Critical Injuries by: Barfoot, Joan
Trade Paper | 336 pages | ISBN:1-55263-347-0
Year Published:2001 – Key Porter | Tidewater Price: $22.95
Isla is a middle-aged career woman in a second marriage that is a vast improvement over her first. Life isn’t perfect but it is better than it was and she is hopeful of an even brighter future. Roddy is a restless teenager who hatches a plan with his best buddy to earn enough money to escape the constraints of small town life. Roddy and Isla are strangers but their lives become intertwined through a tragic chance encounter and the story line of Critical Injuries follows their parallel attempts to come to terms with the consequences.
Barfoot skillfully examines the delusions that the characters hold about their pasts, about the people in their lives and the potential to create their own secure futures. If friends are not always loyal, husbands supportive or strangers benign, how does one find the strength to forgive and carry on? She offers an empathetic examination of this mental journey from the perspective of the 17-year-old youth as convincingly as that of the middle-aged woman. No mean feat.
Surprisingly, in spite of the challenges faced by the characters, this is not a depressing book. Strength and support come from unexpected sources. Anger and disillusionment slowly give way to a grudging forgiveness and a transient state of grace that provides hope once again. A fascinating read.