Women, Kids & Huckleberry Wine - Softcover

Cameron, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0920080685 ISBN 13: 9780920080689

Publisher: Harbour Publishing, 1989

Synopsis

An extraordinary new collection of short stories from the author of Dzelarhons and A Whole Brass Band.

Here is an assortment of relationships: lovers, husbands and wives, children and parents, friends; and of strong individuals: Nan, whose frog causes consternation and chaos; Daleth who defies a fundamentalist sect, only to discover that it's hard to outrun the grasping wrath of fanatics; Emma, the Pie-Faced Church; and Blackie, whose dowsing skills find happiness as well as water.
With all the magic of Stubby, the compassion of Dzelarhons, and the clear-sighted realism and wry humour her readers have come to love, these are stories to enchant, move, disturb, and provoke. The wish for a perfect world is in perpetual conflict with things as they are-and as they shouldn't be.

SEVEN SHORT STORIES BY ANNE CAMERON:
NAN must choose between an oversized amphibian and a normal life.
LOUELLA seeks fame fortune as a night-club pianist.
DAVE has his work cut out for him domesticating Louella.
EMMA decides one day to leave her job and start her own church.
And a GOOLIEGUY (did'ja ever hear of one?) brings new meaning to a lonely woman's life.

About this title

About the Author:

Anne Cameron was born in Nanaimo, BC. She began writing at an early age, starting with theatre scripts and screenplays. In 1979, her film Dreamspeaker, directed by Claude Jutra, won seven Canadian Film Awards, including best script. After being published as a novel, Dreamspeaker went on to win the Gibson Award for Literature. She has published more than 30 books, including the underground classic Daughters of Copper Woman, its sequel, Dzelarhons, novels, stories, poems and legends - for adults and children. Her most recent novels are Family Resemblances, Hardscratch Row, and a new, revised edition of Daughters of Copper Woman. She lives in Tahsis, BC

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

We are all profoundly influenced and shaped by our geography, and nowhere is this more evident than in British Columbia. Even those souls so unfortunate as to have not been born here, are who they are because of where they lived, and, should they move to the coast, and should they be able to pass the severe tests the coast imposes on those who would seek sanctuary here, they begin to change, to adapt themselves to the climate, to adapt their political outlooks and reactions, to become less and less what they once were, more and more what the coast has insisted we will be.

There are some who say the entire North American continent is formed on a decided tilt, resulting in all the nuts rolling to the west. We have never denied this, It is possibly why we had the foresight to erect the Rocky Mountains; the nuts hit the barrier and ricochet, like pool balls, back to source. And only the stout of heart and stalwart continue on to Eden.

And yet Eden, which influences and shapes her accepted children, is, herself, influenced and altered by their very presence. A town is not streets and sidewalks, buildings and roads, sewer systems and industry; a town is made by the people who live in it, people who are formed by the power of their geography, people who adapt to or alter their surroundings, are adapted or altered by them. What can ever be said of a town without focusing on the people who live in it? Without people, towns sit abandoned, are taken over by mice and bats, are destroyed by weather and die of broken hearts. Deprived of people, towns vanish; denied of a town, people on the coast will build one. Then, if they decide they don't like where the town sits ... they will gallantly move it several miles in any direction, to a site more pleasing. After all, "take away the people and what have you got but some rocks, trees, beaches, and the ocean."

A.C.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harbour Publishing
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0920080685
• ISBN 13: 9780920080689
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 266