Here’s my roundup of the top five best books released by local authors this year, just in time for your last-minute literary gift shopping. Let us rejoice in the glory of our written word!
Night Visions: Beyond Good and Evil by Baron Cameron (Culture Thug)
You’d never guess by looking at him that Baron Cameron, a self-described “gutter rat street photographer,” grew up in an affluent bedroom neighbourhood in West Vancouver. He still commutes to and from that suburb to his other neighbourhood – the Downtown Eastside – where he mingles and roams, endlessly photographing any moment of truth that catches his eye. In his second book of brutally vivid street photography, Cameron captures life and death on some of North America’s grittiest streets and alleyways, all in black and white, and all between 6pm and 6am. The results are gripping.
Nearly Normal: Surviving the Wilderness, My Family and Myself by Cea Sunrise Person (Harper Collins)
Sequels to memoirs are tricky. One would assume that your first memoir contains all of your best stories, and a second one would simply be a mishmash of whatever got cut from the first book. I should know. Luckily for you, that is not the case with Cea Sunrise Person’s 2017 memoir Nearly Normal, the follow-up to her bestselling debut memoir North of Normal. That first book was an astounding true tale of being raised deep in the wilderness and totally off the grid by extreme back-to-the-land-ers. In the new book, Person writes of her escape from the wilderness to an exact opposite world: life as an international model of high-end fashion. But there is darkness beyond the lens. This book is especially relevant within the #metoo conversation.
The Fiddler Is A Good Woman by Geoff Berner (Dundurn)
A few years ago, local klezmer accordionist and singer-songwriter Geoff Berner released his first novel, Festival Man, which was a scathing satire aimed at the folk festival and international touring scene. It felt oh so wickedly close to the truth that I’m surprised it didn’t launch a national inquiry into our arts grant system. Berner’s latest novel picks up where the last one left off, and, if it’s possible, this one hilariously shreds the ever-fragile ego that is the Canadian music scene even more. Names are barely changed. For instance, in one scene early in the book, a “hipster CBC guy” named –ahem– “Grant” is trading insult-jokes with another musician in a folk festival beer garden. Uh huh. This is the perfect book for any music industry refugee, or for anyone who’s ever wondered what it is really like to try and survive as an independent musician, told in thinly veiled fiction.
How Deep Is The Lake: A Century at Chilliwack Lake by Shelley O’Callaghan (Caitlin Press)
A beautifully written, self-aware memoir from a former environmental lawyer-turned-author, this book tells the story of a deep family attachment to a mythically described, very real place called Chilliwack Lake. Anyone who has ever travelled to a cabin or cottage will relate to O’Callaghan’s vivid descriptions, but what was most impressive to me was the author’s admission of guilt for only vaguely knowing who occupied the land during the centuries before her family took possession. As the pages turn, the author challenges herself to leave her comfort zone and confront the truth of the displaced First Nations inhabitants, and her conflicted feelings about it.
City On Edge: A Rebellious Century of Vancouver Protests, Riots, and Strikes by Kate Bird (Greystone)
What is it about Vancouverites? Why do we so frequently feel the need rise up in anger? Does the rain sour our mood that badly? Why do we always take it to the streets, whether we’re protesting war, unjust marijuana laws, whales in captivity, or dumb stuff like Rolling Stones concerts and the final score of the Stanley Cup Final? Just about every neighbourhood in this city has had its own riot! In stark contrast to Vancouver’s international image of a laid-back urban paradise, Kate Bird expertly shows us that our citizens are actually wound up tighter than Joey Shithead’s guitar strings. Bird showcases our burn-first-think-later attitude through page after page of photographs of marching discontent from the archives of the Vancouver Sun and Province, proving that we are indeed, and always have been, rather fascinatingly, a City on Edge.
• Grant Lawrence is the author of the rock ‘n’ roll memoir Dirty Windshields: The Best and the Worst of the Smugglers Tour Diaries (Douglas and McIntyre). He'll be signing books this Saturday, Dec. 9 at Red Cat Records Main Street from 3pm-5pm.
