Tragic Links, the fourth book in Cathy Beveridge’s series that focuses on historical disasters with significance to Canada, offers an alternative look at our country’s past through the eyes of young people.  The chronicle of a Canadian family, specifically 13-year-old Jolene, the book follows a vacation journey to Grandma’s in Montreal for Thanksgiving weekend. While on holiday, the family is researching for the Museum of Disasters they’ve opened, and through a time crease that’s discovered in la belle province, Jolene runs into some disasters of her own.

Slipping back through the decades, the teen finds herself reliving history as she’s swept up in the Roaring Twenties, enthralled by the old-fashioned cars, ancient-looking theatres, flapper styles, and throwback hairdos. She meets a few new friends along the way; one of them, Poppy, looks eerily similar to her, yet Jolene ignores warnings that seeing one’s doppelganger can be an omen of death. Without conducting the proper research, Jolene accompanies the girls to a theatre show, unaware that peril awaits them.

In an atmosphere of family feuds between her mother and her aging grandmother, Jolene seeks refuge in the past, discovering dusty old photos in the attic that may reveal some tragic links between unanswered questions from her grandmother’s history and her new/old friends from the 20s.

An older boy in the neighbourhood named Stephan is all too happy to give Jolene a hand (and a few butterflies) in mapping out her family tree to find answers. Intrigued by her father’s Museum of Disasters and the idea of “preserving destruction”, Stephan and Jolene trace some of his Mohawk ancestors to the Quebec Bridge Collapse of 1907, and Jolene makes the hasty decision to travel back to that day through another time crease. Knowing she can’t re-write history, Jolene and her family must get out alive, knowing how many will perish on that fateful day.

Throughout the novel, Beveridge delivers an interesting lesson, from Jolene’s perspective, on these catastrophic events. Tragic Links illustrates history in a contemporary way, with Jolene visiting contemporary exhibits on the 20s and learning about transportation and entertainment from that decade, and then experiencing it for herself, all the while still juggling concerns about a school dance she’s missing, her crush on Stephan, and her slightly dysfunctional family.

Canadian history can seem like a boring and daunting topic for young teens, but this award-winning author has found a way to liven up the subject matter, making it memorable for its readers by retelling its stories through the eyes of a teenager, as opposed to the pages of a textbook.

Writer Meaghan Isaacs is currently based in Ottawa.

Coming Attractions is an annual collection of three stories by each of three up-and-coming Canadian writers, a format that allows one to really get a sense of the writers’ voices. In the ’08 edition, Rebecca Rosenblum, Daniel Griffin, and Alice Petersen show why they are gaining ground in the writing world, with short tales like a series of candid photographs. They offer quick glimpses into the lives of people passed day to day without a second thought: the waitress serving your morning coffee, the family man to whom you sold your car, the secretary at the high school you attended.

The characters brought to life in each story seem, at a quick glance, just on the cusp of existence. Almost unnoticeable at first, they appear to be the most ordinary of people. Yet the young man nervously awaits forced fatherhood; the student is passing the time until the scars of abuse fade away; the widow, a photographer who once thought herself free-spirited, wonders how to be around her dead partner’s other lover. The people in these short stories are visibly flawed, bruised, and broken down; some of their losses are hidden, others more obvious. All of them embody the theme of this anthology, looping loss and longing, stringing along regret, what ifs, unspoken defeat.

Rosenblum’s descriptive style is saddening and brilliant, revealing the shadows everyone hides in, the excuses everyone makes, the mundane moments of day-to-day life –- tired feet, old and worn office equipment, and overhearing the neighbours’ screaming matches — but all somehow captivating, complete with distinctly Canadian details such as the rare joy of paying Montreal rent in Toronto.

The heartbreaking, often hopeless complications of family ties in Griffin’s stories illustrate intricate relationships, most beyond repair. Exhausted, the characters all desire a change they know may come too late. Griffin traces their disappointments and uncertainties. One man tries to reason with a brother who’s gone over the edge after a break-up; another tries to distract from the disappointments of his own daily life by becoming completely engrossed with another family’s.

Montrealer Alice Petersen’s short stories scratch the surface of her characters’ lives, drawing the reader in but leaving many questions unanswered. She writes expressively; one can almost taste the bananas in the Jean-Talon Market, see the deep purple glare off the aubergines. Her characters do their best to deal with grief, scattering their lover’s ashes or surrendering to the loss of a parent; they leave the reader lingering in their sadness.

These three Canadians have grasped and perfected a rare skill: the art of writing about the most trivial tasks, the most desperately apathetic, lost people, and making it a captivating read. Rosenblum, Griffin, and Petersen make Coming Attractions 08 a smart, compelling piece of work.

Meaghan Isaacs is a writer, flitting back and forth between Montreal and her hometown of Ottawa, where she is based (for now).