"There are three major shifts facing Canada right now: immigration, aging population, housing choice and neighbourhood change. [...] Denison Avenue addresses all of these issues through art." — Naheed Nenshi, Canada Reads (televised March 5, 2024)
Day Two of the annual Canada Reads book competition began on a dramatic note. Mirian Njoh, the fashion model who had been championing Carley Fortune's romance novel Meet Me at the Lake, sat at the panellists' table with a translucent black veil over her hair. Clarifying that she had donned a mourning costume as a sign of sorrow after 'her' novel was axed yesterday, Njoh briefly paid tribute again. Then moderator Ali Hassan led the champions through deeper dives into the remaining books.
NAHEED NENSHI, the former mayor of Calgary, began by praising Denison Avenue.
Written by first-time novelist Christina Wong in collaboration with the artist Daniel Innes, it tells the story of an elderly Chinese-Canadian woman Choe Sam, who struggles not just with a personal tragedy but also with trying to fit in to her gentrifying urban neighbourhood.
The Torontonian, Canada Reads panellist Kudakwashe Rutendo had already singled out the book for praise the day before. Its detailed scene-paintings gave her insights into a neighbourhood she had walked by but did not know very well. "I don't think there is a lot of representation in literature for that."
Championing the book, Nenshi dwelled not just on its subject matter but also on its literary quality. "You want to say that you read Christina Wong's first book," he claimed.
MOST OF THE OTHER panellists poked holes in the book during the second day, however.
Mirian Njoh began by wondering if Denison Avenue really embodies the motto of this year's Canada Reads:
"This year, the great Canadian book debate is looking for one book to carry us forward."
Instead of carrying her forward, she
"found this book to be relentlessly gut-wrenching, honestly. [...] It ultimately raises more questions than it answers. [...] It just leaves us with the sentiment that this is a path we all must walk."
Nenshi, given the chance to defend the book, replied that to him the ending is redemptive: it shows the main character moving forward from grief in her own way.
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| Cover of Denison Avenue ECW Press |
Athlete Dallas Soonias also chimed in to defend Denison Avenue, contending that a neat resolution isn't necessary or realistic. "It's not tied up in a bow and you're not super-happy, but that's kind of real life." He felt that there has been a cultural shift in the last decade toward seeing winning as a be-all and end-all, which has changed expectations. He added, "I think it's a lovely book."
From an author's perspective, Heather O'Neill took issue with Denison Avenue's style.
O'Neill found that the passages written in the first person from the perspective of Chloe, a child, and from the perspective of the elderly main character, all sounded like a millennial writer rather than people of different generations.
Kudakwashe Rutendo, speaking next, argued that it made little sense to start and end the novel with the viewpoint of Chloe if this child character barely appears in the narrative in between.
The actress added that the free verse that Christina Wong worked into the novel, adding blank lines between short phrases of prose, was not more effective than straightforward prose would have been.
Former mayor Nenshi replied to Rutendo by pointing out that the intermittent 'disappearance' of Chloe emphasizes that the elderly main character, Wong Cho Sum, had "more people in her community looking after her than she knows. Cho Sum had to go through that period of great loneliness to accept the fact that there is this helper right next door."
***
The clock on the wall read 6:05. “Ai ya, luk ehm?!” (It’s six o’clock?!) I glanced at the kitchen table: the two bowls of plain rice, the two bowls of winter melon soup, and the plates of stir-fried green beans with fermented bean curd, steamed spare ribs with preserved black beans, and steamed pork patty with salted fish remained untouched.
“Ah See Hei? See Hei ah? Lay fahn jor gwuy may ah?” I called out. (Are you home yet?)
No answer.
—Excerpt from Denison Avenue, by Christina Wong and Daniel Innes (Toronto: ECW Press, 2023)
