The Hole That Must Be Filled

Sarah Robertson is associate editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

The 14 tales in Harvey’s second short-story collection (his first,
Directions for an Opened Body, was nominated for the Commonwealth Prize)
seduce and repel, though not in equal measure. Contained in “The
One,” a surreal exploration of sex and spirituality, is a statement
that seems to express the author’s own dualist aesthetic: “The One
... is that special, non-physical place connecting heart to gut. It
directs compassion and brutality. It kisses and it kills.” In fact,
these stories weigh in heavily on the destructive side of the dualist
equation. Two recurring settings are the backwoods wilderness of Cutland
Junction and the urban hell of Slattery Street. Regardless of their
geographic disposition or socioeconomic status, Harvey’s characters
occupy sundry stages on the abnormal psychology scale. Human degradation
is the only currency understood by the most extreme cases, represented
most appallingly by the monstrous teenage sociopaths in “Birthdays.”

No matter how revolting the subject matter (e.g., the protracted
skinning alive of a moose in “The Throat”), Harvey’s prose dazzles
and compels, and in doing so rescues his stories from mere
sensationalism. Although consistent in their brilliance, not all are
unqualified successes. The Cutland Junction tales, a confusing blend of
real-life horror and hallucination, are too bizarre for their own good.
The stories work best when their essential freakishness is tempered with
inklings of humanity. The tension between “compassion and brutality”
is shown to best effect in stories dealing with the tragic relationship
between a nihilistic teenager and his Alzheimer’s-afflicted father
(“Heber Peach”) and the “geography of despair” charted by a
father after his daughter’s accidental death by drowning (“The Hole
That Must Be Filled”).

Readers will be challenged, disturbed, and on occasion alienated by
these stories. What makes their author such a formidable presence on the
Canadian literary scene is the sheer virtuosity of their telling.