Between Families and the Sky

by Alan Cumyn

Goose Lane Editions, 1995. ISBN #: 0-86492-168-1 $17.95

father dead at age 32. A mother killed in a bus accident leaving behind a new-born baby. The children, the spouses left dealing with the loss, with the loneliness. Alan Cumyn's Between Families and the Sky (Goose Lane Editions, 1995) is a two part book which shows how children and their families cope with the deaths of a parent. Cumyn's compassionate writing creates a real, credible story--pulling the reader into its pages. The families' paths are eventually interwoven by the relationship of a son and a daughter, James Kinnell and Garland Rose. This is not a conventional boy meets girl story, however, surprises happen along the way making this a story that will enchant you.

"Part I--Hole in the Kitchen Floor" begins on the day that James Kinnell and his mother sprinkle the ashes of his father into a river. Cumyn captures the loneliness twelve year-old James feels when he looks into his deceased father's bedroom; "I can see . . . my father's clothes peeking out of the closet door as if waiting for him to come into the room, and taste still the air charged with the burning electricity of fear and love and anguish" (9). Cumyn's personification of the clothes brilliantly captures a young boy's imagination and sorrow. Shortly after the funeral, James' grandfather moves in with the family which creates tension. After a few outbursts, the family evades past issues: the hole in the kitchen floor is not mended but constantly walked around.

Each one in the household copes with their loneliness in separate ways, often not understanding the other or the other's needs. When Mrs. Kinnell starts seeing a man (married with children, we later find out), neither her son nor the Grandfather is sympathetic to her desire to move beyond the funeral. After James' mother returns one morning after sleeping with her lover Lee, James observes; "When Mother came back down the stairs it would be as if she had just arisen, had slept the night with us, under our roof, had not spent it, little of it sleeping, with a stranger" (35). Cumyn thoughtfully conveys the betrayal the son feels. He is not only losing his mother but also the memory of his father.

Garland Rose describes a memory hole as "a daydream that is in fact a memory, events from long ago carved into me like slippery grooves down a hill. It usually comes on me when I'm sitting, very still . . . ." (105). Garland is the protagonist in "Part II--The Memory Holes of Garland Rose." Cumyn's use of flashbacks keeps the reader going into and out of the Garland's memory holes, going into and out of her childhood.

Garland Rose is a successful architect who works many hours, spends much time alone and who has not seen her father in five years. She's always retreating away from people--to her memory holes, to her condo in town, to her house in the country. With a freshness, Cumyn captures the joy Garland feels when she is staying at her rural respite: "Out here I feel like a dentist with a secret love of chocolate, a doctor who smokes, an aerobics instructor who can finally let her stomach sag. . . . there's no sound of traffic and leaves get in your hair. Where I can breathe, and be quiet" (135).

When Garland meets a tall man at her Tuesday night meditation class, he challenges her to allow him into her world, to stop retreating from people. When he hires her to draw up blueprints for his home, they start seeing each other. The tall, meditative young college professor's name? James Kinnell. As the friendship between Garland and James grow, the book lapses into repetition; James and Garland talk about their lives, their past histories--pieces of information the reader already knows. Just when you think that the book is going to have a saccharine, storybook ending, James' former lover Mirele returns from India and adds a nice touch of conflict to the book which Cumyn resolves in an unsuspecting way.

Cumyn, who has published one novel and one guide for people working and studying overseas prior to this novel, has settled in Ottawa, Canada. Between Families and the Sky is a nice, light read with unencumbered language where the unexpected keeps the reader reading--wondering if James will find Mirele in Scotland, wondering why Mirele returns from India, wondering if Garland will ever follow her father's advice instead of "go[ing] through life on [her] own . . . . one person against the world" (152)?

© 1996, The Blue Penny Quarterly. All rights reserved.