Get Hold Of Traplines Designed By Eden Robinson Shared As Booklet

of the north is a great addition to monkey beach, four

tw / abuse, murder, violence, substance abuse, sexual assault, animal cruelty/abuse there's probably a bunch more that i'm missing but please exercise caution if you want to pick this one up

i would never have picked this up if not for the indigenous literature class i'm taking, and i'm honestly very happy that i got to read robinson's work.
each of the four stories are quite different, but they all centre on more gruesome aspects of life as a human, 'traplines,' the first story, is the slowest of them but it still paints a picture of a kid caught between his abusive household and the english teacher that wants to take him in.
my favourite story of the bunch was probably 'dogs in winter, ' i think it would make an absolutely brilliant horror film, i had to read 'contact sports' for class, which is a doozy, i was so fascinated with tom and jeremy's relationship, which is further explored in robinson's follow up novel sitelinkBlood Sports, i also really enjoyed 'queen of the north,' especially the little surprise box again super disturbing but i did laugh so, . .

i really have to stress how dark these stories are, the subject matter can be super disturbing at times, so i wouldn't just recommend this to everyone, like i listed in the trigger warnings, there's pretty graphic description of violence and murder, especially in 'dogs in winter' and 'contact sports.
' as well, 'queen of the north' deals with sexual abuse, i just wanted to make sure there was a review out there that highlighted these things, because i hadn't seen one yet, if you can stomach some dark, messed up shit, then i think robinson's work is really interesting, This collection of four novellas from Canadian writer Eden Robinson received extravagant praise from critics and fellowauthors alike when it was first published in.
She was hailed as a young writer with enough literary promise to eventually become a Carol Shields or even an Alice Munro,

Now let me admit straightaway that I cannot for the life of

me see what all the fuss was about, True enough, these stories highlight the plight of forgotten adolescents existing on a knife edge in a world of narcotics, casual sex, uncaring parents and physical abuse a world where worries about a telephone bill or the next rent payment are constant companions, where every second girl sports a purple or a pink Mohawk and where homemade tattoos are the norm.
I will be the first person to admit that the social conditions prevalent in these tales need to be spotlighted, and that Robinson have a right and a duty to tap into this substandard world.
I will also go so far as to say that she brings this sometimesalien milieu to light in images that have the power to move and to dismay in equal measure.
But try as I might, I could not really engage with any of the characters to the extent that I could share in their pain and frustrations.
Of course, this is not the writer's fault, I suspect that I am perhaps not part of the demographic of the Traplines's intended target audience, Fact is, I found some of the stories rather drawnout and pointless,

The best story in the collection is "Dogs in Winter", Although I am at a loss as to why it is called that, Maybe I'm missing some vital reference here, If I am, and all you sharp and attentive people haven't, I apologize for my obtuseness, The story concerns itself with the unimaginable effect on a young girl of having a serial killer for a mother, What I like about this one, is the fact that Robinson tells it in a nonlinear fashion, She gives us tantalizing flashes of key incidents without any attempt to spoonfeed the reader, The lack of chronology may be confusing and disorientating at first glance, but everything comes together with a very satisfying click and even then, there are some questions purposely left unanswered that just add to the strangeness of it all.


"Contact Sports" is the longest tale in the book and the only one that, in my opinion, could be defined as a proper novella.
I got the impression that this was perhaps intended as the high point of the collection, It started off intriguingly enough, with an epileptic high school student awaiting the arrival of his older cousin a young man who recently suffered a dishonorable discharge from the military and now on his way to Vancouver to find something else to do.
It was not very clear, at least to me, what exactly his purpose was another example of my obtuseness, But although the narrative came on like a rampant lion, it soon resembled a little whipped cur with its tail between its legs.
It carried on for far too long and did not say all that much in the end,

The remaining "novellas" the title piece "Traplines" and the concluding story "Queen of the North" had two more protagonists eking out intolerable existences in less than ideal circumstances.
The first one featured a set of parents not worthy of the name, while the second one was enhanced by a sadlyironic ending.

I knew this book contained a prequel to Blood Sports but I didn't realize it also contained a companion to Monkey Beach Karaoke's perspective.
I am glad I read Monkey Beach first as Queen of the North is more or less a description of the big spoiler in Monkey Beach.


Robinson is so good at writing about teenagers in really broken situations, It's interesting that all of these stories are about kids with dysfunctional to put it nicely parents, yet she dedicates the book to her own parents and notes how lucky she was to have such kind and gentle people for parents.


These stories are all really haunting and heartbreaking, It was a good but tough read, I would recommend it, but if you're new to Eden Robinson I would probably start with the Trickster trilogy or Monkey Beach and see if you can handle going darker than those.
Eden Robinsons collection of short stories, Traplines, brings four troubled teenagers to life, Each of the four, Will, Lisa, Tom, and Adeline, is victimized by adults who should have protected them, Will has two alcoholic parents, the only one of the four with both parents in the home, Their alcoholism contributes to the fact that the father physically abuses the older, who in turn, takes his rage out on Will,
Lisa is the daughter of a serial killer, Her mothers victims include Lisas father and her aunt, Aunt Genna, along with Lisas foster parents, are the only adults in her life to show her real love,
Toms mother, both alcoholic and promiscuous, leaves him alone most of the time, Her mental abuse is augmented by Toms psychotic cousin, who after being acquitted of killing a fellow soldier, comes to live with them.
He mentally and physically abuses the boy,
The fourth story, the best, is jampacked with vivid descriptions, and use of subtext to show the dreadful abuse, Her mothers livein boyfriend sexually abuses sixteenyearold Adelaine, The reader never sees the sex, but Robinson is masterful in her use of subtext to make the unseen rape, all the more horrific.
She convinces the reader that Adelaines mother is aware of the ongoing sexual abuse but chooses to ignore it,
Robinsons portrayal of these troubled teenagers struggling with dysfunctional families has the readers attention from the first line to the last, Each story begins with a sentence that provides a strong visual image, but not necessarily something seemingly important,
Traplines begins with, “Dad takes the white marten from the trap”, This short sentence tells the reader a great deal, Father and son are working together, most likely in a Canadian forest, trapping for profit, not food, Trapping of fur animals is one of the few activities father and son share, This relationship may be what Robinson uses to establish the fact that the father limits his physical abuse to the older son who in turn, abuses his younger brother.

In “Frog Song,” Robinson treats the reader to an opening scene full of imagery followed by paragraphs that give the reader palpable sensations.

Feltcold, wind, grass, sand, water,
Seensunset, fishing boat, river and current, dark silhouettes,
Heardhiss of grass in wind, croaking of frogs, old diesel engine,
Smelledsea air, rotting smell, old and abandoned buildings.

Her choice of words fills the pages with imageryimagery that pulls the reader into one after another, “Whenever I see abandoned buildings, I think of our old house in the village, a rickety shack by the swamp where the frogs used to live.
Its gone now”.
In “Contact Sports, Robinson shows just how psychotic the cousin is while torturing Tom, “Jeremy smoked his cigarette until it was almost gone, and then he stubbed it out on Toms shoulder”, If this isnt visceral enough, she continues the torture a few paragraphs later, “Jeremy started a third cigarette, which he slowly inserted up Toms nostril”,
Robinson doesnt limit the delivery of physical harm to that provided by her antagonists, In “Dogs in Winter,” Lisa attempts suicide on three separate occurrences, each time failing miserably, For her first attempt, she counts on aspirin as her gateway to death, “Deciding to get it all over with at once, I stuffed a handful into my mouth, God, the taste. Dusty, bitter aspirin crunched in my mouth like hardshelled bugs, My gag reflex took over, and I lost about twenty aspirin on my quilt”, No one who has ever tasted a dry aspirin can fail to experience the imagery in this scene,
If for no other reason than a lesson in imagery, Trap Lines is worth the read, Each of these four troubled teenagers is trapped within the lines surrounding their lives,
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