The Tent Peg

When J.L. and the nine men she’s to work with first make camp in the Yukon, the land seems solid and unyielding, older than the story from which she takes her name. But over the course of their summer together, tensions, secrets, and desires begin to trickle through the camp, in pebbles at first, threatening the imminence of boulders. J.L. infiltrates the staunchly masculine environment of the geological camp through the sparseness of her initials and form, but as a protagonist she is rich, a reluctant confessor, her observations about the men and land around her both incisive and tender. Invoking the mythos of the indomitable north and one of the most maligned, misunderstood Biblical heroes, The Tent Peg remains startlingly contemporary, with a heady narrative peppered with insights into the trials of penetrating predominantly male fields.

 

“And me, what am I doing here, a woman pretending to be a cook, pretending to have the nutritional welfare of these men foremost in my mind when all I wanted to find was silence, a relief from the cacophony of sound, of confession that surrounded, that always impinged on me. I didn’t want their secrets, my ear not receptacle enough for ordinary words, let alone confession. I do not practice absolution.”