While Calgary’s Bow River rises with a coming flood, local homeless man Shermeto takes a bad beating and ends up in the hospital. This brings his estranged daughter, Kendra, back into his world. What follows is part murder mystery and part literary meditation on life on the streets in the Stampede City.
Although the story is nominally about homelessness, it’s not overly gritty or socially prescriptive. There’s a gentle, leisurely pace and a main character—the river—that infuses everything with a somber, wistful mood. The mystery is secondary. The father-daughter story, Shermeto’s waning health, Kendra’s attempts to navigate the terrain of broken relationships—a lot goes wrong for the people in this book, but there’s a spark of hope and humanity running through it all. This is a well-told story that’s worth settling into.