The Exotic Canadians

Anne Savoie is a youth counsellor in Anjou, Quebec.

The stories in this collection offer interesting characters, themes, and
plots, and immerse the reader in particular times and places. For
example, in “Donald Chen and the Containment Policy,” a young
Chinese boy whose parents immigrated to Canada wants to escape from his
family and their lifestyle. But in the end, he has become what he
escaped. He becomes a restauranteur, as his father once was. In “The
Prisoner of the Big Apple,” a man learns from his New York-born friend
and a Canadian woman he meets on a trip to India. They both influence
and aid in his introspections and decisions about his own life.

Drabek (who is originally from Czechoslovakia and now lives on the West
Coast) offers various backgrounds for his characters (including
Czechoslovakian) and his stories take place in various locales
throughout the world. Although each story contains at least one Canadian
character, these characters are sometimes proud of, sometimes detest,
and sometimes are simply uninterested in their being Canadian.

This fine short fiction makes interesting reading.