CITIES OF REFUGE by Michael Helm (McClelland & Stewart), 400 pages, $32.99 cloth. Rating: NNNN
Smart, soulful writers usually get noticed in Canada. So it’s a bit mystifying that Michael Helm, despite some major short list appearances, hasn’t already achieved star status.
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Cities Of Refuge should get him the attention he deserves. A meditation on guilt and the psychological impacts of violence, it weaves together the stories – and mindsets – of characters reacting to a single violent act.
Kim is the victim and the story’s focus. A night security officer at the ROM, she’s viciously assaulted and nearly raped – murder could easily have been on her attacker’s agenda – while cycling to work.
Kim’s father, Harold, now divorced from her mother, decides he’ll find his daughter’s assailant. His pursuit is so single-minded, it becomes obvious that there’s more at stake for him – but what?
And why is he harassing GROUND, an agency that assists mostly Latin American refugees, where Kim volunteers? He’s suddenly attracted to Rosemary, the good Christian who works at the agency and who’s harbouring the illegal Rodrigo. Harold is certain Rodrigo’s the man he’s looking for.
This is a complex and disturbing narrative, and Helm is in complete control. Points of view change suddenly, but the story is easy to follow.
And the poetic prose evokes Kim’s ongoing terror to unsettling effect. Once a skilled gymnast, she feels betrayed by her body and, in an attempt to exorcise her terror, begins writing from the point of view of her attacker. The echoes of right-wing violence in Latin America and the toll it takes resonate just as powerfully here.
If Cities Of Refuge isn’t on a short list come fall, the world is not unfolding as it should.
Helm reads with Russell Smith and Erin Mouré as part of the Harbourfront Reading Series on Wednesday (April 28). See Readings.
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