The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The first giveaway that Joyce Harrison's new novel is set in Flin Flon? The title. Slag, the former resident's debut book, is now available at Amazon.com. As The Reminder reported last month, it tells the story of protagonist Anna as she copes with dysfunction in her family and racism aimed at her M_tis friend. 'I happen to like books that are set in unusual places, and what place could be more unusual than Flin Flon,' said Harrison, who now lives in Chicago. 'This is my first novel, so I started with the familiar. Although, since it is fiction and since I moved away a long time ago, I still had to do a lot of research.' Slag is a short, self-published novel unlikely to hit any bestseller lists. But for Harrison, a long-time broadcasting and advertising writer, this story set in 1955 was just waiting to come out. The exceedingly creative author describes Flin Flon's role in Slag as 'pivotal.' 'The entire story takes place there,' said Harrison, adding that hockey, HBM&S, the company union and cold weather all help form the backdrop. There is also, of course, a titular connection to Flin Flon. Slag is the rock-like mine waste, which doubles as fill, that can be found across the community. Harrison has something in common with Anna in that both left Flin Flon in the 1950s, the author in 1957 and the character in 1955. Slag was released on June 28.
