Kaie Kellough

What the reader notices first about Kaie Kellough’s relentlessly fascinating short fiction collection, Dominoes at the Crossroads, is its bold, subversive nonconformity. The first story, “La question ordinaire et extraordinaire,” is written in the form of celebratory remarks delivered on the occasion of the 475th anniversary of Montreal’s founding and makes reference to the speaker’s “great great grandfather, Kaie Kellough.” The speaker is concerned with the history of Montreal’s black communities, specifically the fate of a slave named Marie-Joseph Angélique, who was executed in 1734, accused of setting a fire, an act of rebellion against the institution of slavery that destroyed much of the city. The stories that follow are set in Montreal and several Caribbean locales, and often allude to the African origins of blacks who by various means—circular or direct—were conveyed to colonial Ville Marie against their will or else emigrated much later and by choice to Canada and chose Montreal as their destination. Kellough’s narrators are wanderers and searchers. They are articulate, restlessly curious, culturally aware and concerned with origins and pathways to identity. They are musicians, writers, intellectuals or just ordinary people exploring, questioning and, in some cases, seeking to revise conventionally held beliefs regarding who they are and where they come from. There is little in these stories that is straightforward. Kaie Kellough’s fictional landscape is one in which the past exerts a strong influence on the present, thematic and dramatic lines are blurred, meaning is multifarious and sometimes elusive. What actually happens in these pages is open to interpretation and seems to depend greatly upon context, perspective, and how open the reader might be to accept uncomfortable truths about racial injustice and its continuing impact on historical and personal destinies. Despite the challenges it poses, Kellough’s book is absolutely engrossing and often suspenseful. His prose is sharp and witty, evocative and lyrical. Dominoes at the Crossroads not only invites but demands repeated readings: to fully appreciate the author’s intentions and to penetrate the layers upon which he has constructed these vivid, audacious, poignant dramas.… (mehr)