On the Threshold: Writing Toward the Year 2000

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta, the co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities:
British Views of Canada, 1880–1914, and the author of The Salvation
Army and the Public.

A brainchild of the Foxglove Collective (Kingston), this anthology is a
millennium sampler. It brings together short stories and poems by 45
Canadian writers with the overall aim of reflecting on “moments both
private and public, personal and political, which have formed the
crucible for life in the twenty-first century.” Although more
editorial vigilance might have been exercised in defining those
“moments,” one can nevertheless appreciate their variety and
intensity. Terry Watada’s “Message in Bottle,” for example, tells
the story of a Japanese Canadian who, “even after abandonment, arrest,
incarceration, and exile,” still feels that “Canada had become home
after forty years.” In other pieces, excellent writers like Stan
Dragland, D.G. Jones, Michael Crummey, and Joan Givner reflect on
“both the century that lay behind and the century that beckons.” All
told, On the Threshold is a memorable work.