CBC is hosting The Canada Reads Studio One Challenge on Sunday, March 21, 2004, and they are looking for three British Columbians to take on this year's winner, The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe, and to present their own favourite novel to the panel.
Challenge! I have told the CBC that I am hugely passionate about a novel called Up in Ontario by James Sherrett, and although most showdowns are at high noon, I will hotly defend Up in Ontario any time of day. Below is my entry:
James Sherrett’s novel Up in Ontario is a fine accomplishment and as Lynn Coady says, “an assured, captivating debut.” I nominate Up in Ontario because this story has been part of my life as long as James has been. In 1996, we published Up in Ontario as a 32-page chapbook. That year, the chapbook won the Heaven Chapbook Prize, which also marked the year that a great independent bookstore fell, Heaven Art and Book Café. But that was a long time ago. Up in Ontario went from being one short story to a full-length novel. There are characters that went by the wayside, whole scenes that were cut out for pacing reasons; but the final story is still one that moves me to tears yet also makes me burst out laughing.
Right from the first sentence James is testing his reader and promising a family epic. Reminiscent of One Hundred Years of Solitude, he begins with one character and then moves to the life and family that unfolds around them. Rather than 100 years of solitude, James has focused on 30 years of the Dubois family. Gill Dubois is the solitude, or rather he chooses the solitude of his cabin on the shores of Lake of the Woods. A lifelong fisherman and trapper, he can’t for love or money give up that life, not for his wife Christine nor for their son Wade.
The characters of Wade and Gill have always fascinated me. I’m drawn to their maleness, the blood on their hands from hunting, and the guts of the fish. But despite their manly pursuits there is a warmth and humanity to these characters, a tenderness and a wit that should not be underestimated. Up in Ontario is a story about men: their loves, alliances, compromises, dreams and deaths.
Enter CBC's Challenge with this entry form. You have until Sunday.