May 2018 selection for the Hawthorne Book Club. A novel of Newfoundland and WWII.
The Wreckage by Michael Crummey is a novel of Newfoundland and
World War II. It opens in the Pacific, with a Japanese soldier with a Canadian
connection promoted to work in a POW camp.
The main plot line involves a young
couple, Wish and Sadie, who meet and are attracted to each other in an island outport.
Religious prejudice is one of the problems keeping them apart. Wish, thinking
he has killed Sadie’s brother Hardy, runs away to Halifax and enlists. Gets to
Singapore. Is captured and sent to the POW camp where the Canadian-Japanese
guard tortures him and his friends.
In the meantime, Sadie escapes the island
and moves to St. John’s, looking for and then waiting for Wish. With nothing
heard in over three years, she gives in to her American suitor and, pregnant,
moves with him to the States where they marry and raise a family. Fifty years
later Sadie returns to St. John’s with Johnny’s ashes and she and Wish
re-connect.
We had an interesting discussion centering around: writer
bio; writing style where emotions are concerned; character motivation; links
between settings in space and time and between the stories of various
characters (use of post-modern writing techniques); and the issue of “sadistic
arousal” which is crucial to Wish’s self-image and decisions. Readers agreed
that they would read more Michael Crummey.
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