The Long Run

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta, co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British
Views of Canada, 1880–1914, author of The Salvation Army and the
Public, and the editor of “Improved by Cultiv

“We may be norphs to everyone in St. John’s,” says the novel’s
narrator, Aiden Carmichael, “but to each other we’re family.” And
it is by becoming family, in all its negative and positive aspects, that
the boys of the Catholic orphanage Mount Kildare survive. They fight and
argue and compete with one another, but pull together against the petty
tyrannies of the priests and the outside world. And it all adds up to a
splendid story, at times unutterably sad and at others very funny. The
pain of first separation, the spells of loneliness, the waiting for that
relative to come and take them home are vividly depicted (by a very
perspicacious participating narrator); but they are set against the
madcap pranks, the clandestine marathon preparation, and the forced
camaraderie. Brother McCann’s attempt to turn the boys into sumo
wrestlers, dressed out in their “diapers,” is as funny an episode as
one could want to read.

Indeed, the whole novel, a first for Furey, is immensely entertaining:
from the distinct and different personalities of the boys, to the
orphan’s world as seen through an orphan’s eyes, it is all
convincing and surprising and well worth experiencing.