Ethel on Fire

Carolyn D. Redl is a sessional lecturer of English at the University of
Alberta.

Before you get beyond Michael and Christine’s chucking wood in the
direction of the large fieldstone hearth in the MacLeod Heritage Museum,
where the action of this novel occurs, you know that Humphreys’s
characterizations will not rival Munro’s, nor her irony, Atwood’s.
Initially, Christine’s contempt for the MacLeods and for her job as
interpreter of their pioneer lives does little to win readers’
sympathies.

Characters somehow redeem themselves through their comic
idiosyncrasies. Christine has an ongoing battle with her motorcycle.
Mary, the curator, and Joanne, the “student-person,” are fanatically
determined to emulate pioneering life accurately. Michael seems
oblivious to the prairies on which he builds his seafaring boat. Mrs.
Nisbaum is relentless in her effort to get a sheep for the museum. The
absurdity of Christine’s spontaneous and colorful stories about
pioneer life—in particular, the far-fetched achievements of the
pioneering wife—is magnified, given that she addresses gullible and
respectful museum visitors.

The staff’s attention eventually focuses on “the MacLeod 150th
anniversary.” The event is both the novel’s raison d’кtre and its
Waterloo. Without it, no author could pull these diverse and
uncompromising characters toward a common goal; nevertheless, the
anniversary is a disastrous non-event.

Despite its questionable plot and characterization, this book is
perplexingly charming. Not great, by any stretch of the imagination, but
memorable in a crazy, mixed-up way.