Howell, Jennifer

English

University of New Brunswick: Centre for Digital Scholarship Journals

national consciousness. Consequently, the book offers not only a case study of Pea-cock’s research in Newfoundland, but also a perspective on the social networks shap-ing both Anglo-Canadian folksong research and the mid-20th century Canadianfolksong revival.The thoroughness of Kearney Guigné’s study and its potential usefulness to herreaders is amply demonstrated by her detailed documentation of sources which com-prise ninety pages, almost one-third of her published work. In addition to an extensivelisting of primary archival and secondary sources, Kearney Guigné provides noteswhich detail her interviews for this study, an audiography focused on Newfoundlandfolksong, a listing of Peacock’s own publications, and an index which pays close atten-tion to folk music scholars, the 1960s and 1970s North American folk music revival,her own interviewees, and the Newfoundland place names central to her research. Ad-ditionally, she includes a song and tune title index complete with Francis James Childand G. Malcolm Law’s ballads, a feature often missing from lesser publications. Con-sequently, the bibliographic elements of this book offer a veritable reference library forthose interested in Newfoundland folksong scholarship. Unfortunately, the thirty-fivepages of notes, while providing useful commentary and documentation, are difficult tonavigate because they lack page-specific headers.Kearney Guigné’s strength most certainly lies in her skills as a researcher.While the reading is occasionally tedious, one cannot help but marvel at her exten-sive interviews with Peacock and his associates, her familiarity with Peacock’s au-dio and visual records, and even her detailed descriptions of some of his fieldworksessions. While Kearney Guigné faults Peacock for having only a passing interestin the singers he recorded, she herself interviews many of them, providing re-sponses to her own questions concerning the social history of the songs and singersPeacock recorded. Kearney Guigné diplomatically concludes that Peacock “servedas a vital link for others to conduct additional research” (p. 159).Because Kearney Guigné offers her readers a wealth of descriptive detail inan accessible writing style, this work will be of interest to folklorists, ethno-musicologists, social historians, Newfoundland studies scholars, cultural tourismpolicy-makers, and those generally interested in the politics of culture.Doreen KlassenSir Wilfred Grenfell CollegeMemorial UniversityKate Story, Blasted. St. John’s, Newfoundland: Killick Press, 2008. 360 pp., CAN21.95 (paperback); ISBN 978-1-897174-31-9.STEEPED IN NEWFOUNDLAND mythology and lore, Kate Story’s first novel,Blasted,transcends the category of regional literature. If the Dictionary of NewfoundlandEnglish defines “blast” as “an infection, wound or physical injury attributed to theReviews 283malignant activity of fairies,” then the novel’s title refers not only to the curse suf-fered by the protagonist’s family, but to the protagonist herself. The reader shad-ows Story’s first-person narrator, Ruby Jones, through the trials and tribulations ofeveryday life, from her days as a discontented diner waitress, through her recklessmotorcycle jaunts, casual sexual encounters, and alcoholic binges. Yet perhapsRuby’s problems, albeit extreme, mirror our own. Her future seems doomed to con-tinual excesses while her friends, members of Toronto’s art crowd, pursue theirlives accumulating personal and professional achievements including marriageand gallery exhibitions. It soon becomes evident that Ruby cannot move forwardherself unless she confronts the past.Enter family trauma. Ruby’s Toronto existence is disrupted early in the novelby her grandmother’s passing. She must return to her native Newfoundland and itsSouthside Hills to console her grandfather and pay her respects. Yet despite her at-tempts to escape childhood, family, and self, she explains: “Part of me had kept mybags packed, so to speak, ever since I’d left, ready to go home. I still called it that:home” (2008, 53). The subsequent three-week hiatus reinitiates Ruby into the is-land’s mysteries. She indulges her childhood fascination with Shanawdithit, thelast of Newfoundland’s indigenous Beothuk tribe, discovers family photographs,bonds with her estranged Great Aunt Queenie, renews childhood friendships, con-templates her parents’ fatal car accident, and, without fully comprehending, beginsto unravel family secrets. Why was her father so different during the winter? Whydid he often leave young Ruby and her mother? Who were the women in whitedresses and red hats dancing in a circle by the Fairy Rock? Why do Queenie andRuby’s grandfather insist on placing hardtack next to windows and doors?With her questions still largely unanswered, Ruby returns to Toronto. And al-though this section of the novel proceeds slowly as the reader witnesses Ruby’s de-scent into madness and alcoholism, it transitions from social to magical realism (theterm is used descriptively here). Of course Story does not create a sense of height-ened reality in which supernatural elements appear natural à la Alejo Carpentier.Rather the overflow of Newfoundland folklore into Toronto realism functions met-aphorically. It does not seem natural that Ruby is plagued by fairy-led pigeons orthat she partakes in a fairy ritual in a city park. Yet the supernatural intrusion issymptomatic of Ruby’s condition: she cannot escape who she is, neither with fastmotorcycles nor through binge drinking. The more she tries to escape, the more herpast merges with her present, forcing her back to Newfoundland to unearth her fam-ily’s deepest secrets and, ultimately, herself.The novel’s climax occurs when Ruby is forced underground by one of them,the malevolent fairies from whom her family has long strived to protect her. Con-trary to her father’s experience, whom she later learns had been replaced by achangeling during the winter months, Ruby was able to push through the soil andfree herself. This moment of self-redemption breaks the family curse — severalmembers of Ruby’s family have been blasted including her great-grandmother284 Reviews—and releases the protagonist’s own personal demons. The remainder of the novelbriefly chronicles Ruby’s transformation: she decides to stay in Newfoundland,signs up for an accounting course, befriends her grandfather’s dog, and finally con-vinces her grandfather that “[she’s] through” (2008, 330).The appeal of Story’s novel is its underlying universality hidden beneath lay-ers of regional folklore: who says you can never go home? Ruby’s dilemma is thatshe has never been able to leave home, no matter how far she strays. This truth sur-faces in several ways throughoutBlasted such as Ruby’s Newfoundland patois thather Toronto friends find so charming, the strange cast of characters following heraround Toronto including the goggle-clad cyclist and the small women dressed inwhite, and the feeling that Ruby fled — not left — the Southside Hills. Ruby’s finalreturn to Newfoundland is sparked by a series of particularly self-destructive actsending in a nearly fatal motorcycle accident: “I was tired of running, sick with myown fear of this thing that ran in my blood, that had pursued my father and hisgrandmother before him. ‘I have to go home’” (2008, 285). And home she goes.But from what is Ruby running and what does she fear? Newfoundland’s fairyfolklore has been passed on for generations, and Story’s novel participates in thisendeavour. The myth of the changeling, of children stolen and replaced by fairies,is a transhistorical and transcultural myth long used to explain congenital intellec-tual disabilities such as autism. Yet the tales recounted in Story’s novel are as intri-cately linked to Newfoundland’s geography as they are to Ruby’s developmentaland behavioral anomalies. Indeed Ruby’s downward spiral reflects the defacementof the Southside Hills by land developers including the construction of the ArterialRoad and a sewage treatment plant: “A giant wound had opened up in the Hill. Palestriated rock lay bared, seeping precious fluid from the creases, a bite, a gash in themassive rock that had been my yard, my place, the backdrop to my whole life”(2008, 57).Story notes in a postscript that her description of Newfoundland’s urban devel-opment disregards chronological accuracy. However, because such changes affectboth the landscape and its human communities, she argues that the thematic reso-nances of the novel’s setting prevail over the need for descriptive precision. Thisreader is inclined to agree. In addition to the natural landscape, the omnipresence ofdilapidated houses (e.g. Ruby’s parents’ home) and structures (e.g. her grandpar-ents’ garden wall) serves as a metaphor for the family’s bad blood and longstandingmisfortune. It is therefore symbolic that Ruby suffers through an abortion in herparents’ abandoned house and that her grandfather, resolved to hide the truth abouthis family, struggles to rebuild the garden wall every time it succumbs to soil ero-sion.Story’s attention to detail also permeates the novel’s more fantastical ele-ments. For example, Queenie’s ruses to ward off fairies echo popular practices andbelief. Among them include carrying bread or silver coins in your pockets, wearingReviews 285clothing inside out, cursing, and reciting your name backwards. In this respect,Blasted performs the task of storytelling long rejected by Ruby’s family.While not all of Story’s readers will be familiar with Newfoundland geogra-phy, history, and folklore, these aspects complement the novel’s deeper signifi-cance. One could read the novel as a metaphor for intergenerational familyproblems or, as I have done, for the purging of personal demons. A nativeNewfoundlander herself, the author has undoubtedly drawn from her own child-hood experiences to enrich the local flavour of the novel. Yet stories of changelingsare not specific to Newfoundland, thereby widening Blasted’s appeal. The Creecharacter Blue, for instance, shares with Ruby legends from his native Saskatche-wan which are strikingly similar to those of Newfoundland. Story’s choice reflectsnot only a desire to transmit Newfoundland folklore, it also caters to the popularityof fairy legends in the West from William Butler Yeats’s 1886 poem “The StolenChild” to Keith Donohue’s 2006 novel of the same title.Contrary to both Yeats and Donohue, the strength of Kate Story’s narrative liesbeyond the supernatural, providing the reader with a profound glimpse of the hu-man psyche. If the novel seems cluttered with innumerable stock characters, in-cluding Ruby’s sexual partners, annoying neighbours, childhood miscreantfriends, and homosexual roommates, it does so to add depth to Ruby’s character.Most are indicative of Ruby’s inability to commit to relationships, react appropri-ately in social contexts, and even to mature into the adult woman she is meant toportray. For example, the frequent cameo appearances of Izzie, the concierge-cum-bag lady, capitalize on Ruby’s unspoken fear of becoming destitute and home-less.And this constant reminder of Ruby’s bleak future would be quite effective ifthe reader were led to believe that Ruby’s successful artist friends would one daycease to support her financially. One critique of the novel is therefore its unrealisticdepiction of human relationships and degrees of tolerance. Near the end of thenovel, Blue bemoans his new life sans Ruby: “No hysterical dawn phone calls. Nodrunken benders. No psychotic episodes” (2008, 318). Although Ruby’s adven-tures and burlesque behaviour supply comic relief throughout the novel, the readeroften wonders why her Toronto friends tolerate her. Or perhaps this renders theirgenerous gift of paying for Ruby’s expensive plane tickets to Newfoundland all themore believable.Ruby’s friends and their strange devotion to her, from disinfecting herspore-infected refrigerator to humouring insults during her drunken stupors, cer-tainly defy understanding. If Ruby’s repeated misadventures eventually result in anelevated sense of self, the reader is left to wonder how for her character does notseem particularly capable of such change. Throughout the novel, the protagonistshifts relentlessly between two extremes: on the one hand, a devoted friend andgranddaughter; on the other, a reckless and self-absorbed drifter. Ruby’s incon-stancy suggests that her final career move as future accountant to the stars is286 Reviewsdoomed to fail like so many of her previous exploits and personal relationships.Ironically, Ruby’s crass character and bad language enable her to ward off the fair-ies: “I always knew my filthy mouth had to be good for something” (2008, 314).Notwithstanding this critique, Story’s first novel is well written with humorousdepictions of Toronto’s city life balanced with equally poetic descriptions of theSouthside Hills. Those interested in cynical realism will be as delighted withBlasted asthose interested in regional folklore and mythology. By layering the ordinary with thefantastic, Kate Story’s well-researched and well-developed plot outshines the novel’squestionable character development making for a thoroughly enjoyable debut novel.Jennifer HowellUniversity of IowaPeter R.Sinclair, and Rosemary E. Ommer, eds., Power and Restructuring: Can-ada’s Coastal Society and Environment. St. John’s, NL: ISER, 2006, 336 pp., two4-colour maps and three 4-colour maps, bibliography, CAN $31.95 (soft cover),ISBN 1-894724-04-2.A COLLECTION OF diverse and often historically detailed case studies, Power andRestructuring: Canada’s Coastal Society and Environment offers a unique pictureof the challenges facing communities located in Canada’s furthest Western andEastern coasts. ACoasts Under Stress project, editors Peter Sinclair and RosemaryOmmer present an examination of coastal communities experiencing economic,social and health care restructuring. This collection aims to identify themes in thechallenges faced by coastal communities and aspires to begin building strategiesfor solving the problems that result from fluctuating ecology and shifting socialpolicy. The book uses an integrated approach, focusing on the inseparable relationsbetween humans and nature. More specifically, the volume aims to contribute to-wards sound policy development and the empowerment of communities.These eleven case studies present distinct stories of individuals facing chal-lenges arising from power inequities, authoritarian structures, top-down manage-ment and external factors that restrain local people’s access to power. The chaptersalso speak to the resistance and resilience of these rural coastal populations, thestrong effective social institutions they build and the local knowledge they developin response to diverse challenges. The various essays explore the struggles of Ab-original communities, forest harvesters, mining-company town residents, healthcare providers, fishers and youth. The themes central to all the studies include theimportance of building strong social-ecological networks of power within commu-nities and developing shared internal and external objectives. The text concludeswith an examination of potential theoretical approaches and perspectives thatmight be used to build the framework necessary for obtaining these goals.Reviews 287

Kate Story, Blasted

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Kate Story, Blasted

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