Rhymes with Useless

John Walker is a professor of Spanish at Queen’s University.

Terence Young is a Victoria-based poet and fic-tion writer. Most of the
13 stories in this collection have appeared in West Coast journals and
magazines.

Although not technically sophisticated, the stories, all of which are
set in British Columbia, are memorable. Family problems are explored in
“Sometimes Night Never Ends,” a Halloween story. “Pig on a Spit”
is about a boy who is troubled by the separation of his parents.
“Yellow with Black Horns” concerns a six-year-old girl who astutely
recognizes the inappropriate behavior of her father at a family party.
“In Bed,” is about a daughter who bonds with her father while her
mother overworks. Other stories run the gamut from “The Day,” in
which the logging Indians of northern British Columbia help the
college-boy narrator understand his relationship with his snobbish white
girlfriend, to “Maintenance,” in which a retired schoolteacher comes
to terms with his wife’s death, his loneliness, and the indifference
of his son after meeting a former student, now a transsexual. This first
collection is a resounding success.