The Wabeno Feast

Toronto: Anansi, 1973. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. 12mo - over 6¾ - 7¾" tall. SIGNED and dated with inscription to ffep. Full black paper boards. 280 pp. Drew's obituary from the Globe, Jan. 6, 1999 laid in. Offsetting to ffep and half-title. Dust jacket is lightly bumped to edges, a few small chips to extremities. Drew's first novel. The Wabeno Feast is the story of boys growing up in a pulp-mill town in Northern Ontario whose lives fall apart as they become enmeshed in a destructive urban society. Life in contemporary Canada degenerates into a nightmare of pollution, violence, and social disorder, and only one man, searching both the personal and historical past for clues to the breakdown, finds salvation through his journey back into the natural world. The modern sequences are juxtaposed with the expedition of a 17th century Hudson's Bay trader who enters the virgin wilderness to exploit and conquer. He comes upon a primitive feast of fire and blood celebrating the Wabeno, a legendary Indian creature representing all that is anti-natural. The trader's fate and the later scenes of devastation set in Toronto suggest that the Wabeno has prevailed. Wayland Drew presents this myth of Canadian civilization in a narrative that is both clear and compelling.