Polar Vortex

July 15, 2020
Will an old lover's revelations disrupt an apparently secure lesbian couple? Artist Priya has moved to the Canadian countryside to make a new life with Alex, her lover, a writer. But a visit from Prakash, a male college friend, threatens to expose secrets from her young adulthood she hasn't shared. After Prakash gets in touch with her after many years and Priya invites him to visit, she begins having nightmares, fearful that Prakash's revelations could destroy her relationship. Priya's short chapters of first-person narration attenuate the suspense as Alex, attuned to Priya's unease, ferrets out facts and asks more probing questions. Photographs from college show Priya and her roommate, Fiona, together with Prakash. Priya, who's never told Alex that Fiona was her lover, finesses questions on that subject. Nor has Alex, who at one point asks whether Prakash is homophobic, guessed the deeper secret: That Priya and Prakash were also lovers. Flashbacks flesh out Priya's romantic relationships with Fiona and then Prakash and recall bumpy patches in her six years with Alex. The last time Priya saw Prakash, he was married; does his plan to visit alone mean that he and his wife, Aruna, have divorced? A visit from close friends Skye and Liz raises more uncomfortable questions. The third of Mootoo's four movements is narrated by Alex, whose insight and compassion come into play after Prakash shares personal secrets that even Priya hadn't known. A final heart-to-heart between Priya and Prakash triggers still more changes. Compellingly charts the complexity of human relationships, the illusions of memory, and the corrosive power of denial.

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July 27, 2020
Mootoo (Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab) serves up a slow-burning examination of identity, gender, desire, and immigration through the relationship of an older lesbian couple living on a small tourist island in Canada. Priya, an artist and Indian raised in Trinidad, narrates most of the novel while she and her girlfriend, Alex, await the arrival of Priya’s longtime friend Prakash, an Indian man whose family fled Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda. Priya and Alex had moved from Toronto to the rural island to concentrate on their creative work, but the mostly white setting makes Priya feel out of place. Prakash, meanwhile, had pursued Priya for years even though he was married with children and Priya was dating women. As Priya goes through the day, memories of her past drift in and out as she questions her troubled relationship with Prakesh, and Prakesh’s imminent arrival puts a strain on Priya’s relationship with Alex. The precise prose outlines the factures of trust and Priya’s temptations, as Priya struggles with the differences between Alex and Prakash in relation to her feelings as an immigrant. Mootoo’s subtle, thought-provoking tale stands out among stories of characters gripped by the past.