Some critics consider the geographically grounded novel passé, an outmoded form of expression no longer suited to the atomized, urbanized, globalized reader. And yet publishers still publish such narratives. And readers still love to read such stories.
The Horseman’s Graves is such a work. It follows the 2003 publication of Jacqueline Baker’s story collection, A Hard Witching, which won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, the City of Edmonton Book Prize and the Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Fiction. The Horseman’s Graves is a conventional realistic novel in that its setting and plot are every bit as important as its characters. In fact, setting often shapes much of what happens in its characters’ lives. And it is also what literary critics call a “linear novel” in that the story moves sedately forward without discontinuous narration or alarming leaps through time.
And what a fine novel this is: it reveals a young author wonderfully...
Lynne Van Luven is the editor of the anthology Nobody’s Mother: Life Without Kids (Touchwood, 2006). She teaches at the University of Victoria.
Advertisement
Advertisement