The Adversary by Michael CrummeyGiven that I loathed
The Innocents, I was hesitant about going back in for another round when this was the book club pick, but I ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would (note the extremely low bar). It's a companion to
The Innocents, and probably expects you to have read it, taking place over the exact same time frame, but in the nearest town, rather than the fishing outpost. I said to book club that the ending of the first one was more optimistic:
They have the incest baby, and get to move to town! Hooray!
but then you hear about what's happening in the town. Might not work out super well for them, it turns out. That town is
not doing great.
The Adversary orbits around a pair of siblings vying for control of the local industries. The brother is monstrous, ego-driven and cruel. He rules through money and brute force, and everyone else has to put up with it because what are the other choices? The sister is initially presented as more sympathetic: a widow, a Quaker, gender non conforming, just trying her best in a world weighted against her. As the book progresses, largely from the point of view of another pair of siblings in her domestic service (Crummey appears to be really into siblings), the more we learn about the Widow, the more horrifying she turns out to be: the other side of her brother's coin.
Carnage ensues, and then ensures again, and again, as the tension and violence ramp up, and everyone in the town suffers for it. It takes the misery porn of the first one, and twists it enough, that for me it tipped over into a popcorn-worthy rolling catastrophe. Just don't get attached to any of the characters, or their pets. Also, this one is like... 96% incest free.
If Crummey writes a sequel about what happens to the Innocents when they get to this shit show, I'll be there with bells on.
All Our Ordinary Stories by Teresa WongGraphic novel memoir about a Chinese-Canadian woman trying to come to terms with her heritage when her parents are incredibly closed about what that might be, and her children just don't have a connection to China. It flashes back and forth between present day when Wong's mother has dementia, and her last chance of learning more seems to be slipping away, and scraps of the past stitched together into a haphazard quilt. We learn about both her parents literally swimming to freedom escaping Mainland China for then British Hong Kong, then generations before travelling to Canada, and how fluid moving back and forth between countries and cultures could be even when racist Canada didn't want Chinese there, and Mao's China didn't want any permeation of non-Chinese ideas.
The art is quite plain for most of the time, with huge gorgeous set pieces for some of the flashbacks. There's a lot about language and trying to find points of connection, or trying to find yourself in stories (
The Joy Luck Club is one of Wong's favourite movies, but her mother finds it dull and wanders off in the middle of it, denying Wong's fantasy of bonding via literature). At times, it felt a little slow paced, even though it's overall a very fast read.
Canada Reads longlist title, that I would've been happy to see on the shortlist.
The Knowing by Tanya TalagaA combination of family history and the colonialist history of Canada, Talaga tries to trace the story of one of her ancestors, with only the bare bones and often inaccurate paper trail left by colonial authorities. Each record she finds, she tries to put into cultural context around what was happening at the time, both from what family histories she can put together, and in terms of the slow roll of official genocide. Talaga intertwines her family's history with the public revelations about mass graves at old residential school sites, and the social and political reactions to that, which occurred while she was writing.
As one might expect, it's both very good, and quite depressing. That said, I really appreciated how well she recreated the story, and the networks around each person that created a possibility for them and their stories to survive, even if they didn't always make it. It's optimistic, in its way, in how it foregrounds perseverance and community. Really powerful stuff.
I also liked that Talaga doesn't assume what her ancestors must have been feeling. She suggests some motivations, and provide context for those ideas, but never tries to take the voice of those who remain without any of their own words in the record.
Becoming a Matriarch by Helen KnottCanada Reads Longlist, again. This is a sequel to Knott's first memoir (which I haven't read, but understand was mostly about overcoming substance abuse issues), about her mother and grandmother dying within the span of six months, and trying to work out what it means that she's now one of the female elders in her community. She examines examples of female leadership in her family, and what it might look like to either embody or reject those traditions. She wants to know how much toxic colonial culture caused those women to act in dysfunctional ways, what was a coping mechanism that was needed to survive at the time but no longer works, and what she herself should try to carry forward. Knott is very open about her own dysfunction and bad coping mechanisms, and difficult is can be to give them up and start something better (presumably expanded upon in her previous memoir). I liked the way the story built, with added context layered in as she moved forward through her healing journey, a sort of double wholeness emerging.
Clyde Fans by SethCanada Reads Longlist, the last (There's a couple books I haven't yet read, but idk if I'll get around to them). A graphic novel about a pair of brothers running a small company making and selling fans, starting in the post-WWII industrial boom, going forward to the collapse of the company when it's driven out of business by less-expensive imports. The older brother prides himself on being a good businessman and an exceptional salesman, constantly reliving his glory days as he wonders through the shuttered sales room and offices. We learn about the younger brother more slowly: first from his elder's dismissive stories, then from longer sections from his point of view, and the one time he tried to do a sales trip (one of the most bang on depictions of social anxiety I've ever seen).
It took Seth about twenty years to complete this, so the art style changes a bit over time, but it's mostly stark black and white, the tone conveyed through setting as much as character or dialogue. I think it'd benefit from reading again, despite its grindingly slow pace, to highlight the differing versions of events. It's contemplative and quietly told, and much of it is about the ways that capitalism and expectations of masculinity in mid-century North America will grind you down, no matter how well you play the game (or don't).
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