The two latter stories were the strongest for their departure from the formula. Each story on its own was well done; the trouble is that, taken together, they don't necessarily make for a dynamic collection, which does matter to me as time goes on. Belcourt expertly balances his own area of interest - being an Indigenous gay man living in cities and/or returning home for a visit to the reserve - with enough CanLit voice that the stories feel intimately familiar even to Canadian readers who don't share those identities. But so too does it fall into a common pitfall of CanLit short fiction: it doesn't often vary its subject. 

These stories mark necessary departures from the abidingly white CanLit short fiction sphere; they allow us to see land through the lens of dispossession instead of the mist of nostalgia common to pastiche Ontarian settlers. This collection is a worthy contribution to the field, familiar enough to suck in unadventurous lit fiction readers while provoking decolonizing thought. But what made the final two stories - "summer research" and "various people" - stand out is that, even if the protagonist still bears familiarities for a reader who's been through the rest of the collection already, they are toying with form ("summer research") and pathos ("various people"). "summer research" pushes into horror territory, but of course the horror is colonialism, while "various people" was the story that moved me the most, leaving us off on a note of love significantly less complicated than we have witnessed so far.

I think Belcourt's a great writer whose strengths shine when he leans into what makes him distinct from (other) CanLit writers. Simply put, I wish this collection was weirder. I'd like to see him push those envelopes a little further, be bolder, give every story a yet more distinct voice. There is a lot of melancholy here and fewer truly memorable character moments like that of our "summer research" protagonist who walked into a confessional and asked the priest for HIS confession. I love a quiet gay decolonial story, but I wish there was more noise between each one.