Kathleen’s daughter, Una, disappeared without trace 19 years before the novel begins. Kathleen has never given up hope of finding her. The narrative opens when bones, which may be Una’s, are discovered near where she went missing, on Vancouver Island. Una’s father, Yannick, from whom Kathleen has been long divorced, appears and asks her to drive with him across Canada to do a DNA test. She reluctantly agrees.
So the novel, the tension of which is created by the question mark over the bones, and everyone’s desire to find out what happened to Una, is a road novel. Most of it is set in Yannick’s pickup truck as he and Kathleen drive from Ontario to Vancouver (a journey which I have often made by train, in the stories of Alice Munro).
Kathleen is tough and independent, working hard at her flower garden business, given to strong language. Her grief at the loss of her daughter is well traced, and the emotional lives of the characters are explored with sensitivity and insight. This is a kind novel; one senses the author’s compassion for all the main players – it is mainly told from Kathleen’s point of view, but from time to time we switch to Yannick’s, and there are flashbacks to Una’s (meaning that we, the readers, know things that are not known to either Kathleen or Yannick).
You don’t appreciate how big the ocean is, or how indifferent, until you’re searching for somebody you’ve lost
The writing is excellent. Plenty of pacy dialogue, original metaphors and striking lines: “The name Una means ‘one and only’. For Yannick this name is a smoking bullet hole. A hot dead star.” “You don’t appreciate how big the ocean is, or how indifferent, until you’re searching for somebody you’ve lost.”
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But there are longueurs. Apart for the challenge of the 2,000-mile drive, which is enlivened with topographical description, conversation and memories, if not many encounters with other folk along the way, an enormous amount of time is devoted to a party. Every year Kathleen holds what she calls an “aware” party, to remind people that Una is still missing. More than 100 pages at the start of the novel are allotted to an account of the preparations and the event. The setting, the cast of friends and neighbours, the food – all are beautifully described but it palls, and the novel as a whole is in danger of being weighted down by concrete detail.
On the whole, though, it’s thoroughly enjoyable and readable – perfect for a long journey, though not in a pickup truck.
