The Beautiful Children
Thistledown Press / 25 February 2011

The Beautiful Children by Michael Kenyon Published by Thistledown Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $18.95 ISBN 978-1-897235-47-8 I’ve just finished The Beautiful Children, a poetic novel by BC writer Michael Kenyon, and feel I’m waking from a trance. In Kenyon’s mystifying story one’s never quiet sure what’s real and what’s imagined, or how the author – who hass previously published four books of fiction and two poetry collections – manages to shape-shift this harrowing tale about urban street kids and lost adults into a book that celebrates life. That sleight-of-hand, Kenyon’s musical language, and the book’s surrealistic qualities are its charms. The plot is easiest to follow in the first of the book’s three sections. Sapporo, a Japanese man, awakes with amnesia and finds himself in a hospital. In time he leaves the hospital with his son, a boy of ten. The awkward pair play catch, and at home, the uneasy roommates are “two animals who were shy of each other.” Sapporo regularly sees a therapist, but as time progresses he sinks further into his dreamlike world. He tracks the passing of time and records impressions but doesn’t understand their meaning. And he has no idea how to parent:…