The Milk Chicken Bomb: In 20 Lines or Less ...
FICTION
by Andrew Wedderburn
(Coach House Books, 298 pages, $21.95 softcover)
"Funny, sweet and odd," is how one reviewer described this first novel by Andrew Wedderburn of Calgary. That pretty much hits the mark.
The tale is told by "the kid," a 10-year-old in an rural Alberta town. If he has a name, we never learn it. Ditto for information about his parents. But he does have a friend Mullen (they run a lemonade stand together, even in winter) and his pre-teen grasp of the adult world is enriched by an motley cast of acquaintences, from Solzhenitzen the Russian, who makes tomato soup pie, to Deke, an oily neighbour who schemes to buy a surplus Soviet submarine.
As for the milk chicken bomb? Well, let's just say it's a stinky tool for revenge you never want to endure. -- Jon Fear
