Debut novel offers intriguing spark

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/07/2023 (1126 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

St. John’s, N.L. author Beth Ryan offers a lively and contemporary first novel that takes place entirely in her home city. Broken into 51 short chapters, If We Caught Fire features Edie, a confident young woman who graduated from university with a sociology degree and works for an animal hospital.

Ryan is a counselling therapist in St. John’s. She has published one previous book, a 2004 collection of short stories entitled What Is Invisible.

Edie frequents the downtown bars in St. John’s and has no special young man in her life, when along comes an exuberant fellow named Harlow.

Ryan flashes back from the present of the novel, 2016, to 2002, when Edie’s mom and dad, Daphne and Mike, split up because Mike has been regularly seeing another woman, Trina. The sequence of details that show Edie’s relationship with her dad, the birth of his and Trina’s son Max and Daphne’s new guy Garth does not flow as smoothly as it could have.

As a variety of people come and go, it is Edie’s mother Daphne who stands out as the most congenial three-dimensional character. She gets into online dating and, after assessing a few of the men who connect with her, she is about to give up when she meets Garth.

Soon, Daphne and Garth are agreeing to marriage and setting a date for the wedding, which will be in Daphne’s backyard. She quietly arranges for Garth’s son, Harlow, to come to the wedding (on Daphne’s airline points) all the way from Vancouver.

The night before the wedding, Edie takes Harlow out to a bar she frequents, and he loves it. (George Street in downtown St. John’s is famous for its bars.) Harlow ends up at Edie’s place, and that becomes the pattern over the next few weeks: drinks at a bar, ending up in or on a bed at her place. On some outings, Harlow gets a chance to play a guitar and sing for the bar patrons.

One night, they attend a carnival: “He just gets a charge out of the lights, the tinkling music, the constant movement, the colour, the flashing, the screaming, the smell of butter mixed with sugar, the hot dogs rolling on silver spindles. They roam from one concession to the next, Harlow trying a few games — all to make Edie laugh and join his nostalgic walk through the carnival world.”

How does Edie see Harlow? “There are two Harlows, Edie has learned in the weeks since they first met. There’s the one who ventures out into the world, crackling with intensity, and sparks instantly with everyone he meets. Alone with Edie, Harlow lets that guy take a break, like a performer relaxing backstage after a show. He retreats, relaxes, his face grows still… (M)aybe they are lying on a blanket under the stars, tracing constellations with their eyes and fingertips, Harlow’s voice low as he doles out snippets of his life.”

On a night when he encourages her to consume weed with him, he says, “I can’t be stoned or drunk every moment of the day. But I try.”

There are places where the novel seems to need editing — scene changes that call for clarity. A typographical error midway through the book becomes an unintentional irony: The sentence should begin with “Edie” but instead reads, “Edit sits up with a start.”

Edie has a house she shares with a gay fellow named Dylan, but he moves to another city and she advertises the vacancy, picking a Chinese medical student named Peter. Little is said about what kind of place it is.

Edie’s pleasant boss, Doctor Arman, encourages her to go further with her education, but she seems reluctant. Though she gets sick from weed, she seems able to handle herself in almost any situation. While intimacy with Harlow is suggested, author Ryan tells little about Edie’s feelings and actions in those situations. It would be good to know Edie better. Perhaps a sequel is planned.

It is just over 20 years since Winnipeg author Dave Williamson dropped into a bar or two on George Street in St. John’s.