The Last Happy Year

Barbara Yitsch is an associate at Duncan’s English Language Consulting
Ltd. in Edmonton.

Taking the bus from Toronto, Melanie Dennis arrives in Somerset to
assume her position as the new women’s commentator for a local radio
station, CSOM. Melanie has a boyfriend, Gordon, who is nearly an
accountant, but she senses she’s the kind of gal (the story’s set in
1949) who needs to share herself with someone in the business, someone
like Ross Dunlop, a fellow who’ll help her career. Ross’s roommate
and CSOM’s weathercaster, Stewart Fielding, although not as gifted as
Ross, has the ultimate handsome face—a face that attracts Flo, Jo, and
Patsy, and so forth. Patsy has a singing voice to die for, and Stu,
thinks Ross, wants to marry her to catch her talent. These “idyllic
days of youth,” in the words of the dust-jacket blurb, end when a car
accident leaves Stu paralyzed (hence the novel’s title).

The male characters, especially Ross, come to life in the manner that
E.M. Forster describes as “round.” It seems that all the roundish
characters in this novel are male; the female characterizations are thin
and dull. Rod Coneybeare has an impressive ear for dialogue. What he
needs, as surely as a house needs framing, is a sense of setting and
plot, something to give his novel a centre, a heart, and a reason for
being.