Barbara L. Paterson

In the early 1960s, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth is living a hardscrabble existence on a Manitoba farm. She is the only girl among a passel of brothers. Her mother is almost perpetually pregnant, so Elizabeth has many domestic duties. After returning from the Second World War, George, Elizabeth’s taciturn father had left his hometown of Kingsford and brought his young English war bride and infant son to this land. Embittered by his wartime experiences and feeling he had failed to live up to others’ expectations of him, he believed moving to a new place, with new work as a farmer, would somehow redeem him. Saddled with several children and in serious debt, George now knows the farm he so hopefully named "Paradise Regained" is actually "Paradise Lost". The earth is poor, almost entirely clay, and unsuitable for crops. Farm animals frequently die. On finding a dead calf strangled in a rope, Elizabeth's brother, Jonathan, sardonically comments (in one of the better lines in the book): “Even the animals will do anything to get out of here.”

Given the tough circumstances, it is not surprising that Elizabeth leaps at the chance to escape the farm. Her ticket out of domestic drudgery is offered by her paternal grandmother, Henrietta Anderson--fondly known in Kingsford as "Andy". Having come into an inheritance, Andy sends her son enough money to pull him out of debt, and she offers to pay her granddaughter’s train fare to Kingsford, a four-hour journey away. The plan is for Elizabeth to live there with her grandmother for the next three years in order to attend the local Catholic high school and prepare for university.

Andy is widely regarded in Kingsford as a paragon of virtue and Christian charity. She tends the sick, babysits, and performs any odd jobs that will help members of the community. She seemingly knows everyone in town—and next to everything about them—but she always carefully steers conversation away from herself. However, Elizabeth quickly learns that Andy has a dark side. Her behaviour at home is weird and sometimes frightening. Andy has a ritual of checking all closets before bedtime, she refuses to close the door when she uses the bathroom, and she is compulsively frugal. (She will, for example, use a tea bag six times before disposing of it.) Voluble and cheerful at times, She is also prone to sudden, violent mood swings or “fits”. When these unprovoked "furies" seize her, she beats Elizabeth, while screaming about the girl's lack of gratitude or threatening to kill her.

Paterson's novel goes on to detail how Elizabeth deals with the very difficult situation she is in. Although she longs to return home to the farm, she knows she cannot. Her parents wouldn't even be able to afford the train ticket. Elizabeth has made no friends at school, and the 1960s school personnel are either oblivious to her bruises or willfully turn a blind eye to them. Just when the situation seems bleakest, however, an unusual friend, "Brain", comes into Elizabeth’s life. (Apparently everyone in this odd little town goes by a nickname.) Brain is a physically handicapped middle-aged librarian who gets around in a wheel chair. (Her husband “Crane”—no kidding--carries her up stairs.) With an intimate knowledge of people’s histories, Brain is able to explain to Elizabeth why her grandmother is the way she is. A story of childhood abandonment and abuse emerges. Brain provides the young girl with strategies for dealing with her grandmother, and she introduces Elizabeth to others whose stories are interwoven with Andy's. This includes a First Nations (Native) woman named Thelma, who was removed from her family in childhood and placed in one of Canada's shameful residential schools. Thelma implausibly becomes a live-in social worker, helping Andy adjust when an estranged family member re-enters her life.

As I read, I kept wondering what Elizabeth’s malignant memory consisted of. Was it connected to the shameful secret Elizabeth’s beloved literature and history teacher shared with her? As a young nun, Sister Margaret Rose had taught in the very Indian residential school that Thelma was forced to attend. But, no, apparently not. The conclusion of Paterson’s book focuses on an extremely bizarre secret about her friend, Brain. It also clears up more of the mystery surrounding Elizabeth’s grandmother’s (melodramatic) childhood and gives an overview of Elizabeth’s life after university. Only right at the end is the “malignant memory” revealed. Given all the melodrama that has preceded it, it is pretty anticlimactic.

Paterson apparently gathered and melded family stories with those she heard as a professional from First Nations people to create her novel. A personal memoir might have been the better vehicle for them. For a variety of reasons, Malignant Memory does not work as a novel. Short on incident and heavy on description, it often takes longer than it should to communicate ideas. The lengthy prologue is a case in point. It takes several pages to inform the reader that many people tell their secrets to Elizabeth (who will narrate the story), but that she herself has a secret--a "malignant memory"--that she needs to be free of. Many pages are also dedicated to enumerating Andy's idiosyncrasies and strange behaviours. The better approach would have been to show Andy in action and let readers draw their own inferences. (“Show. Don’t tell,” might be a writers’ cliché, but it is still a good piece of advice.)

A fair bit of the “action” in this novel happened in the past, before the story proper. Many scenes consist of one character telling another a story. There are also letters and diaries that tell backstories. This does not make for a very dynamic read. The events that do occur are often implausible (money and objects are “magically” and conveniently bequeathed at just the right moments) and the author does not resist the urge to moralize. Characters are often caricatures-- unrealistic and inadvertently comical. Melodrama runs high in this tale.

Successfully juggling all the elements that make a novel is challenging for any fiction writer, never mind a first-time novelist. The author’s difficulties with plot, pacing, and (often mawkish) characterization might be more easily overlooked if the writing itself--by this I mean the basic building blocks: words and sentences—were stronger. The biggest problem is insensitivity to the nuances of words. For the most part, the usage problems are just distracting, but sometimes there are unintended comic effects. A few examples (with my emphasis) will, I think, give you a sense of what I mean:

“Father spent several weeks discerning a name for the farm.” (p. 14)

"The muscles in her cheeks danced spasmodically as she attempted to control her tension." (p. 22)

“A photograph of my father as an infant adorned the wall behind the cot. I was fascinated by the abundance of blonde curls on his head in the photo. I wondered when his hair had decided to elude him [. . .] had the torment of war devastated his follicles causing his hair to abandon him forever?” (p. 24)

"She touched me only in cursory ways, to straighten my hair as she passed by me in the narrow hallway or to call my attention from a book I was reading." (p. 25)

"Gradually over time my [dead] grandfather assumed a real persona in my imagination." (p. 30)

"I struggled to make sense of the cornucopia of emotions I was feeling [. . .]. I was exhausted, hopeful, angry, puzzled, relieved, and overwhelmed with sadness." (p. 60)

“She had betrayed her friends in order to incur the staff’s favour.” (p. 134)

Problems with sentence structure, especially with misplaced modifiers and pronoun reference, are common. (“The boys’ job was to do farm chores once they were no longer toddlers.” p. 15; “It took painful effort for her to walk with her arthritic knees and hips from the house to the lake . . .” p. 128) The writing often sounds wooden and unnatural, sometimes because of a lack of sentence variety. Brain’s speaking style, for example, has an almost robotic quality: "'Please call me Brain. Everyone else does. They call me that because they think I am smart. I won some awards in high school. After that, I was Brain. This town loves to give people nicknames.' She laughed delightedly."

Writing a novel is no small thing, and I acknowledge the author’s efforts and obvious sincerity. However, I found reading Malignant Memory rather a struggle, and I cannot recommend the book. Barbara Paterson clearly has stories that she wishes to tell, and there is the kernel of a good story here. Having the guidance of a skilled editor or the feedback of a writers' group might help her achieve better results with any future writing projects.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this novel for review purposes.… (plus d'informations)