Although Waiting for the Cyclone is Leesa Dean’s first book, the B.C. writer has been on the literary scene for a while: she’s a contributor to The New Quarterly, teaches Creative Writing at Nelson’s Selkirk College and has been a finalist for the Irving Layton Award, the Quebec Writing Competition and the Litpop Award.
The stories in Waiting for the Cyclone take place mostly in North America, from New York City and Arizona, to Canadian cities in British Columbia and Quebec, as well as Toronto and Halifax, in addition to Central America and Mexico, but most of the characters are Canadian. Each story has a female protagonist, from young girls to twenty-somethings to women in their thirties and older.
As the back of the book jacket states, “In the land of fiction, women are too often cast as inherently good – typically kind, always considerate, and traditionally in possession of high morals.” But in this short-story collection, the women characters “don’t need to be liked and are not compelled to make apologies.” This is true for many women in the collection: women who shoot up drugs in the bathroom with family nearby, women who leave their families – but also women who choose themselves, in a powerful way, that they should absolutely not apologize for. Ultimately, and most important, these women are complicated and not inherently good or bad. But at the same time, they are survivors who have experienced trauma or loss – women who have been raped, are coping after an abortion, dealing with a break-up or suffering from the loss of a loved one.
In fact, pregnancy and loss are focal points of many of the stories in Waiting for the Cyclone. In “Shelter from the Storm,” a pregnant woman waits, increasingly doubtful, for her lover to return to Halifax from work in Colombia. In “Libertad,” a wife and husband head on a Mexican vacation after suffering a miscarriage. In “The Four Bradleys,” a father and his daughters cope in different ways after the sudden death of the family’s mother and wife. In “Monterrico,” a young woman on the heels of a terminated pregnancy reluctantly follows her ex on a pre-planned trip to Guatemala.
Stories end abruptly, with unanswered questions. Things are left unsaid, sometimes with nothing being resolved. In “Conflict Zone,” two friends who realize, in the night before one of them is leaving for a journalistic excursion to the Middle East, that they are attracted to each other spend the night thinking about it but never making a move.
Characters are captured in moments that cause a shift in their lives. In the title story, a couple spends their last weekend together before the inevitable breakup, caused by one of them moving away for school. In “Proverbs,” a young woman works away on a farm for the summer to get away from the memories of a rape and a boyfriend, hoping to decide whether or not she should stay with him.
Dean experiments with first-, second- and third-person narration, and her use of voice is particularly notable in “Malad,” in which a young girl travels with her family to Arizona to discover that her addict mother is “going away for a while.” The story is told through the perspective of the young girl, whose excitement and wonder are vibrant in comparison to the sullen adult characters. While staying at a hotel overnight on the way to Arizona, the girl wanders outside to befriend a homeless woman in her van. Inquisitive and naïve, the young girl’s demeanour and perspective bring humour to an otherwise unhappy situation: “Jordan and I had to share a bed but I stayed as far away as I could so his bum wouldn’t touch me in the night.” Dean seems to shine most when writing from the perspective of young girls, in a way that is similar to some of Sandy Bonny’s writing. This strength is also present in “The Four Bradleys,” which centres on the life of a father and his two daughters after the death of his wife. The story shifts between the perspectives of the father, Ron, his daughter, Candace, his friend, Bradley and his youngest daughter, Lizzy, whose hilarious energy drives the piece:
Candace is supposed to help me get ready for the big night but instead she’s moping in her room wearing really short shorts. They make Dad crazy! He’s told her a million times, “Candace, you are not allowed to wear those shorts, and Candace, your mother would not approve.” Today he said, “Candace, you are insufferable,” because she wouldn’t eat dinner. Dad made KD and hot dogs—and salad too—but Candace said she’s doing a fast to raise money for charity. When Dad asked which one, she said, “I don’t know, all of them.” Then I heard her eating chips in her room.
Dean’s use of imagery is masterful, and especially prominent in “One Last Time.” Here’s a taste: “That day, we swam in our clothes, thrashing in the waves, weighed down by pant legs while our shirts ballooned in the water”; and “Irrigation sprinklers ticked in wide arcs, leaving tiny rainbows over the parched grass.”
Overall, Dean showers the collection with beautiful imagery and resilient and complicated women characters. Dean excels in her writing of youthful narrators’ voices, leaving me wanting more from those characters.
‘Waiting for the Cyclone’ by Leesa Dean
Book Reviews
Although Waiting for the Cyclone is Leesa Dean’s first book, the B.C. writer has been on the literary scene for a while: she’s a contributor to The New Quarterly, teaches Creative Writing at Nelson’s Selkirk College and has been a finalist for the Irving Layton Award, the Quebec Writing Competition and the Litpop Award.
The stories in Waiting for the Cyclone take place mostly in North America, from New York City and Arizona, to Canadian cities in British Columbia and Quebec, as well as Toronto and Halifax, in addition to Central America and Mexico, but most of the characters are Canadian. Each story has a female protagonist, from young girls to twenty-somethings to women in their thirties and older.
As the back of the book jacket states, “In the land of fiction, women are too often cast as inherently good – typically kind, always considerate, and traditionally in possession of high morals.” But in this short-story collection, the women characters “don’t need to be liked and are not compelled to make apologies.” This is true for many women in the collection: women who shoot up drugs in the bathroom with family nearby, women who leave their families – but also women who choose themselves, in a powerful way, that they should absolutely not apologize for. Ultimately, and most important, these women are complicated and not inherently good or bad. But at the same time, they are survivors who have experienced trauma or loss – women who have been raped, are coping after an abortion, dealing with a break-up or suffering from the loss of a loved one.
In fact, pregnancy and loss are focal points of many of the stories in Waiting for the Cyclone. In “Shelter from the Storm,” a pregnant woman waits, increasingly doubtful, for her lover to return to Halifax from work in Colombia. In “Libertad,” a wife and husband head on a Mexican vacation after suffering a miscarriage. In “The Four Bradleys,” a father and his daughters cope in different ways after the sudden death of the family’s mother and wife. In “Monterrico,” a young woman on the heels of a terminated pregnancy reluctantly follows her ex on a pre-planned trip to Guatemala.
Stories end abruptly, with unanswered questions. Things are left unsaid, sometimes with nothing being resolved. In “Conflict Zone,” two friends who realize, in the night before one of them is leaving for a journalistic excursion to the Middle East, that they are attracted to each other spend the night thinking about it but never making a move.
Characters are captured in moments that cause a shift in their lives. In the title story, a couple spends their last weekend together before the inevitable breakup, caused by one of them moving away for school. In “Proverbs,” a young woman works away on a farm for the summer to get away from the memories of a rape and a boyfriend, hoping to decide whether or not she should stay with him.
Dean experiments with first-, second- and third-person narration, and her use of voice is particularly notable in “Malad,” in which a young girl travels with her family to Arizona to discover that her addict mother is “going away for a while.” The story is told through the perspective of the young girl, whose excitement and wonder are vibrant in comparison to the sullen adult characters. While staying at a hotel overnight on the way to Arizona, the girl wanders outside to befriend a homeless woman in her van. Inquisitive and naïve, the young girl’s demeanour and perspective bring humour to an otherwise unhappy situation: “Jordan and I had to share a bed but I stayed as far away as I could so his bum wouldn’t touch me in the night.” Dean seems to shine most when writing from the perspective of young girls, in a way that is similar to some of Sandy Bonny’s writing. This strength is also present in “The Four Bradleys,” which centres on the life of a father and his two daughters after the death of his wife. The story shifts between the perspectives of the father, Ron, his daughter, Candace, his friend, Bradley and his youngest daughter, Lizzy, whose hilarious energy drives the piece:
Candace is supposed to help me get ready for the big night but instead she’s moping in her room wearing really short shorts. They make Dad crazy! He’s told her a million times, “Candace, you are not allowed to wear those shorts, and Candace, your mother would not approve.” Today he said, “Candace, you are insufferable,” because she wouldn’t eat dinner. Dad made KD and hot dogs—and salad too—but Candace said she’s doing a fast to raise money for charity. When Dad asked which one, she said, “I don’t know, all of them.” Then I heard her eating chips in her room.
Dean’s use of imagery is masterful, and especially prominent in “One Last Time.” Here’s a taste: “That day, we swam in our clothes, thrashing in the waves, weighed down by pant legs while our shirts ballooned in the water”; and “Irrigation sprinklers ticked in wide arcs, leaving tiny rainbows over the parched grass.”
Overall, Dean showers the collection with beautiful imagery and resilient and complicated women characters. Dean excels in her writing of youthful narrators’ voices, leaving me wanting more from those characters.
Brindle & Glass | 224 pages | $19.95 | paper | ISBN# 978-1927366509