Set on an island in BC’s Salish Sea, a richly imagined and often hilarious collection of linked stories by Bill Gaston, a master of the art of short fiction.
Eleven stories unfold over a period of ten years, featuring a cast of characters striving to understand and overcome pasts that often include a catastrophic error: on Tunnel Island, moral misjudgements, semi-legal schemes, and antisocial gaffes abound.
Jack ekes out a living doing odd jobs and minding the beautiful houses of absentee owners, until he takes a lover’s bad advice and rents them out on Airbnb. A dying woman retains her wry sense of Wiccan humour while lovingly ministered to by her partner—in between his trips to hand out Halloween candy to the goblins at their door. A gruff-bordering-on-abusive uncle persuades his nephew to help him catch the otter hunting his koi. The almost mystical disappearance of a toddler is revisited years later when her parents remarry in a surreal outdoor ceremony.
These islanders are loners—not always by choice—though sometimes their disconnectedness is alleviated by a wedding or a Christmas dinner or a night at the pub. Highly original and empathetic, Tunnel Island is electrified by dark undercurrents that jolt and illuminate by turns. Bill Gaston’s big-hearted vision of life on a heavily forested island off the BC coast immerses readers in a world rendered tender and tolerable by human folly and our stumbling attempts at redemption.