Way Up

Description

190 pages
$19.95
ISBN 0-86492-368-6
DDC C813'.6

Year

2003

Contributor

Reviewed by Lori A. Dunn

Lori A. Dunn is an ESL teacher, instructional designer, and freelance
writer in New Westminster.

Review

Kuitenbrouwer’s collection of short stories is brilliantly varied:
each turning of the page brings with it another surprise, another
complex relationship. A story about a piece of land and its ghost
meeting the new resident follows one about an ex-boyfriend and
girlfriend on a mind-bending road trip to meet the Friendly Giant. A
tale of childhood friends meeting sainthood comes after one of a father
and daughter reliving history on the prairie.

No way exists to categorize these stories in a facile summation:
Kuitenbrouwer writes stories about people’s tragedies and
celebrations, essentially life in all of its bittersweet glorious mess
of passions. And each story encompasses a different point of view: she
writes as a man, as a woman, and as a child; she speaks from age and
from youth; and she shares the perspective of both the educated and
those who are not. Way Up is masterful fiction that encapsulates much of
the human, and Canadian, identity.

Citation

Kuitenbrouwer, Kathryn., “Way Up,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed December 21, 2024, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/15474.