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Coyote (Thistledown, 2004)
In Brian Brett's ethical thriller, Coyote, West Coast Inspector Janwar Singh and constable Kirsten Crosby investigate the disappearance of a woman linked to 'America's first eco-terrorist' named Coyote.
Having blown up bridges to clearcut logging sites, torched shopping malls and 'liberated' zoos in the 1970s, Coyote has retreated to Artemis Island to live peacefully in a treehouse with a propane stove. The reclusive and meditative Coyote (aka Charlie Baker) is disturbed at the outset of the novel by a visit from a crazed younger man named Brian who poses as a writer who hopes to unlock secrets of Coyote's urban guerrilla past.
This intruder has a narrative voice in the story. "Yes, it's Brian again-as he was twenty years ago. This is my story, I'm telling it, so why can't I make myself a character?";
A former lover of Coyote's named Rita Norman mysteriously connects Brian, Coyote and Inspector Singh.
The range of styles in this novel-conventional police procedure, post modern narrative, and distillation of West Coast manners-makes Coyote into an original concoction replete with fembos, magic mushrooms, mackinaws, Tai Chi, a New Age retreat called The Last Resort and a talking parrot named Congo.
"All speeches by Congo, except three or four, are courtesy of the parrot I've lived with for twenty years-my companion, Tuco,"; writes Brett in an afterword, "Though the character of Congo is different and not nearly as clever, he couldn't have existed without Tuco, who is an endless source of inspiration, and orders me to work every morning. And that's no story.";
The 'wildness' of the Gulf Island locale and emphasis on the enduring importance of kookiness and idealism could seem exotic or unrealistic to some readers, but the blend is more realistic than might be imagined.
Born in Vancouver in 1950, Brian Brett is also the author of poetry books and a novella about termites, The Fungus Garden, an allegory about the survival of artistic sensibility in a totalitarian world without exits. His next book after Coyote is now being edited by Margaret Atwood.
Brett inaugurated Poetry in Schools workshops throughout the Lower Mainland in the early 1970s and served as a White Rock alderman from 1980-84. Long involved in the Writers Union of Canada, Brett is also a ceramics artist who lives on a Salt Spring Island farm.
1-894345-53-5
[BCBW Summer 2004]
Having blown up bridges to clearcut logging sites, torched shopping malls and 'liberated' zoos in the 1970s, Coyote has retreated to Artemis Island to live peacefully in a treehouse with a propane stove. The reclusive and meditative Coyote (aka Charlie Baker) is disturbed at the outset of the novel by a visit from a crazed younger man named Brian who poses as a writer who hopes to unlock secrets of Coyote's urban guerrilla past.
This intruder has a narrative voice in the story. "Yes, it's Brian again-as he was twenty years ago. This is my story, I'm telling it, so why can't I make myself a character?";
A former lover of Coyote's named Rita Norman mysteriously connects Brian, Coyote and Inspector Singh.
The range of styles in this novel-conventional police procedure, post modern narrative, and distillation of West Coast manners-makes Coyote into an original concoction replete with fembos, magic mushrooms, mackinaws, Tai Chi, a New Age retreat called The Last Resort and a talking parrot named Congo.
"All speeches by Congo, except three or four, are courtesy of the parrot I've lived with for twenty years-my companion, Tuco,"; writes Brett in an afterword, "Though the character of Congo is different and not nearly as clever, he couldn't have existed without Tuco, who is an endless source of inspiration, and orders me to work every morning. And that's no story.";
The 'wildness' of the Gulf Island locale and emphasis on the enduring importance of kookiness and idealism could seem exotic or unrealistic to some readers, but the blend is more realistic than might be imagined.
Born in Vancouver in 1950, Brian Brett is also the author of poetry books and a novella about termites, The Fungus Garden, an allegory about the survival of artistic sensibility in a totalitarian world without exits. His next book after Coyote is now being edited by Margaret Atwood.
Brett inaugurated Poetry in Schools workshops throughout the Lower Mainland in the early 1970s and served as a White Rock alderman from 1980-84. Long involved in the Writers Union of Canada, Brett is also a ceramics artist who lives on a Salt Spring Island farm.
1-894345-53-5
[BCBW Summer 2004]
Submitted on May 19, 2004 in By David.
