I wasn't at all cheered up by On the Edge: A Journey into the Heart of Canada, by Lindalee Tracey (Douglas & McIntyre), but nevertheless once I started reading it I couldn't put it down—except to catch my breath from time to time: I finished it in a day. On the surface, On the Edge is the story we'd all like to write: the long journey from Newfoundland to B.C. by car, checking out little towns and obscure byways, meeting people and getting to know them a little, and writing everything down—taking pictures too: making a book all the way. This is what Lindalee Tracey has done, but the people she meets and the lives they lead may not be what you expect.