Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, by Kate Beaton

[sophia_sol]

Oof. The kind of book where you finish and have to just kind of sit in a daze for a while as you let it settle.

This is a graphic memoir by Kate Beaton of Hark! A Vagrant fame, about her two years working in the oil sands of Alberta when she was a fresh university graduate - a very young woman working in an isolated environment that was mostly men separated from their communities. It's a wonderful, nuanced look at a complicated and difficult place, and Kate's writing and art and impeccable sense of pacing do an amazing job of carrying you with her into the emotions of the moment, in everything she depicts.

Not sure what else to say about it, really. Book good. Very recommend. Content notes for sexual harassment and sexual assault.

Comments

[silverflight8]

Ooh, I've seen some of her comic strips about this that she posted on Hark! A Vagrant. It's kind of a wild place - remote, physical labour, but people with a high school diploma can go there right after HS (assuming they graduate during a boom time) and make an absurd amount of money. Kind of nuts. /grew up in Calgary

[sophia_sol]

Yeah it truly is nuts! I understand what draws people there, and also.....what a thing.

[chestnut_pod]

Wow, I had not actually put together "this graphic memoir I've been seeing around" with "Kate Beaton." I'm very curious to see how her style meshes with this much more serious subject matter.

[sophia_sol]

It meshes astonishingly well, imo! But yeah it is a little disconcerting at first to see art you're more used to seeing in the context of jokes doing this instead

[pauraque]

I've been looking forward to reading this. I'm a fan of her work, and I have a friend who's worked in the oil sands for many years. He doesn't have any illusions about it being great, but he feels it's the only way available to him to support his family, and I think about that a lot.

[sophia_sol]

Ooh yeah. I get why people like your friend make that choice! And it sucks that there aren't better choices easily available.