Bella Combe Journal

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

The subject of Bill Gaston’s latest novel is autism. Vaughn Collin
lived his early life under a cloud of unknowing, absorbing
cues—spongelike—without thinking. His teacher was Lise, a Métis
girl. From his home in the fictional upcoast B.C. community of Bella
Combe, where he has retreated, defeated and unstable, at the age of 52,
Vaughn reflects on his life. His experiences have been informed by his
autism: he played professional hockey in Victoria and in France; a
sexual awakening ended in disaster; and he spent the freewheeling 1960s
and early 1970s steeped in a fog of sensory terrors.

Lise now lives in Bella Combe as well, having recovered from the
horrors of a life filled with alcohol abuse and prostitution. She has
taken a new name, Annie, and has evolved into a deeply spiritual woman.
Annie prods Vaughn into writing a journal about his life, and his
cathartic revelations come to form this memorable novel.

Gaston’s first published fiction, Deep Cove Stories (1989), was
marred by an excess of description at the expense of dialogue. Bella
Combe Journal has no such problem: the dialogue is crisp, and the
characterizations sure and definitive. This fine book is highly
recommended.