In a Cloud of Dust and Smoke

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

New Brunswick author Raymond Fraser has also been a literary magazine
editor, storyteller, and contributor to the CBC. In this novel, Fraser
has decided to probe his past in order to create a realistic memoir of a
fictional protagonist.

Both the author and his “Walt Macbride” were small-town New
Brunswick boys who were born in 1941. Since this story is told in an
honest and unsentimental way, readers who are unfamiliar with Fraser can
only guess which of Macbride’s misadventures were based on personal
experience.

One can trace the hapless hero’s progress through the Catholic school
system and beyond (those who remember and/or celebrate traditional
Catholic school discipline might be shocked at Mrs. Clancy’s chaotic
classroom). He discovers first love, symbolized by the unattainable
Angela who “could be a princess” but instead becomes an alcoholic
housewife. In his “puppy love” story, the pup turns out to be a pit
bull terrier.

People who expect a warm recollection of an Atlantic Canadian childhood
confuse this novelist with Robert Gibbs. Only the picaresque would view
1950s pornography, 1960s promiscuity, and 1970s alcoholism as nostalgia.


In a true nostalgia tale, the story may end in the present, but the
characters’ further adventures are usually recounted in an epilogue.
Since Fraser’s fictional history incorporates the present in a more
comprehensive manner, the fates of Macbride’s peers are revealed when
former classmate Ozzie updates him. Maritimers may not be shocked to
learn that many have moved to Toronto. Hog Neeley’s fate—discovered,
in a presumably drug-related murder, in the “‘Don River. With a
bullet in his head.’”—may confirm their worst prejudices about
that city.

In a Cloud of Dust and Smoke offers a revealing view of Eastern
Canada’s past.