An Inverted Sort of Prayer
Chris Needham
Reviewed by Barb Radmore
This is the first work by the new
Canadian author Chris
Needham. He has written a novel of violence, alcohol and the search for
one
man’s place in the world.
A hockey enforcer who is past his prime,
Billy Purdy is at
the end of his career. He has one last chance to end his career with
dignity,
yet is unable to curb his need for violence to conform to the changing
world of
hockey. As he realizes that this time his suspension will be a final
one, he
begins a life of searching for identity. “A bull in the china shop of
life” he
is unable to find his place outside the box, away from the penalty box,
the
rink and his role within it. “I felt as
though I was this last remaining warrior-this last remaining warrior
from this
last remaining tribe-a refugee cast adrift from another age and
presently lost
in time. I was this exile, this last remaining exile, and pardon the
simple
analogy, but I felt just like this statue sliding slowly by.” He wants
to be a man
taken seriously, perhaps a literary man, but he thinks Bar
Harbor
Maine is named after all
its bars
and that he can see Cuba
from the beaches of Costa Rica.
He no longer admits to being Billy Purdy the hockey player to fans, but
he has
no other identity to take its place.
From Germany
to Canada,
he
repeatedly meets up with Chris De Boer, a man who says he had been
following
Billy from city to city when he played. Billy, Chris and an assortment
of
Chris’ connections become a group of, not friends, but drinking
cohorts. Life turns
into a series of bars and drinks; Greyhounds with pink grapefruit are
Billy’s
breakfasts, lunches and dinners. When Chris announces he has written
and will
have published his first novel, Billy is happy both for him and for the
chance
to be part of the process. Even when Chris tells him the book is
actually the
one Billy’s father wrote many years ago, Billy is just glad to be a
part of
Chris’ plan. But as the books’ publication grows closer, Billy has less
and
less enthusiasm. Soon it is De Boer who is traveling and Billy who is
following.
The novel contains some brilliant literary moments such as Needham’s
comparative descriptions by Billy on the art of being an enforcer, in
the
beginning of the book, with the art of bull fighting, at the end. Needham
is able to portray the hopeless rage of Billy as he tried to find his
way out
of his locked box of his past into the world of his future but never
finding
the right key. The characters are almost
ghosts of reality, floating never quite fully formed through the story. But even the minor characters leave deep
impressions
as they pass, from the to the 9 month along, pregnant, 40 year old
woman
drinking to hangovers to the blood filled syringe waiving Middle
Eastern man in
Amsterdam. At times it is difficult to
stay with the writing style in which hyphens act as common punctuation
and a
search for a period could be a long one.
This book could also be a scathing look
at production of literature,
from the art of writing to the actual publication. It is not one for
which Needham
appears to have much respect. In sections the reader is not sure if
perhaps the
author is releasing the pent up emotion of trying to write and publish
his own work.
“Canadian lit…It’s like you’ve got to be some Lebanese lesbian from
Nova—Scotia
if you even hope to get published these days.” Or “Literary
fiction…where else
could you claim economy to account for a description completely devoid
of
substance. Obscurity was subtly, punctuation was arbitrary, illiteracy
was but
a form of poetic license and if you were completely wrong in your take
on things,
you could always cry irony to save a little face.”
Needham
seems to
be the Canadian answer to Chuck Palahnuik without the minimalist style.
The
violence of Fight Club mixed with the other worldly feel of later
Robertson
Davies seems to have formed An Inverted Sort of Prayer. A
book that is uniquely Canadian.
Author's
Web Site
Author Interview
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