Author Archives: smharrin

Sharp and quizzical look at human experience

The Pull of the Moon

by Julie Paul

Brindle & Glass, 2014

$19.95; 184 pages

Reviewed by Margaret Thompson

If fiction serves to map what makes us human, the short story may represent those small regions, shown in contrasting colour to demonstrate their position vis à vis the larger country or continent, and magnified to reveal their complexities in more detail. In her second collection of short stories, Julie Paul surveys the minutiae of human relationships with a sharp and quizzical eye.

Her characters are what would be called ordinary people: married couples and single parents, friends and colleagues, family members and complete strangers. We observe them in their separate landscapes, coping with separation and parenting duties, going on holiday, irritated by their neighbours and apartment living, resentful of family demands—all very much the stuff of daily life until we hear the details. Then we see the old secret behind the cottage holiday that has frozen a family in denial and guilt in “The King is Dead,” the psychic distortion caused by the accidental killing of a baby rescued from a car wreck in “Damage,” the grief and loneliness of a brother and sister, “each with a country to themselves,” in “Crossing Over.”

Many of the characters yearn for love and connection, but there is not a single straightforward path for any of them. In “Flip,” the main character seems at first to be a caricature of a librarian: Claudia is timid, socially awkward and has a talent for self-deprecation. She has also had very few sexual experiences apart from an early collision with fellatio and a short-lived relationship with Clark which ended with a text to say he’d gone to Alberta.

Rodger’s courtship transforms Claudia, who “feels like another person has entered her body,” and she finds herself whisked off to Cuba, where she sees, “Women with gigantic cigars in their mouths, looking like they’re enjoying themselves immensely.” This is sex as fun, but Andrew’s experience in “Weeping Camperdown” is alarmingly different. He is a single parent dipping his toe in the dating pool once again. He seems to find a soulmate in Joni. Lying under the Weeping Camperdown in the Ross Bay cemetery is idyllic, but subsequent events quickly bring far more than he bargains for, Joni’s ideas of love being as freakish a mutation as the tree.

Guilt and responsibility for others run like underground rivers in many of the stories. The narrator in “Adios” struggles with her part in Fred Poole’s death, having ignored her neighbour, the victim of a stroke, when she saw him wandering down the street. Even this guilt has its complications, for the Pooles resist medical intervention for religious reasons, and there is a delicious irony in the end to the narrator going to Mrs Poole’s rescue when she has a fall, and becoming “the answer to a prayer.” Angela in “Her Full Name was Beatrice” frets over her role in the tragedy of her friend Erica murdering her child, Beany, tormenting herself with “what ifs,” dreaming of alternative scenarios, addressing herself as “You.”

This is not to say that the tone is unrelievedly serious. There is a delightful sense of humour at work here, and even the most serious stories are leavened by wit, by captivating throwaway lines, by hilarious, incongruous detail. It is a reminder that we are dealing with humans and human behaviour seen up close: funny, sad, inadequate, tragic, venal, conflicted, desperate, sometimes even noble. This particular cartography is often entertaining, frequently disturbing, and always illuminating.

Julie Paul will launch The Pull of the Moon on Sept. 28 at 7.30 p.m. at Munro’s Books in Victoria.

Margaret Thompson’s new novel is The Cuckoo’s Child.

Rifflandia: Death Cab for Cutie worth the 17-year wait

Day 3 of Rifflandia 2014,

Royal Athletic Park,

Reviewed by Chris Ho

The hot sun beat down as swarms of  people waited in a massive line that  veered down Cook Street. Luckily, I  wasn’t wearing my banana-suit costume  like the brave men in front of me, but part  of me wished I had. I already felt carefree  energy in the air. Royal Athletic Park was  decked out with two stages, one on either end, and a plethora of vendors and activity tents.

As I walked through the entrance, a giant banner popped out from above: Rifflandia. To my left were black wooden Artlandia panels and a big main stage. To the right, aisles of local vendors led the way to the side stage tent, fast-food trucks, and then, of course, to beer and cider taps.

I was impressed by the musical choices: indie rock, dubstep, Celtic dance-pop, 70s influenced pop-punk and hip-hop. I hadn’t encountered anything like the fiddle-infused dance-pop that is Kytami: the high-energy fiddler hardly missed a beat, even as she danced around, stirring up the crowd, her arms and fingers moving furiously to the notes.

While the main stage sound quality and setup was successful, I had a love-hate relationship with the Rifftop Tent side stage. Everyone appreciated the much-needed shade of the big tent, but unfortunately the sound was muddy trapped under the tent roof. In the end, I put it out of my mind while listening to the Dum Dum Girls.

An all female line-up, the Dum Dum Girls had one guy fill in on lead guitar. He too had awesome long hair and matched the well-coordinated black outfits of the trendy rock trio. The initial impression I had from their video Bedroom Eyes was that they overplayed the gorgeous girls with guitars shtick. But their live performance was more about heartfelt lyrics backed up by Blondie-inspired harmonies and dream-pop guitar licks.

Even though it’s predictable to say so, the highlight of day three was the headlining act, Death Cab For Cutie. As I first discovered at the group’s Pacific Coliseum performance in 2009, there is something special about a band that has played the music it loves for almost two decades. Their on-stage chemistry and energy was infectious. The crowd roared with excitement after the opening song as Ben Gibbard (lead vocals) announced this was their first show in Victoria since the band formed in 1997.

“Wow, they’re old,” I heard a young woman say.

She sounded disappointed. But to me, that was incredibly exciting: the last time Death Cab performed in Victoria, they were just starting out. Seventeen years later they’re back, an international success, still flawlessly performing some of the very first songs they wrote.

After the encore, Ben Gibbard gave a heartfelt thanks to the multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of the band, Chris Walla, who had just played his last show with the band. It was a moment to remember. The drums built up and crashed on the closing note of Marching Bands Of Manhattan and the band put aside their instruments for a group hug. A flurry of camera phones reached up to capture the occasion.

We finally made our way to the exit lights with huge smiles, plastic beer cups crunching underfoot.

Chris Ho is a Victoria musician and writer.