The Robbie Burns Revival and Other Stories

Linda M. Bayley is a freelance writer based in Sudbury, Ontario. She is
the author of Estrangement: Poems.

When we first meet Tony Aardehuis in Cecilia Kennedy’s debut
collection of short stories, he is on his first posting as a constable
with the Ontario Provincial Police and full of a rookie’s idealism.
It’s this idealism that carries him to the side of an old man trying
to save his land from expropriation, leading him to help the man recover
the bones of his long-buried infant son and save a rare species of
violet in the process. The same idealism propels Tony through his next
posting in Northern Ontario, and finally home to Armagh, near Kingston,
where his brother and father still work the family farm.

Taken together, Kennedy’s stories read more like a novel than like a
loose connection of ideas. Aardehuis is not a static character; he grows
from story to story, taking the reader with him as he encounters
adultery, blackmail, child pornography, suicide, and family secrets, and
discovers the realities lying beneath the deceptive surface of
stereotype. This character and the situations in which he finds himself
are so compelling that it is nearly impossible to read only one story at
a time. Kennedy makes us care about her hero and reluctant to leave him,
even when the stories have finally come to an end.

The Robbie Burns Revival and Other Stories makes for a solid,
satisfying, and down-to-earth read. This reviewer looks forward to
reading the next few chapters in the life of Tony Aardehuis.