Reading Wednesday

[yuuago]

Finished Reading: Fall From Grace by Wayne Arthurson.

This book is the equivalent of a bag of all-dressed potato chips. Very Canadian, not particularly unique or special but more or less what you expect it to be, and before you know it you've eaten the whole bag - or read the whole book, as it were.

It's a pretty ordinary crime novel: a journalist is working on a story about a woman who was found murdered, and that leads him to uncover something much bigger than just one missing person. Standard fare (even with the twisty ending), but it's a page-turner. I couldn't put it down; I even stayed up a little past bed in order to finish it, and I'll be buggered if I can figure out why. It's not that this author has an amazing writing style, or that the characters are wonderfully memorable. Though I'll admit that the protagonist does have more personality than I was expecting.

It probably comes down to two things. Firstly, it's exactly what I wanted: a decent mystery, set in Canada, not too literary. I wanted to turn my brain off.

Secondly, it's so very Albertan. The author is from Edmonton, which is where the novel is set, and it shows. All the setting details are correct - I don't just mean the climate details (which are perfect), or the city details (which I don't actually know that well), but the general... uh... social feel of it, or something. It's very situated specifically in Alberta's capital, is what I'm saying, rather than just any large Canadian city.

Anyway. Would I recommend this? Not necessarily. Am I putting this author's other books on my to-read list? Yes.

One thing that surprised me is that this book was shelved in the General Adult Fiction section. The author is mixed Cree/French-Canadian, and the protagonist is also Cree/French, and usually I'd find something like this shelved in the First Nations/Metis/Inuit Collection instead of Adult Fiction. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd assume it'd be due to the series being marketed as crime fiction, rather than FN lit, or something like that - though I haven't checked this. Still unexpected, though. Anyway, I'm going to file this under FN fiction for the purpose of my reading scavenger hunt.

Question: Those of you in Canada/USA/Australia/NZ - does your local library shelve indigenous fiction with everything else, or does it have its own section of the library? Like I mentioned, my library has a dedicated collection of FNMI stuff, which isn't even on the same floor as the other fiction and nonfiction, but I don't know if this is standard.

Comments

[kiraly]

My library definitely doesn't have a dedicated section for indigenous fiction, and I can't recall seeing that at any of the larger branches either. We DO however have a dedicated section for African American fiction, and one for African American nonfiction. Not all of the branches do, but it makes up such a large percentage of the collection that it makes sense for my branch. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that's why we don't have one for indigenous fiction - we probably just don't have enough applicable books to warrant splitting it off. (We also, for example, don't shelve our scifi/fantasy books separately, even though they do get a spine label. Mysteries get their own section though).

[yuuago]

Ahh, I see! If you have a large amount of that, it'd make sense for African American work to have its own section.

Re: genre splitting, ours used to shelve by genre. Now it's all shelved together with spine labels for differentiation. I think I prefer that.

[eggsbenedict]

My local library has a prominent shelf for indigenous fiction - and it's a tiny suburban library, so I was surprised to see it when I moved here. I think the kids' books are all shelved together though.

[yuuago]

Ahh neat that it has a section for it, especially since it's a small library. :D

[torachan]

I'm in the US, California to be specific, and no libraries I've ever been to here have had a separate section for Native American lit. (I've never seen sections for African American, either.)

[yuuago]

Hmm, I see! Looks like this varies a bit.
Can definitely see the logic behind keeping everything together, at least. :Va