NO. 98
atlantic books TODAY
See Your Self Pratt overwhelms with art
Publications Mail Agreement 40038836
Breakwater’s 50 years on the Rock
Fall fiction Roars home
Exceptional Gifts Extraordinary Stories
Available at your favourite bookstore and online. gooselane.com
Contents Number 98 | Fall 2023
Message
Book Features
Excerpts
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12 When a Walrus lights your fire
33 Gutsy
Message from the editor
by Meg D. Edwards
Foreword 6
29 Drop your phone and open one of these Doors
Cover story
Cover Feature 8
by Dave Howlett
Breakwater fends off the storms of 50 years
by Jon Tattrie
31 “I was writing to you and your generation”
by Shannon Webb-Campbell
News Features 13 Finding light in the shadows
by Sarah Butland 16 Why adults should explore the gentle wisdom and art of children’s books
by Nicola Davison 18 Can you step into the same house twice?
by Mallory Burnside-Holmes
36 Four Seasons of Nova Scotia 40 Bright Future
Authors in Conversation
Reviews
22 “One of the best ways to fight bigotry is with queer and trans joy”
37 Pageboy
A conversation between Tom Ryan and Rhea Rollmann 25 Mi’kma’ki mourns a literary legend
by Jon Tattrie
Fiction Feature
34 The Art of Mi’kmaw Basketry
27 A Crummey look at the darker side of Mockbeggar
38 Time Flies 39 Shovels Not Rifles 41 Staff Picks
Young Readers 42 Reviews
31 “Get up offa that thing, and write”
by Evelyn C. White ON THE COVER
The fall 2023 book world in Atlantic Canada is packed with authors taking a new look at home. That includes Ting Ting Chen’s Impressions of Newfoundland, a fine-art photography book where the China-born artist explores her new home in Canada. Our cover photo is called “I Myself In Me” and explores the complex layers of human identity. “Everyone has an I and myself in me,” Chen says. “The two overlapping faces of Robert are actually two different sides of his face.” Learn more about Chen’s unique connection to her model, Robert Tilley, in our feature on Breakwater Books turning 50. NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today MESSAGE
Editor’s message
This summer I met publishers Dorothy Lander and John Graham-Pole at the Halifax train station. Their company, HARP Publishing, had just put out a beautiful new book called The Ghost of Catherine Parr Traill : An Ancestor’s Guide to Wellbeing, by Laura Elliott. I wanted to get a copy before they left, so I met them as they boarded the locomotive. They were en route to the book’s launch in Lakefield, Ont., and the event took place in the author’s home — which was also the home of Catharine Parr Traill a century ago. It got me thinking about home, and how so many Atlantic Canadian books in the fall of 2023 are full of people seeking homes, or escaping them. Mary Pratt found herself intensely frustrated by the domestic drudgery of her life in rural Newfoundland, but then one day she saw the light dancing over her dirty supper table. The moment captivated her, and she captured it in paint. Laurie Swim creates art through quilts, one of the great home comforts. And Diane Porter looks at the women who left their homes to build a more equal Prince Edward Island. In our fiction feature, Willow Kean introduces us to a woman and man cruising along in couplehood when an
awkward dinner forces them to decide if they are each other’s permanent home. Shelley Thompson brings us a young woman returning utterly changed to her childhood home, fearing she will not be seen for who she is. Lesley Choyce writes about an old man who’s lost most of his household, but who adds a guest named Death. Lesley Crewe’s heroine thinks she’s home in Montreal, until a surprise trip to rural Cape Breton brings baked goods and loving neighbours into her life, sparking a crisis of confidence about her urban home. Michael Crummey goes home again to a world last inhabited in The Innocents. Newcomer Jeremy Hull visits the future to meet a malnourished young man who is preparing to move permanently into a video game. All of these books kept bringing me back to Ting Ting Chen’s photo, “I and Myself in Me.” After winning a slew of photography awards from her native China, she discovered a new home in Newfoundland, as seen through the “cypher” of model Robert Tilley. One Robert looks through open eyes, while the other closes his eyes and holds his heart. Do we find home with our eyes open, looking out at the world, or with our eyes shut, in the home of our heart? Our authors have been exploring those questions. Their answers will make you feel at home — wherever that is for you.
Dear Reader Fernwood’s Fall 2023 books consider all the pressures of living through this stage of colonialism and capitalism from various genres and perspectives
In his 103rd book, acclaimed author of The Unlikely Redemption of John Alexander MacNeil takes the reader through another beautiful adventure about time and love.
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ab Publisher
Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association
Executive Director
Karen Cole
Editor
Jon Tattrie
Graphic Designer
Gwen North
Program Manager
Chantelle Rideout
Special Projects Coordinator
Heather Fegan
Administrative Assistant
Lynn McCallum
Atlantic Books Today is published by the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association (www.atlanticpublishers.ca), which gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of New Brunswick, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Nova Scotia and the Government of PEI. Opinions expressed in articles in Atlantic Books Today do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Board of the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association.
Printed in Canada. This is issue number 98 Fall 23. Atlantic Books Today is published twice a year. All issues are numbered in sequence. Total Atlantic-wide circulation: 30,000. ISSN 1192-3652
November is Crohn’s and Colitis Month
GUTSY
Living My Best Life with Crohn’s Disease & Ulcerative Colitis
Heather Fegan
Phone: 902-420-0711 Fax: 902-423-4302 atlanticbooks.ca @abtmagazine facebook.com/AtlanticBooksToday @atlanticbooks.ca @atlanticbooks.ca
Steve Murphy Foreword by Ian Hanomansing
For more great NS book ideas, scan the QR code!
ME MOR I A L U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S . C A
One-year subscriptions to Atlantic Books Today are available for $15 ($17.25 including HST). For a special offer on a 2-year subscription with a bonus canvas tote bag for $25 ($28.75 including HST), visit atlanticbooks.ca/join and use code ABT. Please make cheques payable to the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association and mail to address below or contact admin@atlanticpublishers.ca for subscription inquiries. If you would no longer like to receive copies of the magazine sent to your address, please let us know. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40038836 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association Atlantic Books Today Suite 710, 1888 Brunswick Street, Halifax, NS B3J 3J8
MURPHY’S LOGIC
Insights from 45 Years in the News Business
The story of the Mi’kmaw movement in Newfoundland, told through the personal recollections of one of its key instigators.
A retrospective look at the precontact period of the Maritimes, and how precontact cultures changed as they encountered neighbouring Indigenous peoples and European colonists.
NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today FOREWORD
Cover story
The Ghost of Catharine Parr Traill
Palimpsest. ‘pælɪmpsest’ noun. 1. A piece of writing material or manuscript on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for other writing. 2. A place, experience, etc., in which something new is superimposed over traces of something preceding it. “With the author Laura Elliott, we chose the cover image of Catharine Parr Traill’s (1894) Pearls and Pebbles as the ‘underpainting’ for the cover of The Ghost of Catharine Parr Traill: An Ancestor’s Guide to Wellbeing, as Laura draws heavily on this last book that Catharine wrote to excavate ‘gems’ of wellbeing from the past that illuminate present day wellbeing practices. “Laura strips the layers of the ancestral past, including the early Indigenous-settler relations in the backwoods of Canada that Catharine writes about, to highlight timeless practices of wellbeing such as gratitude and also to engage in the Truth and Reconciliation process — a perfect fit for HARP’s mission.” — Dorothy Lander, publisher, HARP: The People’s Press. 6
Atlantic Books Today COVER FEATURE
Breakwater fends off the storms of
50 years 8
COVER FEATURE Atlantic Books Today
“We’re basically a discovery machine looking for the new voice that will excite and bring that voice to the rest of Canada.”
By Jon Tattrie
B
reakwater Books is celebrating its fiftieth birthday this year with a fall slate of books that includes the return of a beloved tour guide-detective, a stunning collection of fine art photographs and a new novel on the lost women of Newfoundland and Labrador history. Breakwater Books was founded in 1973 by a group of poets including Clyde Rose. In the 1980s, the press began to make an international impact by being one of the first independent publishers to go to the prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair. A memorable moment came at the fair when Breakwater put on a staged reading of Ellen Bryan Obed’s Borrowed Black: A Labrador Fantasy, which had been sold into translation in nine languages in Europe. Each publisher turned up in a tuxedo to read from the story in each tongue. In 2002, Rebecca Rose joined the management team and bought the family press in 2009. “Any company surviving 50 years is worth someone saying, ‘Wow, that’s amazing,’ right? But we’re
watching regional presses and independent presses across Canada shutter the doors over the years,” Breakwater’s George Murray says. Part of their key to success had been a flexibility to follow the market and a focus on the publisher’s core values that comes with being independent and owned by a ‘strong feminist president’, he says. Over the years, Breakwater Books has focused on the educational market, nonfiction, poetry and trade literary publishing. “I’m a writer as well — I’ve published ten books — and this is the first time I’ve worked on this side of the desk,” Murray says. “It’s been a massive wakeup call for me as a writer to see all that goes on behind the scenes. The thousands and thousands of dollars spent on each book and the hundreds or thousands of hours spent on the book — and this is all post the writer doing the work.” The long success has come with the acquisition of a few “friendly rivals,” such as the 2017 purchase of Creative Book Publishing. Breakwater took on their back catalog, adding to a library that stretches back half a century. NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today COVER FEATURE
Breakwater publishes 18 books a year and positions itself as a regional press that operates like a national one, like Toronto’s House of Anansi or B.C.’s Harbour Publishing. But a publisher based in Newfoundland faces the extra costs and concerns about things like the price of fuel to get book-making supplies to the island, and the cost again to ship them to the mainland. “These are things we as writers never think about, but the publisher has to think about,” Murray says. “This is what I tell my students when I’m teaching: When you’re a writer, you’re an artist creating mostly alone. As soon as you decide to make it public, you’re investing in a partnership with a business that’s going to make it public.” Part of that business model is finding new authors and publishing them in anthologies and building that into a book. That sometimes launches a writer like Michelle Porter to a national/international publisher in Penguin. “It’s part of the sad lot of the small press to lose our discoveries to larger companies. But that means we’re basically discovery machines looking for new voices to bring to the rest of Canada and the world,” Murray says. Of the four provinces Atlantic Books Today covers, Newfoundland has long been a powerhouse. Articles and posts about Newfoundland and Labrador writers routinely get the most attention and draw the most passionate fans. Murray attributes some of that to being on an island and out of the gravitational pull of big cities like Toronto and Montreal. The fall 2023 collection includes Suliewey: The Sequel to My Indian by Saqamaw Mi’sel Joe and Sheila O’Neill. The two Mi’kmaw authors created both historical fiction novels from their own history. Mi’sel Joe has been the district
traditional chief of Miawpukek First Nation since 1983. He’s considered the Spiritual Chief of the Mi’kmaq of Newfoundland and Labrador. “He wrote a book about his ancestor, who had only ever been called by the colonial settler who hired him ‘my Indian.’ It’s using historical fiction to correct historical inaccuracies,” Murray says. Murray says it’s about expanding the sense of what “our” culture encompasses. That includes the province’s widespread Irish identity, which accounts for some of that literary passion. “Clung to the side of a rock for 500 years in middle of the North Atlantic, you end up having to make your own entertainment,” he says. Another factor is the sheer physical beauty of the place, along with comparably affordable costs of living. That draws writers and artists, and they often stay. Murray moved from Ontario decades ago. A much-anticipated fall title is Impressions of Newfoundland from Ting Ting Chen. After moving from China to Newfoundland about six years ago, the fine-art photographer taught herself her craft and racked up first the prestigious amateur awards as well as many professional international prizes. “This is a new lens on Newfoundland. She sees Newfoundland differently than Newfoundlanders might have seen it,” Murray says. “Bringing that new perspective to us allows us to see ourselves through a new lens.” Many of the images seem to turn a natural landscape into a painting, or frame a failing fishing shack in such soft morning light that it all looks newly created. She’s drawn many fans with her studies of Robert Tilley. She met the 73-year-old online first, and he gave her a tour of his
BREAKWATER BOOKS FALL 2023 COLLECTION
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A Company of Rogues
Five for Forteau
Impressions of Newfoundland
Trudy J Morgan-Cole
Kevin Major
Ting Ting Chen
Field Guide to Newfoundland and Labrador
Suliewey: The Sequel to My Indian
Michael Collins
Saqamaw Mi’sel Joe and Sheila O’Neil
COVER FEATURE Atlantic Books Today
part of the island when she moved to Newfoundland. In an unplanned moment, he peered into her rain-dropped car window, and she saw his face fully created in dozens of drops. She took a photograph, “Multiple Roberts in Raindrops,” and realized she had found her muse. That photo is included here, along with a distant image of him seemingly holding up the Milky Way in “Ladder to the Sky,” dressed in Renaissance glory as “The Duke,” and our cover shot, “I and Myself in Me,” which was inspired by Jan de Bray’s 1664 “Portrait of the Artist’s Parents, Salomon de Bray and Anna Westerbaen” and Peter Paul Rubens’s 1614 “Agrippina and Germanicus.” “She’s using Robert Tilley as a cypher for Newfoundlanders in general. If you look at some of the landscapes, they’re around the corner from me and I didn’t recognize them,” Murray says. “It’s just a different angle, a different colour palette. She’s focused in on something the rest of us, our eyes just move over. And that’s what we’re trying to do with fiction, with poetry, with everything. To find the new way of seeing and, in finding a new way of seeing, finding a new way of knowing ourselves.”
Kevin Major returns with his fifth instalment in the popular Sebastian Synard mysteries, wherein our hero is just trying to lead a tour of lighthouses when he finds another dead body at the bottom of the tallest lighthouse in the province. Five for Forteau takes in the French Shore and very strange vandalism at a historic site. Trudy J Morgan-Cole completes her Cupids trilogy with A Company of Rogues, her historic series exploring the lives of women settlers in North America as they wrestle with thoughts of homeland, colonization and seeking a sense of place and peace. If all those new angles on Newfoundland and Labrador inspire a wanderlust, pick up a copy of the landmark Field Guide to Newfoundland and Labrador, compiled and edited by Memorial University biologist Michael Collins. The 900 photographs and illustrations of flora, fauna and icebergs will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the wildlife of the land that Breakwater Books calls home. ■ JON TATTRIE is the editor of Atlantic Books Today.
The
olden
pples
by Dan Yashinsky
With a smart princess, angry kings, magic animals, conniving siblings, tempting casinos, and a hero who’s better at following recipes than directions, Dan Yaskinsky’s delightful re-mix of a Cape Breton Jack tale is sure to delight readers of all ages. Featuring artwork by Ekaterina Khlebnikova. “Brisk, engaging fun.” ~ Kirkus, starred review ISBN 9781998802050 $15.99 Available now from Running the Goat, Books & Broadsides Distributed in Canada by Nimbus Publishing ad golden apples 2.indd 1
2023-09-21 7:27 PM
NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today BOOK FEATURE
When a Walrus lights your fire by Meg D. Edwards
Lesley Crewe cooks up a delicious 1950s romp
O
n the day before the official launch of her new novel, Recipe for a Good Life, Lesley Crewe has already received messages from readers saying ‘OMG, I just finished it, when is the next one?’ “I feel like saying, you nutbars!” cries Crewe, “Stop reading the books in two days!” But Crewe is already hard at work on her next novel, writing furiously and for many hours at a stretch. Crewe says that she wrote her bestselling Nosy Parker in thirty days and her fans, affected by the energy and momentum in her novels, read in the same manner. I started my Crewe addiction with her most recent novel, Recipe for a Good Life, and now I am scooping up past novels and reading them one after another. The characters are always on a journey, and a recognizable one, with the comedy and tragedy of life represented on every page. Crewe creates cozy homes and characters that you wish would invite you in for tea. She says that describing her characters’ homes is important. “I always thought of the home as the soul of your life,” says Crewe, gesturing to her home office, “it’s right here, you do all your breathing, in and out, right here.” Brought up in Montreal, Crewe spent her summers in Cape Breton and then moved to Cape Breton as a young mother and has lived there since. In Recipe for a Good Life, Crewe returns to both locations and brings them to life with loving detail. Crewe’s new novel follows the path of a prolific, popular crime writer named Kitty, who is living in Montreal in the 1950s. Unhappily married to a successful actor and suffering from writer’s block, Kitty is sent to Cape Breton for a rest by her devoted editor, Gaynor Ledbetter. Kitty is healed by the love and chaos of rural Cape Bretoners and starts to write again, but not right away. At first, she is alarmed to find herself alone in a dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere, her only connection to Montreal a party-line phone with a lurking gossiper listening in to every conversation.
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Recipe for a Good Life Lesley Crewe Nimbus Publishing
But soon Kitty discovers that Bertha, a warm-hearted woman with an open kitchen and scores of cheerful children and grandchildren, lives just down the road. And extra good luck, Bertha shares her home with one of her adult children, a handsome grown man nicknamed Walrus. Walrus, or Wallace, happens to be a thoughtful, local fix-it man, a great baker, good with children, and single. Walrus mends Kitty’s roof and teaches Kitty how to light a fire in the woodstove (literally and metaphorically). When I asked the delightful Crewe what had drawn her to set the novel in the 1950s, she replied with enthusiasm, “I love writing about the fifties because everyone smoked! There’s nothing better than having a cigarette in your hand and making a point with it or blowing smoke into the air!” I instantly pictured Kitty’s editor Gaynor, with her polished beehive hairdo and hard-bitten manner, pointing a cigarette in Kitty’s direction and blowing smoke out the side of her lipsticked mouth. Crewe’s novels do seem ripe for screen adaptation and in fact, her first novel, Relative Happiness (which Crewe still privately refers to as The Big Girl, her original title) was made into a feature film in 2014. Fortunately, Crewe, unlike Kitty, does not seem to be heading towards any writer’s block. Crewe writes for the joy of the process and because it helps her “figure out her life.” She also enjoys spending time with her characters and, like her own readers, she misses them when she finishes a novel.“I wish there was a Bertha just down the road where I could drop in for a cup of tea.” ■ MEG D. EDWARDS is a writer living in Baie Verte, N.B. Her first play, Wrack and Ruin, was a runner up in the Notable Acts Playwriting Festival in 2020, receiving a staged reading at the festival. Her second play, Road Kill, had a public reading as part of Live Bait Theatre’s New Works Festival in 2021. Meg is working on her first novel, a cosy mystery with an edge, set in New Brunswick.
NEWS FEATURE Atlantic Books Today
When true crime hits close to home The art of Laurie Swim and Mary Pratt
Finding light in the shadows Laurie Swim in her studio.
Photo: Larry Goldstein
by Sarah Butland
A
utumn in Atlantic Canada is all about light, colours and the shades of darkness offering contrast. Autumn embodies the concept of letting go beautifully while maintaining a purpose, a cycle, much bigger than the season. As the Atlantic provinces are known for their beauty, it should not surprise anyone that talented artists like Mary Pratt, Laurie Swim and Dianne Porter, raised in our own backyards, feature in new books this fall. Depriving yourself of passion and creativity for the sake of raising a family and committing to societal norms, especially in the 1950s, can break a person or, if handled well, can make a person and career. It was a challenge Mary Pratt faced, NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today NEWS FEATURE
and it’s documented in a beautiful book by Anne Koval, professor of art history, museum and curatorial studies at Mount Allison University. Mary Pratt: A Love Affair with Vision tells the story of how important it is to listen to your heart. Comparing Pratt’s art to literary masters such as Agatha Christie, Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood, Koval reveals the life of Pratt, and how she strived to become an artist while raising her family. Pratt used paints and layers and light to bring emotional punch to seemingly simple subjects. Koval takes you into Pratt’s rustic Newfoundland home, so you can hear her children bouncing off the wall as she contemplates the just-deserted table, and the way the light danced inside the ketchup bottle, and decided to paint it. We return to her childhood on Fredericton’s Waterloo Row, and see how that inspired a more austere image of home. As Pratt balanced her domestic responsibilities with her desire to create, Koval weaves her tale using layers of art education with the facets of everyday living, applauding Pratt’s ability to beautify the mundane. Her book shines light on dark constraints and casts shadows on vibrant choices, bringing forth the seminal internal light that otherwise could be confused as ordinary.
naturally intrigue the ordinary reader and emphasize the brilliance of the artist herself. Koval writes: “Pratt’s painterly virtuosity is not easy to achieve, particularly using watercolour.” Arguably, Koval’s expertise with wording, research and flow offers the reader the same respect for her artistry, using words instead of paint. While Pratt freezes the present, she inspired Laurie Swim to honour the past through quilting. In No Ordinary Magic, author Carol Bruneau shares insights on Swim’s quest to have quilt art recognized as an art form comparable to painting and sculpture. Bruneau writes that in her early days, Swim received little recognition for her work in part due to the struggle to categorize the art, with a debate between “craft versus fine art versus fine craft art.” Art, for Swim, was not only valued in the piece itself but the process and the ability to fundraise and tell stories. Many of her pieces bring attention to tragic events, such as “Breaking Ground, The Hogg’s Hollow Disaster of 1960” and “Lost at Sea, 1961,” both created in 2000. We learn that creating “Lost at Sea, 1961,” which tells the story of a Nova Scotia storm that killed 17 fishermen, was a community event that brought together family and friends of the lost to participate and tell stories in the community centre.
Her book shines light on dark constraints and casts shadows on vibrant choices, bringing forth the seminal internal light that otherwise could be confused as ordinary. Pratt, too, proves her literary prowess through her personal journals, which are referenced throughout this book. “Sunday after Sunday I thought about light. I considered the dark,” Pratt reflects. Through her journal entries, as well as in interviews with Adrienne Clarkson, Paul Kennedy and other Canadian household names, Pratt sheds light on her shadows, clarifies her reasoning behind each subject painted and reveals how her then-husband encouraged her to use photorealism to capture the light after she’d cleaned up the table. What sparked her journey was an unmade bed bathed in radiant light, aptly titled “The Bed.” “I got this ridiculous erotic reaction looking at the bed, which had nothing to do with what you do in bed, but it had to do with what I was looking at. It was just stunning.” While this book contains a lot of technical information regarding Pratt’s process, it is done in a way that will
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Bruneau walks her readers through the artwork of Laurie Swim and the meticulous stitches weaved to tell the story of past, hope and Nova Scotia through art. Swim’s quilts are much more than fabric stitched together; they are a community wrapped in a story, years frozen in time, which spark an interest in learning more. For Swim, however, it’s more than finding the right material and methods of sewing. It’s about including important materials in the dyeing process, such as using Norwegian kelp. “Kelp absorbs carbon dioxide,” Swim tells Bruneau. “Using it as a dye source for fabrics to create these works will reference its importance.” Swim draws from nature, and her concerns about climate change emerge from the images. The unforgettable message of all Swim’s art — about the fragile beauty of life itself and of the Earth upon which all
NEWS FEATURE Atlantic Books Today
Mary Pratt: A Love Affair with Vision
No Ordinary Magic
Unhistoric Acts
Anne Koval Goose Lane Editions
Carol Bruneau Goose Lane Editions
Dianne Porter Pownal Street Press
Life Sentence
Amy Bell Nimbus Publishing
depend — is a rallying cry, Bruneau says. The artist’s journey through process, passion and persistence is made clear. Both books argue that Pratt and Swim have been undervalued in part because they are women. That theme takes centre stage in Dianne Porter’s Unhistoric Acts: Inside the Women’s Movement on Prince Edward Island. It’s a memoir of sorts of how she went from dentistry to feminist activism, but Porter includes the stories of other unsung heroes of the Island’s women’s movement. Pratt, Swim and Porter each carved out their own presence to stand beside the male view as equals. “My goal, for many years, has been to change the blindness of male chauvinism to include women’s perspectives, their lives and priorities, and to give us both a chance to become better, to share the burden, and to be true to our time,” Porter writes in her book. “When I see the world my granddaughters will grow up in, I know we have made great strides.” Porter shares that in her elementary school in the 1950s, she became known as “the girl who said no” after she yelled “No!” at a teacher who planned to strap her and several other children. She wasn’t yet ten years old, but she passionately rejected corporal punishment in a speech to the principal. No more children were hit with the strap. She moved to P.E.I. in 1971 to take her first job as a dental assistant and brought that attitude with her. She soon met her husband, Peter, a fellow dental graduate and a few years her senior. They married two years later. When setting up their own practice on P.E.I., the Porters took practical steps toward equality such as paying their
Mommy Don’t Sherri Aikenhead staff above industry standards. Porter’s activism increased Nimbus Publishing in 1979, when the mother of three took a position on the province’s child care facilities board. She served until 1986, helping to create programs that provided better childcare, allowing more women to work. This brought her to the centre of the Island’s women’s movement. She tells more of that story with profiles of people such as Ruth Lacey (founder of the Appin Road Children’s Camp for at-risk youth and their families), Kathleen Flanagan (advocate for early childhood educators) and Dianne Hicks Morrow (driver of the Island’s Women’s Network and Women’s Festival). Power, she reveals, is about more than muscles. The women she puts in the history books reveal the inner strength it takes to pursue what is right and to voice your opinions in the right manner to the right people. While all women have, and will always face, a variety of struggles, it’s their strength and determination that make for compelling stories. Whether it starts with a photo, a brush, a piece of material or a frustration, there is power in the collective of a community. ■
SARAH BUTLAND lives in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, and previously spent many years exploring the streets of Moncton, New Brunswick, collecting stories and memories and meeting interesting people. She’s the author of Losing It At 40 and Gaining It At 41.
NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today NEWS FEATURE
Why adults should explore the gentle wisdom and art of children’s books By Nicola Davison
Four new books explore Mi’kmaq and Black culture
T
his month my son becomes a teenager. We’re long past bedtime stories with a picture book propped on my lap, but that doesn’t mean I’ve parted with all the books in our collection. There are some I won’t let go despite age — his or mine. Then again, why shouldn’t adults have picture books on their shelves? There are no rules confining readers by age or genre. Categories are merely a way to organize shelves. It’s not something I pondered much until I released my second book, Decoding Dot Grey, and it was classified as a young adult novel. I hadn’t considered the category while I was writing, so I didn’t censor themes. Prior to publication, I worried some things, like euthanasia and abuse, might be too mature for a fourteen-year-old reader. Then I read a number of YA books and realized teens crave stories of the next stage of life. They don’t want to read about people their age or, God forbid, younger. No matter the age, we all want books that stoke our curiosity, challenge our minds and let us slip into the world of another. As Canadians navigate the path to Truth and Reconciliation, picture books can play a key role in educating across generations. On the news we hear more of the horror of residential schools. Adults are at a loss to explain the history of our country. How do we tell the story — one that is not our own? How do we find a way forward? Judith Doucette tackles these questions in Poppa and His Drum. Born and raised in St. George’s, a little town on the west coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, Doucette is a proud member of the Qalipu First Nation and also sits on
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the St. George’s Indian Band Council. Although written with her grandchild in mind, Doucette says her book will touch adults too. “We are the generation who has seen the residual impact of our ancestors’ culture and heritage having been stripped from them. It’s the older adult who would relate to this book more,” she says. Like a song, Poppa and His Drum is told in rhyme, looking back on Poppa’s painful past. It echoes what happened to Judith’s father, who “grew up being oppressed, bullied and discriminated against for being French-Indian in a colonialized small-town Newfoundland during the 1940s.” Though it has been decades since he was a student, Poppa must be convinced to go to his grandchild’s school to play his drum for the children. “[Survivors] suffer still,” says Doucette, “not realizing times have changed so much, where they can actually go into schools and share their Indigenous culture and heritage with their grand- and some great-grandchildren of today. They feel the shame still, the humiliation of being punished before their classmates for whispering French in their class to their brothers and sisters.” In the story, Poppa is welcomed and applauded by the kids. Encouraged, he sings the “Reconciliation Song.” The lyrics close the book and focus on a more hopeful future. “Our pain will never be forgotten,” says Doucette, “but we can move on and grow from it; that is the essence of Truth and Reconciliation to me.” Some picture books are more like portable art exhibitions or even songs. Alan Syliboy’s forthcoming book, When the Owl Calls Your Name, explores Mi’kmaq spirituality, life and
NEWS FEATURE Atlantic Books Today
death. The story is an extension of “The Owl Song” by his band Alan Syliboy and The Thundermakers. A celebrated artist, musician and bestselling author, Syliboy draws inspiration from Mi’kmaq petroglyphs found throughout Nova Scotia. When the Owl Calls Your Name is described more broadly by the publisher as an “illustrated book for all ages.” Clearly, adults are just as keen to learn about Mi’kmaq history. That includes newcomers to Canada, but when I read a recent news piece profiling new Canadians, one comment stood out to me. The interviewee said people here are friendly, but they don’t invite you into their homes. In a country that prides itself on multiculturalism, it makes me wonder how we can improve. Barine Ngbor thinks we can start with our kids. A Nigerian writer living in Canada, she has been writing from an early age. A bachelor of science graduate, she plans to become a surgeon in order to work with children who have cleft lips. In the note that opens I See Colour, Ngbor writes, “there is not one way to be Black, as Black people have a range of skin shades, physical appearances and cultural backgrounds.” The book celebrates culture in vibrant illustrations with characters from India, Mexico, Nepal, Jamaica and Japan. We’re welcomed into the life of a vivacious eightyear-old Nigerian-Canadian. There’s a double-page spread of Bolu’s hairstyles, from braids and puffs to (my favourite) Space-Buns. But I See Colour also addresses topics like bullying. There’s a student with alopecia, a boy with a skin condition known as vitiligo and a cousin with albinism, who all experience exclusion. “[Children] are usually the ‘learners’ as they’re new to this world and still developing a sense of what’s right and wrong, but there’s still a lot we can learn from them,” says Ngbor. “Nobody is born racist or with pre-loaded stereotypes that determines how to treat others based on how they look. Most of it, if not all, are learned behaviours.” I See Colour invites us to find out more, introducing Winnie Harlow, a JamaicanCanadian supermodel with vitiligo. It prompted me to look her up. Along with a successful modelling career, Harlow has her own line of skin care products. Not only is she comfortable in her own skin, she has made it a source of strength, a good reminder at any age. Apli’kmuj’s Journey is written and illustrated by Braelyn Cyr, who hopes to use her work to “help bridge the gap between traditional ways of knowing and modern-day society.” In the story, an excited and distracted Apli’kmuj (‘rabbit’ in Mi’kmaw) must get to The Gathering without his parents. Guided by the forest animals, plants and even the wind, he manages to find his way, but not without challenges. Opening with a glossary of Mi’kmaw words and pronunciations, the story unfolds in bright spring colours. I imagine flipping back to the glossary, trying to memorize words alongside a child, who’d likely do much better than me. It’s an opportunity to grow your Mi’kmaw vocabulary (Nova Scotia’s original language), but it also touches on the universal experience of being lost. Someone once advised me when you want to have a deep discussion, do it in the car or on a walk. Something about the lack of eye contact lets the words flow. That’s part of the magic of story time: the book between you acts as a wiser, gentler third party. Thinking back to bedtime stories with my child, I realize how books helped us talk about things that might not have come up in normal conversation. Books introduce ideas and invite questions about the world in a safe space. It was during story time we first discussed war, discrimination, racism, climate change, drugs and sex. Even now, with the teen years looming, we talk openly about things, and I credit the portal of picture books. ■ NICOLA DAVISON is a professional photographer and the author of In the Wake and Decoding Dot Grey. Her first novel won the 2019 Margaret and John Savage First Book Award and was a finalist for the Dartmouth Book Award.
Poppa and His Drum Judith M. Doucette Flanker Press
When the Owl Calls Your Name Alan Syliboy Nimbus Publishing
I See Colour Barine Ngbor Monster House Publishing
Apli’kmuj’s Journey Braelyn Cyr Monster House Publishing NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today FICTION FEATURE
Can you step into the same house twice? by Mallory Burnside-Holmes
Photographer Darren Calabrese was called home from Toronto when a brutal tragedy struck his family in New Brunswick. His mother died in an accident and his father needed support. Calabrese and his wife came home. They had just started a family, and as a new father he explored Atlantic Canada through new eyes. “Nurturing my connections to family and my roots against this backdrop of loss has informed every aspect of my life since returning home,” he writes in Leaving Good Things Behind. This photo shows his daughter Harriet walking up the path to his childhood home.
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FICTION FEATURE Atlantic Books Today
“...no person is just one thing; we are all made up of so many threads of being that to ignore them reduces life’s tapestry to a smothering blanket.”
T
his year’s Atlantic Canadian fall fiction lineup has come in with a bang — or make that a Roar. That’s the title of Shelley Thompson’s debut novel and it aptly sets the tone for the emotional high stakes and speed-readability of these three feature books. Each one of these novels digs deep. First, they invite you in and put the kettle on, and then they promptly ask you the big questions. How do you leave home? Return home? Build yourself a home? How do you find safety in your community, identity, body? Especially when bodies are temporary — they get old, they die (or, in some cases, stubbornly do not, as in Lesley Choyce’s The Untimely Resurrection of John Alexander MacNeil). Bodies that conform to societal expectations are celebrated (more on that and motherhood in Willow Kean’s Eyes in Front When Running), while ones that don’t are in danger, as in Thompson’s Roar. Shelley Thompson already has quite the repertoire as a celebrated actor, director and screenwriter, but Roar is her first foray into fiction. Donald McInnes leaves home just shy of high school graduation, believing that she’ll never be able to express her truest self under the roof of her childhood home. A few years later, she returns home for her mother’s funeral, not as the son and brother she left as, but as the daughter and sister she is — to her family’s surprise. Now as Dawn (like the rising sun), she and her family need to learn to navigate the loss of their matriarch and find new ways to relate to each other. In all this, breath, fire, love, anger and a broken-down tractor play pivotal roles. Roar is an adaptation of Thompson’s film Dawn, Her Dad & the Tractor. She felt compelled to revisit these characters in a new way because they still had more to say. “I wanted to write more deeply about the same family. I couldn’t let them go. I felt I hadn’t properly told their whole story, and that was important to me: to really get to know who these people were and what motivated them.” The novel transitions between the perspective of several characters, giving the reader a global sense of the relational complexities at play. No character in this novel is close to perfect; each has their own bristles and burrs that family inevitably rubs up against. Thompson proves on the page her belief that “no person is just one thing; we are all made
up of so many threads of being that to ignore them reduces life’s tapestry to a smothering blanket.” It was intentional for Thompson that Roar “doesn’t focus on the physical changes, or the process of transition, or the things that are and should remain the purview of trans individuals. I hope this story of a family recovering from grief and bereavement and rebuilding to a different familial structure will be recognised by people outside the queer community, who will appreciate the shared experience from a different perspective.” Whether you are already a fan of Thompson’s work or are about to be, you will find meaningful conversation starters and inspirations in her latest creative pursuit. “Everything I’ve tried in my life has, I think, taken me a baby step closer to who I am as a creative person. Writing this novel made me feel like — for now at least — I’ve arrived in a very happy and comfortable creative place,” she shared. She’s already at work on her second novel. Willow Kean’s Eyes in Front When Running begins with a lyric from St. John’s singer-songwriter Ameila Curran: “I’ve got a million regrets and I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done sometimes, but it’s nowhere near sunset and, baby, we’ve got years yet.” The lines immediately ground the reader in a sense of place and also prepare them to meet Cleo Best, the novel’s fiery, quick-witted and unconventional protagonist. In her twenties, Cleo backpacked around the world and was open to adventure however it may have appeared — in a bar, a beer bottle, a handsome stranger or otherwise. Now she’s in her late thirties and in love with her boyfriend, Jamie. The couple is ambivalent about becoming parents, but when Jamie decides he’s more interested in trying than not, Cleo must finally decide her stance on motherhood. This novel explores motherhood in every way imaginable: those who want to conceive and can’t, who conceive and suffer losses, who don’t want to conceive but do and those who are unsure whether parenthood is for them. What this story does best is position all these realities together, without favouring any as morally right or wrong. Kean has an intimate relationship to the story’s subject matter. “I can’t lie, writing the book was a wild ride. I got pregnant two weeks into starting this story, then I had a
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Atlantic Books Today NEWS FEATURE
miscarriage, followed six months later by another pregnancy which, thankfully, worked out. I didn’t get one of those ‘easy’ babies I keep hearing about.” The experience temporarily estranged her from writing, but when she was able to return to it, pregnancy and motherhood were at the front of her mind. “In terms of the portrayal of early motherhood, I was pretty adamant about not sugarcoating anything; Instagram has done enough of that for us. It’s still this big taboo to admit that infant care can be thankless work that makes a lot of women really, really sad. My hope was that even just one woman who had a rough time with it would read it and think, ‘Oh, it wasn’t just me, this is normal.’” Cleo is far from your typical female protagonist. “Cleo is such a flawed character, and I didn’t want to shy away from her flaws because, hey guess what, women can be jerks sometimes, too. I guess this was my way of creating a character I wanted to see more of.” For everyone craving a darkly humoured and grounded take on the reality of motherhood, Eyes in Front When Running is exactly what you’ve been waiting for. The Untimely Resurrection of John Alexander MacNeil is Lesley Choyce’s 103rd published book. In it he resurrects a cast of characters from his 2015 novel, The Unlikely Redemption of John Alexander MacNeil. John Alex has aged 10 years since we first met him at the age of 80, and as much as he resents being thought of as old, he’s constantly referring to himself as such. The awareness of his age, however, doesn’t deter him from putting up a fight against death — literally. Willing himself back to life one night after dying in his sleep, he wakes to find Death sitting at his kitchen table. With a magical realism that is both playful and foreboding, Choyce shows John Alex living the next few weeks of his life trying to get back to normal, which proves difficult as Death turns out to enjoy his company. “I always had a rule for myself to never, ever write a sequel of anything,” Choyce says over a crackling telephone in Lawrencetown, N.S. But a broken rule is a wonderful thing when done right. The first book mystified Choyce by
Roar Shelley Thompson Nimbus Publishing
becoming a smash-hit in Almonte, Ont., population 6,000, where a local bookstore gifted a bottle of wine to the 500th person to buy the novel. That spurred Choyce to give himself the opportunity to revisit a character that captivated the attention of so many. As Choyce ages, he’s found an interest in writing characters who are older. He admits he once might have dismissed them as “just old people.” “But someone like John Alex, who is 90, still very much has a rich life. He’s this unique, feisty, highly individualistic character who’s completely out of step with the times we live in now,” he says, noting that the old man’s friendships and community ties are key to his vitality. Far from advocating for any single perspective of what death is, this story revels in multiple potential meanings. “What fiction should do is explore possibilities,” Choyce says. Destiny, choice, medicine, faith and spirituality are all given their breathing room in the story’s pages. Death itself is positioned as a home we must all eventually enter, but Choyce suggests there are many paths and ways to take that journey. On a final note, Choyce shared, “it’s very hard for writers to know when the story really has finished and to let it go,” which seems to me a lesson in writing, and also perhaps the very lesson John Alexander is challenged with in his triumphant return to the page. Choyce is going on tour with the launch of his new book, and yes, he will be making a stop in Almonte. My favourite thing about reading is talking. These books carve out a space for their readers to have frank conversations, lively debates or healing heart-to-hearts about death, birth and all the life that happens in between those seeming bookends. I’d suggest reading these books as I did, one after the other. Together they create a rich exploration of our times, while considering the eternal questions that mark up the margins of every human story. ■ MALLORY BURNSIDE-HOLMES is a freelance writer and editor living in K’jipuktuk, Halifax. She’s passionate about food, community and knowing what you’re currently reading.
Eyes in Front When Running Willow Kean Breakwater Books
The Unlikely Redemption of John Alexander MacNeil Lesley Choyce Fernwood Publishing
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New Titles for 2023
Phone: 709.739.4477 Toll-free: 1.866.739.4420
www.flankerpress.com
Atlantic Books Today AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION
“One of the best ways to fight bigotry is with queer and trans joy” Tom Ryan and Rhea Rollmann
IN CONVERSATION
22
Tom Ryan is an award-winning author,
Rhea Rollmann is an award-winning
screenwriter and producer. His YA mystery
journalist, writer and radio producer/
Keep This To Yourself was the winner of the
podcaster based in St. John’s, N.L. She’s a
2020 ITW Thriller Award for Best YA Thriller,
founding editor of TheIndependent.ca, and
the 2020 Arthur Ellis Award for Best YA
a contributing editor with PopMatters.com.
Crime Book and the 2021 Ann Connor
Her book, A Queer History of Newfoundland,
Brimer Award. He is the editor of Are We
reveals the queer rights movement in the
Friends Now, a dynamic and exhilarating
province as one of great pride and joy; one
collection of writing from LGBTQ+ youth
of hardship and struggle and ultimately, one
and allies from around P.E.I.
of triumph.
AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION Atlantic Books Today
Are We Friends Now? Tom Ryan, Editor Acorn Press
TR: The anthology I edited, Are We Friends Now, involved me working with young LGBTQIA+ Prince Edward Islanders, who are open with their stories and identities in a way that was unheard of when I was in high school back in the 90s. By contrast, A Queer History of Newfoundland required you to do some serious detective work to dig up personal narratives and historical documents that were often hidden or buried by necessity. How did you approach this project, knowing that a lot of the stories and material you were looking for had taken place underground and behind closed doors? RR: The idea for the book came in part from me spending a lot of time digging through archival records as a journalist, and realizing what a rich queer history existed in the province, but was little known about because no one had pulled it all together in a comprehensive way. I soon realized it was impossible to make coherent sense of the archival records without speaking to people who had lived through the times and events chronicled there. So I began looking for the people mentioned in the archives, and reaching out to them for interviews. I did close to 150 interviews for the book, and that’s where things got really interesting. What inspired them to share their stories was both the realization of how much has changed — socially and politically — in such a relatively short time, but also how precarious some of the improvements our society has made really are. Much of the bigoted rhetoric we hear today from far right politicians in the U.S., or even homegrown bigots like Premier Higgs in New Brunswick, is recycled directly from mid-twentieth century hate propaganda. You worked with youth who grew up in the wake of all the social and political change that is chronicled in my own book. How did you connect and work with these youth, and how do you think they understood the significance of a collection like Are We Friends Now?
A Queer History of Newfoundland Rhea Rollmann Engen Books
TR: To be totally honest, I’m not sure that the significance of the project was front of mind for any of these young writers. I think partly that has to do with the fact that the organizers and I focused our energy on giving them space to be creative. But another piece of the equation is just how much more comfortable young people have become with discussing matters of sexual and gender identity in recent years, even in a small province like P.E.I. I’ve been writing young adult fiction for and about queer teens for over ten years, and in that time I’ve seen a remarkable shift in high schools and youth groups across Canada and the U.S. Young people in both countries are increasingly willing to share their true identities with the world. Recently there’s been a widespread and alarming pushback against this progress. I don’t know anyone who writes positive queer representation for young readers — myself included — that hasn’t been called a groomer, or worse, over the past few years. It really worries me that the safer, more open world we’ve built for queer people of all ages is really under threat, and I hope that we’re able to find ways to maintain a sense of safety among young people who are trying to figure out who they are. Were there any stories you uncovered during your research that really surprised you? RR: I think if I had to single something out as particularly surprising, it would be the broader understandings that emerged of our history. There are certain stereotypes or tropes that have often been perpetuated about N.L., about the place being “conservative,” “Christian,” characterized by “traditional values” and other such vague signifiers that I think were deliberately deployed by the powers-that-be (churches, government officials) to downplay the presence of queerness and other non-hetero-patriarchal values and practices here. Queerness was pervasive here. Same-sex activity was
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Atlantic Books Today AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION
widely practiced in rural communities or same-sex spaces (the fishery, logging camps). People might not have talked openly about it and they might have denied they were “queer,” but it was widespread. There were young people in extremely rural communities identifying as trans before the term had even really entered the province. The recent census data collected by Statistics Canada reinforces this – N.L. turns out to be one of the most gender-diverse places in Canada. And perhaps it always was. What drove some of the activists in the 1970s was their own anger at the double standard. This became particularly urgent, of course, when the AIDS crisis hit. It finally became necessary — as a matter of life or death — to acknowledge that all these people who purported to be straight and cis and monogamous were in fact having all kinds of complex sex and gender lives, and because of the prevailing stigmas and taboos they lacked the education to do so safely. HIV/AIDS had a horrific impact on the province and there has never really been an adequate reckoning of that impact. The other thing I think that really surprised me was the wide variation in how communities responded to queerness. For some folks, they experienced support and positive reinforcement almost everywhere they turned. Yet someone else growing up in the same time period, in another community just a few kilometres up the shore, would experience absolutely horrific, traumatizing, violent homophobia. Some of my interviewees emphasized this point as well: people’s reactions surprised them. Sometimes the most conservative-seeming people would be the ones to stand by them and defend them if they came under homophobic attack, even in the mid-20th century, while sometimes the most progressive and liberal-seeming people would turn and run. People are complex. P.E.I. and Newfoundland are both characterized by island cultures and identities (without forgetting the important role and presence of Labrador in the N.L. case). Do P.E.I.’s island culture and demographic realities have an impact on how queerness develops and is experienced by queer youth and queer people of all ages in that province? TR: Full disclosure, I’m not actually from P.E.I., so I can’t make too many generalizations about the gentle island specifically, but I am from Cape Breton, so I can speak to island culture more generally. People tend to know their neighbours and often have a sense of generational history that’s missing in much of the world. But for someone with a sexual or gender identity that doesn’t fit within the expected template, growing up in this kind of insular environment can be a lonely and painful experience. I think for a long time this resulted in specific variation on the 24
traditional trend of Atlantic Canadian out-migration; queer and trans people leaving their home communities for bigger centres where they could find their own communities, often Halifax or Toronto or even farther afield. I think we’re seeing a real shift in the ways LGBTQIA+ people are engaging with their small towns and rural communities in Atlantic Canada. Some of this shift is characterized by queer families moving to rural areas and becoming involved in local politics, opening businesses and joining various groups and societies, but what excites me the most is the growing presence of Gay-Straight Alliances and LGBTQIA+ Youth Groups in schools and communities around Atlantic Canada. That’s not to diminish pushback and growing pains — attacks on Pride flags and protests against drag events are discouragingly common, for instance — but the fact that young queer people and allies are finding ways to band together and create community in their home communities as opposed to feeling forced to move elsewhere gives me hope. Despite everything, the kids are alright. RR: I wholeheartedly agree. My own experience as a trans woman is that kids find it far easier to understand and engage with the gender and sexual diversity of today’s world than their parents. Here in N.L., we’ve often seen kids take the lead in standing up for their queer and trans classmates and teaching the adults in their lives how to operate in an accepting, tolerant and diverse world. There is a complicated irony in the political right trying to appropriate and weaponize kids’ safety as a way of sowing hate, while in fact kids are more comfortable taking the lead in this beautiful future than many adults who remain stuck in the narrow-minded bigotry and social paranoia in which they were raised. One thing I really appreciated about your collection is the focus you placed on centring queer and trans joy. While we do need more proactive policies and protections to prevent right-wing hatred and violence from spreading, I also think that one of the best ways to fight bigotry is with queer and trans joy. I hope that is the overarching sentiment that emerges from the book — the beauty of these lives lived and the love that propelled activists in their fight to build a better world. That remains the source of queer strength and power. One of my interviewees — a gay Jewish Newfoundlander who drew important parallels between the fight against fascism 80 years ago and today — put it very succinctly: any effort to prevent people from existing or from loving is fundamentally rooted in evil, and must be resisted with constant vigilance and constant, courageous love. ■
AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION Atlantic Books Today
Mi’kma’ki mourns a literary legend by Jon Tattrie
Daniel Paul holds an armful of his books next to the iconic wood carving of Pierre Trudeau.
Photo courtesy of Carrefour Atlantic Emporium
M
i’kmaw Elder Daniel Paul died this year, bringing to an end a memorable literary life in Mi’kma’ki. Patiently, persistently and often with a wry smile, he showed Atlantic Canadians the truth about our collective history. When We Were Not the Savages was first published 30 years ago, it shook the world. The title alone challenged people raised on a Euro-centric view of Atlantic Canada to ask, Who were the savages? Danny himself slyly suggested an answer in selecting his keynote speaker for the 1993 launch: the premier of Nova Scotia, a British-born white man by the name of John Savage. I suspect a similar playful sense of irony was at work when he asked me in 2017 to write his biography. My settler last name isn’t quite as fitting, but my last book was: a biography of Edward Cornwallis, founder of Halifax and permanent enemy of Dan Paul and the Mi’kmaq nation. But he didn’t write it for me, or for the premier. His dedication reveals his motivation: “To the memory of
my ancestors, who managed to ensure the survival of the Mi’kmaw People by their awe-inspiring tenacity and valour in the face of virtually insurmountable odds! For more than four centuries these courageous, dignified and heroic people displayed a determination to survive the various hells on earth created for them by Europeans with a tenacity that equals any displayed in the history of humankind.” He returned to his seminal work and rewrote it as a second edition in 2000, a third edition in 2006, and the fourth and final edition in 2022. He dug deeper and added more insights, more context and increasingly, a focus on Indigenous women and their powerful work. “I am quite certain now that there are no words that could ever express the scope and importance of his work to me in both my personal and professional life or to Mi’kmaq generally,” writes Dr. Pamela Palmater in the introduction to the fourth edition. She’s listed as the chair of Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University, but since the book was released, the university renamed itself Toronto Metropolitan NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION
University to stop celebrating Egerton Ryerson due to his role in creating the residential school system. Dr. Palmater called We Were Not the Savages her “anchor,” a shield against racism and a sword of knowledge. “The so-called ‘Indian problem’ has never been about us. There is nothing wrong with our people; we were not the savages — the leaders of the invading European countries were. This truth has stuck with me ever since.” Over the course of his long life, Daniel Paul wrote hundreds of thousands of words in columns, letters to the editor and to his personal list of supporters. Danny’s writing superpower was his ability to condense his vast learning and thinking into plain words that you could never unhear. His writing is bold and brilliant, bubbling along like a flood river sweeping everything forward. His many foes clung to the branches as he washed the intellectual world from under their feet. When I was interviewing him for his biography, he told me that he would figure out what he, a Mi’kmaw person, wanted — and then figure out how to make white people want the same thing. When a new highway exit was added to Nova Scotia in the 1980s, he noticed the sign read, “Annapolis Royal, established 1605, Canada’s oldest settlement.”
poet swing from Cornwallis’s statue to tell him about all the great and awful things we’ve done in Halifax, the city he was sent to establish in 1749. Cornwallis was simply the fatherly founder, and his imposing statue demanded that you bend your neck and look up to him. But Danny saw a replica of Cornwallis’s 1749 scalping proclamation, calling for the physical destruction of the Mi’kmaq, in a pub in the 1960s. The juxtaposition disturbed him greatly. He thought it should disturb everyone, so he quoted Cornwallis accurately and extensively. Cornwallis wanted to build a Protestant, British-ruled region, and wanted the Mi’kmaq — and the Acadians — gone. He paid government cash to any British person who murdered any Mi’kmaq. He prepared the groundwork for the Grand Dérangement of the Acadians. Danny let white intellectuals try to defend those actions as civilized. They gave it a good go, but by the time the Cornwallis statue was removed from Halifax in 2018, they had lost the public debate. Few mourned the statue’s departure. I watched it swing through the winter air, get dumped on a flatbed truck and hauled off for storage. An eagle soared high above the small crowd. Danny’s second book, published in 2017, is a novel “featuring love, comedy, intrigue, murder, compromise, war
Danny’s writing superpower was his ability to condense his vast learning and thinking into plain words that you could never unhear. “After hearing about it, and viewing it, I contacted the mayor of the Town of Annapolis Royal, the warden of Annapolis County and the Department of Transportation, and voiced my outrage. To their credit, after they were reminded about First Nation existence, the mayor and warden were shocked that they had supported the wording of the sign, and that they had not even briefly considered the existence of American Indian civilizations,” he wrote. They changed the sign to: “Annapolis Royal, established 1605, Stroll Through the Centuries.” Danny knew the power of words and valued solutions that brought people together. His research was legendary. The foundational work for We Were Not the Savages was done in the 1970s and 1980s when he worked for the Department of Indian Affairs and had access to important documents. He found a “warden of the north” view of history that perpetually painted white people as heroic and central, and First Nations as subhuman and expendable. Before Dan Paul set his sights on him, Edward Cornwallis was not a controversial figure. A 1975 National Film Board short called “Ballad to Cornwallis” sees a hippie 26
and peace.” He called it Chief Lightning Bolt. It begins in Mi’kma’ki, centuries ago, in a world that is not “pre-contact,” but thousands of years into a rich and fascinating civilization. It reveals another side to the author: a warm, loving, funny writer who gently begins with a sunrise, a nervous young man named Little Bear and a charming woman named Early Blossom. Roughly 97 per cent of human history in this land was thus: entirely Indigenous. His novel was overshadowed by his nonfiction book in his life, but perhaps in the long run of the future, the two books will be held by the same hands. One offers a brilliant deconstruction of colonized history in Mi’kma’ki, and the other rebuilds the lost world of Mi’kma’ki before the invasions. Together, they create a potent seedbed for our shared home. As Danny wrote, “it is from these ashes of our greatness that we can one day see the Eagle rising through the Eastern Door, giving hope and purpose to a Nation being reborn.” ■ JON TATTRIE is the editor of Atlantic Books Today.
AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION Atlantic Books Today
A Crummey look at the darker side of Mockbeggar Adam and Eve yield to Cain and Abel The Adversary Michael Crummey Penguin Random House
Q. The Adversary is set around the same time and same place as The Innocents, late 18th century in northern Newfoundland. What sparked your desire to return? A. I was kind of intrigued by the notion of writing a companion book to The Innocents in the way that Blake mirrored his Songs of Innocence with the Songs of Experience, turning that world on its head to explore the darker side of our lives. It’s not a sequel. You don’t need to know anything about The Innocents to read The Adversary. But if you have, there’s a lot of light reflecting back and forth. Where The Innocents is a kind of Adam and Eve story about a brother and sister who love each other and survive for each other, The Adversary is a Cain and Abel story about a brother and sister who despise each other and actively wish each other harm. Like everyone else, I’ve been feeling oppressed by the world’s turn to authoritarianism and fascism over the last decade or so. And I decided to explore that dynamic in miniature, recreating those power dynamics operating within the tiny outport community of Mockbeggar. Q. The people we meet in The Adversary often appear to be deeply flawed. Greed and anger drive a lot of the action. Do you observe these traits in real people, and then work them into your writing? Or do they emerge from the characters as you’re writing?
A. It all starts in the real world. Abe Strapp is based loosely on an 18th century figure who embodies all of those things, and he seemed a kind of avatar for the worst of what is happening in our own time and place. The Widow Caines is completely different in how she operates, but both characters are savagely narcissistic and incapable of real empathy. All their relationships are transactional, they are interested only in what they can get from the people and things around them. Which I think also describes a lot of current politicians and CEOs. Q. While you depict a male-dominated time and place, the women in this book stand out. As a modern man writing about women in an earlier time, how did you try to create authentic voices for their experiences? A. Most of Newfoundland history is about men: men’s stories and experiences. But of course there were women living their lives below that surface. I’ve always been interested in asking who they were and what those lives might have been like. There are a couple of instances of successful women in Newfoundland who managed, through quirks in the law and circumstance, to occupy economic and political roles reserved for men. The authenticity of the voices is a mash of research and empathy and parlour trick and sleight of hand. Then you cross your fingers and hope it comes off to a reader. NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION
Q. How did you prepare to write this novel? Any trips or research that really helped bring the story to life?
in 18th-century outport Newfoundland or in the east end of St. John’s in the 21st century.
A. Most of the research was a repeat of the work I did to write The Innocents. Because I was trying to create a mirror image, I used the same source material, the same geography, a lot of the same walk-on characters. It was an interesting process to read the same memoirs and community histories but with a different lens, pulling out incidents and details with this darker, more political story in mind.
Q. Your fans are praying for a trilogy. Do you see a story that would bring you back to this world?
Q. “Bleak,” “isolated” and “dark” are often words applied to your writing. What draws you to such stories, and what drives you to finish writing them? A. I think the place I’m writing about, physically and geographically and historically, is pretty bleak and isolated and often dark. And there’s something in me that is drawn to that. I guess partly it’s trying to look at the world without rose-coloured glasses. And also being amazed by the people who survive those conditions, and in some cases thrive. Life is hard and wearing and confounding, whether you’re living
A. Which fans are these you speak of? I had no plan to write a companion book when I finished writing The Innocents. The idea just kind of crept up on me over the course of a couple of years. I have no idea what comes next for me. But I won’t rule anything out. Q. What other Newfoundland authors are you enjoying currently? A. I loved Willow Kean’s debut Eyes in Front While Running. Hilarious and sharp and moving. Just started William Ping’s novel, Hollow Bamboo, which has been getting a lot of buzz. And I’ve heard a rumour that Eva Crocker has a new book coming this year, which I will be waiting in line for as soon as it hits the stores. ■
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BOOK FEATURE Atlantic Books Today
Drop your phone and open one of these
DOORS to worlds of eldritch magic and lonely spirits
by Dave Howlett
T
he back cover to Doors, the second collection of comics by Cape Breton, N.S., native Angus MacLeod, invokes Aldous Huxley’s quote from his book, The Doors of Perception: “There are things known ... and things unknown ... and in between them are the Doors.” Doors between this world and unknown realms beyond are featured in many of the stories in MacLeod’s latest offering, but the stories themselves could be considered doors of a sort as well — gateways to earlier eras and lifetimes, as well as storytelling traditions that recall not only various myths and legends, but comic book storytelling from previous eras as well. MacLeod explains, “I find the old Gaelic stories have a lot of concepts that lend themselves to stories and it’s a largely unused resource. I’m sure reading Poe, Lovecraft (My “Joe the Fisherman” story has a heavy Lovecraft bent) and Robert E. Howard has had a big influence, along with the many comics I’ve read.” MacLeod, who also teaches Gaelic online through the website Explore Gaelic, explores Norse mythology in stories like “Between-Time” and “Combat,” both of which feature the warrior maidens known as Valkyries bearing fallen mortals to the afterlife of Valhalla. The format of these stories — short tales which usually involve eldritch magic, lonely spirits and extradimensional visitors, often with a romantic or macabre twist (sometimes both at once) — recalls the black and white horror/fantasy magazines released
Angus MacLeod
by publishers like Warren in the 1970s, or even the EC Comics of the 1950s. But MacLeod insists the similarity is purely coincidental. “I didn’t intentionally set out to produce something with a 50s, E.C. vibe; I just like doing short stories!” The influence of an artist like Bernie Wrightson and his legendary DC Comics Swamp Thing series can be seen in a story like NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today BOOK FEATURE
Don’t be
a f ra i d , reading
can
.
grow on you
SOS SORCIÈRES Written and illustrated by Camille Perron-Cormier 80 pages 978-2-89750-309-3 19,95 $
BOUTON D’OR ACADIE boutondoracadie.com
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“Bog Beast” — not just in terms of its muck-monster protagonist, but also in MacLeod’s elegant brushwork. The author, however, is quick to acknowledge a wider variety of influences. “Wrightson definitely influenced me. Also a lesser known but equally brilliant artist from Gananoque named Gene Day. He drew Master of Kung Fu for Marvel Comics. Lesser but important influences would be Wallace Wood, Gene Colan and even a bit of Neal Adams. For the writing I’d have to say Swamp Thing, The Sandman and V for Vendetta, along with too many others to name.” Doors to the past are clearly ones that MacLeod loves to pass through; few of the stories in Doors feature a modern setting, and the ones that do are still haunted by the past. Both “The Man In The Shop” and “The Hag’s House” feature present-day characters who encounter visitors from earlier eras. Readers are unlikely to see smartphones or tablets or any mention of social media, but that’s part of the appeal of MacLeod’s work. His “doors” offer an escape from the anxieties of the modern world, even if his protagonists are instead plagued by the anxieties of the past. These doors are far more likely to open on a lush forest, a besieged castle or the deck of a storm-tossed ship, rather than an urban centre or a modern office tower. However, according to MacLeod, this emphasis on stories set in the natural world, and his seeming rejection of modernity, is largely dictated by the subject matter. “The choice to use natural locales for the stories was largely dependent on the stories themselves but, since I’ve always lived rurally, I’m sure that has an influence too. I guess I do tend toward more rural settings, but I also do some stories within cities. I find rural settings more interesting to draw. Too many straight lines in cities!” Perhaps appropriately, MacLeod still works with traditional materials like brushes and pens to create his comics, rather than relying on tools such as Photoshop. This lends MacLeod’s art a handmade quality that digitally created comics can never quite replicate. Doors leads readers to many places and situations that are fantastical, romantic and occasionally even horrifying, but ultimately, it’s less these doors and what they open on, and more the ordinary folks who inhabit these thresholds, that are of interest to MacLeod. “I find myself drawn to stories of fantasy/horror, but with a focus on the people in the stories rather than the fantasy/horror aspect,” he explains. “The people have to be interesting. My stories take the direction the characters and circumstances seem to me to dictate, and don’t follow usual story-telling patterns.” In other words, MacLeod merely makes his characters aware of these doors. It’s up to the characters themselves — and the readers — to pass through them to wherever they might lead. ■ DAVE HOWLETT manages the Halifax location of Strange Adventures Comix & Curiosities, and is the writer/artist behind such comics as The Makers, Scenester and Slam-a-Rama, while also providing art for The Last Paper Route (written by Sean Jordan & Alex Kennedy). He has written about film for The Coast magazine, and was also the co-host (with Rachelle Goguen) of the Living Between Wednesdays comics podcast from 2015-2019. He lives in Dartmouth, NS, with his wife Hillary and his cats Fonda & Lester.
BOOK FEATURE Atlantic Books Today
“I was writing to you and your generation” by Shannon Webb-Campbell
One Man’s Journey: The Mi’kmaw Revival in Ktaqmkuk Elder Calvin White Memorial University Press
R
eading Elder Calvin White’s One Man’s Journey: The Mi’kmaw Revival in Ktaqmkuk is a homecoming. White’s journey begins in Epwikek/Flat Bay, which is a Mi’kmaq community on the coast of southwestern Newfoundland, where he first learned how to hunt, fish and gather. White shares stories of his mentors, and the Mi’kmaq families he grew up with on the land. Relations like the Benoits, Sheppards, Legges, Mitchells, Cormiers, Kings, Prehsyons, Youngs and my family, the Webbs, many of whom are still fighting to be recognized by the provincial and federal government. Instead of focusing on the politics, White focuses on the Mi’kmaq movement through history, responsibility, philosophy and its people. White writes: “Flat Bay East, locally known as Muddy Hole, received its name from the nearby estuary with a muddy bottom that played host to eels in late fall and winter. Less than a mile west of Muddy Hole is Birchy Brook, also called ‘the Webb’s’ in the late 1800s up to the turn of the century due to John Webb’s family occupying the area.” As he situates readers in place, and offers a map of the territory for us to locate via the Eurocentric understanding of land, White argues: “These families occupied Flat Bay with strong Mi’kmaw roots and would self-identify as French Indians or English Indians in various census reports throughout the years. Their identification was based on the language they spoke and could more accurately be labelled as French/ English-speaking Indians rather than just French/English Indians.” To read about my Webb family, and the Mi’kmaq history of Epwikek/Flat Bay in a book published by Memorial University Press, is profound. I felt seen and recognized. Not just as a writer, or scholar, but as kin. My father Kevin Webb was born and reared in Flat Bay not far from White, and faced similar prejudice and discrimination. “I didn’t grow up with drums, rattles and feather. I grew up in the woods, learning how to catch eels, go hunting, fishing, and boil lobsters on the beach. Everyone else in Flat
Bay grew up the same way,” says White. “I worked with your grandfather in the woods. I know what kind of worker he was. It wasn’t about drums and rattles and dreamcatchers. It was about a way of life, a very important way of life.” White has spent over 50 years advocating for Indigenous recognition and rights, and has been recognized by the Order of Canada and of Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as an honorary doctorate. White’s One Man’s Journey focuses on the reclamation and restoration of pride in Mi’kmaw culture in Newfoundland. White shares stories of my great-great grandmother Mary Webb, who was a well-respected midwife and healer in Flat Bay. He writes: “All the Elders I heard stories about, such as Mary Webb and Mattie Mitchell, were more than legends to me, they were connections to the past. My association with my grandfather, his grandfather Mitchell White and Mattie Mitchell empowered me to become an advocate for Indigenous justice.” In fact, White tells me they just broke ground at the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation band office where they are erecting a building in Mary Webb’s honour. The book is dedicated to his grandfather John Mitchell White, and features cover art by his son Nelson White, a renowned painter. “I was writing to you and your generation. People with an education,” says White. “I want young people like you to realize that you don’t have to come from the rich and the powerful in society to make a change. All you need to have is the truth, and the courage to face that truth.” ■ SHANNON WEBB-CAMPBELL is of Mi’kmaq and settler heritage. Her books include: the forthcoming Re: Wild Her (Book*hug 2025), Lunar Tides (2022), I Am a Body of Land (2019) and Still No Word (2015), which was the recipient of Egale Canada’s Out in Print Award. Shannon is a PhD candidate at the University of New Brunswick, and the editor of Visual Arts News Magazine.
NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today BOOK FEATURE
“Get up offa that thing, and write”
Whiteout: How Canada Cancels Blackness George Elliott Clarke Vehicule Press
by Evelyn C. White
T
hose familiar with the fierce work ethic and signature funk grooves of James Brown are likely to detect similar traits in the oeuvre of author George Elliott Clarke. Whiteout: How Canada Cancels Blackness marks, by my count, Clarke’s thirty-seventh publication in the past four decades; nearly a book annually since the release of Saltwater Spirituals and Deeper Blues (1983). “His style is unique, echoing his deep spirituality and feeling for the history of his people,” noted a reviewer about his debut offering. The author has since delivered a waterfall of other poetry volumes, plays, novels, children’s books, edited anthologies, collections of criticism, a memoir and a record album. Hence, I can easily imagine Clarke tendering, with his characteristic élan, a James Brown-inflected directive to floundering scribes of all stripes: “Get up offa that thing, and write ‘till you feel better.” Readers ready for an unbridled exploration of race relations in Canada will rejoice in Whiteout, an engrossing collection of essays in which Clarke delineates the ways in which African-Canadians have been disenfranchised (at best) in a nation that “defines itself primarily in opposition to the United States.” Contrasting the status of African-Americans to that of Blacks in his native land, Clarke ventures that the latter have “no constitutional, pop, cultural, economic, legal, or political clout, especially when regarded nationally.” About his impetus for now releasing what he termed “fugitive” texts, a jovial Clarke, 63, said, in an e-mail: “My mortality! I pray that the good Lord spares me for a few more years. …However, it is better to publish while I still have a say than when … I will have no say, being dead.” In addition to the dearth of Blacks in Canada (three per cent of the population compared to nearly 14 per cent in the U.S.), Clarke, all jokes aside, attributes the country’s “Negrophobia” to its overall identity crisis. “It is difficult enough to figure out what it means to be Canadian, let alone African Canadian,” he asserts in Whiteout. “Left pretty much to its own devices, the white majority in Canada exudes a kind of ideal … immaculate, politic whiteness.” Reared in North End Halifax, Clarke brings a profundity to his reflections on the enclave that once abutted the
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Bedford Basin. “It is a telling Canadian irony that the most famous Black community in the country is one that no longer exists,” he writes. “The perpetual, if now spectral, existence of Africville … underlines the phantasm that is race discourse in Canada.” Offering a fresh perspective on the many Africvillerelated books that have been released since the community was bulldozed in the late 1960s, Clarke notes a glaring omission. “The literary imagination of Africville is no innocent endeavour but rather a quarrel over Lebensraum — I use the Nazi term conscientiously — that is to say, over whether an identifiably, verifiably Black community may exist in Canada, not on the basis of segregation but on the basis of choice,” Clarke writes. As with his appraisal of Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), a novel by white South African author Alan Paton, Clarke decries the Africville-centred Reparations (2006) by Halifax writer Stephen Kimber as a “white-liberal ‘redemptive’ anti-racist” novel. Humour a hallmark of Clarke’s work; he also dismisses as “a gift to morticians,” Africville (2020), a novel by Black American writer Jeffrey Colvin, for its preponderance of dead and “Almost Gone” characters. In short, Clarke asserts that most white Canadians and “borderline whites” (mixed-race folk with skin tones that can shield them from blatant bigotry) remain clueless about the complex contours of racism. On that note, Clarke does not shy away from discussing Whiteout against the backdrop of the 2020 controversy that saw him publicly criticized for his professional liaison with a poet who’d been imprisoned for killing Pamela George, an Indigenous woman. “Having just been cancelled by the ignorant and the hateful, the yellow-journalistic and the blacklisters, I could fear my heyday was past,” Clarke said, in an e-mail. “When I reread the selected essays, [I thought] ‘There’s incisive stuff here. Them that have ears, let ‘em hear!’” ■ EVELYN C. WHITE is the author of Alice Walker: A Life. A resident of Halifax, she is passionate about okra.
EXCERPTS Atlantic Books Today
“Your gut is ripped apart” An excerpt from Gutsy by Heather Fegan
T
he treatment I was receiving in the hospital wasn’t working. I had been there nearly two weeks and I was only getting worse. I didn’t even have to actually eat now to have the sharp, stabbing pains rip across my abdomen. One day a cupcake came with my lunch tray — a beautiful white cupcake with vanilla icing. (It may have been a trick to get me to eat something.) I touched nothing on the tray, but I saved that cupcake, waiting for the perfect moment. Later, when I decided I’d been looking at it for far too long, I couldn’t resist. I took a tiny bite. The cake barely touched my tongue when my stomach muscles clenched, and it felt like my insides were twisting and turning, warning me not to eat any more. The doctors decided the intravenous steroids weren’t working anymore. A person could only depend on TPN for so long. The flare-up was out of control, too severe to tame into remission this way. It was September 2002 and I’d been on the ninth floor of the VG hospital for nearly two long weeks. Dr. Kareemi was out of town, but Dr. Desmond Leddin, the head of the division of digestive care and endoscopy, had taken over my case. He decided it was time to sit down and discuss the situation. I had been dreading the meeting. Usually, the doctors just pulled the curtain around my hospital bed to create some “privacy” when they wanted to talk. But this time, I’d shuffled up the hallway of the hospital, making my way up to the conference room, so tired and weak I could barely stand. The short walk from my room felt like miles, but I refused to use a wheelchair. I could walk on my own. My mom had to push the IV pole, weighed down as it was with its monitors and bags of liquid dripping into the central line that was inserted in the major vein of my arm. I had no strength to push. The thought running through my mind as I made my way up the hall was that this conference room was where doctors gathered families to deliver bad news, or where patients were faced with crucial decisions. I was only nineteen years old and felt it was truly unfair that I was in this situation. The fact that all these busy doctors were making time to sit down in a meeting with me was frightening. I had a feeling I was not going to want to hear what they had to say. Leafy green plants decorated the conference room, accenting the stark white walls. A grey oval table sat in the middle
Gutsy: Living My Best Life with Crohn’s Disease & Ulcerative Colitis Heather Fegan Nimbus Publishing
of the room. There wasn’t much more to it. Taking a seat at the table, my mom beside me and my dad beside her, I left several empty chairs to distance myself from Dr. Leddin — a tall, broad man with an authoritative aura, but who was really just a big teddy bear. He sat at the head of the table. A panel of professionals sat across from us: Dr. Stacey Williams, the young resident gastroenterologist, Dr. Christopher Jamieson, a talented surgeon, and two other men I was not familiar with in white lab coats. I felt small and timid facing these doctors, waiting for them to lay it all out. Something, they said, had to be done because I wasn’t getting any better. In fact, I was only getting worse. This is one of the worst cases we’ve seen in a while... Your gut is ripped apart... Hardly any tissue left... Tiny ulcers have exploded throughout the intestines… The doctors’ comments bombarded me. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst, they’d given me an eight. I was in horrible condition with few options. They told me I could try yet more medication — this time, a new experimental drug called Remicade. The known side effects are like those from chemotherapy. Other side effects? They didn’t know. It would be a long process, with more hospitalizations as the drug destroyed my immune system. They didn’t even know if it would help. Or … I could have surgery, a major surgery. They could remove the diseased part of my insides and then — maybe — I could have my life back. My parents asked question after question, but I just sat there, stone-faced, listening to what was being said. Once they all finished talking, the room was quiet. It was my turn; everyone faced me, anticipating what I might say. They wanted to know what I was thinking. I was silent. Finally, Dr. Leddin spoke. He told me I had a very good poker face — the best he had ever seen. When they were finished, I left the conference room and shuffled back down the hallway to my room, still silent, my mom pushing the IV pole for me once again. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. We crept along in silence, past the kitchen on the right, the nurses’ station on the left, and finally into room 91A, where I collapsed onto my bed, into my boyfriend’s arms, and burst into tears. NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today EXCERPTS
Weaving peace in the art of Mi’kmaw basketry The Art of Mi’kmaw Basketry (excerpt) by Malglit Pelletier
I
n 1993 I came back home to We’koqma’q. A nurse was needed in our area to be a liaison. Better relationships were needed between the First Nation communities and the hospital. It felt like the right thing to help with. Now that I was back home, my mother and I would sit down and make baskets together again. She was so passionate about her basketry. She would say to me, “We’re going to make baskets now, tu’s. I’ll only be done when I’m gone.” Even when mom and I were making baskets together, we were in our own little cocoon, our own little space. It was spiritual. Sometimes we wouldn’t talk to one another for a long stretch while weaving. That’s the thing about making baskets — you’re so focused that you forget about everything else. After a while my mother would hold one up and say, “Look at my basket. This is not a craft. This is fine art.” You’re creating something, even when you aren’t sure how it’ll look. You’re just doing it. Different colours or patterns — eventually they all come together and they all match. When we finish making a basket, we want people to see that it is a work of art. Sometimes I lose myself in the work and my designs end up somewhere I didn’t plan at all. Then I look up at the time and wonder where all the hours went. For example, I made a round, ball-shaped basket and I don’t know how in the world I thought it up. It just came to be. I also use different twists for the decorations. Sometimes, I look at one of my baskets and wonder, “How did I make that jikiji’jk so small?” It took me a while to get to this point where I can weave different styles and designs. I do quillwork and moose tufting as well, and I like to put those into my baskets when I can. The more you do, the deeper you get into basketry. When I weave, it’s like there is a special spirit inside me telling me how to do things. It’s more than just me working. It’s a deep passion. I feel connected to my ancestors because they too were once sitting here weaving.
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The Art of Mi’kmaw Basketry Edited by shalan joudry, photographs by Holly Brown Bear Formac Publishing
Malglit Pelletier shifts the notion of visual artistry, moving us to see the creation of art as not only a physical act, but a spiritual one.
EXCERPTS Atlantic Books Today
Works by Malglit Pelletier
Even though she was raised in a basket-making home with famous weaver parents, Abe and Rita Smith, Della Maguire didn’t start weaving until she befriended acclaimed weaver Caroline Gould and her daughter Malglit Pelletier. NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today EXCERPTS
An excerpt from Four Seasons of Nova Scotia by Len Wagg
Four Seasons of Nova Scotia Len Wagg Nimbus Publishing
The eternal tree Generations of Nova Scotians travelling between Halifax and Truro on Highway 102 would pause for a moment to contemplate the beautiful red oak tree standing alone in a field next to the road. It marked the start of road trips, and was a sure sign you were close to home. People married under it. Children chose to celebrate birthdays amid its splendour. Photographer Len Wagg took thousands of photos of it over the years — including these iconic four photos, presented in his hypnotic new book, Four Seasons of Nova Scotia. But in September 2022, Hurricane Fiona destroyed the 300-year-old tree, a small note of sorrow amid the greater suffering. Nova Scotians still glance to the empty field as they pass, remembering “the tree,” and a lost sign home.
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Reviews
REVIEWS Atlantic Books Today
THESE BOOKS WERE REVIEWED FROM ADVANCED GALLEYS PROVIDED BY THE PUBLISHERS.
Pageboy sheds the livery by E.R. Zarevich
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pageboy, historically, was a servant. They were clad in the livery and colours their masters selected for them. They couldn’t speak unless spoken to first. Even then, it was a dangerous thing to speak at all. And they were lucky if they were ever called by their proper names. Nova Scotian actor Elliot Page, author of Pageboy, was doing more than just making a clever pun when he decided on this title for his tellall memoir. He’d settled on the perfect word to describe what his life was like as an actor before he officially transitioned to male in December 2020. Readers can expect to be shocked by the dark understory behind Page’s career-establishing lead role in Juno, and the sexist micromanaging of the publicity team that left him emotionally scarred for years. While still publicly identifying as a female, but privately aware of being male, Page was called upon to play two parallel roles at once in 2007, the year of his supposed triumph as a star. On the film screen, a pregnant teenager. In front of the paparazzi cameras, a dainty and feminine It Girl. “I was planning on wearing jeans and a western (ish) shirt to Juno’s world premiere. I thought it was a cool look, and it had a collar. That’s fancy, right? I thought,” he writes. “When the Fox Searchlight publicity team learned about my outfit, they urgently took me to Holt Renfrew on Bloor Street, with a dramatic rushing that is characteristic of the Hollywood circulatory system. I suggested a suit. They said I should wear a dress and heels.” Page’s co-star wasn’t subjected to the same humiliating experience of being dressed up like a doll with a fixed smile. “Michael Cera rocked sneakers, slacks, and a collared shirt. He looked fancy to me. I wonder why they didn’t take him to Holt Renfrew. I guess he had nothing to hide, he was approved. He fit the part.” Page approaches his own life story throughout Pageboy like a true Canadian novelist. His prose style is down-toearth, conversational, yet with a touch of unpretentious elegance which is not unlike Margaret Atwood’s refined social critique pieces or Alice Munro’s eloquent autobiographical tales. There is no off-putting, overly arrogant bragging to
Pageboy Elliot Page HarperCollins
be found about his fabulous success as an actor, which is, unfortunately, the bane of many other celebrity authors’ memoirs. There are some lively, boastful passages about his sex life, in the periods of his life when sex was (finally) satisfying for him, but these can be either thoroughly enjoyed, ignored and/or forgiven, or appreciated for not being tactlessly overdetailed or over-the-top, depending on the reader. There is no showing off, there is just showing. As a memoirist, Page only prioritizes events from his life that are relevant, organizing a navigable storyline for his migration into what is, for him and only him, the correct gender, sexual, and body identities. Though the happenings themselves are not quite linear, they’re easy enough to follow if you pay close enough attention. Pageboy is an approachable and relatable chronicle to read for anyone who has undertaken the same journey, whether it be transitioning, coming to terms with same-sex attraction or even slowly navigating acceptance into any sort of subculture that danger and societal shunning accompanies. For any reader who is not well-acquainted with these experiences, the benefit of reading Pageboy is education. You will upgrade past the point of regarding trans issues as a detachable debating point on the news and in YouTube videos and instead become intimately acquainted with a real transgender person who is both a public figure and a full, reasonable, and understandable human being. Page himself has moved past Juno, past Hard Candy, past Inception, and most definitely past To Rome with Love, into a new chapter of his life where he exerts complete and long-delayed control as an independent artist. Pageboy reflects that. This book is more than Elliot Page’s autobiography, it is his manifesto to the world. He will never be dressed up in the wrong clothes or addressed by the wrong name ever again. He, rightfully, claims the name Pageboy but refuses the livery. ■ E.R. ZAREVICH is a writer and teacher from Burlington, Ont. Her research journalism has appeared in Women in Higher Education, Jstor Daily, Russian Life and The Calvert Journal, among others. NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today REVIEWS
P.E.I. from the air shows 85 years of changing island landscapes by Mathias Rodorff
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new book by Dr. Joshua MacFadyen offers an unprecedented view of the changes Prince Edward Island’s communities faced between 1935 and 2020. Time Flies: A History of Prince Edward Island from the Air illustrates the author’s argument that the development of land use in Prince Edward Island is “most evident from the air.” However, it is the focus on aerial photography combined with the use of historical maps, statistics and digital datasets that offer an unprecedented “view of rural, urban, and coastal land use.” This method can be applied not just to Canada’s smallest province, but to other provinces or communities as well. The historical transformation of land use and infrastructure in rural, urban and coastal areas are complemented by a “discussion of what defines nature” and an analysis of key developments in the economical, social and cultural sectors. By showing these repercussions, MacFadyen shows the significant impacts of human activities on their environment. As such, Time Flies is a relevant contribution the ongoing “Anthropocene” debate, which refers to the unofficial geological time scale when human activities started to significantly impact the planet’s ecosystems and climate. As the director of the Lab for Geospatial Research in Atlantic Canadian History, located at the University of Prince Edward Island, MacFadyen supervises the digitization of “historical maps and geospatial characteristics of rural food and energy systems in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” For this book, MacFadyen processed, together with a team of student research assistants employed at the lab, the aerial photographs and historical maps in the Geographic Information System and the National Topographic Series. Chapter 1 shows the connection between population growth and changes in primary industries. It guides the reader through the history and developments of the various agricultural sectors. Supported by statistics and newspaper articles, the author evaluates the mutual impacts of political goals, population growth and growing economic competition on a rapidly increasing global market for agricultural goods. The effects of transportation infrastructure for rural communities, and the urban development of Prince Edward 38
Times Flies Dr. Joshua MacFadyen Island Studies Press
Island, are the focus of this book. “As the number of farms declined and population continued to rise, new houses and new communities sprang up to support the emerging commercial agriculture, aquaculture, and tourism sectors.” In the first two chapters the potential of aerial photographs illustrates the graphic description of the transformation processes the various rural, urban and coastal communities faced within 85 years. The scale strengthens this graphic description by illustrating the impacts of infrastructural changes, from the effects a small asphalt road had on a single farm to the construction of the impact building the Confederation Bridge and the TransCanada Highway had on entire communities. In Chapters 3 and 4, various aspects are addressed: the retreat of farmland, deforestation, ribbon and subdivision development and the intended and unintended impacts, of infrastructural projects, like bridges, ferries, highways or simple roads. In Chapter 4, the author completes his study with a stronger focus on the natural habitats by looking at impacts of land use in coastal and island habitats as well as the efforts to counter the effects of climate change, such as the “well-documented cases of erosion on Robinson Island.” In this chapter, it is argued convincingly the reasons for coastal erosion in Prince Edward Island cannot be found in the “abstract” effects of climate alone, but in the direct effects “of attracting residential and recreational developments” along the coastline. Elaborately written, clearly structured with a wealth of written, visual and digital sources, Time Flies illustrates a groundbreaking combination of research methods that show to any reader the potential benefits of using aerial photography and creating digital datasets. Hopefully, this book will encourage more similar research projects focusing on the environmental history of other fast-changing communities in Atlantic Canada, like the Annapolis Valley and Halifax Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia, or around the city of Moncton in New Brunswick. ■ MATHIAS RODORFF is research manager at the Gorsebrook Research Institute at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, and managing editor of the Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society.
REVIEWS Atlantic Books Today
WWI novel an immersive account of Black resilience
Shovels Not Rifles Gloria Ann Wesley Formac Publishing
by Clinton Davis
D
elving deep into the tales of our shared Black history in the Atlantic region, Shovels Not Rifles emerges as a standout narrative. In this fiction based on real events, Gloria Ann Wesley weaves a tale of sacrifice, determination and hope, bringing to life the stories of No. 2 Construction Battalion veterans. It’s a compelling read for both avid students of war, World War I and of the Black experience during that era. The story follows our protagonist, Wilbur “Will” Coleman, driven by a promise to fight for change. His battles against discrimination are a reflection of an era. While racism has evolved since the 1910s to be less overt, the essence of the narrative resonates with many of us: the enduring fight for acceptance, validation and a place in history. Evolving through the challenges of war and prejudice, Will’s story makes him a symbol of the Black Atlantic experience, back then and today. Raised in Toronto, but having called New Brunswick home these last 14 years, I’ve grown deeply connected with the challenges and beauty of Black existence in the Maritimes. Our region’s rich history, often overshadowed, finds light in Wesley’s work, offering a focused lens on the often obscured Black history of Atlantic Canada. Wesley’s narrative shines in its depth and authenticity. She masterfully brings characters to life, drawing readers into the experience of their aspirations, fears, frustrations and what it feels like to be considered “less.” While the backdrop is undeniably war, the real battle is for identity, recognition and respect. The pages drip with emotion — everywhere, but especially on the harrowing battlefields of France, where Coleman’s journey is, at its core, a coming-of-age story shaped by the harsh realities of war and societal prejudice. In many ways, Coleman’s youth and naïveté cast a deceptive veil over his perceptions. He fervently believes that fighting for his country will secure a rightful place for him and his community in society. He especially wishes this for his mother, and for the love of his life, Althea. This idealism, while heart-wrenching, showcases his indomitable spirit. Although some modern readers might perceive Coleman as attempting to appease white society, his resilience paints a picture of a young man with an unwavering belief that he
can influence a future where equality is attainable. As a Black man, the weight of reading Coleman’s story was overwhelming at times. It mirrors the complex duality many of us face: external battles in tumultuous times and internal ones against racial prejudices. This duality intensifies the reading experience, as one realizes that the adversities faced by Coleman remain challenges for many even today. Witnessing the culmination of the protagonist’s journey in the epilogue, it’s clear that the obstacles faced during the war had lasting implications for him and his comrades. Wesley’s portrayal of the protagonist’s reunion with old comrades, especially Derek Jones, emphasizes the passage of time and the strength of bonds formed in adversity. The events in the story echo the contemporary challenges faced by Black communities across the Atlantic region. Our ongoing battle against systemic prejudice and bias underscores the importance of recognizing our shared history. Yet, amid these challenges lies an unwavering hope, a belief in a brighter future — a sentiment that Wesley captures with remarkable finesse. Gloria Ann Wesley doesn’t just tell a story; she offers a reflection — a mirror that compels Black readers to confront the realities of our shared past and present. Shovels Not Rifles is more than just a historical account; it’s a tribute to our shared legacy, to the unyielding spirit that has been passed down generations. It navigates the tumultuous waters of war, and arrives at a destination of hope, recognition and respect. Through her intricate storytelling, Wesley has gifted the Atlantic Black community, and the nation, from any culture, a legacy — a story that is as much ours as it is of the No. 2 Construction Battalion. To every person in the Atlantic region and around the world, I’d say this: immerse yourself in this tale. It’s a reminder of Black resilience, challenge and unyielding spirit. It comes highly recommended for those who seek to understand, celebrate, and carry forward the legacy of Black Atlantic Canadians. ■ CLINTON DAVIS is the host, artist and producer of the BlackLantic Media Podcast.
NUMBER 98 | FALL 2023
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Atlantic Books Today EXCERPTS
State of the Ark
An excerpt from Bright Future by Jeremy Hull
Edited by Lesley Choyce Pottersfield Press
Maria always cooked too much food. Stacks of leftovers rotated through her refrigerator from top to bottom on their way to the bin. The disposal cycle was maintained by Mr. Robutler. The auto-drone oversaw operations around the apartment, with two exceptions. Maria tended to every aspect of the cooking. Even when she served printed food, she programmed the recipes. The Auto-Pair took care of Dougie. While Maria was baking, broiling, and basting, the care drone tended her son and kept him entertained. She placed a roast in the middle of the table. “I want Dougie to have options.” Maria spoke to a tablet while she carved the beef. She’d erected the device at the head of the table, where her husband sat when he was home, so she could face him when they ate together. Alvin was taking his dinner at his tiny desk, millions of miles away, in his crew quarters, where he could watch his wife prepare the table from his computer screen. He laughed. “He’ll have options for a week.” Besides the roast, Maria had prepared a pot of soup, a large salad, a loaf of fresh sourdough, and a lasagna that was heavy with layers of printed bechamel. Maria took her seat across from her husband and poured a glass of wine. “Yes, well, he is growing.” Alvin poked at his freeze-dried supper. “Will he be joining us?” he asked. Maria shrugged while she took a drink. Alvin took a deep breath. “Where is he?” She rolled her eyes. “I’d imagine he’s right where he always is.” Alvin shook his head. “What does the doctor say?” Maria looked at her son. Dougie was sitting across the table, wearing a vacant expression. He was much further away than Alvin. Dougie was riding a surgically implanted uplink straight into the virtual dimension. Direct neural experience supplanted his clumsy sensory interface. His body was a bag of viscera that was all about as useful to Dougie as Maria’s appendix was to her. “The doctor says he’s malnourished.” The doctor had, in fact, reported a twelve percent reduction in Dougie’s bone density. Her son’s atrophied muscles spread over his chair like a bag of yogurt. “Have you spoken with him?” Alvin asked. She smiled. 40
“He sends postcrypts.” Alvin blinked. “What do they say?” Maria watched Dougie’s vacant eyes. “They say, ‘Welcome to Bright City.’ ” Alvin frowned. “What the fuck is Bright City?” She laughed. “That is the game our son plays. It’s how he makes a living.” She raised her glass. “He’s an explorer, like his father.” Alvin took a deep breath. “When’s the last time he ate something?” Maria thought about it, but she wasn’t paying attention. The Auto-Pair fed Dougie through a bio-patch most of the time. “I’ll hook him up to the metabolizer tonight,” she said. Alvin dropped his fork. “That machine is no substitute for food.” Maria plucked a green from the salad bowl and nibbled at a corner. Despite her bountiful table, her plate was empty. “Actually,” she said, “studies show –” Alvin slammed his desk. “I don’t give a damn about studies!” Maria took another sip of wine and watched Alvin’s anger give way to desperation. His head dropped into his hands as if it carried a burden too heavy for his shoulders. “What are we going to do with him?” Maria finished her drink. “We could let him transition,” she said. Alvin’s mouth fell open. He stammered when he found his tongue. “You’d do that to our son?” She topped up her glass. “C’mon, Al, we’re all uploading to the cloud eventually.” Her husband almost choked. “He’s fifteen, Maria!” She waved a hand over the apartment. “You want him to stay here for¬ever?” Alvin crossed his arms. “What do you want to do with the body, Maria? Dump it in the trash?” Maria took a deep breath. She nodded at Dougie. “You ever wonder what he does in there?” Alvin shook his head. “What?” “I went to visit him,” she said. Alvin’s face twisted. “We agreed not to indulge him.”
Staff Picks The Road Years Rick Mercer Penguin Random House Canada
Editor Jon laughed four times just reading the introduction to Rick Mercer’s new memoir, The Road Years: A Memoir, Continued. His latest book returns to his iconic TV show, the Rick Mercer Report, and takes us along for the wild and hilarious ride. How did he get Prime Minister Stephen Harper to tuck him in? Which Canadian singer agreed to teach tobogganing safety? And why did Jann Arden take him to a zoo for an unscheduled appointment? The answers are inside. Uttering the Unutterable Louis F. Groarke McGill-Queen’s University Press
Louise Groarke has spent a professional lifetime pondering the power of prose as a professor of philosophy at St. Francis Xavier University. “Literature takes the seemingly mundane, the boring, the trivial, and the mediocre, and metamorphoses them into something that pushes readers toward an epiphany of something that borders on something otherworldly and glorious,” he writes in Uttering the Unutterable: Aristotle, Religion and Literature. “Literature transfigures human experience.” We at ABT say amen to that. Groarke’s fascinating book looks at what lifts literature above fleeting prose into something loftier and lasting. Groarke argues that people have mystical experiences, though they can’t directly share them. But they can write books, a form of sharable wisdom, thus “uttering the unutterable.” Our Mom is Sick – Really, Really Sick, But She Rocks! Angela, Parker and Paris Parker-Brown Pottersfield Press
Writing with My Eyes: Staying Alive While Dying by Angela Parker-Brown was one of the best books of spring 2023. With her bright spirit determined to “sparkle at full capacity,” Parker-Brown detailed her life as it was taken over by
ALS, a fatal motor-neuron disease. She also wrote a second book with her daughters, Paris and Parker, Our Mom is Sick – Really, Really Sick, But She Rocks! The friendly, accessible book takes the form of conversations between the twins and their mother as the 12-year-olds try to understand the disease stealing their mother from them. They share how they learned the news, how they felt about it and how friends and family stepped up for their family as the ALS advanced. The last chapter features only the voices of Parker and Paris. It’s heartbreaking as the girls say goodbye to their mother, who died in February. As their mother taught them, nobody knows how long they will live on this Earth, so we all ought to sparkle at full capacity while we can. The Grover School Pledge Wanda Taylor HarperCollins
Arlaina Jefferson is a bright girl eager to broaden her mind during her last year in elementary school. But she soon learns that her school needs an education. As she prepares to give a talk on her personal Black history to her mostly white class, her teacher suggests she go first, “since you like to talk about yourself so much.” And after her talk, a classmate calls her and her white friend “Oreo cookies.” And then the class is joined by Nadia, a new student from Egypt. Nadia brings a worldly sophistication to the class as the daughter of an ambassador. When that teacher asks one too many personal questions about her appearance. Nadia tells him off and storms out. Arlaina is transfixed. Nadia has never lived in a white-majority place before, and Arlaina is emboldened by her confidence. She starts dreaming up a plan that would change her school forever. Wanda Taylor’s new book is perfect for parents and teachers and kids to read together.
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Atlantic Books Today YOUNG READERS
Young readers’ reviews by Jo-Anne Elder and Lisa Doucet
Mamans et Papa
Two new books from Bouton d’or Acadie, one of them available in English as well as French, explore the relationships of parents with their children. Nicole Poirier presents a new book about the engaging Sophie, this time at her father’s house for the weekend. An important book by Africadian Josephine Watson is based on her own story of interracial adoption. Congé pour papa
Mama Gave
Written by Nicole Poirier, illustrated by Isabelle Léger Bouton d’or Acadie
Written by Josephine C. Watson, illustrated by Alisa Arsenault Bouton d’or Acadie
Maman m’a donnée
Yay, it’s the weekend! Daddy doesn’t have to go to work, although he does have chores to look after. Fortunately, he has a helper, his daughter Sophie, who takes charge of his to-do list to give him a break: taking out the garbage, cleaning the garage, filling the birdfeeders, caring for the garden and walking the dog. Some of these are big jobs, and all of them are challenging for a child. With good intentions and determination bigger than her skills, she does everything on the list before the end of the day. He doesn’t even have to get up to make breakfast; four beverages and three kinds of cereal (with chocolate chips on top) are served in his room. The pictures and text of this book will bring a smile of recognition to parents’ eyes. Children may be confused by the “scared face” of the father as he watches the results or is disturbed by her requests, but they will enjoy the good fun and everyday mischief that ensues. He doesn’t manage to get much sleep between his morning coffee and the picnic of vegan sandwiches she prepares for his lunch (followed by a mud-cake for dessert). In the afternoon, though, Daddy is lucky enough to dress up like a princess and play under the protective eye of a charming little knight … before he falls asleep in their makeshift tent while she awaits a game of hide-and-seek. In the same series as Congé pour Sophie, this is a book for four- to seven-year-olds. Children in Grade One or Two French Immersion will understand and enjoy the characters and the humour that comes from messes and mishaps. 42
Joséphine C. Watson, Alisa Arsenault and Émile Turmel (translator)
Interracial adoption is a complex issue for adults, let alone children. Josephine Watson’s commitment to dealing with this subject sensitively and compassionately is admirable. The little girl who tells the story doesn’t look like the people in foster care who look after her or the parents and brothers in her “forever home.” She doesn’t know her birth mother, but knows her name and knows that she was too young to care for her. This book is an adopted child’s loving tribute to the family who adopted her and to the mother who “gave me away, gave me a way, to live my life.” This tender, rhyming story is available in French and English and is written for four- to eight-year-olds. The original version was written in English by Josephine Watson, a bilingual poet, singer, spoken-word artist and performer. Two talented Moncton poets also worked on the English manuscript and French translation, respectively: Kayla Geitzler and Émile Turmel. Josephine Watson translated Shauntay Grant’s book Africville into French in 2020. This book is based on the authentic, lived experience of a Black woman artist who tells her story with honesty and emotion. Interestingly, the extra degree of separation between the author and the translated text removes the somewhat sentimental tone of the English text, which can easily be forgiven because of Watson’s deep love for both mothers and her dedication to seeing the best in people. In an interview, the author explains that, growing up, at times she felt deserted and angry about being given up for adoption. She also had to deal with people asking if her mother was the babysitter, but she says her mom always reminded her where she belonged. “What I believe mom was teaching me was that, no matter what anybody else thinks, her love for me and my love for her is all that really truly mattered.”
YOUNG READERS Atlantic Books Today
The Golden Apples
The Words We Share
Written by Dan Yashinsky, illustrated by Ekaterina Khlebnikova Running the Goat Books & Broadsides
Written & illustrated by Jack Wong Annick Press
Jack, the youngest of three brothers, may not be as good looking or academically inclined as his siblings, but that doesn’t prevent him from having grand adventures in this clever adaptation of a traditional Cape Breton folktale. When the king becomes determined to find the golden bird that has been stealing the golden apples from his tree, he sends out each of his sons in turn. When the two older boys become sidetracked by the casino in the neighbouring village, it falls to Jack to stay focused and bring back the bird. With the help of a friendly fox, and despite his repeated failing to heed the fox’s warnings, Jack ultimately returns victorious. And he proves that a kind heart, respect for others (including one’s mother!) and a little cunning (especially when dealing with older brothers) can go a long way. In the tradition of the finest retellings, Dan Yashinsky has adapted this tale to follow along the lines of the original while giving it his own distinct and contemporary flair. Witty and inventive, it gives subtle nods to a more modern sensibility (including the brother, who is absorbed in a podcast, and a princess who wears running shoes, plays guitar and plasters her room in punk rock posters). The language is lovely, both for reading alone and reading aloud, and many of the traditional elements of the quest narrative are present, but with enough twists to keep the story feeling fresh. Ekaterina Khlebnikova’s brightly hued folk arty illustrations are the perfect accompaniment. Vibrant and energetic, they enhance both the classic and more current aspects of the story. While this reimagining of a familiar folktale incorporates modern references, the messages at its heart about kindness, commitment, family and integrity remain largely unchanged and relevant to readers of today.
Angie remembers arriving in Canada with her father and not knowing any English, and how the cacophony of voices all around them sounded so strange and new. Once she started going to school, Angie learned English quickly, but her Dad still mainly just speaks Cantonese. Angie often helps him do things like read menus and check labels at the grocery store. For his new job, she also helps him make signs to put up in the building where he works. This gives her an idea: maybe other people in their neighbourhood could also use her help making signs for their businesses. A nearby canteen, a shoe repair shop and the local laundromat all take her up on her offer. But when she gets the instructions for the washing machines wrong, owner Mr. Chu is angry and Angie feels very anxious and alone. Then it is her father’s turn to help her make things right. Timely and touching, this book offers an insightful glimpse into the immigrant experience while capturing the special relationship between a girl and her dad. Angie’s recollections of what it was like to move to a new country where they didn’t know the language, and her obvious pride when she is able to help her dad with her growing proficiency in English, remind readers of the challenges that many newcomers face. Her father’s reliance on Angie for help builds her confidence and strengthens their bond. Wong’s highly animated and expressive illustrations feature bold outlines, varied angles and perspectives and an abundance of shadows that create a sense of depth and movement. This story also highlights the value of community and reaching out to help one’s neighbours. When Angie’s sign-making efforts for Mr. Chu go awry, her father’s support, gentle reassurance and ability to step in and help her correct her mistake enable Angie to recognize the mutual gifts that they have to share.
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Atlantic Books Today YOUNG READERS
While You Were Sleeping
When the Ocean Came to Town
Written & illustrated by Briana Corr Scott Nimbus Publishing
Written by Sal Sawler, illustrated by Emma FitzGerald Nimbus Publishing
In somewhat of a departure from her previous works, Briana Corr Scott focuses on the quiet joys and everyday moments that make up the memories that define families over time. This story gently weaves its way through the years, depicting the ordinary events that shape the lives of parents and children. From fixing up a room in preparation for a new baby to “long strolls in front wraps and backpack,” Corr Scott captures the wonder of welcoming a new baby into one’s home and heart, and — as the years go by — of somehow juggling the making of lunches and handling of piles of laundry with jobs and degrees and the demands of hectic lives. She leads readers on a nostalgic journey through the ordinary chaos in which memories are made and dreams are realized and so much is accomplished “while you were sleeping.” While the rhythmic text, with its gentle, rolling cadence, captures a sense of nostalgia, the intricate illustrations tell their own story of busy lives and loving families. Unlike her other books, which take place on rugged island landscapes and feature magnificent ocean settings, this one offers intimate glimpses into homes that are filled with the detritus of daily living and painstakingly portrays bustling city streets and urban landscapes, while depicting a range of diverse families. Each page is filled with details to pore over, from overflowing laundry baskets to wallpaper patterns and quilts and pets and paintings and mismatched socks, with the final spread showing a cross-section of several houses and the busyness of living that is going on in each one. The oil paintings are dreamy and wistful while also evoking all the love that abounds in the midst of the messiness. This book will touch the hearts of older readers while delighting the picture crowd as well.
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In their first picture book, Sal Sawler thoughtfully depicts one girl’s reverence and love for the ocean while also creating a pensive reflection on the ocean’s power, on the perils of climate change and the importance of community. Gretchen loves her home by the ocean, but she longs to be allowed to go to the beach by herself so she can savour the joys of sea and sand without anyone hauling her away before she is ready to go. But when she learns that a fierce storm is on its way, she begins to prepare, and so do all the villagers. Then the storm arrives and the sea becomes a vicious, frightening thing. Gretchen witnesses firsthand its awe-inspiring might, and in the days that follow, she helps the villagers to see that in the aftermath of the storm, they need to work together to recover and rebuild. Sawler uses short, simple sentences and economical text to create a thought-provoking tale, with the words that are left unsaid telling their own story. Precise, carefully crafted prose captures a full range of feeling from Gretchen’s tender yearning to be free to love and savour her time by the sea without constraints, to her parents’ mounting anxiety and fear, to the sense of communal triumph once the villagers come together to repair their town and find “a new way to live.” Quiet and understated, it tackles important topics while reminding readers of all ages that we all can — and must — make a difference. Emma FitzGerald’s brisk lines and energetic compositions are whimsical and delightfully cluttered, bursting with detail as they capture the energy and vibrancy of Gretchen’s beloved home and the myriad of wonders at the beach. Rich colours and textures add to the impact of the visual imagery of this special book.
YOUNG READERS Atlantic Books Today
Do You Remember? Written & illustrated by Sydney Smith Groundwood Books
Written and illustrated by highly acclaimed picture book creator Sydney Smith, Do You Remember is an introspective look at memories, and at one particular boy’s memories as he seeks solace in them in the face of uncertainty and change. The boy’s mother begins by asking him, “Do you remember … when we had a picnic in the field?” And together they trade recollections, such as his birthday and the bicycle he received, and a rainstorm and Grandpa’s old oil lamp. Then they remember leaving home. And going far away, and the teddy bear that helped them navigate through a new city when they got lost. As they reflect on these, and on the new life that they are now beginning, and on the wonders of a new day, the boy muses aloud, “Can we make this a memory, too?”, issuing a poignant invitation to us all to think about the moments that make up our own days. Will they too someday become treasured memories, and how will we remember them? Renowned for his award-winning illustrations, Smith’s artwork in this latest book further demonstrates his mastery. Magnificent double-page spreads alternate with pages of panelled images that are almost like snapshots: of hands on a bicycle, a portion of mom’s face, the back of the boy’s head as he gazes out the window. Some of the images are hazy and indistinct, evoking a sense of the fuzziness of time and memory and contrasting beautifully with the more bold, saturated images. Evocative close-ups convey a strong sense of intimacy and of the intense feelings that both the boy and his mother are holding in their hearts. Once again, Smith uses colour and light, shadow and reflections to tell the story that is gently alluded to in the text. This is a moving depiction of one child’s experience of letting go and facing something new, and how he finds the courage to face his new life with optimism and hope … by remembering.
The Boy, the Cloud and the Very Tall Tale Written by Heather Smith Orca Book Publishers
Combining elements of fantasy, adventure, mystery and family drama, Heather Smith’s new middle-grade novel explores the topics of grief and loss in a way that is touching, tender and true. Ewan and his sister Flora have lived with their grandfather, Grumple, in the wee village of Bucket Cove ever since their father disappeared two years after the death of their mother. According to Grumple, he simply climbed aboard a cloud and sailed away. But Ewan has never believed this ridiculous tale. Then he meets an unusual man named Mr. So-and-So who owns a seemingly magical notions shop. His chance visit to this shop inspires him to set off on a quest to find his father. But soon he is joined by the mysterious Mr. So-and-So, and Flora. As the unlikely threesome make their way to his intended destination, Ewan begins to see Mr. So-and-So in a new light, and to learn many unexpected things about himself. Opening himself up to different ways of seeing and believing enables him to also make a startling realization about his father and to ultimately put all the pieces of a bigger puzzle into place. Quirky and filled with whimsy, Smith’s tale is a delight. Ewan’s deep sorrow and his anger at his father for leaving them, as well as his tremendous love for Flora, are sensitively depicted, as is his grappling with his emotions when Mr. So-and-So helps him to eventually face them. The Newfoundland setting is vividly rendered and enhances the fairytale quality of the tale. The relationships are realistically nuanced and both Ewan and Mr. So-and-So experience inner growth as they confront uncomfortable truths about themselves. The magical elements of the story are skillfully woven into the narrative and the mystery of what truly happened to the children’s father is clever and satisfying in its resolution.
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Atlantic Books Today YOUNG READERS
Adventures of an Island Cat Named Brupp Written by Deirdre Kessler Penumbra Press
Brupp is “an extraordinary cat on the trail of high adventure.” And so he sets out from his P.E.I. home on a quest to see all that there is to be seen in the great, wide world. He travels by bicycle and by boat, in cars and trucks and trains, from his beloved Island to New Brunswick, Quebec and eventually the prairies. Along the way he encounters many new and unexpected situations: he is captured and brought to the pound; he falls overboard and is rescued from the sea; he helps a group of orphans and a lonely hobo become a forever family and he ultimately saves his original home and family from a terrible fire. He will always treasure these memories that he makes during the course of his travels and the many invaluable lessons that he learns, but most of all he is grateful for the wonderful friends (animal and human) that he meets along the way. In this compilation of Brupp stories, which includes a brand-new tale, readers can follow the intrepid feline’s cross-country journey and immerse themselves completely in his escapades. This thoroughly delightful protagonist, who composes journal entries in his head as well as stories and songs to share, finds himself in a variety of predicaments. Whether he is helping to rescue his new canine friend who gets locked in a meat cooler or forging a special bond with a horse named Soo, Brupp is a thoughtful, philosophical cat who follows his heart and touches the lives of all of those he encounters. Kessler vividly depicts the various places that he travels to, in lucid prose that is elegantly descriptive. She has created a charming series of stories with an unforgettable main character that will enchant animal lovers of all ages.
The Halifax Explosion: 6 December 1917, at 9:05 in the Morning Written by Dr. Afua Cooper, artwork and design by Rebecca Bender Plumleaf Press Inc
For those of us who have been born and raised in Halifax, the horrific events of Dec. 6, 1917, are ingrained into our minds and hearts. We have grown up hearing the stories of the devastation, the heroism, the tremendous loss, the ways in which it shattered and reshaped our city. But few of us have heard it told like this, with particular attention paid to those who endured the ravages of racism on top of the unspeakable suffering of the event itself. With sharp, spare, haunting words, Dr. Afua Cooper’s poem recounts the details: two ships bound for the war in Europe, a collision, an earth-shattering explosion that decimated the North End. “And the City of Halifax gave one long piercing scream into the bowels of the Earth ... Halifax destroyed/ Halifax shattered/Richmond and Tufts Cove obliterated,” she writes. But in addition to her searing portrait of these events, this profoundly visceral poem puts a human face on the suffering, especially as it was experienced by the African Nova Scotian community and the residents of Africville, an area that was deeply affected by the explosion. Dr. Cooper highlights numerous Black Nova Scotians who experienced the effects of the explosion first hand: women, men and children who lost their homes and livelihoods, who somehow survived, or who were blinded, or lost their lives or their loved ones. And she describes Dr. Clement Liguore’s three long days of tending to the wounded at his private hospital because, “as a Black doctor, he was denied hospital privileges.” The book is beautifully designed with carefully chosen photographs and well-integrated illustrations that further enrich the emotional depth of the narrative. In these pages, Halifax’s former poet laureate creates a strong sense of immediacy and brings readers of all ages into the darkness of this day. ■
JO-ANNE ELDER has translated more than 20 works of poetry, theatre, film, fiction and non-fiction from French to English and has been shortlisted for a Governor General’s Literary Award for translation three times. LISA DOUCET is the co-manager of Woozles Children’s Bookstore in Halifax. She shares her passion for children’s and young adult books as our young readers editor and book reviewer. 46
Atlantic Books Today REVIEWS Atlantic Books Today NEWS FEATURE
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Canada’s Oldest Children’s Bookstore
1187 COLE HARBOUR RD. DARTMOUTH, NS dartmouthbookexchange.ca 902-435-1207
Over 2,000 square feet of quality used books and a growing collection of new books by local authors. Monday – Friday: 10 am – 8 pm Saturday: 10 am – 6 pm • Sunday: 11 am – 5 pm
A Place For and About Children Come find us in our new home! 6013 Shirley Street, Halifax
woozles.com 902-423-7626
WOODLAWN PLAZA DARTMOUTH, NS www.tattletalesbooks.ca 902-463-5551
Books and toys for infants to young adults. Specializing in teacher and school customized orders. Open 7 days a week. We can’t keep secrets, spreading stories is our business™
LIFE BEGINS AT 50 50 Y E A R S
& we’re just getting going!
I M P R E S S I O N S O F N EW F O U N D L A N D THE ART OF
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Shortlisted for the 2023 Taste Canada Awards: Regional/ Cultural Cookbooks
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Winner of the 2022 BMO Winterset Award
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Shortlisted for the Alistair McLeod Short Story Prize
NEWFOUNDLAND’S PREMIER PUBLISHER SINCE 1973 | WWW.BREAKWATERBOOKS.COM