Kirjahaku

The thirteen provocative stories in A Sharp Tooth in the Fur, Darryl Whetter's first collection, offer lots of sex, a bit of violence, and a wickedly clever exploration of human nature.Backed into emotional corners, Darryl Whetter's men are creatures of feckless energy and intermittent idealism. Their fragile relationships break up easily, and men who don't retreat into pot-fuelled lethargy revert to ambitious self-destruction. Excellent as he is at capturing his characters' essence, Darryl Whetter is mature enough to view the men in particular, but also the women, with considerable irony. Whetter's "heroes" are often men in their twenties or thirties, men with little self-knowledge but boundless self-centredness and sexual appetite.The event that propels several stories is the break-up of a marriage, a love affair, or a liaison of convenience. When separation doesn't inspire pot-induced lethargy, it goads these men to frenzy. Backed into emotional corners, they revert to self-destruction. Sometimes, as in the hilarious "Profanity Issues," valiantly suppressed rage, shame, and terror erupt at a weird angle, and blind loyalty to an impulsive misjudgement snowballs into weeks of public humiliation. "Non-Violent, Not OK" is an insider's view of the 2001 Quebec City riot. The central character, Chuck, is encouraged in an abstract sort of way by his lazily liberal prof, equipped by a father who thinks money fixes everything, and armed with pop-psych instructions from a bloodless riot manager. Innocent of ideology, he wanders aimlessly around in the tear gas, offering his Maalox-based eye-spray to friend and foe alike. In "A Sharp Tooth in the Fur," an ex-couple acts out a highly original sexual fantasy that's as hilarious as it is shocking. From the classroom to the laundromat, from Paris to the mosquito-infested Ontario bush, Whetter dissects a portion of human experience that has never been so deftly explored, revealing the psyche of the 20-something male.

Andrew Day embarks on a bicycle trip from Halifax to Kingston, his childhood home. As he goes, the dual narratives of Andrew's life emerge: the slow, painful death of his father and the disappearance of Betty, who may be lost to him forever. He contemplates, too, the nature of desire. En route, Andrew sloughs off his fears, material goods, and attachments. In episodes of intensifying violence, he leaves the highway and rides the back roads under the cover of night. By the time he arrives home, an epiphany greets him. Darryl Whetter writes with compelling intensity of athleticism and degeneration, isolation and community, the weight of desire and the joy and anguish present in all things.

Travel is inseparable from storytelling; yet travel, these pressing poems worry, may contribute more to the climate-crisis problem than it solves. Inspired by the Canadian author's recent travels through Southeast Asia and Down Under, these wry, loving, witty poems offer one journey after another.

No subject, we’re all starting to admit, is as relevant as climate change. Our Sands is set in and around one of the least sustainable projects on the planet—the tar sands in Alberta, Canada. They inspire increasingly militant ‘ecoteurs’ who feel that one big dose of poison is the only way to stop the poisoning of land, water and First Nations peoples. Seventeen year-old Ocean Janak has grown up the privileged daughter of Blake, a geologist turned oil executive. When she falls for Rory McAllister, a bike courier who secretly scans many of the oil contracts he’s paid to deliver, she finds a lover and comrade-in-green-arms. Together, they say No to help the planet say Yes. Like Margaret Atwood, Our Sands knows that climate change is in fact 'everything change'.