The Last Crossing

Young Englishman Simon Gaunt, religious zealot, has gone missing in the Old American West (specifically Canada). Dear old dad Henry, the overbearing so-and-so, sends older brother Addington and Simon's twin Charles in search. These folks put the `dis' in a dysfunctional family. Addington, a self-centered martinet, loves only himself and his pleasures and timid Charles, an aspiring artist, seems not to know what he wants. They hire Jerry Potts, a real-life Canadian frontiersman (Vanderhaeghe is Canadian) to help find Simon and meet up with a collection of society's castoffs and loose ends and form an odd posse. To some readers, calling this book Western literature might be a put off or a putdown - I happen to love Western writing (A.B. Guthrie and Larry McMurtry to name two) - so let's just call it literature set in the Old West. Vanderhaeghe is a tremendously talented writer. Highly recommended for fans of Western literature or just fine writing of any kind.

At the center of this epic, multi-voiced novel of the American and Canadian West is a lost Englishman and the motley crew that sets out across the prairie to find him. Acclaimed Canadian writer Vanderhaeghe uses this fairly ordinary plot device to tell a rousing, riveting tale of love, lawlessness and the vast cultural gaps that bind and divide. Simon Gaunt is the missing young man. Favorite son of a self-made British industrialist, Simon disappeared during an 1870 mission to bring Christ to the Indians. The reader knows Simon got lost in a blizzard and was discovered - and maybe rescued - by an Indian "holy being." Simon's family knows only that the leader of the missionary expedition has been found dead, near Fort Benton, on the Montana frontier. Henry Gaunt sends his two remaining sons, Addington, the militaristic one, and Charles, the artist, to America to find Simon. The cultural gulf between the Brits and their former colonials is instantaneous, wide and deep. "Until Addington attempted to requisition this room for his own use, I was disgusted by the state of it, the very room which the proprietor boasts is the finest the Overland Hotel has to offer," reflects Charles, Simon's fraternal twin. Haunted by memories of his gentle, otherworldly brother, Charles organizes the expedition, but waits impatiently on his older brother's leadership. Addington, loaded for bear (literally), has acquired a shady biographer in the tradition of all Western adventurers, and seems to look on the expedition as a rustic "Grand Tour," complete with a wagonload of claret and expensive brandy. Charles, chafing to leave, finds them a guide - Jerry Potts, a half-Indian, half-white woodsman, torn by his heart's allegiance to the two warring cultures he embodies. But on the eve of their departure a young girl is murdered, and as an indirect consequence, the party grows by three. The girl's sister, Kate Stoveall, left in Fort Benton while her no-account husband sells whiskey to the Indians, joins the party as a cook, seeking the thugs who murdered her sister. Custis Shaw, Civil War veteran, loner and Bible-reading enigma, rides out after Kate, the woman he loves. And saloonkeeper Aloysius Dooley, loyal friend to Custis, goes along to keep an eye on his friend. Vanderhaeghe ("The Englishman's Boy") moves seamlessly between viewpoints, going deep into his characters' psyches and memories, exploring their self-doubts, joys and demons, without, however, stinting on the action, of which there is plenty, both past and present. Often the challenging terrain often seems adventure enough: "Powdery clay steams into the air, cloaks men and beasts in a choking, sallow cloud. Everyone is too dry-mouthed to speak, the only sounds accompanying the advance are the faint music of jangling trace chains, the plangent protest of axles, the dull plod of hooves." And the ill-sorted companions begin to grate even more on each other. "Seeing Addington Gaunt prink and preen is a most

a top score. The author writes a 19th century novel the way it might have been written 150 years ago. In terms of scope, I think this novel closely resembles A.B. Guthrie's, The Big Sky, more than anything else. It takes time to tackle these Post Modern pieces and it takes a while to care about anyone in here but gradually the reader begins to understand the relationships. A lot of stuff goes unsaid which I think speaks well for any writer. We know that Aloysius is a devoted friend to Custis and we figure it out without being clubbed with it. The relationship between Jerry Potts and Custis also figures in this vein. I would like to have read more of Potts' story. My only criticism and it is mild is that Charles narrates a bit too long. If you want to read something ultimately satisfying in non traditional ways, this might be your ticket.

The good news is that Canadian writer Guy Vanderhaeghe has published six other books besides this one. This is important because once you finishedhis new novel "The Last Crossing" you will be scouring libraries, bookstores, and the internet for more. What a good writer! His 1996 novel "The Englishman's Boy" was also excellent, but his newest book reaches an even higher level. His use of multiple points of view is marvelous and the characters have a depth and appeal that adds excitement, pathos, and surprise to a really good plot.In the 1870's, a young Englishman named Simon Gaunt travels into Montana as a missionary and vanishes. His difficult, heartbroken father orders his two other sons to go to Ft. Benton and find him at all costs. Addington is a disgraced military man and Simon's twin Charles is a painter disappointed in himself for his own shallow nature. Charles is desperate to find Simon but Addington seems to look on the whole trip as one big outdoor adventure, showing up at the fort with a seedy, sycophantic "newspaperman" who plans to record Addington's feats in the wilderness for the penny press. They contract the Blackfoot/Scottish guide Jerry Potts to lead them, but by the time the Gaunts' wagons leave Ft. Benton, they have also collected a woman searching for her sister's killer and are trailed by the man who loves her, and who in turn is trailed by his best friend. The search for the missing missionary is in danger of being derailed by the quirks and passions of his search party. But Simon Gaunt remains the lodestar for this group, and only later do we find out why."The Last Crossing" is satisfying, readable, thoughtful, and thrilling. If you have not read Guy Vanderhaeghe before, he is a wonderful discovery.

Once in awhile, a book comes along that haunts its readers' thoughts for years. The Last Crossing is such a book. Set in the latter part of the 1800s, in the western U.S. and Canada, and in Victorian England, this is a tale of a a man lost in the wilderness, and those who seek to find him, including his very stiff British father, two very different brothers, a pair of star-crossed lovers, a quirky journalist, a saloon-keeper, and an Indian guide. They all suffer from painful pasts that taunt them into life-changing courses of action. Telling the story from their own points of view, the characters look back at their own lives. This drives each of them to live up to their sense of duty, to defend their own honor, and ultimately to act in one way or another because they either love, or can't love.Scenes of the early west tear at the heart--caravans, Indian villages, conflicts, battles, disease, death, tragedy, comic relief. And love, sometimes unrequited, and at a distance. There is one scene that will stay with me for years. In it, two lovers find each other, their desperate searches ending and beginning in an instant. The night air, the stars, the prairie wind and their hearts carry them to where they couldn't dream of going.The characters speak with undeniable truth to and about themselves. They narrate, but also wonder about their own personal honor and how they can love despite their pasts and the hard lessons that duty and love teach them.