Best Canadian Stories 2020

by Paige Cooper

  In the centre of the room, on the ground, was another grill, a drain for rainwater, and in the corner there was, indeed, a desiccated animal carcass. The relief of its skeleton could be seen through its ruffled, patchy coat flecked with garbage and dust. The creature had found the entrance, but not the exit. Judging by how its huge scaly tail had been flattened like a Ping-Pong paddle, it looked like this massive rodent had been run over on the highway above and then, like them, come down through the open grill. Sarah, squatting on the ground, examined the mummy by adjusting the angle of her lamp.

  “How long have beavers have been extinct around here, you think? Centuries, right?” she asked.

  The smell engulfing them was turning acidic, stinging their eyes. Next to the corpse, Xavier saw a coin, and leaned over to pick it up. He thought he’d tossed a quarter. It was a dollar. He picked it up, turned the doorknob, and pushed the door. It opened with no resistance. Light flooded into the alcove. He smiled at Sarah; she smiled back.

  “My lucky day,” he said, and walked through the door while she undid her harness. The door shut behind him.

  In his ten minutes in the shaft he’d grown so accustomed to the gloom that the sunlight hit him like the lash of a whip. He pressed his eyes shut as hard as he could and covered them with his hands. He could feel the heat on his face. The smell had changed. As before, it was pungent, but it now stripped his throat raw, dashing any hope that it might be less concentrated once he got out into the open. The humidity was unbearable, far worse down here than up above. He walked blindly forward, giving Sarah room to open the door, but she didn’t seem to be coming. Slowly, he unclenched his hand, and when his sight returned, he noticed that he wasn’t in the open air, as expected. Sunlight poured in through a large window in the wall, on the second floor of a sprawling wooden warehouse.

  It was hard to believe he could have missed this building from the parapet. He figured the door must lead to a space under the overpass, and the warehouse could be used to store excavating equipment. But in this recess of the warehouse all he could see was an arched entryway over a dirt floor. There was no machinery. His view to the right was blocked by an outcropping of wooden planks, and behind this blind corner men shouted curt instructions that lay somewhere between encouragement and orders. The fear of getting caught gripped Xavier. Site access was surely reserved for the demolition company and civil servants with clipboards and checklists. He nonetheless managed to take a few steps out of the sunbeam to see what lay beyond.

  Five metres off, a few men were bent over wooden vats dug into the ground. They stirred the contents with poles and used long metal pincers to pull out what looked to Xavier like wet hides, saturated sheets which were then piled in heaps on a wooden wheelbarrow dripping with a viscous white liquid. The men’s dress—billowy blouses with rolled-up sleeves that had once been white, pants held up with suspenders, and crude boots—was both peculiar and too loose for their work, and their splattered, shiny leather aprons were clearly unequal to their task, as they were soaked. The men worked like dogs wrangling the revolting hides. When the youngest, slightest member of the crew, no older than thirteen, lost his grip on the tongs and dropped one of the hides onto the clay beside the wheelbarrow, a brute with abscess-covered arms and neck cursed and shoved him to the ground. Another few centimetres would have sent the youth into the tub. Xavier’s reflex to step forward was idiotic—he would have never dared try to reason with these men—but at that moment a cart came in, drawn slowly by a horse swarmed by flies, pulling a load of verdigris hides stacked like blankets and hanging with clumps of fur and chunks of bloody fat, tails, ears, and horned scalps. Two burly men left the tanks to receive it.

  What a horse pulling a cart of cattle hides was doing in these ruins in Saint-Henri, Xavier couldn’t say, but his gut told him he had no business in this humid warehouse redolent with rotting carcasses, and that he’d made a mistake, and he should have just waited up above in his old car until traffic got moving again, so he turned back toward the heavy wooden door he had come in through, and when he yanked it toward him he found not Sarah but a rough tool shed with shelves full of unfamiliar implements reminiscent of medieval instruments of torture: pincers, curved-blade shears of black iron, bungs, knives, clamps, combs with outsized teeth, and mallets; the whole thing stank atrociously and made him salivate once more. He closed the door and opened it again, but nothing on the other side had changed. He went looking for the metal hatch with the fleur-de-lys, but everything he saw was made of wood. In a panic, he backed out of the corner, stood still, and saw that the cart had reached the part of the warehouse where the hides were unloaded onto trestles to be sheared of ears and tails by two Black men. Then they were tossed into a pile, while other men transported the trimmed hides in little wheelbarrows to a stream that flowed right through the warehouse. At the water’s edge, men with long double-sided cutlasses gathered up ever more skins, spread out onto easels to drain off thick, lumpy ooze which pooled onto the ground. A child came by with a scraper and pushed this molasses-like mixture back into the stream.

  The husky man who had thrown the boy down earlier noticed Xavier and yelled out.

  “Right, Étienne! About time! What’s you doing in that gear? In your togs now! We’ve got to fill the lime bath before Barsalou gets back from town.”

  The man hesitated, slowed a little. Then he moved faster, and his voice rose a third.

  “Mother of—that’s not Étienne—who are you, now?”

  Xavier took off toward the open double doors the cart had come through. Outside there were no ruins, or piles of gravel or heavy machines, but a dirt road lined by rows of country cottages and pastureland dotted with grazing cattle; above there were no concrete pillars or interchange or helicopters, but a cloudless sky and pounding sun, and Xavier ran with no clear sense of direction, his knockoff Ray Bans tucked into his collar.

  After trying to open the door, knocking, yelling, and just waiting for him to open, Sarah had given up. She was now halfway back up the ladder, hurling abuse at Xavier specifically and his entire generation in general. It’s not like things were better before. She didn’t give a shit about empty gestures of gallantry. But she’d always thought only true degenerates didn’t bother holding the door open for the ones who come after.

  Metcalf-Rooke Award 2020

  I am pleased to resume my sponsorship of the Metcalf-Rooke Award for the best Canadian short story in English after a hiatus of some years, and to present my cheque for this year’s winner, the unanimous choice of the judges, Kristyn Dunnion’s “Daughter of Cups.” It is a tough, disturbing, pitch perfect story of life in the slow lane on the shore of Lake Erie. My congratulations to Ms Dunnion.

  — Steven Temple, Steven Temple Books

  In the tradition of Comments of the Judges:

  Hey Leon, hey, Leon. Have you had a chance to read through that Best 2020 stuff yet?

  Mmm-hmm. How ya doin’?

  Fine.

  That neck—thing?

  And your knee?

  So who. . . ?

  Well, there’s nothing to talk about, is there?

  Right, precisely. That is precisely what I thought.

  We are talking about the same story?

  That Ohio girl.

  She’s the one. Live to ride, ride to live.

  — John Metcalf and Leon Rooke

  Contributors’ Biographies

  Maxime Raymond Bock was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1981. After pursuing studies in sports, music, and literature, he published four books of fiction, of which two, Atavismes (Atavisms, Dalkey Archive, 2015), and Des lames de pierre (Baloney, Coach House, 2016), were translated into English by Pablo Strauss. His latest collection of short fiction, Les noyades secondaires, was published with Cheval d’août éditeur (Montreal) in 2017.

  Lynn Coady is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of six books of fiction, in
cluding Hellgoing, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and was an Amazon.ca and Globe and Mail Best Book. She is also the author of The Antagonist, winner of the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction and a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her books have been published in the United Kingdom, United States, Holland, France, and Germany. Coady lives in Toronto and writes for television.

  Kristyn Dunnion has published six books, including Stoop City and Tarry This Night. Dunnion earned a BA from McGill University and an MA from the University of Guelph. She has worked as a housing advocate to combat homelessness in marginalized communities. A queer punk performance artist and heavy metal bassist, Dunnion was raised in Essex County and now resides in Toronto. www.kristyndunnion.com

  Omar El Akkad is an author and journalist. His debut novel, American War, has been translated into more than thirteen languages and was selected by the BBC as one of the 100 novels that changed our world.

  Camilla Grudova lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she works at a cinema. Her first book The Doll’s Alphabet was published in 2017.

  Conor Kerr is a Métis writer, descended from the Fort des Prairies and Lac Ste. Anne communities. He grew up in Buffalo Pound Lake, Saskatchewan, and currently lives in Edmonton, where he works as a part-time magpie interpreter, labrador retriever wrestler, harvester, and educator.

  Alex Leslie has published two collections of short fiction, People Who Disappear (Freehand), shortlisted for a 2013 Lambda Award for debut fiction, and We All Need to Eat (Book*hug), shortlisted for a 2019 BC Book Prize for fiction and the Kobzar Prize. Alex has also published two collections of poetry, The things I heard about you (Nightwood), shortlisted for the 2014 Robert Kroetsch Award for innovative poetry, and Vancouver for Beginners (Book*hug). Alex’s writing has been published in Granta, the Journey Prize anthology, and many journals throughout Canada. Alex is writing a novel.

  Thea Lim is the author of An Ocean of Minutes, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her writing has been published by Granta, The Paris Review, Globe and Mail, and others. She grew up in Singapore and now lives with her family in Toronto, where she is a professor of creative writing.

  Madeleine Maillet is a writer, translator, and French Canadian. Her stories have been published in PRISM international, THIS Magazine, No Tokens, Joyland, Matrix, and anthologized in The Journey Prize Stories 27 (McClelland & Stewart).

  Cassidy McFadzean was born in Regina, graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and currently lives in Toronto. She is the author of two books of poetry: Hacker Packer (McClelland & Stewart 2015) and Drolleries (M&S 2019). Her story “Victory Day” was runner up in PRISM international’s Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction.

  Michael Melgaard is the author of the short story collection Pallbearing (House of Anansi, 2020). His fiction has appeared in Joyland, The Puritan, and Bad Nudes. He lives in Toronto.

  Jeff Noh, a writer based in Montreal, was born in Seoul and grew up in New Jersey, New York, and Southern Alberta. He is an inaugural UNESCO City of Literature writer in residence in Bucheon, South Korea, where he is completing work on a novel in progress.

  Casey Plett is the author of the novel Little Fish and the story collection A Safe Girl to Love, and co-editor of the anthology Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy From Transgender Writers. A winner of the Amazon First Novel Award, the Stonewall Book Award, the Firecracker Award for Fiction, and a two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award, she has written for multiple publications including the New York Times, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Walrus, them., Plenitude, and others.

  Eden Robinson’s latest novels are Son of a Trickster and Trickster Drift. The final novel in the Trickster series, Return of the Trickster, is forthcoming spring 2021.

  Naben Ruthnum is the author of Curry: Eating, Reading and Race, and, as Nathan Ripley, of the thrillers Find You In the Dark and Your Life is Mine. Ruthnum has won the Journey Prize and a National Magazine Award for his short stories.

  Pablo Strauss has translated many works of fiction from Quebec, including Maxime Raymond Bock’s Atavisms (2015) and Baloney (2016). He grew up in Victoria, BC, and makes his home in Quebec City.

  Souvankham Thammavongsa’s first story collection is How to Pronounce Knife (McClelland & Stewart, 2020). Her stories have won an O. Henry Award and appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, Granta, The Paris Review, and other places.

  Notable Stories of 2019

  Senaa Ahmad, “The Women, Before and After” (PRISM international)

  Lisa Alward, “Wise Men Say” (The New Quarterly)

  Kris Bertin, “Mon Semblable” (Halloween Review)

  Shashi Bhat, “Good Enough Never Is” (The Malahat Review)

  Jowita Bydlowska, “Penelope” (The Fiddlehead)

  Steven Heighton, “Notes towards a new theory of tears” (PRISM international)

  Ben Ladouceur, “Man and His World” (The Puritan)

  Allison LaSorda, “Satellites” (The New Quarterly)

  Sadi Muktadir, “Quadruple Bypass” (Joyland)

  Téa Mutonji, “Property of Neil” (Joyland)

  Kira Procter, “Mucho Mucho Fun” (New England Review)

  Eliza Robertson, “The Aquanauts” (Carte Blanche)

  Natalie Southworth, “The Realtor” (The New Quarterly)

  John Elizabeth Stintzi, “Coven Covets Boy” (The Puritan)

  Anne Stone / Wayde Compton, “Antiquing in Vermont” (PRISM international)

  Kasia van Schaik, “Evening Mood at Schlachtensee” (Cosmonauts Avenue)

  Martha Wilson, “Binoculars” (EVENT)

  Publications Consulted

  For the 2020 edition of Best Canadian Stories, the following publications were consulted:

  Adda, Bad Nudes, Border Crossings, Brick, Broken Pencil, Canadian Notes & Queries, Carte Blanche, Cosmonauts Avenue, The Dalhousie Review, Electric Literature, EVENT, The Fiddlehead, filling Station, Geist, Grain Magazine, Granta, Halloween Review, Joyland, Maisonneuve, Malahat Review, Minola Review, The Nashville Review, The New England Review, The New Quarterly, Orca, The Paris Review, Plentitude, Prairie Fire, PRISM international, The Puritan, Queen’s Quarterly, Ricepaper Magazine, Riddle Fence, Room, 2019 Short Story Advent Calendar, subTerrain, Taddle Creek, The /tmz/ Review, THIS Magazine, Trinity Review, The Walrus.

  Acknowledgements

  “Government Slots” by Omar El Akkad first appeared in the 2019 Short Story Advent Calendar (Hingston & Olsen Publishing, 2019).

  “The Drain” by Lynn Coady first appeared in Electric Lit.

  “Daughter of Cups” by Kristyn Dunnion first appeared in Orca: A Literary Journal.

  “Madame Flora’s” by Camilla Grudova first appeared in The Puritan.

  “The Last Big Dance” by Conor Kerr first appeared in The Malahat Review.

  “Phoenix” by Alex Leslie first appeared in Cosmonauts Avenue.

  “If You Start Breathing” by Thea Lim first appeared in Granta.

  “Victory Day” by Cassidy McFadzean first appared in PRISM international.

  “Drago” by Michael Melgaard first appeared in Bad Nudes. From Pallbearing copyright © 2020 by Michael Melgaard. Reproduced with permission from House of Anansi Press Inc., Toronto. www.houseofanansi.com

  “Jikji” by Jeff Noh first appeared in Carte Blanche.

  “Hazel & Christopher” by Casey Plett first appeared in the 2019 Short Story Advent Calendar (Hingston & Olsen Publishing, 2019).

  “Your Random Spirit Guide” by Eden Robinson first appeared in The Fiddlehead.

  “Common Whipping” by Naben Ruthnum first appeared in Granta.

  “The Gas Station” by Souvankham Thammavongsa first appeared in The Paris Review. “The Gas Station” from How To Pronounce Knife: Stories by Souvankham Thammavongsa, Copyright © 2020 Souvankham Thammavongsa. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart, a division of Peng
uin Random House Canada Limited; Bloomsbury Circus, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc; and Little, Brown and Company, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Penguin Random House Canada Limited for permission.

  About the Editor

  Paige Cooper’s debut collection of short stories, Zolitude, won the 2018 Concordia University First Book Prize, and was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, and the Danuta Gleed Award. CBC, Toronto Star, The Walrus, Globe and Mail, The Puritan, and Quill & Quire all listed it among their best books of 2018.

  Copyright

  Copyright © the contributors, 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.