Helen Humphreys’s The River pays homage to a Canadian preoccupation with how landscape sculpts the country’s imagination. Canada’s rivers perform as arteries and veins in this country’s body, a conceit that Humphreys uses to fine effect in her meditation on the Napanee River, a river that she lives beside, swims in and observes. The more subtle aspect of this intense and deliberated work is the intelligent distillation that this river is as indifferent to her scrutiny as she is scrupulous in her…
Aritha van Herk
Aritha van Herk is a novelist and non-fiction writer. Her latest work, Prairie Gothic (with George Webber; Rocky Mountain Books, 2013) explores the convergence of place and imagination. She lives in Calgary.