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A review by cat_rector
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton
5.0
Ducks hit me in the throat in ways I didn't anticipate, and a few that I did.
The first few pages are dedicated to setting up the cultural impact that living in Cape Breton has. Having grown up a few hours drive away and having been the exported child of a Newfoundland family, I can see the similarities in my own life. Line after line tore open old wounds.
"Cape Breton used to export fish, coal, and steel; but in 2005, its main export is people. It's not a unique story in Atlantic Canada. Nor is it a new one. Every Cape Breton family has had its share of empty chairs around the table, for a hundred years. ... I need to tell you this—there is no knowing Cape Breton without knowing how deeply ingrained two diametrically opposed experiences are: A deep love for home, and the knowledge of how frequently we have to leave it to find work somewhere else."
I have never seen any page of any book represent that pain so deeply. And this is only the first 20 pages.
Ducks is 430 graphic novel pages about leaving home to make money in the Alberta Oil sands. Alberta knows the people who do this to be a wild, dangerous bunch. We know them to be our brothers and cousins and uncles. And this book is the truth in between, the combination of two worlds that lives in minus 40 in the camp in the middle of nowhere.
This books explores what it was like for the author to try and find her way out of debt by trading years of her life and parts of her soul for a chance at a future. It digs deeply into what it's like to be one woman to fifty men in the middle of nowhere, and yes, that is a trigger warning. It is a sad, harrowing tale, and it is a piece of my heritage that I may never see on page again.
And then there's Becky.
Kate's sister Becky is in this book. She plays a supporting role, and at one point, they discuss how Becky will soon go on to Halifax, where she'll take an Advanced Diploma in Public Relations. The book ends not long before I met her in that class at Waterfront Campus, looking over the harbour.
We weren't close. Our little groups of friends didn't cross paths that often. But she was the first person that told me I was doing too much, that I was doing more than most people could handle. And I carry that with me now more than ever. It was good to see her again in the pages of this book. It enrages me that it's the only place we'll ever see her again.
This review may not help you. None of this may be relatable to you. But rating it five stars isn't enough. This book heard something in me that I can't explain to anyone else.
The first few pages are dedicated to setting up the cultural impact that living in Cape Breton has. Having grown up a few hours drive away and having been the exported child of a Newfoundland family, I can see the similarities in my own life. Line after line tore open old wounds.
"Cape Breton used to export fish, coal, and steel; but in 2005, its main export is people. It's not a unique story in Atlantic Canada. Nor is it a new one. Every Cape Breton family has had its share of empty chairs around the table, for a hundred years. ... I need to tell you this—there is no knowing Cape Breton without knowing how deeply ingrained two diametrically opposed experiences are: A deep love for home, and the knowledge of how frequently we have to leave it to find work somewhere else."
I have never seen any page of any book represent that pain so deeply. And this is only the first 20 pages.
Ducks is 430 graphic novel pages about leaving home to make money in the Alberta Oil sands. Alberta knows the people who do this to be a wild, dangerous bunch. We know them to be our brothers and cousins and uncles. And this book is the truth in between, the combination of two worlds that lives in minus 40 in the camp in the middle of nowhere.
This books explores what it was like for the author to try and find her way out of debt by trading years of her life and parts of her soul for a chance at a future. It digs deeply into what it's like to be one woman to fifty men in the middle of nowhere, and yes, that is a trigger warning. It is a sad, harrowing tale, and it is a piece of my heritage that I may never see on page again.
And then there's Becky.
Kate's sister Becky is in this book. She plays a supporting role, and at one point, they discuss how Becky will soon go on to Halifax, where she'll take an Advanced Diploma in Public Relations. The book ends not long before I met her in that class at Waterfront Campus, looking over the harbour.
We weren't close. Our little groups of friends didn't cross paths that often. But she was the first person that told me I was doing too much, that I was doing more than most people could handle. And I carry that with me now more than ever. It was good to see her again in the pages of this book. It enrages me that it's the only place we'll ever see her again.
This review may not help you. None of this may be relatable to you. But rating it five stars isn't enough. This book heard something in me that I can't explain to anyone else.