Good to a Fault, by Marina Endicott

A confession: I thought Good to a Fault was going to be a literary slog — something akin to stomping through knee-deep snow. Bleak and exhausting, with a risk of losing sensation in the extremities. It had a lot of strikes against it: sad, middle-aged woman, extended moral dilemmas, cloying domesticity, even the prairies for crying out loud (I’m so sorry prairie dwellers). It looked suspiciously good for you, like you could get your recommended fibre intake just reading it.

Basic premise? Clara Purdy gets in a car accident with a the Gage family, who were living out of their now-demolished car. It’s likely Clara’s fault, and she takes them to the hospital to ensure they’re okay. While in the hospital it’s discovered the mother, Lorraine, has late-stage cancer, and Clara agrees to look after her three children and their venomous crone of a grandmother while Lorraine gets treatment.

That description still wouldn’t make me want to read it. But I was wrong about Good to a Fault. It wasn’t a slog. Despite the fact that this tragic, hollow female protagonist is my worst nightmare, I was surprisingly empathetic. And despite the fact that nothing major happens after the first couple chapters, I wanted to keep reading. This is in large part due to Endicott’s deft characterization, her ability to make us not only see Clara’s sadness, but to feel it by sharing her constant guilt and self-doubt, her aimlessness, her emptiness of her mausoleum of a home, her outdated work apparel and her utterly deadened emotions. And then to see her find a purpose, to witness her struggle and delight in the tiniest domestic details, to rebuild her life on shifting sands, to see her transformed from a too-young spinster to someone loving and loved, is shockingly moving. She is no longer Clara, but Clary. The whole thing felt like the cake that Clary made for Paul’s Christmas party — so fragile, so carefully constructed, holding so much promise of goodness — that you just knew in the pit of your stomach that it was destined for disaster.

Because of course, this transformation is built on a stolen life, it requires the death of an innocent woman for it to become permanent. And each person caught up in the situation is torn apart by guilt, each happy moment coming at a heavy price. The children are afraid to be happy. Lorraine is afraid of the tremendous debt she owes Clara, and even more that she is being replaced. And Clara is afraid to lose the children, the new life she has built for herself, but knows that no good person could ask for such a thing. But Endicott pushes beyond this dilemma, and about 3/4 of the way through changes the rules in one of the most chilling exchanges I’ve ever read. (Hear Civilians Read panelist Sarah Labrie read it here.) SPOILER ALERT! Lorraine will live. Although she has no money, and no real prospects, and a spineless and unreliable husband, the children are hers, she loves them, and they must be returned. Now this is the point that sold the book for me. Not any debate about the nature of goodness, but rather how our reactions to this shocking turn of events force us to face our own deep-rooted prejudice that we may not have even known, or been willing to admit, existed.

Endicott’s chief accomplishment is in characterization, and even more so, her penetrating insight into interpersonal relationships and human frailties.  For while Clara is our protagonist, we also experience the point of view of several other characters, some more engaging than others (I never really warmed to the bland, poetry-spouting Reverend Paul despite substantial passages in his point-of-view, though I was fascinated by the utterly vile Mrs. Pell’s few moments as narrator). But it’s the very complex, often incredibly subtle push and pull between these characters that is fascinating, and unerringly accurate, if unsettling.

Good to a Fault is still a considerable undertaking to read, and probably not for everyone,  but it thrums with surprising vigor beneath quiet domesticity, and much like its characters, hides much beneath its outward appearance of civility. And though I hate to say it, I think it even was good for me, even if in this case, that meant questioning my own goodness.

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And here it is, the last pitch for my Canada Reads series. Thanks to everyone who tuned in and offered their support. Who knows, I might just get back in the saddle and bring some KIRBC flair to my recommended picks in the future, so stay tuned . . .

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More for Canada Reads keeners:

Marina Endicott on writing and public readings

The book’s designer on coming up with both covers (Particularly interesting to me because I really disliked the austere, washed-out, minimalist look of the first one, though having read the book I appreciate it much more now)

Reviews: Quill & Quire, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star,  Bookslut, Inklings, Something Lemon, Mel’s Reads and Reviews

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