Kootenay Refugees Beyond This Point
Holley Rubinsky
McClelland & Stewart
By Gudrun Will
The TyeeJune 14, 2006: In 27 years of living where the pavement ends, Holley Rubinsky has had ample time to study the people of the Kootenay Valley. Originally from L.A., she arrived among a flock of Quakers, draft dodgers and intellectuals sick of the Vietnam War, looking for a clean and peaceful place. In the intervening years, other seekers and escapees have joined the moral pioneers in this raw and remote corner of B.C. Or so it would seem, according to the motley crew converging there -- in an area Rubinsky has renamed Judith Lake Valley -- in her new book, Beyond This Point.
...
The characters are generally neither good nor lucky: unfortunate traits and awful experiences abound. While this world is entirely fictional, Rubinsky does draw on true-life types and backdrops -- including New Age retreats and a recent smoky summer when B.C.'s entire Interior seemed aflame.
The valley is significant as a natural gathering place, but the real theme of this novel is people's inevitable arrival at a point -- some kind of tragedy, hopelessness or desperation -- beyond which they would ideally not go. All five main female characters -- and there are plenty more people fleshing out the community in this populous book -- share this state of mind, dealing with the necessity of going on. This sounds like a dire set-up, but Rubinsky's wry wit and dedication to showing emotional vicissitudes make for a read that ends up being closer to uplifting.
....
Gudrun Will is the editor of the quarterly Vancouver Review
