Steppe: A Novel

T. Virginia Gillese is an editor and writer who is currently involved in
the revising of the Literature, Communications, and Philosophy sections
of the Canadian Encyclopedia.

John Weier’s first novel is about dispossession and what it means to
belong. This stark question extends from Mennonites on the Canadian
prairies, to Ukrainians, Bulgarians, and Jews in Eastern Europe, and
even to the writer and reader. With its floating first-person narrative
and clean, almost Spartan writing style, the book recalls early
Dostoyevsky. Technique and content are particularly well matched in the
novel’s treatment of the dispossession of peasants and the struggle of
landowners in Ukraine. Our empathy for the characters is somewhat muted
by their two-dimensional nature.