Euphoria

“Euphoria: A Novel”
Written by Connie Gault
Published by Coteau Books
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$21.00 ISBN 978-1-55050-409-5

It’s no surprise that Connie Gault’s historical novel, “Euphoria: A Novel,” was shortlisted for the 2009 Book of the Year (Saskatchewan Book Awards). The Regina writer of stage and radio plays and author of two well-received short story collections is one of those (too rare) writers who takes the time to get each book right, and now, with Coteau’s release of “Euphoria,” Gault’s secured her place as one of Saskatchewan’s most talented.

The structuring of time and place is especially admirable in this novel. The story itself is what’s sometimes referred to as a quiet novel; the focus is on character development rather than a dramatic plot (though the aftermath of the Regina “cyclone” of 1912 does figure prominently). It’s a testament to Gault’s literary finesse that she not only keeps readers interested in the “quiet” lives of these characters who live, work, oversee, and, in the case of Orillia Cooper, convalesce in boarding houses, but that she also successfully shuffles these many lives – forward and back – over decades and disparate locations, without missing a beat.

The author begins with two central characters – Gladdie and Orillia – and as the story progresses and secrets are scraped away, she simultaneously introduces new characters and illumines the lives of those we’ve already met by teasing out the past.

Secrets are at the heart of this story. The initial setting is a Toronto boarding house, and the year is 1891. An illegitimate baby’s born in the house, and immediately after, her teenaged mother “walk[s] off the wharf into Lake Ontario.” Gladdie McConnell, a young employee at the house, is deeply affected by this tragedy, and she’s so concerned with the orphan’s future, she makes it her life’s (other) work to be the child’s surreptitious guardian.

As the story unfolds, we learn much about Gladdie’s own sad life, but to Gault’s credit, the most harrowing bits of this character’s history – between ages 6 and 9 – are suggested rather than detailed. (Sometimes, it’s best to let readers fill in the graphic details; Gault understands this.)

Much of the novel concerns the residents of a Regina boarding house, post-cyclone. Aside from the central figures, there’s Mr. Best, who’s writing a novel about a boarding house; and young Susan, a cyclone survivor found “sitting on the roof of a new Ford automobile …. like a doll who’d been set there, her ringlets still curled, her dress untouched”.

The examination of motherhood, from Mrs. Riley, who “pride[s] herself on having no feelings in regard to children of any age,” including her own; to lonely Hilda, who hopes Susan’s parents will never be located; to the various surrogates, presents a fascinating study. Readers may occasionally feel pity for the book’s hard-working, under-loved women, like Hilda: “On her off days she went to the cemetery and talked to her mother and father in their graves.”

“Euphoria” is a finely researched document about how unmarried women could and did live during a certain period in Canadian history. Gault’s nominations are earned.

My Sweet Curiosity

“My Sweet Curiosity”
By Amanda Hale
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Karen Lawson
$19.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-61-4

Amanda Hale’s third novel is a complex work that combines many different elements and themes. She has taken a variety of threads and woven them into an intricate tapestry that will keep the reader wanting more with every page.

“My Sweet Curiosity” contains several plots and is set not only in different countries but also spans many centuries. The author incorporates historical facts from the sixteenth century with a contemporary story line to create a fast moving saga that contains few boundaries.

The main characters of this novel live in present day Toronto. Talya is a young, energetic, medical student. Dai Ling is a talented cello player. Destiny brings them together and their lives become intertwined. Both young women are the daughters of immigrant parents. This complicates their relationship and adds another layer to the story. Both characters are struggling with their own personal issues and coming to terms with who they are and what their purpose in life is. Talya becomes obsessed not only with Dai Ling, but with a book of anatomical drawings compiled by a doctor by the name of Andreas Vesalius. He was a prominent Italian surgeon who revolutionized the study of medicine and anatomy during the Renaissance period.

“My Sweet Curiosity” flows seamlessly from one time period to another while providing interesting insight into how the physical body is connected to emotions and spirituality. Amanda Hale is a gifted storyteller who has tapped into her own curiosity to create a book that will spark the curiosity in her readers.

Claudia

“Claudia”
by Britt Holmström
Published by Coteau Books
Review by Sandy Bonny
$ 21.00 ISBN-13 987-1-55050-395-1

Britt Holmström’s fourth novel Claudia moves along the fine boundaries of appearance and private truth. An upper middle-class widow living in Regina, Claudia Hewitt has framed her life perfectly. Childhood poverty in Sweden with her Latvian refugee mother is far behind her, as are the embarrassments of her ‘too big’ nose and adolescent chubbiness. Her grown children’s mishaps are glossed by white lies, and Claudia has carefully protected her family and aging mother from the fact that she has witnessed three brutal murders – first as a teenager in Sweden, later while backpacking in Spain, and finally from the window of her beloved husband’s study in Regina. Does bearing witness make her complicit in these tragedies? Does her silence? And what secrets, out of love or fear of judgment, have Claudia’s mother and children kept from her?

Claudia is written in a world where violence is inevitable, where female sexuality can corrupt and degrade as well as empower, and where love can nourish healing. Moving backward and forward in time, and between Winnipeg, Regina, Sweden, Spain, and Latvia, ‘Claudia’ covers a lot of ground. Details of place and era are well researched, often drawn from Holmström’s global experiences, and the narrative flows naturally throughout. This book is a meditation on relationships and identity, and challenges readers to examine their own lives alongside Claudia’s.

Claudia could be a heavy read, but the grittier details of this novel are readily offset by flashes of humour, beauty, and hints of magic. A cousin’s child, scarred by forced prostitution, regains confidence not through counseling but by mocking Jerry Springer TV. Claudia’s nose job inadvertently heightens her sense of smell, leading her to her husband, Simon, and allowing her to investigate the personalities of her children’s partners by their scents. Claudia’s mother, Malda, sheltered her by remaining silent about the horrors of pre-WWII Latvia, but in doing so left Claudia a minimal sense of family history or cultural identity – can it be a coincidence that Claudia’s great grandfather comes to both her and her grandson’s dreams, leading them beneath the tender green branches of Latvian lindens to a cozy ancestral cottage that both mistake for heaven? Or that, hours after Simon’s death, the cactuses in Claudia’s kitchen bloom bright, beautiful and out of season? In Holmström’s Claudia, despite and perhaps because of heartbreaking sadness, happiness can always be found in the details.

Dead Rock Stars

“Dead Rock Stars”
By Wes Funk
Published by Backroads Press
Reviewed by Gail Jansen
Price $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-9781396-1-8

Growing up different from others always makes its mark on who we become as adults. For Wes Funk’s main character Jackson Hill, in his novel “Dead Rock Stars,” growing up gay on a farm in small town Saskatchewan, with two red-necked brothers and a past that haunts him, it’s a mark that has led to isolation, no matter how far he thinks he has come.

Yet as Funk writes, “there comes a time when a person has to make peace with his hostility.”

In his engaging story about Hill and the “Dead Rock Stars” theme that plays on throughout his life, Funk subtly pushes the reader to look beyond the stereotype to see the man that Hill has become, and to see the very real issues he faces in confronting his past; a confrontation he is helped gently through with the aid of the handsome and charismatic Frank.

While we have all faced such moments at one point or another in our lives – defining moments that lead us to embrace life, or run from it – in Hill’s case it’s a run he’s never even realized he’s been running.

While some readers may shy away from the book simply because the main character is gay, a characterization still not often seen or accepted in reading circles, is a familiar character we have all known and met at one time or another, whether he is in his persona as a businessman in Saskatoon, a kid in school, or as a son and brother sitting at the family kitchen table. All who read of him will gain an insight they might otherwise never have gained.

Less about his sexual preference and more about who he is as a man, the realistic dialogue that takes place between Hill and his farm-bound brothers, his open-minded sisters-in-law, and his lonely mother, anchors him deep in the ordinary and helps the reader identify with him and with the conflicts he faces.

“Everybody’s got their own little somethin’ to offer to the world,” writes Funk. “But every now and again, comes along someone that’s just a little different. Just as good as everyone else. Hell, maybe even better. Just different.”

Such is the case with Funk’s novel, because every now and again a book comes along that’s just a good as everyone else’s, maybe even better – just different.

The Serpent’s Veil

“The Serpent’s Veil”
By Maggi Feehan
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Judith Silverthorne
Price $18.95
ISBN 978-1-897235-56-0

Constance Stubbington wakes up in a hospital in London, England in 1899 after being thrown from a horse. The severe implications of her medical condition are withheld from her, as are the whereabouts of her father. In fact, she doesn’t recall much of her life at first, though there seem to be hints that she has spent some of her time in India during the time of colonialism. So begins Maggi Feehan’s intriguing first novel, “The Serpent’s Veil.”

As this tale unfolds, Constance experiences a series of flashbacks and dreams. She sometimes shares these with Ank Maguire, her Irish surgeon’s assistant, whom she comes to trust. They also discover they share a spiritual connection that sometimes gives them positive insights and sometimes seems to cause problems. Constance has especially strong intuitions, which help her unravel ten years of her personal journey as she pieces her life together while still in hospital.

They both have former lives and family traditions that haunt them. As they come to terms with these, they find that entering the world of intuition help transform them. This also brings the pair closer together in an unexpected way.

This novel is a memorable one, which alternates chapters between the two main characters. Their individual stories bring more depth and a multifaceted understanding as to why and how the pair is drawn to one another. The author also weaves the background of each character’s story with historic details that are spellbinding and informative. Personal perceptions captivate the reader as they are led through the impact of the birth and death of family members, and finding their own reasons for living.

“The Serpent’s Veil” explores everyday lives of the characters before and after they meet, and how sharing mystical revelations alters their consciousness and lives forever. Maggi Feehan’s powerful writing provides a satisfying tale.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR VISIT WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

Waiting for Elvis

Waiting for Elvis
Written by David Elias
Published by Coteau Books
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$21.00 ISBN 9-781550-503944

Winnipeg writer David Elias is making a name for himself as a writer of increasingly interesting books. Coteau Books recently published his fourth, the novel “Waiting for Elvis,” and because I was ardently cheering for these hardluck characters, I had a hard time putting the book down.

This time Elias focuses on the people that own “Betty’s Diner — Home of the Giant Cinnamon Bun,” a typical highway truck-stop, and on those who pass through its humble doors. Truckers and the odd tour bus of casino-patronizing seniors are its major clientele, but Betty and husband Arty’s miscreant son, Tony, and the criminal crowd he chums with, also make appearances. When a strange, mute, and beaten man stumbles into the diner from the surrounding forest, nothing is ever the same again.

For Betty, this is a wonderful thing. As a child she lived a life of relative privilege, and was known as “Elizabeth”. An alcoholic mother living in a squalid Winnipeg flophouse is a constant reminder of how far, and quickly, her life regressed. Now Betty’s bored, and thinks that “a bulldozer might be the best thing that ever happened” to the diner. Her family is a crucible. She has a hard time loving her only child: “She and Arty have made all the rounds with the social worker and psychologists. Put up with all the looks from the teachers and principals at school. Jumped through all the hoops with the probation officers and lawyers and priests. It’s been one thing after another with him right from the start … She could never understand how it happened that he got so bad so fast … Making her cry is what Tony had always done best.” Elias does a laudable job of showing how Tony’s evil and self-destructive ways began at an early age. It’s shocking.

And there are more shocks. Sal, who was horribly abused by his mother’s partner, “Clothespin Harry,” now lives like an animal in the forest beside the highway. He exists on the food travelers discard, and has created a shanty among the trees. But Sal’s ghosts have followed him. He has visions, and nightmares, and has created a “garden of pain” with car accident refuse (twisted metal, shattered glass, chains) which he’s strung from the pines. When his inner pain is too much, he “[Runs] into that garden of pain full tilt … Make it cut … Make it bleed … A crankshaft comes out of nowhere … He tackles a chrome bumper, then a rusted muffler … crushes the muscle and bone of his shoulder and still he will not stop.”

Now here’s the wondrous thing: Elias’s novel is a story of redemption. Betty “Sees there the thing [Sal] carries around with him always, the bold beauty of his quiet humility.” And she makes a kind of unexpected peace with her son.

“Waiting for Elvis” is the kind of book that would inspire much discussion and debate; it would be a terrific title for book clubs.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

Wild Talent: A Novel of the Supernatural

Wild Talent: A Novel of the Supernatural
By Eileen Kernaghan
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Judith Silverthorne
$15.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-40-9

Jeannie Guthrie, a sixteen-year-old Scottish farm worker, discovers that she has a frightening talent the day she is attacked by her cousin. Believing that she has killed him and fearing that she will be branded as a witch, she flees. The only thing she takes is a journal through which she tells her intriguing tale of myth and magic.

Lost and alone in London, she becomes a companion to Alexandra David, author and seeker of mysticism. She also works for a time in the famous theosophist salon of Madame Helena Blavatsky. Slowly Jeannie begins to understand the source of her mysterious powers. As she becomes more comfortable with her psychic abilities, demands are placed on her to perform. Not able to bear these unscrupulous people, she once again flees.

Eventually, she locates and joins Alexandra in Paris, where she gains even more insights into her abilities. Throughout their wanderings, they cross paths with famous artists, radical thinkers. Their experiences grow, leading them into dangers.

Jeannie tries to come to terms with the talents that are an intrinsic part of her, but her life is still paralyzed in other areas. Fears of retribution for her assumed crime continue to haunt her.

Historic references and details included from the real lives of her two acquaintances in this late Victorian time and of those in Paris add a richness to Jeannie’s story. This ‘authenticity ‘makes Jeannie’s story even more fascinating to follow.

This book is available at your local bookstore or visit http://www.skbooks.com

Sandbag Shuffle

Sandbag Shuffle”
By Kevin Marc Fournier
Published by Thistledown Press<
Review by Chris Istace
$12.95 ISBN: 978-1-897235-22-5

The Red River Flood of 1997 swallowed a large portion of southern Manitoba, leaving in its wake stories of tragedy and heroism. The wall of water that crawled toward Winnipeg caused the evacuation of more than twenty-five thousand people, two thousand head of cattle and forty-five thousand chickens. Tens of thousands more were evacuated in the United States, including forty-six thousand residents of Grand Forks, North Dakota. For most, it was a disaster of epic proportions. For Owen and Andrew, the young protagonists in Kevin Mark Fournier’s first novel, it’s an opportunity for escape.

Sandbag Shuffle” outlines the journey experienced by the teenagers after they capitalize on the chaos of the evacuation of Grand Forks in mid-April, 1997. Owen, an adventuresome, wheel-chair bound boy, and Andrew, his best friend, cross into Canada on the flooded Red River at Emerson, Manitoba. From there, the boys set out for Winnipeg and the anonymity of the city. On their way, they meet a cast of characters that portray the determination and selflessness of many Manitobans during their struggle to fight the rising waters.

Anyone living in Winnipeg at that time will recognize the accuracy of Fournier’s tale; the armies of volunteers seeking anyone needing help with building sandbag dikes, the rush of refugees moving into the city from southern Manitoba and the Canadian military’s role in helping with the natural disaster. The novel becomes as much about the 1997 flood and how the battle against it was won – and sometimes lost – as it is about a boyhood adventure.

Owen and Andrew find themselves thrown into the struggle, helping the strangers they encounter fight the rising water as they make their way to Winnipeg. Nevertheless, their ultimate goal is a total escape from their past, and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to be successful. They con those they’re helping and follow through on various schemes to earn money, food, and shelter.

Sandbag Shuffle” is a quick and adventurous read and a solid first effort by Fournier, a Residential Treatment Worker in Winnipeg. It provides the reader an inside look at the one of Canada’s most notable natural disasters and the heart Manitobans showed in surviving it.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR VISIT WWW.SKBOOKS.COM

Post

“Post”
By Arley McNeney
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by M E Powell Mendenhall
$ 19.95 ISBN: 978-1-897235-28-7

The beauty and pain of the physical body becomes the focus of Arley McNeney’s first published novel, “Post.”

In this 469-page novel, Nolan Taylor, a Canadian women’s wheelchair basketball Olympic champion, searches for a new identity after hip-replacement surgery. The title has multiple meanings, referring to her position on the team as well as her post-operative angst: “I was an elite wheelchair basketball player. The centre for Team Canada. The Big Girl. The Post. Now, I am a… former elite wheelchair basketball player: the post-Post.”

She almost immediately becomes pregnant with would-be musician Quinn, her boyfriend of 13 years. The book begins just before the surgery and ends as the baby is born. In between, the story careens backward and forward between her childhood, her first affair with her basketball mentor Darren, her past and current life with Quinn, and her eventual re-involvement with Darren after she becomes pregnant.

McNeney’s words flow like music or poetry: “It was natural to see my hip as a bawdy house: skin like heavy curtains over the secret creaking of joints. My hip with its redlight- district throb of inflammation when I walk, heartbeat misplaced there. My heart not in the right place, too close to the groin.”

As a “big girl” on the Canadian women’s wheelchair basketball team, the New Westminster author knows the reality underlying the practice and competition scenes she writes, including the Olympic championships. When the book was published, she was still working on her graduate degree in creative writing at Champaign-Urbana Illinois.

Svoboda

Svoboda
By Bill Stenson
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Chris Istace
$ 18.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-30-0

Svoboda, by Victoria, B.C. author Bill Stenson, is a story of assimilation, providing a strong overview of how one Doukhobor family came to be as Canadian as their neighbours. Vasili Saprikin grew up in the midst of the tumultuous early history of the Doukhobor’s struggle to maintain the way of life they wanted to bring to Canada from Russia. A communal people, their settlements in both Saskatchewan and British Columbia were being assaulted by governmental attempts to assimilate the Doukhobor people into the Canadian culture of the 1950s.

The Doukhobor’s response to this pressure developed into a pacifistic faction and a violent one. Learning from his grandfather, Alexay, Vasili stood outside these two factions while being taught to be proud of his heritage, regardless of how the circumstances of his culture changed. This was a challenge after the boy was whisked away from his single mother, Anuta, to residential school, where he was introduced to a conventional North American education and lifestyle.

Vasili came to enjoy being educated and living the life of a standard teenager, however negative his experience at the residential school was. After returning to his mother and grandfather, he continued his education and grew to be immersed in conventional Canadian culture. However, how would a Doukhobor boy growing into a man maintain his spiritual and cultural identity while living in this new place?

This is the story Stenson intends to reveal in Svoboda, and he does so with keen insight into what it may have been like to be persecuted as an outsider coming to Canada in the 1940s and 1950s. Although a fictional story, Stenson drives home the point that the Doukhobor story, while troubling at first, is a story that reveals the multi-layered fabric that makes up Canada.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR VISIT WWW.SKBOOKS.COM