The Journey Home

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.

“Two years ago,” writes David Carr, the chief protagonist of this
very fine novel, “I came home again to Jeanie and Silas and Cloudy,
who barked and made circles in the sand with his wagging tail. I came
home again to Bear Cove, to the sun and the sea and the great
overhanging cliffs and the island. Home to the freedom of a wild and
untamed country that I’d learned to love and cherish. Home from the
prison and Willowbend, Ontario. Home from the noisy roar of traffic and
the grim, gray prison walls to winds and tides and the harsh but free
life of a fisherman.”

David, orphaned and fed up with “sadistic” foster homes, flees the
scene of a crime and escapes to a remote cove on the southern shore of
Newfoundland, where, with the kindness of an old lobster fisherman,
Silas, and the love of his neighbour Jeanie, he begins his regeneration.
That is stated baldly, but McCarthy unveils the theme much more subtly
and with great skill. It is through David’s relationships with Silas
and Jeanie, and in their shared adventures (encounters with drug
smugglers and near-death disasters) that the theme is defined, and it is
as a storyteller that McCarthy excels.

Two minor criticisms: the novel is too long, and the appearance of a
ghost spoils a good action scene. Overall, however, The Journey Home is
an invigorating, suspenseful, and captivating story, confidently written
in the first person. Highly recommended.