Diverse essays bring worthy insight

By: Reviewed by Susan Huebert Posted: 2:00 AM CST Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024

Attempts to characterize life in Canada necessarily covers many different topics. Best Canadian Essays 2024 reflects this variety of concerns in a collection that spans issues from cooking to feral peacocks to family losses to racism and violence.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/01/2024 (950 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Editor Marcello Di Cintio begins by explaining the challenges of compiling a work such as this one, including the difficulty of concentrating on any project, considering the shortened attention span that the pandemic caused for him. Still, the essays themselves helped to lift him out of this mood as he selected works that ranged from slapstick to tragic, all representing slices of Canadian life.

Di Cintio is the author of four novels and has served as writer-in-residence at the Calgary Public Library, the University of Calgary and the Palestine Writing Workshop. Having written for a number of publications including the Walrus and Canadian Geographic, currently, he teaches non-fiction writing at the WordsWorth Youth Writing Residency program.

Among the 14 authors featured in Best Canadian Essays 2024 are Lyndsie Bourgon, Kyo Maclear, Sandy Pool, Daniel Allen Cox, Jenny Hwang and Nicole Boyce.

The collection begins with a story called Ruffled Feathers: How Feral Peacocks Divided a Small Town, in which Bourgon describes how the people of Naramata, B.C. reacted to feral peacocks living in their midst — from those who loved seeing the birds to others who wanted them gone, even at the cost of cutting down their trees. Whatever people’s opinions were on the matter, Naramata lost a unique symbol when the last of the peacocks disappeared.

Many readers will identify with themes in some of the essays, including One Route, Over and Over by Nicole Boyce, which describes the tactics she and her husband used for trying to get their new baby to fall asleep. An author dealing with an aging father, a family of movers learning people’s secrets in the furniture and mementoes they keep and an author with a handicap reflecting on the way that chefs can ruin people’s love of cooking through their scorn for pre-chopped ingredients are some of the other issues that the authors discuss.

Perhaps the most moving essay is The Fight of My Life by Hamed Esmaeilion, an immigrant to Canada whose wife and only daughter were among the 176 passengers who died when their airplane was shot down by the Iranian government. Bad Days by Fiona Tinwei Lam considers the increasing and often violent anti-Asian racism that the pandemic prompted in many parts of Canada. The book ends with a brief biography of each of the contributors, giving readers the chance to learn how the authors’ experiences have influenced their work.

Each of the authors in Best Canadian Essays 2024 offers a particular style and perspective, but the essays work together to provide a picture of some of the issues Canadians have been facing. Many readers are likely to find something to interest them in this short collection of essays.

Susan Huebert is a Winnipeg writer and editor.