What Is Invisible

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, and author of The Salvation Army and the
Public.

Ordinary people, extraordinarily complex lives. There are Sharon and
Walter in their “Newfie” home-away-from-home in Fort McMurray,
coping, always coping; Abby, in St. Petersburg, trying to escape her
Newfoundland failures; Margaret, faced with the trauma of breast cancer,
reviewing her life; Mick O’Neill trapped in his “family” business;
Wilf and Helen, and others like them, all living seemingly mundane lives
but ineluctably subject to the vagaries of poor judgments, wrong
decisions, natural calamities, and the simple ironies of life. That is
the essence of Beth Ryan’s fiction, of the 12 short stories in this
collection. They are peopled with friends and family whose lives are
never as straightforward as we would like to believe.

Ryan is indeed a very fine writer, at her best in the story “Family
Business,” where, in brilliant understatement and a suggestive
undercurrent, she delivers a powerful impact. If there is one complaint
(though many readers may not find this a serious one), it is that there
is no sense of “place” in her stories. The characters exist mainly
by virtue of what they say, how they interact through conversation and
action; and though they are quite believable, they seem to be unrooted
in any social or cultural soil. That said, Ryan’s stories are
eminently worth reading; her ability to invest ordinary lives with
profound (though often tragic) meaning lifts her beyond the ordinary.
This is an impressive debut.