cart
Recommended
Whitlock, Nathan. A Week of This: (A Novel in Seven Days). ECW, dist. by IPG. Apr. 2008. c.264p. ISBN 978-1-55022-815-1. $26.95. F
It takes only a week to discover the details of people's lives. Patrick and Amanda Mercer live in Dunbridge, a town outside of Toronto, and, as fall becomes winter, they face an increasingly stale future. Patrick owns a sports store in the mall that is taking much of his time, money, and energy, and Manda works for a call service that might move out of town. Manda's brother Ken is mentally slow with a scarred face, and her stepbrother Marcus is perennially out of work. Living in Patrick's father's house, Manda tries to hold her family together, but Ken seems unhappy with his residence, Marcus's romance with Kelly is falling apart, and Patrick is unwilling to face the failure of his business. Despite all this, Whitlock, winner of the inaugural Emerging Artist in Creative Writing Award, draws a sympathetic and occasionally humorous portrait of these people's lives. The overlaying of the blandness of the town, the grayness of the weather, and the gradual eroding of people's dreams lead not to the depressive work one would think but to an acceptance of the ongoing routine of life. In the end, there is a calm resolution suggesting that this is what life has dealt you; keep on going. Recommended.—Joshua Cohen, Mid-Hudson Lib. Syst., Poughkeepsie, NY
