Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands

Ducks: Two years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (2022 Jonathan Cape hardcover 434pp)

 

Kate Beaton is new author/artist to me, I was aware of her previous collections of cartoons starting with “Hark! A Vagrant” but never have read any of them. This apparently is her first foray into a long-form narrative and it is a tour-de-force.

Ducks is an autobiographical memoir told in the graphic novel style that may not agree with some readers. People are depicted in a stylised cartoon-like manner whilst landscapes and buildings are largely realistic.

The story starts in the town of Mabou in Nova Scotia (Canada), a newly graduated Beaton is having no luck finding jobs with her qualifications and is financially crippled by a massive student loan. She decides to follow the crowd and go work in the Alberta oil sands fields – a boom-town on the other side of the country.

So we follow her adventures at the new job as she starts as a ‘Tool Crib Attendant’ handing out equipment to workers on site. She finds herself vastly outnumbered by men in the camp and not all of them treat her with respect. As she’s moved around camps she makes friends and enemies, discovers the natural wonders and basically tries to survive.

At one camp she is sexually assaulted and is pretty much unable to make a complaint against the man involved. She grows increasingly withdrawn and depressed eventually leaving the oil fields. After working in a museum and other jobs for a year her financial situation forces her to return the oil fields. Along the way we learn about the environmental harm the oil work is causing and the rift that has developed with the First Nations people who’s land its all taking place on.

I found this book both engrossing and immersive, I read it all in a couple of hours and really wished it was longer. You really feel for Beaton and her situation – facing pressure from all sides as she just tries to get on with some sort of life. The characters she meets and interact with are all well developed and believable as real people. There’s no super happy ending here.

The art is good, sold line work coloured in shades of blue-grey. It feels a bit dowdy but I think that is intentional. Well worth your time and money.

 

Saga Volume Ten

Saga Volume Ten by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan (2022 Image Comics softcover 160pp)

 

First of all, this is Volume 10 of an on-going series and nobody should really start reading it at this point. The proceeding nine volumes are still readily available if you are at all interested.

I started reading “Saga” in these collected trade editions about 10 years ago and became hooked, catching up and then buying the new volumes as they were released. About five years ago the creators announced they were going on a hiatus and paused the project until last year. This is the first collected volume since it was restarted.

“Saga” tells the story of two star-crossed lovers who were foot soldiers on opposing sides in an interstellar war. Alana and Marko produce a hybrid daughter called Hazel who has been narrating the story from the beginning. The various factions see the couple and their child as abominations and pursue them across the galaxy. As the family run and hide they make new friends and enemies including robots, journalists and mercenaries. Despite being science fiction the story really focuses on the characters and how time and experiences change them, not always for the better.

“Saga” has a unique ability to both delight and shock. The ending of one of the previous volumes still haunts me if I think too much about it. Vaughan knows how to write stories that hits all your buttons and Staples is a master artist.

Volume 10 starts several years after the shock ending of volume 9, the family group has morphed again into something different and are still in hiding, trying to trade goods to survive. A chance encounter with a Pirate ship causes unforeseen dangers and opportunities for each of them.

At 160 pages it was a quick read, if you’re already a fan you don’t need me to recommend this book – you’ll probably already have it. I’m glad the series hasn’t lost its edge after being rested for so long.

 

In Perfect Harmony

In Perfect Harmony by Will Hodgkinson (2022 Nine Eight Books hardcover 567pp)

 

Well-respected and widely-published music writer Will Hodgkinson takes on a Herculean task in this hefty doorstop of a book. Ignoring the frequently mentioned and chronicled big-name songs, bands and artists of the era, he takes a deep-dive to investigate the mostly forgotten and now-ignored records that actually sold in the millions and topped the UK charts in a period between 1970 and 1980 (a time book ended by a couple of novelty records about grandparents).

He takes us right into the smoke-filled rooms where assorted songwriters, producers and session musicians spent time messing around creating music they thought might possibly be a hit. Before releasing such songs on a record, they first invented a band name and held their breaths. Sometimes when the music indeed turned out popular, they had to create a fictitious band to go with the names. The real trouble came when the band was asked to appear on the TV show “Top of the Pops” and/or go on tour. This led to absurd scenes where the same producing team had 3 or 4 songs on the TV show on the same night and people had to swap between bands wearing wigs and dark glasses to disguise themselves. Sometimes these bands became a ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’, taking on a life of their own, demanding to write and play their own music and be treated as superstars.

After a few broad-ranging chapters, the book settles into sections looking at the music aimed at different age groups and the various musical fads of the era, from Glam Rock to 1950s revival, Punk and Disco. Alternating with the music coverage are sections detailing the social and political situation of the time thus giving a well-needed context to the needs and wants of the record-buying public.

This is a very well-researched book and a joy to read. Many stars of the era and some lessor known figures are given small biographies in the text and we are shown the direct and subtle connections between each of them. The author does go off on several tangents but these too are enjoyable.

I can see this book becoming a vital reference work for those investigating this topic in the future. Not mentioned in the book itself is a Spotify playlist of the same title created by Hodgkinson with over 100 of the songs mentioned in the text. I found this invaluable – I was born in the early 1970s and have only hazy memories of many of the songs but just reading about them did not trigger the flood of memories that actually listening to them did.

My only real criticism of this book isn’t really one at all – I just found the physical book itself hefty and awkward to read, a paperback edition with perhaps smaller print would be most welcome.