HEKKANEN, Ernest 1947-

PERSONAL: Born 1947.

ADDRESSES: Office—New Orphic Publishers, 706 Mill St., Nelson, British Columbia V1L 4S5, Canada.

CAREER: New Orphic Review (literary journal), Nelson, British Columbia, Canada, editor-in-chief.

WRITINGS:

Chasing after Carnivals (novel), Stoddart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1985.

Medieval Hour in the Author's Mind (short stories), Thistledown Press (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada), 1987.

The Violent Lavender Beast (short stories), Thistledown Press (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada), 1988.

From a Town Now Dreaming (novel), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1995.

Journeys That Bring Us Here (stories), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1996.

The Wedding Cycle (poems), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1996.

The Soul You Call Your Own (stories), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1997.

Beyond the Call: A One-Act Play, New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1997.

The House of Samsara (novel; based on Hekkanen's play Beyond the Call), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1997.

The Last Thing My Father Gave Me (novel), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1998.

Bridge over the Tampere Rapids, and Other Finnish Stories, New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1998.

Those Who Eat at My Table (short stories and novella), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1998.

You Know Me Better than That (fiction), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1998.

Dementia Island (fiction), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1999.

My Dog Is More than Just a Dog to Me (fiction), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1999.

Straying from Luminosity (poems), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1999.

(With Ed Roy) Good Ol' Boy: Willis V. McCall (fiction), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 1999.

Harbinger of Fall (one-act play), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2000.

The Lambing: A Passion Play in One Act, New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2000.

The Island of Winged Wonders (short stories), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2000.

Man's Sadness (fiction), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2000.

Sometimes I Have These Incendiary Dreams (criticism and essays), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2000.

The Well (play), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2000.

Exhuming Carl Jung: A Burlesque (play), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2001.

The Misadventures of Bumbleberry Finn (fiction), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2001.

The Clown Act (one-act play), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2001.

The Radio Interview (one-act play), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2001.

The Shipwrecked Heart: Tales of the Fantastic and the Macabre, New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2001.

(Editor) The Flat Earth Excavation Company: A Surreal Fiction Anthology, New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2002.

The Expulsion; or, Goodbye, Chubby Chickens, Goodbye (play), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2002.

The Big Dave (and Little Wife) Convention, New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2004.

Melancholy and Mystery of a Street (stories), New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2004.

The Life of Bartholomew G., New Orphic Publishers (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada), 2005.

Contributor to Second Impressions, edited by John Metcalf, Oberon (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1981. Also contributor to periodicals in Canada.

SIDELIGHTS: Born in the United States but living in Canada since the 1960s, Ernest Hekkanen is a prolific author of novels, short stories, and plays. However, since the majority of his works have been self-published by the New Orphic Publishers (he is editor-in-chief of the New Orphic Review), he is not well known to most readers. Another problem, pointed out Katja Pantzar in a Quill & Quire review of Hekkanen's The Last Thing My Father Gave Me, is that "his style defies categorization." Hekkanen's fiction is realistic but often flavored with dark humor, bizarre characters and incidents, or set in a gothic milieu. The result is a style that reminded Choice reviewer R.H. Solomon of a combination of Samuel Beckett, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Edgar Allan Poe. Clark Blaise, writing in Quill & Quire, commented that Hekkanen builds on the work of such authors as Franz Kafka, Vladimir Nabokov, Milan Kundera, and Jorge Luis Borges without imitating them. "His thinking, and the construction of his stories," wrote Blaise, reviewing the short-story collection Medieval Hour in the Author's Mind, "are dreamlike, circular, endlessly self-repeating." Discussing the same collection, Solomon noted how the author's short stories seem to pick at a disturbing, secret reality that lies beneath what is considered normal. Hekkanen, said Solomon, "writes with … careful, dark charm" and "is a fascinating writer."

Gary Boire, writing about Medieval Hour in the Author's Mind in Canadian Literature, went even further by declaring the short story collection to be "a stunning achievement, an absolutely brilliant debut." The critic related how Hekkanen fills his stories with "mischievous sleights-of-hand and authorial pranks." One such prank is how the author takes the form of several alter egos in the stories, such as E. H. and the Latvian gypsy Alexander Mikkonen. The stories themselves reminded Boire of Kafka, with their moments of "exquisite grotesquerie," such as the story of a monk who is pursued by a swarm of flies that takes the shape of a moth with a human head. Although Boire noted that at times Hekkanen's dialogue can be "stilted and wooden," the critic concluded that the flaw is "a minor inconsistency in what is otherwise an extraordinary tour-de-force."

In Quill & Quire, Blaise explained that a continuing theme in Hekkanen's fiction is "the interpenetration of dream and reality, the dreamer becoming his dream, the artist his object." In another early story collection by Hekkanen, The Violent Lavender Beast, the author dwells on death and the effects of the fear of death on the human psyche. Sometimes mixing eroticism with violence, these stories are often disturbing, ripping away veneers of beauty and normalcy to expose a shocking underside of life. For example, in "View across a Meadow" two women enjoying the beauty of nature and what they perceive to be noble eagles in flight come to realize that the eagles are actually vultures interested in the nearby slaughter of rabbits. Other tales include "absurd but comic scenes," according to R. H. Solomon in another Choice review, but eventually the image of death returns. "This is topnotch, top drawer, intellectually stimulating—and strong stuff," concluded Solomon.

In addition to his short stories, Hekkanen has written several novels. His first, Chasing after Carnivals, features fifteen-year-old Link Anderson and Link's older brother, Tom. Together, the two perpetrate a number of pranks, which at times become malicious. At one point, their machinations thwart their father's desire to remarry. There is a dark undercurrent here, as Tom struggles with the transition from his years of athletic glory in high school to lackluster adulthood. Eventually, his life spirals downward into a fatal accident that Link recognizes to actually be suicide. Quill & Quire reviewer Louise Longo observed that Hekkanen seeks to write a novel that weaves entertaining episodes with a more serious message. Although she felt the author does not fully succeed in blending the two, Longo concluded that the novel "introduces a new author with promise."

Some of Hekkanen's novels contain fantastical elements, such as the runaway afterbirth in From a Town Now Dreaming. Others have been more mainstream, however, including The Last Thing My Father Gave Me, the tale of Canadian professor Pamela Dresdahl, who is on the verge of an emotional and mental breakdown, although on the surface she appears to be leading the ideal life. The novel explores the roots of her unhappiness. "Although many of the characters come across as overprivileged prats," remarked Pantzar in Quill & Quire, "the writing sustains the story and the tale of Pamela's journey to self-discovery is strangely endearing."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Books in Canada, May, 1996, Eva Tihanyi, review of From a Town Now Dreaming, p. 35.

Canadian Literature, spring, 1989, Gary Boire, "Forger & Parrot," review of Medieval Hour in the Author's Mind, pp. 175-177; winter, 1990, Tanya Gardiner-Scott, "Hesitation," review of The Violent Lavender Beast, pp. 134-135.

Canadian Review of Materials, January, 1989, Judy Baxter, review of The Violent Lavender Beast, p. 16.

Choice, March, 1988, R.H. Solomon, review of Medieval Hour in the Author's Mind, p. 1094; fall, 1989, R.H. Solomon, review of The Violent Lavender Beast, p. 939.

Quill & Quire, April, 1985, Louise Longo, review of Chasing after Carnivals, p. 72; June, 1987, Clark Blaise, "Stories of the Medieval in the Present Day," review of Medieval Hour in the Author's Mind, p. 34; March, 1999, Katja Pantzar, review of The Last Thing My Father Gave Me, pp. 61-62.