Late Nights on Air was the Giller Prize winner for 2007 - and deservedly so.
Elizabeth Hay creates a group of characters who work at the radio station in Yellowknife in 1975. They all come from elsewhere - the misfits, the loners, the romantics, the people running away from life. The employees at the station fit into one or more of those categories. Harry, the station manager, has returned to radio after a disastrous attempt at television. Dido, the station’s most popular newsreader, fled her marriage after an ill-conceived affair with her father-in-law, only to find herself caught between the affections of Harry and Eddy, the station’s 'bad boy' engineer. Ralph has deep feelings for Eleanor, another refugee from a bad marriage. Gwen turns up in Yellowknife drawn north by childhood memories of a radio program about northern explorer John Hornby. (side note - read more about Hornby - his expeditions sound fascinating). She dreams of a career in radio, only to find herself paralyzed by shyness and assigned to late night radio where her stammering won't be an issue.
Harry, Gwen, Eleanor and Ralph embark on a 6 weeks-long life-changing canoeing trip to retrace Hornby's fatal expedition. The beauty of the North, the scenery, the quiet, the seduction, the underlying danger becomes a compelling fifth character on this trip.
Their lives are played out against the backdrop of Justice Thomas Berger's commission on the proposed building of the MacKenzie pipeline through the Yukon. Berger spent three years truly listening to all, going from native village to village, compiled 40,000 pages of testimony, and recommended “no pipeline now, and no pipeline across northern Yukon ever.”
Are you listening, Justin Trudeau!!??
Elizabeth Hay has written a wonderful book, peopled by characters that will stay with me.
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