Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Bone Mother
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://daviddemchuk.com/
CITY: Toronto
STATE: ON
COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Demchuk * http://www.thebonemother.ca/ * http://www.thebonemother.ca/bio/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 93008956
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n93008956
HEADING: Demchuk, David
000 00325nz a2200133n 450
001 3100673
005 19930201145046.0
008 930201n| acannaab |n aaa
010 __ |a n 93008956
035 __ |a (DLC)n 93008956
040 __ |a DLC |c DLC
100 10 |a Demchuk, David
670 __ |a Making, out, c1992: |b t.p. (David Demchuk)
953 __ |a lh04
PERSONAL
Born Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, playwright, novelist, independent filmmaker, screenwriter, essayist, critic, and journalist. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Toronto, Ontario, Canada, communications officer.
AWARDS:Dora Mavor Moore Award, 1986, for the play Touch.
WRITINGS
Author of plays, including Rosalie Sings Alone, 1985; If Betty Should Rise, 1985; Touch, 1986; The World We Live On Turns So That the Sun Appears to Rise, 1987; Stay, 1990; Mattachine, 1991; Thieves in the Night, 1992; and The Power of Invention.
Also author of dramas for the radio, including Alice in Cyberspace, 1999, aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Cororation (CBC) radio show This Morning. Other dramas written or adapted for radio include Alaska, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The Winter Market.
Author of the chapbook of short fiction Seven Dreams, Pink Dog Press, 1991. Contributor to anthologies, including Canadian Brash: New Voices in Fiction, Drama, and Poetry, Coach House Book, 1990; and Outspoken: A Canadian Collection of Lesbian Scenes and Monologues, Playwrights Canada Press, 2009. Also contributor to the high school textbook Rattling the Stage.
Contributor to periodicals, including Toronto Life, the Body Politic, Xtra!, What!, Cinema Canada, Prairie Fire, and the Toronto Star. Contributing writer for the online magazine Torontoist, beginning 2012.
SIDELIGHTS
David Demchuk is a Canadian novelist and the author of plays for both the stage and radio. Demchuk grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and moved to Toronto, Ontario, in 1984. His stage plays have been produced in Canada, the United States, and England. His play Touch is included in the collection of plays titled Making Out: Plays by Gay Men.
Demchuk quit writing plays for the theater in the 1990s and instead focused on working for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), writing various radio plays. Commenting on his writing in an interview with Erin Balser for the CBC website, Demchuk noted: “I enjoy being read, but I mostly write for myself. I write to try to understand the world and its people—including myself—and to tell the stories that I personally need to hear.”
Demchuk’s debut novel, The Bone Mother, was inspired by the author’s interest in Eastern European fairy tales and folklore. The initial stories take place in three villages that sit on the Ukrainian/Romanian border. It turns out that the villages are the last place that various mythical creatures from the surrounding lands can find refuge, at least for a time. There is a war pending in which these various creatures may end up being eradicated by the Night Police. In the meantime, the creatures tell their stories.
Each of the “monster’s” stories begins with a real photo of village life taken by the Romanian photographer Costica Acsinte, who took most of the pictures between World War I and World War II. The stories told by the monsters feature wolf men, witches, and other various creatures. However, as noted by the Globe and Mail online contributor Jade Colbert, “their difference [is] a source of beauty and wisdom.”
In a story titled “Elena,” a woman is working as a fortune teller. However, it is her husband who is clairvoyant and gives her the answers from behind a curtain via telepathy. Then the husband is murdered by the Night Police, leading the woman to instruct the wife of the police chief, who has come to apologize for the mistake, to kill her own husband. She gives this directive after receiving a message from her husband that the woman will be dead in a short time anyway.
Another tale features a beautiful but vengeful water spirit called the Rusalka who lures people to their deaths in the lakes and ponds where she lives. The Strigoi is a vampire-like creature who drinks blood and controls the minds of others. The novel’s title creature, the Bone Mother, is a wasted crone who has iron teeth, lives in the woods, and challenges all who come near her abode. If they fail the challenge, she cooks and eats them.
In an interview for the Broadway World website, Demchuk noted the deeper meaning behind his story, noting that his novel’s underlying theme is how “women and children and marginalized communities are imperiled … [during] conflict and chaos,” adding that the story is also related to “how humanity is often more evil than the monsters that we create and fear.”
As the stories in The Bone Mother progress, suddenly a chapter is introduced with no photo. It focuses on the novel’s narrator, who rides a bus from Winnipeg to Minnedosa, Manitoba. As the narrator ruminates, readers are given clues indicating that something terrible happened that drove the narrator’s family from Eastern Europe to Canada. However, the thing they run from has not been left behind. The Bone Mother is the first horror-based novel to receive a nomination for the Giller Award, a prestigious Canadian literary award.
Comparing the creatures’ stories to “beautiful and brutal nightmares,” a Publishers Weekly contributor went on to note they “are … all the more terrifying by the history in which they’re grounded.” Casey Plett, writing for the Winnipeg Review website, remarked: “Demchuk’s narratives read quick and go down easily. The experience shares a lot in common with reading a collection of short folk tales.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, March 27, 2017, review of The Bone Mother, p. 86.
ONLINE
Bone Mother Website, http://www.thebonemother.ca (November 25, 2017).
Broadway World, https://www.broadwayworld.com/ (September 21, 2017), “First-Time Novelist David Demchuk Makes Giller Nomination History.”
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Website, http://www.cbc.ca/ (
David Demchuk Website, http://daviddemchuk.com (November 25, 2017).
Globe and Mail Online (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/ (August 25, 2017), Jade Colbert, “Review: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Kintu, David Demchuk’s The Bone Mother and Pierre-Luc Landry’s Listening for Jupiter.
Winnipeg Review, http://winnipegreview.com/ (August 29, 2017), Casey Plett, review of The Bone Mother.
David Demchuk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Demchuk is a Canadian playwright and novelist,[1] who received a longlisted Scotiabank Giller Prize nomination in 2017 for his debut novel The Bone Mother.[2]
Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba,[2] he moved to Toronto, Ontario in 1984.
His plays have included Rosalie Sings Alone (1985),[3] If Betty Should Rise (1985),[4] Touch (1986),[5] The World We Live On Turns So That the Sun Appears to Rise (1987),[1] Stay (1990), Mattachine (1991),[6] Thieves in the Night (1992)[7] and The Power of Invention.[8] He received a special Dora Mavor Moore Award in 1986 for Touch.[9] In 1992, Touch was included in Making Out, the first anthology of Canadian plays by gay writers, alongside works by Ken Garnhum, Sky Gilbert, Daniel MacIvor, Harry Rintoul and Colin Thomas.[10]
After the mid-1990s, Demchuk stopped writing new plays, concentrating on his work at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and on writing scripts for radio, film and television.[11] In 1999, he wrote the radio drama Alice in Cyberspace, a contemporary reworking of Alice in Wonderland which aired for ten episodes on CBC Radio's This Morning.[12] His other radio dramas included Alaska, The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Winter Market. In June 2012, he became a contributing writer for the online magazine Torontoist.[13]
The Bone Mother was published in 2017 by ChiZine Publications.[14] It was the first horror-themed novel ever to receive a nomination for the Giller, an award more commonly associated with conventional literary fiction rather than genre fiction.[15]
References[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b "Demchuk, David". Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia, March 26, 2009.
^ Jump up to: a b "Winnipeg-born author on Giller Prize long list". CTV Winnipeg, September 18, 2017.
Jump up ^ "Trio of one-act plays doesn't add up to much". The Globe and Mail, August 16, 1985.
Jump up ^ "Powerful, well-acted drama gains little from new first act". Toronto Star, August 8, 1986.
Jump up ^ "Two plays provide exception to stock fare at Rhubarb '86". The Globe and Mail, February 24, 1986.
Jump up ^ "Fringe helped his Betty to rise again". Toronto Star, June 28, 1991.
Jump up ^ "Fistful of gems at new play fest". Toronto Star, July 19, 1992.
Jump up ^ "The dark is needed to appreciate the light". Toronto Star, August 12, 1989.
Jump up ^ "Dora smiles on Tarragon with record 17 nominations". The Globe and Mail, May 15, 1986.
Jump up ^ "Book symbolizes gays' advances". The Globe and Mail, June 4, 1992.
Jump up ^ "Whatever happened to that hot young playwright? David Demchuk has gone to CBC but one of his plays returns." Toronto Star, May 13, 1999.
Jump up ^ "Modern Alice". Calgary Herald, December 15, 1999.
Jump up ^ Torontoist (2012-06-20). "Home, a Toronto Indie Game That Will Mess With Your Head". Torontoist. Retrieved 2017-09-23.
Jump up ^ "Review: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi's Kintu, David Demchuk's The Bone Mother and Pierre-Luc Landry's Listening for Jupiter". The Globe and Mail, August 25, 2017.
Jump up ^ "Three first-time authors make Giller Prize longlist". The Globe and Mail, September 18, 2017.
Stub icon This article about a Canadian writer or poet is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Categories: 20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights21st-century Canadian novelistsCanadian male dramatists and playwrightsCanadian male novelistsCanadian horror writersLGBT writers from CanadaLGBT dramatists and playwrightsLGBT novelistsGay writersWriters from WinnipegWriters from TorontoLiving peopleCanadian radio writersCanadian writer stubs
Navigation menu
Not logged inTalkContributionsCreate accountLog inArticleTalkReadEditView historySearch
Search Wikipedia
Go
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikipedia store
Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page
Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Cite this page
Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version
Languages
Add links
This page was last edited on 25 September 2017, at 20:06.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policyAbout WikipediaDisclaimersContact WikipediaDevelopersCookie statementMobile viewEnable previews
Wikimedia Foundation Powered by MediaWiki
Books News Desk Sep. 21, 2017
Tweet
Share
First-Time Novelist David Demchuk Makes Giller Nomination History
David Demchuk's debut novel The Bone Mother has made Giller nomination history as the first in the horror genre to be longlisted for the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
"When I began work on The Bone Mother and immersed myself in her world, I never expected to earn such an honour," said Demchuk. "From its inception, I knew it would an unusual and exciting experience, for me and for the reader. I am hugely grateful to ChiZine Publications for taking a chance on me. And I am thrilled to receive this recognition from the Scotiabank Giller jury."
Inspired by his love of Eastern European fairy tales, legends and folklore, as well as his Winnipeg upbringing, Demchuk's The Bone Mother tells of three neighbouring villages on the Ukrainian/Romanian border which are the final refuge for the last of the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe--the Rusalka, the Strigoi, the Vedma, and more. Now, on the eve of the war that may eradicate their kind, and with the ruthless Night Police descending upon their sanctuary, they tell their stories and confront their destinies.
"But apart from that, it's about how women and children and marginalized communities are imperiled in times of conflict and chaos, and it's about how humanity is often more evil than the monsters that we create and fear," adds Demchuk.
Demchuk has been writing for stage, print and other media for more than thirty years. His theatrical works have been produced in Toronto, New York, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver, Chicago, San Francisco, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and in London, England. This is his first novel, his first Giller nomination, and the first Giller nomination for a novel in the horror genre.
UPCOMING APPEARANCES
Author Cruises at The Word on the Street Festival, Harbourfront Centre on Sunday, September 24 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Join featured author David Demchuk along with fellow writers Nick Cutter and Ron Corbett aboard one of Canada's tall ships for an hour of readings and discussion followed by a signing of his book The Bone Mother. David will also be in attendance at the ChiZine Publications tent, and available as part of the Friend An Author campaign.
Peterborough - Chiaroscuro Reading Series at The Spill, 414 George St. North, on Monday, October 16 at 7 p.m. David Demchuk joins Dana Cameron and Ian Rogers for some spooky pre-Halloween fun. Free admission.
Toronto - Chiaroscuro Reading Series at ROUND Venue, 152A Augusta Avenue, onWednesday, October 18 at 7 p.m. David Demchuk returns with other noted authors from the ChiZine extended family for an evening of readings in advance of Hallowe'en. Free admission.
Montreal - The Violet Hour at Stock Bar, 1171 Rue Sainte-Catherine E on Tuesday, October 31 at 6:30 p.m. David Demchuk joins other queer Toronto and Montreal authors in celebrating Hallowe'en in an evening of short readings and performances. Free admission.
You Might Also Like
Remember Her? Try Not To Gasp When You See How She Looks Now
Remember Her? Try Not To Gasp When You See How She Looks Now
Michelle's IQ Vs Melania's IQ Is Pretty Unnerving
Michelle's IQ Vs Melania's IQ Is Pretty Unnerving
1 Simple Trick Removes Eye Bags & Lip Lines in Seconds
1 Simple Trick Removes Eye Bags & Lip Lines in Seconds
20 Kinky Embarrassing Celebrity Moments
20 Kinky Embarrassing Celebrity Moments
Trick Helps Older Women To Lose 27lbs for $5
Trick Helps Older Women To Lose 27lbs for $5
Rich People in Santa Clara Do Everything to Ban This
Rich People in Santa Clara Do Everything to Ban This "Video"
Husband Divorced His Wife After Looking Closer At This Photo
Husband Divorced His Wife After Looking Closer At This Photo
Celeb No-Bra-Day Caught On Camera
Celeb No-Bra-Day Caught On Camera
?
More From This Author
Hillary Clinton to Receive 2017 WMC Wonder Woman Award Next Week in NYC
SHE LOVES ME Kicks Off 'Broadway's Best' Lineup Tonight on PBS
Tony Award Winner Jane Krakowski & Chris Diamantopoulos Join Cast of FOX's A CHRISTMAS STORY LIVE!
Lin-Manuel Miranda Picks HAMILTON Alum Jordan Fisher to Win DWTS: 'He's Unbelievable'
VIDEO: Jason Alexander Has Some Advice for Broadway-Bound PRETTY WOMAN Cast
VIDEO: Andrew Rannells Challenges Will to a 'Kiss Off' on WILL & GRACE
Tony Winner Sophie Okonedo and More Join Cast of HELLBOY
TV's THEATER TALK Gets Spooky for Halloween Next Week
Hot Stories
BWW Feature: VOICE LESSONS: A SISTERS STORY by Cara Mentzel
Feature: VOICE LESSONS: A SISTERS STORY by Cara Mentzel
VIDEO: Idina Menzel & Sister Cara Mentzel Talk New Memoir on TODAY
VIDEO: Idina Menzel & Sister Cara Mentzel Talk New Memoir on TODAY
Broadway's Judy Kuhn, Mo Rocca and More to Get 'IN YOUR FACE' This Fall
Broadway's Judy Kuhn, Mo Rocca and More to Get 'IN YOUR FACE' This Fall
Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan to Curate Festival Albertine 2017 in NYC
Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan to Curate Festival Albertine 2017 in NYC
Exploring America's Most Haunted Neighborhood: Old Louisville
Exploring America's Most Haunted Neighborhood: Old Louisville
Chalfant, De Shields & More to Fete Drama Book Shop's 100th Birthday
Chalfant, De Shields & More to Fete Drama Book Shop's 100th Birthday
BWW Interview: Author DIANE MEHOLICK
Interview: Author DIANE MEHOLICK
BWW TV
Idina Menzel & Sister Cara Mentzel Talk New Memoir on TODAY
REVIEWS
BWW Review: FOREST OF A THOUSAND LANTERNS by Julie C. Dao
FOREST OF A THOUSAND LANTERNS has been one of my most-anticipated books of 2017. I'm happy to tell y...
Subscribe Now
Register for news, specials & more!
Like Follow
E-mail address
Subscribe
Hot on Social Media
Follow Us
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Tumblr
Apps
BWW Sister Sites
TV/MOVIES
MUSIC
BOOKS
CLASSICAL MUSIC
DANCE
OPERA
Around the World
EXCLUSIVE: Get A First Look At WAITRESS on Tour - Opening Up in Cleveland Tonight!EXCLUSIVE: Get A First Look At WAITRESS on Tour - Opening Up in Cleveland Tonight!
Regional Roundup: Top New Features This Week Around Our BroadwayWorld 10/20Regional Roundup: Top New Features This Week Around Our BroadwayWorld 10/20
Advertising Info Contact Us Join the Team Submit News Privacy Policy
© 2017 - Copyright Wisdom Digital Media, all rights reserved.
ExelateData
Scotiabank Giller Prize-longlisted author David Demchuk's secret to a successful story
Erin Balser · September 22
David Demchuk's horror novel is on the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. (David Demchuk)
0 comments
David Demchuk (who works at CBC as a communications officer) has made the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist for his debut novel The Bone Mother, a collection of horror fairy tales from a group of Eastern European mythical creatures who are sharing their stories before possibly being destroyed by war.
12 authors longlisted for the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize
We asked Demchuk to take the CBC Books Magic 8 Q&A and answer eight randomly selected questions from eight authors.
1. Eliza Robertson asks, "Do you write for yourself or to be read? If no living soul could read your work again: would you keep going?"
I enjoy being read, but I mostly write for myself. I write to try to understand the world and its people — including myself — and to tell the stories that I personally need to hear.
2. Melanie Mah asks, "Who is a writer you love that you wish more people knew about? Why do you love them?"
I wish more people knew about Laurie Colwin, who wrote short fiction and novels in the late 1970s and 1980s before she died from an aneurysm at the age of 48. She wrote charming and sophisticated comedies of manners and thoughtful meditations on the complications of love, marriage and family. Her novel Happy All The Time is one of my very favourites, as is her collection The Lone Pilgrim. An unlikely choice, I know, but I am devoted to her.
3. Durga Chew-Bose asks, "What is your ideal writing snack?"
This is a challenge, as you don't want to eat something that will get all over your keyboard or your paper and pen. Lately it's tea and cookies: oatmeal or social tea or almond crisps, homemade or off the grocery store shelf.
4. Emil Sher asks, "What three words would you use to describe what makes a great story great?"
It may be apocryphal but I believe Sam Shepard said it best: "Fighting and f****ing."
Calling all writers: The 2018 CBC Short Story Prize is now open for submissions
5. Colleen Murphy asks, "What are some of the things you hate about being a writer?"
Not being able to sing or dance or swim. If I could do any one of those things, I wouldn't write.
6. Richard Van Camp asks, "What's the story you'll never write about that haunts you? It could be delicious. Yes, that's the one we want to know. What is your delicious that you'll never write about? What. is. it?"
I had a relationship for several years with a recovering crack addict who had an unusual fetish. Even though he was a screw-up in other ways, he did at one point save my life. There were many surprising and disturbing aspects to our story, including how it ended — but sadly (or not) it is not my story to tell.
7. Eric Walters asks, "Oh I wish I'd written that — what book?"
Thomas Tryon's The Other, which is a masterpiece of rural gothic terror that all but ruined me as a child. In fact, if you look closely at my book, you can see one or two moments where I paid it homage.
8. Robert J. Sawyer asks, "The greatest journalist of all time just may be Les Nessman of WKRP in Cincinnati, who would ask but two questions: 'Who do you think you are?' and 'What are you trying to pull?' Well?"
a) "Whomever you're not."
b) "Depends what you're offering."
RELATED STORIES
MAGIC 8 Q&A What scares Scotiabank Giller Prize-shortlisted author Michelle Winters the most
Giller Prize juror Lynn Coady discusses this year's "diverse and exciting" long list
David Chariandy, Eden Robinson and Michael Redhill among authors longlisted for 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize
Contest
POPULAR NOW IN BOOKS
1
CBC SHORT STORY PRIZE
2
CBC LITERARY PRIZES RULES & REGULATIONS
3
MAGIC 8 Q&A
THE BEST SURPRISE JOCELYN PARR HAD WHILE WRITING HER DEBUT NOVEL
4
HOW I WROTE IT
WHY MEASHA BRUEGGERGOSMAN DECIDED TO OPEN UP AND WRITE A MEMOIR
5
CBC LITERARY PRIZES FAQ
0 COMMENTS
To encourage thoughtful and respectful conversations, first and last names will appear with each submission to CBC/Radio-Canada's online communities (except in children and youth-oriented communities). Pseudonyms will no longer be permitted.
By submitting a comment, you accept that CBC has the right to reproduce and publish that comment in whole or in part, in any manner CBC chooses. Please note that CBC does not endorse the opinions expressed in comments. Comments on this story are moderated according to our Submission Guidelines. Comments are welcome while open. We reserve the right to close comments at any time.
Login | Signup
Commenting is now closed for this story.
Follow
There are no comments yet.
DISCOVER MORE FROM CBC
WATCH
Gord Downie's Secret Path in Concert
Arts
NEWS
Father finds long-lost twin sons in Edmonton
News
WATCH
Measuring Up
TV - Heartland
WATCH
Making The Wild Canadian Year
Docs - Wild Canadian Year
LISTEN
A high school bully reflects on her violent behaviour
Radio -
Out In The Open
7 books for your kids leading up to Halloween
Kids
VIDEO
Our journey to adopt three kids from the same mom in three years
Parents
Olympic men's hockey teams starting to take shape
Sports
Connect with CBC
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
Mobile
RSS
Podcasts
Newsletters
Contact CBC
Audience Relations, CBC
P.O. Box 500 Station A
Toronto, ON
Canada, M5W 1E6
Toll-free (Canada only):
1-866-306-4636
TTY/Teletype writer:
1-866-220-6045
Contact Us
Services & Info
Corporate Info
Public Appearances
Commercial Services
Reuse & Permission
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
CBC Shop
FAQ
Jobs
Doing Business with Us
Renting Facilities
Independent Producers
Ombudsman
Accessibility
It is a priority for CBC to create a website that is accessible to all Canadians including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges.
Closed captioning is available for many CBC-TV shows offered online.
For air times of CBC-TV shows with described video, visit Accessible Media Inc.'s Described Video TV Guide. (Described video is not currently available online.)
More about CBC Accessibility
Accessibility Feedback
©2017 CBC/Radio-Canada. All rights reserved.
Visitez Radio-Canada.ca
Loaded page Scotiabank Giller Prize-longlisted author David Demchuk's secret to a successful story | CBC BooksSave
10/22/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1508732022009 1/1
Print Marked Items
The Bone Mother
Publishers Weekly.
264.13 (Mar. 27, 2017): p86.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* The Bone Mother
David Demchuk. ChiZine, $17.99 trade paper (300p) ISBN 978-1-77148-421-3
This extraordinary debut novel crosses borders and boundaries, stretching across continents and years in a series of
interwoven stories and vignettes. Somewhere in Ukraine, near the Romanian border, there were once three villages.
There was a factory that made porcelain the color of bleached bone, a river where drowned women beckoned
inattentive passersby, a road where a lonely girl walked and walked, and a church where monsters were kept under an
altar. When war comes to the villages, its inhabitants scatter--not just the men, women, and children, but the drevniye,
strigoi, and malen'kiy sprut, all the beautiful and terrible creatures of the old world. And chasing after all these
"children of monsters and of gods" are the Nichni Politsiyi, the Night Police. Demchuk gracefully pieces together a
dark and shining mosaic of a story with unforgettable imagery and elegant, evocative prose. These stories read like
beautiful and brutal nightmares, sharply disquieting, and are made all the more terrifying by the history in which
they're grounded. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Bone Mother." Publishers Weekly, 27 Mar. 2017, p. 86. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA487928148&it=r&asid=4fcd89958a90f45fb1b6679389cb540a.
Accessed 23 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A487928148
Review: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi's Kintu, David Demchuk's The Bone Mother and Pierre-Luc Landry's Listening for Jupiter
SUBSCRIBE
SIGN IN
search button
AdChoices
Email to friend
Share on Twitter
Share on Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Share on WhatsApp
BOOK REVIEW
Review: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi's Kintu, David Demchuk's The Bone Mother and Pierre-Luc Landry's Listening for Jupiter
Open this photo in gallery:
JADE COLBERT
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
AUGUST 25, 2017
AUGUST 25, 2017
Kintu
By Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Transit Books, 446 pages, $24.50
Kintu has been called "the great Ugandan novel"; it is hard to not draw comparisons between what Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi does here and Chinua Achebe's work in Things Fall Apart – it is that good. More properly, Kintu – a family saga about a curse unleashed in 1750 and its effects on the members of a clan in 2004 – is a novel of Buganda, the subnational kingdom that long predates the Ugandan state. Buganda as a synecdoche for the Uganda itself says a great deal about modern Uganda. Certainly Makumbi's characters' claims as ethnic Ganda – and, in turn, the family curse's claim on them – are central here. Kintu is a Ugandan novel for Ugandans – steeped in Ganda mythology, its Lugandan words left untranslated, the assumptions of its characters and the history shaping its narrative unexplained. This richness, and the challenge it may pose to some readers, is its own reward, but a novel is more its ethnographic detail. What makes this novel is Makumbi's vision in how the curse travels through her characters – and then imagining how they will be rid of it.
The Bone Mother
By David Demchuk, ChiZine, 244 pages, $19.99
Playwright David Demchuk's first novel opens as a series of fairy tales. Each story begins with a photo from the archive of Costica Acsinte, the Romanian photographer who took portraits of village life between the world wars. Out of these images Demchuk imagines monsters among the villages of Eastern Europe before the Second World War: mermaids, wolf-men, witches, women of superhuman strength – their difference a source of beauty and wisdom. And then, 40 pages in, there is a story with no introductory photo. The narrator takes the bus from Winnipeg to Minnedosa, Man., and orders a cruller at the local Timmy's. It is in this story, where we glean hints of something that happened during the war that has followed the narrator's family to Canada, that things become scary. Well crafted and significant in its own right, Demchuk's novel seems all the more important in light of recent displays of far-right and overt Nazi hatred. As one narrator says, "Some stories need to be told time and again. Every generation forgets. Every child learns anew."
Listening for Jupiter
By Pierre-Luc Landry, translated by Arielle Aaronson and Madeleine Stratford, QC Fiction, 218 pages, $19.95
It's February and Montreal hasn't seen snow. "Montreal is turning into Los Angeles," Hollywood thinks, as he plants beans at his dead-end job. Hollywood works in a literal graveyard. Hollywood is a person, not the neighbourhood in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, snow blankets Europe and Toronto. Xavier – in London to pitch a drug for the pharmaceutical company that pays him handsomely but fills him with ennui – cocoons in hotel minibar booze and work samples. Something is wrong with the weather. Something is also wrong with Xavier and Hollywood. In these insomniac times of a natural order thrown out of whack, the two men meet, but only in dreams. Pierre-Luc Landry's magic-realist novel, here translated by Arielle Aaronson (Xavier's sections) and Madeleine Stratford (Hollywood's sections), originally won the Ottawa Book Award for French Fiction in 2016. A deceptively light story about two men sorting out the conundrums of themselves, it leaves much to consider – on perception, reality, synchronicity and meaning – after the final page.
PLAY VIDEO
2:00
Video: Foundation launches campaign to support literacy and libraries in schools
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @GLOBEBOOKS
REPORT AN ERROR
0 COMMENTS
Show comments
MORE ON THIS STORY
Review: Antanas Sileika's The Barefoot Bingo Caller, Jen Sookfong Lee's Gentlemen of the Shade and Cli-Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change
REVIEW
Review: Leslie Kean's Surviving Death and Adrian Owen's Into the Gray Zone explore human consciousness
Review: Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau’s Winter Child, Robert Pepper-Smith’s The Orchard Keepers and Terri Favro’s Sputnik’s Children
TRENDING
Lawyers more likely to experience mental health problems the more successful they are: study
Hope for Indigenous Supreme Court justice swells as appointment recommendations loom
RCMP find human remains on rural B.C. property
Toronto school board mulls end to specialized schools in order to reduce learning disparities
Market disruption in the shadows: What fentanyl is really telling us
LATEST VIDEOS
U.S. lawmakers demand answers on Niger operation 1:35
Stars turn out for David Foster Foundation gala in Vancouver 1:46
Zimbabwe's Mugabe removed as WHO goodwill ambassador 1:08
Five former U.S. presidents speak at concert for hurricane relief efforts 1:16
Catalan leader accuses Madrid of 'worst attack since Franco' 1:56
PRIVACY POLICY
TERMS & CONDITIONS
DISCLAIMER
COMMUNITY GUIDELINES
SUBSCRIBE
Globeandmail.com
The Globe and Mail Newspaper
Globe2Go
The New York Times
Globe Email Newsletters
BUSINESS SERVICES
Advertise with Us
Corporate & Group Subscriptions
Content Licensing
DataStore
Report On Business Top 1000
Globe Event Centre
CONTACT US
Address and Phone Number
Public Editor
Staff
Staff PGP Directory
SecureDrop
Submit an article
READER SERVICES
My Globeandmail.com Account
Technical Support & FAQs
Manage my home delivery
Manage my privacy preferences
Manage my advertising preferences
ABOUT US
Company Information
Work at The Globe
Accessibility Policy
Editorial Code of Conduct
Sustainability
Licensing & Permissions
© Copyright 2017 The Globe and Mail Inc. All rights reserved.
351 King Street East, Suite 1600, Toronto, ON Canada, M5A 0N1
Phillip Crawley, Publisher
SUPPORT QUALITY JOURNALISM
JUST 99¢ PER WEEK FOR THE FIRST FOUR WEEKS
START TODAY
Toggle panel
‘The Bone Mother’ by David Demchuk
Posted: AUGUST 29, 2017
Book Reviews
Reviewed by Casey Plett
I should preface this review by saying I don’t like being scared and tend to avoid horror in both books and movies; every time I buck this and watch something good but scary, I enjoy it but end up regretting it. From various partners forcing me to watch movies like The Exorcist and 10 Cloverfield Lane (I always date people who like scary shit) to reading Henry James in college (all of this is scary shit to me), I’m the kid who then turns on all the lights at two in the morning and has nightmares.
I’m outlining this so you, potential horror-lover reader, can judge accordingly whether it’s a good thing when I say I loved David Demchuk’s eminently readable mosaic novel The Bone Mother: A suite of supernaturally-tinged interconnected horror stories set mostly—though not all—in small villages on the Ukrainian/Romanian border in the time of industrialization. They are creepy but not terrifying, so far prompting no nightmares from this reader. Demchuk’s narratives read quick and go down easily. The experience shares a lot in common with reading a collection of short folk tales, really.
The precise years of the Old World-era in which these stories take place are never given—more important is that Part One takes place before the wars and revolutions of the early 20th century, and Part Two during. The latter is accompanied by the Nichni Politsiyi (Night Police) and their own very natural horrors. But every story in the book employs the same effective formula: We are introduced to characters within the context of a family, then something uncanny and foreboding comes into play—from matters as innocuous as a child who does not physically age, to those brutal as a child being killed and eaten by his parents. The ending is sometimes fatal for the protagonist and always further violent. Very few stories go on longer than six or seven pages.
Example: In “Elena,” a woman whose husband has the gift of clairvoyance sets up shop as a fortune-teller. The husband hides behind a curtain and conveys the insights to his wife through telepathy. War draws closer and Elena’s moneyed clients become less concerned with advice on love and affairs and more with spies, conscription, and fleeing. One night the husband commands her to hide for the evening. When Elena returns, she finds the Nichni Politsiyi has murdered him. The wife of the police chief comes, apologizes, swears that they can protect her. She then gives Elena a presumably expensive necklace and asks for her services, wondering how she can survive the war. The husband’s disembodied voice appears in Elena’s head: “She will not live. She will be dead within the week, whatever she does.” And so Elena says, “You must kill [your husband].” The police chief. “Tonight.” And the wife leaves, never to be seen again.
This all takes place within four pages.
As Publisher’s Weekly aptly noted in their (starred) review: These stories “are made all the more terrifying by the history in which they’re grounded.” Indeed. Elevating and grounding these stories further is the series of black-and-white portraits from Roman photographer Costică Acsinte, taken between 1935 and 1945. A picture from the series is featured opposite the opening page of each story. The portraits generally feature one or two people staring directly into the camera, without much else in the background. It should go without saying that this is really awesomely spooky, though sometimes disarmingly lovely, as in “Lorincz,” whose accompanying photo is a smartly dressed schoolboy with a wreath of flowers on his head.
Four of the tales are set in modern times, signified by drawings to accompany the stories instead of photos. These tended to be longer, and showed the traumas and magic of the older stories reaching through time to ensnare modern-day characters. It works excellently, in the way that the final story (which attempts the same thing more explicitly) doesn’t quite.
Finally: Queerness plays a really wonderful, low-key role in this book. At times it’s solely in casual reference—such as in “Nadiya,” where a woman gives background to her single motherhood by explaining her husband was gay; she bore him no ill will and they parted amicably. And sometimes queerness is central to the story, as in the haunting, penultimate “Lena,” where a woman with a parasitic sprout feeding off her spine is both wary of and drawn to a new relationship with Alice, who is infatuated with her. (“Whatever you have, I’m good with it. Whatever it is, we have it together.” Alice insists this to Lena their first night together. Oh sweetie. #UHaul)
While the stories detail horrors mythic and realistic, the overall tone of this book is one of aching melancholy, of resignation and acceptance. I suppose it’s a dark book, but it’s by no means bleak or depressing. The moment that has stayed with me most is from the story “Marius” (barely three pages long): A boy, Marius, survives being shot in the lead-up to an army storming his village. His mother informs everybody that they must all leave except those who are old and weak, who will feed a being called the Naystarsha, an indeterminate being who lives in the floor of the church, seemingly made up only of “coarse bristly tongues.” One by one, the mother assures the damned they will feel no pain, and will wake up in a world of brightness and joy, and they all step into the Naystarsha’s mouth as tongues whirl around them “like razors.” Then, the mother grabs Marius, who up until this point has just been narrating.
“Is it true?” Marius asks. “Will we wake up in a world that’s bright and new and full of joy?”
“No,” she said. “Our heaven, such as it was, was here. We lived, we loved, we saw beautiful and terrible things, and now it ends.” She stepped forward, clutching me. “You will feel no pain,” she whispered—and together we fell into the abyss.
All just three pages and then these people are gone. And then on to the next.