Ready yourself for another amateur review.
If you are looking for a very linear, objective history of
Windsor – Detroit, I still want you to read The
River – even though it is neither of these things. Our experience of time
is not linear. Whenever I think of that idea it brings to mind something John Edgar Wideman, author of Philiadelphia
Fire, said in an interview I watched in my English Literature days. This is
beyond paraphrasing and comes straight from my memory, but the image has always
stuck with me. Wideman described the perception of time as being in the middle
of a lake, with snapshots and other memories floating around us and bumping
into us as we live our lives. I can imagine the same thing in Paul Vasey’s The River. I could just imagine, as I
read it, drifting down the river and bumping into his old memories of being a
young journalist in Windsor, of getting caught in the calm spots of the islands
dotting the waters of Detroit and being surrounded by snapshots of the misfits
and “larger than life” personalities that come alive to us through Vasey’s
words. This is a people’s history, with a touch of official history, of the
richness of Windsor – Essex. Just as you could expect from being surrounded by
snapshots of these retired boxers, residents of a lost riverfront village, and “repeat
offenders,” the history drifts towards us and then away, then back to us again.
Just as they came in and out of Vasey’s life, so do they come into The River’s narrative, leave again, only
to return. Definitely worth the read,
especially if you want to experience the often overlooked magic of Windsor –
Essex.
Give it a read and let me know what you think.
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