Master of Happy Endings [Hardcover]

 

 

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When I took some students to a high school creative writing workshop in Nanaimo over 30 years ago I was impressed by the energy, expertise, and commitment of the organizer, a curly-haired young teacher named Jack Hodgins. Most of the participants were Hodgins'' students, and it was clear that his personality and expertise had won their respect and admiration.

In addition, Hodgins had just published his collection of short stories, Spit Delaney''s Island, to considerable critical acclaim, gaining him the credibility that only publishing successfully can bring to a teacher of writing. Although he soon moved on to teaching creative writing at the university level, Hodgins seems to remember clearly what it takes to succeed in public school teaching.

It follows that credibility is also one of the many virtues of The Master of Happy Endings, Hodgins' eighth novel, particularly regarding his main character, a 77-year old retired high school English teacher. Hodgins draws upon his deep understanding of the life of a teacher, particularly one who is passionate about his discipline and cares deeply about his students, to make Thorstad believable as he struggles to regain direction after the death of his vivacious wife and soul mate, and the loss of his beloved 43-year teaching career to forced retirement.

After these two blows, Thorstad had retreated to his ramshackle beach cabin on Estevan Island in the Strait of Georgia, a fictional setting that seems to be several parts Lasqueti Island, with a dash of Hornby and a pinch of Cortes. Hodgins populates the tiny community with a brace of the entertainingly eccentric and just-barely-plausible characters he draws so well, including an officious but soft-hearted postmistress, an overbearing ex-symphony conductor, a likeable drug-involved draft-dodger, and a seductive earth-mother called Gwendolyn Something, who has named each of her growing tribe of daughters, all sired by different fathers, after a flower indigenous to Estevan.

Thorstad''s growing sense of unrest and his longing to teach again motivates him to place an advertisement in newspapers across the province asking that a family 'adopt' him in exchange for his services as an English tutor. The arrival of replies, from heartfelt to bizarre, punctuates the remainder of the novel, including some from former students who tell us much about the memorable impact Thorstad''s teaching and support had on their lives.

He accepts the offer of a high-powered real estate developer and her dentist husband to prepare their son for his school-leaving exams, and is whisked away from the terminal of the passenger-only Estevan ferry for a breakneck ride down Vancouver Island in the realtor''s Mercedes to their posh home in the provincial capital. Once there he learns that the couple, who are too busy making money to go, would like Thorstad to accompany their son, Travis, to Los Angeles where he has landed a minor role in a TV series, ironically, playing a homeless youth. Hodgins'' animation of Travis shows that he still understands the motivations, behaviours, and dialect of teenagers.

As Thorstad moves through the novel''s three settings, Hodgins sprinkles gentle social commentary into the narrative, taking pokes at the development-before people-attitude that is shaping current-day Vancouver Island, juxtaposing the poverty Travis encounters at the homeless shelter where he volunteers with the lavish lifestyle of his parents, and illustrating how even idyllic Estavan Island is not immune from the violence of drug traffickers. The novel''s recurrent theme, though, is Hodgins'' illustration through Thorstad''s personality and career of just what it takes to be truly successful as a teacher, and how the effects of inspirational, caring teaching can resonate throughout students'' lives.

The Master of Happy Endings provides readers with an entertaining and thought-provoking journey, one that will be especially meaningful for those whose lives have been enriched by an inspirational teacher, or who have taught in public schools or worked in other helping professions themselves. Those readers will recognize that Hodgins possesses an accurate and nuanced understanding of what is required to improve the chances that students or clients will achieve 'happy endings', and how contemporary societal attitudes and government policies can undervalue and undermine those efforts.

"A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world." - George Santayana

This review is not an attempt to review the plot of this rather delightful and colorful modern tale.The reviewer before me has done more than an adequate job in that department. Hodgins has undoubtedly produced a fine interpretation of life being lived to the fullest, in the person of an eccentric old man, Axel Thorstad, and story should speak for itself. What I want to do instead is offer some critical observations about how the book's contents impacted me personally:
a) I got a fresh appreciation for how society handles the aging process. Those who are no longer useful in preparing the next generation to assume the mantle of importance are marginalized. This is a story of an elderly man who initially withdraws to the quiet and solitude of a west coast island to live with his memories.Axel was once upon a time brilliant but now has become a lonely old, forgotten eccentric waiting to die;
b) Hodgins affirms the significance of remaining connected with one's past as an important conduit through which one can re-establish the purpose of life. Stories about the thrills and spills of a by-gone era can become those triggering moments by which new life and adventue is realized;
c) Hodgins makes the point that life is in no way a neatly scripted, easy-to-follow sequence of events. It is only what distils out at the end that justifies the means;
d) Wisdom is not always past on from generation to generation because what one often wants to impart is not readily received because the cultural and spiritual landscape has changed;
e) Landscape is enormously important in defining the direction of a novel, and no one is better at showing how it works to explain where the individual does or doesn't fit in than Hodgins. All the main characters, especially Thorstad, are ill at ease in their many settings. This is so because yet another landscape and its accompanying personalities and circumstances continually beckon them with the enticing hope that they will be that missing piece of the puzzle that brings an successful end to the search for meaning.
f) While the search for the essence of who we are is full of hair-raising adventure moments of frustration, even for the elderly in our midst, there is no substitute for the peace that invariably comes to our souls when we return to the place of solid ground under our feet, and the lust to wander is no more. I love this book for what it has to say about those, like myself, who yearn for the reassurance of belonging to a place.

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