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Euphoria
by Connie Gault
Regina: Coteau Books,
2009, ISBN 978-1-55050-409-5, 352 pp., $21 paper.
If, like me, you have read Connie Gault's short fiction, which is quirky and unique, you will pick up her first novel, Euphoria, with very high expectations indeed. I keep her second story collection, Inspection of a Small Village, among my reading treasures and pull it out from time to time to remind myself what makes writing good. Gault's strong voice and her tendency to explore unusual subjects never fail to impress me.With Euphoria Gault has once again chosen a strange premise. A young servant in a seedy boarding house finds a newborn baby girl in a mess of bedclothes. The child's mother has just committed suicide by walking into Lake Ontario. It is Toronto, 1891, a city full of boarding houses harbouring socially marginalized men and women scratching out a living. The maid, Gladdie McConnell, bonds instantly with the baby and spends the rest of her life furtively following the child, Orillia, from house to house in Toronto, and eventually from Toronto to a small town west of Regina.
Right from the start of the novel, we are plunged into another dramatic situation. In 1912 a cyclone levels parts of Regina and one of the victims is Orillia Cooper, whose feet were crushed when the telephone exchange where she was working collapsed. From her hospital bed she sends not for her (step) mother, but for Gladdie McConnell, a woman she scarcely knows.
At first, the 1912 part of the story marks time while Gladdie McConnell remembers her life before the baby's appearance. Her gritty account of escaping an abusive household, following Mr. Riley home, and drudging in Mrs. Riley's boarding house from the age of nine, is by far the most engaging part of the novel. Mr. and Mrs. Riley and all the other characters who inhabit the house come to life in the kitchen or around the dining-room table. Even the jaded slavedriver, Mrs. Riley, is drawn with a certain sympathy. And Mr. Riley, despite his weaknesses for women and drink, gives the young Gladdie some wise advice ("work hard and be cheerful") that she follows for the rest of her life.
But it is difficult to maintain interest in the life of this good woman after her childhood years. No doubt the whole issue of illegitimacy and single motherhood was a great source of pain in that era, as was the lot of childless women who spent their lives working for others. Nevertheless, I became impatient with Gladdie and her obsession. It went on far too long to be credible.
Eventually, the 1912 part of the story, stalled initially, picks up steam. Gladdie and the convalescing Orillia spend the summer of 1912 at yet another boarding house in Regina. In the room next to Orillia's, a Mr. Best works daily on a novel (and then goes home to his wife and children). Orillia becomes sexually obsessed with him. Although such an obsession is not unlikely, considering Orillia's age and state of mind, it, too, plays out in strange, not quite credible ways. Thus, despite graceful writing, an interesting premise, a series of vivid settings, and a number of memorable minor characters, Euphoria ultimately fails to be convincing.
Faith Johnston is a Winnipeg writer.
Buy this book at McNally-Robinson Booksellers.