All the Shining People

All the Shining People (2022) Kathy FriedmanBy Kathy Friedman

Fiction

House of Anansi Press, 2022

256 pages

ISBN:978- 487010409

$22.99

 

Reviewed by Nittu Prasai

 

“Who’s to say what makes one race of people, or even a single person, tougher than another?”

All the Shining People collects 12 short stories that thread migration, diaspora, and the quest for belonging into an intricate tapestry of Toronto’s Jewish South African community. Friedman emigrated with her family from South Africa to Thornhill, Ontario when she was five.

The book starts with “At the Bottom of the Garden,” a deeply personal account of the narrator’s experiences growing up in Durban, South Africa. Friedman’s nostalgic writing style blends sensory details with emotional reflections to skillfully capture childhood memories set against the landscapes of the narrator’s childhood. The plot unfolds through a series of connected vignettes from the familiar landscapes of Durban to the unfamiliar and colder streets of London.

The second story, “Twist,” features Tobias, a Swiss-German art instructor for Kyla’s class. Friedman offers readers a glimpse of Kyla’s internal struggle to embrace a non-traditional lifestyle in contrast to the external goings on of the class. Kyla is Jewish and her teenage past is explored in the title story when a peer tries to commit suicide at high school.  She says, “Courage means doing the right thing even though you’re scared. You always have a choice. That’s what my dad used to say to me.”

All the Shining People is a compelling compilation that captures the nuances of cultural displacement and the yearning for fulfilling connections. With depth and profound empathy, Friedman examines oppressive structures, familial bonds, and cultural identity with a complexity that reframes real-life events.

Friedman studied Creative Writing at UBC and the University of Guelph and was a finalist for the 2012 Writers’ Trust Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. This collection was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award, the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and the Relit Award for Short Fiction. She edited the anthology Brilliance Is the Clothing I Wear (Dundurn, 2021) and is the publisher of four anthologies at InkWell Books.