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20 - Wednesday, March 7, 1990 - Narth Shore News

Lousy thriller first effort of new publishing house

e may as well get the bad news out of the wav

first: launching a new Canadian publishing com-

pany with as weak a vessel as Deadly Hlusions is
akin to initiating trans-Pacific passenger service with a

rowboat.

Here's the story.

It presumably takes place some
time in the early 1970s, or at any
rate Jess than a decade after the
Cuban missile crisis.

RCMP Insp. Tennison Boyd and
his close friend, an American se-
curity type named Grenville
Deluth, are on the scene in New
Orleans when the visiting Cana-
dian Prime Minister (a dead-ringer
for Trudeau from the description)
is assassinated,

Boyd and Detuth rush into a
building in pursuit of the snipers;
Deluth apparently kills the
assassins — or does he? Sutfering a
near-fatal head wound, the only
thing he’s sure of is that he wast
carrying a gun when he entered
the building.

We all know what that means,
boys and girls: yes, it’s conspiracy
time.

While author Gwyn Paul
Williams displays some skill with
the randier bits, no amount of sex
could save this fatally flawed first
novel.

The plot is facile and shopworn,
characters’ names are almost em-
barrassingly like those chosen by
Harlequin hacks, the choice of
period is baffling and the only lik-
able individual in the whole book
is a southern reporter with the
ludicrous moniker of Savannah
Smith.

It would be fruitless to speculate
why Williams and his wife, Can-
dace, chose to pin their hopes and
presumabiy many tens of thou-
sands of dollars on this inaugura!
title for their ambitiously named
publishing house, The Gilt-Edged
Dream Company.

For this unfortunate Ontario
couple, Deadly tlusions (280 pp.;
$12) may prove to have been
nothing more than a deadly delu-
sion.

Yet another Ontario author,
David Laing Dawson, deserves
nothing but raves for his first
novel. Last Rights (Macmillan of
Canada/Gage: 237 pp.; $19.95)
goes bravely where none has gone
before.

Too many people are dying at
the Shelburne Villa Retirement
Home for Henry Thornton’s liking.
Henry is more than a little miffed
by both the indifference of statf to
the escalating body count and the
fact that his may be the next
counted.

There is wry humor a-plenty in
Last Rights, but this is no glib
mystery that just happens to have
a 76-year-old protagonist thrown
in for novelty. No, Last Rights
unflinchingly bares some disturb-
ing truths about aging and socie-
ty’s treatment of the aged as dem-
onstrated by Henry's view of life in
the home.

““ a strange passivity settled
over you in this place, and you
figured it was just a matter of get-
ting older, but he knew it was
more than that. Something drained
your energy. Something in the
basement. A big sump hale. Suck-
ing your spirit away. Wake up,
wash, shave, pills, breaktast, rest,
bowel movement, stare out the
window, seeing nothing, wander-
ing through the shrubbery of your
memories, trimming a bush here
and transplanting one there, pills,
lunch, after-lunch nap, activity
time, pil time, visitor time, bath
time, pill time. bed Gime. One
thing missing, And that was the

thing that prevented dying, A
future. Change. Possibility.
Possibilities. That was what was
missing. Or maybe it was just tear
that made you crawl under the
sheets and wait,”

Dawson's characters ang true
and clear, achieving human
dimensions and depth as seniors in
literature seldom do. Perhaps the
fact that the author is a psychiatrist
helps, but there 1s compassion in
Last Rights, not condescension,
The characters themselves resent
the head-patting and indifference
that mark much treatment of the
aged, a resentment aptly express:
ed by Henry's ally, Dixie:

“More and more it seemed as
if she had been created nine
months apo. already old. process:
ed, packaged, ready for storane,

a
4

MIKE 2°
STEELE gw,

book review

and any dite she might have bad
before was lost, of belonged to
somebads else, ar was a story n0-
body bad the time to read. Nurses
ond aides treated her like she had
always been a doddery old
woman ina nueing home.”

Witty and adult with a bit of
muvstery thrown in for good
measure, Last Rights isn't just
promising as a fest navel — it
delivers

AN ALCOHOL AND DRUG FREE BEACH PARTY
FOR 500 NORTH SHORE GRADS.

So, too, does Stuart White's The
Shamrock Boy. a untty autopsy oF
Northern treland’s untalutled
death wish disguised as a novel

Dermot McGarvey ts the Man.
Ruthless, unstoppable, be faghts
and kills tor the Cause: a united
lreland. His reputation even chills
other members of the Provisional
IRA. Dermot McGarvey 1s 26 years
old.

But times are changing in
Ireland: attitudes are changing.
People are tired of unceasing
bloodshed, shattered tamultes and
economic crisis as the Man
discovers when he returns to his
old neighborhood and is attacked
by the widow of a former IRA
comrade, Donal.

“Donal was a bloody foal!
Never worked a bloady day in his

An all night event on April 7, 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.
This event is organized by the District School's
Counter Attack Committee.

* SWIMMING © VOLLEYBALL © MOVIES e
¢ 1040 KICKS POWER DANCE * VIDEO GAMES e
¢ CONTESTS © $900 IN PRIZES ¢
e FREE PIZZA, SOFT DRINKS, BREAKFAST ®

TICKETS
Available at all high schools

$8 til March 8

SPONSORED BY:

ICBC, WHITE SPOT, PEPSI,

NORTH SHORE CREDIT UNION, SUSSEX, DINOS

$10 after March 8

THE VOICE OF NOHTH AND WEST VANCOUVER

SUNDAY * WEONESDAY + FRIDAY

ite, and when he wasn't talking
about relind he was drinking to it
with ay nids’ tamily allowance...

“No... you're not the Man.
You're just another bloody
Shamrock Boy. And we're sick of
you, Ireland’s sick of you. Just
bloody Shamrock Boys ... playing
their patriotic games.

“Games, my lad, blowdy terri-
ble games. And no one wants to
play any more. We want peace,
we want jobs, and decent homes
to Ive in, and streets we can walk
down, and washing machines and
two weeks in the bloody sun.”

The Shamrock Boy (Bodley
ticad/Random House; 233 pp.:
$24.95 in hardcover) is a fast-
paced tale with a proper Irish end-
ing that should surprise most
readers,