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Once You Break A Knuckle
by
D.W. Wilson (Goodreads Author)
Set in the remote Kootenay Valley in western Canada, Once You Break a Knuckle tells stories of good people doing bad things: two bullied adolescents sabotage a rope swing, resulting in another boy’s death; a heartbroken young man refuses to warn his best friend about an approaching car; sons challenge fathers and break taboos. Crackling with tension and propelled by jagged...more
Hardcover, 256 pages
Published
September 6th 2011
by HAMISH HAMILTON CA
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–No-good whore, he said, and Winch felt a lump in his throat he couldn’t swallow, and he watched his own fist smack his dad in the jaw, an earthy sound, like someone tapping a piece of chalk to slate.
For a moment his dad didn’t react. He touched his chin. He glanced from car to woman to boy and then back at the house, his head tilted to the ground and his left eye squinting as though puzzled. Then he shot forward and those two massive pink hands hoisted Winch from the ground.
He landed hip-first,...more
For a moment his dad didn’t react. He touched his chin. He glanced from car to woman to boy and then back at the house, his head tilted to the ground and his left eye squinting as though puzzled. Then he shot forward and those two massive pink hands hoisted Winch from the ground.
He landed hip-first,...more
Once You Break a Knuckle was my first Goodreads Giveaway win.
I was drawn to the novel because it is set in Western Canada (I live in Northern Alberta). The description on the back of the novel describes it as a collection of stories of 'good people doing bad things'. I think Once You Break a Knuckle could more accurately be described as a collection of snapshots telling the story of small town Canada (specifically Invermere for the most part).
The stories are an interconnected web of moments in...more
I was drawn to the novel because it is set in Western Canada (I live in Northern Alberta). The description on the back of the novel describes it as a collection of stories of 'good people doing bad things'. I think Once You Break a Knuckle could more accurately be described as a collection of snapshots telling the story of small town Canada (specifically Invermere for the most part).
The stories are an interconnected web of moments in...more
This is one of those collections where more becomes less. If you read one story, you think brilliant. But after several, somehow one becomes less impressed. One drawback for me is that some of the characters reappear in other stories; yet the linkage is confusing more than enlightening. I was left trying to match up the other story with the current one, and was inevitably unsuccessful. Another drawback is the author's spare prose, which invited confusion at times. If one is talking about Bill an...more
A collection of loosely connected vignettes set in Invermere, BC. Dad thought this was a very depressing book. I think it was just more about how life sometimes is. A couple of them were definitely sad but most, I felt, explored how people react to what happens in their lives.
I did get a little frustrated by trying to connect people between the stories because there is obviously a connection between many of them; either the same people or their offspring, ex's, rivals ... Once I got to the end I...more
I did get a little frustrated by trying to connect people between the stories because there is obviously a connection between many of them; either the same people or their offspring, ex's, rivals ... Once I got to the end I...more
I loved the style of writing in this book- that hard, minimalist, muscular and masculine prose with lots of repetition. I liked the characters and I liked the stories themselves. I also liked that they were set in Invermere, and that the location played such a huge role in these stories.
That said, I do have some quibbles. I would have edited the hell out of the long story called "Valley echo", because it seemed to be all over the place. Or I would have placed it at the end, because it was more l...more
That said, I do have some quibbles. I would have edited the hell out of the long story called "Valley echo", because it seemed to be all over the place. Or I would have placed it at the end, because it was more l...more
A simply wonderful collection of short stories, set in the East Kootenay region of British Columbia and happily, recognized and published by a biggie, Hamish Hamilton and not consigned to the 'regional voice' ghetto in parochial Canadian literary terms. Most of these stories are written from the p.o.v. of young, yearning males: what to do about the hicks waiting to beat them up, weekend in, weekend out? Should they leave town and get an education? Should they follow in their fathers' footsteps a...more
I really liked this collection of interwoven stories. I picked it up after hearing an interview on The Next Chapter, I think, and read it on the plane from Ottawa to Vancouver. As someone who generally reads women writers, I found this one startlingly different from my usual fare - it was very masculine. Masculine words, masculine motifs, masculine themes, masculine characters. Lots of fathers and sons, knuckles, redneck bullies and vehicles. It was powerfully written, and the stories were intri...more
This is a collection of interconnected short stories about the same group of people - snapshots that go forward and back through time.
Set in the Kootenay Valley in BC, it's a group of friends and the boys that bully them, and fathers and sons that often turn the wrong corner. It's very ...pugilistic.
I enjoyed some of the moments more than others, and appreciated Wilson's ability to contract "manliness" with vulnerability and being lost - whether that's spiritually or physically.
Set in the Kootenay Valley in BC, it's a group of friends and the boys that bully them, and fathers and sons that often turn the wrong corner. It's very ...pugilistic.
I enjoyed some of the moments more than others, and appreciated Wilson's ability to contract "manliness" with vulnerability and being lost - whether that's spiritually or physically.
I'm the social media person at Penguin, but I can't help be the champion of this book. Gritty, dark, spare, unflinching, this book takes Light Lifting's eloquent prose and deft handling of the subtlety of human relationships, and merges it with the hard-nosed rural stories of Annie Proulx. I wasn't prepared for these masculine tales of violence and betrayal to move me, but Wilson's writing is so keen and courageous, I couldn't help being intoxicated by the worlds he created.
Coming from a small working class town, I recognized many of the men and boys of my younger days in the characters of these stories. I wondered would any of those men I knew recognize themselves - Yup, that's me and my old man all right? As a woman reading, I couldn't help but have a certain fondness for the characters. They are men and boys: fathers and sons, brothers, uncles and friends. All bluster and bravado. Fathers are legends to their sons, in their own minds and in the minds of their yo...more
Canadian writer DW Wilson's ‘Once You Break A Knuckle’ stories are well crafted and extremely blokey. These pages are littered with boys and men with things to prove to each other. They spend a lot of time fixing cars, and doing dodgy stuff in the woods like hanging out with the local hard guys, driving their beat-up cars across the ice, and trying to impress matching girlfriends with hair the colour of motor oil, or diesel... This may sound as if I’m taking the piss but it's not really intended...more
D.W. Wilson, who I saw recently in the IFOA, has been receiving great reviews for his first book and for a good reason (he’s also won the BBC National Short Story in 2011 - the youngest person to have ever won it. He’s like, twelve). I didn’t expect to like his book as much as I had. His loosely linked stories, set in the Kootenay valley, centre on men—tradesmen, fathers and sons—and his language and imagery, his detailed descriptions of physical activities, reflect that. But despite it being a...more
I didn't like it. The stories are well constructed, the characters are (largely) believable, but it seems to me that short stories have to say something worth saying about the world and these don't. I was left thinking, "So what? Who cares?" And that's not the effect you want stories to have on you. Sorry, DW Wilson, you're clearly a technically accomplished writer but I was looking for more and I didn't find it here.
heard great things about this. People comparing him to Breece D'J Pancake - that's how good. Plus he's Canadian so he has a head start on all other mortals when it comes to fiction in general and short stories in particular.
Thanks so much for giving me an opportunity to read this first! To begin with, I found this style a bit gritty for my taste, but as I progress through the story, I am enjoying the characters' strength.
I appreciated the quaintness and familiarity of the local settings, but did find it difficult to follow the characters throughout this novel. The stories, although related, didn't seem to flow together well.
I appreciated the quaintness and familiarity of the local settings, but did find it difficult to follow the characters throughout this novel. The stories, although related, didn't seem to flow together well.
Made me miss the West, Alberta and BC. Good coming-of-age, maybe a tad too simplified.
Aug 26, 2012
Patricia McNair
marked it as to-read
A very fine collection of stories that does not shy away from the brutalities and beauty of life in a small town in Vancouver. The landscape and weather can be harsh in this place, the relationships even rougher, but there is love here, too--especially between fathers and sons. The way we disappoint one another and come up short is all over these stories, but it is the plumbing of that, the questioning and desire to understand who and what we are to one another that lifts these stories up and ho...more
Wilson is a strong voice in contemporary Canadian fiction. I expect to the people at Giller have noticed and will give him attention with the release of his upcoming novel, Ballistics, due spring 2013.
Reads like a Johnny Cash song but with more beer and heartache.
Very beautifully written, but also very boring.
May 16, 2013
Amad Ali
marked it as to-read
May 14, 2013
Laura
marked it as not-owned
May 04, 2013
Maarten
marked it as to-read
May 16, 2013
Jen Squire
is currently reading it
Apr 07, 2013
Leigh Bainbridge
marked it as to-read
Apr 07, 2013
Jill
marked it as to-read
Mar 31, 2013
Krysta Helmer
marked it as to-read
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(lee@lleelowe.com)
Lee
(lee@lleelowe.com)
Sep 29, 2011 04:03am