literature can be"

Cool Water by Dianne Warren

Cool Water / Dianne Warren

Toronto: HarperCollins, c2010.
328 p.

This is a book I heard about just before its release, via a great review at My Tragic Right Hip. I have to agree with her -- this is a fantastic novel, one of my favourites of the year so far. I don't know why I am surprised by that; it is set in Saskatchewan (my home province, which I have a soft spot for) AND it is a Phyllis Bruce book. I idolize Phyllis Bruce, and rarely go wrong with her selections. And there is something about that gorgeous cover that makes me want a full size poster of that image.

This novel appears simple at first glance. It is set in Juliet, a small town in south Saskatchewan, where life moves along quite predictably, the regular and small moments of everyday life gathering into bigger moments and into resolution of one kind or another. Like the last Canadian book I read, Sounding Line, this tells the stories of a collection of disparate lives which all intertwine. Each of the characters cross paths throughout the book, and their stories are seen to influence and be absorbed into the others'. It is a masterful study of how we are each the centre of our own story and yet none of us exists in a vacuum: while we may think we are independent creatures we also play a role in other lives, some effects of our existence remaining unknown to us.

The book opens with a horse race between two cowboys, sometime in the early years of the 20th century. It is a hundred mile, day long race which is won by the younger of the two, much to the disappointment of most of the spectators. While these characters do not show up again (except in stories told by old farmers) they represent the theme carried on throughout the book. As Henry, the defeated cowboy, beds down that night, he re-examines his life. He looks ahead with a new perspective and realizes that this defeat may mean he can change his future by leaving off being a cowboy and settling down somewhere on his own land. As he thinks of this idea, things alter:

As his departure became a certainty, his heart slowed and his body lightened, and the straw beneath him became soft as a feather bed. In the hot barn, tomorrow was cool and clear, like water on his tongue.

The characters in the book are all on the cusp of change and have to negotiate an unsettling situation of one kind or another in order to find a new place for themselves, a new direction. They have to let go of the past in order to move into the future. Nevertheless, the characters are not types or symbols: you can feel for them, sympathize with and sometimes shake your head at them as well. There are a few distinct story lines, and which one will resonate most will likely differ for everyone. I really enjoyed Lee's story; he is a young man whose adopted parents have both died and left him in possession of the farm he grew up on. He is alone in the old farmhouse, feeling echoes of both parents, not certain of who he is or where he really belongs. A grey horse appears in his front yard in the middle of the night, distracting him from his insomnia (and it is a little odd that everyone in Juliet is suffering from insomnia that night!) and so Lee sets off on what turns out to be a marathon horse ride which echoes the opening horse race story.

I imagine this element spoke to me particularly, as I once had a white horse appear on my front lawn myself -- I was a very young child so the memories are vague, but my sister and I saw the horse - which had escaped from the farm annex of the nearby penitentiary - and also saw the truck with horse trailer which pulled up and took it away again. Lee's story brought back that magical feeling of surprise when we thought we'd just got a pony. ;)

There were many other characters who I loved reading about, including the bank manager Norval Birch. His awful job, his pregnant teen daughter and a wife who is more than she appears to be, make his tale a bittersweet and very moving one. There is also a romance developing between Drive-In owner Willard and his widowed sister-in-law Marian, one that neither of them quite knows what to do about. I adored these two. Each story is an integral part of the whole, and even when I didn't actually like a specific character (like any of the members of the Dolson family) they were a part of this town.

It was a wonderful read, with a deliberate pace and excessively normal people. There was humour and pathos, and some beautiful descriptive details worked in. I'd love to know how she made inanimate objects so important and alive in this tale. Highly recommended, this is one I want to own so I can reread at will.

Niceman Cometh

Niceman Cometh / David Carpenter

Erin, ON: Porcupine's Quill Press, c2008.

171 p.

Here is likely my last review of the year, and my only read for the Canadian Book Challenge this month. It was a quick and enjoyable read, by David Carpenter, fiction editor for Grain magazine (one of my favourite literary mags) among other things. This novel made it to the ReLit awards longlist this year, a great place to find small press reading suggestions. It also won the Saskatoon Book Award for this year.

This book takes us through a year in the life of Glory Sacher and her six year old son Bobby, down and out residents of Saskatoon. They've just moved in to a new apartment on the top floor of a house - and their landlady has just died. Glory is left to deal with the landlady's very creepy son Jerry, as well as her last boyfriend Ricky Bullerd, late night DJ and terminal ladies' man. Ricky is convinced that they need to get back together and with his emotional harassment and Jerry's physical harassment, Glory really needs to catch a break.

To get poor Bobby's mind off all the scary and uncertain things in his life they end up at the mall at Christmas. They go to see Santa, at which point the story lines converge -- Glory and Bobby meet James Wellington Waller, an overweight single man taking on the Santa role for some extra cash at Christmas (his day jobs of writing an 'Events' column in the local paper and writing fortunes for cookies are just not paying the bills). James is incontrovertibly a nice guy, in strong opposition to the other men in Glory's life. They are both taken with the other, though it takes a few more months for either of them to act on this attraction. Bobby's fondness for Santa (or Satan as he miswrites, humorously) doesn't hurt, either.

The male characters in this book are examined quite thoroughly - each has their own characteristics which explain their behaviour and their longings. The title hints at Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, a play replete with alcoholic, misogynistic, useless men. Ricky and Jerry certainly reflect these characteristics, but hope for a nice guy is found, even if James Wellington Waller appears at first to have some of the same useless characteristics. I wasn't crazy about the character of Glory; she seems to be a focal point of the three men's visions of themselves rather than a truly compelling person, at least in my view. But there were some nice elements of her character drawn out, especially when she is talking to her friend Jolene.

Another strong element of this story is Saskatoon itself. The routes the characters walk or drive along, the buildings referenced, the weather, the characters, all create a clear picture of the city. I felt the wind and smelled the river while I was reading, and each season of Glory's year plays its part. Here is one quote, when James Wellington Waller is feeling the winter blahs:

Perhaps the real problem was November. Blame it on November in Saskatoon. This was the first of five long months of winter. The lows had been hovering around minus thirty C for three weeks straight, but really winter had only just begun. The last withered leaf disappeared on Hallowe'en. The first big snow came on All Souls' Day. Now the wind blew through everything, even the plaster walls of James's sad old apartment. Seasonal affective disorder. It sprang not from the sudden absence of light, but from the imagination turned morbid. The foliage out on the prairie, the pussywillows out on the sloughs, the leaves on all the elms and maples lining the streets: none of these would ever return. Never, says Lear. Never. Never. Never. Never. He wasn't talking about the death of Cordelia, he was talking about November in Saskatoon, maimed and dusty survivor of the Great Depression, huddled between the prairie to the south and a fringe of parkland, clenched beneath the black uncaring cosmos like a cactus in the wind.

David Carpenter is a writer with an extensive oeuvre, and has also recently published a collection of short stories called Welcome to Canada . I'll be reading that sometime soon as well. If you want to hear him reading a section of this book, one in which James Wellington Waller first puts on the Santa suit and practises his Ho Ho Ho, you can find a link to the audio excerpt on Carpenter's website.

I am enjoying how the books I've chosen for this year's Canadian Book Challenge (my theme is books set on the Prairies) have had such a sense of place. Saskatoon is coming through clearly, even if I do wonder whether that is just because I'm from Saskatchewan. Would people still be enthralled if they'd never been to Saskatoon? If you've read any of the books I'm talking about, please share your impressions. This particular novel was full of word play, of characters just odd enough to be realistic, of a love of place, of a storyline edged with darkness yet redeemed by hope. Santa really is a nice man here, and the potential inherent in Christmas really delivers. Christmas somehow allows us to lower our barriers of cynicism, just a little, and believe in the possibility of love, of sharing, of kindness. It is the central point which this novel revolves around, both in the sense of timing and in meaning. Kindness and love triumph, in their own particular way.

Butala's Luna

Luna / Sharon Butala

Toronto: Harpercollins Canada, c1999.

246 p.

This novel is set in rural south Saskatchewan, the setting for most of Butala's novels. I am not sure what to say about it; I read it all with great interest, but can't say that I either agreed with all of the philosophizing or really enjoyed the novel in the end. Upon doing a bit of research, I discovered that this novel is the second in a loosely connected trilogy about rural life in this area of the country. (The 1st is The Gates of the Sun, told from a male perspective, and the 3rd is The Fourth Archangel) I also read on her website that this book is "a modern version of the Greek women's mysteries". This statement actually made sense to me, and clarified some of the impressions I had received from reading; at times it feels like a chorus is speaking, and in the character of octogenarian Rhea, Butala has a high priestess ready to be used. The primary female characters all have names from Greek myth as well.

The book tells us the stories of a few women from a small community, mostly ranchers and farmers' wives. Primarily focused on Selena, it moves out and back to her story, encompassing the stories of her great aunt Rhea, her sister Diane (who suddenly changes into Diana halfway through), her daughter Phoebe, various women in their church and Women's Group, and of course, reflects on all the men in their lives. I enjoyed the descriptions of the women's meetings, all the petty squabbling and gossip about who is doing what; I liked how Butala elucidates how important the women are in maintaining community celebrations and suppers, and the casual, family feeling of all these events; and how their lives are constrained by expectations and set roles, some of which are fiercely supported by the women themselves. When Diane begins to show signs of depression and restlessness, she is judged to be lazy, unwilling to help her husband on the farm or take on duties in the women's community events. She ends up leaving town to move to Saskatoon where things happen, where she can take college classes and get a job. Her husband goes with her, but eventually returns to the farm with his two young daughters; Diana elects to stay in the city. She is harshly judged, even by her own family, as a terrible mother and a selfish woman. Phoebe is date-raped, but her father doesn't believe her, and the perpetrator leaves town and nobody seems to be too worried about it.

The element of the book I couldn't quite embrace was speechifying from what felt to me like feminist consciousness raising circles. The feminist examination of women's role in this society worked when it was woven into the story and was part of the tale, but there were a few set pieces which felt like a lecture had suddenly been dropped into the manuscript. For example, when the house is full of women, Phoebe hugely pregnant and Diane back from the city with her girls, Rhea visits and takes the opportunity to tell the little girls a bedtime story. This turns out to be a quasi-religious tale of women as priestesses and bringers of life, of being dispossessed in history by fearful and jealous men -- a very mythical and sweeping vision. All the women linger in the hall listening to Rhea, being astonished and moved by her story. It just was not believable, that two little girls would sit quietly in bed and listen to this, or that everyone would get misty eyed over it. I self-identify as a feminist but I still found this bit didn't work as a fictional device. Butala says in an interview that she is part of the first wave of feminism, the era of Betty Friedan, and the overt feminist sections of this book show that influence strongly.

What I found admirable about this novel was the way in which Butala gives us the very different lives and perspectives of the many female characters, and does so in a way that does not judge or condemn them for their choices. Whether it is Selena's choice to place her identity in her roles as a mother and a rancher's wife, or Diane's dissatisfaction and need for a wider world, or Phoebe decision to not go to university but have her unwanted child, each is presented as a individual choice not lesser or greater than another. They have disagreements and judge one another, but the author is not telling us that one way is better than another.

The land itself is a major character as well. Butala's nonfiction is about the vital importance of protecting the land, and about the spirit of the West, and that focus is also in evidence here. In one scene, Selena, her husband, and their two sons are driving the cattle in for the winter. They've left it as late as possible to save feed costs, and so it is snowing and 30 below. The descriptions of the cold, the storm, the procedure of one person driving a 'bait' truck loaded with feed while the other ride horses and direct the herd, all is precise and provides a picture of the hardships of ranch life which the reader can experience with all the senses.

The cold she felt had reached the point where it was merely pain, and it combined with a growing sense of urgency. It was nothing so trivial as a mere desire to run to the truck, get in and get warm. It was some underlying, barely controllable edge of emotion that she didn't dare examine, which she had to keep forcing back so as not to let it take over. She knew what it was: it was a life instinct, they all had it. ...... Peering through the frosted windshield, trying to find the trail, checking around for the right direction, worrying, she couldn't help but think it would be nice to live a life where they didn't have to do things like this. Like in the city, she thought, people just catch the bus to work every day, stay inside warm buildings all the time, never really feel the cold, never really have to be afraid of the weather. People in the city have never known what's it's like to have that thrill of fear that if you get careless, let your guard down, or have some bad luck like getting caught in an unexpected blizzard, you might actually die, right then and there.

It was certainly an intellectually interesting read, and I did like the everyday details of small town life. But I felt like I couldn't quite place this one in time, and I didn't feel that anything was really concluded by the end. Perhaps I'll have to read the other two in this loose trilogy to see the whole picture.