The talented Mr. Bergen

After reading award-winning Manitoba writer David Bergen’s latest book, Days of Feasting and Rejoicing, you may want to research the difference between a sociopath and psychopath. The definitions won’t matter in terms of enjoying this enthralling and wickedly addictive novel, but the distinction between the personality disorders adds another layer to the themes Bergen explores.

Bergen’s prose is so smooth you might not see the spell it casts. It’s as if a dark magic propels the main character, Esther Maile, into the increasingly immoral acts she commits in taking over the identity of her friend Christine during a vacation in Thailand.

It’s not much of a spoiler to say murder is involved, which lands the novel into Patricia Highsmith territory, notably The Talented Mr. Ripley. The first third of Bergen’s book feels like a cover version of Highsmith’s novel, or at least an homage, but then something fascinating begins to happen.

The novel’s atmosphere brings to life the sounds, tastes and smells of Southeast Asia, where Bergen has spent considerable time doing volunteer work. The descriptions of food and drink are rich and evocative, and add to the authenticity of the prose — the book’s title gives an ironic nod to this focus toward feasting.

The citizens of Thailand are just as real, as are the dips into the human condition. As she observes her life and the lives of those around her, Esther’s jealousy and unstable mental state are hinted at.

“Rarely did Esther see anyone else who was alone like her. She thought that people didn’t know how to be alone, that they were afraid to face themselves,” Bergen writes. This revelation comes early in the short book, which clocks in at just over 200 pages (and doesn’t need one page more). It is at this point the story steers away from Ripley territory and becomes its own tale.

While Esther goes deeper into crimes that she cannot escape from, chief inspector Net Wantok enters the scene, attempting to decipher what has happened to Esther’s missing friend. Like the reader, Wantok seeks the truth, and what might motivate a person to commit murder.

Much more than the cat-and-mouse tropes of some detective novels, Wantok is dealing with his own complexities and faults. The inspector has a challenging home life, as his wife has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and he has become the main caregiver.

Further, Wantok blames himself for the disappearance of his daughter seven years earlier. The characters are so well-drawn that the solving of the crime and Esther’s fate is unpredictable — what happens to people who are this real?

Yet another theme is brought forth by the inspector as he muses on the differences between Buddhism and Christianity: “Once I asked (him) why there was so much killing in the Bible. This one hits that one over the head, another slaughters seven hundred, and God is pleased. All very strange.”

Passages like this point to the moral dilemma Esther faces, and moreover those she pulls into her downward spiral. Bergen is too good a novelist to make a didactic point, but rather poses the question of what drives someone to take another’s life.

If there is a drawback in the novel, it’s the reliance on dreams as a way of conveying themes and meaning. It does seem as if the main characters’ dreams are reported a few too many times. But this is a minor flaw, as the tone of sexuality pulls like an ocean undertow, scoring many scenes with palpable tension.

Bergen has created one of the most fascinating characters in fiction: the unreliable narrator. Esther goes from someone seemingly too unintelligent to understand what she has done to a deceitful, impulsive, aggressive person with a disregard for safety, who is irresponsible, and has a total lack of remorse — and there you have a common list of sociopathic traits.

Days of Feasting and Rejoicing echoes Alfred Hitchcock’s great work in film, in works such as Rope. It’s difficult to achieve the slow burn of Hitchcockian suspense with the written word; Bergen skilfully pulls it off with a flourish.

For many readers this should be the book of the (late) summer — but you may want to keep the lights on as you burn through the pages.

Winnipeg writer Craig Terlson’s crime novel Sayulita Sucker, the fourth in his Luke Fischer series, was released this spring.

David Bergen will launch Days of Feasting and Rejoicing on Monday, Sept. 22, at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location as part of Thin Air 2025; he’ll be joined in conversation by Joan Thomas.