Good Samaritans, bad Samaritans
Inside Outside
by Faye Arcand
Okanagan Falls: Blue Robin Books, 2024
$19.99 / 9781069029508
Reviewed by Jessica Poon
*
I have a soft spot for unexpected intergenerational friendships. In Mad Men, for instance, Betty Draper bonds with a nine-year-old named Glen, who interrupts her in the bathroom and asks her for some of her hair. Bereft of trustworthy adult confidantes, Betty finds his request inappropriate. Nevertheless, she obliges. A peculiar friendship ensues. Later, she confides in Glen that she is sad. Totally normal stuff.
In Okanagan Falls author Faye Arcand’s debut novel, Inside Outside, we first meet Leslie, a romance author, in a grocery store. Leslie strategically shops at night, for performative lettuce purchases and to avoid potentially judgemental glances. Unfortunately, she sees her ex-husband, who is already remarried and with a baby—extra salt in the wound, given Leslie’s prolonged fertility troubles, which she believes led to her husband’s infidelity.
Before you can say ‘anxious preoccupied attachment,’ Leslie does have one friend, Max, who is, usefully, a lawyer. Apart from Max, she is utterly isolated, intermittently switching from blaming herself for the dissolution of her marriage to resenting her husband. For reasons that become clear later, Leslie believes her infertility is a karmic punishment of sorts. It’s not hard to feel sympathy for her character. As she procrastinates about writing, Leslie finds solace in observing the same strangers at a park, including one teenage girl, Selena, who reminds her of her younger self.
Selena is a teenager forced to behave like an adult. A quasi-parent her two younger sisters, she’s desperate to protect them from her mother’s sexually harmful boyfriend, Gilbert. At one point, Gilbert cuts up Selena’s jeans to force her into revealing more of her body, which isn’t even the nadir of his problematic step-parenting. There are two bright spots in Selena’s life—her new job at a coffee shop and her love interest, Chad.
Selena and Chad’s relationship is not particularly romantic. Selena’s description is: “We were both single and lonely. Hey, it’s life. I suppose if I analyzed the whole thing, it was fun and came with benefits that were very good and often excellent. I didn’t mean it to be anything serious; it was something to do to kill time and actually feel good for a while. Hell, we came from different worlds, but who am I to question destiny?” This passage displays what seems to be a prosaic attitude informed by cynicism—an admission of vulnerability that simultaneously downplays anything serious, only to deploy the rather loaded word of destiny in the end, which is either an additionally ironic flourish or unironic and sincere. It is suitably adolescent to have both cynicism and genuine romantic optimism wedded as such.
Meanwhile, Leslie’s first love, Johnny, is described as such: “I’d loved him the first time I saw him and knew it was divine intervention that brought us together.” Given Leslie’s religious background, this markedly more earnest demonstrativeness is not surprising; however, it’s somewhat unclear whether the adult Leslie, looking back on her life, still regards Johnny so tenderly, or whether retrospective wisdom has permitted Leslie to have a more accurate understanding of Johnny.
As Leslie inserts herself into Selena’s life, providing the kind of unconditional guidance and support she didn’t receive from her own mother, the saviour mentality is evident. Throughout the novel, the parallels between Leslie and Selena become exceedingly uncanny, though Leslie does her best to ensure Selena won’t suffer as much.
There is no denying the abundance of dark subject matter and trauma in the book, which relies heavily on italicized inner monologue. In particular, Leslie’s mother is incredibly callous. I felt vicariously scarred every time Leslie’s mother appeared in a flashback. In this novel, there are no ideal mother figures. I have a wretched habit of complaining about my mother, but Leslie’s mother, at least momentarily, took me out of my wallowing self-pity. Women being most valued for their bodies—whether for sexual pleasure or procreation—is an underlying theme, one the author treats seriously.
The novel reads like a redemption fantasy—with great hardship endured comes the chance to be a saviour—and this quality can occasionally strain credulity while at the same time providing a much needed salve for harrowingly constant instability and misery.
*
Originally from East Vancouver, Jessica Poon is a writer, former line cook, and pianist of dubious merit who recently returned to BC after completing a MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph. [Editor’s note: Jessica interviewed Sheung-King, and recently reviewed books by Liann Zhang, Sarah Leavitt, Jeff Dupuis and A.G. Pasquella, Angela Douglas, Zazie Todd, Holly Brickley, Alastair McAlpine, and Jack Wang for BCR.]
*
The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
“Only connect.” –E.M. Forster