Scan barcode
A review by rwalker101
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I have been a fan of Beaton's for a long time. Like many, I was drawn into her Hark! A Vagrant webcomic in the early 2010s, and was long held rapt by her signature dry and absurdist wit. I remember fondly visiting her site often in the school computer lab, eagerly checking each day to see if a new comic had been posted yet.
However, if you're coming in expecting things to be as they were with Hark! A Vagrant, know that there is little to laugh at here. Like any true artist, Beaton's work has evolved over time. The death of her sister Becky, her move back to Nova Scotia, her wedding and the birth of her children, all of these have aged and evolved Beaton's work. Where the watchword of her comics may have once been "dry" or "clever", the word that comes to mind when I think Beaton's recent works, including Ducks, is "empathy".
The novel makes it clear that Beaton has always been empathetic. From the jump, 22-year-old Katie Beaton grapples with how hard it is to leave her home, though she knows it is necessary if she wants to pay off her student loans. She sees her struggle reflected in the others she meets at the many camps in Fort McMurray. She is highly sensitive to the way she is perceived, as a woman surrounded by lonely, isolated men. She understands all too keenly the pain of being away from your loved ones, of the bone-deep weariness that comes from working long shifts for the span of several days, because she is experiencing it too. Yet her attempts to speak these things, to give them a name and a solution, consistently fall on deaf ears. "This is the way it's always been," they say. "You'll get used to it."
And she does get used to it, for a little while. It's too big to change on her own, after all. Like everyone else she learns to stuff her feelings down. They come back through in little moments: the kindness of a coworker, the beauty of the aurora borealis, the deaths of ducks protested on global news while the death of a coworker goes almost entirely ignored. These moments are presented plainly, with little to ornament them except Beaton's simple rendering.
The resulting product is poignant and uncertain. There are no great realizations or revelations to be had about Beaton's time in the oil sands. Like most things in our lives, there is both good and bad to be found in the retelling, and it is Beaton's understanding of this that really sells this book.
However, if you're coming in expecting things to be as they were with Hark! A Vagrant, know that there is little to laugh at here. Like any true artist, Beaton's work has evolved over time. The death of her sister Becky, her move back to Nova Scotia, her wedding and the birth of her children, all of these have aged and evolved Beaton's work. Where the watchword of her comics may have once been "dry" or "clever", the word that comes to mind when I think Beaton's recent works, including Ducks, is "empathy".
The novel makes it clear that Beaton has always been empathetic. From the jump, 22-year-old Katie Beaton grapples with how hard it is to leave her home, though she knows it is necessary if she wants to pay off her student loans. She sees her struggle reflected in the others she meets at the many camps in Fort McMurray. She is highly sensitive to the way she is perceived, as a woman surrounded by lonely, isolated men. She understands all too keenly the pain of being away from your loved ones, of the bone-deep weariness that comes from working long shifts for the span of several days, because she is experiencing it too. Yet her attempts to speak these things, to give them a name and a solution, consistently fall on deaf ears. "This is the way it's always been," they say. "You'll get used to it."
And she does get used to it, for a little while. It's too big to change on her own, after all. Like everyone else she learns to stuff her feelings down. They come back through in little moments: the kindness of a coworker, the beauty of the aurora borealis, the deaths of ducks protested on global news while the death of a coworker goes almost entirely ignored. These moments are presented plainly, with little to ornament them except Beaton's simple rendering.
The resulting product is poignant and uncertain. There are no great realizations or revelations to be had about Beaton's time in the oil sands. Like most things in our lives, there is both good and bad to be found in the retelling, and it is Beaton's understanding of this that really sells this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault and Classism