Night Moves

Richard Van Camp. Night Moves. Winnipeg: Enfield & Wizenty, 2015. ISBN: 978-1-972855-23-2.197 pp.

Richard Van Camp, Dogrib (Tlicho) Dene author, writes in a variety of genres. His collaborative works (with a number of visual artists) include comic books, graphic novels, children's books, and baby books. His prior solo works, and what one might argue are his more adult enterprises, include his first novel, The Lesser Blessed (1996), for which he is probably most well known, as well as three short story collections. With Night Moves, Van Camp brings that number to four.

Ronny, the narrator of the opening short story, "bornagirl," remarks on the denizens of Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories, the "Métis capital of the north," "They say Fort Smith is home to the rough and ruthless and the tough and toothless" (11). Readers of Van Camp's previous works will likely recall the roughness and toughness of his usually teenage and young adult characters, depicted in the rather hard shell exteriors they put on to mask their insecurities, weaknesses, frailties, and even human decencies. To term it macho posturing would be inaccurate, as often female characters succumb to such poses. Perhaps it's merely adolescent angst, unmercifully turned up a few degrees (ironically) in the frigid Northwest. Of course, beyond the harsh, yet often beautiful, landscape are the harsh realities that filter into a number of Van Camp's adult works: violence, sexual abuse, and self-hatred.

In "bornagirl," a tough opening to this collection, the narrating Ronny confesses his role in the physical abuse of a transgender Brian; in "Blood Rides the Wind," Bear (another first-person narrator) returns to Fort Simmer a week early ostensibly for his final year of school, but he is actually seeking revenge for the sexual molestation of his cousin Wendy; and in "Because of What I Did," Flinch (aka Radar) is the threatening bear of...