Balloon

Ted Thring is a book reviewer for the Queen’s University radio
station.

Set in Toronto, Balloon is a novel about middle-aged angst. Best
described as DINKS (double income, no kids), Parker and Mersea have
lived together since meeting at university some 25 years ago. She works
in the mutual-fund industry; he is part owner of a software-development
company. Although they own a home in the Lawrence Park area, they are
not highly domesticated, preferring an active social life.

The angst begins when Parker’s recently widowed father announces that
he is going to marry the woman with whom he fathered a son at about the
time Parker was born. At the same time, Mersea leaves unexpectedly (she
may be taking up with an old lover in Montreal) and a huge crisis
develops in Parker’s company. Enter Edvard, the half-brother Parker
never knew he had. Although initially repelled, Parker finds that he has
much in common with Edvard; the two become involved in the approaching
marriage and the business crisis.

The action moves swiftly to an unexpected conclusion in a novel whose
chief pleasures are Parker’s sax-playing father, the developing
relationship between Parker and Edvard, and the weaving of the Toronto
setting into the plot.