Review of Raymond Alexander Kukkee's
book, The Fires of Waterland.
Raymond Alexander Kukkee has broken
into print at Redmund Productions, a mark of his talent and passion for fiction. In his
novel, The Fires of Waterland, he has brought an entire range of
universal concerns into full view. Honesty is served in doses of
violent conditions in the boiling secrecy of buried poverty.
Set in mid century Canada, the
suspenseful tale of family strife and cascading abuses reads as a
serial film of great scope. Somewhere between memorable epics of the
great depression and Dickensian classics, the story begins as
charming details of the lush countryside “small plants
domesticate undisciplined cracks in the delicate lacework of broken
curbstones—mosses and meticulous ivies advance”, innocuous
introductions of slow memories pouring from an old man's
recollections of a seemingly simpler era.
Then, the reader begins to suspect
there is a complete life bubbling from this authentic boyish voice;
the all too common symptoms of a repressed society keeping its
secrets much too close to home. Pages keep turning, pace keeps
pulling the eye to the next event, the next reason, the last
reaction. The theme rolls along the interstices of adjustment to
painful condition, and unfairness of system. Trauma is experienced
from within, “ he would shake his red jowls like a hound
shaking off swamp water'”seen from a child's perspective.
R.A. Kukkee maintains moral principles
amid sensual upheaval, vivid detail depicts crucial scenes that rock
the steps to teenage revelations. No gratuitous hyperbole covers the
sexual awakening of those involved “her skin was the color of
almonds—skinned almonds are slippery when they are wet” No
unnecessary profanity mars the text to remain accurate in the weight
of each scene. The delicate balance of act and impact evokes the
struggles of growing up, or growing old even in indelicate
circumstances.
The Fires of Waterland encompasses
timeless values in the scope of personal trauma. The fine mesh of
relativity woven through each story, chapter by chapter, ties the
complexity of being. In the person of Fletcher, it is easy to
empathize with the protagonist, his surges of anger, his hunger for
acceptance; and most of all his recollections of a loaded past.
Floyd is portrayed as a cranky old
veteran, he surfaces with modest attitudes and wise sayings “if
you have a soggy handshake, it shows you might be in possession of a
puffball brain too”. His wife, well apronned in her mothering
role, dispenses generous love in the strictures of the times.
Gender defined and place sensitive, the
tale proceeds along the expectations of the fifties without undue
romanticism. It scratches the thin surface of small town living and
encroaching aspirations. The ever familiar want versus need, rich
versus poor, all aspects are splayed by human dualities, human
frailties.
Age is not just a specific number, R.A.
Kukkee takes the reader through the process with increasing speed and
intensity, toward the inevitable progress of unspent emotion and
confusion. The language serves the wide range of subjects well. Pride
and ' dare I say ' prejudice, mitigate post-war ethics, with adoption
and stagnation in the fictional lives which feel all too real to this
reader.
Raymond Alexander Kukkee is a prolific
writer living in Canada's lush regions above the Great lakes.
He has been widely published in
knowledge based venues. His passion for fiction is evident in the
book The Fires of Waterland.
Available in e-book or print.
