Falling From Heights
Chris Needham
Reviewed by Barb Radmore
Words are fascinating. There really is a finite number of known, used
words in the English language but the choices of how to put them
together to form thoughts, ideas and books is limitless. Authors can
choose from this amazing array of words to tell their tale. Reviewers
specialize in critiquing how well the words fit together to create a
new product, a new piece of literature. Reviewers have their own words
too. They speak of characters, setting, plot. They include a plot
summary, always being careful of not giving away too much of the story,
not being too wordy or terse. They also have this wonderful supply of
words at their disposal.
But sometimes a volume of these words arrives that leaves at reviewer
at a loss for words to use. An author has created a work that takes all
those common, every day words and arranges them into a totally unique,
ground breaking piece of literature. The usual words fail, the normal
is not enough.
This is the case with Chris Needham's Falling From Heights.
Falling From Heights is a story of families, of relationships. It
examines truth and reality, and how they are fluid, changing ideals. It
is a story that interweaves the past with a present. It takes the
reader on a mystery, a bounce through time and space as bounded by a
blog and letter, the blog of Lucy, 2002 with the letters of Birdie in
1972. Needham leaves a tantalizing series of whispered clues, hints and
suggestions on how the two narratives might relate, might come into one
solid. It is again the theme of words, spoken, written and omitted,
that embodies this novel.
Characters are rough, intense with foibles and secrets that both leak
and explode into the story. The setting is pure Canadian with a basis
in history. The cities of Canada, the immigration influences on both
place and people is a clear thread within the book. The plot lines are
many; they dance and weave to music played by a master. The reader is
swept along on the rhythm of the stories, the cadence of the tales. The
ending is tremendous, a culmination deserving of the build up through
out the book.
This novel is for readers who like literature as art, who want more
from their reading than just a thrill or an escape. The author becomes
artist, using words to draw the reader into a place they would never
see in any other way. This novel deserves its own course, it is
destined to be a center piece of both Canadian Lit and modern Lit
classes. Needham has surpassed the promise he showed as a gifted writer
with his debut novel An Inverted Sort of Prayer. At this rate,
his next novel, Leaving Lovestiff Annie, will be incredible.