the cold, hard north

A review in today's NY Times Book Review begins thus:

It’s hard to give movement to a story about stasis. Grief, as all those immersed in it are chillingly aware, causes a numbness, an arrest — a “formal feeling,” as Emily Dickinson put it. To tell it straight is to tell of a person’s repeated, futile reaching for the absent loved one, the insistent return to the original moment of loss.

This is a nice graph. And it's insightful. My novel--which, dear God, now dates back to 1998--deals with grief. And much of the feedback I get on it, from editors and other readers, circles back to this review's inaugural statement: It's hard to give movement to a story about stasis. It's very much a flaw with which my story struggles, and, by extension, with which I struggle.

The review is of Lisa Moore's "February," and is written by Sylvia Brownrigg. I've not yet read Moore's book, but this review makes me want to.

The novel’s heroine is Helen O’Mara, a tough, pragmatic Newfoundlander whose husband, Cal, perished in the 1982 sinking of an oil rig. A mother of three at the time of his death, Helen discovered soon afterward that she was pregnant. Stolidly raising their four children alone, she never managed to get over the shock of losing her husband. As Moore eloquently writes in the book’s early pages, Helen “was outside.” This is, Helen believes, “the best way to describe what she felt: She was banished. Banished from everyone, and from herself.” “February” traces the slow effort she finally makes to come back inside.

Moore, like her novel, is Canadian.

As an aside, Canadian literature appeals to me, which is a ridiculous, sweeping statement to make, I know--and yet, it's true. I don't just mean books written by Canadians, but books and stories set there. "The Shipping News," for example. " Howard Norman's wonderfully odd "The Bird Artist." Heather O'Neill's "Lullaby for Little Criminals." Michael Basilieres' hysterical "Black Bird." Leonard Cohen's "Beautiful Losers." I've got a handful of others on my shelves I'll need to search out to recommend. Another Canada book I've not yet read but hope to is "Last Night in Montreal," by Emily St. John Mandel. I've got ARC galleys for it but have yet to find the time.

As for "February," the idea of setting a novel that confronts grief in a stark place like Newfoundland makes sense. I set mine in rural, northern Minnesota for much the same reason. The isolation. The climate. The quirks of the north country.

So now, the question is, will I give this book a fair read, or will I hold it up against mine and be unnecessarily critical? We'll see, I guess. I look forward to reading it.