FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| BOOKS The Healer Strange things happen in northern towns of Canada and the strangest have found their way into The Healer by Greg Hollingshead. Well acquainted with the shield/lake country, the Edmonton author brings an other-worldliness to lives lured by that wilderness. At times, following the lush narrative is like trampling through the underbrush itself, looking for a familiar marker. Life marks all people for good or ill. The world that produced a Clifford Olsen can also produce a Mother Teresa. Of such anomalies is The Healer. The central character, Caroline Toyer, practises the laying on of hands and cures a local man. A friend says, "Play your cards right and our little Two-shoes could be bigger than Jesus and the Beatles put together." But will she use her "gift" in a commercial fashion? Will she use it at all? A journalist who comes to cover her story is duped into overpaying for a wilderness property, which provides the setting for much of the action. The story of healer and journalist takes many twists and turns until we begin to wonder who is being made whole. Throughout the novel, every relevant detail is recorded in a manner that allows easy recognition. Ever confronted this vehicle? "There he climbed into the baking cab of a primer-grey Ford pickup, a smell of road dust, french fries, engine oil, the dashboard vinyl gaping dirty foam padding, an extensive crack system networking down the windshield like forked lightning." Hollingshead has the short story writer's sense of always-relevant detail and the novelist's sense of flow. This might explain why he produces quality in both forms. Alan Egerton Ball |