The Crazy Man

Just finished reading The Crazy Man by Pamela Porter. Fabulous!

Set in a small Canadian prairie town in 1965, it is the story of 11 year old Emaline. Unlike many young adult novels, this is neither a series of madcap adventures, nor a display of interminable self-pitying retrospection. Although the events in Emaline's twelfth year are unusual and original, never does it dip into contrivance or pretention.

The story begins in an intensely depressing manner. Emaline is a passenger on her father's tractor when she suddenly jumps off to save her beloved dog, Prince, from running beneath the blades of the discer they are towing. Fortunately, Prince is saved. Unfortunately, Emaline lands in front of the blades, and sustains serious injury to her leg. Her father is overwhelmed with guilt, and, once Emaline is safely recovering in hospital, he promptly shoots Prince and walks off the farm, leaving Emaline and her mother to figure out how to seed their fields when neither of them knows how to drive a tractor.

Emaline's mother decides her only option is to hire a patient from the "mental hospital" outside of town to do the farmwork. Hence the titled "crazy man".

Please don't let the shocking beginning of this book prevent you from picking it up. The story is a beautiful one, a poetic one, magnified by the verse style in which it is written.

"With tears in your eyes
everything looks different.
Like a watercolor painting.
the trees look prettier. All that winterkill,
the dead branches that spring storms
nipped in the bud,
smear together with the green."

To be honest, I thought the verse style would annoy me, but it didn't at all. It enhanced the story immensely.

If you get the chance, please read Pamela Porter's The Crazy Man.