... but she didn't use the word "ornery"

Nicole's pick: Gil Adamson, The Outlander (Anansi Press, 2007)

Discussed: 30 April 2009 @ the Locus Restaurant (4121 Main Street)

After warming up to the story for the first fifty pages or so, I was as hot on the Widow's heels as her grumpy pursuers. Initially, this was because I had no idea where the story was going. Surely Adamson constructed it this way; the reader is meant to be as directionless as the protagonist (the Widow, Mary Boulton). By the book's final section, "World Without End," I was certain of the finish, and again this was likely Adamson's intention - by the end of the story, the Widow too has found her bearings. But I kept reading to see the romance unspool. 

So I burned through the book eagerly, as did the rest of the club. It was a great read, lively, and well-constructed, but I doubt, as Nicole remarked, that it will remain with me for years to come. Two things in particular niggled at me much of the time. The first was her language. Erudite, but a bit showy. (And I suppose I'm being showy by using the word "erudite," but there it is.) Is it odd to use such language to describe the thoughts and actions of a person who is almost illiterate? I found some of Adamson's descriptions just plain irksome, especially when she repeated certain obscure words and phrases ("vertiginous," "organic angles"). At other moments it worked ("... his voice shredding with emotion"). I was more impatient with Adamson than the others. Jennifer loved the descriptions, and Leanne found the account of Mary's baby's decline "arresting." So maybe I'm just cranky. 

With The Outlander, the reader is also forced to make dubious judgments of the central characters in order for the story to work itself out neatly. It is obvious that we are meant to sympathize with the Widow, and even condone her murder of her husband. But he was dastardly, nothing more. Same goes for the "twins": cold fish to be sure, but loyal to their brother's memory, mindful of the procedures of law and order, and decidedly less violent than their sister-in-law. I couldn't help but feel for them at the moment of their final defeat. Nicole informed me that Adamson intended this moral ambiguity, but if that is so, then the uniformly happy ending is a little too neat. (And unconvincing. Kerry-Lynn pointed out that if a man leaves you once, he'll do it again...) In the end, The Outlander teeters strangely - or admirably - between populist historical fiction and high-brow literature. Our stars out of five below.

Nicole: (a confident) 3.75

Kerry-Lynn: 3.5

Leanne: 3.5

Jennifer: 4

Amanda: 3.5