The Best Laid Plans, by Terry Fallis

Writing a successful novel about Canadian politics seems about as unlikely as building a hovercraft — something likely to be an egotistical exercise in folly at best, a leaden, ungainly, and impractical beast at worst. And yet with The Best Laid Plans, Terry Fallis pulled it off (the novel, not the hovercraft, to the best of my knowledge).

It’s an interesting publishing story, now familiar to most. Publisherless, Fallis released a chapter-by-chapter podcast of his book, and it really caught on. Publishers had a closer look. And the book won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. It’s an unlikely fairtayle, much like the one in the book’s pages, which of course reads not like a traditional tale with valiant knights fighting to carry the day, but rather one in which our reluctant heroes see happily ever after as total disaster.

Here’s the story: Liberal speechwriter Daniel Addison wants to get out of politics, but the only way the party will let him make a clean break is if he does his party one final favour: finding a Liberal candidate to run in Tory stronghold Cumberland-Prescott. After a many false starts he finally strikes a deal with his neighbour/landlord Angus McLintock, a curmudgeonly physics professor, chess aficionado, and rigid grammarian, who says he will run in name only if Daniel teaches the bane of McLintock’s professional existence “English for Engineers.” It’s the best offer Daniel’s had (or is likely to get), so he accepts, and goes through the motions of a shoestring campaign designed to PREVENT his chosen candidate from being elected. I’ll spare you the plot spoilers, but it’s worth noting that for a book that’s a satire rather than a political thriller, the action moves briskly, with all the novel’s major elements coming together tidily for the finale. (My one criticism of the action is that the romance is a little too neat and bland, but it’s a minor element of the book as a whole.)

But it’s the satire that really shines in this book, as Fallis skewers politicians (both left- and right-wing) as self-serving, self-important, manipulative egomaniacs, concerned with party politics and achieving power first, and with the needs of the people second. We have politicians trained to blindly follow their leader rather than think for themselves and a parliament that runs more like a schoolyard than our highest level of government. Of course our two heroes, though endearing, are also taking advantage of the political system for their own ends — and it’s only when they start leading rather than following that we can see a glimmer of light on Parliament Hill.

The characters are far from mere tools to advance Fallis’s own satirical agenda though, and in Angus McLintock is the real star of this show. In public he’s an outspoken, irrepressible free-thinking man of principle, but we also get to see the softer side of Angus, with each chapter concluding with a letter to his late wife. And with the addition of elderly, Parkinson’s-stricken Muriel we have another intelligent, irrepressible spark plug, making a formidable duo of older characters.

Of course as the recipient of an award for humour, and it’s funny, though it’s sort of a wry, smirk-inducing humour than an LOL humour. It’s clever more than anything, and there is a bit of smugness to it’s elevated diction and witty repartee (and the frequent grammar lessons, while appropriate for the characters, do come off as a bit pedantic).

Clever satire with a dash of madcap humour, The Best Laid Plans is a worthy entry into this year’s competition.  This is the kind of book I might have avoided had it not been for Canada Reads, and I must say, civics class has never been so entertaining.