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4.1
(69)
Kate Beaton
A New York Times Notable book! One of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2022! Winner of Canada Reads 2023!“An exceptionally beautiful book about loneliness, labor, and survival.“—Carmen Maria MachadoBefore there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark! A Vagrant, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beaton, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles, and Gaelic folk songs. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, Katie heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush—part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can’t find it in the homeland they love so much. Katie encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands, where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet is never discussed.Beaton’s natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, northern lights, and boreal forest. Her first full length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.
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Author
Kate Beaton
Pages
430
Publisher
Drawn & Quarterly Publications
Published Date
2022-09-13
ISBN
1770462899 9781770462892
Community ReviewsSee all
"Beaton’s unflinching account of her two years working in the oil fields in western Canada couldn’t be more tonally different from the erudite silliness of Hark, A Vagrant! but it’s equally fantastic. Highly recommend to anyone who likes graphic memoirs. "
Emily Calkins
"Eye opening, heart breaking, beautiful."
Erin Doucette
"Disappointed by the cover. Read it really fast cause it was so good! "
Tinky Winky
"This book was so good and honestly a little traumatizing. The fact that the story was based on the author's life and tells their story of working in the oil sands is crazy to me. As a Canadian, I didn’t really know much about the oil sands in Alberta and I feel like this book showed me both sides of the story. Kate talking about the harassment and the two rapes that happened to her while she was working there took a lot of bravery on herr part, when one person stands up and says what happened to them, it gives others the courage to do so. I also can relate to Kate with the whole, being worried about how to pay for student loans, as someone who will probably get student loans and have to pay them off eventually. I also like that it talks about the mental health of the workers, and how the isolation at the camps negatively impacts the workers. This whole story was incredible and my heart hurt reading this.
"
Liliana Sousa
"Flew through this book to get it back to who I was borrowing it from. I’m really impressed with this story; Beaton tells a memoir without resorting to self-indulgence, sensationalism, or easy answers. She lives in so many liminal spaces and tensions, asking questions of culpability in the environmental problems at the oil sands, of the cultural challenges in the camps, of identity related to a sense of place and culture. Highly recommended."
T P
Teresa Prokopanko
"Really moving and haunting. I thought I was going to feel depressed about the environment but I'm depressed about sexism instead"
Mark Calkins Charyk
"Literally one of the best books I’ve ever read ‼️🙏"
Katy Keys
"I love Kate Beaton's cartoons and was so excited to read this, which is so different from anything of hers that I had read previously. I was somewhat surprised by the power of this work....it is not a particularly enjoyable book to read. But Beaton does a great job of creating an atmosphere that gives an idea of the experience of working in the Oil Sands....its chilling and oppressive and disturbing. So glad to have read it."
John Detrick
"A really good read. Kate injects nuance and understanding into her recounting of 2 years in the gritty male-orientated environment of the oil sands and manages to find the human in a tough impersonal sexist world where men outnumber the women 50:1. She managed her stay there better than I would have."
John Woakes
"This was a great story of the oil sands. Beaton opens with everyone has their own story and this was hers. I have never been there, so it was great to get more perspective."
Andrew Greene
