Tag: Canadian Lit

Run Towards the Danger

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Sarah Polley
Genres: Non-Fiction, Essays
Pub. Date: Mar. 2022 (read Apr. 2022 on Audible)

Run Towards the Danger is a book I totally picked up because of the hype. It’s not the kind of book I normally read, but I’ve been seeing it get fantastic reviews everywhere, so I decided to get an audiobook copy and give it a listen. I’m not sure I would have finished it had I read a physical copy (just because I struggle with non fiction), but it works great as an audiobook and I loved that it was narrated by Sarah. The book only has 6 essays, but it’s undeniable that Polley is a very accomplished writer and her essays are quite compelling. I struggled a bit with the first one, but it’s very smartly structured in that, while each essay tackles a different topic, they are woven together to promote Polley’s overall ideas and theme. 

Sorry to Sarah’s ego, but I am one of those people who wouldn’t recognize her, nor had any idea who she was. This is a bit of a disservice to myself because I’ve always been a huge Anne fan, but to be honest, I didn’t even know Road to Avonlea was a thing. I think it was probably an age thing for me, but I’ve since done a bit of digging through the youtube archives.  

The core theme throughout this book is about the struggles and long term impacts of being a child actor, as well as the ethics of having children work at all. I really felt for Sarah because it seems like she really can never catch a break. She has had so many health issues thrown at her throughout life, on top of the emotional trauma of losing her mother as a young girl and essentially raising herself in a volatile film industry that didn’t care about her safety or well being. 

The first essay was probably my least favourite because it was significantly longer than the rest and I thought she expanded on a lot of areas that weren’t that compelling, but it did really set the scene for the rest of the book and I thought the essays got stronger and stronger throughout. My favourites were probably Mad Genius, High Risk. and the final essay, which the book is named for, Run Towards the Danger. 

Mad Genius calls out many of the prejudices that exist in the film industry and how the behaviour’s of so many men are excused, putting others at risk, and High Risk highlights the inherent sexism built into our health institutions. It’s harder to pinpoint what I liked so much about Run Towards the Danger, other than that I found it to be extremely compelling storytelling and I was fascinated to learn about concussions. 

So overall, this is a bit of an odd essay collection, but I would definitely recommend it. Sarah is a great writer and storyteller.

Ghost Forest

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Pik-Shuen Fung
Genres: Fiction
Pub. Date: Jul. 2021 (read Mar. 2022)

I’ve been putting off my review for Ghost Forest because I don’t have a lot to say about it, but I do still want to write a short review because I think this is a very understated book and I really loved it!

I stumbled upon it at my local indie bookstore and admit to be primarily drawn to it for the cover art, but it’s also Canadian lit, so I quickly purchased it and let it sit on my shelf for a few months before finally reading it. I guess I forgot immediately after buying that it was also written in prose, or likely I would have read it sooner since it’s a quick read.

Ghost Forest features an unnamed narrator, a young girl whose family immigrates to Canada in the 1990’s. Though most of her family settles in Vancouver, her father continues to work in Hong Kong as an “astronaut father”. The novel explores her relationship with her father over the years, as a young girl living in Canada, to a young adult also living in Hong Kong when her father becomes very sick. Over time her relationship with her father has become strained as she never really felt like he was around and she re-examines her family history as her father becomes sicker.

The writing is really beautiful and I loved how the author explored family dynamics and all the ways in which immigration and new cultures can fracture a family. While the book centers around the protagonist and her father, it also features an oral history of her other family members, including her sister, mother, and grandmother. It’s a family history, but it’s also a book about love, grief, and memory. How things became what they are and the thoughts of what might have been. Many returned to Hong Kong years later, but this family opted to stay in Canada, even though they partially relocate back to Hong Kong when the father is sick. It explores identity and belonging and is a classic immigration story that I’d recommend to any Canadian. A quick read filled with gorgeous prose!

Talking to Canadians

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Rick Mercer
Genres: Memoir, Non-Fiction, Humour
Pub. Date: Nov. 2021 (read Nov. 2021 on Audible)

Last year I read Rick’s book Final Report and was a bit disappointed when I discovered it was just a collection of rants from throughout the years. Somehow it’s just not as interesting to listen to Rick rant about Stephen Harper 10 years later. But I was interested in Talking to Canadians when I learned it would be a proper memoir and decided to read on Audible.

Talking to Canadians definitely has a niche market, but I found it to be an interesting read. Rick goes pretty in depth about how he got his start in comedy and it covers everything up until he started doing the Mercer Report. There’s a lot about how he found comedy and acting in high school and his years on 22 minutes, which I did find pretty fascinating.

Of course, Rick makes for a great audiobook narrator and I would highly recommend doing the audio if you’re reading this book. I read it back to back with Mark Critch’s new book, which I also did with both comedians last year. Between Final Report and Son of a Critch, I’d give the edge to Critch, but overall I preferred Talking to Canadians to An Embarrassment of Critch’s, though they’re both great books. They actually make surprisingly complementary reads as well since both men have 22 minutes to thank for jumpstarting their careers. I read Critch’s book first, but if you’re going to read both, start with Talking to Canadians, it makes a bit more sense chronologically.

Overall a fun read if you like memoirs and funny Canadians!

Consent

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Annabel Lyon
Genres: Fiction
Pub. Date: Sep. 2020 (read Sep. 2021)

I picked up Consent at my local indie bookstore because it’s written by a Vancouver author. I was slightly deterred from purchasing because it has quite low ratings on goodreads, but the plot featured two sets of sisters and sounded really interesting to me, so I decided to go for it. Now that I’ve read it, I would say that Consent is one of those uniquely weird Canada lit books that really works for some people and doesn’t work at all for others. I admit I do like a good weird book and fortunately, this one worked for me!

It’s been a while now since I read it, so bear with me if some of the details are a little foggy. The book features two sets of sisters that briefly connect with each other within the story, but aren’t really related to one another. The first set of sisters, Sara and Mattie grow up in Vancouver in their large family home. Mattie has a cognitive disability and lives full time with their mother, while Sara goes off in search of a different life in Toronto. With the death of their mother, Sara begrudgingly returns to Vancouver to take care of Mattie.

The second set of sisters, Saskia and Jenny are about a decade younger and are twins. Despite their closeness, they lead very different lives and when Jenny is in an accident, Saskia begins to question everything about herself, her sister, and their relationship. It’s a character driven story that focuses primarily on Sara and Saskia and examines familial bonds and the effects of both grief and guilt. Both sets of sisters experience tragedy and discover they have a common link between them in the character of Robert, who was connected to each set of sisters.

I can see how this book wouldn’t work for a lot of people, for the most part, the characters are pretty unlikeable and have very questionable motivations, but I found it to be a really interesting character study and liked how different each sister was. Despite the strained relationships, each woman’s choices are guided by a sense of affection and I liked that the author delves into the complicated relationships that exist within many families. Skip this one if you need likeable characters, but check it out if you like character driven family sagas that examine some of the grey aspects of our psyche.

In My Own Moccasins

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Helen Knott
Genres: Memoir, Non-fiction
Pub. Date: Aug. 2019 (read Nov. 2021)

I picked this book up last summer when I was book shopping in Sidney on Vancouver Island (aka the book capital of the Island!). It’s been sitting on my shelf ever since taunting me. In an effort to finally read it, I put it on our book club voting list and it won as our December book pick. 

I was momentarily daunted when I first started the book because I thought it might be a dense read, but I was quickly pulled into Helen’s writing style and engaging storytelling. He holds nothing back in her book foreward, making it clear who she wrote this memoir for and that she doesn’t want your pity or judgement. It’s a sobering reminder that might be off-putting to some, but I thought it was so great because it set the tone upfront that Helen is the custodian of her own story and it is hers to share for her own means. Colonialism has taken enough from her and it is her turn to take something for herself.

I definitely don’t judge her and I hope I empathize with her rather than pity her. But mostly I admire her. Technically, this is well written and I was really impressed by her calibre of writing. She says she is a great lover of literature and self reflection and I definitely found both of these to be true. Memoirs can often be more about the story than the writing since we can’t expect everyone with a meaningful story to tell to necessarily also be a good writer. But Knott has both and it made the reading experience all the more enjoyable.

Emotionally, this book is a roller coaster. Knott splits her story into 3 parts: the dreamless void, the in-between, and the healing. The dreamless void is the longest part of the book and covers her struggles with all kinds of abuse, both from violent acts perpetrated against her, as well as her ensuing addictions to alcohol and drugs. It is the hardest section to read and very much like peeling back the layers of an onion. Her turbulent home-life and the many racial injustices she and her family face chip away at her self worth and she looks for relief in all the wrong places. However, where the right places would be, I really have no idea. 

Knott feels like a bit of an enigma to read about because through all her suffering and addiction, you still get glimpses of a very reflective and accomplished individual. She has pulled herself together on several occasions only to have it all fall apart again when she is unable to face her past trauma. What I admire her for are the in-between and the healing and these are the parts of her story that really stuck with me. She is able to identify the many ways in which colonialism and racism have worked against her and her family. She is able to pinpoint the long term impacts of residential schools while also not being afraid to look critically at herself. Many are unable to escape the cycle of abuse and addiction and I thought her incredibly courageous in being able to face her trauma head on and say, ‘no, I am worth something and I will not let this rule my life anymore.’

So while it is hard to read about the dreamless void, it is critical that we bear witness to it. Not, as Helen says, to educate ourselves or gain insight or humanize indigenous voices. But because these are voices we need to amplify and we have been silencing them for too long. We should be uncomfortable, but we should also be inspired.