Review
THE HATBOX LETTERS
by Beth Powning
Knopf Canada, 368 pp.
How many novels are published each year that come across as yuppie backwash, with endless passages describing crocuses and gingerbread? How many of us live in finely refurbished prewar houses facing the sea? Not very many, I’d guess (although if you can afford the current cost of a hardcover book, maybe you do).
Beth Powning’s new novel The Hatbox Letters has all of these things, yet despite them is an enjoyable and accomplished novel. She’s conscious of the conventions that works of this genre adhere to, but it’s a testament to her skill as a writer that the story is absorbing, with language both expansive and rich.
The letters in question are the family history of Kate, a middle-aged woman dealing with the recent loss of her husband, a famous painter. Trying to maintain her household and part-time piano-teaching gig under such grief, she turns to the old family letters as a means of distraction. What she finds is another hidden story of grief – one which may help her through her own. Alongside her is an old family friend, Gregory, struggling with the recent loss of his son. He isn’t a foil to Kate’s character so much as a further personification of heavy grief. While some of us like to curl up on the couch and cry (Kate), there are others who drink lots of brandy and go kayaking (Gregory). I wouldn’t recommend the latter – and neither would Gregory.
Powning’s novel describes loss and sorrow as honestly as it can. Despite some thick and syrupy prose, there isn’t any meandering or moribund detail. Seriously. And while I still find it hard to believe that there are people out there like Kate and Gregory, I know there are, and perhaps they deserve a voice, too.
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