Arvida

Arvida, a collection of short stories, ends with this passage from Madeleines as the narrator (presumably the author of the collection, Samuel Archibald) considers all the stories he could write:

   Stories of Arvida and elsewhere. 

   Horrible stories and funny stories and stories both horrible and funny. 

   Stories of road trips, little thieves, and people weak in the head. 

   Stories of monsters and haunted houses. 

   Stories of bad men, as men often are, and mysterious and terrifying women, as women always are. 

   True stories I'd tell without asking permission or changing any names, while giving dates and the names of streets. 

   Terrible stories that I'd never tell except by removing them to the opposite end of the world, or disguising them in strange language. 

   They all jostled together, taking their time, until I succumbed to the overwhelming fatigue of the day in the open air. There was no hurry. I hugged my father, I pissed outside, and I went to bed early for once, happy to know so many stories. 

   Beginning with that one.

Coy for this book to end with that reference to a beginning, but this list pretty much explains everything you will find within these pages. The title “Arvida” itself refers to the smelting town in Quebec’s Saguenay region where Archibald grew up. Built quickly in the late-1920s as a planned habitat for the factory's workers, the town’s name derives from Alcoa/Alcan’s then chairman, Arthur Vining Davis (combining the first two letters of each of his names). Because Arvida seemed to him like a place without a history, Archibald's intent here was to fill in the blank spaces with local folklore, family stories, and a touch of fantasy (noting that in French, there is no difference between the words for “story” and “history”). With hockey, hunting, and prayers to the saints, this collection is firmly set in what I think of as Quebec, but as a work of literature, I'm uncertain as to its broad appeal.

There were often some lovely descriptive bits:

   I was dazzled by the lightning and blinded by its absence. I heard a din that was more like thunder than surf, I saw the waves crashing and exploding against the rocks in a commotion that had nothing gentle or harmonious about it, I saw the ocean like an immense black mass streaked with foam, and I understood that every time I'd seen the sea before that night, on the bridge of a ferry, at the lighthouse at Pointe-au-Père , or on the beach at Cape Cod, I'd seen a postcard, I'd seen a lie.

Or:

   Menaud had the torso of a wrestler perched on bird feet, forearms like Popeye the sailor covered in long black hairs like zigzags, and between his incisors a hole big enough for you to poke in a finger. A thick beard lent a bluish cast to his neck and cheeks, and a single bushy eyebrow spawned a whole repertoire of grimaces where it overhung his evil eyes, hunched in their orbits like grackles in a stolen nest.

And many passages I didn't really understand:

   The cards murmur many things in the ears of people who know how to listen. Her grandmother taught her that a woman has the right to hear what she wants to hear and to leave all the rest suspended from the wings of the birds of affliction.

I was glad to read that the most disturbing story in Arvida – Jigai; the Japan-set gorefest – didn't spring whole from Archibald's mind, but was disquieted to think of it as an allegorical version of real life events. Overall, these stories were a little dull for me – and not least of all because every story about “monsters and haunted houses” contained logical explanations for quasi-supernatural events – but I can appreciate the purpose that they serve for Archibald and the memory of a town that doesn't even technically exist anymore.

I'm pretty excited that this year I was able to find and read the entire Giller Prize longlist before the winner is announced (with weeks to spare). If I were in charge, I'd give the prize to Martin John, and here is my ranked order of the contenders:

The longlist for the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize in my order of ranking is:


Anakana Schofield - Martin John 
Marina Endicott - Close to Hugh
Patrick deWitt - Undermajordomo Minor
Heather O’Neill - Daydreams of Angels
Connie Gault - A Beauty 
André Alexis - Fifteen Dogs
Clifford Jackman - The Winter Family
Alix Hawley - All True Not a Lie in It
Rachel Cusk - Outline
Russell Smith - Confidence 
Samuel Archibald - Arvida 
Michael Christie - If I Fall, If I Die

*Won by Fifteen Dogs; not my favourite but fine.