The Kissing Fence: A Novel
Following persecution in Russia for their religious beliefs, Doukhobors were granted land in Canada by Queen Victoria. Eventually many traveled west to British Columbia, where their lack of respect for government authority, expressed by public nudity, led to heavy-handed retaliation from 1953 to 1959. Nudity was punishable by three years imprisonment. The RCMP were deployed to arrest the adults and remove all children to a small-town school behind a high wire fence.
The protagonist, young Pavel, suffers along with the other children from misunderstanding, insensitivity, outright cruelty, and abuse. When the school is closed, Pavel joins a radical Doukhobor sect and is imprisoned for planning to blow up a government building. On release he marries the girl he has loved since childhood, but their memories of the school interfere with and destroy their marriage.
Interspersed with this story is a narrative taking place in 2017/18 Vancouver, where a successful businessman, his marriage falling apart, is caught in a web of crime, infidelity and arson. Linking both aspects of the novel is the metaphor of Owl who appears disconcertingly to demand answers to unfathomable questions.
This is a chilling look at the devastating effects of forcibly removing children from family and culture and educating them in a harsh environment complying with the dominant white culture from the Director of Forensic Psychiatry for British Columbia. The legacy of years of abuse and crushing despair is evident decades, even generations later. Thomas-Peter allows for a tiny spark of hope: that with loving care and support redemption might be possible.
The strength of this novel lies in both the painfully accurate descriptions of life in the school and in the depth of understanding of the wide range of effects and reactions that arise from this. Not a comfortable read, but these insights are important for our time.
