What I Want to Tell Goes Like This

This accomplished debut short story collection from Rader, a poet (Miraculous Hours), is deeply invested in the marginal. Populated by the working class, minor historical figures, and fleeting intimate moments, it can be read as an alternative history of the Pacific Northwest. Centered around Vancouver Island, the stories are scattered throughout the past 100 years. Despite initially jarring differences in tone, time, and subject, there is a unifying theme, each narrative an installment in the chronicle of human struggle to inhabit an inhospitable place. What emerges is dark: the primal fear of obliteration, the hidden evil that is a byproduct of civilization, and the parts of history%E2%80%94and humanity%E2%80%94that no one wants to look at. This darkness is deeply unsettling, but it is also creative, demanding both action and compassion from the reader. The final story, "All This Happened a Long Time Ago," winner of the Malahat Review's Jack Hodgins Founders' Award for Fiction, leaves readers with a schoolteacher's account of the inspiration for James Joyce's "The Dead." In it, Rader offers an explanation of how, through storytelling, we make sense of the pain and horror of the past. (Nov.)