Time-travelling ‘novel in stories’ bemusing

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/12/2020 (2119 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What if an author could write a series of scenes from many stages of a character’s life, and change the circumstances of that character from chapter to chapter in any way she wants?

This is what Saskatoon’s Leona Theis has done in her new novel. The situations are chronological, with new ones taking place every five years from 1974 to 2014.

This format and premise require the reader to pay close attention, especially to main character Sylvie’s love life. The guy she’s going to marry in one chapter may be dead in another and bounce back in a third — but the hot-blooded Sylvie is never too far from her next romantic entanglement, and that’s one of the enjoyable traits of this unusual novel.

If it is a novel.

Author Theis jumps right into an enthralling scene with an opening paragraph that has Sylvie, age 19, answering a phone call from a guy named Erik while she works on decorations for her wedding to Jack. The first two chapters are superb — and Theis has already been rewarded for them; Chapter 1 was shortlisted for the CBC Literary Award and appeared in The Journey Prize Stories 26, while Chapter 2 won the prestigious American Short Fiction Contest.

So perhaps it is best to see this book as a collection of related short stories. (A subheading on the title page calls it “a novel in stories.” Hmm.)

One key to Theis’s intentions is what Sylvie says, in Chapter 2, to a cat that lives across the street from her: “Which of your nine lives are you in, kitty? Do you learn something every time, or do you get it wrong over and over?”

Later, when Sylvie is 24 and is winding down a shouting match with Jack, she says to him, “You know your biggest problem? You never think What if? about anything. Not your job, not your tooth decay, not your brand of beer. It’s like you can’t imagine how any of that could change.”

Most of the book takes place in Saskatchewan — the fictitious town of Ripley, or the city of Saskatoon — but there are forays into the Rocky Mountains and to Greece. Reference is made to some actual events such as the O. J. Simpson fiasco in 1994 and the preoccupation with Y2K in late 1999.

As a change of pace, Theis gets away from Sylvie’s point of view in a few chapters, offering episodes as seen by Sylvie’s sister Mavis, long-suffering Erik and one-time platonic pal Will. The lightheartedness and sophisticated comedy seem to disappear in these chapters and, where a novel should build to a high point, the narrative turns downright macabre.

But throughout, Theis is eloquent in her descriptions of Sylvie’s much-indulged sense of touch. For a while, Syl has a job mending books in the university library. In picking up one particular hardback, “she ran her fingers across the impressed lettering on the cover. This was one of the things she loved best about the world, the physical feel of objects, the changes in texture under her fingers.”

Sylvie is 59 and doing research in the Rockies when the final chapter returns to the lively exchanges of the early chapters, and the ending is perfectly Sylvie-like.

While Sylvie makes a variety of choices — of men, of occupations, of hobbies (even for a time stealing from stores) — her distinctly likable character shines through. Leona Theis’s “nine lives” experiment doesn’t quite succeed as a satisfying narrative, but Sylvie emerges as a lovable human being.

Dave Williamson is a Winnipeg author whose most recent two novels are called Dating and Visiting Fellow.