THIS CAKE IS FOR THE PARTY
By Sarah Selecky
Thomas Allen
(2010, CAN$22.95, 229 pp)

Sarah Selecky's Giller-shortlisted This Cake Is For The Party brings together ten stories, six of which previously graced such Canadian magazines as The Walrus and Prairie Fire Magazine. Vibrant, poetic and salacious, Cake offers a survey of Gen X-ers all grown up and struggling.

Selecky's stories are relevantly Canadian. For the most part, with the exception of "Paul Farenbacher's Yard Sale", which takes place in Vancouver, Cake's stories are Ontario-centric. Toronto and its suburbs, the Trent University town of Peterborough, and the northern nickel-mining town of Sudbury, are a few of the settings. Ontarians will relate to the stories' familiar landmarks. Canadians everywhere will see these stories play out nationwide and in their own neighbourhoods.

Many of Cake's stories depict Canadians on the fence between societal awareness and conditioning. In "Go-Manchura", Lilian becomes brainwashed by a new-age organic food company. She tries to sell her friends the products, apparently looking out for their health, but the mid-life single woman just wants people to acknowledge her. It’s pathetic to see consumerism masked by good intentions, although it’s something to which we all fall victim.

Selecky further plays with the theme of the fast buck, get-rich-quick. In "How Healthy Are You?" Torontonian Carolyn becomes a guinea pig for a sketchy pharmaceutical outfit NuPres. In "Paul Farenbacher's Yard Sale", Meredith makes a career out of selling homemade, all-natural cleaning products, which provides her an honest income while moving into adulthood. These are characters we can relate to which puts this theme into a contemporary context.

Selecky's survey of contemporary issues also criticizes poor parenting. In "Watching Atlas", we see alcoholic Krystal shoving her son into the care of friend Lise. Under the pretense of “job interviews,” Krystal actually goes binge drinking. Atlas, the young boy described as a, "tiger that wants out of the cage," screams into pillows and throws tantrums. A call to Children's Aid by Lise's husband ends this story. You are left to wonder if Canadian Social Services will save poor Atlas, or if it will dehumanise him further.

The most sombre depiction of troubled parenting is found in, "Where Are You Coming From, Sweetheart?" Teenager Christine is bored living with her widowed father in Sudbury. She wants, instead, to live with her hip cousin and aunt in Mississauga. When her depressed, born-again Christian father commits suicide to relieve the pain of losing his wife and Christine’s mother, Sonia, Christine gets her wish; she’s in the big city at last, but parentless.

The best thing about Cake is its execution as a work of fiction. Blatantly aware of its existence as an artform, the text's themes play out relatable scenarios. The characters are caught up in economic downfall, system neglect and relationship and family problems. These themes catch our attention and undercut our ideal of prosperity in these contemporary times. Instead of hearing about societal woes from talking heads or politicians, Selecky conceptualises Canada from the ground view.

The icing on the cake is Selecky's prose. Her writing rolls off the tongue with witty one liners like, "Her voice thin and grainy, uncooked rice". Her thoughts are so original and concise, I found myself re- reading the stories just to drown in their delectability. It's no wonder that Cake came so close to winning the Giller. This year, other CanLit works tackled issues of equal importance, but Selecky shows that art must be both relevant and beautifully crafted in order to make waves in this culture.

- John Coleman


John Coleman is a new media journalist and graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University with an Honours Degree in English and a Minor in Journalism. He frequently writes about contemporary Canadian writers for our blog. He also writes for Tangible Sounds Music Magazine. For his latest updates, follow John on Twitter. Check out his blog for all of his published work.