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thoughts on stories I've read

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No Time to Bury Them — Mark C. Eddy

I was asked to read and review this book for What’s Up Yukon, where I publish many of my edited reviews. I also got to interview the author, which is always a treat.

“To most people, the pack ice looked like a cold, endless wasteland that spread across one’s entire field of vision. But, if one watched it more carefully, one could see it come to life.” 

On the surface of national history, the Yukon is primarily known for events that happened over a hundred years ago: the Klondike Gold Rush. Residents of the Territory today know, intimately, how much more there is to the region than its history, and yet this important time continues to prove itself worthy of review, not only in a historical sense, but in new works of art and storytelling.

Enter: No Time to Bury Them, a new novel by Canadian author Mark C. Eddy published by Iguana Books this year. A fictional account of citizens, corrupt Mounties and gangs in “North America’s last untamed frontier,” is a shot drama based in the decade after the Gold Rush ended.

The story presents a fictional gang leader, whose merciless tactics have put him in complete control of Dawson City. A small group of Mounties set out to challenge the gang’s corruption, but, with bribery and lawlessness abound, it seems as though each man (and woman) has to look out for himself.

Taking place over just a few days, No Time to Bury Them is a fast-paced book with a straightforward narrative. As characters find themselves on thin ice, in shoot-outs and hypothermic conditions, they also battle personal inner demons.

It’s a harrowing—and at times, violent—tale, but don’t expect complete historical accuracy here. While staying true-to-history was a consideration for Eddy, it was not a necessity, and all the characters, and some locations, are purely fictitious. However, Eddy says, his enthusiasm and admiration for the north is authentic, and his research for the book has only strengthened his appreciation for the the area and the impact the Klondike Gold Rush—“a dynamic and magical time”—has had on Canadian history at large.

The Gold Rush and its aftermath, he says, is a time “like none other in our nation’s history.” And stories that bring light to it remain valuable and relevant to use “as a tool for building strong bonds between us, from coast-to-coast-coast, and for shaping a common identity.”

“Historical fiction is important because it lets us tell entertaining stories, and thereby get people excited or interested in history,” Eddy says. A history that, when remembered, can help “to foster a national identity and a shared pride.”

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Spindrift: A Canadian Book of the Sea—edited and introduced by Michael L. Hadley & Anita Hadley

“Whether we live close to the sea, or far from its shores, it is the oceans that bind our destiny and inform who and what we are as a nation,” writes Anita Hadley in the introduction to Spindrift: A Canadian Book of the Sea. The sea, in her view, may not be a tangible part of your everyday, but if you’re a resident of Canada, its very existence is personal because of its constant influence on our country—our community at large. Spindrift, recently released this summer by Douglas & McIntyre, is an anthology of sea-related stories, poems, anecdotes and imaginings that are as varied as our country’s coastline. Canadian authors and editors Anita Hadley and Michael L. Hadley have created an ode to the sea in this print, bringing together some extraordinary writers to showcase the mosaic of oceanic experiences that unite us.

Five years in the making, the editors’ criteria for the anthology was pieces that were “brief, representative and engaging.” And indeed the choice of memoirs, excerpts and passages from fiction and nonfiction are fascinating in both their wit and their diversity.

While some critics claim anthologies neglect the nitty gritty of a story by only offering a thematic bird’s-eye view; in Spindrift the panoramic vista gives a valuable perspective of Canadian identity.

As a huge nation with populations far-removed from one another, it’s sometimes surprising we consider ourselves under one umbrella. However, it’s more recognizable by Benedict Anderson’s standards. The Irish scholar and author of the book Imagined Communities (1983), coined the title term about nationhood—the idea that even though we will never meet most of the people that consider themselves part of the same nation, we share an idea of a collective entity. So, by his explanation, Canada comes into existence because we imagine it to be so.

In Spindrift, Hadley and Hadley make the imagined tangible. Our relationships with the sea are ethereal, the ocean a physical reality. And via our personal experiences with it—albeit it widely varied—the ocean becomes a concrete medium and a connective tissue for the country. The sea makes our nation more visible. As Michael L. Hadley notes, “Always poignant, sometimes passionate—and even pacific—the sea emerges in these witnesses to Canadian experience as a key to understanding this vast three-ocean land.”

While the ocean is a place of solitude and rest for some, for others it represents danger, challenge or hard labour. It is both friend and foe, foreign and home. All of these versions of ocean are brought together in Spindrift, and each one is celebrated as independent pieces in the patchwork of a national quilt.

Exploring both joy and sorrow, Spindrift is an inspirational portrait and both of the anthology’s tailors should be congratulated on this wonderful piece of work. Indeed, I should note, their well-articulated and poetic preambles to the book are well worth the read themselves.

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A Taste of Haida Gwaii: Food Gathering and Feasting at the Edge of the World — Susan Musgrave

“Most of us know someone who has taken up cooking with a vengeance. They love cooking. The only trouble is cooking doesn’t love them back… Still, our mistakes make the best stories, and that’s why we should not think of them as failures.”

Bordering on a genre of its own, Susan Musgrave’s cookbook-come-community memoir, A Taste of Haida Gwaii is filled with the Masset-based author’s joyful confidence in the unpredictable nature of things. But that’s simply one of its many charms. With amicable enthusiasm, A Taste of Haida Gwaii offers seasonal foraging how-tos and what’s-that, personal asides, anecdotal advice and chronicles of life, history and tales from “the edge of the world.” A wonderful book embodying the nature of remote living, this collection bursts with cookery experience and personality aplenty.

From how to forage for razor clams or find chanterelles to making hands-free cloudberry jam or chili with venison, you can be assured to gain a lot of know-how and know-what about food in A Taste of Haida Gwaii (minus any stodgy rigidity). But don’t expect any ingredient or recipe to come as a self-contained entity.

Take salmon for example: if you’re curious about catching a salmon, types of salmon, smoking salmon or brining and canning salmon, this book is for you. And if you’re curious about learning words for salmon in the Haida language (Musgrave includes a table of more than twenty), little known facts about fish (like poet Ted Hughes’ theory that they were attracted to pheromones from female anglers), or the author’s mixed feelings towards salmon steaks (and memories of fishing with her dad), this book is also for you.

For Musgrave the discussion of a recipe or ingredient inevitably extrapolates outwards into a well-spun yarn. Like the night of griddle cakes followed by a fire at the Whale Museum, the octopus (yes, octopus) wedding cake, or the monster halibut that ate a whole canoe. Musgrave invites you to hear her stories like a friend—unpolished and cheeky misadventures included. As she relates tales of local fame about the delicious Moon Over Naikoon Cinnamon Buns, you can almost imagine being in her kitchen, watching floured hands shaping the “soul-feeding” dough, anticipating the delicious results now made even better by knowing the background story. And yes, it’s still a cookbook, so you can follow the included recipe to make your own batch at home!

Where Musgrave doesn’t have a story, she’s done her research. Sea asparagus is “an edible halophyte,” she informs, “a plant tolerant of salt or salt water” also called “crow’s foot greens” in Nova Scotia! Her topical detours are informative and thoroughly entertaining even if, at times, a bit roundabout.

I’m not usually one to spout off about cookbooks, but A Taste of Haida Gwaii can barely be called just that. It’s frank, it’s creative, and does indeed give the reader a glimmer of what life on those remote islands might be like.

Musgrave honours the gratifying connective experiences we have with food in this book. And whether you’re looking for a solid resource or a good laugh, A Taste of Haida Gwaii can supply you with both.

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“Beyond any symbols or words, yin-yang expresses a cosmic embrace, complementarity of opposites woven into the fabric of creation. Regardless of whether this form or that is identified as 100 percent male or female, the dynamic of giving and receiving from opposite poles is the dance that moves in the matter of this universe, from the subatomic particle’s orbit to the pull of the stars. Not antagonistic or dualistic, the yin and yang of life are interdependent forces that breathe and couple like lovers, creating a harmony that is more than mere balance or back-and-forth reciprocity, that moves in an oscillating, dynamic interchange which over time ensures the equal influence of both polarities.”

Trevor Herriot in The Road is How

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“She nods but I don’t know if she knows yet, that men are good, strong, amazing and ordinary, but not everything. They can’t be. They are too busy doing other things, and she should be too.”

Katherena Vermette in The Break

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“It was in the company of the lost and the drowned that Crosbie Wells lay at his eternal rest, for there were yet only a handful of headstones in the plot at Seaview, and most of them were memorials erected in honour of vessels that had been wrecked, or lost at sea: the Glasgow, the City of Dunedin, the New Zealand—as though entire cities, entire nations, had been bound for the Coast, only to run aground, or sink, or disappear.”

Eleanor Catton in The Luminaries

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The Snow Child — Eowyn Ivey

“As Jack knelt in the bloody snow, he wondered if that was how a man held up his end of the bargain, by learning and taking into his heart this strange wilderness — guarded and naked, violent and meek, tremulous in its greatness.”

Often touted as a fairytale for adults, Eowyn Ivey’s debut novel, The Snow Child, is a vividly depicted story about the heartache of life’s trials and the healing we are capable of. Set against the backdrop of 1920s Alaskan frontier living, Ivey explores the tender resilience of love and its wondrous ability to recover even amidst life’s most daunting conditions.

Alternating between ceaseless sun and unwavering snow, the dramatic seasons of Alaskan homesteading provide a wild and coarse existence. For Mabel and Jack, a childless couple approaching their 50s, relocating north was supposed to bring a new life of natural bounty. But as their second winter there approaches the enchantment with their isolated “patch of dirt” is wearing thin.

The couple feels raw in more ways than one. Mabel, still mourning a stillbirth from ten years back, feels trapped in her grief. Jack, working a muddy plot of land daybreak to dayend, wears the responsibility of disappointment on his shoulders. While their care for one another is absolute, a distance has grown between them. Each feels marooned in their worry and sorrow, and a bleak grey has settled over their life.

Then, a mysterious little girl flits out of the woods and into their hearts. Fair and delicate, it’s inconceivable for her to live alone off the land, but she does. Faina is her name, and she weaves in and out of their secluded life with the seasons. Tiny but mighty, her presence threatens to reopen Mabel and Jack’s old wounds while also reigniting their love’s abandoned sparks.

With Faina, the author deftly sprinkles elements of magical realism into the novel. Inspired by a Russian children’s tale, Faina’s character is somewhere in between a forest nymph and a wild orphan girl. However, instead of making this feel like a fairy fable, Ivey uses Faina’s magical qualities to blur the border between what we understand as reality and mysticism. Her ethereal nature is grounded by the sobering life Jack and Mabel live and their constantly contested survival in a physically striking and daunting landscape; the contrast reveals the mystical aspects of our own fragility and its ability to endure and overcome.

Even with this hefty material to consider, the book reads smoothly and is surprisingly undemanding as the plot goes. In a place where Ivey could have chosen to write an epic novel, she went the lighter route. I usually respect the editorial position that “less is more”, however, did feel a couple bridging chapters could have been included. This would have helped to deepen my empathy in the characters over the eight years the story was set in.

Where The Snow Child does succeed is bringing a beautifully animated northern landscape to life, with all the romance and all the severity, hand in hand. And while this ode to winter may feel like an unlikely beach read, it is always fascinating to explore how the seasons changing—be it summer or winter—can test the lives, loves and ideas we are married to.

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“Think of magic as a tree. The root of supernatural ability is simply the realization that all time exists simultaneously. Humans experience time as a progression of sequential events in much the same way we see the horizon as flat: our reality is shaped by our limitations.

If you blasted off in a rocket and achieved a low, stable orbit, you would see the planet’s horizon curving into a sphere. But how, you may be wondering, can you blast yourself out of time? We don’t know how to build those machines yet.

Close your eyes. Concentrate on your breath. Remember that you were not always earthbound. Every living creature, every drop of water and every sombre mountain is the by-blow of some bloated, dying star. Deep down, we remember wriggling through the universe as beams of light.”

Eden Robinson in Son of a Trickster

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The Story of My Tits — Jennifer Hayden

Breasts, boobs, tits, tatas. Mind the title, because, yes, this really is a story about tits, but it’s also, oh! so much more than that. Because, what are breasts to women? I won’t overstep boundaries and assume to know everyone’s relationship with their own; however, whether we have them or we don’t, and no matter size or stage of growth or decline we think they’re in, they become part of our identity. In the graphic novel The Story of My Tits, author and illustrator Jennifer Hayden narrates how hers developed—both breasts and identity—in tandem and simultaneously unfolds a story of contested self-worth, family, imperfect love and loss.

At the beginning it was flat. As an adolescent, Hayden says, she was a late-bloomer who “wanted breasts more than anything in the world,” but they just wouldn’t arrive. Quickly skipping forward, she grows through a shy training bra stage and into college. There, packing a small bit of cleavage, she discovers the world of dating. Surprised to meet lovers of all shapes and sizes, she finds out bra size doesn’t matter quite as much as she thought. She brashly celebrates her new confidence by entering into a series of casual, lousy, eccentric and romantic relationships, discovering herself along the way. Such is life, and such is college life.

Then, on the eve of her graduation, Hayden’s mother is diagnosed with breast cancer.

The diagnosis is followed by a radical mastectomy and the thus-far-humourous-story-of-tits becomes an emotive and raw story of life, the nearness of death, and living in spite of it. As the ghost of cancer reveals fissures in her family, Hayden invites us to observe the naked turmoil left bare by its wake. The aftermath, including a not-so-secret affair eating away at her parent’s marriage, causes Hayden to reconstruct her ideas around what partnerships and love look like, and come to terms with the infinite understandings of what those are.

And then, as she grows into a woman, marries, and has children of her own, breast cancer hits twice more. And the third time it’s her own.

So, yes, this is a graphic novel about breasts. But Hayden really uses the “story of my tits” as an abbreviation to reveal the challenging and changing relationships we have with ourselves and each other throughout our lives. Through the development of her “tits,” from nonexistent to novel pleasures to breastfeeding tools to agents of cancer, they changed shape, status and roles, and, as a person, Hayden did, too.

Ultimately, The Story of My Tits is a wonderfully honest story about the chaos of life. Life that’s messy and precious and real, and how we can’t control all the things we want to control and we’re not always our best selves; and also, how we survive and change, and we learn and we can care enough about ourselves and each other to try and be our better selves, even in the face of discomfort or grief.

But, like life, don’t take it all too seriously. If the title hasn’t already tipped you off, Hayden maintains a surprising lightness with her frank sarcasm and self-deprecating sincerity throughout. It made me cringe, laugh out loud and audibly sigh, all omens of a good book, indeed!

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“Behind us, spindrift from its crest flying ahead to spatter against Gore-Tex and taut white sails, another five-metre swell gathered, filled the view, seethed into the cockpit, then lifted the hull once again and hissed away beneath the rail. At that moment I sense the organic muscularity of great mother ocean, how when you sail downwind, even a rough sea develops the slow swinging rhythm of the cradle.

And if the ocean is the cradle of life on this planet, its simple rhythms permeate our lives, from the creatures that have evolved to survive in the sloshing and often hostile variable of a world between land and sea, to humans grown so distant from their biological origins that they sometimes forget them. Yet it might be argued that humans are intertidal creatures too. The regions governed by the tides are where we gather food, return to play and sometimes seek inspiration.

For all our urbanity, our high-tech jobs and our abstract educations, the ethernets and the stock exchange, the sea still shapes us in profound, perhaps unconscious ways. Our salty blood is an archetype from the primeval oceans that bore us. Beneath the gloss of commercialized sex and romanticized glamour, the ancient tides of human fertility wax and wane on a twenty-eight-day cycle that mimics the lunar pulsing of the sea. Sperm swim through a salty medium to their destination, and unborn babies float in a salty fluid. Even after eighteen years working away from my coast, I’d still wake to the moonlight on the high plains, startled by the night wind trembling in the aspens, hearing in it the sound of distant surf.”

Stephen Hume in A Walk with the Rainy Sisters

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SuperMutant Magic Academy — Jillian Tamaki

Growing up is hard. And the microcosm of high school—with its changing expectations and responsibilities and the push-pull of social dynamics, while, at the same time, you’re trying to establish emotional coping mechanisms and, above all, dealing with the omnipresent questions about the rest of life…? Phew. It’s exhausting just reading that, nevermind acting on it. Sometimes it feels like you’ve got to have some kind of superhuman power to get through it all. In fact, with superpowers, we’d probably be able to rise above all the drudgery and do really extraordinary things. Or so you’d think, right?  

Enter the cast of SuperMutant Magic Academy, a graphic novel by Canadian artist and author, Jillian Tamaki. Originally created as an online series, Tamaki’s characters attend a prep school for mutants and witches. From moderately-unusual attributes to superhuman abilities, the novel’s bizarre teenage cast grapples with the most ordinary pains of adolescence. And how does the immortal Everlasting Boy, Wendy, the popular girl with cat ears, or Trixie, who is a dinosaur, (to name a few) fare in the wild world of gym class, hormones and the impending prom? Well, it may be a little absurd, but it’s not a very different experience from our own.

Teenage-dom is a recognized period of time when the drama of decisions are felt very acutely. And in SuperMutant Magic Academy, the characters’ oddities play second fiddle to the existential crises of crushes, self-discovery, creative expression and duels over Dungeons & Dragons.

Seen in a series of short vignettes, Trixie bemoans her dinosaur looks as her classmate Marsha struggles with coming out of the closet and secretly crushing on her best friend, Wendy; Cheddar, the jock, espouses insight on gender-neutral sexuality while Frances, a sardonic feminist, fights to find her creative expression. All this between computer club and band class.

On the funnier side of dark comedies, Tamaki’s tone drips with sarcasm of the ordinariness of mutant teenage existence but at times becomes incredibly cutting. Her humour is offbeat enough to stay light but within all the absurdity, she manages to highlight some especially real moments. Topics like slut-shaming, peer pressure and underage drinking mingle between strips of mundane text conversations and awkwardly trying to figure out how to/when to kiss someone.

In hindsight, those who have passed through the rites of teenage years don’t look back with the same mind-numbing angst we were riddled with at the time. But just because it’s safely in the rearview now, it’s good to remember the confusion is very real, and at times incredibly scary and overwhelming to those still tussling in its midst. Books like SuperMutant Magic Academy are comedic reminders helping to bridge that gap.

And, while this novel could be pegged for a mature teenage audience, anyone who has lived through high school would laugh reading its pages. Because the truth is, no matter what age, personal battles with the various “what ifs..?” and “if onlys…?” of life can plague any decision we make. Growing up is awkward (still!) and, unfortunately, no superpower will change that.

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The Woods — Amber McMillan

After Toronto’s worst winter in decades, Amber McMillan is finished with the cold hustle of the big city. She’s tired of the urban trudge, tired of the commute, tired of neighbours whinging, and now she wants out. So along with her partner, Nate, and daughter, Lily, she leaves Toronto to find a life with less emotional, and literal, congestion. They move to Protection Island, a small community off the coast of east Vancouver Island, to find a simpler existence beyond the busy hubbub of the big smoke. In The Woods, McMillan documents the first year of their journey and the mix of returns while adjusting to their new life in the more rural Pacific Northwest.

Anyone who has lived in a small town knows it’s not simply a life of leisure. True, it’s often quieter, access to nature is undeniably easier, and the connections you have within the community are tighter, or at least more personal. But, as McMillan soon finds out, those luxuries come with other issues attached; the lack of amenities, creature comforts and other modern-day conveniences are very real and time-consuming. And then there’s those friendly neighbours you see everyday who double as the nosiest people you’ve ever met and are brazenly unafraid to publicly pass judgement on your private matters.

Protection Island is not actually that remote (it’s only 1.5 kilometers away from Nanaimo, the second-largest city on Vancouver Island), but it’s a far cry from their condo life in Toronto. McMillan and her family are faced with a steep learning curve as they find island life not quite as cruisy as they’d imagined. Where they traded in a busy train commute, they now find themselves dependant on a boat with a faulty motor; they traded in the silence of anonymity for the squabble of small-town politics and the stress of jobs with responsibility to the stress of not having one at all.

The Woods is a journal of sporadic delights and hardships of time on “the Island” over a year. McMillan writes personably about the characters and the history that inhabit the tight-knit community, and her struggles in finding her own space among them. While she doesn’t choose a specific theme to emphasize, her series of anecdotal accounts are delivered in finely-described detail.

It’s an oft-romanticized picture—moving away from the hustle and bustle to live with more connection, as small-town folk do in their slow-paced ways and, as McMillan suggests, living a “nobler” life. But what the author grapples with realizing is: small-town life isn’t easier or better, it’s simply different. As every life situation is, each with their own pattern of conveniences and inconveniences that you’ll have to match together and find the blend that works best for you. It’s about choice, and the grass may alway seem greener until you are able to weigh the variables honestly for the lifestyle you desire.

The Woods is filled with some rather standard observations of small-town living; however, chapters of the author’s personal journaling are spiced up by the inclusion of historical narratives which add more concrete intrigue into a book of personal experience. This is a conversational read, and maybe a timely one reminding us to see the positives in where we live and maybe even find gratitude as we grunt through the last stretches of winter.

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“Telling stories and sharing gossip has been studied by cultural theorists and psychologists for years. Results from those studies show that this deeply rooted impulse is not only common but beneficial to the group. We use stories to form intimate bonds, to teach or instruct, to interpret the world, to warn against follies of the past and to establish loyalties. We share them with our children, our friends, our neighbours and our lovers. The stories we tell—everything from painful to the uplifting—are made up in part from the truth, in part from our perspective of the truth, and in part from what we want the truth to be. They can also reinforce beliefs, provoke us out of old and no-longer-useful patterns, irritate us or ignite fantasy. Whether fact or fiction, the most compelling part of any story is what it tells us about the complicated architecture of the world, what it asks us to consider and what it reveals about who we are in the process.”

Amber McMillan in The Woods

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The One Hundred Nights of Hero (num2) — Isabel Greenberg

“In the beginning was the world. And it was weird.” So begins the story of Cherry and Hero, two women and lovers, in the mythical empire Migdal Bavel. And, yes, the world Isabel Greenberg illustrates in The One Hundred Nights of Hero is weird in a fantastical sense (women become moons, magical pebbles are really, very magical), but it’s also weird as a comically absurd narrative that doubles with forthright political statements; statements on power and the confines of patriarchy.

Our leading lady, Cherry, needs to fend off a man Cherry’s husband, Jerome, has cruelly set upon her. Jerome has wagered his slimy friend, Manfred, to win his castle if he can seduce his wife (Cherry) within 100 nights. Hero, Cherry’s maid and lover, comes to the rescue and distracts the smarmy suitor by embarking upon a pilgrimage of storytelling. Manfred becomes enraptured with the stories—as are we, the readers—and we voyage through the tales as they weave together. And as the stories pass, so do the 100 nights...

But wait, back to that wager! Seem completely ridiculous, especially for a feminist novel? Well, that’s the nature of Greenberg’s social commentary. With much irony and humour, the author has created a world where female power is censored in every way; women are owned objects in Migdal Bavel, not even permitted the ability to read. Of course, all the female characters are secretly much cleverer than their male counterparts, but that’s part of the story’s cheeky tone. The male characters and their remarks are so heavily salted with absurdity that the novel makes for a comedic read, but Greenberg is openly taking shots at the power struggle inherent in gender dynamics. And by making them so exaggerated and ludicrous, she succeeds in making her point but also in making us laugh.

From prologue to epilogue, this book draws you into a mysterious world. The illustrations are simple and swept with a dark nature; Greenberg relies heavily on the stark contrast of black, white and shifting greys and uses a simple colour palette to emphasize a brash voice. Her aesthetic choices work well; to complement a dramatic shift in the story, she shifts from a whimsical scene to a reproachful one with a rush of bright and abrasive colours. This helps create tones of severity, as is most necessary for any value-laden tale, I believe!

The One Hundred Nights of Hero is a fable for adults, with many morals hidden under satirical quips and fancy. And those lessons Greenberg asks us to ponder? The angry silence of patriarchy; duties bound by the will of others; the fierce power of women; and the awesome nature of storytelling. Heavy topics even for a hearty appetite, but Greenberg makes them pleasantly digestible. And using clever creativity to shame the scourge of gender inequality from our society is something I happily applaud the author for. A feminist picture book, a quirky dream book, an artsy call-to-arms book, The One Hundred Nights of Hero is an imaginative read for all sisters and those who love them.

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“Harald Nilssen was used to commanding public attention, an authority he achieved through the use of wit, declamation, and comical self-styling. He became very quickly bored when he was required, for whatever reason, to inhabit the periphery of a crowded room. His vanity required constant stimulation, and constant proof that the ongoing creation of his selfhood was a project he himself controlled.”

Eleanor Catton in The Luminaries

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The One Hundred Nights of Hero — Isabel Greenberg

This is a feminist book, a dream book, an art book, a quirky book; that is to say: my favourite kind of book.

I don’t remember how I stumbled upon it, but I’m deeply inspired it. (And I’m going to look up Isabel Greenberg’s other books as soon as I send this review into the ether.) Something between a lesson on astrology, true love and what it is to be human, this graphic novel is exactly what I love about the medium: it’s funny, heartfelt, forthright and ephemeral. It’s cheeky, too, which is my favourite addition to the writing of profound ideas.

From prologue to epilogue, this book draws you into a mysterious world where a harebrained turn comes after a whirlwind description; nothing matches, everything feels wild. But then it comes together, knit, threaded, loved together. It’s a fable for adults, with many morals between. And those morals, those lessons, those ideas to feast on? The angry silence of patriarchy, duties bound by the will of others, the fierce power of women, the awesome nature of storytelling. Heavy topics even for a hearty appetite, but oh, so welcome! Because using coy creativity to shame those notions are so useful.

Carrying those ideas forward, the illustrations are sketched and charmed with a dark nature, but also severe; sometimes bordering on whimsical and then changing with the narrative tone to stormy, reproachful.

All does not end well, reminding us there’s much more we have to pay attention to in order to disrupt the foundations that build those critically unhealthy social norms and values.

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“And after Pisces? Out of the womb, the bloody birth. We do not follow: we cannot cross from last to first. Aries will not admit a collective point of view, and Taurus will not relinquish the subjective. Gemini’s code is an exclusive one. Cancer seeks a source, Leo, a purpose, and Virgo, a design; but these are projects undertaken singly. Only in the zodiac’s second act will we begin to show ourselves: in Libra, as a notion, in Scorpio, as a quality, and in Sagittarius, as a voice. In Capricorn we will gain memory, and in Aquarius, vision; it is only in Pisces, the last and oldest of the zodiacal signs, that we acquire a kind of selfhood, something whole. But the doubled fish of Pisces, that mirrored womb of self and self-awareness, is an ourobouros of mind—both the will of the fate, and the fated will—and the house of self-undoing is a prison built by prisoners, airless, doorless, and mortared from within.”

Eleanor Catton in The Luminaries