Critical Injuries
Joan Barfoot (Reviewed by Associate Reviewer - Donald D'Haene)
2002 Key Porter Books/Counterpoint
ISBN: 1582432082
Isla is reveling in second chances. Roddy is about to escape his past. A chance encounter changes everything.
Associate Reviewer Donald D'Haene writes:
Novelist Joan Barfoot says she writes because, “I get to live inside other lives, not only my own. This is a kind of dehydrated reincarnation: add words and stir.”
Luckily, this wordsmith strikes again.
In her eighth reincarnation, Critical Injuries, Barfoot inhabits the lives of a 49-year old successful career woman & a 17-year-old restless student. Although at first glance, it appears Isla & Roddy have nothing in common, the truth is they both have escaped pain-filled pasts, & at the very least, share dreams of happy futures.
Barfoot clearly sets the stage of her main characters' inevitable meeting, describing, “One of those moments when life turns completely ass-over-teakettle, in no good way, no good way at all.” [Pg. 12]
One character quickly runs into a store to spend her money; the other is there to improve his financial situation.
While each journey to that moment is truly unique, the way in which their individual paths cross that fateful night, forever unites them. & the consequences of this chance meeting will involve courage, hope, survival & choice.
“Funny how sorrow always seems more powerful than joy. Joy just kind of jogs along, but grief, that really throws a person off the track, onto a new one.” [Pg. 202]
Some readers will find Critical Injuries enlightening. I was more fascinated with Barfoot's unsentimental voice in the bodies of Isla & Roddy. Case in point: the striking & seeming contradiction in the contrast between Barfoot's gift of prose & her characters' sparse use of verbal expression.
“Words are exhausting” [Pg 27]; “Words don't matter so much anyway” [Pg. 38] & finally, “He was something other than angry that night, but he couldn't put words to it.” [Pg. 40]
& while most of the characters in Critical Injuries, are “doomed to observer status in the shocking events” [Pg. 51] that transpire, I was entertained.
Do these characters become friends? Lovers? Enemies? Even Isla ponders, “Be very careful with questions...because the answers may not be the desired ones.” [Pg. 58] I found myself more interested in those questions than in any possible answers.
Of course, all credit goes to Barfoot, who never lets go of the helm. Her narrative flows seamlessly between Isla's & Roddy's ongoing drama, guiding the reader to its inevitable conclusion. Or is it?
Barfoot's tale convinces me that living in the moment may be a good thing, for when tragedy befalls us, you'll have more than enough time to recall your past. That is, until you focus on a place you want to be.
Critical Injuries is longlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize & shortlisted for the 2001 Trillium Book Award. No surprise. Barfoot's yarn is woven to perfection, words spun like the master craftswoman she is.
Isla's & Roddy's road is a journey well worth taking. From the word go, Barfoot's razor-sharp wit & insight drew me into her characters' lives. I might not want to embody them as fully as she has, but I wouldn't mind an occasional visit.
More from Canadian Joan Barfoot - all out of print at Amazon.com: Abra - winner of the Books in Canada first novels award. Dancing in the Dark, an award-winning Canadian entry in the Cannes & Toronto Film Festivals. Duet for Three, Family News, Plain Jane, Charlotte and Claudia Keeping in Touch, Some Things About Flying, & Getting Over Edgar.
I have been freelance writing since 1988. My short stories can be found in The Good Life (2000) & Memories of Elgin and Middlesex(2000). I am also an actor with Armstrong Talent in Toronto, Canada.
I live in London, Ontario, with my partner, Maurice, my mother, & our three Siamese cats, Kyle, Bach-Pierre, Maxine & a cockatiel, Jay.
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