A Sack of Teeth

Reading "A Sack of Teeth" is like stumbling across some lost John Updike novel from the 1960s, the glory period of RABBIT RUN and COUPLES. The book has the same kind of wry, funny wisdom about very young people and their bewildered elders that Updike used to have, plus a Canadian twist which everyone will enjoy. It's set in the autumn of 1965, the heyday of YOU ASKED FOR IT and GILLIGAN's ISLAND, and though the characters are kind of low-rent Grant Buday brings them a difficult dignity. Some might balk at following the consciousness of a precocious six year old, but you'll enjoy the little boy's wry perceptions. "He spotted something else, something new, something unexpected, something he didn't understand." The repetitions of "something" help sketch out the boy as being a little obsessive. "In the long and boggy grass beneath a blue sky Ivor's dad--pants down--was kneeling behind Ivor's sister Nadia who was on all fours with her dress pushed up." Only a young child would see such a thing with such insouciance and outright curiosity. "Mr. Skog and Nadia made noises." This is a book which removes nostalgia from memory, dosing instead with the finest pure science.

Grant Buday's "Sack of Teeth" is a current favourite of mine. Buday offers up many creative twists and turns in this slim story that takes place over the course of one day. I love 6-year-old Jack's voice best of all (the story is told from three perspectives). Someone should nominate "Sack of Teeth" for best opening sentence: "At six years old, Jack Klein knew many things: that plums and apples tasted best when stolen, that by putting hockey gloves on your feet you become King Kong, and that the air in the freezer smelled like snow." Another current favourite: "Peace Like A River." Leif Enger knows how to spin a yarn too!