by Wendy Hawkin | Sep 19, 2018 | Book Review
This little treasure I read in two sittings. How could I not? When I saw it on the library shelf, I was instantly drawn to it. I picked it up and grinned inside and then felt a twinge of fear. It is, after all, a Stephen King story.
I heard the master’s voice lilting in the background as I read—a little Gunslinger drawl—though he had help with this one. Fantasy and horror writer, Richard Chizmar, co-wrote this novella. And it’s illustrated by Ben Baldwin and Keith Minnion. Just look at that cover!
So. Gwendy.
I couldn’t resist the title being that my name is Wendy and I’ve had my own button box forever. Every once in a while I take it out and run my fingers through the buttons. All shapes and colours, some black, some bling. I like the little clattering sound the buttons make as they fall through my fingers. My mother had one before me, and I’ll pass mine on to my daughter. It’s not the same as Gwendy’s though. Mine does not give perfectly detailed and delicious chocolate animals the size of a jelly bean. Or Morgan silver dollars minted in 1851. It doesn’t threaten to blow up continents. Or people. Or places I hate. Or make my life better. Or worse. And mine was not a gift from Mr. Richard Farris in his black suit and black hat with his blue-eyed charm, and gift of palaver. (Gosh, I love that word, palaver. You’ll find it in my own books.)
He points a finger-gun at her: pow. “That’s a good one. You’re a good one, Gwendy. And while we’re at it, what kind of name is that, anyway?”
“A combination. My father wanted a Gwendolyn—that was his granny’s name—and my mom wanted a Wendy, like in Peter Pan. So they compromised.”
I am also the Wendy of Peter Pan. And though my grandmother’s name was Gertrude, I had a great aunt Gwendolyn who my father loved very much. So who knows? I may have narrowly escaped being named Gwendy myself. I have always wanted to fly and jumped off my dad’s armchair once believing I could. “I do believe in faeries. I do. I do. I do.” A friend to faeries, I thought that was all it took. Alas, with no sprinkle of pixie dust, I fell and injured my ankle. Later, I did take flight. As a hawk.
But back to Gwendy and her button box. Read this book. You will like it. It reminds me a little of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which is on my list of all-time favourite books. And the horror I feared would jump out at me every time I turned a page, never did. So, it’s safe enough—though it might make you think. And that can be dangerous for some people. And, there may be a drop or two of blood spilled before the last page. It did, after all, originate in the mind of the master and his friend. Know what I mean?
by Wendy Hawkin | Sep 8, 2018 | Book Review
Pro-wrestlers, scuzzy bikers, a yellow pet python, and a private detective—how does Devlin hold it all together in this gritty page-turning debut novel? With a whole lot of style and a splattering of tongue-in-cheek humour. The characters are highly stylized; their dialogue dazzling. From the first scene, when pro-wrestler Johnny Mamba appeals to his ex-tag-team partner “Hammerhead” Jed Ounstead to find the man who kidnapped his python, right through to the Rocky Balboa ending, Devlin takes us on a rollicking ride through the crazy XCCW world. A parody of EWWC, the acronym stands for X-Treme Canadian Championship Wrestling. You will read this book with your eyes wide open and your lips turned up.
Jed Ounstead (pronounced OW-n-STED) has left wrestling to work as a bar bouncer at Tonix nightclub and run errands for his father’s detective agency and pub, The Emerald Shillelagh. Jed’s Irish cousin and sidekick, Declan St. James, with his campy, no-holds-barred backtalk will steal your heart. “Jaysus, what is it with you Canucks and your need to share your feelings all the time? Back home, if you want to say thanks to a bloke, you just buy his arse a pint.” A feisty ex-IRA gunman, Declan is barman at the Shillelagh and “renowned for his ability to pour the perfect pint of Guinness.”
Jed doesn’t take Johnny Mamba’s predicament too seriously until the snake man receives a $10,000 ransom request via email for his python, Ginger. Then at the drop (near the Vancouver Flea Market), Ginger turns up dead, and Jed finds his old pal Johnny in an outhouse with his throat slit. After that, there’s no time to breathe.
We spend a fair amount of time touring Vancouver with Jed in his Ford F-150, ducking into Dairy Queens for a banana milkshake. (Warning: I had to go and buy bananas while reading this book. I’m dairy-free. But you may find yourself cueing at the DQ.) Vancouver landmarks abound. As Jed cruises Hastings Street and passes Playland Amusement Park, the “archaic wooden roller coaster” catches his eye. “The out of commission rickety green and yellow cars were still slick from the last rainfall, shimmering in the sunlight as they sat perched on an incline of the track, patiently waiting to start their slow mechanized climb to the top.”
Written in first person and peppered with contemporary references, Devlin’s exacting prose is tight and colourful. With an MFA in Screenwriting from The American Film Institute, we expect cinematic brilliance, but it’s his cleverly original similes that could become his trademark. “Melvin grinned so wide he looked like a saber-toothed squirrel” for example. Still, it’s not all belly laughs. In the beginning a “cobra clutch” is defined as a professional wrestling move, but in the end, the title has a much more sentimental meaning—one that gave me pause. There is no laughter without tears, and Jed Ounstead almost loses it all, as any real hero should.
If you’ve never seen a real Cobra Clutch, Sgt. Slaughter demonstrates it here on pro wrestler Randy Orton.
Cobra Clutch is A.J. Devlin’s debut detective novel but he promises us that he has “many more Jed stories” so rest assured, this is only the beginning.
by Wendy Hawkin | Jul 3, 2018 | Book Review, literature
Every few years, I re-read Annie Proulx’s classic novel, The Shipping News. It happens when I miss the East—family and friends. When I need to submerge myself in great writing and crave a dose of mellifluent literature. When I need to feel immersed in the sea and small town camaraderie.
But, just what makes this book so endearing? What thrills and feeds me?
Characters
If you’ve never heard of it, The Shipping News chronicles, not only the various ships, yachts, and boats that put into the small harbour of Killick-Claw on the barren Newfoundland shore, but also the story of Quoyle. A quoyle is a coil of rope, and here Proulx unravels the terrifyingly beautiful tale of Quoyle’s family: ancestors who were incestuous pirates, who dragged a house to a point on the mainland when they were driven off an island for their barbary. That Quoyle determination lives on in the gentle hero of this story, in the jutting chin, in an underdog who must find his way home.
Like Proulx, Quoyle is also a writer. An American, born in Brooklyn, he stumbles into a job at The Mockingburg Record. He has no idea how to write but wants to learn. It’s that or starve, and he has a friend who gets him an interview. But constant layoffs leave Quoyle hungry. And then he meets Petal Bear: “a month of fiery happiness. Then six kinked years of suffering” (13). Petal is more monster than woman.
“By day she sold burglar alarms at Northern Security, at night, became a woman who could not be held back from strangers’ rooms, who would have sexual conjunction whether in stinking rest rooms or mop cupboards. She went anywhere with unknown men. Flew to nightclubs in distant cities. Made a pornographic video while wearing a mask cut from a potato chip bag. Sharpened her eyeliner pencil with the paring knife, let Quoyle wonder why his sandwich cheese was streaking with green” (14).
Oh Petal. When she vanishes with a new stranger and takes along their two little girls, Bunny aged six and Sunshine aged four and half, Quoyle goes berserk. Naturally. He loves his children, has raised them, cared for them, and now they’re gone. He calls the state police and his newfound aunt, Agnis Hamm. And then they get the news. Car wreck. Petal and the stranger are dead. But where are the kids? It turns out that Petal sold them for seven grand to a pedophile who produces homemade porn. Got a receipt from the pedo. Thank god. “Personal services.”
It’s the aunt that decides it’s time to go home—her hated brother and his wife have just died in a joint suicide pact. She’s lost the love of her life and Quoyle needs a family. So, at age thirty-six, unravelled by Petal’s brutal betrayal, Quoyle packs up his girls and heads to Newfoundland with the aunt. There, he gets a job working atThe Gammy Bird. He’s to cover car wrecks and the shipping news.
Real and honest, eccentric and larger-than-life, the crew atThe Gammy Bird are classic. Jack Buggit, British Nutbeam, Billy Pretty, even the crotch-scratching menace, Tert Card, is endearing in his own awful way. (“Face like cottage cheese clawed with a fork” (57).
photo by D. Mark Laing, 2001, Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/dmarklaing/8260930933
Setting
The landscape is a character. If you’ve ever wanted to explore Newfoundland, this book will have you packing your bags. (But only in summer, mind.) Eleven foot snowdrifts rival my capacity to love all seasons. The green house on the point is a character too. It sits empty for forty-four years until Quoyle and the aunt decide to fix it up and move in. The aunt’s first act is to dump her brother’s ashes in the outhouse and piss on them. Enough said.
Cheering for the Underdog
How can you not cheer for Quoyle, bursting with love for his daughters? Learning that he’s so much more than a third-rate newspaper reporter? Building a new family on the rock?
Issues
Proulx manages to highlight several issues without sounding preachy or forced. She does this with impeccable style through Jack Buggit’s diatribes, conversations, and Quoyle’s inner musings, and his columns.
The economic situation in Newfoundland. Good friend, Dennis Buggitt, talks of going down the road to find work in Toronto. There’s no work for carpenters in Newfoundland and his dad doesn’t want him to fish. Fishing killed his brother. Quoyle fears that if Dennis takes his family to the city they’ll be lost forever. He should know.
The sad story of incest and sexual assault. The Gammy Bird publishes the names of sexual offenders. Thousands of them.
“Nutbeem, I got your S.A. stories running down my computer screen. You writing it by the yard, now? Seven, eight, nine—you got eleven sexual abuse stories here. We put all this in there won’t be room for the other news.”
“You ought to see my notebook. It’s an epidemic.”
Wouldn’t that be worth a read? Nutbeem strings the stories together with precision and flourish. Some names never make the paper. Ask the aunt.
Children with unique abilities. Wavey’s son Herry was born with Down’s Syndrome and there’s no support for him in the local school. So, she and Beety Buggit approach the government for funding to create a special class and provide support. Quoyle’s children, Bunny and Sunshine, are also unique. Both are expelled from nursery school in the states, yet thrive when embraced by family and community.
Fishing woes. There are so many foreign trawlers fishing in the outer reaches, there are no fish left for the locals. Then, there’s the danger of riding out a storm out on the sea. Ask Jack Buggit what happened to his son, Jessen.
Weather. Another character in this story, one who is most often the antagonist.
Oil tankers. We’ve been fighting oil pipelines in B.C. This column by Quoyle says it all:
Nobody Hangs a Picture of an Oil Tanker
Another common sight is black oil scum along miles of landwash, like the shoreline along Cape Despond this week. Hundreds of people watched Monday morning as 14,000 metric tons of crude washed onshore from a ruptured tank of the Golden Goose. Thousands of seabirds and fish struggled in the oil, fishing boats and nets were fouled. “This is the end of this place,” said Jack Eye, 87, of Little Despond, who, as a young man, was a dory fisherman with the schooner fleet (201).
Language
Annie Proulx is a master of the craft and the writing is stunning. Proulx won a Pulitzer for this novel in 1994. I’ve really never seen anything like it: fragments of tight clipped poetic phrases, hard honest dialogue, sea-speak, words I’ve never seen, and dialect that makes us feel like we’re from the rock even if we’re not.
“The auditorium was jammed. A sweep of best clothes, old men in camphor-stinking black jackets that gnawed their underarms, women in silk and fine wools in the colors of camel, cinnabar, cayenne, bronze, persimmon, periwinkle, Aztec red. Imported Italian pumps. Hair crimped and curled, lacquered into stiff clouds. Lipstick. Red circles of rouge. The men with shaved jowls. Neckties like wrapping paper, child in sugar pink and cream. The puff of scented bodies, a murmur like bees over a red field” (276).
Myth & Metaphor
Each chapter is headed by a blurb and image from The Ashley Book of Knots. This 1944 work by Clifford W. Ashley inspired Proulx’s tale. The mix of folk tale and metaphor strengthens the story. Quoyle’s old, demented cousin ties knots to curse them and the house. Mixed with that are blurbs from The Gammy Bird, the local Killick-Claw paper where Quoyle discovers his talent for storytelling as he chronicles “The Shipping News”. This is why you can’t just watch the movie.
In 2001, Miramax released the film. Directed by Lasse Hallström (Chocolat, The Cider House Rules) it has all-star cast: Kevin Spacey as Quoyle, Judi Dench as the aunt, Kate Blanchett as Petal Bear, and Julianne Moore as Wavey (the tall silent woman who captures Quoyle’s heart in Killick-Claw.) As brilliant as the movie is—Annie Proulx and Robert Nelson Jacobs wrote the screenplay—it can’t replace the book.
When I was a kid, one of our family friends was Clyde Quinton, a man from Newfoundland who’d gone down the road. I remember that Clyde was a big gentle man who brought me a doll one year when I was sick. He was known for eating anything and saying simply: “food is food.” I often wonder what happened to Clyde. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve resurrected him in Quoyle.
by Wendy Hawkin | Jun 4, 2018 | Book Review, Canadian writers
It’s always a gift to pick up a book you’ve never heard of—one that’s not on the bestseller list or written by one of the big-name authors—and discover its beauty. That’s what I experienced with Hummingbird. This is a beautiful summer read. It will transport you to the bush and beyond.
You can read my full review on the Ottawa Review of Books.
by Wendy Hawkin | May 26, 2018 | Book Review, Canadian writers, urban fantasy
Grace is blessed with multiple meanings in Charles de Lint’s 2009 urban fantasy novel, The Mystery of Grace. She is an idea and also a woman. This strong beautiful tattooed deva is at once kind, charming, thoughtful, and at ease around a classic car. (She grew up rebuilding hotrods with her Abuelo and works wonders at Sanchez Motors). She loves rockabilly and surf guitar. She is virtuous in her own way and both gives and receives divine assistance. She is also dead and therefore, seeking grace early in the story.
In this 2010 interview with Charles de Lint, the author says that the book is about appreciating the moment, not waiting and missing opportunities. For life is short. You never know when you will vanish from this world and reappear in another unknown place. I agree with the author, but I also found this book to be about Faith (with a capital F). And Fear. The fear of what happens after we die permeates this book and it is only through Faith that the characters can stop waiting and walk through the mist into the unknown. Grace Quintero wears her life tattooed on her body. On her shoulder is Grace’s namesake, Our Lady of Altagracia. It is her faith in love and los santos that sees her through the limbo state (about two years in human time). But how does she end up there?
This story is set in the American Southwest. Ironically, Grace goes to buy cigarettes at Luna’s and gets shot twice in the chest by a junkie. “It’s not the cough that carries you off, it’s the coffin they carry you off in,” my mother, Grace, used to quip. Grace Quintero dies and wakes up in a parallel world. Her apartment at the Alverson Arms, in the small desert town of Santo del Vado Viejo still exists, but she is imprisoned with several other lost souls within a two-three block radius. Some have been there for decades as this limbo world seems to have been created in August 1965, and everyone who dies in proximity to the Alverson Arms lands here.
After making friends with the locals, Grace learns the rules. They don’t need to eat or sleep, but they can. Some end up comatose (sleepers). Henry, who lives at the Solina Library says: “if you don’t keep yourself busy, it all goes away. First your memories, then the desire to do anything, finally whatever it is that makes you who you are” (65). Going into the misty boundaries at the edges of the Alverson world also affects memories, and going back to the real world can be traumatic. Yes. Grace can go back to her home, but only twice a year, on Samhain and Beltane. And no one will recognize her.
On her first visit home, Grace meets artist John Burns and it’s love at first sight. They spend the night together but at dawn, she disappears, leaving John lonely and confused. Their relationship is only a flutter of what this book is about, so I won’t call it paranormal romance (though John is human and Grace a ghost.) This book, like all de Lint’s books, runs deep, crosses genres, and defies labels.
Norm, a distant cousin of shaman Ramon Morago, is the only one who can see Grace when she returns twice a year and he keeps telling her to “find her path.” Norm is Kikimi, and a kind of funky spiritual advisor to the lost girl caught in limbo. Morago and the Kikimi people are the subject of de Lint’s latest novel, The Wind in his Heart—my review here). Norm sees dead people and must use prayers and sacred smudge (sage) to keep the spirits at bay. Once they know you can see them, they keep harassing you. They’re lonely and want to talk. A shaman can choose but Norm doesn’t have a filter. He must pretend not to see them; otherwise, they drive him to drink.
What happens when we die? Will we be reunited with our ancestors? With those we love? Do heaven and hell exist? Or do we go into a kind of limbo to await our next incarnation? The Mystery of Grace inspires us to question our belief in God and the afterlife.
As always, de Lint, weaves a sensual tapestry of landscape, music, love, and culture. I am dazzled by his creativity, his brilliance, and his daring. Into this story, de Lint pours the tale of Juan—Juan can capture a bruja (witch) and turn her magic back on her “because the priest Juan Diego was the first to see Our Lady of Guadalupe” (197). Why does Grace needs to know about Juan? That is a question best left unanswered.
I leave you with a quote by Alice Hoffman.
Charles de Lint is the modern master of urban fantasy. Folktale, myth, fairy tale, dreams, urban legend—all of it adds up to pure magic in de Lint’s vivid, original world.
by Wendy Hawkin | Apr 6, 2018 | Book Review, Canadian writers
The meaning behind the title of Kelley Armstrong’s latest Rockton crime novel, This Fallen Prey, still alludes me. Does This Fallen Prey refer to the victims of the serial killer who is dropped off bound and gagged without warning? There are several victims in this fast-paced thriller. Or is the thrill killer, himself, This Fallen Prey? Oliver Brady claims to be the victim of a rich and powerful step-father bent on cheating him out of his inheritance. Gregory Wallace has $15 million reasons to frame his step-son as a serial killer, and has paid a million dollars to send him to Rockton for a six-month stint. The problem for our heroes, Sheriff Eric Dalton and Detective Casey Butler, is what to do with Brady while he’s there under their watch. Once the townsfolk discover they’re housing a psychotic serial killer no one will be safe, including Brady.
This is Armstrong’s third Casey Butler detective novel. It is as fast and flawless as City of the Lost, the book that introduces us to this dysfunctional Yukon town. Rockton is a fabricated town, built in the wilderness to house people who need to go missing. Many are victims in need of protection; others, like Casey, have been both victimized and killed. In the second book, A Darkness Absolute, Casey seals the deal with rugged backwoods sheriff, Eric Dalton, and becomes mama to a bouncing Newfoundland puppy named Storm.
In fact, the dog, who is now eight-months-old and learning to track, is a major character in the novel, as is the setting. Much of the story centres around the search for Oliver Brady, who escapes early on with the help of one of Rockton’s citizens. Casey and Dalton must battle hostiles and wild animals, while avoiding snipers; all the while, trying to keep the puppy safe. Anyone who owns a dog will understand what it’s like to hike with a dog in the woods. Dangers lurk everywhere. And, Kelley Armstrong has done her canine research.
In my favourite scene, Storm lurches free of Casey’s grip and bounds after a mountain lion with the detective in pursuit. Casey chases, knowing that the cat is heading for a cliff where it can turn around, leap onto her dog’s back, and break her neck. Casey shouts out a series of commands—too many words and pointless—as Storm is too far away to hear and focussed on nothing but chasing this kitty. This creates sheer terror for Casey, who must somehow save her puppy, and any reader who has ever lost control of her dog. Like Casey, Storm is not just there for show. Armstrong not only uses the dog to heighten the adventure, but as a clever device to advance the plot.
This is Casey’s story. Though she’s searching along with her partner, Eric Dalton, everyone defers to her, including the sheriff. A tiny Mandarin-speaking murderer turned detective, Casey is fearless, intelligent, intuitive, and scarred. Sometimes, she makes mistakes, and sometimes she knows the truth with just a look. Preferring to sleep out on the balcony under the stars, Casey provides us with an opportunity to experience this secret dystopian Yukon town and its surrounding wildness.
As the search continues, Dalton and Casey discover corpses. By chapter forty, I write in my journal: Brady appears to be a ruthless murderer but there must be a twist. If there isn’t, I will be disappointed. Then Brady’s step-dad arrives and I’m not disappointed. By chapter sixty, I’m still wondering, along with Casey, if Brady is a serial killer, or if he really is being framed by his step-dad. He almost has me convinced. Is he, or isn’t he? How will Casey discover the truth? And who will die in the process?
