sewn paper
Fiction
1998
144 pages
ISBN 0-88984-200-0
$15.95

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Love in a Warm Climate

The stories in this collection were written primarily between the author's visits to Ecuador. The writing served both as an expression of longing for `Away' -- distance, heat, ocean, mountain, etc. -- and as a way to express that side of her personality that comes to the fore in a tropical Latin environment, amongst warm and unselfconscious people. The stories also served as a forum for her to examine the ex-pat community in Ecuador. Kelley is fascinated by the gaps and bridges between cultures. Some of this she experienced as a child, living for three years in the Philippines. As a travelling adult, and grappling with her own escapism, she grew increasingly interested in the selective adaptation practised by foreigners in Ecuador. While much of their adopted country pleased and attracted them, the flip side of that was expressed as the sort of contempt born of familiarity. Most of the ex-pats she encountered defined themselves not just as separate, but superior.

The women in these stories are drawn to Ecuador, to its climate and traditions. They'd say they were exploring but in truth they're escaping their lives in North America. On a sometimes precarious bridge between cultures and communities, they juggle feminism and machismo, new loyalties and old habits. A double standard exists in the expat community, of wanting perks without responsibility. But the landscape penetrates those who might distance themselves; like gentian violet, it leaves a stain.

Events in the ex-pat community operate with a kind of pressure cooker sensibility. Gossip, jungle telegraph and story are used to define, and even haunt people. Where the local culture by turns tolerates and/or ignores the outsiders, the community runs itself by a fairly harsh code. Particularly interesting and sometimes painful to watch were the experiences of foreign women, friends or acquaintances, who were forced to surrender most of their feminism or risk being branded as the Odd stranger.

`These are stories to shout about. They are boldly, daringly original without being difficult to understand -- no mean feat. The first-person voice, a common feature of writing these days, is made to do unexpected things, to behave in unexpected ways.'
    - Books in Canada

`The warm climate in these tales is often literal, but always figurative; whether in a steamy river delta, or Andean chill, Aitken's women live among a people whose generosity often vies with scorching need, and a fierce love/hate for ``el mundo primero''. Writing from that first world, Aitken explores her subject with grace, keen perception and ... a gratifying absence of writerly display. Her expatriate Canucks, Yanks and Brits are suitably flawed without being caricatures. Her Ecuadorians live fully and variously in their richly evoked landscape, and during tense or celebratory or erotic moments their self-professed sangre caliente bubbles without authorial condescension.'
    - the Globe & Mail

Love in a Warm Climate was short-listed (`Best First Book') for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 1999.
 

Kelley Aitken was born in Vancouver. She received a Fine Arts degree from the University of Guelph, and now works as an ESL teacher and art instructor at the Canadian Co-operative for Language and Cultural Studies in Toronto.