The novel is set in the rural Mirimichi region of New Brunswick. When Sydney Henderson was 12, in a moment of anger, he pushes his (male) friend Connie Devlin off a roof. Thinking Connie is dead, he makes a vow with God, "Let Connie live, and I'll never harm another soul." Connie pops up, face bloodied, but none the worse for wear. Sydney does his best to keep this promise. As he grows up, Sydney develops a love for reading and learning. This, combined with his gentle nature and his avoidance of alcohol, makes him quite the outcast. Still, he manages to win and marry one of the most beautiful girls in the region, the caring (but not very bright) Elly.
The story is told through the eyes of Sydney and Elly's son Lyle who was born in 1970, and at times can be grim and gritty. Just when you think it can't get any worse for the family, something else goes wrong and the community wrongly turns further against them.
Eventually, Sydney leaves the family on a self-imposed exile. Ironically, in some ways, things start to look up for the family at the time, which happen to be Lyle's mid- or late- teens. As happens in real life and literature, Lyle rebels against his father's views. Without any examples of an appropriate (non-zero) amount one should be willing to speak out against, stand up to, or even harm his fellow man (or, I suppose he can at least use that as an excuse) we get to observe how far Lyle will go as he drifts past a "normal" amount of harm and into being a thug, albeit a thoughtful one who's well-read (like his father) in Tolstoy and Shakespeare.
Sydney is convinced that you can't harm your fellow man without the harm coming back to you in some way. Lyle and the reader get to learn whether or not this advice stands the test of time.
The book is full of Canadian winters, toxic waste, and memorable characters, including Lyle's siblings: the beautifully intelligent Autumn, whose albinism makes her regarded by the world as an outcast member of of an outcast family, and little Percy. There's also sulking Mat Pit, his schemingly beautiful sister Cythia, the weak-willed Connie Devlin, and Leo McVicar, who becomes a remnant from a prior era, and more.
Overall, I'd say that this is the best contemporary fiction I've read for quite a while, though it is a step below an "all-time favourite". I give it a solid 4 stars out of 5.
1 comment:
I would also give this book 4 out of 5 stars. The writing is excellent. Reading it reminded me somewhat of another book I read recently, "The Inheritence of Loss" because of the cycle of poverty and the effect of poverty on the human spirit. Several times in the book the main character Lyle says that, as a child of poverty, he can see it in the eyes of others. This book helps you understand what it is he sees. One comment in the book that keeps rolling around in my head refers to how people drive a shack by not knowing that the person who lives there can do a crossword puzzle in 10 minutes or is brilliant in any number of ways. I guess that is why I chose to be a teacher of gifted students so that I can empower students like that-especially ones who no one else believes in.
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