Derksen scrutinizes all; the pieces in this book are the ongoing critique of living the life he lives--the culture, the politics; nothing escapes, nothing devolves into sentimentality, everything receives a keen, if sometimes merely whispered, analysis. It is observation with edge, with keen insight, with a fair amount of cynicism, and a pleasing, sometimes brilliant, play on language. The pieces in the book vary interestingly both formally, and in what they take on. "Hold on to your bag, Betty" is a wonderful, resonant and sometimes lush "report" from foreign lands; "Temp Corp", the final piece in the book, is spare but emotionally packed, held very close to the line of breaking, tracing a kind of emotional pain that only loss engenders. A wonderful book from this up n' coming Canadian writer.--Jessica Grim
This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #5,
Contact the editor, luigi-bob drake, at Burning Press
Copyright Burning Press 1994, 1996.