Reading a book where a family celebrates the legacy of their oil-discovering ancestor, and the riches and feuds it brings is an interesting experience in 2024, and I suspect that’s what David Huebert is getting at in his novel, Oil People. Oil is such an albatross around our necks – hinted at in parts of the book, buoyed by a reader’s 21st century understanding of oil.
Oil is such an albatross around our necks – hinted at in parts of the book, buoyed by a reader’s 21st century understanding of oil.
In 1987, thirteen-year-old Jade Armbruster is living on her family’s oil farm and museum, a crumbling monument to Clyde Armbruster, their ancestor who tapped the first oil well in Oil Springs. Her parents fight constantly about selling the land, her sister is rebelling and causing more strife, and Jade has found a puddle of oil in the basement of their house – definitely not something to worry about too much! But the clues are there: erratic behaviours by many in the community, the high number of girls in her classes, and the ever-pervasive smell of oil.
In 1862, Clyde Armbruster immigrates to Canada and strikes it rich, managing to drill the first major oil well in Lambton County, Ontario. But quickly, the oil becomes a chain around his neck: providing him with dangerous hallucinations, causing difficulty in conceiving with his wife Lise, and the root of their generational friendship-trend feud with their neighbours, who are better able to harness the business side of the oil wells.
As the copy for this book notes, this is both a family saga and an environmental fable, with heavy gothic influences. The novel tiptoes into spooky, confusing, spirit-filled territory. Characters from both parts of the narrative cross over in dreamland, and blur the past into the present. Huebert explores family ties, relationships with the land and its destruction, represented through Jade’s best friend Val, an Anishinaabe girl from the reserve nearby – a reserve created because of the oil fields. Huebert touched on so many topics that it was hard to dive into any of them deeply, which is representative of how intersectional environmental issues are, but also fell short on some of them. However, the discussion and confusion were appropriate for a teenage narrator who’s only beginning to figure out the world and their place in it. Jade was a fairly believable teenage girl, and in particular, the warfare and bullying from the other girls in her grade was all too real. However, in some parts her voice as a narrator slipped away and she was strong-armed into directing the plot where Huebert needed it to go.
Oil People is a strange and unsettling book, a dark coming of age tale and an eco-gothic novel. I was drawn into this dark and confusing world, and also somewhat confused, having not lived my life bound to oil like Jade and her family. The romance and even beauty of oil as a substance was lost on me, and I felt this is sort of how Huebert was hoping it would land: a modern critique of oil overlaid for these older standpoints, which really enriched the novel, and also could not be untangled from reading it. It’s dark and mysterious, and certainly thought-provoking.
Oil People is a strange and unsettling book, a dark coming of age tale and an eco-gothic novel. I was drawn into this dark and confusing world, and also somewhat confused, having not lived my life bound to oil like Jade and her family.
David Huebert has won the CBC Short Story Prize, The Walrus Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the 2020 Journey Prize. Huebert’s first story collection, Peninsula Sinking, won a Dartmouth Book Award and was runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, among other accolades. His second story collection, Chemical Valley, won the Alistair MacLeod Short Fiction Prize, received glowing reviews, and was a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the ReLit Award. David teaches MFA in Fiction at the University of King’s College in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), where he lives with his partner and their two children.
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart (August 20, 2024)
Paperback 9″ x 6″ | 328 pages
ISBN: 9780771005190
Alison Manley has ricocheted between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for most of her life. Now in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she is the Cataloguing and Metadata Librarian at Saint Mary's University. Her past life includes a long stint as a hospital librarian on the banks of the mighty Miramichi River. She has an honours BA in political science and English from St. Francis Xavier University, and a Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University. While she's adamant that her love of reading has nothing to do with her work, her ability to consume large amounts of information very quickly sure is helpful. She is often identified by her very red lipstick, and lives with her partner Brett and cat, Toasted Marshmallow.
- Alison Manleyhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/alison-manley/
- Alison Manleyhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/alison-manley/
- Alison Manleyhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/alison-manley/
- Alison Manleyhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/alison-manley/
- Alison Manleyhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/alison-manley/
- Alison Manleyhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/alison-manley/
