The Retreat.

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

Winnipeg novelist David Bergen writes award-winning fiction. The Case of Lena S. has won the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award and was a Governor General’s Award finalist. More recently, The Time in Between has earned a Scotiabank Giller Prize. This book has been nominated for the same honour and has won the Margaret Laurence Award for fiction. Naturally, this record raises expectations for Bergen’s story of the meeting of 1970s middle-class Calgarians and two northwestern Ontario brothers around a therapeutic wilderness commune. The liner notes promise “a conclusion that is both astonishing and heartbreaking.” This promise draws readers, who may lose interest when the second section begins to drag. Curiosity may sustain their interest, but it is the literary equivalent of “running on fumes.” The patient ones are rewarded with an engaging, understated resolution. The author offers a critical examination of the past, not an easy exercise in nostalgia. Group leader Dr. Amos and his “Retreat” evoke a culture of dubious therapies. Non-Natives may view Kenora police officers Vernon’s and Hart’s harassment of Raymond and Nelson Seymour as an example of past racism. The Ojibwa occupation of Anicinabe Park cannot be so easily dismissed because that event foreshadows more recent Aboriginal protests in Oka, Ipperwash, and other places. Unfortunately, the writer’s blunder may be more memorable than his perceptiveness. He states that Nelson’s mother has “been picked up by a hitchhiker and been strangled and dumped in the bush.” If that woman had been picked up, she would have been the hitchhiker. Although this story is tragic, not satirical, characters’ banalities may draw out sarcastic impulses. That is the case when a young German named Franz denounces Canadian oppression of First Nations people, pointing out that “this sort of oppression would never happen in Europe.” The man is obviously no student of European history. David Bergen’s latest work is a gamble—can the author’s insight and reader interest overcome the narrative’s uneven quality?