Book Review: The Things We Leave Behind
Alanna Rusnak created Blank Spaces Literary Magazine with the goal of establishing a platform to promote Canadian talent. Her mission reads: to celebrate and champion the work of Canadian creatives bringing exposure and support. This anthology is a tactile result of her 50/50 writing contest containing the work of eight talented finalists right across Canada. The theme generated diverse personal interpretation.
“The collection is bittersweet and emotion packed. Many of the stories possess an elegiac quality, an aching awareness of dark and light; strength and vulnerability. ”
“Menos Coca, Mas Cacao” (Less Cocaine, More Chocolate) by Vancouver writer Ace Baker is the first prize winner and no wonder. He packs a gut punch. Aware of the cocaine trade rampant in Columbia, this chilling revenge tale makes it personal. Baker’s poetic images underlay the corruption. His poetry enriches the rhythmic prose. Our heroine’s revenge seals her fate: move or die.
I can feel the frigid North in Miller’s “Howl” as Jon saves the remaining pup; his littermates frozen to death. Or is it the pup who rescues the young man fleeing the voices and cacophony of the city in the harsh Yukon terrain?
Zajac’s poignant and tender story of lost love puts an innovative spin on the Roman Catholic mysteries which provide a unique metaphorical structure as our protagonist re-visits his home town dreaming of Fiona, his first love. As classical pianist Fiona played at the recital in the Anglican Church Hall, she slipped Rosary beads into the piano for her impish Irish grandmother. As he watches the hall being demolished for condos, the piano flattened; he reflects on a changing way of life and his regrets around this long-ago lost love. He climbs among the wreckage “all he wanted was a relic”. (p26). I was impressed with his creativity and strong evocative visual imagery.
Meier’s piece delivers a visual vignette as Alice returns to the small town of her youth unearthing the box she’d buried at eighteen; inside the symbolic pink teddy. I’ll challenge the reader to discover its significance. Is Alice searching for comfort or closure? “Time smooths the edges but can never quite polish out the jagged spots”. (p37)
Suma depicts the gradual deterioration of a former journalist who keeps a diary “to see my thoughts…..I’m still me.” (p39) This underlines our fears and resonates with the final season of the television drama This is Us and Rebecca’s journey.
“On Edge” allows us inside the life of a newly widowed author who finds it easier to work with words than people. Are many writers introverted? Do we need to observe yet step back from life in order to write?
Twining’s piece, set in sunny Sauble Beach, permits the reader to experience the raw anger and palpable pain of a beloved partner’s betrayal and abandonment. If you ever gone through a bad break up, or been blindsided; this story will resonate. The pristine images of bright sun and blue sky in juxtaposition to Ruby’s heart ache make it all the more poignant. “It’s another one of those sad days full of blazing sunshine.” (p64)
The final story by Moffatt is inspired by poet Maya Angelou’s poem “Touched by an Angel” and begs the question. How would I have acted in this situation?
Simply writing this review has churned up emotion. Savour and explore these – just not all at one reading.
#2 BESTSELLER | FOUR WEEKS ON THE AMAZON HOT NEW RELEASES CHART
Featuring a foreword by Rachel Laverdiere (Atticus Review, editor) and short fiction by Ace Baker, Barbara Lehtiniemi, Julie Meier, Dawn Miller, Jennifer Moffatt, Cheryl Skory Suma, Lori Twining, and Ronald Zajac.
The eight short stories included in this anthology offer a glimpse at Canada’s geographic landscape—spanning the Yukon, Canadian Prairies, Great Lakes, and metropolitan Toronto while starring protagonists who are well-storied in loss, yet not all choose to grieve.
You will crunch across sub-zero tundra and bake on the beach alongside our hero(in)es. You will live like hermits and populate condos. You will search the remains of a knocked down church and dig up a decades old box. You will fall in love with a fallen angel and a sufferer of galeophobia.
Like the Canadians who created them, our feisty leads think outside the box to adapt to the challenges and changes thrust upon them.
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