Under NeWest Eyes: Stories from NeWest Review

Martha Wilson is Canadian correspondent for the Japan Times (Tokyo) and
a Toronto-based freelance editor and writer.

The 20 stories in this anthology were culled from the western Canadian
literary journal NeWest Review, now in its 20th year. In their
selections, the editors “have avoided theoretical, ideological, and
even regional commitments in favor of as much variety as possible.”
Certainly the pieces here—by such writers as Rudy Wiebe, Guy
Vanderhaeghe, Edna Alford, Sharon Butala, and Bonnie Burnard, among
others—offer a range of perceptions and dwell on the variety of human
experience.

Sandra Birdsell’s “The Wild Plum Tree” looks at several forms of
prejudice in a home for pregnant teenagers. Elizabeth Brewster writes of
two sisters in a gossipy small town; the women are trying to get back to
normal life after one has been raped.

In “Iron Wheels,” an account of moving to an internment camp during
the war, Frances Itani vividly details life in a house with 10 families,
where the walls don’t reach to the ceiling. In “The Sound He
Made,” Richard Cumyn’s voice is strong and beautiful: “Then he
noticed the little pair of feet under the car and the sound of creative
humming.”

The most striking piece in the collection is “The Detachable
Appendage” by Beth Goobie, who has a mind so loony and so intelligent
that there should be a run on her books.