Chris Turner - The Patch: The People, Pipelines, and Politics of the Oil Sands (Simon and Schuster, 2017)

Lately, I have been reading a bunch of other-than-academic books about the Alberta oil sands. These books get a range adjectives assigned to them: popular; trade; crossover; nonfiction; long-form journalism, etc. Academics tend to look askance at these books, usually because we can’t figure out how to write them or, at least, write them well enough to compete for the profile, acclaim and prizes some of them receive. Sometimes we read them and feign that we have not, or we do not read them and feign that we have. It depends on the room, I suppose.

This book is extremely useful as an introductory guide to the past, present and possible futures of the Alberta oil sands, and the people and places whose lives are shaped in relation to them. It’s full of clear and detailed descriptions of how things work, carefully reconstructed sequences of events and engaging biographical and ethnographic narratives. It also exhibits a kind of journalistic neutrality that, while unavoidably (and openly) partial and situated, is a refreshing relief from the polarization that inflects most writing about the oil sands. If you are looking for a book that tells you a lot about the oil sands without telling you what to think about the oil sands, this would be fit the bill.   

-DB