The Carnivore
The Carnivore is a historical novel of disaster and betrayal, set in the Toronto of both 1954 and 2004.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Hazel, a young cop, Ray Townes, emerges as a hero. There are numerous accounts of his bravery, of the way he battled all night to save those who were trapped in houses swept away by the raging Humber River. His story is featured prominently in the newspapers, thrusting him into the spotlight as a local celebrity.
His wife performs her own small miracles that night. Mary is a nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital and she treats many of the survivors. The emergency room is overrun; the hallways are slick with river mud: of course, her feats go almost unnoticed. But among the victims she treats there is a woman, disoriented and near death, who reveals mad-seeming details of her ordeal — details that lead Mary to doubt her husband’s heroism.
The officer and the nurse (with a new house, new friends, and plans for a family) try to normalize their life together in a shell-shocked city, but Mary also searches for the truth about her husband. Is he simply the tired hero who stares out at her from the cover of the Globe and Mail, or is it a much darker figure who sits across the table from her at breakfast?
Definitive answers are elusive . . . Fifty years later, when a reporter comes knocking, wanting to revisit that violent night, the missing details finally surface — and threaten to destroy them.
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Watch a video about Mark Sinnett and The Carnivore prepared for the City of Toronto Book Award:
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Journey back to Hurricane Hazel-ravaged Toronto with passages from The Carnivore and archival photos of the period and the hurricane's destruction. Click on a location to view it in more detail:
View Eye of the Storm: Mark Sinnett's Literary Tour of 1954 Toronto in a larger map
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I have been fortunate to read some really great books over the last couple of months and this novel joins the ranks as one of them. Mark Sinnett is a top notch literary writer and the characters that he has built in this exploration of truth and responsibility within a marriage, were endlessly fascinating and complex. I couldn’t rush through this novel as the nuances and the flavor of the story were ones that had to be savored. Watching Ray and Mary walk the line and navigate ambiguous moral situations and negotiate the terms of their marriage with one another was thoroughly absorbing.
One of the recurring themes that has been featured in a lot of my reading lately been what responsibility we bear when our action or inaction affects the lives of other people. Events of the storm sets Ray on a path that changes the course of his marriage, and as he lays dying many years later, in the stifling environment of which he himself was the chief architect, I wanted him and Mary to be able to bridge the gap that he he created and that she fueled with her reluctance. However as the story travels toward Ray’s imminent demise, and all the secrets that have been festering are laid bare, it’s hard to see anyone with clean hands and even harder to imagine whether a path to forgiveness can be found. Highly recommended.
Told from the viewpoints of a man and a woman in a troubled marriage, The Carnivore by Mark Sinnett is nothing short of torrential. Ray, a retired policeman, and Mary, a retired nurse, are an older couple reflecting separately on their life together. Ray is dying of emphysema and is trying to relive the heroics of his past through the appearance of a Toronto reporter, who is eager to revisit the events of Hurricane Hazel for the upcoming 50th Anniversary of the disaster. Ray is a hero in the eyes of Torontonians for his actions during the Hurricane in 1954, and is enjoying his last chance at glory. However, he conceals from the reporter the deeper, more shameful story relating to his marriage, his mistress, and the unfortunate collision of the two resulting from Hazel’s arrival in their lives.
Ray and Mary each reflect on the events leading up to, and resulting from, Hazel’s wake and how it left their marriage forever strained. Mary, a devoted and virtuous wife, shows that obligation to beliefs and forgiveness won’t always make things easier and happier in the end. Ray, a man weakened by desire and manipulated by addiction, shows that guilt, regret, and responsibility, aren’t enough to curb you from hurting those you love. Ray never denies his own self-interest and his greed for life, but he also never apologizes for it, even in his final moments.
Suffocation and drowning are recurring themes in the book. They come up repeatedly, especially with the obvious water related deaths due to the Hurricane and also with Ray’s inability to breathe due to his emphysema. But there are also less obvious occurrences of these themes. Most notably, the idea of how both Ray and Mary feel they are suffocating in their marriage to one another.
The story flips from past to present and offers shocking and ironic twists along the way. Sinnett leaves you guessing about the sordid details of the story until the very end. He also successfully paints a detailed portrait of 1954 Toronto for those who may not have been around to see it. The incorporation of the landmarks and events of that time into the novel make the fictional part of the story that much more real.
This story is about human nature and Mother Nature, and the disasters that both can produce, leaving tragedy in their wake. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a realistic look at the sacrifices you should, and shouldn’t, make for a partner, and the importance of being honest with oneself. A good drama and a fantastic first read of this author. I look forward to reading his other work.
In the fall of 1954 Hurricane Hazel hit Toronto with such a force that killed 81 people and injuring many more.
Ray and Mary Townes who were recently married have that typical Canadian life – he being a police officer and Mary a nurse that anyone would want to have and see from the outside as one that is destined to succeed. Ray is not only young but being hailed as a hero on that fateful night that the hurricane hit, he has a lot to live up to. Mary, a young nurse working at St. Joseph’s has that persona of a Florence Nightingale working the night shift in her own way.
50 years later, Ray is on his deathbed from emphysema just by chance reading the paper one morning Ray has made the papers once again; with the same picture that had haunted him then as it does now. Mary is still irked to this day about their life so long ago, just waiting patiently until Ray breathes his last breath; what she thought they once had as you will see is a total fabrication, or at least it is in her eyes and she will have nothing of it. She also knows more than she is letting onto; Ray, who is telling the whole story throughout this work of fiction that had me engrossed to the point of stalking the characters in a way that you are allowed to when reading a book.
The story itself jumps from present-day to those fateful days when Hurricane Hazel hit, with all of the force it intended. Ray seems to think that coming clean after all of these years will absolve him of the things that he hadn’t had the guts to reveal to his loving wife Mary. He fully intended to, but when things got right down to it, he chickened out.
Mary finding the notebook in-between his bed wasn’t exactly the cleverest place to hide his journal for anyone not to find it, but when Mary goes back, she can’t find it with all of the secrets her husband kept from her.
Like I had stated earlier, I was literally stalking this novel – it didn’t matter if I was reading it, or it was sitting on my table eyeing me from where it sat, the story along with all of the characters were on my mind like a woman possessed wanting to know if Ray and Mary would reconcile before Ray took his last breath, or would the animosity of all the heartbreak and sadness of things already done would still fester like a wound would that hasn’t been tended to.
I wasn’t disappointed in the least.
The novel, The Carnivore by Mark Sinnett, was a bit of a surprise. The old saying don't judge a book by its cover certainly rang true for this book. The title almost turned me off reading it, as I don't care for books the likes of what you might conjure in your head with a title like that. I also found the write up on the back of the book did not ring true.
The author chooses to go back and forth between the two characters, Ray and Mary Townes, and their individual perspectives of what happened on and around the night of a horrific flood and ultimately to their marriage as a whole. I found this to be a good way of presenting each side of the story. Sinnett succeeds in my opinion, in making the reader sympathise with both characters in their plights and understandings of the situation before them.
The novel is a fast read and I will keep my eyes open for another of Mark Sinnett's novels.
Mark Sinnett has written an amazingly good book in "The Carnivore". Set in 1954 Toronto, Hurricane Hazel is wreaking havoc, Ray Townes, a policeman, is having an affair. Mary, his long suffering wife is doing her best to hold things together.
When Ray is proclaimed a hero and is featured in the newspapers, but Mary has her doubts. Yes, Ray did warn people and possibly even saved a few, but he also committed a terrible act against another human being.
50 years later, when a reporter comes to their home to write another story about the hurricane, and its heroes, everything is churned up once more. Ray is ill, Mary is tired, and as the stories unfold to the reporter, memories are brought to the forefront, and feelings and actions of that awful night are nearly too much to bear.
Will they be able to get through this terrible time? Will the dredged up memories end a marriage, hanging on by a thread? Will Rays evil deed become known? Will the truth set them free or will it ruin them?
So many questions, but all is answered in the end. The exploration of a disaster and a marriage, is so well written, I felt like a fly on their wall, eavesdropping. This book was wonderful!
I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoyed every little bit of it, I have you bookmarked to check out all the new stuff you post.
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Steph, thanks for your incredibly thoughtful and glowing review. I can’t wait for book club to begin. Hopefully others will be inspired by your high praise to join in as well! voyage au japon
The Carnivores 2 sequel gives slightly better graphics, a new format, more dinosaurs and weapons, brand new maps, and an improved AI. Carnivores Ice Age offers a whole new take on the series with animals from the Ice Age and levels to fit the theme. autorepondeur
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The Carnivore is set in 1950’s Toronto around the time of two historical events; Marilyn Bell staggers to the Lakeshore amid cheers and celebration, pulling the city together. Hurricane Hazel unleashes a wall of water, rending lives and landscape without discrimination. Against that backdrop, Mary and Ray Townes limp along in a marriage that is well intentioned but seriously flawed. Consistent with the watery theme, there are plenty of tears in this story, much of them simmering over anger and regret.
The story is told as a recollection and takes alternating points of view. There is a back and forth, to and fro sensation, much like being tossed in giant waves while swimming across a great lake or being washed away in a stormy flood. Given that the story is really about the rocky marriage of Ray and Mary, it’s appropriate that each has a voice and Sinnett writes convincingly from both points of view.
Not only is setting well done in this book, but the placement in time is effective as well. There is a distinct feel between the story as it happened in the 1950’s and the scenes that are in the present, again rocking the reader back and forth.
Characters are well defined both in the past and present, revealing a beguiling plot that begins with steamy promiscuity and surprises right up to the end. I found the extensive use of parentheses in the narration distracting and unnecessary, but in spite of this, the characters and story worked well together and I read on.
Don’t let the title sidetrack you. “The Carnivore” suggests an aggressive meat eater, and throughout the chapters, I looked for someone, something, anything to fit that profile. It wasn’t until almost the end that I found a weak connection. There is so much more about this story that could have made the cover; issues of trust and betrayal, the burden of heroism.
The dust jacket itself does a much better job at suggesting the story within. Glossy raindrops spatter the black and white photo of people holding their hats and running through traffic. You know by looking at it, by touching the cover that there is going to be an awful storm. Even when I finished the book and as I write this review I can’t help running my hand over it and tilting it in the light to make out the shadowy figures and the visual trick that something has been splashed on it.
I enjoyed this story, the characters and the watery theme that joins them all together. This is my first Mark Sinnett book and I look forward to reading more of his work.