Cataract City review – a Canadian tale of desperate lives

From The Guardian:

Canadian writer Craig Davidson is best known for his short-story collection Rust and Bone, which inspired the 2012 film. The inhabitants of his second novel live within earshot of Niagara Falls: a constant roar defines and, in a sense, sustains them. Their lives are hard. They have raw, uneuphonious names. They start out with ambitions and end up working in the biscuit factory. As a result, they never forget someone else’s aspiration fulfilled, which they receive as a slight; and they never let you get away with it. Cataract City narrates itself through the pursuits that entertain them on a Saturday night: wrestling, boxing, dog fights and demolition derbies, all those sweaty, noisy, violent pastimes that exploit, along with animals and human beings, the narratives of luck and skill, of cheating and fairness, of give and take – but mostly take.

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