Before I’d even gone beyond the cover of Leslie Vryenhoek’s We All Will Be Received [Breakwater Books] I received pings from the ether, scraps of — p’raps oddly — two songs that have been in the air, so to speak, for decades.
Firstly, Paul Simon’s “Graceland” from the album of the same name. Considering events I discovered in the novel, I s’pose it isn’t strange — albeit portentous — that Simon’s song would surface in my noggin.
In the song, Simon figures that — along with the son of his first marriage, and poor boys and pilgrims — he will all be received in Graceland. Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee — palatial home of The King, eh b’ys?
Inside Graceland’s swirly gates, all hands will reach a state of … well, grace — maybe?
Secondly — and here’s the oddly — Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released”, incidentally, a song the King of Graceland covered in an unedited version. (Check it out on YouTube)
The guy in Dylan’s song believes that release is imminent, that release will allow him to reach a state of grace.
You think?
B’ys, listen, here’s evidence that those echoes may have driven me right off the rails, leaving you with the impression that I ought to double-dose my medications and mingle with less-muddle-headed folks.
The light in Dylan’s song shines from the west down to the east, the opposite of quotidian light. Sunrise in the east, eh b’ys?
What location in the east might receive and offer release to … to … oh, I don’t know, the erstwhile wicked, p’raps?
Have a look at Dawn, (I won’t even mention her name’s appropriateness — dawn, sunrise, new light, stuff like that.) the novel’s main character. She’s in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, tossing and turning, unable to sleep when this thought comes to mind: “If this place, if Corner Brook, Newfoundland, was east of Eden — and why not? — then it was where she’d been cast and where she was meant to be.”
Let’s take a break and return to this scribbling the once.
Okay, I’ve been to the mail and double-dosed. Here we go again.
In 1977, the year the King of Graceland died, upalong Dawn — then Rosie Benson — skipped out on her drug-dealing, possibly murderous, boyfriend, leaving him asleep in a ratty motel room. Dawn sneaked out along with a duffel bag stogged with money.
She grabbed the money and skedaddled … east … eventually to Corner Brook where she lived and worked at the Blue Iris Inn for years.
Time, as it is wont to do, passed.
Half a lifetime after arriving in Newfoundland, Dawn chucked it all in at the Blue Iris and, along with Jerry her self-appointed friend, headed north up the Northern Peninsula to the environs of
St. Anthony. There she buys a run-down inn — The Tumble Inn — restores it and renames it — get this — Graceland.
Aha.
Of course, there are other important characters hoping to be released/received in this novel.
Ethan Turnowski, for example, a man who hopes to be released from haunting childhood trauma, trauma that he fears defines him.
Spenser Menard, an ex-con, “the poster boy for People Can Change” who has spent the years since his release [!] from prison working with Redempt-Ed, a national rehabilitation organization.
Cheryl and her teenage daughter Jenna, both fleeing — thanks to the wonders of social media — unsavory internet exposure.
And the aforementioned Jerry, who has helped Dawn since he welcomed her aboard his semi and brought her east to Newfoundland in ’77.
And guess what.
The Sisters Fate have been at the looms since the shuff off, especially Clotho, who holds the threads and weaves the tapestry of human destiny. Symbolically, I s’pose, the warp and weft of Clotho’s tapestry, is manifested in the interconnected web of telephone wires, satellite signals and other communications of that ilk that link us and pull (guide?) us forward … or something.
Kind of like intersecting ley lines, I s’pose.
And guess what else.
The characters in play are all being drawn towards Dawn’s northern Graceland.
Are they well received? Or released from their torments? Or disappointed in Nod, the land east of Eden?
Guess what. I’m not saying.
I will say there is a mighty conflagration in this story, but, even I wouldn’t be as lame as to suggest it’s hell’s flames, or purifying fire.
Almost the last word — this is a superlative novel, the best book I’ve read near autumn’s end and imminent winter.
Last word — Vryenhoek mention’s a wee northern flower, Long’s braya, an “at risk” species that grows only in northern Newfoundland. So, if you’re ever stomping around up there in your clodhoppers, mind out you don’t squash a bunch.
Thank you for reading.
Harold Walters lives in Dunville, Newfoundland, doing his damnedest to live Happily Ever After. Reach him at [email protected]
