Book Review
I’ve just finished reading Elizabeth Hay’s wonderful novel, Late Nights On Air. I found the writing to be as compelling as the story is appealing. Set against the back drop of the extreme and beautiful northern Canadian landscape the story brings together several unlikely Characters who all work at the local CBC radio station in Yellowknife, a place I’m longing to visit someday.
Elizabeth successfully manages to match her characters temperament to the landscape or maybe it’s the landscape that is dictating her characters behavior. The Mackenzie valley pipeline, threatens to rip open the vulnerable arctic landscape, displacing its fragile native culture. Harry, a venerable but failed CBC personality from down south comes north to work in radio. One night he falls in love with an unusual female voice belonging to Dido, who in real life is much more than he imagines.
These two are only part of the CBC contingent of characters whose stores, past and present, weave together the fabric of the novel. Like radio their voices are suddenly intimate yet aloof, exposed yet covered as they are heard over the vast bare expanse of the Canadian Arctic.
Elizabeth’s beautifully constructed sentences combine delicate imagery and keen observances. I think Late Nights On Air is Elizabeth’s best book and deserving of its 2007 Giller prize status.
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