By Dave Eggers
ISBN No. 978-0-307-39906-9
www.randomhouse.ca
The first thing you notice about the paperback edition of this book, about a married couple suffering through Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, is the praise. It’s the first thing you notice because you can’t miss it. It’s the first seven, eight, nine, (no, wait, there’s some of the back page) TEN pages of the book. You’d think “Zeitoun” was “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” (another Eggers’ title). But the praise overload is fittingly ironic because when Bush 2 spun the deadly hurricane into an empty aria about the brave American spirit, even Mama Bush (Barbara) got into the act. (She suggested that camping out in a stadium was a step up for most New Orleanians. Most New Orleanians thought not.)
The Zeitoun of the title is Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun, a New Orleans married couple and their two daughters dealing with, first, a flood of biblical proportions and then bureaucratic blunderings (racial profiling, accusations of terrorism) worthy of a Joseph Heller novel. For the sake of surprise no spoilers will be revealed here. Suffice to say that cataloguing each new humiliation Eggers’ becomes something like Rodin’s The Thinker, and the Zeitouns the helpless souls he’s looking down on as they wither and flail in the seven circles of governmental hell.
Interestingly, while Eggers still writes beautifully, he now seems to write intentionally beautifully. For instance, the opening scenes of Abdulrahman recalling magical nights of fishing for sardines in Syria (the gathering fish looked like “…a slow mass of silver rising from below”) is just too perfect, poetic and lulling a description in a book this blunt. He needs a hard word in there because having things too perfect (and then too awful) is such a clichéd American way to write. Still, that’s a minor complaint for a book that deserves every bit of praise the mainstream media have given it. As well, genre-wise, “Zeitoun” is the latest in a hopeful publishing event. Like the vastly superior “Columbine” (by Dave Cullen – who really did write “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”) it’s non-fiction that’s more engrossing than any fiction.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
“The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book”
By Gord Hill
ISBN No. 978-1-55152-360-6
www.arsenalpulp.com
Batman, Spiderman, X Men; all comic books; all turned into blockbuster movies. For a while there it looked like the comic book had gone the way of the Sunday newspaper funnies: light, disposable entertainment. And now comes “The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book” and it’s a reminder about just how complacent popular culture has become in the oppression of human rights, and how wonderfully engaging and provocative comic books can be if they’re done properly. The set-up is simple. Gord Hill, a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation, and an activist in the Indigenous people’s movement, whose causes stretch from the 1990 Oka Crisis to the anti-2010 Olympics campaign, documents – through historically accurate black-and-white drawings and text – the resistance of Indigenous people to the European colonization of the Americas. The images and stories are shocking – and not just for the gore quotient. They’re shocking because when it comes to the calendar of the world, Columbus’ visit to America in 1492 is pretty recent and still ripe for re-interpretation and correction (both political and humanistic). What’s really impressive about the book, however, is how the medium fits and re-energizes the message perfectly: the anarchy of comic books, and their ability to shape young minds. And therein lies the true importance of a comic book as brave as this one: it has echoes of the topicality of headline-grabbing causes that the government ignores, wishes would go away (and, thus, get worse). Wow…
ISBN No. 978-1-55152-360-6
www.arsenalpulp.com
Batman, Spiderman, X Men; all comic books; all turned into blockbuster movies. For a while there it looked like the comic book had gone the way of the Sunday newspaper funnies: light, disposable entertainment. And now comes “The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book” and it’s a reminder about just how complacent popular culture has become in the oppression of human rights, and how wonderfully engaging and provocative comic books can be if they’re done properly. The set-up is simple. Gord Hill, a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation, and an activist in the Indigenous people’s movement, whose causes stretch from the 1990 Oka Crisis to the anti-2010 Olympics campaign, documents – through historically accurate black-and-white drawings and text – the resistance of Indigenous people to the European colonization of the Americas. The images and stories are shocking – and not just for the gore quotient. They’re shocking because when it comes to the calendar of the world, Columbus’ visit to America in 1492 is pretty recent and still ripe for re-interpretation and correction (both political and humanistic). What’s really impressive about the book, however, is how the medium fits and re-energizes the message perfectly: the anarchy of comic books, and their ability to shape young minds. And therein lies the true importance of a comic book as brave as this one: it has echoes of the topicality of headline-grabbing causes that the government ignores, wishes would go away (and, thus, get worse). Wow…
“Flying Feet”
By James McCann
ISBN No. 978-1-55469-290-3
www.orcabook.com
It used to be so easy. If a fight broke out during a hockey or soccer game it was poor sportsmanship, bad manners; it was just…wrong. These days the fights are fast becoming the main attraction. More than just “The Karate Kid” turned up a notch but not quite “Fight Club” for tweens, “Flying Feet” is about a youth seduced into that violent culture known as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Jinho, is a young man feeling constrained by the limits of traditional tae kwan do. When he’s invited to join an underground MMA club where there are no boundaries or even referees, he’s amped. That is, until he realizes just how dangerous the sport is. What follows is the customary life lesson, the learning to depend on one’s integrity, and a frightening visit to the ring against a fighter known only as “The Ripper” [shudder]. Seriously, it’s like “Rocky” - but with real suspense. Obviously, “Flying Feet” is a topical book. But it’s also a welcome and important socio-political ring tone for kids already a bit desensitized by cement head Dad’s addiction to TV’s “Ultimate Fight Club.” It’s also written in a nice, easy style that will keep both kids’ and parents’ interest in the outcome piqued. It’s also got a bit of a surprise ending – if you expected calm heads to prevail before the big fight – because if I didn’t mention it earlier there actually IS a fight!
ISBN No. 978-1-55469-290-3
www.orcabook.com
It used to be so easy. If a fight broke out during a hockey or soccer game it was poor sportsmanship, bad manners; it was just…wrong. These days the fights are fast becoming the main attraction. More than just “The Karate Kid” turned up a notch but not quite “Fight Club” for tweens, “Flying Feet” is about a youth seduced into that violent culture known as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Jinho, is a young man feeling constrained by the limits of traditional tae kwan do. When he’s invited to join an underground MMA club where there are no boundaries or even referees, he’s amped. That is, until he realizes just how dangerous the sport is. What follows is the customary life lesson, the learning to depend on one’s integrity, and a frightening visit to the ring against a fighter known only as “The Ripper” [shudder]. Seriously, it’s like “Rocky” - but with real suspense. Obviously, “Flying Feet” is a topical book. But it’s also a welcome and important socio-political ring tone for kids already a bit desensitized by cement head Dad’s addiction to TV’s “Ultimate Fight Club.” It’s also written in a nice, easy style that will keep both kids’ and parents’ interest in the outcome piqued. It’s also got a bit of a surprise ending – if you expected calm heads to prevail before the big fight – because if I didn’t mention it earlier there actually IS a fight!
“Tales of the Otherworld”
By Kelley Armstrong
ISBN No. 978-0-307-35756-4
www.randomhouse.ca
1970s television had a name for it: the spin-off. It worked this way: “All in the Family” spun off Edith’s cousin Maude into her own show and “Maude” spun off her maid, Florida, into her own show (“Good Times”). In essence, the new shows were everything you ever wanted to know about AITF’s supporting characters. It’s the same thing with “Tales of the Otherworld.” If you were curious about how Clayton Danvers fell in love, or how Eve caught Kristof, then wonder no more. This book is all about the details that have kept readers of Armstrong’s Otherworld series tossing and turning at night and filling up blogs during the day. For the sake of surprise all I can say is that even hardened readers will be surprised – and impressed. Yet the most wow-worthy piece in this book isn’t a chapter, but the book’s introduction. There, Armstrong relates how she writes FOR the reader. I mean REALLY writes for the reader. “Years ago, when I first launched my website, I wanted to do something that would thank readers for their support,” she writes, explaining the e-serials she would publish. ”I’d poll readers, then write them a story,” she says. Wow… And suddenly, all is right in the publishing world. Suddenly, the writer rules and the readers win. Because for once, this isn’t take-it-or-leave-it marketing. This is essentially Armstrong telling her stories to friends around a campfire and the effect is a heartening re-affirmation about the good the internet can do. Even better, she writes that the proceeds from TFTO are going to World Literacy of Canada. Armstrong writes: “The stories were originally intended as a gift to readers and now they’ll be ‘re-gifted’ to a worthy cause.”
ISBN No. 978-0-307-35756-4
www.randomhouse.ca
1970s television had a name for it: the spin-off. It worked this way: “All in the Family” spun off Edith’s cousin Maude into her own show and “Maude” spun off her maid, Florida, into her own show (“Good Times”). In essence, the new shows were everything you ever wanted to know about AITF’s supporting characters. It’s the same thing with “Tales of the Otherworld.” If you were curious about how Clayton Danvers fell in love, or how Eve caught Kristof, then wonder no more. This book is all about the details that have kept readers of Armstrong’s Otherworld series tossing and turning at night and filling up blogs during the day. For the sake of surprise all I can say is that even hardened readers will be surprised – and impressed. Yet the most wow-worthy piece in this book isn’t a chapter, but the book’s introduction. There, Armstrong relates how she writes FOR the reader. I mean REALLY writes for the reader. “Years ago, when I first launched my website, I wanted to do something that would thank readers for their support,” she writes, explaining the e-serials she would publish. ”I’d poll readers, then write them a story,” she says. Wow… And suddenly, all is right in the publishing world. Suddenly, the writer rules and the readers win. Because for once, this isn’t take-it-or-leave-it marketing. This is essentially Armstrong telling her stories to friends around a campfire and the effect is a heartening re-affirmation about the good the internet can do. Even better, she writes that the proceeds from TFTO are going to World Literacy of Canada. Armstrong writes: “The stories were originally intended as a gift to readers and now they’ll be ‘re-gifted’ to a worthy cause.”
Saturday, April 10, 2010
“ShapeShifter”
By Holly Bennett
ISBN No. 978-1-55469-158-6
www.orcabook.com
These days, it seems everyone is re-writing the “Twilight” phenomenon (vampire as metaphor for alienated teen) to fit either their own writing style or to take advantage of some freakish entity (werewolf, spirit, witch) that another writer re-writing the “Twilight” phenomenon hasn’t written about yet. But even with that furious flurry of opportunistic publishing “ShapeShifter” is a standout. For starters, the book announces immediately that it intends to be different than the usual Sorcerer fare by declaring its love of Irish mythology in the Preface (nicely augmented by an old map of Ireland on the opposite page). This gives the goings-on (mythology purist alert: Bennett also includes a “version of the ancient legend” upon which she bases her story) a kind of Book of Kells curiosity and credibility. (It also gives the book an academic pedigree that parents will appreciate.) The “ShapeShifter” of the title is a Sive, a young woman discovering her powers of transformation in The Otherworld. But when she becomes a deer she becomes prey to all of the figurative and metaphoric evil around her. As for what happens next, it involves the struggle for Sive’s soul between a strong, strapping hero of Irish legend and an evil entity known only as [shudder] the Dark Man. As far as books about tween mythology go (the book is recommended for readers aged 12 years and up) “ShapeShifter” has an awful lot going for it. The story is compelling, the characters involving, the plot twists make sense, and the suspense is really, really suspenseful.
ISBN No. 978-1-55469-158-6
www.orcabook.com
These days, it seems everyone is re-writing the “Twilight” phenomenon (vampire as metaphor for alienated teen) to fit either their own writing style or to take advantage of some freakish entity (werewolf, spirit, witch) that another writer re-writing the “Twilight” phenomenon hasn’t written about yet. But even with that furious flurry of opportunistic publishing “ShapeShifter” is a standout. For starters, the book announces immediately that it intends to be different than the usual Sorcerer fare by declaring its love of Irish mythology in the Preface (nicely augmented by an old map of Ireland on the opposite page). This gives the goings-on (mythology purist alert: Bennett also includes a “version of the ancient legend” upon which she bases her story) a kind of Book of Kells curiosity and credibility. (It also gives the book an academic pedigree that parents will appreciate.) The “ShapeShifter” of the title is a Sive, a young woman discovering her powers of transformation in The Otherworld. But when she becomes a deer she becomes prey to all of the figurative and metaphoric evil around her. As for what happens next, it involves the struggle for Sive’s soul between a strong, strapping hero of Irish legend and an evil entity known only as [shudder] the Dark Man. As far as books about tween mythology go (the book is recommended for readers aged 12 years and up) “ShapeShifter” has an awful lot going for it. The story is compelling, the characters involving, the plot twists make sense, and the suspense is really, really suspenseful.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
“Walt and Skeezix 1927 & 1928”
By Frank O. King
ISBN No. 978-1-897299-39-5
www.drawnandquarterly.com
Pity the comic strip. They’re rarely taken seriously, relegated to the crosswords page, and in colour only once a week. Even worse for the cartoonist, there’s no way to tell if your strip is a keeper, one that people will remember long after the newspaper’s gone into the recycle box. Is it any wonder that Gary Larson and Bill Watterson stopped writing, respectively, “The Far Side” and “Calvin and Hobbes” at the height of their success? Smart guys: they wanted to know how much their work was appreciated while they were alive and bask in the glow of adulation. Put another way, not every cartoonist has a strip as epic, far-reaching, as definitive, as “Gasoline Alley” in him.
Whereas the stories in the previous three volumes of that comic strip were mostly about the daily life in a Mayberry Farm-ish community (who got a flat tire? who needs a cup of sugar?) the main plotline driving this fourth volume of strips, reflecting the political climate of the day, has new father Walt wondering if his adopted son, Skeezix, is a descendent of Europeans. Yes, Europeans.
Now obviously the main appeal of “Walt and Skeezix 1927 & 1928” is its historical value. That’s why there’s a “1927 & 1928” right there in the title. I mean, we’re talking about a comic strip that’s as old as five Jonas Brothers or two Osmonds. Remember when Bill Paxton tells us we’re looking at a piece of paper that’s been underwater for 80 years? It’s pretty much the same thing. And like “Titanic” the story telling in these strips is as engrossing as it is revealing. The problem with reviewing a book like this is that no single synopsis can convey the depth and affection that King invests in his characters. (Even better is the inclusion of a Frank King family album, full of drawings, picnics, old houses; the worthwhile morality stuff. Sigh… “epic” – so overused in computer-generated movies these days - is the only word for it.) The Gasoline Alley strips have the socio-political weight to tell us about the kind of people we were back then – and where we’re headed.
In “Fahrenheit 451” Ray Bradbury imagined a futuristic society that burned books and banned reading. The idea seems as preposterous now as it did when the book was first published in 1953. But the truth is today’s texters have had books on a simmer for years; slowly euthanizing one consonant after another (hey, when your tweets are limited to 140 characters something has to go). In such an environment is it possible that these exhaustively detailed volumes of Gasoline Alley comic strips might someday take the place of “Little Women” and “Jude the Obscure” in high school classrooms? Are these comic strips the new “fiction” – plot-driven, metaphor-heavy, and above all, accessible?
ISBN No. 978-1-897299-39-5
www.drawnandquarterly.com
Pity the comic strip. They’re rarely taken seriously, relegated to the crosswords page, and in colour only once a week. Even worse for the cartoonist, there’s no way to tell if your strip is a keeper, one that people will remember long after the newspaper’s gone into the recycle box. Is it any wonder that Gary Larson and Bill Watterson stopped writing, respectively, “The Far Side” and “Calvin and Hobbes” at the height of their success? Smart guys: they wanted to know how much their work was appreciated while they were alive and bask in the glow of adulation. Put another way, not every cartoonist has a strip as epic, far-reaching, as definitive, as “Gasoline Alley” in him.
Whereas the stories in the previous three volumes of that comic strip were mostly about the daily life in a Mayberry Farm-ish community (who got a flat tire? who needs a cup of sugar?) the main plotline driving this fourth volume of strips, reflecting the political climate of the day, has new father Walt wondering if his adopted son, Skeezix, is a descendent of Europeans. Yes, Europeans.
Now obviously the main appeal of “Walt and Skeezix 1927 & 1928” is its historical value. That’s why there’s a “1927 & 1928” right there in the title. I mean, we’re talking about a comic strip that’s as old as five Jonas Brothers or two Osmonds. Remember when Bill Paxton tells us we’re looking at a piece of paper that’s been underwater for 80 years? It’s pretty much the same thing. And like “Titanic” the story telling in these strips is as engrossing as it is revealing. The problem with reviewing a book like this is that no single synopsis can convey the depth and affection that King invests in his characters. (Even better is the inclusion of a Frank King family album, full of drawings, picnics, old houses; the worthwhile morality stuff. Sigh… “epic” – so overused in computer-generated movies these days - is the only word for it.) The Gasoline Alley strips have the socio-political weight to tell us about the kind of people we were back then – and where we’re headed.
In “Fahrenheit 451” Ray Bradbury imagined a futuristic society that burned books and banned reading. The idea seems as preposterous now as it did when the book was first published in 1953. But the truth is today’s texters have had books on a simmer for years; slowly euthanizing one consonant after another (hey, when your tweets are limited to 140 characters something has to go). In such an environment is it possible that these exhaustively detailed volumes of Gasoline Alley comic strips might someday take the place of “Little Women” and “Jude the Obscure” in high school classrooms? Are these comic strips the new “fiction” – plot-driven, metaphor-heavy, and above all, accessible?
“Missouri”
By Christine Wunnicke (Translated by David Miller)
ISBN No. 978-1-55152-344-6
www.arsenalpulp.com
First things first, this is not a sequel to “Brokeback Mountain.” An homage maybe, but not a sequel. There are similarities, of course. Both books are slender, written by women, take the name of a place for their title, and are about gay cowboys in the American Midwest. After that, they’re completely and totally different books. Sort of.
Whereas “Brokeback Mountain” was set in the 1960s, “Missouri” takes place in the wild west of the 19th century. And whereas ‘Brokeback’ began with a sad memory, “Missouri” begins with a makeover. Yes, a makeover. Here, Douglas, a poet and intellectual sodomite of Oscar Wilde dimensions has come to cool his heels and change his hair colour after a nasty bit of scandal has driven him from England. Things look bleak in this drab little town of landmarks with hee-hee names like Bone Bank and Wabash River and New Harmony. That is, until Douglas fulfills every sex tourist’s dream by being both robbed and taken hostage by a scruffy, young outlaw by the name of Joshua. I’m not giving anything away when I say that the two men click because that’s what it says they do on the book’s back jacket (well, actually a bit more poetically: “a remarkable secret is revealed, these two very different men grow closer”) or that their relationship is threatened when Douglas’s brother tries to save him from his uncivilized surroundings (or as the book jacket says: ”Douglas’s brother tries to ‘save’ him from his uncivilized surroundings”). In-between all that is a love story of surprising delicacy. Still, I guess the biggest curiosity of “Missouri” is just how far the sex scenes go (one thing I won’t be giving away) which is a pity because while “Brokeback Mountain” re-wrote the Marlboro Man mythology of the old west, “Missouri” means to re-write the pop cultural mythology of “Brokeback Mountain.” Sad ending or not (and I’m not saying it is or isn’t) the characters in “Missouri” learned a lesson from ‘Brokeback.’ The result is that they all seem to know how short a life can be and that every second – especially in a book this thin – counts.
ISBN No. 978-1-55152-344-6
www.arsenalpulp.com
First things first, this is not a sequel to “Brokeback Mountain.” An homage maybe, but not a sequel. There are similarities, of course. Both books are slender, written by women, take the name of a place for their title, and are about gay cowboys in the American Midwest. After that, they’re completely and totally different books. Sort of.
Whereas “Brokeback Mountain” was set in the 1960s, “Missouri” takes place in the wild west of the 19th century. And whereas ‘Brokeback’ began with a sad memory, “Missouri” begins with a makeover. Yes, a makeover. Here, Douglas, a poet and intellectual sodomite of Oscar Wilde dimensions has come to cool his heels and change his hair colour after a nasty bit of scandal has driven him from England. Things look bleak in this drab little town of landmarks with hee-hee names like Bone Bank and Wabash River and New Harmony. That is, until Douglas fulfills every sex tourist’s dream by being both robbed and taken hostage by a scruffy, young outlaw by the name of Joshua. I’m not giving anything away when I say that the two men click because that’s what it says they do on the book’s back jacket (well, actually a bit more poetically: “a remarkable secret is revealed, these two very different men grow closer”) or that their relationship is threatened when Douglas’s brother tries to save him from his uncivilized surroundings (or as the book jacket says: ”Douglas’s brother tries to ‘save’ him from his uncivilized surroundings”). In-between all that is a love story of surprising delicacy. Still, I guess the biggest curiosity of “Missouri” is just how far the sex scenes go (one thing I won’t be giving away) which is a pity because while “Brokeback Mountain” re-wrote the Marlboro Man mythology of the old west, “Missouri” means to re-write the pop cultural mythology of “Brokeback Mountain.” Sad ending or not (and I’m not saying it is or isn’t) the characters in “Missouri” learned a lesson from ‘Brokeback.’ The result is that they all seem to know how short a life can be and that every second – especially in a book this thin – counts.
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