Other Americas

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

This is a remarkable first novel in a number of ways. Henighan’s
structural realism works beautifully. The flashbacks and forwards are so
skillfully executed that they are almost seamless; the action flows
effortlessly through the changes of time and place. Secondly, the
autobiographical theme of the novel is crafted into a web of political,
economic, and social intrigue in ways that belie the author’s 31
years. Finally, the prose is fluid and effortless; the wealth of
observation, rather than being obtrusive, informs the action with a
verisimilitude both internal and external. Such skills are unusual in a
young writer whose work to this point has been confined to short fiction
in magazines and articles on small presses.

Keith Merrick has grown up in the shadow of his older brother Don on
the family farm in the Ottawa Valley. When Don goes to university in
Kingston, Keith is left to ponder his own future as part of the rural
life that is freezing him into stasis. Henighan’s exploration of this
life is knowledgeable and frank; his characters—the older Merricks,
Keith’s friends, the farmers and their families—are neither
romanticized nor victimized. When Keith travels to Bogotа to find Don,
the Colombians are portrayed with equal honesty. The woman he meets and
who assists him in his search is expertly contrasted in dialogue and
description to Annette, his unhappy wife in Ottawa.

Merrick’s journey to Bogotа is finally one that takes him both
inside and outside himself, and this is absolutely necessary for his
attainment of manhood. Other Americas may well be the book which vaults
Stephen Henighan into the ranks of top Canadian novelists.