Ducks

 Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton is a memoir and graphic novel about her time, just after college, paying off her student loans in work camps in northern Alberta. I thought it was terrific. I'm not accustomed to graphic novels, and I read Ducks in less than a day, so I don't know if that's the medium or my fascination. Either way, it's a powerful work: beautiful and tragic, infuriating and inspiring. I'd seen some of Beaton's work before, a hilarious internet cartoon strip that lampoons The Great Gatsby, among other things. I was excited for Ducks, but unprepared for the depths and honesty of her account.

By her telling, the gender disparity on the work crews is about fifty to one, men to women. As a young woman, she stood out in the worst possible way, then, in a pre-#MeToo workplace. She had to navigate the pervasive sexual harassment, along with communal overwork, drug abuse, environmental degradation, racism, and untreated mental illness. In her honesty and avoidance of didacticism, she also remembers moments of beauty, courage, and kindness. I read a book recently called Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 (reviewed on this blog) that presented workplace sexism as a cudgel, an unrelenting force. That book was a diatribe; Beaton's is a complicated memoir. In its humor, weariness, and unsparing realism, Ducks is much more effective.

When I was in college, I worked for an emergency catering company that served forest fire camps. It was dramatic, hardscrabble labor. I worked 110-hour weeks, smoked cigarettes, lost sleep, and went mildly crazy. And I only worked that job for two summers! Given her sex, job description, time frame, and remote location, Kate Beaton had a much worse go of it than I ever did. My experience helped in my reading of Ducks--it gave me a starting point and several moments of shared understanding--but her story took me on a journey. Highest recommendations for this astonishing book.