A West Gull Photo Album

Click the image above to view a .pdf the photo album I created about West Gull.

There are two things happening simultaneously in my mind as I read further into this novel, ripe with the tragedy of people who believe they have no control over their own destiny. First, I am realizing exactly how depressing the story is. Not exactly putting me in the holiday spirit! Second, I'm continually reflecting on my own family history in a small town in Ontario.

Cohen paints such a realistic picture of Carl, Elizabeth, Chrissy, Fred, William, Luke, and Adam, whom all seem to believe that they are stuck with what the world dealt them. It's as if leaving West Gull would be like falling off the end of the earth for them -- they have no drive to pull themselves up out of their cycles of depression, alcoholism, fighting, gossiping and poverty. Instead, they wallow in their grief, and place the blame on their neighbors while pretending to be their friends.

In all of this, I find myself putting faces to names, from my family tree. I imagine that their family photo album would look something like mine, so I created the above photo album using photos from my family tree.

Meanwhile, once again I'm finding that the music I'm listening to while reading is influencing my opinions of the book. So, I'll continue on the idea that this book would make a fantastic film, and add to my growing soundtrack for that film with the song below. The song is called "I am Part of a Large Family" by the Great Lake Swimmers, a band from Wainfleet, ON.

Well, I Was Born in a Small Town...

Listening to the description of Carl’s return to West Gull, I am reminded of the many homecomings that I’ve had to my own small town after a prolonged absence.

“There was a new sign at the edge of town, West Gull, population 684" You notice every little new thing about a place once so familiar, and because most things have stayed the same, you assume that the people living there have also remained the same. However, much like Carl, I am often surprised to see how many things have changed.

Cohen is a generous writer – he will give a simple moment between two people the space of two pages to live in. Describing every little detail, movement and thought with great care. He allows the reader to wallow in that moment for a few minutes, provoking me to relate the experiences of Chrissy and Carl to the sacred moments from my own life when time seems to stand still and every detail is somehow magnified in my memory – those meetings with my first love after returning from living abroad for several years. Returning home to see him standing in front of me, drinking me in. Every word is etched in my mind and the touch of his hand burned into my skin.

Cohen’s words make the reader feel everything that Carl is feeling, from the emptiness to the regret, to the fear and anger. Hearing about his depressing life somehow simultaneously makes me feel sadness, sorry and empathy for him. We’ve all been in Carl’s place at somepoint in life, and hearing about his sorrows make me wonder about all those people I grew up with, and if they’re still in that place today.

Many of my friends from home live in a place that is bleak and unchanging like West Gull seems to be. A place where small people have great power and where the only source of entertainment comes in the form of a bottle of booze. While surely there is happiness and joy in places like the farm towns of Lambton County, each time I go home I can’t help but notice all the little things that people do to feed that craving inside of them that Cohen describes Carl experiencing:

The craving he had was like a wound. A line drawn by a knife through his flesh and soul. Everything had fled the sharp steel. Sometimes the yearning hunger grew more raw with every breath and if he tried to breathe deeply the knifeline opened so wide he felt dizzy. (Cohen 28)

I once felt this craving and it lead me to take off, to get out of my little town to find something fresh where things weren’t all the same. Where everyone didn’t know everyone else’s business, where I was just me in that moment, and not the me that came with all the preconveied ideas of who I was that had been formed over the past 29 years. Not the me that people related to my parents, who also grew up in my small town, who went to my highschool, and who were known for being this or that.
Meanwhile in my hometown people still say “Oh, you’re a McBeth…are you Hick’s granddaughter? I knew your aunts, didn’t one of them have a baby when she was a teenager? And your other cousin, didn’t he marry a Cadieux? Those Cadieuxs, they sure rule this town. You grew up next door to the Bramham’s, right? Did you hear that Rick is in jail now? I used to date this guy who used to date your friend back in highschool. Now he’s married to your mom’s best friend’s son, they have a little girl and she goes to preschool with my sister’s daughter…” What ever happened to that saying we used to use in elementary school – MYOB!

When Carl returns to his hometown he experiences a similar feeling that everyone thinks that can place judgement on him by who his family is and by the things he did when he was back in highschool. People assume they know what kind of person he is, neglecting to realize that he could have changed, just like the town itself has changed.

At this point in the novel I am still very much on Carl’s side, hoping that he’s going to make the right decisions to get his life back together.

In the meantime, I can't get this John Mellencamp song out of my head! Add this to the soundtrack.

Small Town by John Mellencamp

Well I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town
Prob`ly die in a small town
Oh, those small communities

All my friends are so small town
My parents live in the same small town
My job is so small town
Provides little opportunity

Educated in a small town
Taught the fear of Jesus in a small town
Used to daydream in that small town
Another boring romantic that`s me

But I`ve seen it all in a small town
Had myself a ball in a small town
Married an L.A. doll and brought her to this small town
Now she`s small town just like me

No I cannot forget where it is that I come from
I cannot forget the people who love me
Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town
And people let me be just what I want to be

Got nothing against a big town
Still hayseed enough to say
Look who`s in the big town
But my bed is in a small town
Oh, and that`s good enough for me

Well I was born in a small town
And I can breathe in a small town
Gonna die in this small town
And that`s prob`ly where they`ll bury me

Something Familiar

There is a soundtrack playing in my ears as I sit on the train travelling across South across Ontario towards my tiny hometown, wondering if these are the same farmlands dotted with dilapidated barns that are being described in Elizabeth and After. Sufjan Stevens sings to me songs about the landscapes of the Midwest as Cohen’s words echo his evocative descriptions.

Cohen's descriptions are so vivid that I find myself wondering if anyone has considered adapting this novel to film? If they did, this song would certainly be part of the soundtrack. Click below to listen to the song. Don't you agree?

The West Gull Cemetery announces itself with a twenty-foot-high stone archway of quarries limestone. Its gates are black wrought iron wth silver tips and fittings, and the matching fence stretches hundreds of yards along the highway. Located on a high and windswept plateau, it offers a unique view and flattering perspective on Long Gull Lake, the town of West Gull itself and the rich surrounding farmland. Even a stranger would be impressed…she passed through the archway, drifted a palm along the silky-slick surface of the limestone, stepped gingerly onto the moist dense grass. (Cohen 1)

Is that the same place where I grew up? Cohen’s descriptions are so rich, so vivid, that I can’t help but see them playing in front of me.

On the day of the funeral, Long Gull Lake was a distant stretch of snow dotted with fishing huts merging into the grey sky. The town, so picturesque in summer, was just a jumble of metal and asphalt roofs, columns of smoke rising straight into the still air. The fertile farmland was a barren waste with a few clusters of houses and barns. (Cohen 2)

Already, I am sifting through my iPhoto album, looking for images that fit these descriptions. But quickly, these pastoral scenes turn dark as they become stained with foreshadowed tragedy in this sleepy town, and we realize that the story that follows is about those left reeling from this woman’s presence.

Nothing was said about the blood in the snow but there was a lot ¬– more than you would think a body could hold. In some places it had clotted into frozen puddles, in others it was scattered in long splotched whips like scarlet maple taffy. (Cohen 3)