“Sons and Mothers: Stories from
Mennonite Men”
Edited by Mary Ann Loewen
Published by University of Regina Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$21.95
ISBN 9-780889-774032
I’m a fourth generation Canadian, and
unfortunately haven’t been privy to conversations about ancestors’ “old country”
lives, which, in my case, would have included several European counties. I’ve
always felt a kind of longing for such tales, for knowing where we come from
helps make sense of who we are today. After reading Sons and Mothers, Stories from Mennonite Men - a collection of a
dozen essays commissioned by Winnipeg writer and educator Mary Ann Loewen - I
recognize that the disparate contributors’ common heritage bonds them in an
almost familial way. Yes, these Mennonite men have shared so many similar experiences
they’re like one large family: a family that sings, reads, tells stories, and
worships together; values hard work; practices altruism; and celebrates one
other - even when individual beliefs don’t align.
Two of the most obvious threads in this
affecting anthology are the prominent role that music’s played – for the
mothers and for their sons – and how
several offspring strayed from the church’s traditional doctrines. What
distinguishes the essays are the ways in which they are told, plus specific
anecdotes that give us a real sense of who these devout women were\are.
Certain essays possess an academic
tone, while others are more conversational. Two writers chose poetry to express
their thoughts. Humour and light-heartedness permeate some of the mother-son
relationships (writer Patrick Friesen refers to his mother’s “trickster”
character, and even the title of his essay – “I Give a Rip” – is funny, as it’s
what his 87-year-old mother sarcastically uttered while she and her son were
discussing her move into a “home”).
Byron Rempel’s mother was
image-obsessed; he recalls a photo of himself in a sailor’s outfit, the cap
“tipped at a jaunty, seafaring angle.” He must’ve been “on shore leave.” Lloyd
Ratzlaff’s essay about his mother’s decline is particularly eloquent and
heartfelt. He doesn’t sugarcoat the toll it takes on those being left: “We all
need palliation,” he writes.
There’s also remorse. Regarding his
vibrant, storytelling mother, Paul Tiessen regrets being “too dull, too
inexperienced, too seduced by the attractions of the immediate present to be
interested in what she had to offer”. When he abandoned his notion of heaven
and hell, Nathan Klippenstein also felt he was “not only abandoning the religion
of [his] youth, but that [he] was also abandoning [his] mother”.
Song is everywhere – choirs, family
harmonies, even mother’s singing goodbyes – and gratitude’s paramount. Lukas
Thiessen shares that his mother was the kind who “loves you even when you’re an
aggravating, drugged-up sex fiend vagabond atheist raising a son born out of
wedlock.”
It’s difficult to write honestly about
one’s mother. Howard Dyck says: “To analyze such a relationship is to venture
into treacherous shoals.” Kudos to Loewen for pulling these essays together,
and for choosing exactly the right end-note in Patrick Friesen’s resonant lines:
“Mother says sometimes that she is shocked when she hears how old she is. As
far as she knows she was ten or eleven just yesterday. And she was.”
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
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__________
“Yes, and Back Again”
by Sandy Marie Bonny
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$19.95
ISBN 978-1-77187-052-8
I didn’t know Yes, and Back Again was going to be that kind of book. I picked it
up in the evening, intending to read only the first ten pages or so, then
planned to devote the following day to it. Well, I finally put it down on page
110, and only because it was hours past my bedtime. This novel swept me up like
the roaring South Saskatchewan River snatches debris off banks in the
springtime.
Saskatoon writer, artist, and educator,
Sandy Marie Bonny, has crafted an ambitious story that melds history and the
present, addresses cultures
(specifically the Métis),
and makes friends of wildly disparate people. There’s also a strong Tim
Horton’s presence, text messaging, online police bulletins, and Facebook: talk
about keeping it real.
Bonny unrolls two parallel stories: one
concerns a young high school math and Life Skills teacher, Neil, and his
writer\researcher wife, Tanis. They’re tired but excited. They’ve just
purchased an old home on Saskatoon’s west side (Avenue L), and their daily life
includes making the former rental house livable (ie: removing the wheelchair
ramp, “odour-busting” the basement with a product called “Piss-off Pet Stain Remover,” using a borrowed Shop-Vac to suck up
mouse droppings), and meeting the neighbours in the apartment building next
door.
The other story centers on the Métis
family who built and first lived in the character house. This story, presented
in italics between the present-day chapters, includes a dangerous river
crossing in a single-axel cart; premature deaths (TB, scarlet fever, Spanish
flu); trapping; and a mysterious, blood-like stain in the attic.
The contemporary story heats up when
two students – friends Melissa Arthur and Jody Bear – go missing from the high
school (which might be modelled upon Bedford Road Collegiate, if I’ve guessed
the geography correctly). Both are Neil’s students, and he takes some major and
unconventional risks in helping to locate them. Were they abducted? Are they
runaways? Is it all a hoax? While Neil’s busy being both suspected by and
working with police, Tanis dives head-long into a research project and a
relationship with a descendant from the home’s original family.
This could all become quite convoluted,
but Bonny’s got it under control. She keeps the plot moving forward, the pacing
tight, and it doesn’t hurt at all that she has both a keen ear for teenaged
diction and understands the dynamics of married life. Plus, she includes
several west side “landmarks” that ground this story, ie: the Farmers’ Market,
the skate park by the river, the highway Esso. This compelling novel works so
well because it pits mundane every-day-ness against a very real and topical
danger (“Six in ten years is a lot of murdered women [mostly First Nations] for
a city their size”).
Deep into the book there’s an
interesting husband\wife discussion concerning
teenaged boys and where the line’s drawn
between respect for \ objectification of
women. Although not specifically billed as YA, this well-written novel would
make a smart addition to high school reading lists.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
__________
“Queen of the Godforsaken”
by Mix Hart
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$14.95
ISBN 978-1-77187-063-4
I took a plethora of notes while
reading Mix Hart’s SK-based young adult novel, Queen of the Godforsaken, because there’s a lot going on across
the 293 pages it encompasses. The fictional driver of this story, Lydia, is a
veritable storm-cloud of teenage hormones – part girl who still plays with
Barbies, part woman who feels responsible for her entire family’s welfare – and
she might do or say just about anything.
Feisty Lydia; her year-younger and
equally sarcastic sister, Victoria (Lydia alternately considers Victoria her
best and only friend and also gives her the moniker “Prissy Tits”); their
pot-smoking and under-employed professor father; and their
dangerously-depressed mother move from Vancouver to the paternal homestead on
the Carlton Trail near Batoche, and the adjustment’s hard on everyone.
First, there’s the weather. Hart ably
details the brutal prairie winters, where eyelids have to be pried apart,
snowstorms make prisons of homes, and even the family dog tries to avoid being
outdoors. The physical cold parallels Lydia’s temperament as she navigates
trials at home and school in nearby “Hicksville”. Lydia, the “ice queen,” warms
to few people. Case in point: both she and Victoria refer to their parents by
their first names, and teachers – when the girls do go to school - are ridiculed.
The cold and imprisonment are prominent
themes. Lydia’s father keeps the house at ridiculously low temperatures, and
the characters are constantly trying to warm via toques, dressing in layers,
and building wood fires in the basement furnace, where six mummified
woodpeckers explain the home’s “smell of death”. Through Lydia’s lens we see
“urine-coloured walls,” and easily imagine the lingering smell in her bedroom -
formerly used as a chicken coop.
Lydia feels school “is a prison encased
in barbed wire”. The sky is “prison grey”. Back-to-school shopping is done at Saskatoon’s
Army and Navy – an iconic store, now closed - where the girls select their “prison
uniforms”. A smoke ring “hovers, like a noose,” over her father’s head.
The sisters are both outsiders and
originals: they collect bottled shrew and mouse skeletons, Victoria veritably
lives in an old pink housecoat, and the pair often hide out in their frigid
home’s unfinished basement. But despite herself, Lydia also starts to
appreciate things about the prairie: she learns that the first coyote yip
“means it’s almost eleven,” and her iciness begins to melt when she connects
with a local hockey player. Love, however, also proves another storm front: “If
this is love, I hate it,” she says.
There’s plenty of humour here to help
balance the tone, ie: when Lydia’s nominated as a school Snow Queen finalist,
she says “… it is sort of flattering, I guess – like winning best pig at the
country fair.”
The novel and its mercurial central
character are best summed up by Lydia herself. “No one could possibly
understand what I am going through,” she thinks. Any teenager who has felt the
same – and show me one who hasn’t! - might be well served by reading this.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
__________
“Size of a Fist”
by Tara Gereaux
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$12.95
ISBN 978-1-77187-059-7
I recognized the anonymous town in
first-time author Tara Gereaux’s teen novella, Size of a Fist. The mill’s closed, there are “many boarded-up shops,”
and abandoned homes. I know this town because I was raised in a number of small
towns that echo it and I’m familiar with many more, and because I could relate
not only to the physical aspects of the town’s decline, but also to the disreputable
activities of the youth who inhabit it - including Addy, the protagonist of
this New Leaf Editions’ book – and the tangible desire to get away.
Drinking, drugs, driving while
impaired, “colourful” language, bullying, adolescent sex, and generations of
familial dysfunction: this is no Disney story, but Gereaux does shed light on
the underbelly of small-town life that some might argue is the norm, rather
than the exception. There’s value in holding up that mirror: it presents a truth.
The Regina writer portrays a community where the only chance of upward mobility
is to be outward bound.
This book is more documentary than
commentary, and I like that, too: there’s no sense of authorial judgement here,
and if after a near fatality Addy utters “Everything is always so hard,” her
life is proof that she’s earned that pronouncement.
The night before Addy and her
boyfriend, Craig, are about to “escape” for “the city,” they go on a final
bender with friends. There’s much alcohol, and roughhousing, and because
Craig’s inebriated, Addy has to drive. Imagine seven people squashed into a
vehicle. Imagine a party in a cemetery (same place Addy’s mother used to party).
Imagine one couple partying with a baby in tow.
It’s the reality of the scenes that
struck the strongest chord with me, ie: Craig, anxious to exit, tells Addy: “‘Look,
the tank’s full, I downloaded tons of music. I called my cousin this morning,
too, and he said they just got a fridge and stove for the basement. For us.’”
There’s a heartbreaking image
concerning Jonas – a bullied boy who lives with his abusive and alcoholic
father. The boy’s mother is dead, and at one point he smooths her long dress on
the floor, “crawls on top of it,” and curls into a fetal position. Jonas plays
a major role in the novella, and I encourage you to read it to learn how the
plot surprisingly twists.
Addy’s mother is another mean
character: she says things like “Get outta my face,” drinks too much, and is
having an affair with the local RCMP officer. It’s abundantly clear that Addy
never really had a chance.
It’s a sorrow that this is real life
for some people. Like those I know who refuse to watch the news (because it’s
“depressing”), some folks would scan the back cover text and put Size of a Fist back on the shelf. Then
there’s the rest of us, who prefer not to go through life wearing blinders. If
you’re in the latter camp, good on you: you’ll appreciate what Gereaux has
accomplished here.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
