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The loosely connected lives of a military historian, his wife, a poet, a funeral home proprietor, and her odd son gradually interlock in Jane Urquhart's first novel, The Whirlpool. This mesmerizing novel, which won France's Best Foreign Book Award, illustrates in perfectly polished, lyrical prose the mind-altering effects of landscape. Urquhart draws utterly separate, lonely individuals, each focused primarily on a singular obsession. David McDougal, a diehard Canadian nationalist and military historian, has temporarily moved into the woods above a whirlpool in Niagara Falls with his wife, Fleda. David fantasizes about Laura Secord, whom he imagines his wife resembles, while focusing on his work. Fleda spends her time obsessed with poetry, particularly Robert Browning, much to her husband's dismay since he would prefer she focus on a Canadian poet. When David meets Patrick, a fledgling Canadian poet, he introduces him to Fleda. Unknown to David, Patrick knows Fleda well, since he had been stalking her in the woods. In Patrick's mind, Fleda becomes intertwined with his own obsession--the landscape.
In town nearby, Maud Grady oversees the burials of the townspeople, the sick children rendered perfect in death, and the daredevils who try to take on the falls. She also waits for the inevitable "floaters": drowned, swollen bodies plucked from the water by the Old River Man, a hobo who lives by the riverbed. The narrative spins, maelstrom-like, until it reaches its crest, where obsessions unravel, old notions are dispelled, and one brave soul faced with the whirlpool decides to take the plunge. --Leah Eichler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In her debut novel, Canadian poet Urquhart finds that the landscape and society on the Canadian side of late-19th-century Niagara Falls furnishes ample metaphor for an exploration of themes of obsession, withdrawal and the relationship of individuals to both society and nature. Bracketed by scenes of Robert Browning's last days in Venice, the story traces the interwoven lives of Patrick, a chronically ill clerk and would-be poet; blustery military historian and Americaphobe David MacDougal; his eccentric wife, Fleda, who spends her days in the woods, reading Browning's poetry; and Maude, the undertaker's widow with a mute four-year-old son. Urquhart reminds us that this era saw the end of romanticism as, against the backdrop of the river, its whirlpool and the forest, Patrick chooses to take refuge in his fantasies of Fleda rather than accept her offer of a real relationship. Fleda casts off social conventions and goes to live in the woods, at the same time that Maude, discarding the tokens of mourning, renews contact with her son, who begins in his own way to speak. Atmospheric and original, Urquhart's ambitious tale may cause readers to strain after its significance, but her accomplished prose and subtle characterization reward the effort.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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