Library Limelights 291

Heidi Sopinka. Utopia. Ebook download from TPL. Canada: Hamish Hamilton, 2022.

Romy and Billy were a couple: artists admired by their colleagues and friends in the L.A. art world. Set in the 1970s, Billy is firmly established and influential; Romy had turned from painting to performance art as had many around her. Romy’s sudden death set Billy adrift, but he quickly married Paz—to help care for Romy’s infant, “Flea,” and for convenient sex, or so it seems. Because the novel’s structure hopscotches around – from one woman to the other, past and present, L.A. and New York – it took some time to determine the story line. Little mysteries occur that may or may not be revealed later on (what happened to Paz’s hand? Who is sending postcards from Romy?) adding to a sense of slightly disjointed narrative.

Several incidents make Paz question whether Romy’s “death” was actually performance art; Paz is haunted that Romy will come back to reclaim Billy and the baby. Reading Romy’s diary fuels her insecurity, especially since Billy returns from a stay in Rome withdrawn and indifferent. So into the California desert goes Paz, to search for Romy. She finds the derelict hotel where Romy’s final creation celebrated the light that inspired her. It’s up to Paz to match her, dispatch her ghost. On one level, this is a parody of an earnest but alien world where mood-altering substances at art shows and impromptu parties are a given—how each struggles to find the appropriate medium, expressing their fractured insights, to gulp or inhale one more comfort. Above and beyond, it’s feminism on the rise: women protesting the male condescension they face in both their art and personal relationships.

The author is more than adept at vitalizing the characters who people this world; I enjoyed many a repartée, many lyrical moments of their natural surroundings. To get the real benefit, one must insert/immerse into that world. While relating oneself to Romy or Billy may not come easy, Paz is the more human element here. To me, however, the denouement surprise was a disappointing close.

Paz

▪ A lot of people blame Billy for what happened to Romy, although they don’t talk about it. (26)

▪ Flea has taken her away from making art, but she has also lifted her out of the stream of regular life. Her heart has grown. (115)

▪ She’s driving a speed addict’s car in an inside-out shirt, on painkillers, with a hand wrapped in gauze, on her way to find her husband’s dead ex-wife. (191)

▪ All she can think is that, like so many women before her, Romy’s genius was ground into dust, by a man. (213)

▪ Her whole life has been about things being undone, about empty spaces where the real things should be. (240)

Romy (diary)

▪ When I drove back home alone, I held onto the rushing-hot thrill I was getting with the fire experiments. (160)

▪ He wanted a woman who wanted only his body. I’d become a woman who needed more than that ‒ a difficult woman. (213)

Billy

▪ “I wonder if Romy’s the only one who could make me feel like I properly exist.” (157)

Others

▪ “The sketches for the work you sent to the gallery. Ora thought they were Romy’s.” (61)

▪ “Essa said the doctors were impressed that you’d made it to the hospital on your own, driving with a baby on your lap.” (148)

▪ “You’ve got to let things be the size they actually are.” Everything he says hangs in the air like an unintentional piece of wisdom. (226)

▪ Juke was once escorted out of here high on mescaline for eating one [fish] live, right out of the tank. (246)

▪ “We need to know the entire future space-time of the universe to determine the current locations of the horizon, which is essentially impossible.” (291)

Thomas King. Deep House. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2022.

To my shame—being a great fan of Thomas King―this is the first time I’ve delved into his Thumps DreadfulWater series. Thumps, the Special Deputy Sheriff in the town of Chinook. Thumps, of the laid-back disposition, who tries to mind his own business; Thumps, the uncertain boyfriend of single mother Claire. Trouble comes in the shape of a van on fire on Reservation lands where a paint company, recently sold to corporate giant Shield, had a testing site. Apparently it was a Shield van making an unscheduled delivery or pickup of some paint panels that undergo weathering. No sign of the van’s driver until his broken body is found in Deep House, the name of a nearby canyon dangerous to navigate. Sheriff Duke Hockney and Thumps exchange wry comments and theories throughout the case; they are not impressed when corporate executives Chandler, Burke, and Mobley show up from Shield. Their concern for the dead man seems a thin pretext for a hidden agenda.

Although Thumps broods about Claire, he has a facility for ignoring advice from his breakfast cronies; his priorities are more toward perfecting his photographic technique and caring for his cat Freeway. Thumps is not so happy when old friend Cisco Cruz appears. Hmmm ... Cruz’s cousin, brilliant bio-engineer Rajan Garza works in R & D for Shield; she’s gone missing. The gunshot murder of Chandler in his hotel room spurs everyone to hunt for Garza; motives for Shield’s obfuscation are revealed. Duke rolls with each new discovery, occasionally threatening to shoot all his helpers. It’s case closed thanks to something like crowd sourcing and a shoot 'em up ambush. Despite the latter, compared to most crime novels, a relaxed pace prevails; it’s a natural for Thumps’ character who mainly stands by for support, letting Cruz provide firepower. Author King’s tongue in cheek humour is always irresistible.

Thumps

▪ And now that the pandemic had subsided, Claire hadn’t seemed to be in any hurry to get the relationship back on track. (69)

▪ Thumps stumbled backwards, momentarily blinded by the smell that exploded out of the dog. (100)

▪ Thumps could wait. It was one of a handful of things he did well. (165)

▪ Thumps figured he was safe for the moment. Cruz would try to strangle him later, when the sheriff wasn’t looking. (233)

▪ “Well, well,” she said. “If it isn’t the Lone Ranger and Tonto.” (260)

▪ Sometimes driving helped him to think. Sometimes it didn’t. Most of the time, it just wasted gas and wore out the tires. (280)

Chinook

▪ Lorraine’s second rule was no puking in the bar. (51)

▪ “If you two plan on dancing together,” said Ora Mae, “you better be listening to the same music. (96)

▪ Roxanne was a large woman with the personality of a cruise missile. (112)

▪ “But if you look around, it appears that reservations make the best landfills. Nuclear waste, toxic waste, general garbage. New Mexico. Arizona. Utah.” (133-4)

▪ “Okay, what do you two geniuses know about solar power?” (215)

▪ “They’ve been lying to us. Garza, Burke, Mobley, Chandler. They’ve been lying to us the whole time.” (316)

▪ “You ever hear that doughnuts make you smarter?” (316)

▪ “Being stupid’s not a crime. Look at our last president.” (370)

Dependents

Thumps didn’t get any sleep.

When he crawled into bed that night, Freeway and the kittens followed, decided that they were most comfortable tucked in around his neck. When he got up to go to the bathroom, they tumbled off the bed and staggered along behind him.

Freeway was the anxious mother, meowing, prowling the cardinal points of the bed, rearranging the infants in a variety of patterns that only a cat would understand. (107)

Obsessive-compulsive?

Thumps looked at his plate. He liked to keep everything even. Just enough toast to go with the remaining egg. Enough sausage so the egg won’t be lonely. There was nothing worse than winding up with one thing or the other alone on the plate. (155)

Detecting

“We need a car.”

Thumps put his hands in his pockets. “Because Garza stole yours.”

“Borrowed.”

Thumps could feel the annoyance creep into his voice. “You might have mentioned this to the sheriff.”

“What was he going to do?”

“Car like that,” said Thumps, “I have to guess it’s got a tracking system.”

“What are you, some kind of electronic genius?”

“So it has a tracking device, and you know where it is.”

“Yeah.” Cruz held up his cellphone. It showed a miniature map with a blinking red dot in the middle of nowhere. “That’s why we need a car.” (302-3)