A Lisii Nos, or Fox's Nose, a farm in British Columbias Fraser Valley, in a wintry attic on Christmas night, a girl names Julia makes love with her cousin. Afterwards she discovers a grubby exercise book in a trunk -- her grandmothers diary of the Siege of Leningrad. She becomes obsessed by the account of the privations her family endured and of their encounters with enemies, both from beyond the city limits and within their own psyches.
Back in Vancouver during the months that follow, the past exerts a continuing and potent force on Julias schoolgirl life as she and her German friend Ursula, create a play about the siege for drama class. Meanwhile, Ursulas troubled brother, Willi, looks on from the wings waiting for an opportunity to perform his own destructive role in what proves to be a replay of the violence that so harmed their parents generation.
In passages that are lyrical, astute, and completely engrossing, the story of Julias small but intense war continues when she goes back to the farm for the Easter holidays, and culminates in a vicious battle over a maimed fox that her grandfather has caught in a leghold trap. The violence eventually ends, but not in the impact of the past, for Julias father is dying, and she now calls upon her knowledge of the siege to help him through his final days.
Back in Vancouver during the months that follow, the past exerts a continuing and potent force on Julias schoolgirl life as she and her German friend Ursula, create a play about the siege for drama class. Meanwhile, Ursulas troubled brother, Willi, looks on from the wings waiting for an opportunity to perform his own destructive role in what proves to be a replay of the violence that so harmed their parents generation.
In passages that are lyrical, astute, and completely engrossing, the story of Julias small but intense war continues when she goes back to the farm for the Easter holidays, and culminates in a vicious battle over a maimed fox that her grandfather has caught in a leghold trap. The violence eventually ends, but not in the impact of the past, for Julias father is dying, and she now calls upon her knowledge of the siege to help him through his final days.
