The Insolent Boy

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta, the co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities:
British Views of Canada, 1880–1914, and the author of The Salvation
Army and the Public.

“[M]y whole life was littered with mistakes and poor decisions,
venomous battles, all in states of rash emotion.” Such is the life the
narrator of this relentlessly bleak novel invites us to follow. Selwyn
Davis’s journey begins in rural Nova Scotia where, as an orphan, he is
raised by an eccentric clergyman and his well-meaning wife. It continues
with his adventures as a misfit, first in school, then in society.
Selwyn joins a rock band and tours Europe, but eventually returns to his
roots. At 37, he concludes: “I was a wreck of a man. … Where I had
once been a hostile and lonely child, I was now a weak, misguided, angry
emotional fool, a prime candidate for a life of standing naked on a cold
hospital floor.”

Is Selwyn a victim of forces beyond his control, or is he just
spineless? By the end of this second-rate effort (stylistically inept
and monotonous in its egotism), we hardly care.