Foreign Affairs

Ellen Pilon is a library assistant in the Patrick Power Library at Saint
Mary’s University in Halifax.

Keath Fraser, author of the “enthusiastically acclaimed” volume of stories Taking Cover (1982), has again produced a brilliant work. He has an incredible command of language which he uses effortlessly, immediately engaging the reader’s attention and never letting go, even after the story has ended. These stories live with you; not only do you participate in each story — either through the character or as an interested observer — but, afterwards, you find yourself interpreting and reinterpreting the events. A crow will never be a crow per se again after Mr. Crow in “Here.” A waiter will never be taken lightly after “Waiting.” Fraser has the gift of planting pictures in his reader’s mind that are virtually indelible.

“Waiting” is an amusing portrait of Rajam the waiter, who takes his profession seriously. In the hierarchy of waiters he is near the top; he visits Macdonalds to observe the lower echelon at work. Although proud of his work, he would rather be a full-time tennis player. Tennis language is blended into the narrative, which describes every imaginable aspect of waiting. In “The Emerald City,” the narrator has a gardening show on TV, a wife, a lover of ten years’ standing, and a highly sensitive nose. “Arlene says my rambling associations make me a hound in search of their gist.” These rambling associations permeate Fraser’s style in every story. They are never too rambling, nor do they stray too far from the subject, but they introduce delightful sequences of thought. “13 Ways of Listening to a Stranger” attests to Fraser’s skill in expressing many different characters’ thoughts at once.

Each of the seven stories and three novellas deserves lengthy discussion. Tennis, gardening, religious cults, female body builders, wealthy men, wilderness camping, multiple sclerosis, boarding houses, the war prisons in Cambodia, large families, India: Fraser knows these subjects, which are central to the stories, in incredible depth. With his command of language, Fraser describes these subjects brilliantly, using them as settings that his people experience. We feel the onslaught of MS with Silas in “Foreign Affairs.” In “Teeth” we react instinctively with Ted, committing the same atrocity and initiating the same disaster. In “History of Cambodia” we lie chained to the prison bed, our minds refusing to accept the horror. The stories are so full, the characters so multi-dimensional, their relationships and experiences so brilliantly portrayed, that you become familiar with these characters, you become part of them. You feel a need to reread and reread, certain that with different times and different moods you will learn even more with each reading.

This is literature at its very best, and Canada should be proud.