Thomas King. Sufferance. Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2021.
The dedication: “To the memory of what we have lost – and what we continue to destroy”
King’s message has never been more timely, couched in the dialogue of caring people who transcend their humble surroundings. What is not to love about the people of Cradle River First Nation? Well, for one thing, the residents of the adjacent town of Gleaming, who want the reserve land for property development. We are reading through the eyes of Jeremiah Camp, aka “Forecaster,” who not so long ago came to live alone in the abandoned residential school on the reserve and speaks not one word through the entire book. Camp seems emotionally removed from his old roots here, desiring solitude, perhaps because he’d once worked in sufferance for the mega-wealthy Locken Group corporation. It’s now run by the Locken daughter.
Most days, Camp’s routine begins with a machiatto at the Piggy Café where Florence reads the headlines to all and sundry: “News, blues, and comfortable shoes.” Often Camp is not listening to anyone addressing him, living in his own head. Mostly he slogs in the school graveyard, removing decayed wooden crosses and replacing them with stones that he chisels with the children’s names. He keeps his distance from the growing town conflict and its bombastic Mayor Loomis, while his school—his refuge―is speedily repopulating with extended family and homeless neighbours. Sufferance. Unlike Camp, they—Nutty; Ada; Lala; the “three Bears”; Wapi; Roman; Swanee; and so on―resonate with vitality.
The heir to the Locken Group fortune wants to know why the world’s wealthiest billionaires are dying suspiciously, one after another. “Forecaster” was previously their main man, the guy who can see the patterns, make accurate predictions; he does not resist when he’s beckoned again. Locken contrives payment to him by making positive changes at the reserve, changes that conversely are altering Camp’s lifestyle. The corporation’s hidden agenda reinforces that wealth and power can buy or do what it wants. We are all at the sufferance of others, in one way or another. Irresistible characters, cunning observations, and King’s trademark humour—it’s all there. Long may he teach us about resilience and respect, particularly in the dark shadow of current revelations that caused incredible Indigenous pain.
One-liners
▪ Loomis thinks reducing my name to a diminutive makes us friends. (4)
▪ “We were always hungry.” (204)
▪ “She hopes to further engage your skills, while I would prefer to kill you.” (245)
▪ I settle into a familiar daydream where I’m safe at last, where no one knows where I am, where I can stay hidden forever and never be found. (259)
▪ The musicians in the bandstand are finishing up a piece that sounds like car alarms wrapped in tinfoil. (284)
Multi-liners
▪ Thomas Locken saw death as a matter of biology and logic. If we could imagine immortality, he told me on more than one occasion, we should be able to achieve it. (104)
▪ “I feel sorry for Emma,” says Florence. “She shouldn’t be cooking. Woman has a law degree. She should be in a courtroom ripping the lungs out of some corporate maggot.” (135)
▪ Florence sets her hands on her hips. “Nothing’s free. And I’m guessing you the one paying the bill.” (214)
▪ I don’t see it coming until Emma turns to me with her gentle smile. “That dormitory room on the second floor,” she says. “How many people do you think it will hold?” (225)
▪ “It’s a website that predicts how you’re going to die,” says Louis. “You answer a bunch of questions, and then a mainframe somewhere in the Ukraine comes up with a completely fallacious scenario.” (232)
Locken Junior
“This was in a file by itself,” says Locken.
On the sheet is a list of twelve names, each in a large, bold font. Easy to read. Double-spaced. At the bottom of the page is a handwritten note.
“I’m sure you recognize everyone.”
I do. Thomas Locken and eleven other of the richest and most powerful individuals in the world.
“In fact,” she says, “I believe you created this particular list.” (43)
Municipal power
So, the town is serious. Mayor Bob’s real estate dreams, Maribelle Wegman’s sense of heritage and authority. Buy the school. Move the graveyard. Appropriate the reserve. Have Busby photograph the families as they are herded into cars and onto buses, shipped off to a destination to be named later.
Nibble and chew until there is nothing left but bones. (86)
Power enforcers
Dobbins would hurt me if he could. I have broken the rules, and in his world, people who break the rules are punished. In his world, no one can be allowed to do this. But I no longer believe in rules or in the people who make them. This needs to be clear to everyone from the start. (101)
Offer he can’t refuse
“I know my father bought that property for you. The old school, the graveyard, the land. I don’t know why he did it, but I have to guess that it was payment for a forecast. A forecast my father felt he needed.”
Locken takes an envelope out of her jacket, slides it to me.
“Now I find myself in the same position. Like my father, I need a forecast, and like my father, I’m willing to pay for it.” (113)
Noah Hawley. The Good Father. Ebook download from TPL. USA: Doubleday, 2012.
Dr. Paul Allen is an excellent rheumatologist and diagnostician with a solid career and a warm home life with wife Fran and their young twins. In the first few pages, he explains the intricacies of diagnosing a patient with multiple symptoms; he’s a thoughtful man, dedicated to his patients. What he doesn’t have is a satisfactory relationship with his older son Daniel who mainly lives with his mother, Ellen, across the country in California. Flying back and forth alone for extended visits, young Daniel appeared to enjoy his second home but was quiet and inexpressive. On one of those flights, the airplane developed serious problems, free-falling thousands of feet to certain death the screaming passengers believed—until the pilot miraculously regained control. Paul regrets that his son had to experience that dread alone. During his teenage years, Daniel communicates less with his father, leaving college midway through his course; neither parent hears much about what amounts to a very long road trip.
Now, at the age of twenty, Daniel has been arrested by the FBI for assassinating Senator Seagram, a nationally admired political candidate. Paul’s life comes to a screeching halt in a desperate bid to help his son, prove that he’s innocent. But Daniel pleads guilty and is sentenced to death; he won’t talk to his parents or anyone about it. A shocked Paul refuses to accept his guilt, rationalizing that Daniel is taking the blame for someone else. He collects massive research on events and people around the killing scene. This is basically the journey of a man in agony of loss, trying to piece together his son’s recent life, hoping to understand him. He even studies the known thoughts and characteristics of notorious American killers for potential answers.
Above all, did his son feel that Paul had abandoned him from an early age? Can Paul succeed in gaining his son’s trust? Who really pulled the trigger? We are given views of Daniel’s parallel struggle to ground himself; we can feel him drifting away. It’s a different kind of analysis: comparing a crime investigation with diagnostic procedures. Hawley has done a remarkable job to portray disaffected youth and a parent’s emotional crisis.
Paul
▪ I was a diagnostician by trade, a medical detective, analyzing symptoms and test results, looking for the most pernicious diseases and intangible traumas. (13)
▪ Now was not the time for heartbreak. This was a rescue mission. (76-7)
▪ Daniel’s arrest and trial had devoured our lives. My family was exhausted, my wife’s patience at an end. (260)
▪ I had been an overconfident man, smug even, and because of this I had overestimated the control I had over the world. (264)
▪ He had always found a way to slip from my grip, like a wounded animal I had tried to save and failed. One that would not listen to reason. (354)
Others
▪ “Here we have witnesses. We have video. There is a smoking gun and a dead senator. This is our slam dunk.” (38)
▪ “I’m saying—living free-range, your son was a guided missile. He just needed a target.” (360)
Daniel
▪ “What if I did do it?” he said. “Would you still fight?” (79)
▪ Sometimes when they made love, Danny would stop in the middle and go do something else—watch TV or make a sandwich. (146)
▪ He saw his first funnel cloud on July 16, God’s evil finger reaching down and stirring up the American anthill. (176)
▪ “There was a quality he had, a transparency, like he was only ever really half there.” (184)
▪ “You could argue that there would be no Jesus without Judas. Without darkness there’s no light, right?” (242)
Cate Quinn. Black Widows. Ebook download from TPL. USA: Sourcebooks, 2021.
In a story about three women forced to live together, it’s a feat of writing to capture each personality with precision and empathy. Not to mention their conflicts. On top of that, they are “sister-wives” in a polygamous marriage with Blake Nelson as the husband-centrepiece. Except he’s dead, murdered, and all three woman are suspects: First Wife Rachel, struggling with repressed memories of her cult upbringing; childlike Emily who avoids the truth with all her lies; and street-wise Tina, refugee from countless Las Vegas sins. Author Quinn does it all, in a masterpiece of twisting plot. Welcome ... to a hidden enclave of fundamentalist Mormons, its practices long rejected by the Latter-day Saints Church.
Utah Police detectives Brewer and Carlson regard Rachel as the likeliest perpetrator but they have no evidence. The wives waver back and forth suspecting each other; their usual household roles begin to crumble. Each woman’s background and feelings reveal possible motive and opportunity to kill the man they claim they loved. Each mourns Blake in her own way, but clues and questions arise. Had Blake been contemplating a fourth wife? Or was he secretly involved in something illegal? Then Emily confesses to the murder, although she’s regarded with skepticism by all. This is an intensive journey, an education, into an offbeat parallel world. Quinn spares no details of life in such households, nor in the sordid cults where “prophets” take dozens of young girls as wives. Black Widows is a gripping mystery with a very satisfying outcome.
Rachel
▪ This has happened to you before, says a strange voice in my head. Don’t you remember? (159)
▪ “I was the one who persuaded him to convert to the fundamentalist branch of the faith. I was the one who suggested he take other wives.” (192)
▪ Ever since Blake died, I feel as though someone’s peeling up corners of my mind, like the label on a jar. (298)
▪ The rock is still in my hand. Boxes are opening in my head. (533)
Emily
▪ I’d never been naked in front of anyone since I was a little girl, and especially not a full-grown man. (70)
▪ Regular Mormons get all nervous around plural types like us, on account of the fact we’re fornicating and going straight to hell. (108)
▪ I need to tell Carlson the truth. Rachel and Tina could be in danger. (449)
▪ That’s when I feel a solid shove from behind. I tumble head over heels, right into the river. (557)
Tina
▪ Rachel thinks my lack of personal barriers makes me vulgar, indiscreet. (99)
▪ If she’s cooking the most Mormon of Mormon dishes for her own husband’s funeral, they’re gonna be the holiest potatoes anyone ever ate. (117)
▪ Then I realize the blond lady on the other side of the parking lot is Rachel. Wow. I can’t believe it. (368)
▪ I’m in full mean-Tina mode. No one gets out unhurt. Just keep outta my goddamn way. (485)
Others
▪ “How are we expected to bring more souls into the Church,” he demands, “when folks like you make us look like inbred hillbillies?” (44)
▪ “It would almost seem,” she said, “as though your husband went out shopping for wives. A maid in the parlor, a cook in the kitchen, a whore in the bedroom.” (66)
▪ Blood on the ground. Blood atonement. The only way for an unforgivable sinner to get to the celestial heaven. (596)
No comments:
Post a Comment