Connie Gault

Connie Gault is a new-to-me author - this book came my way via the GoodReads giveaway that ran a short time ago.

From the start I was struck by how beautiful her prose is; how gentle an observational touch she gives as each of the characters' portions of the story are told. This was a little different for a multiple point-of-view story, with one told in first person and the remaining in third person. It didn't turn out to be as startling a change as I expected. The story flowed just fine between each character - from the beginning in Trevna with the Gustaffson's, Elena and the other townspeople, right through to those whose path Elena crosses on her journey. Every story, every observation gives a uniquely intimate glimpse into the mind of the character telling their part (and includes many gorgeous descriptions of the rural Saskatchewan landscape and customs of the people of that era). It is all these parts that together as a whole made a story I found hard to put down.

Thank you Connie Gault for this one. I'll be looking up more of your work for sure!… (más)

EUPHORIA, by Connie Gault.

In real estate, the three most important things are commonly acknowledged to be "location, location and location." By the same token, the three most important things in quality fiction, at least to my mind, have always been "character, character and character."

Connie Gault demonstrated this beyond a doubt with the creation of ginger-haired orphan Gladdie McConnell, the heroine of her debut novel, EUPHORIA. We learn of Gladdie's hardscrabble life in stages, as Gault's narrative opens in 1891 with the birth of a baby girl at the mean Toronto boarding house where a teenage Gladdie is employed. The story then takes a leap forward to 1912, to Regina, Saskatchewan, just ravaged by a killer tornado. Gladdie is summoned to a hospital there by Orillia Cooper, a young woman seriously injured in the storm. (The Regina Cyclone of 1912 was a real event, the worst and most deadly storm ever to hit Canada, leaving 28 people dead and thousands homeless.)

Gladdie, along with Hilda Wutherspoon, an old friend from Toronto, takes Orillia into their boarding house while she recuperates, along with Susan, a small, mute girl apparently orphaned by the storm. From this point on Gladdie's story unfolds in artfully revealed layers, from her uncertain orphan origins forward. We are privy to her earliest memories of being cared for by a kind woman known only as Margaret, followed by a spell with the Tuppers, where she learns 'evil' things which she needs to do to survive. Escaping that, at nine she finds work at Mrs. Riley's rooming house in Toronto, where her 'education' continues apace, when, Mr. Riley, a ne'er-do-well but kindly tippler, explains to Gladdie that she mustn't do that 'touching' she learned at the Tuppers. Mr. Riley also writes down a piece of advice that Gladdie adopts and which serves her well: "Werk hard and be cherful."

I know I said that character is paramount to good fiction, and I stand by that; but Gault knows too how to spin a story, and Euphoria is a humdinger of a tale, with orphans and misfits and comical and grotesque characters galore. It's no wonder that Gault has been called a "Canadian Dickens." A look at the cast bears this out - the aforementioned nefarious Tuppers, an intimidating Mr. Best, the sly Wilbur Twigg, the dandy ladies' man Johnnie Dabb, the overweight, overbearing and itchy Mrs. Riley, the ill-fated unwed mother, "Jessie Dole," the furiously knitting Miss Avis, Perchance Parchman, the cellar-dwelling "Mushroom" Mainwaring and more. Yes, definitely Dickensian, no question. Orphans, bad people, good people, etc. Dickens, and now Gault.

I don't want to give anything else away here, so let me just say I loved this book. Connie Gault is a master storyteller, and she knows character. And this is very high quality fiction. My highest recommendation.… (más)

A BEAUTY, by Connie Gault.

Connie Gault is not a writer I knew, but then I live in the U.S. where Canadian authors are often unknown, which is a terrible shame, because it's been my experience that the Canadian writers I do read are invariably wonderful writers. In any case, I saw Gault's new novel had been long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize this year, which is a strong recommendation. Another is that the book has been endorsed by one of Canada's finest contemporary writers, Elizabeth Hay. Two damn good reasons to read this book, so I did, and I am soooo glad I did. Because this is simply one helluva fine novel.

Gault has created an unforgettable character in Elena Huhtala, a motherless Finnish immigrant who, with her taciturn father, finds herself surrounded by Swedish families in the tiny hamlet of Trevna, set deep in the Saskatchewan prairie in the depths of the Great Depression and the drought-stricken days of the Dust Bowl. (And yes, those dust storms did reach deep into Canada too.)

When Elena's father, a former university professor in Helsinki who had fled Finland after their Civil War, one day simply walks away from his failed farm leaving her a note that implies he intends to kill himself, the beautiful eighteen year-old, destitute and starving, meets a handsome stranger at a village dance. And when Bill Longmore, dipping and twirling her on the dance floor, whispers in Elena's ear, "Can I take you home tonight?" she doesn't hesitate; she leaves with him in his long, gold Lincoln convertible roadster. And when he asks where she wants to go, she replies: "Anywhere."

Thus begins an aimless and desperate - for her - road trip across the dusty plains of Saskatchewan, through dying villages - Addison, Charlesville, Virginia Valley, and eventually to the big city of Regina. In each of these places, you meet other characters, similarly hopeless, stuck, existing. And like Elena and Bill, these other characters come vividly to life - Merv and Pansy Badger, the Gustafsons, Scott and Leonard Dobie, Albert Earle, and, especially, the McLaughlin family in tiny Gilroy. There we learn that our story's narrator is Ruthie McLaughlin, the eldest of seven children. In Gilroy, Elena discards Bill Longmore and leaves town with Ruthie's charming father, Davy. Yup, the one with all those kids.

I've only scratched the surface of the twists and turns this story takes. Filled with colorful and utterly human characters, the story jumps forward from the thirties to the early sixties. Ruthie's role in the story becomes more important, but the ethereally beautiful Elena remains crucial to the story, a curious mix of charisma, sensuality and survivor. Ruthie's father, we learn, was only one in "a succession of men." Each of them have obviously contributed to her prosperity, as she emerges, nearly thirty years later, as a coolly beautiful and wealthy woman who has learned something of her own origins following a trip back to Finland.

I don't want to give anything else away about this complex and skilfully crafted story. But I can see why it's grabbed the attention of the Scotiabank Giller Prize committee. I loved this book and hated to see it end. As novels go, it is A BEAUTY, and Connie Gault is a wonderful writer. My highest recommendation.… (más)