Fiction 1

Letters in Canada 1981 Once again 'Letters in Canada' welcomes some new faces among its regular columnists and says goodbye and thank you to four reviewers who have served us for varying lengths of time. Jacques Michon of the Universite de Sherbrooke takes over the area of 'Romans' from Paul-Andre Bourque. John H. Astington of Erindale College, University of Toronto, is our new 'Drama' reviewer, replacing Ronald Huebert. Lizette Jalbert, of the Universite du Quebec ii Montreal, moves into the area of 'Etudes sociales: vacated, after five years, by her colleague Celine Saint-Pierre. Emero Stiegman, who reviewed books in religion since 1979, has retired, and an experimental collaborative effort between teachers of religious studies at the University of Toronto and the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, headed by Herbert Richardson and Yvon Desrosiers, is evident in the newly shaped 'Religion' column. To our departing colleagues we express our appreciation for their diligence and good will, and we look forward to fruitful collaboration with our new contributors. (B-ZS) Fiction 1 / R.P.BILAN 1976, the year I began reviewing for 'Letters in Canada: saw the appearance of a remarkable group of new fiction writers: Michael Ondaatje with Coming Through Slaughter, Jack Hodgins, and such fine short-story writers as Alistair MacLeod and Margaret Gibson GiJboord. The ensuing years have shown nothing to match that group. At best there has been a single book of value here and there - Oonah Mcfee's Sandbars (1977), John Barfoot's Abra (1978). The overall quality of the books has been disappointing, and this year follows the same pattern. The only exceptions in a thin lot are Edward Phillips's Sunday's Child, George Jonas's Final Decree, and in particular Joy Kogawa's Obasan. Sunday's Child (McClelland & Stewart, 240, $14.95) is a decidedly offbeat book. Essentially light and humorous, it is a murder story with a difference. Phillips's 'hero: Geoffrey Chadwick, is a fifty-year-old 'gay'; UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 51, NUMBER 4, SUMMER 1982 004-2-0247/8210900'""'0315-05:33$00.00/0 Q UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS 316 LETTERS IN CANADA 1981 he picks up a young man who tries to rob him at knife point and in self-defence Chadwick strikes and kills him. This is, however, definitely not the world of Crime and Punishment. Chadwick's only concernis how to get rid of the body; he cuts it into pieces and some black comedy and high farce arise from his attempts to dispose of them. The novel is often bright and witty. Chadwick is a man of constant one-liners and his liveliness keeps the novel moving. Moreover in the account of the real love affair of his life - with a married man - the novel transcends its general concern with surfaces. And in the pictUIe of the two more than middle-aged men accepting the failure of their lives it attains a moment of real pathos. Granting this, the novel is finally brittle. The witticisms and one-liners tend to pall and to descend into mere glibness. Too often the novel, as Chadwick comments at one moment, becomes 'just like afternoon T.V: In Final Decree (Macmillan, 214, $14.95) George jonas portrays a man who feels bewildered and persecuted by the divorce laws and in response shoots and kills his wife's lawyer. jonas tells his story in a straightforward , competent prose style, the structure is smoothly handled, and the novel moves along at a fairly quick narrative pace. This is not abook of great psychological subtlety or even of real emotional depth, but it has a certain power none the less. jonas's central character, Kazmer Harcza, emigrates to Canada from Transylvania (now Rumania) in his early thirties and brings with him old-world attitudes that eventually clash with the more modern ideas of the much younger woman whom he marries. She eventually walks out on him, taking the two children, and the divorce proceedings and Kazmer's troubles begin. Although not a first-person narration, the novel is told looking over Kazmer's shoulder, as it were, so that basically we see everything from his point of view. This...