A Certain Slant of Light, a novel – by Cynthia Thayer ©2000

 A Certain Slant of Light, a novel – by Cynthia Thayer ©2000

Although titles that are quotes from certain poems usually leave me more irritated than moved, this title caught my eye. I have always discerned a certain slant of light in northern climes – first noticed when I was stationed in England years ago and later when living in Maine and Nova Scotia, that pellucid flow of light caressed my brain imbuing a lyricism that overlaid my every experience there. Turning the book over and reading the Writing 101 vapid praise reviews on the back, almost put me off but luckily I read the inside jackets flaps – ‘now lives in Gouldsboro, Maine, raised in Nova Scotia’ – sounding good again, front flap – the protagonist plays the bagpipes. Then a perusal of the obligatory Acknowledgments spies ‘Steuben’ one of those incredible tiny communities that used to line the coast of Maine and more on bagpipers. Well because I am a sucker for New England, the Maritimes, and for Celtic music doesn’t imply that you will like this novel but I just finished this wonderful book and now cannot wait to share it with the world. (although when/if my wife reads this review I’m sure that I will review previous discussions when I have been so unwise as to use the phrases of the ilk – woman’s book!). But – this is a woman’s book that men can read with a will.

After the Acknowledgments there is a full page quote of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a Certain Slant of Light which I read both before and after reading the book. I know that at some time in my life I have read it before but undoubtedly with out much real understanding. But after the second reading, after the book itself, it is now burned forever in my mind. Read this poem carefully before you read the book – and even though I did not, I can now advise you to read it slowly, in depth.

Written from the perspective of old Peter MacQueen, a semi-hermit living in ordered sadness with his dog, and horse, and goat, whose life is changed abruptly and unwillingly when a pregnant woman wanders down his lane on a late winters morning after an icy storm. He is portrayed admirably well by Ms. Thayer; his bitter sweet emotions, his self realized half crazed idiosyncrasies, his basic goodness, so that even when she portrays him as less aggressive than a man might expect another man to be, he seems real, run over by life and advancing age. And the wandering eight month pregnant Elaine seems real. Any suspension of belief on the readers part of the opening sequence of events is soon over come by the stories rational progression that life follows from the most unlikely of actions in all our lives. The slow well written unfolding of the melding of Peter’s and Emily’s present lives completely captures your reading heart and mind and does so with attention to a way of life that has not yet faded completely from the American dream, a way of life often saved as much by modern rusticators moving in to old rural communities as by the local inhabitants themselves. Elaine’s husband, a Jehovah’s Witness member, provides taut tension and suspense in his desire to reunite with his wife. Elaine’s adherence to her religious beliefs in spite of her separation from her husband further the tension. Erythroblastosis Fetalis, a blood birth disease in some babies, also plays a major role. Along the way Ms. Thayer subtly weaves Peter’s past life, his lone existence, and the coming of Elaine into a whole greater than the sum of it’s parts.

The book ends as well as life can truthfully be portrayed. You will be left with love and sadness, joy and anger, and with the pleasure of living beyond your daily bounds.

Post- script: If bagpipes might give you a thrill if you hear them from a distance, but deep down you feel they are not really a musical instrument, this book has just the right leavening of detail to take you mildly into the pleasure of the un-flated melody, the intellect of the piobaireachd, the hominess of the tunes, the mechanics of the most devilish musical instrument ever created. and the lovely conceits of the chapter headings

With apologies for errors I might have made in spelling etc. NorvellHimself