Blue Hours by Alison Acheson Calgary, Freehand Books , 2025 This is a touching book that takes a deep dive into the complexities of grief. This article was originally published in The British Columbia Review on April 29, 2025. *** In photography, the “blue hour” is the brief time when the sun hovers just below the horizon, either at sunset or sunrise. The light is an inky dark, indirect. It’s an unstable state, and tricky to capture on film in just the way that you want. Alison Acheson’s debut novel Blue Hours is an invitation to step into this liminal space, where grief transports a father and son into a state of flux. Acheson ( Dance Me To the End: Ten Months and Ten Days with ALS ) explores issues of mourning, fatherhood, and betrayal as she introduces us to parents Keith and Raziel, and their seven-year-old son Charlie. Married 17 years, Keith and Raz had a relationship that worked. Keith felt proud of choosing to stay at home to raise Charlie, working as a music reviewer ...
