Alligator

Every aspiring writer should read this book to learn how to create fascinating, believable characters. Splendid, unique voice. Full of perception. Highly recommended.

Newfoundland has a certain mild fascination, sitting there right in the center of things and yet remote and cimmerian. We look down on it sometimes, as we fly between London and New York and wonder what it's like down there. In Anne Proulx's "Shipping News" and in the Vinland sagas everything is a little weird, but Lisa Moore's "Alligator" makes it sound a fairly normal piece of North America. People live in condominiums or suburban houses rather than wooden shacks or earth huts. They eat radicchio and sleep on futons and have their tongues pierced just like everyone else. Most of the local color is in a movie that Madeleine, one of the characters is producing, set in the 1820's about an archbishop making sure that churches have the proper chalices and making soup for his mother. Madeleine is suffering from chest pains and her sister Beverly is suffering from a tree-hugging promiscuous alligator-loving daughter, Colleen.Newfoundland's not a great place for alligator watchers so Colleen runs off to Louisiana with money she steals from Frank. Frank has a one night stand with Colleen but it mostly worried about his hot dog stand and what to do with his mother's ashes (all the males are upset by losing mothers) and by trying to avoid the depredations of Valentin, the nasty Russian who is having an affair with Isabel, who is acting in Madeleine's movie. The story is told MPOV with separate chapters for each POV. There is some excellent writing, as in the quote in the New York Times review that led me to buy this. In fact it's amongst the best Newfoundland novels I've read so far this year.