When I began reading this novel, my car was in the garage undergoing some emergency maintenance, not that my car being repaired has much to do with this story of mechanic Jennifer Collins.
Nevertheless, one of the best mechanics I know is a woman, and she might have been supervising the work being done on my vehicle.
At the opening of Tina Chaulk's novel, Jennifer visits her time machine grandmother at the Hoyles Escasoni Senior Citizens' Complex. Nan's presence allows Jennifer to travel back in time to happier days, when her grandmother was younger and healthier and when Jennifer's father was still living.
An aside: The first time I happened across the concept of seniors being flesh and blood time machines I was an unappreciative youngster reading a Ray Bradbury short story - 'The Time Machine'. Now look at me, an aged time machine in my own right.
I'm sitting here kinda idle should anyone wish to go for a spin down the years.
Back to the book.
Jennifer Collins is unable to slough-off the grief caused by her father's sudden death.
She replays his voice on her answering machine. She visits his grave almost daily.
She refuses to close his toolbox, allowing it to remain open just as it was the day he collapsed to the garage floor.
Jennifer has closed herself off from her family and friends, selfishly cocooning herself in her grief and rejecting all overtures encouraging her to move forward. Not only does she repel those who love her, including her rejected husband, but also she wallows in a misery compounded by booze.
She denies being consciously suicidal but does admit to having been purposely careless: "I'd never try to kill myself. I'm just frequently disappointed when I wake up in the morning."
At times while reading this novel, especially as you watch Jennifer stubbornly refuse to accept her father's death, you're likely to feel she could be cured, so to speak, by being treated in a fashion Granny might have suggested - "Give 'er a good shake to smarten 'er up."
But - the inevitable but - that would be insensitive and unkind I s'pose. Besides, at some level many of us can see ourselves in Jennifer, each of us at times needing 'a good shake' to rattle us loose from some martyring bramble-bush of misfortune to which we mulishly cling.
You think?
It's banal to say Jennifer's story is gut wrenching. I'm poking around for an image that emphasizes the stomach-roiling ache that accompanies woe that suggests a hurt capable of being felt by an empathizing reader - kinda.
Jennifer's story is eviscerating. There are scenes in this novel - I'm thinking particularly of hospital scenes with Nan near the end - that leave you feeling as if you've been splayed out and flayed on a splitting table and some brutal, disemboweling hand has yanked out your vitals and flung them over the wharf, food for flatfish and gulls.
Jennifer's story is gut wrenching.
A vital spark of humour smolders in Jennifer, just the same. She hurls a dandy line at an bigoted customer who refuses to accept a woman has serviced his car.
When circumstances lead to his threatening his lawyer on Jennifer she fires back: "I bet mine's better than yours. She's a real firecracker."
Eventually, Jennifer begins to acknowledge the destructive nature of the situation in which she allows herself to flounder and to discover disturbing, illuminating facts about her father. She wants to escape the erosion caused by her destructive behavior.
There comes a time when she can say, "I'm not sure if I'm moving forward, but at least I'm not standing still."
I've said there were times when I felt like giving Jennifer a shake and saying, "Smarten up, maid, and stop acting as if you're the only one who ever had a father die."
By the time I closed the book, however, having witnessed Jennifer begin to untangle herself from the shackles of her oh-so-human faults, my emotions had changed.
I'd grown fond of Jennifer, p'raps even begun to love her a little, and not just because she could fix my car.
Thank you for reading. Be mindful in traffic.
'ghwalters@persona.ca'
Dunville
