Big Mall, Canadian author Kate Black's meditation on the mall, is brief but powerful. Having grown up near West Edmonton, Alberta, Black didn't just go to the mall. She went to the mall. The West Edmonton Mall is the largest in North America and was the world's largest until 2004. It houses an amusement park; NHL regulation-size ice rink; and, for a time, live dolphins, along with hundreds of shops, eateries, and other attractions, all discussed in Black's brief book.
For better or worse, malls have been a defining part of culture: nearly every city worldwide has had a mall of some sort. Teens could go there to flirt and be away from their parents, and seniors could walk and socialize. Nearly everybody ended up there at some point. For a time, they were the new town square.
Though under 200 pages, Black's book is not a quick read. Each word and sentence evokes an emotion or launches a wave of nostalgia. It begs to be savored, inviting readers to pause and think about their own mall experiences, to imagine the sights, sounds, and smells of the malls of their adolescence.
The book is more of a wander than a linear history and, for that reason, each page is a surprise. The topics covered include the history of teenagers as a concept ("Teenagers, like malls, are an invention"); mall deaths and suicides; mall walking; animal captivity and the ethical obligation of zoos; YouTube videos about dead malls; and much more. Big Mall feels like a wide-ranging conversation with a friend in the food court. --Alyssa Parssinen, freelance reviewer and former bookseller