by Sara Power
Freehand Books
2024/$22.95/236 pp.
Sara Power’s strong debut collection, Art of Camouflage, creates fearless narratives around the experience of women in the Canadian Forces. No one should be surprised by the ongoing culture of the army, and the difficult path for a woman in that culture, but Power, a former artillery officer from Labrador, gives readers a unique insider’s take. For instance, the story “The Circular Motion of a Professional Spit-Shiner” follows the main character through first year at Royal Military College, including initiation, and the various strategies and adaptions she employs to finish the year. One coping mechanism is miming—a silent enactment of the tightropes and hoops encountered by women in military careers—and forms of acting and masking, and unmasking, underpin the collection. In the title story, “Art of Camouflage,” we see Ellie, a woman on an artillery course, wearing brown, black and green paint—but not camouflaged at all. “Ellie had not yet mastered the art of camouflage, texturing the paint in such a way so as to appear one with her surroundings.” Later she notes that skill mastery and perseverance are not enough. “But it was fruitless. She was on a stage, in a costume, make-believing…. The future was his.”
Despite military hierarchy and toxic masculinity, these stories include supportive equality-hearted male colleagues, kind husbands and a decent dad. That said, the focus of this collection is women: as soldiers, friends, mothers, spouses and daughters. Crafted particularly well are the stories of women and daughters who are collateral damage in the relocations required to advance a spouse’s or a parent’s military career. From settling a family (and buying curtains on Kijiji), to single parenting when a spouse is deployed on a mission, readers are invited into a world usually off civilian radar. In “G-LOC” a narrator who grew up as a “military kid” reflects on her childhood “first best friend” with: “She didn’t die, but it was like she did. I never saw her again. Every few years we left one life in one place and started another life from scratch, in another place.” In the family road trip story “Christmas Card for the Win” a mother reflects on a deep friendship formed at a previous location and decides not to “sink in” at an upcoming post. “Why set yourself up for future sorrow?”
Thanks to scenes with giant roosters, Diva cups, vibrators, reindeer masks and honest teenagers, this collection provides many laughs. But what ultimately lingers is isolation and sometimes despair. To paraphrase a quote from Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa in the final story, “A Pessoa Guide to a Birthday,” these stories reveal characters who surrender to the blissful intensity of their sensations, even when they’re sad.
Barb Howard is the author of Happy Sands (2021).
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