Sunday, January 27, 2008

Consumption

by Kevin Patterson

When she is ten, Victoria is diagnosed with tuberculosis. Forced to leave her Inuit village in the Arctic, Victoria is transported to the south (Winnipeg) for treatment. Six years later, she returns to her village as an outsider. She has become such an outsider that she even marries a white man.

Consumption is the story of Victoria and the stories of the other outsiders in the village: the doctor, the teachers, the priest, and Victoria's husband, Robertson, the businessman.

The setting is foreign to most readers, but the stories of alienation are not. Patterson even uses language that is foreign to the reader, but it is mostly knowable, based on the context (but a glossary would have been nice).

Rich and engrossing.

1/27/08

No comments: