Cathleen With

This book has a few immediate "creative writing MFA" flags, like the way all the characters speak in a fanciful white-trash patois (everything, e.g. is "all funny-like" and "sneaky-like" and etc.) with irruptions of literary vocabulary like "lest" and highflung metaphors like "the bullet dives into my sweating brain." (The First Nations dialogue is somewhat better, IMO.) The hardsell of the word "skid" in the first story and then its submergence and resurfacing like an afterthought.It is a great title and a distinctively Pacific Coast slang word, for sure, but one among many, you know? Or the sameness of the stories--I realize that abuse and addiction and parental failure all play a common role in the sad stories of the street, but With doesn't spend enough time with most of her charges for us to get into their histories and really feel like buying in. Sometimes it's just a litany of pain, in other words, with no development or differentiation, and that makes it feel slightly spurious and exploitative. But there are a couple of tales that take off, a couple of stories that really sing--poor moony Kevin and his love Daniel Warmfeather; Anja and her horror of an uncle (like, please not to pick on uncles; I know some of us are awful, but "creepy uncle" is getting to the viral stage and it's not fair to the huge majority of us who are good guys and sometimes even loving dads ourselves). And those heart-hurting sketches of hope in shadows make a look through this collection worthwhile--especially if you're from the East Side of Vancouver, where today an illuminated EAST VAN cross was erected above Mt. Pleasant to express our solidarity and, dare I suggest, defiance.… (altro)