The Ash Garden

by Dennis Bock

This novel is quintessentially Canadian not in its setting (only partly in Canada) nor its characters (none of which are Canadian-born), but in being a novel about a relatively dark subject: the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima in the Second World War.

The novel focuses on one of the survivors of the bombing, a young woman named Emiko who is working on a documentary on the subject, and one of the bomb's architects, Anton. Anton's wife Sophie, a Jewish exile from the war, also plays a large role. The novel shifts from present to past and back again, gradually revealing more and more secrets and unexpected connections between the characters.

This is a beautifully written book. The word is that it was accepted for publication based on the opening sentence alone:

One morning toward the end of the summer they burned away my face, my little brother and I were playing on the bank of the river that flowed past the eastern edge of our old neighbourhood, on the grassy floodplain that had been my people's home and misery for centuries.

While not exactly a page turner, the characters, sense of mystery, and flowing writing make this a compelling read.