Paula Lake

Don Precosky teaches English at the College of New Caledonia and is the
co-editor of Four Realities: Poets of Northern B.C.

A young male lifeguard who lives with an upwardly mobile older woman becomes tired of her constant badgering to make something better of himself and kidnaps one of the Japanese children to whom she is teaching English. His plan is to teach the child himself, thus proving that he can do the job better than she can, and then to kill himself in front of her eyes, apparently to make her feel bad. I won’t reveal how it turns out. Such a plot summary makes this sound like a fairly exciting book. In fact, it is not and it will not have a broad appeal to people who want a “good read.” I must confess that it was something of a chore to stick with the book for any extended period of time. It doesn’t move along at all smoothly, and there is nothing about it which becomes very engrossing. Many of the metaphors are overly precious and the manner of the novel’s telling suggests that the author would be more at home in an English country garden than in the wilds of B.C., where most of Paula Lakeis set. My feeling is that McWhirter is too fond of cutting figures in language and not interested enough in interesting his reader. The main character is entirely unsympathetic, as is the woman against whom he seeks revenge. Unless you are interested in moderately experimental new fiction, pass this one by.