So Beautiful

Like Michael Winter, Lisa Moore, Libby Creelman, Jessica Grant and Claire Wilkshire, Ramona Dearing is a member of St. John’s’ now-legendary fiction collective, Burning Rock. While it would be misleading to claim that these writers constitute a movement - Dearing’s writing is less impressionistic than Moore’s, less autobiographical than Winter’s, and many of her stories take place far from St. John’s - they are all remarkably talented writers whose stories are full of vitality. Readers who enjoy one Burning Rock book tend to love them all. There’s a peculiar itch for justice in this debut collection. In the opening story, Lyle Margoulis is prompted to resume the search for his missing grandson after finding a body in a ravine. A young woman, who likes to punch people on the nose, learns the man she admires spends time with her only because they live in isolated Labrador. A Christian Brother on trial for sex abuse at Mount Cashel Orphanage begins to accept his guilt once he understands the jury is going to send him to prison. These stories are alive with fear, humour, contradiction.