Kink, Pink, and Ink

• Published in: Canadian Literature no. 233; pp. 136 - 137
• Main Author: Carruthers, David M. J
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Vancouver The University of British Columbia - Canadian Literature 22.06.2017; Pacific Affairs. The University of British Columbia
• Subjects: Alcoholism; Audiences; Borges, Jorge Luis (1899-1986); Canadian literature; Children; Classism; Erotica; Humor; Lin, Tao (1983- ); Literary characters; Literary devices; Misogyny; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Novels; Plot (Narrative); Readers; Short stories; Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963); Young adults; Canada
• ISSN: 0008-4360

Anvil $20.00 Reviewed by David M. J. Carruthers Martin West, bursting onto the CanLit scene with his 2016 short story collection, Cretacea & Other Stories from the Badlands, delivers a rip-roaring carnivalesque exposing the seedy underbelly of a rural Red Deer River community rife with reactionary right-wing gun nuts; mouldy pot-smoking paranoiacs; swingers, tramps, and maniacs; pharmaceuticalfuelled sex parties; a macho, alcoholic, sharpshooting, porn-reviewing hobbyist paleontologist; a cunning blonde Amazon lady constable; kink of all kinds; and (yes, probably) dinosaurs![...]is the thing the men dredged from the River, in "My Daughter of the Dead Reeds," the corpse of a drowned child or the fossil remains of a Pteranodon, and why is the mother so unmoved? A warning to more sensitive readers: the recurrent hyperbolic machismo of this collection, albeit caricatured to the point of satire, risks participation in a misogyny that, despite the overt humour of the stories, some readers will not find funny.[...]disappointment is the only unifying purpose of the thirteen stories that make up the young girl's life-whether at not receiving lace-up roller skates for Easter or being forbidden the coveted corporate cereal, whether at her friend Vicki and her family due to bodyshaming and classism or at her parents' separation, at her first sexual experience or due to her constant comparison of her own material conditions to others'.[...]were this text marketed as a Young Adult novel, Thirteen Shells might serve a melodramatic teenage audience relating to the petite catastrophes of Shell's life by offering up hope and optimism: the novel's climax and conclusion provide the promise that it gets better.