Complex Heartstrings

If you have ever wished you could visit a dilapidated factory town in 1970s Canada to meet a struggling professional daredevil, Missy Marston's Bad Ideas is the book for you. And for those who haven't had such a desire, this book will take you there anyway, and you'll be so glad that it did. Marston's writing fulfills that hope we all have when reading a novel; it took me somewhere I had never been before, a place that I felt lucky to have visited through her writing.

Bad Ideas invites us into the home of three women: Claire, our matriarch; her daughter Trudy; an anomaly within their small factory town; and Mercy, the four-year-old left behind by Claire's younger daughter Tammy. Within this home, it's the characters who are present as much as the absence of those that should be there that make up the dynamics of this family unit. Claire misses her old love and the father of her children Darren; Mercy wonders after her long-gone mother; and Trudy longs for a life she doesn't have, never had the chance to experience.

Life is stagnant and difficult, but Jules—the Crazy Canuck—a new daredevil (literally) in town shakes things up, gives people something to talk about, gives Trudy something to look forward to. As Jules prepares to make a record-breaking jump across the St. Lawrence river in a "rocket car," the women in our family continue to learn more about themselves, about each other, and what they might get out of this crazy life after all. Marston keeps us wondering, will the Crazy Canuck make the big jump? Will any of our characters?

This isn't the only question Marston keeps us asking during her novel. Each chapter title begins with the word "Because," demanding us to ask why things have come to be a certain way. Some of these titles are honest ("Because Never is a Long Time," "Because You Don't Always Want to Hear What Other People Think"), some are funny ("Because it Would Kill Her Mother," "Because There is Always Someone Eager to Deliver Bad News"), and others are simply poetic ("Because the Light at Sunset Can Make Anything Look Golden," "Because There is Another Skin Beneath Your Skin"). These chapters are brief but telling, giving a glimpse of our characters in their most vulnerable, strange, or unhappy moments. These chapters answer our questions and those lingering questions of our characters as they search for something more.

Among these characters, one that can't be left out is Preston Mills, the town where Trudy and her family live. Marston brings the dying town to life in her novel, showing us the run-down buildings and petty townspeople who have known each other for too long. This river town was taken apart and put back together during the 1950s to make way for the Seaway, an extension of the St. Lawrence river and a new highway going west across Canada. Preston Mills got a second chance, a new beginning, but its inhabitants seem stuck in their ways. The arrival of Jules and his team to launch a rocket car across the river brings new excitement and skepticism along with a healthy dose of ridicule. In a town of people who have long since given up on dreams, the arrival of a stranger whose dreams appear crazy and mostly reckless—unless, of course, it works—is met with a tepid welcome. The people of Preston Mills are hesitant to the change, to the idea of someone accomplishing something so crazy it just might work.

As Marston takes us through this story we get to focus in on each character, learning the details of their struggles and enjoying moments of brevity with them. Perhaps the most interesting perspective we get is from Mercy, our adorable and funny four-year-old. Mercy knows more than she should of the world at her young age and just wishes that she might be recognized for...