I haven’t managed to finish a novel in months. I start one, get overwhelmed by work and put it down, then forget what was happening. It’s frustrating. But I finished Melanie Schnell’s The Chorus Beneath Our Feet. It held my attention even with the Jays game going on (visible in the background of my photograph).

I want to put aside the characters for a moment, even though I empathize with Jes, who’s battling multiple traumas while trying to save his sister from a dark fate. And the plot, which is full of surprises. Instead, I want to consider the poetry of the book’s title—the word “chorus.” What an evocative way to describe the fungi, microorganisms, and bones (among other things) beneath the earth’s surface. Did you know that we don’t have much of a clue about what was underneath the surface of the grassland that used to be here in southern Saskatchewan? It was ploughed under before anybody thought to ask. The interrelationships indicated by the word “chorus “—well, the suggestion of harmony, of a hidden music, really appeals to me.

A lot is happening in this novel. The Home Children, trees and fungi, development and corruption, magic (real and imagined), Canada’s participation in the war in Afghanistan: they’re all here, along with allusions to the gothic and to magic realism. I am reluctant to say more, because I don’t want to spoil anything for potential readers, and anyone reading this post is a potential reader of this book. I’m curious, though: what will happen to Mary? Will she be the protagonist of Schnell’s next novel?

So, pick up this novel, and enjoy this funhouse version of Regina. And its inclusion of uncomfortable aspects of the truth of this place.