Canada and Beyond: A Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural Studies

Abstract

This essay looks critically at binary stereotypes that are challenged and upended in Suzette Mayr’s novel, Venous Hum, as well as other texts. By citing this novel, the essay critiques the figure of the monster as a hybrid who threatens notions of stable identity through enacting a metaphor of embodied miscegenation. This essay investigates the role of the monster as intrepid hero in the state of constant transition, one who crosses the us/them divide, who represents immigrant, and racialized character, and defiant sexuality, and beautiful deviant. Through an examination of “Alberta” stereotypes, the essay explicates a “universal” binary and challenges homogenizing narratives about the Canadian prairies. In the novel under discussion, the trope of the high school reunion acts as pivot for hurtful past narratives (both in the book and in Alberta’s past), and serves as climax for a book wherein so many characters claim the role of “monster” that the very definitions of insider/outsider ceases to mark the border between “normal” and “abnormal.”