In his first collection of short fiction, Kevin Hardcastle writes tough and terse as he explores depths of human wretchedness and hardship rarely encountered in mainstream fiction. The action here takes place on the extreme margins of ordered civilization: on isolated country lanes and rutted forest trails, on exhausted farmland and in small towns where legitimate employment is hard to come by. Hardcastle’s characters have often been pushed by circumstance to the limit of their endurance and are depressed or desperate or both. The cast of characters includes criminals and cops, farmers, self-destructive alcoholics, mental patients, and one MMA fighter. These people hustle and fight for a living and sometimes just to stay alive. They get up early and go to bed exhausted. Along the way they might hurt someone or break a law or two, but it’s all for a good cause: putting food on the table and beer in the fridge. Boozing and violence are endemic. Hardcastle writes in a style that mimics a country drawl. He is able to pinpoint the meat of a scene in very few words. In this book the reader will encounter bleakness and ugliness on every page. Everything in these stories is worn out, busted or falling apart. That the author is able to engage our sympathy for people who have been raised outside the law and for characters who inflict the worst of their problems on themselves testifies to the power of the writing. A couple of stories fall prey to what seems like willful obscurity, in which style overwhelms substance. But Debris remains an impressive and original debut by a supremely gifted writer. ( )

A number of the stories in this collection I read in the journals in which they first appeared or when they were later honoured in The Journey Prize anthologies. Reading them again here, they are just as powerful. At his best Hardcastle writes crisp, clean, meaty prose with unsanitized violence and just a touch of sentiment. There are hard men here, some good, some bad, some broken. Hard men facing hard times, typically, and not always certain about what is required of them.

Perhaps my favourite is the first of the collection, “Old Man Marchuk”. Here is a story that just leaps out at you. It is tense and unrelenting and makes you fret for the RCMP officer and his pregnant wife who are the central figures of concern. I also really like “To Have to Wait” in which two sons travel a distance to collect their father from a mental institution where he has been undergoing treatment. But lots of other stories are worthy of special mention, including “The Rope,” “Montana Border,” and the title story, “Debris”. The latter features a very strong female lead in a murkily symbolic hinterland.

For a while now I’ve been ready to read any story by Kevin Hardcastle that comes along. I hope this collection brings more people to his excellent work and look forward to whatever comes next. Recommended. ( )