ORDINARY STRANGERS

Bill Stenson. ORDINARY STRANGERS. Mother Tongue, 2018.

Picked up this novel in the library book sale because it is Canadian and because the story begins in Hope, BC and ends in Fernie. The concept is great: a couple driving through town picks up a crying child in the downtown park and drives away with her. There are so many ways this story could develop. Intriguing.

What startles me is the "old-fashioned" storytelling. Totally "telling". Third person omniscient, he, Sage, she, Della, and she #2, Stacey. And how the POV often switches between the three, sometimes in the same paragraph, sometimes in the same sentence.

Interesting ideas are explored. Early mistakes, such as marriage. How certain choices the female adult makes, wanting to stay home to raise the child, guarantee her dependence. How the male breadwinner exploits her dependence, knowing that she will not react to his emotional betrayals or criminal behaviour because she has no economic option. How despicable behaviour is excused or responsibility for it is reduced by mixing in alcohol and pot. How medical emergencies change everything. And how facts about birth and genetics are weighed against parental care and love.

 

ENTRY ISLAND

Peter May. ENTRY ISLAND. Quercus, riverrun, 2014.

Another loan from writer friends. This British mystery writer sets a story in two times, 1840's Isle of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides, during the Clearances, and 2010s, Iles de la Madeleine, PQ, Canada. The languages are English, Gaelic, and French. It is the type of book I as a female reader love, with its old diaries, boxes of history and genealogy, graveyards and headstones, and talismans handed down through the generations. And the mystery of "familial familiarity" I first heard of by that name in a Val McDermid Trace episode where something physical about a stranger reminds you of something in your family or your history. 

A woman on Entry Island is charged with murdering her husband. The Surete want a quick resolution; one of the lead investigators, Sime Mackenzie, brought in because of his English, is less than convinced. Personal issues, including insomnia, intervene.

I amused myself watching the use of language in the Canadian scenes. The fly screen door eventually becomes the screen door. I know what a fisherman's creel is but are lobster traps or lobster pots also called creels? Does the Gatineau River flow to Quebec City? The only obvious mistake is that the writer does not understand permafrost.

Personally I found the Quebec story line much more engaging but that is probably because the story of the Clearances is more familiar, has been told before, although probably not with the addition of what happened to individuals after they boarded the boats. The sense of place is palpable in both countries. 

I know that at least one of my grandmothers spent time in quarantine on Grosse Isle.

OCTOBER MOURNING

Leslea Newman. OCTOBER MOURNING: A SONG for MATTHEW SHEPARD. Candlewick, 2012.

This book was gifted to me over one year ago but today, this month, it seemed to be calling. It is the exact same story three hundred years later. What happened to Matthew Shepard is the same thing that happens to Marie in DAUGHTERS of the DEER. Cruelty. And the origins of such violence from cruelty.

The poetry is very accessible. As I was reading I was thinking how well this would fit a high school English class. I read it aloud to myself. I never watched the movie. Too sad. 

DAUGHTERS of the DEER

Danielle Daniel. DAUGHTERS OF THE DEER. Random House, 2022.

Highly recommended by a trusted writer friend. In fact, he loaned me his library copy for me to return, now that there are no longer late fees.

I have two hesitations in general. The first, my distrust of historical fiction as my mind is always questioning--was it really like that or is this a 21st century imagining of what it was like? The acknowledgements suggest that this writer has done important secondary research on New France in the 1600s. And the Indigenous world view is convincingly presented although I have no way to assess how authentic that is. The second hesitation is my leeriness about "trends" in society reflected a few years later in "trends" in publishing. The trend in this book is the losses inflicted on Indigenous women and "others" especially "two-spirit" or in this case, lesbian-leaning girls who become lovers. The good thing is that the protagonist, Marie's family, never stops loving her. The tension centres around the way the new religion insisted on rejecting some people and making so many, non-males, lesser than they had been before contact and conversion. Once I let the river take me, the story hook me, I was able to float, luxuriate in the beauty of the land and its many "People".