GLR November-December 2022

parture from the author’s poetry and fiction, but anyone who has read his earlier work will recognize Whitehead’s characteristic honesty, humor, and deeply traditional worldview in which hu mans, animals, and plants are interconnected and all equally im portant. In “Writing as Rupture,” he writes: “I have long argued that the physical body we inhabit, in its zippered coat of skin, will always be tied to the body of text we create—and I think this particularly true for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), disabled, queer, and/or women (and any intersection therein) writers.” He goes on to say: “Readers of my work have sometimes noted that they are unable to differentiate between the poetic, prosaic, theoretical, or autobiographical in my books.” He challenges Eurocentric, patriarchal conceptions of genre and of Indigenous writing for their lack of sophistication. He identifies himself as “an otacimow , a storyteller, something that may sound simple in English but in Nehiyawewin denotes in its root, otaci , that we are not only storiers but legend-speakers.” “Storier” is the word he applies to himself as a writer and a teacher who never forgets the stories of his upbringing, or the roots of “story” in the sound of a human voice. Several of these essays have a narrative structure in which the author’s life story is intertwined with wordplay and the his tory of words in English and Cree, which has its own visual symbols. The “land” of the title is mostly the vast sweep of the prairies, observed on road trips from east to west (childhood home to western university), and back again for visits. In “Ekphrasis and Emphasis,” Whitehead explains the influence of visual art on his writing: “One of the first painters I ever sought to respond to was William Kurelek, a Ukrainian-Cana dian artist and writer who often painted the prairies as em bodying rather horrific idyllic sensualities.” His treatment of

past relationships is sensitive and nonjudgmental. The essay ti tled “Me, the Joshua Tree” is addressed to “you,” a former lover. The author describes the sights and sounds of a poignant walk by a river with his lover when they both know that “the death of our relationship has begun.” Despair, depression, and irrepara ble conflict are balanced with hope and memories of ecstatic connection. This collection of essays is an illuminating addition to Joshua Whitehead’s existing work, and it is probably best read in conjunction with his poetry and fiction. ____________________________________________________ Jean Roberta is a widely published writer based in Regina, Sask.

Should We Be Doing This?

D ALE B OYER

THE DOVE IN THE BELLY by Jim Grimsley Levine Querido. 336 pages, $19.99 O VER THE PAST few decades, Jim Grimsley has emerged as something of a star in the world of literary gay fiction. He first burst upon the scene in 1994 with Winter Birds , a harrowing look at an abusive family situation, and soon thereafter came out with Dream Boy (1995), a dream like story about a teenage boy’s obsession with another boy who may or may not be real. Other first-rate books like Boulevard , My Drowning , and Comfort and Joy ensued, as well as plays and a memoir, establishing him as one of his generation’s most notable gay writers. Sexuality is nearly always newly emergent and tentative in Grimsley’s novels, with gay sexuality presented as something that asserts itself against strong social pressures. Similarly, an attraction to the forbidden—as well as the very real threat of vi olence or even death—nearly always hovers at the edge. Grim sley’s tenth novel, The Dove in the Belly , is a worthy but somewhat problematical work that ostensibly shares the theme of Dream Boy and Boulevard , that of a timid, newly out gay man who becomes obsessed with an apparently straight man, with the possibility of violence ever present. Ronny is a student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. When the novel opens, we find him dealing not only with the news of his mother’s capricious marriage to a man she barely knows, but also with a tense visit from his friend Ben, with whom there seems to be an erotic vibe. Ben walks away “as if he had to be careful about every step he took.” Now we’re in familiar Grimsley territory: a new and tentative relationship that’s not well defined or understood by either party. Ronny is a passive intellectual and Ben a traditional, straight-seeming jock. One problem with this novel is that the relationship unfolds at such a leisurely pace. It’s not until page forty that Grimsley drops back and proceeds to give us a month-by-month recap of how the two got to where they are. Given this awkward un

This mirror’s darkness unravels our limbs giving and taking the gifts we both crave— fingers wallow through his thick black hair— our living skin (he calls mine soft) the feelings mouths engender— more minutes overwhelming my God my God wrenching from my throat. Afterwards when we talk in that dim intimacy he speaks about wanting to see London one day and how living in his flat is okay most of the time (meaning sometimes it’s not) and how he must get back for his dinner shift at the café. First Nations Man in a Montreal Sauna Can we create these intimate spaces within the very nation that doesn’t want us? Natalie Diaz, The Guardian Review, 4.7.20

R OBERT H AMBERGER

November–December 2022

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