Reading Journal: Every Lost Country, by Steven Heighton (2010)

A doctor, his daughter, a mountain climber and a film maker embark on an Everest trek, and find themselves caught in the crossfire at a Tibet-Nepal border crossing. Heighton's latest novel - ahead of his second book of stories this summer, which I'm really excited for - is packed with action and imagery, though if I had to find a flaw, it would be in his balance of the two. I found that a lot of times, an extra sentence or two, (each one usually another image), would clog up the paragraph, getting between the actions. It's a trifle, though: Heighton is one of Canada's most under-celebrated writers and his sentences, as always, are poetic but muscular and incredibly well-tempered. I'll take one image too many here or there and still keep reading, no question.