Oil People: A Novel

by David Huebert

Part generational saga, part eco-gothic fable, Oil People is a luminous debut novel about history and family, land and power, and oil as an object of toxic wonder.

1987: Thirteen-year-old Jade Armbruster lives with her parents and older sister on the family’s vintage oil farm—a decrepit property built by her ancestor. As her parents fight about whether to sell the land and their failing business, Jade struggles to avoid her best-friend-turned-nemesis and vies for the attention of the enigmatic farmer boy. Meanwhile, the oil swirling beneath her family’s home provokes erratic behaviours and offers murky revelations about her family’s history on this land.  

1862:  Clyde Armbruster catches his big break, striking Lambton County’s first gusher. The discovery brings wealth and opportunity to him and his wife Lise, but his daily proximity to oil leaves him infertile and may be the cause of his alarming, otherworldly visions. At the same time, Clyde and Lise develop an alliance with their eccentric and wealthy neighbours, a relationship that promises even more success until a fateful moment intertwines the two families, locking them into a bitter rivalry that lasts generations.

As the two narratives coalesce, family secrets and deceits are slowly unveiled, and the slick spectre of oil seeps off the page, revealing a landscape smeared and stained, yet persistently alive. Intense and visceral, agile and lyrical, Oil People is a molten mirror for the petroleum age, and signals the arrival of a profound and vital voice.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

336 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 20, 2024

About the author

David Huebert is a Canadian writer of fiction, poetry, and critical prose whose work has won the CBC Short Story Prize, the Sheldon Currie Fiction Prize, and the Walrus Poetry Prize, among other awards. His debut short fiction collection, Peninsula Sinking (Biblioasis 2017) won the Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award, was runner up for the Danuta Gleed Award, and was shortlisted for the Alistair MacLeod Short Fiction Prize.

Reviews

[endrju · Rating 3 out of 5]

He had said about the past, how it lives on in the rock. He had said of the oil that it distills time, curves it. How when you burn it, you are burning time, years. Borrowing years and centuries, and the time around you will shrink and tarnish. The had all laughed. He was mad, of course.

I left this book for a while after I'd finished it. I tried to let some time pass after the first impression to get some distance, because while I think this novel is necessary - and indeed, why isn't more written about oil? we are in it and it is in us (cf. Mineral Rites: An Archaeology of the Fossil Economy), it is a topic of utmost importance - the prose wasn't really good. Even though Huebert tried to use various surreal effects to create the unheimlich feeling that oil creates by collapsing time scales, using the perspective of a 13-year-old girl with all her school problems made the novel feel YA-ish. It's also very repetitive. There are only so many times I could read who owned what and who drilled what in what way. I'm certainly looking forward to Huebert's next novel. Novels like this are valuable, even if they are not entirely successful.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hueberts style is incredible layered and immersive. His ability to take the reader into several different characters, worlds, and mindsets serves to create a true literary page turner and come away with a slightly shattered way of looking at things (in this case, the petroleum state).

[Krissy]

Thank you to Netgalley, Penguin Random House Canada, and McClelland & Stewart for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review

This follows the story of many generations of a Oil family in Canada from 1862 to 1987

Unfortunately I had to DNF this one 20% in. I gave it a good go but the writing style just was not for me. There were a lot of instances where animals were mentioned that left me feeling very unsettled, and well as body horror which is not something I expected going in. I was initially intrigued in reading this one because i like climate fiction and am always down to read book that take place in Canada and written by a Canadian author. Unfortunately the writing style just was not for me, but I can tell the author has a very good grasp of storytelling and a unique voice.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jeez, this was a slog for me. I found the prose annoying, and the coming-of-age story stunted and unrelatable. About halfway through I just wanted to be done.

I wanted to like it because climate and petro fiction are interesting genres, indeed ones I’ve toyed with scribbling in myself. But it felt too preachy at parts, and too black-and-white at others. Sometimes the characters felt like mouthpieces for political statements (like Val or her cousin, who either spend their time telling Jade she should ignore Thea’s antics or else reminding Jade that they are Indigenous).

At times I didn’t even know what was going on because the writing was so poetic. The ending devolves into some dreamscape hallucination thing, and I just skimmed in and thought “well, I guess we’ll never know what really happened then”. Call me simple-minded, but I want to know what happens in a book.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oil People, the debut novel from David Huebert (Chemical Valley, Peninsula Sinking), follows a two-pronged narrative structure to tell a gothic-tinged tale of greed, thwarted love, madness and environmental devastation. In May 1987, 13-year-old Jade Armbruster lives with her parents and older sister Angie on what’s left of the Armbruster estate in Lambton County, Ontario, the site of Canada’s first oil gusher (established by ancestor Clyde Armbruster in 1862). Also on the property is the Canadian Petroleum Legacy Museum, which the family owns and operates. Business at the museum is sporadic at best and their drilling business, decades past its prime but which still produces a small amount of oil each year, is, like the house, ramshackle. Unfortunately for Jade, her parents are engaged in an ongoing dispute about whether or not to sell up and leave (her father wants to; her mother, who grew up on the estate, does not), and their raised voices provide a nightly backdrop to her attempts to sleep. The novel’s second narrative thread, set in the 1860s, depicts Clyde Armbruster’s discovery of oil in Southern Ontario and his subsequent partnership with savvy speculator Arlyss Mayweather to bring the discovery to market. These bare-bones elements support a story that encompasses all manner of eccentric behaviours, betrayals and afflictions. Jade herself is an oddity: her left eye has an extra pupil, a trait she shares with her mother’s long-dead sister, Poppy, who at age fourteen perished in the fire that burned the south wing of the Armbruster home, the remnants of which still stand. The story of Clyde Armbruster is, depending on your point of view, one of single-minded determination or unhinged obsession. Without the help of electricity or motorized apparatus, drilling for oil in the 1860s was a laborious process, and Clyde drilled deeper than anyone thought possible to reach the oil he was sure lay below. Clyde’s discovery wreaked instant ecological havoc when the gusher burst forth unconstrained, spewing raw oil across the surrounding woodlands, streams and farms, contaminating the earth and devastating wildlife. Regardless, Clyde himself stayed on site, devotedly toiling in the oil fields. However, long-term exposure to the chemicals thus unleashed affected his brain and caused his behaviour to grow increasingly erratic and unpredictable. And more: the chemical exposure likely rendered him unable to impregnate his wife, Lise. This was a problem because Lise was desperate for a child, and when she turned to the Mayweathers—Arlyss and his wife Dorothy—for help, it added an enticing wrinkle to Armbruster family lore. Toward the end of his life, after Mayweather bought him out of the oil business, Clyde was consumed by another obsession: birds and taxidermy, the dusty and disturbing evidence of which is strewn throughout Jade’s home. In 1987, Jade’s family is fractured. With her parents at odds about the family’s future on the property, Jade’s sister Angie has become a radical environmentalist, no longer bothering to conceal her disgust with the family’s toxic legacy and encouraging her journalist boyfriend to write an environmental exposé for the local paper. Jade herself is undergoing the confusing emotional and physical transformations of puberty, and at the same time has developed a crush on schoolmate Marc, whose family runs a pig farm. But Marc seems to have allied himself with Jade’s best friend turned nemesis Thea Mayweather, whose family, more than a century later, remains well off from the proceeds of Arlyss Mayweather’s business acumen. Events come to a head when a spill from a chemical plant unleashes a toxic blob into the St. Clair River (note: this actually happened), where Marc and Jade had gone swimming. And all along, Jade has been monitoring the progress of the sludge oozing slowly but steadily into the basement at home through a crack in the wall, a situation that seems to herald the novel’s catastrophic dénouement.

Huebert’s febrile narrative makes for a jittery read. Throughout, the author’s prose retains the restless, pulsating qualities that make his first two collections of short fiction so memorable and a delight to re-read. It seems reasonable to assume though that Oil People will inspire some degree of ambivalence in the reader. The quirks and obsessive behaviours of the characters who inhabit the poisoned and poisonous terrain of this novel draw us in and repel us in almost equal measure.

This is a minor caveat. In his first novel, David Huebert writes with great urgency as he presents his singular vision of a world in peril. He is not afraid to tell us how we got to where we are, and that alone is commendable. But he goes further, by providing a potent and eloquent warning that complacency will not see us through the current environmental crisis.

[Molly]

The writing in this book was excellent, and it was clearly very well researched, but as it turned more towards horror, it became clear that it was not a book for me. Content warning for body horror; steer clear if that is not a good fit for you.

I also think that we should probably leave explorations of teenage girls and menstruation to people who have experienced it. In my experience, at least, no one knew—much less cared—whether other girls had their periods yet. Have this as the catalyst for Jade's bullying suggested, to me, a lack of familiarity with how teenage girls interact.

Fantastic writing, though, and I did really enjoy the historical explorations of the oil and the land.

[Patsey]

Very good. The world’s first commercial oil well was right here in Oil Springs, Ontario! Who knew?! This book tells of that first discovery and of his subsequent generations living with that legacy. More interesting Canadiana 😉

[Kelsey Wilkinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. Both because of the authors connection to kings college and because it’s about an industrial town in Ontario. If it weren’t for those two personal connections I might not have finished. It felt like it was trying really hard to be ~literature~ which in some parts, I’ll credit it with being quite poetic. But in others, the wordiness and dreamlands and random pieces of information just made it so confusing.

I don’t think I could confidently retell the details of the story.

I enjoyed the dark / spooky vibes that related to the dark mysterious chemical that gets harvested from the earth to power our world, but then felt the woes of the young girl from being bullied and having crush on Mark felt really out of place. I think this would have been more powerful if it stayed in the adult world. The layer of coming of age was one too many layers of human corruption from proximity to the oil.

Favourite parts of the book: The parallel of Clyde’s need to go deeper into the earth with his sister sinking to the ocean was very interesting. I liked being able to see reasoning in his insanity. I really also felt the weight of Val’s cousin talking about how some people can’t just leave the land, even once it’s been destroyed by someone else.

I enjoyed the complicated loved triangle in the older generations story but failed to see all the connections to the newer generation. Poppy is still a big question mark to me. And the wing of the house no one was allowed to go in? Missed the point of that I think.. among many other things.. was the piece of metal in her pocket real or did she make it up?

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Huebert’s “Oil People” is based on the history of “petrocolonialism” in Southwestern Ontario, Canada – in layman’s terms, the discovery of oil deposits in the region and the web of economic, environmental and social impacts of the oil boom. The novel alternates between historical and present day narratives.

The historical narrative takes place in 1862 when eccentric Clyde Armbruster defies the odds drilling hundreds of feet deep and strikes the region’s first gusher. Clyde’s obsession with drilling ultimately damages his health and his relationship with his wife and forces him to make a deal with the unscrupulous Arlyss Mayweather.

The present day narrative takes place in 1987 and focuses on thirteen year old Jade Armbruster – an ancestor of Clyde’s. Jade lives on a derelict oil farm, converted to an oil museum, as her parents quarrel about selling the business. She struggles with adolescence angst and the strange sensations she experiences while oil bubbles up beneath her home threatening the family’s health and future.

“Oil People” is an interesting and revealing look at the impacts, good and bad, of the petroleum age. One caveat: Huebert’s rather verbose narrative style at times gets in the way of the flow of the story.

[Gemington · Rating 4 out of 5]

CW: colonialism, petroleum, oil spills, chemical spills, climate destruction, natural disasters, poisoning, incest, cheating, pollution, sickness, humiliation, betrayal, petrocolonialism

Two parallel stories told generations apart tell the life experiences of oil people when oil is discovered in Inniskillen and again in the late 1980s. Mysterious deaths and loss due to oil surround a family who were optimistic about the prospects of oil but aren’t able to achieve their dreams. Land stealing from indigenous folks through bad deals and persistent racism are background through secondary characters. The early prospector is judged deeply for wanting to dig deep, discovering the biggest gyser in North America but unable to contain it creating a massive spill. A girl on the verge of her fourteenth birthday is caught up in another massive chemical spill in the nearby river, faces bankruptcy due to an ineffective museum and many familial health consequences due to the pollution. Oil people aren’t all barrens, are all of us, and all of the lands and peoples impacted by its extraction. Grim and evocative coming of age story that spotlights consequences we regularly look away from.

[Angarad Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book that gets more interesting as you get further into it. It is complex, half set in 1987, half in 1862, though in the end the stories are connected. It also has parts that are like ‘found documents’, film script, journalism etc. Oil becomes a kind of character in this book (and I certainly learned a lot about early oil production). My favourite character is 13 year-old Jade, who is trying to find her way through puberty and family history. This author can really do the dialogue for high-school girls—their cruelty but also their humour. There are big environmental themes in the novel, but it isn’t preachy. I was surprised by the time period changes at first since I was so into the first story, but came to find both stories compelling—then they join up. This is a really well-written book, a thoughtful read. I highly recommend it for serious readers.

[Lakshmi Chithra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oil People tells a coming of age story of Jade, as well as her Family whose legacy is tied up with Canada's Oil Encounter and history. The novel moves through different forms and styles - first person narration, diary entries, new paper reports and articles, mixing lyrical prose and journalistic narration. The strength of the novel, I think was in problematizing the Oil legacy and revealing its violent colonial history which is still entangled with the present. It makes one wonder who exactly is complicit in the violence inflicted by extraction despite its apparent ubiquity and who can actually afford to save themselves from it.

[Josh Medicoff · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book did not work for me. I’m all in for stories on oil, petronationalism, and history, but there were several points in the book where I was just aching for it to finish. In part that’s because it’s so unbelievably overwritten; nothing against very stylized prose, but where was the editor here? The prose eventually becomes repetitive and overly verbose. More broadly, there are too many ideas clanging around that just don’t get wrapped up in meaningful ways.

[Stephanie H · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had an absolutely beautiful style to it but it kind of lost itself in that style. At times it was hard to follow. I did find that I could picture the things that were being described and the strange gothic beauty of the decaying in this book definitely drew me in. I liked this book, but didn’t love it.

[Gayle Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was thrilling to read a book about the County that I grew up in. The descriptions and the references to the land were well researched and brought back vivid memories. I understand that ecological disaster is a horror, so I didn't think that he needed to lean into the horror genre as much as he did. I certainly appreciated the Kraayenbrink cameo appearance in the novel.

[Ariela · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was maybe just a little to out there for my liking these days. I kind of struggle with dual timelines because I feel like often you just wind up not caring much about one story and wanting more from the other. The magical realism components here were hard to swallow with the rest of the narrative.

[Mike Broderick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half totally my type of book, half not at all.
Love the generational saga. Liked Jade. But, the writing at times was so confusing. I found myself enthralled at times and at other times going back pages to figure out what the heck I missed.
I can see why the review are so mixed on this one.

[Fawn Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good old fashioned literary fiction

[Crysta Cumming · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whimsical, haunting, impressively poetic and carefully crafted.

[Enid Wray]

Much as I loved his prior short stories - this one just didn't work for me. Way too uneven.

DNF

[Wendell Hennan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I struggled and gave up and down loking at reviews I was not alone. Nothing more to be said.