Fox (1991)

Winnipeg writer Margaret Sweatman published her first novel Fox in 1991. I noticed the book a couple weeks ago while perusing my friend Craig's bookshelf. Because it looked older and was published by Turnstone, a press I admire (see David Arnason's Marsh Burning and Kristjana Gunnars Settlement Poems, both from 1980), I read the first paragraph, then the second, until Craig asked if I was staying for dinner.

Great writing! Like Stein and Faulkner are great. And Nathanael West. And Renata Adler. How come I had never heard of this book? There was a time when I was reading everything I could "on" the Winnipeg General Strike, including poetry and fiction -- but oh how this crafty Fox eluded me!

"Rent" is an exquisite chapter. Same goes for this tuft of prose:

a simple sun tells a warm & yellow story in the lane where the handsome sunnybricks mumble brickdust, cobble & knuckle & yawn away because it's hot June, & the lane is long & innocent, & the footsteps & the horses & the toot toot of the new cars clamour & shine somewhere far off but in the lane, a simple summer afternoon turns its sweatered back to the radio. & snoozes.