THERE IS A DIFFERENCE between "relevant" writing and writing that is merely "topical." In her novel Endangered Species (Oberon, 211 pages, $15.95 paper), Mary Soderstrom throws in environmentalism, journalistic ethics, Meech Lake, AIDS, political corruption, break-through cancer treatment, Quebec sovereignty, and dual-income blended families, and almost pulls off the quintessential Canadian soap opera. Wait. No washed-up hockey stars?

Though Soderstrom moderates this family saga with an ear for what sells, the language is peculiarly dated and stale. Most of the two dozen characters express outrage --or just anger-with the melodramatic "damn it," as in, "Damn it, the worst of the whole business was the way they tended to treat him like dirt." The middle-aged heroine, Claire, has motel sex with a former boyfriend and grows nostalgic for her husband, who would "lift her so her centre rested against his sex." This husband is suffering from incurable (Or is it? Doesn't Johns Hopkins have some new ...) cancer. The scene in which he blows himself up while trying to smoke marijuana gives unintentionally comic new meaning to "killer weed."

Like the quasi-moral tabloid photographer who scuttles around in her book, Soderstrom doesn't bother to give the lurid or painful details of contemporary life any more than a single dimension.