Bordertown Caf

9780889224773

0889224773

In a small, family-run cafÈ perched on the Alberta-Montana border, a teenager faces the most important decision of his life. The cafÈ itself is neither here nor there, neither truck stop nor restaurant, an economically marginal relic that doesnít even hold the attraction of nostalgia for Jimmy. In his own way, young Jimmy in Bordertown CafÈ faces the archetypal Canadian dilemma: embrace the powerfully encoded Western hero of American popular myth, embodied by his father ñ the cowboy as trucker, his mythic status enhanced by his never appearing on stage; or engage the task of building a different identity, embodied by his mother and her family. The home his single mother Marlene has made for Jimmy so far ìon the Canadian side of nowhere,î is provisional: half-finished, ill equipped and badly decorated.AK Jimmyís internalized dilemma is echoed by Marleneís parents ñ her American mother Maxine is the real scene-stealer of the play, larger, louder and funnier than life, supplying much of the playís energy and cultural comedy. Her American inflections merge with the rural Canadian idiom of her family, weaving the tangled emotional grid of this delicately balanced familial dÈtente. AK In the end, itís Maxineís laconic Canadian husband, Jimís, revelations that help to effect his namesake grandsonís passage into manhood.