Onion Man

by Kathryn Mockler

In the late 1980s of London, Ontario—a time in Canada when the recession lay like a lead weight on the shoulders of young people, leaving the future bleak—an eighteen-year-old girl is working for the summer at a corn canning factory. Her story is told through a series of masterfully-sculpted linked poems, following her relationship with her boyfriend, her alcoholic mother, her terminally-ill grandfather, the factory job, and the man who every night “peels an onion and eats it as if it were an apple.”

Book is out of print. Contact the author to purchase.

Genres: Poetry

144 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2011

About the author

Kathryn Mockler is the author of five poetry books and the story collection Anecdotes (Book*hug Press, 2023), which was a finalist for the 2024 Trillium Book Award, the 2023 Danuta Gleed Literary Award, the 2024 Fred Kerner Award, and the 2024 City of Victoria Bulter Book Prize.

She co-edited the print anthology Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis (Coach House Books, 2020) and runs the literary newsletter Send My Love to Anyone.

Reviews

[serprex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read over the course of an hour at Central Library. Pretty good. Last page sucked. Weird how at the beginning the perspective would flip between Clinton & the girl, but pretty quickly she took over the story & everyone else just became props to her play

Which may come off as a poor review, but there's a solid atmosphere throughout the book of teenage angst that isn't the usual overly dramatic portrayl

Interesting bit on everyone else being props: yet only the rest of the cast ever actually takes action. The girl is spurred into taking part in her mother's intervention by her mother's coworkers, Clinton's mother gets her the job, Clinton injects himself into her life by showing up & writing on her with a permanent marker. The only thing she seems to really do by her own will is break up with Clinton & go back to school, but those decisions aren't narrated, her decision to go back to school only coming out when asked what she'd like to do. There's no reflection on why she's making any of those choices. So it's pretty neat that this story can exist so focussed on one character yet have her be so irrelevant. A result of that previously mentioned atmosphere, of really getting into her ambivalent psyche

[Steven Buechler · Rating 5 out of 5]

We get wrapped up in perfectly-form sentences and paragraphs that it is a pleasure to read something in left-sided-justified verse. We get so wrapped up in the mundane details of our lives that forget that they are mundane. Kathryn Mockler has covered both elements with her book Onion Man.

Page 6

The warehouse is better to work
in than the rest of the factory -
less pressure. My job may be
boring, but at least I don't have
any responsibility. My job isn't
important. Clinton's is, but I
wouldn't want his job for any-
thing. I don't have to worry
though - they never let women
run the big machines. Working
in the lab would be good. The
room is tiny and soundproof,
and they have a little fan going
and a radio. I peeked in the lab
a couple of days ago. Brenda
offered me corn to eat right
out of the can, and I did, and
it tasted really good. I've never
eaten canned corn before. My
mother always buys frozen,
but now I think canned tastes
better. It's sweeter and has a
better consistency. I ate it cold
but imagine it's good warm
with butter and salt and pepper.
Clinton says you can by a case
wholesale from the factory for
ten bucks. Maybe I'll do that.

my complete review

[dirty derk · Rating 4 out of 5]

bleak in the best // most honest way possible.