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SUDBURY, Ontario (Sudbury Star), September 14, 2008:
BOOK REVIEW
By Nancy Schiefer, Special to Sun Media
Exit Lines
By Joan Barfoot
Knopf Canada
It isn't surprising that London's Joan Barfoot has become an internationally recognized writer.
For years, she has produced fiction of a high order, was named to the Man Booker Prize long list in 2001, for her novel, "Critical Injuries," and was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize for her last novel, "Luck."
Once again, Barfoot commands our attention. In her new book, "Exit Lines," she deals, deftly and with good-humoured raillery, with a clutch of rebellious seniors ensconced in a retirement home. Few wish to be where they find themselves, but circumstance has trumped inclination.
Barfoot's clever, quick-paced chronicle centres on the Idyll Inn, the newest satellite in a small chain and run on behalf of doctors, dentists and other professionals "interested in untroublesome, steady investment in what's bound to be a growth industry."
Joan Barfoot. Photo: Orion Books
The Idyll Inn is an expensive place to live. It boasts all the amenities, from large suites, sun decks, activities, entertainment, made-to-order birthday cakes and shuttle service into town. The food is bland, but so far newly installed residents haven't had time to complain. The dining room itself is the establishment's proudest feature, its bank of windows facing a river full of ducks, canoeists, anglers ... and debris. Like themselves, some residents might feel.
The upscale residence, geared to prosperous clients, is managed by Annabel Walker, a local woman who left her small city at 20 but returned at 50.
She has interviewed prospective clients, checked their medical files and credit ratings, hired staff and has been responsible for furnishing and stocking the complex. "She is unencumbered and plain, and looks fairly worn down by the world, and at this stage is likely to remain unencumbered and plain, if not necessarily worn down, and so can presumably be counted on to concentrate on running this Idyll Inn."
As in most communal living, people form groups, flock together, pull apart, set up hierarchies. Residents scrutinize one another from oblique angles both of familiarity and of confusion. New relationships, mixed with old, could lead anywhere.
A small group of four begins to form around 81-year-old Sylvia Lodge, a stylish, brisk, energetic widow who has checked herself, without her daughter's advice and after a disastrous fall, into a suite on the Inn's main floor. Next time she falls, she thinks, there will be someone to pick her up.
Sylvia's confidantes include Greta Bauer, whose three successful daughters pay her upkeep at the Idyll Inn, George Hammond, once a prominent merchant, now in a wheelchair after a stroke, and Ruth Friedman, a tiny, strong-willed woman who uses a walker, not of necessity but as a comfort. Ruth's loneliness hides a secret agenda and before long she involves her new-found companions in a macabre scheme, which challenges both their ingenuity and their sense of what friendship might really entail.
Barfoot's novel is both rich and ruminative. As her characters contemplate their pasts and consider present realities, they stumble upon the truths they must live by. To rue the past is to court defeat, although reasons for past mistakes may abound. "In the end, however, it is unimportant whatever are the causes of mistakes and regrets. What remain are the mistakes and regrets, just themselves."
As Sylvia laments her testy relationship with her daughter, she is ill-equipped to make amends. Greta and George stifle memories of their long ago love affair, while Ruth remains haunted by a hidden sorrow. She has no wish to "decline" past her 75th birthday, an event close at hand and one she deems a "reasonably bright" time to depart.
"Exit Lines" looks, with acerbity, at the indifference of the young toward the plight of the old, of the old themselves as survivors rather than as "bone-deep frightened," at the sense of schadenfreude with which people view the misfortunes of others, of the nature of memory, of parents and children, roles reversed, the way ahead obscured.
Most of all, Barfoot's engaging novel is about the nature of friendship, its limitations and its possibilities. Companions gained late in life, Ruth thinks, have not been present at life-altering events. "They must take each other only on grounds of what is recounted, and then how they feel the balance and fit. Here at the Idyll Inn people see each other, as best they can, without ghosts."
As always, Barfoot's work is sparkling and inventive, full of penetrating wit, sharp observation and touches of compassion which are moving, yet unsentimental.
"Exit Lines" is more fine fiction from a gifted writer always one step ahead of the reader.
Click to go to publisher's page
© 2008 Osprey Media
Joan Barfoot is an award-winning novelist whose work has been compared internationally with that of Anne Tyler, Carol Shields, Margaret Drabble and Margaret Atwood. Her novels include Luck in 2005, nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, as well as Abra, which won the Books in Canada first novels award, Dancing in the Dark, which became an award-winning Canadian entry in the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals, Duet for Three, Family News, Plain Jane, Charlotte and Claudia Keeping in Touch, Some Things About Flying, and Getting Over Edgar. Her 2001 novel, Critical Injuries, was longlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the 2001 Trillium Book Award. In 1992 she was given the Marian Engel Award. Also a journalist during much of her career, she lives in London, Ontario, Canada.
From:
Joan Barfoot's website
Joan Barfoot. Photo: Orion Books
The Idyll Inn is an expensive place to live. It boasts all the amenities, from large suites, sun decks, activities, entertainment, made-to-order birthday cakes and shuttle service into town. The food is bland, but so far newly installed residents haven't had time to complain. The dining room itself is the establishment's proudest feature, its bank of windows facing a river full of ducks, canoeists, anglers ... and debris. Like themselves, some residents might feel.
The upscale residence, geared to prosperous clients, is managed by Annabel Walker, a local woman who left her small city at 20 but returned at 50.
She has interviewed prospective clients, checked their medical files and credit ratings, hired staff and has been responsible for furnishing and stocking the complex. "She is unencumbered and plain, and looks fairly worn down by the world, and at this stage is likely to remain unencumbered and plain, if not necessarily worn down, and so can presumably be counted on to concentrate on running this Idyll Inn."
As in most communal living, people form groups, flock together, pull apart, set up hierarchies. Residents scrutinize one another from oblique angles both of familiarity and of confusion. New relationships, mixed with old, could lead anywhere.
A small group of four begins to form around 81-year-old Sylvia Lodge, a stylish, brisk, energetic widow who has checked herself, without her daughter's advice and after a disastrous fall, into a suite on the Inn's main floor. Next time she falls, she thinks, there will be someone to pick her up.
Sylvia's confidantes include Greta Bauer, whose three successful daughters pay her upkeep at the Idyll Inn, George Hammond, once a prominent merchant, now in a wheelchair after a stroke, and Ruth Friedman, a tiny, strong-willed woman who uses a walker, not of necessity but as a comfort. Ruth's loneliness hides a secret agenda and before long she involves her new-found companions in a macabre scheme, which challenges both their ingenuity and their sense of what friendship might really entail.
Barfoot's novel is both rich and ruminative. As her characters contemplate their pasts and consider present realities, they stumble upon the truths they must live by. To rue the past is to court defeat, although reasons for past mistakes may abound. "In the end, however, it is unimportant whatever are the causes of mistakes and regrets. What remain are the mistakes and regrets, just themselves."
As Sylvia laments her testy relationship with her daughter, she is ill-equipped to make amends. Greta and George stifle memories of their long ago love affair, while Ruth remains haunted by a hidden sorrow. She has no wish to "decline" past her 75th birthday, an event close at hand and one she deems a "reasonably bright" time to depart.
"Exit Lines" looks, with acerbity, at the indifference of the young toward the plight of the old, of the old themselves as survivors rather than as "bone-deep frightened," at the sense of schadenfreude with which people view the misfortunes of others, of the nature of memory, of parents and children, roles reversed, the way ahead obscured.
Most of all, Barfoot's engaging novel is about the nature of friendship, its limitations and its possibilities. Companions gained late in life, Ruth thinks, have not been present at life-altering events. "They must take each other only on grounds of what is recounted, and then how they feel the balance and fit. Here at the Idyll Inn people see each other, as best they can, without ghosts."
As always, Barfoot's work is sparkling and inventive, full of penetrating wit, sharp observation and touches of compassion which are moving, yet unsentimental.
"Exit Lines" is more fine fiction from a gifted writer always one step ahead of the reader. Click to go to publisher's page
© 2008 Osprey Media
Joan Barfoot is an award-winning novelist whose work has been compared internationally with that of Anne Tyler, Carol Shields, Margaret Drabble and Margaret Atwood. Her novels include Luck in 2005, nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, as well as Abra, which won the Books in Canada first novels award, Dancing in the Dark, which became an award-winning Canadian entry in the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals, Duet for Three, Family News, Plain Jane, Charlotte and Claudia Keeping in Touch, Some Things About Flying, and Getting Over Edgar. Her 2001 novel, Critical Injuries, was longlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the 2001 Trillium Book Award. In 1992 she was given the Marian Engel Award. Also a journalist during much of her career, she lives in London, Ontario, Canada.
From: Joan Barfoot's website
