The Crane, by Monica Kidd

Tolstoy allegedly said (or perhaps didn’t say; it’s unclear) that there are only two stories: a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.

Of course, those are actually the same story. If a man (or a woman, which apparently didn’t occur to Tolstoy) goes on a journey, then wherever he goes, he arrives as the stranger in town. So maybe there’s only one story.

All of which is to say that Monica Kidd’s beautiful new novel starts with a stranger arriving in town. It’s 1969, and a young American man named James is arriving by train in St. John’s, Newfoundland, a city where he knows nobody and nothing awaits him. Also, he’s broken his glasses, meaning that he arrives in town with a level of vulnerability that I found immediately relatable.

If you’re at all versed in North American 20th century history, you might already (even without the back cover blurb) have a good guess as to why a young American might be arriving alone in a Canadian city in 1969. And yes, James is what was called then a “draft dodger” — escaping the US to avoid being drafted into the military and sent to Vietnam. There’s a backstory behind why he chooses such a remote corner of Canada to retreat to, and as that story unfolds in flashback scenes we learn more about why this particular man is on this particular journey.

James is a quietly engaging character, with a very low-key, self-deprecating sense of humour and a lot of regrets about how things have already unfolded in his short life. He’s carrying a tremendous amount of grief, and the quest that brings him to Newfoundland is a way of trying to bring some closure to the biggest loss of his life. When he goes on yet another journey — travelling from St. John’s to a small outport — he discovers that closure is not as straightforward as it seems.

I said James is a “quietly engaging” character, and “quiet” is the adjective that comes to mind most often as I think back on this book. I mean that in a good way. Sometimes people say a book is “quiet” in a way that implies it’s not vivid or interesting, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Both the author and the main character have a kind of control in this story that keeps the reader’s focus on this single story unfolding against the background of much bigger events. James’s home country is torn apart by the Vietnam War and the anti-war protests, both on a national level and on the very personal level of James’s family. In the place he chooses to escape to, Newfoundland, the war seems very far away — but twenty years after Confederation, Newfoundland is going through its own changes, the old way of life falling away in ways that are not always easy or welcome.

Yet against these huge societal tides, we travel along with James on this small and specific journey: into the heart of loss and the task of finding a path through it. James’s travels bring him from one community dealing with loss to another, on the other side of the continent. If James finds the catharsis and healing in Newfoundland that he couldn’t find at home, that’s not to say that Newfoundland is a better or more mentally healthy place than Wyoming, but rather that sometimes, a person just has to go on a journey.

I loved reading this book. I’ve also rarely read a book where I’ve wished more at the end that there was a time-jump forward epilogue — I had clear ideas about where I wanted to see James and some of the other characters end up in a few years — but on reflection I was OK with the author leaving that denouement to my imagination.

This is a beautiful, quiet, thoughtful story about loss, leaving, and finding yourself somewhere far from home.