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Andre Alexis Childhood
Emblem Editions 0771006675 / 9780771006678 PAPERBACK Very Good
0771006675 From the Publisher nNow in paperback, the winner of the Chapters/Best First Novel in Canada Award and the corecipient (with Alice Munro) of Canada's prestigious Trillium Award. n nSet in the 1950s and '60s, this picaresque novel chronicles the childhood-or perhaps the loss of childhood-of Thomas MacMillan, a Canadian with ties to Trinidad, who pieces together, from memory and from related stories, the early years of his life. Raised in a small town near the U.S. border of Canada, Thomas is abandoned by his mother to the care of an eccentric grandmother. When he reaches the age of ten, his mother, Katarina, reclaims him and takes him to Ottawa, where they live in the Victorian home of Mr. Henry Wing, a magus-like figure whose love of science and the imagination becomes an important legacy for Thomas. But is he Thomas's father? This brilliantly crafted debut novel is a story about love, memory, and the potency of the past. n n nPublishers Weekly nThe love affair between a young black boy's wayward mother and a man who may or may not be his father forms the intriguing background to this enormously appealing first novel by Trinidadian-Canadian author Alexis (whose short-story collection, Despair, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize). I've been thinking about Love, you see, begins the first-person narrator, now in his early 40s, addressing his absent, unnamed inamorata shortly after the death of his mother, and theirs was the first and most puzzling romance I witnessed. Katarina MacMillan, only 17 when her son is born, promptly deposits Thomas in the care of her forbidding mother, Edna, in their small hometown of Petrolia, Ontario. Edna was past the age of easy tolerance, and she was cantankerous, Thomas observes. Also, she used to drink a lot of dandelion wine. Under her stern tutelage, Thomas grows up to be a book-loving, secretive boy. When his grandmother dies, the mother he knows only through legend suddenly arrives to claim him, and they are both soon abandoned roadside by Katarina's lover, the French-speaking Mr. Mataf. They must make a new life in Ottawa under the protection of a courtly dabbler in chemistry, Henry Wing, who initiates the boy into the secrets of alchemy. Thomas also learns about love and life by watching the games of power and romance that take place between Wing and his mother. Alexis often employs the apparatus of scientific research in order to convey Thomas's earnest searches for the truth; he breaks down memories into outlines, bulleted lists and footnotes, preferring the forms of proof to those of guesswork. The novel is an engagingly honest effort to order the stuff of a life, and it marks the maturation of an impressive new voice. Author tour. (Sept.) n nLibrary Journal nBefore producing this first novel, Alexis polished his skills by writing short stories as well as theater and radio pieces, and it shows. The tale of a young Canadian boy with roots in Trinidad, like Alexis himself, this is an exquisite novel that delivers lasting literary delight. (LJ 8/98) n nKirkus Reviews nA splendid debut by Canadian writer Alexis (Trinidadian-born): a wistful remembrance of growing up, posing as a love letter to the narrator's paramour. Thomas Macmillan begins by thinking about love, his longing for the recipient of this letter, and about affection itself, as witnessed in his parents Henry and Katarina, both recently dead. His daily itinerary consists of reading, writing, and thinking of the intended, and in the monotony of this routine, he recalls his childhood, far from idyllic yet told with such grace that the simplicity of it becomes a charm. Deserted by his mother (and biological father, always unknown to him), young Thomas goes to live with his cantankerous grandmother, an ex-school marm with a penchant for dandelion wine. The two share an uneasy alliance in a small Canadian city, living in a mutual agreement to stay out of each other's way. Thomas?s early years in the mid-'60s are filled with nature, comic books, and first loves?among them next-door neighbor Mrs. Schwartz, a childhood fri
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