The Road Home: New Stories from Alberta Writers

Description

301 pages
$35.00
ISBN 1-895073-21-9
DDC C810'.8'09712

Publisher

Year

1992

Contributor

Edited by Fred Stenson
Reviewed by J.M. Perreault

J.M. Perreault is an assistant professor of English at the University of
Calgary and the co-editor of Native Women of Western Canada: Writing the
Circle: An Anthology.

Review

This book is a formidable object: the format is coffee-table; the
biographical notes that introduce the contributions of the 29 writers
are set on gilded pages; and gold leaf borders each page. Interwoven
with the stories are Keith Zukiwski’s blandly pleasant photos of
various Albertans. The book is heavy, expensively produced, and nice to
look at. The project was financed by the Alberta Multiculturalism
Commission in an attempt to “present a new and accurate image of
Alberta society.”

Both the writers and the portraits show the diversity of Alberta’s
people, but they do so in very different ways. With nothing more than
name and location to identify them, the people in Zukiwski’s portraits
lack individuality. The writings, in contrast, are dramatically varied,
intense, personal, and challenging. Established authors like Aritha van
Herk, Rudy Wiebe, and Christopher Wiseman do here what they do so well,
and sit comfortably alongside newer writers like Clem Martini, Yasmin
Ladha, Wayman Chan, and Marilyn Dumont. Experimental prose, familiar
memoirs, cowboy poetry, and humor come together in writing that is
consistently strong. I cannot name every story or poem that impressed
me: that would take far more space than I have here.

Editor Fred Stenson’s wide-ranging selection of writers achieves the
Commission’s goal, and even extends it by showing how very powerful
Alberta literature is. As a whole, however, the book is less than it
could be. The range and brilliance of Alberta’s writers needs to be
balanced with an equally complex visual representation of its people.

Citation

“The Road Home: New Stories from Alberta Writers,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed November 22, 2024, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/12340.