Matt Reade, the beleaguered protagonist of Felt by Mark Blagrave, is a man of late middle age faced with the distressing task of placing his 96-year-old mother in a care home.
Matt has taken a leave of absence from his job as a museum curator in Toronto and returned to Saint Andrews, the town in New Brunswick where he grew up, to check on his mother, Penelope. But Matt’s journey is also a convenient escape and something of an act of self-preservation. His marriage to Jennifer is in trouble because he had an affair, and the museum director is not sorry to see him leave after a decision Matt made resulted in damage to an artefact. Matt bolsters his case for taking leave by conjuring up a research project and with Jennifer’s encouragement, heads east.
In Saint Andrews, Matt finds his mother having good days and bad days: intermittently capable of fending for herself but also, with increasing frequency, confused and forgetful. In a short time, Matt realizes the outcome he feared is inevitable and steels himself for the task ahead. Thank goodness for 80-year-old Bernadette, Penelope’s best friend and right-hand support person (a phone call from Bernadette alerted Matt to his mother’s worsening condition).
From the moment of Matt’s arrival in New Brunswick, Blagrave’s novel centres on memory issues, the pleasures and comfort it brings, the tricks it can play. Matt, stimulated by hazy recollections of his early life and the town where he spent his childhood, begins sorting through his past and asking his mother questions. But with her Alzheimer’s progressing daily, Penelope is increasingly living in a different past, and occasionally her answers to Matt’s queries demonstrate a loosening grip on the present.
Adding a complicating factor for Matt’s and Penelope’s recollections is Thora, Matt’s grandmother and Penelope’s mother, dead fifty years ago but is still a vivid presence in both their minds. As Penelope recedes further into the uncertain realm of memory, the boundary between her past and Thora’s becomes blurred, until Matt is sometimes left wondering if the events she’s recalling are her own experience or that of her mother.
“Blagrave’s characters are sharply drawn, individualized and achingly flawed, and his richly nuanced prose brings the historic Saint Andrews setting alive on the page.”
Blagrave deftly intermingles three separate but connected narrative threads: Matt’s present-day story, the mess he’s made of his life in Toronto and the heart-rending situation with his mother; the story of Penelope’s struggle to maintain a grip on herself as dementia gains ground and her confusion grows; and the fraught tale of Thora’s precarious early years as a Norwegian immigrant in pre-WWI New Brunswick and her battle to assert and preserve her independence.
Blagrave’s characters are sharply drawn, individualized and achingly flawed, and his richly nuanced prose brings the historic Saint Andrews setting alive on the page. Felt tells a poignant tale of an all-too-common affliction that leaves its mark on everyone it touches. It is the story of imperfect characters regretting past decisions but trying to do the right thing when their options and their time are limited. In Felt, his third novel, written with restraint and leavened with occasional flashes of humour, Mark Blagrave weaves past and present together into a moving and memorable tapestry.
About the Author
Mark Blagrave was born and raised in Ontario but has lived in New Brunswick most of his life. His first novel, Silver Salts, was shortlisted for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Novel and his novel Lay Figures was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. He now lives in St. Andrews, New Brunswick.
About the Reviewer
Ian Colford was born, raised and educated in Halifax. His reviews and stories have appeared in many print and online publications. He is the author of two collections of short fiction and two novels and is the recipient of the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award for Evidence.
Book Details
Publisher : Cormorant Books (Aug. 6 2024)
Language : English
Paperback : 336 pages
ISBN-10 : 1770867562
ISBN-13 : 978-1770867567