The Lightning Field by Heather Jessup

All stories are about redemption. This is my new theory based on the books I've been reading for this project (the blog, that is). This novel has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it phoenix leitmotif, including a protagonist who is quite literally struck by lightning and rises harder and (arguably?) stronger from the ashes. It is masterfully crafted.

For the first part of the book I was worried that it would be another second-wave-style exploration of white housewives' boredom in the suburbs post-war, much like The Torontonians. I honestly don't think I can stomach another such story - not because it's not a valid thing to write about, just because it doesn't interest me personally and I feel so removed from that narrative. But two things made The Lightning Field different: the housewife, Lucy, is struck by lightning while pregnant with her youngest child; and her husband, Peter, works as an engineer/draftsman on the Avro Arrow, the groundbreaking and famously doomed Canadian aeronautics project, cancelled by Diefenbaker's Conservative government in 1959.

I didn't know much about the Arrow and the novel definitely paints a clear picture of the impact of the layoffs of over 14,000 people working on the project, including many top scientists and engineers who were quickly recruited by American companies - instant brain drain! The loss of his job changes Peter, just as the lightning strike changes Lucy, and the novel watches those changes ripple through the lives of their friends and children.

Guys, this book is gorgeous. It is SO beautifully written, the characters are well-drawn and very sympathetic - even Peter, who is kind of an asshole. It is a complex snapshot of a certain time in Toronto's history, and of coming of age in that time. Jessup creates a world that has many unseen but intriguing components; I would read a novel about what happens to Lucy's estranged best friend Claire in those missing years, or about the lives of any of Lucy's children. The author avoids one of the common pitfalls of first novels - putting everything you know into it - and manages to create curious little pockets of unseen action. She also creates sneaky metaphors that catch you by surprise; my breath literally caught in my throat reading the conversation between Lucy and her co-survivors of lightning strikes at a conference, as they explain to her that she is lucky to have scars because people will believe what happened to her. (It's about rape, right? Yeah, I got it). Or flight - Peter's work of course, and his first flight as his daughter is born, and how the boys' dreams for themselves are so closely tied to flight.

There are so many excellent themes touched on: death of course; redemption; love; fate; all the big ones. I loved the dinner scene near the end, with the children huddled under the table passing around a bottle of wine. I loved Lucy, with all her flaws and her strength and how completely she encompasses the feeling of being an adult and not knowing what the hell you're supposed to do. She is one of my favourite characters that I've read about for this project.

I cry at everything that's meant to make me cry, it's true; but it takes a gifted writer to make me cry about weird shit like the Avro Arrow getting cancelled. Heather Jessup is a gifted writer, and definitely someone I will read again.

Five CN Towers out of five.

The Scott Pilgrim Series by Bryan Lee O'Malley: Vol. 4

See previous reviews for Vol. 1, Vol. 2, and Vol. 3.

Volume 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together

So, as it turns out, Scott gets to be a more sympathetic character as the books go on (or at least I'm hoping that's the trend). This volume was great, not least of all because Scott does actually start to get it together. He gets a job, stops completely mooching off Wallace, figures out that bisexuals exist, and has an actual conversation with Ramona wherein he sees beyond her mysterious Manic Pixie Dream Girl facade. He even learns that the exterior of any given Second Cup doesn't magically lead to the same interior.

I think this book is my favourite of the series so far; I did enjoy Volume 3, but this one has more of Wallace. I LOVE Wallace. There was a lot of great use of the city as always, including a trip to the Dufferin Mall (which is, let's face it, a pretty hurtin' mall); a streetcar getting sliced in half'; and perpetual Sneaky Dee's hangouts. There is a lot of great Toronto detail in the background too.

There was some great stuff about trying to make it as a band; Sex Bob-omb starts turning down shows because they are "recording", which seems to involve a lot of sitting around watching Stephen play guitar.

I had a little trouble in this volume telling some of the characters apart, particularly the girls: Kim, Lisa and Ramona all have similar haircuts and without colour, I am sometimes perplexed as to which is which. But apart from that minor complaint, I very much enjoyed this installment.

Five CN Towers out of five.

Adultery by Richard B. Wright

I have to be honest - when I picked up this book, I thought it might finally be the one to get a really shitty review. I have liked a large majority of the books I've read for this blog, which works out well for me, but it makes me worry that I don't come across as a very discerning reader. So when I saw the front cover of this one - with its lurid title in big block letters across a picture of a woman in the back seat of a car, head thrown back in ecstasy - I thought, yeah, this is the trash I'm looking for.

But it didn't turn out that way, because to my utter surprise, this is a smart, well-written and...almost lovely novel. It purports to be about adultery but I think it is more general in its themes, honestly. I think it is about death, and family, and in particular about, in the words of the book itself:

"[...T]he sheer cussedness of life: its enslavement to appetite and old bad habits, its helpless reliance on chance, its thousand natural shocks that threaten to undo us."

Sounds depressing, right? Admittedly it's not a happy story. Our protagonist, Dan Fielding, is on business in London and slips down to Devon for the weekend with a much younger co-worker, Denise, with whom he is engaged in a two-day-old affair. She is abducted, raped and killed (in the first chapter, no spoiler alert needed) and the rest of the story follows Dan home to Toronto as he deals with the aftermath of his choices and of the random twist of fate that revealed them. It's an odd situation: his family is guarded in their anger over the affair because of the death and media circus; the grieving family and friends of the victim don't know how to handle this older man who brought her (accidentally) to her death. It's weird. Although it isn't first person, most of the narration happens inside Dan's head as he processes what others must be thinking about him. There isn't a lot of discussion of how he feels about himself, which I think is a deliberate choice.

I liked it. The writing is very good, the story was interesting and I liked that it dealt with a part of death that doesn't get a lot of play in fiction - the surreal period immediately afterwards, and the awkward dilemma of how to conduct oneself when one didn't have a straightforward relationship with the deceased. Dan leaves the funeral knowing far more about Denise than he did before, and the overwhelming loss of what her life could have been is bigger for him than the loss of her. The novel explores a lot of stuff like that without explicitly naming it; there is a lot to be drawn from it that depends on one's own experiences.

My one objection is that I found Dan almost too sympathetic; the narrative sometimes seems to forget the thoughtless and humiliating ordeal he put his wife and daughter through by having an affair. I didn't buy any of his justifications and had a hard time understanding his motivation for sleeping with Denise in the first place.

There's not a lot of Toronto-centric stuff going on, so I can't recommend it on a get-to-know-Toronto basis, but as a novel it's solid and an interesting read. Quick, but not light.

Four CN Towers out of five.

Code White by Debra Anderson

When I was about seventeen, a lot of my friends were in the psych ward. I'm not sure if that is a reflection on me - did I drive people crazy? More likely I attracted a certain kind of friend; sensitive, creative, extremely smart types who didn't fit neatly into boxes in one way or another. Anyway, I can think of at least four friends of mine who spent time in the psych ward while I was in high school, and we used to go and visit them. Let me tell you something: it's not a super fun place.

I remember at first being a bit jealous because there was a pool table and a popsicle vending machine. But after spending some time there you could tell that it would be better to not be there at all. So it was with some familiarity that I read 'Code White', which takes place almost entirely on the psych ward of a hospital.

The story is told from Alex's point of view. She wakes up in the hospital with no memory of how she came to be there, and then proceeds to journal her days, weeks, and months on the ward. Alex has bipolar disorder, but most of the narration happens when she is depressed, with only vague references made to her manic periods. I found this to be an interesting choice on the author's part, and it imbued Alex's story with a vaguely unreliable slant.

Alex is gay, and the book is almost as much about lesbian culture as it is about life on the psych ward - and they are, in a way, mirrored in each other: the close-up lives, the everyone-knows-everything-about-you feelings, the performances of gender/sanity. It's very cleverly written and realistic. The writer (whose first novel this is, although she has written plays) is clearly extremely gifted and writes honestly.

Here's the thing though: nothing happens. It's kind of what you would expect from journalling the daily life of a hospital ward: not much goes on, just the same shit every day. I think the book is as interesting as it could be given the premise - after all, the characters are well-drawn, and the pacing is not bad - but it's so limited by the lack of action. Based on my experiences just visiting folks in this situation, it's certainly realistic, but that isn't always a good thing.

I didn't find this to be a great Toronto book, as not much Toronto scenery is included, for obvious reasons. But I am interested in Anderson as an emerging Toronto novelist, and while I wouldn't recommend this book, I am excited to read other stuff by her.

Two CN Towers out of five.