Saints of Big Harbour by: Coady, Lynn
hardcover | 413 pages | ISBN:0-385-25868-2
Year Published:2002 – Doubleday Canada | Tidewater Price:$34.95
Lynn Coady’s new novel, Saints of Big Harbour, is not for the faint of heart. It is an ambitious work in which she tackles the weighty issues of alcoholism, rural poverty, and violence. What is impressive about Coady is that she accomplishes this by exposing her characters’ flaws and frailties without judging and condemning them. By the same token, she does not portray them as innocent victims. Coady offers no easy solutions because there are none.
Saints of Big Harbour is told from several points of view, including that of the main character, Guy Boucher. Guy is a teenager whose life is dominated by his alcoholic uncle, Isadore. Isadore has come to live with Guy and his mother and sister as a result of an alcohol-related accident and a subsequent court order. Guy becomes a reluctant chauffeur and chaperone to his bullying uncle. The situations in which Guy finds himself, do in large part to his uncle’s influence, are alternately embarrassing, pathetic, morbidly funny, and downright desperate. Saints is both frank and raw and, at times, very depressing. Coady’s characters, however, are oddly resilient, and, while they do not ride off into the sunset, they endure.
Coady is an exceptionally talented young writer. She writes unflinchingly about the unsavoury aspects of her characters’ lives without reducing them to stereotypes. She writes with perception and insight without weariness and resignation. Saints of Big Harbour is a remarkable novel by a gifted and promising writer.