The Sentimentalists (2009)

"Overall, I would have to say that it had come as a disappointment to live within the particularities of a life; to find that the simple arithmetic of things... was not so simple. That it was not, in fact, combination alone that increased the territory of living in the world. And that love did not, of its own accord, increase with time."

In The Sentimentalists a daughter struggles to bridge the gap between herself and the father was has been absent for much of her life. It is not a story of simmering resentment, however, but one of a loving, if strained, relationship between a parent and child. The daughter has recently had her heart broken and retreats to the home where she, her sister, and their father, Napoleon, spent many summers and where her father now lives in the company of Henry, the father of Napoleon's friend Owen, who died while the two were serving in Vietnam. Napoleon's experiences in Vietnam, of which he has always been reluctant to speak, fascinate his daughter, who believes that they might help illuminate the issues that have been plaguing him ever since.

In telling the story Skibsrud jumps back and forth in time w much of it taking place in the novel's present day, during the narrator's time with her father and Henry. The present day sections are bittersweet, as the relationship between father and daughter has come to a comfortable, loving place despite some difficulties in the past, but Napoleon has been diagnosed with cancer and quickly deteriorates. A large section of the story concerns Napoleon's memories of Vietnam, which are somewhat vague, and the novel ends with a transcript of Napoleon's participation in a military trial, which illuminates some of the more obscure parts of his memory but also demonstrates that there's a bit of inconsistency between what he remembered immediately after the fact and what he remembers from a distance of a few decades.

The Sentimentalists ends on a very strong note, with Skibsrud focusing on the way that time can color and alter memories. The beginning of the novel is not quite as strong as the story takes quite a while to really pick up steam. Personally, I found that I wasn't really engaged with the story until nearly half-way through and though I ultimately thought it was fairly good, I was somewhat disappointed by it. Obviously the fact that the novel won last year's Giller prize means that there are people who a very enthusiastic about it but it didn't particularly speak to me.

The Flying Troutmans (2008)

"Yeah, so things have fallen apart."

With its first sentence The Flying Troutmans announces itself as a brilliantly comic work of weariness. It is told through the eyes of Hattie Troutman, brought back to Canada from Paris when the mental health of her older sister, Min, takes a turn for the worse and Min's kids, Logan and Thebes, ask for her help. Min, who has a history of suicide attempts and depression, is promptly checked into a hospital while Hattie sets off with the kids on a roadtrip to the States in search of their father, who was run off by Min when Thebes was still an infant. The trio have several minor adventures along the way and, of course, Hattie comes to terms with her own past with Min and discovers her capacity to pick up the slack her sister has left behind.

Author Miriam Toews tells the story with a lot of humor. Hattie doesn't always know the right thing to do or how best to interact with her niece and nephew, not to mention how to balance her own problems (the boyfriend she left behind in Paris, who was supposed to be going to India to find himself but actually just told her that so that she wouldn't feel compelled to stay) against the more pressing problems of her family. The kids have developed strategies for coping with their mother's problems as best they can, but there's only so much they can do as their world collapses around them. Logan is an understandably angry and often withdrawn kid, though not without feeling, and Thebes is an eccentric with an aversion to bathing. Hattie does the best she can for them but is often a bit out of her depth and her self-deprecating view of the situation helps keep the simmering tensions from overpowering the characters and the story itself.

Toews has a great handle on the characters and the story and does it with such ease that it appears effortless. Though the tone is largely light and humorous, she doesn't let characterization suffer. The characters of The Flying Troutmans are fully fleshed out, the depths of their selves and relationships explored with great care and sensitivity. The Flying Troutmans won 2008's Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and is certainly very deserving of such recognition.