From the opening passages of Bruce Serafin’s Stardust, one quickly becomes aware of being in the presence of a unique, intelligent mind.

In these 20 essays we find Serafin moving with ease and agility across a broad array of subject matter: literary influences, blue collar life, Native art, Roland Barthes, hippy fashion, Michel Tremblay, the health of BC’s little magazines. At the same time we are treated to something culminating in a personal memoir and, by extension, a flawless account of living in (and surviving) modern Vancouver. That Serafin delivers all of this in a prose that is subtle, graceful and astute makes Stardust all the more engaging.

Born in St. Boniface, Manitoba in 1950, Serafin grew up in Alberta’s pulp mill towns and Texas before moving to Vancouver at the age of nineteen, where he died only last year. He worked for fifteen years in the postal service and in 1990, with his partner Sharon Esson, founded the influential Vancouver Review. In ‘The Alley’ he tells us that many of the essays in the collection found their genesis during this period. The account he gives is of a mind struggling to make sense of its place in the world, struggling to shrug off literary influences and forge a voice of its own.

The voice Serafin developed is never less than provocative and in full form here. The first point of note is his tremendous sense of place. Whether describing the gritty vulgarity of Chinatown or the leafy impermeability of the North Shore, Serafin convincingly demonstrates that landscapes must exist in words or they do not exist at all.

In ‘Wearing a Mask’ he speaks evocatively about the influence of Defoe and Barthes and the idea of the urban mapmaker. Simultaneously he shakes up the often inhospitable, stuffy world of literature and intellectualism and embellishes it with the personal.

Being flashed by an old man in Vancouver Public Library leads to a reflection on the poet John Newlove; a makeshift set of skipants becomes a metaphor for youthful literary influences (“encasing me like a second skin”); the poetry of Leonard Cohen sparks a devastating sketch of the hippy era and its trendy children. In all of this Serafin mesmerizes as he manoeuvers deftly between abstract ideas and memories.

Finally, what makes Stardust so compelling is Serafin’s ability to impress his personality on every word. These essays thrill with life as much as they tremble with insight and what we are left with is a fascinating portrait of a youthful, yearning intellect. (New Star Books)