load trips: a Motortherapy. Bill Schermbrucker. Tatonbocks. $15.95. HE SELF-EXPRESSIVE imagination finds objects in the physical surroundings to make into personal meta- phors,’”’ Bill Schermbrucker quotes a friend as saying in the introduction to this long-awaited collection of stories. A pretentious way of saying you are not only what you eat, but what you wear, what you live and above all what you drive. “My whole life is written in cars, and so is his, | should thiiik,’’ Schermbrucker replies. “Maybe everyone's is; those who have them, and those who don’t; those who trade them in before the war- tanty expires, those who never buy a new one; those who can’t operate seat belts, and mistrust their mechanics, and those who are forever getting grease on their hands and leaving it on the steer- ing wheel.” * Our love affair with the automobile has been an am- bivalent one since the first Tin Liz- zy rolled off the assembly line in Henry Ford's barn; young and middle-aged men who confuse horsepower with virility are stock figures of fun. Reactionary critics have blamed the automobile for everything from promoting promiscuity to the breakdown of the traditional ex- tended family by creating a “mobile culture.”’ Yet writers as diverse as Jack Kerouac (On The Road, john Steinbeck, (Travels With Charleyi and William Least Heat Moon (Blue Highways) have celebrated the automobile, as Schermbrucker does here, for its potential to ex- John. Moore BOOK REVIEW tend our experience, to make connections, to sustain and even heal relationships. The “road trip” is always an adventure. It may be a continent-crossing voyage of self-discovery, as in the opening “The Right Tool,” in which the »-rrator drives from Kenya to je hannesburg in an old Austir evi, or a friend’s emo- tionally complicated cross-town move, a half-whacked contented freeway ride in the back of a van, a hitch-hiked lift with despicable strangers, but there are always cer- tain constants: the pedestrian con- ventions of time and space are suspended and intimacy is enforc- ed by the cramped confines uf the car's interior. Born and raised in Kenya, Schermbrucker has taught English at Capilano College for 20 years. An actor's voice and some theat- Television workshops offered SO YA wanna make your own pictures? The North Shore Arts Promotion Board is offering a television production workshop The workshop, on Sept. 27 and 29 from 7 to 9 p.m., cavers producing, scripting, camera work, lighting and editing. The cost of the course is $30. To register, phone Ann Macklem at 984-9537. sm cetinat No stress, no withdrawal, no drugs. Calm, relaxing hypno- therapy. Private sessions — full price $79 for the programme NORTH SHORE HYPNOTHERAPY 156 West 3rd St., North Vancouver 984-8929 Day/evening sppaintments Million Dollar Charity ¢ Golf Shoot out Qualify for the final hole-in-one shoot-out on September 26, make a hole-in-one and the million dollars is yours! {n support of: The Physical Medicine Research Foundation, in association witi: Lion’s Gate Vancouver Lodge B'nai B'rith. © fra WASIIN KAUAI buys you ten(ghinees 7 8 51 mulion pay " fsa on to the -23 cubes is cou ne sere oe ie at ets life rical training are valuable classroom aids and t recall him as both an excellent teacher and a captivating raconteur. Translating those story-telling skills onto the silent printed page is what separates the sheep from the goats — the essence of great writ- ing. Schermbrucker’s writing is rich and evocative without being self- consciously stilted or “‘over-writ- ten’ (he doesn’t lay rubber}. He never loses the deceptively conversational tone that makes you feel you're na! so much reading as listening in a cosy pub while an old friend recounts his adventures. Like Michael Ignatieff and Steven Heighton, Schermbrucker is one of a small but significant number of writers who are dismantling the imaginary Berlin Wall between fiction and non- fiction in Canadian literature. Making extensive use of per- sonal history and non-fiction sources (as writers have always Wednesday, September 15, 1993 - North Shore News ~ 27 done), they are producing “stories” which have the emo- tional impact of fiction but are de- fiberately and distinctively dif- ferent from the ‘modern short story’’ as we know it from Hem- ingway to last week’s New Yorker. The genre has caught critics snoozing (a healthy sign), and no- body can agree on what to call it. The CBC/Saturday Night Literary Competition has opted for the broadly non-committal category of “Personal Essay’’ (shades of Mon- taigne!) for the first time this year, while Douglas College’s Event magazine has been in the vanguard with its ‘’Creative Non-Fiction’ contest for several years already. Vf all of this sounds terribly un- familiar, hunt down Steven Heighton’s Flight Paths of The Emperor, Bill Schermbrucker's Mimosa (which won the 1988 B.C. Book Awards prize for fiction) or, of course, Motortherapy. Turn the key, put the pedal to the metal and pop the clutch. ’ Cloverdale Paint INTERIOR LATEX OR ALKYD SALE PRICES STARTING AT INTERIOR PREMIURI ACRYLIC ; FLAT LATER 1629 Lonsdale Avenue EXTERIOR PAINTS & STAINS SALE PRICES STARTING AT PREMIUM ¢ wooed STAINS Across from Extra Foods N. 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