Commentary

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July 13, 2010

by: Ross Kentner

The best thing about winter is curling up by the fire with a good book. The best thing about summer is sprawling out on the beach with a good book. Which is what I did last week. So, let me recommend Michael Crummey’s Galore.

Crummey seems to me a very young man to cover six generations in a novel that cuts a swath through the history, politics and religious strife of Newfoundland and Labrador. I remember the excitement when Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949. But I knew nothing of 18^th Century Newfoundland and the two centuries of change or lack thereof leading up to World War I.

There’s never a doubt that the author is a native of the Rock. Stone and the sea are unrelenting constants that devour the people. The protagonists are archetypes of mythic proportion with names like King-Me Sellers and Devine’s Widow. King-Me owns the serfdom on the shore that he passes down through the generations. Only the letter "I" separates Devine’s Widow from Divine lineage!

Many of the characters carry Bible names and Bible stories are woven through the whole fabric of the book. How easily we forget that for some generations and populations, the Bible was the only book they had and the sum total of literary personages and plots.

Crummey is first and foremost a wonderful storyteller. He moves deftly back and forth from past to present, planting seeds here and there that set you speculating on the future and making it impossible to set this book down.

His prodigious knowledge of maritime life, especially the cycles of fishing and sealing, allows Galore to resonate with authenticity.

But a great novel turns on emotional tensions stirred by deep irony and there are ironies galore in Galore.

Fact, we know, is stranger than fiction, and Crummey shores up his tale with historical anecdotes, seasoning his characters with attributes and afflictions that he drew from the archives of Newfoundland.

We’re introduced to the patois of Newfoundland and the Labrador. Crummey’s idiomatic intimacy with his characters greatly enriches them. I’ve always been curious about mumming there and the mummers scenes are not only important to the plot but they round out our experience of this mysterious corner of Canada which is a total bonus from Galore.

Commentary, with Ross Kentner, can be heard on 560 CFOS Tuesdays & Thursdays at 7:08 am and 5:08 pm