Word: gilmartin
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...Davies doesn't take long to whisk us away to Toronto, where at Colborne College we are introduced to the young Brocky Gilmartin, who will become a professor of literature as the narrative unfolds, and Charlie Iredale, future Anglican priest. Hullah's two friends take opposite positions within the book: Brocky is clever and laughing, Charlie plodding and serious. We follow their progress into adulthood, and Dr. Hullah's exploits in war, in love, in theater...
...unlinear in the novel, with different periods of the past flashing in and out as they relate to the events of the present. The impetus of his memory--and memory does comprise the bulk of the novel--is a series of articles by the journalist Esme Barron (later Esme Gilmartin--she marries Conor, Brocky's son) about old Toronto and for which she is interviewing Hullah. This narrative strand, the present, which brings about the memory aspect of the novel, continues on its own for years. Brocky, Charlie, and Hullah are middle-aged...
...will be suspiciously familiar to devotees of Mr. Davies. Doctors are kinds of priests and priests are kinds of doctors. Priests are kinds of poets as well, and Dr. Hullah begins to think about writing his great "Anatomy of Fiction." What else could we expect? Esme Barron and Conor Gilmartin, as well as Hugh McWearie, reappear from Davies' last novel, Murther and Walking Spirits; old Dunstan Ramsey steps out of The Deptford Trilogy for rather a lengthy visit, joined as well by his friend Boy Stanton (referred to in passing and not named, though the description matches the sugar baron...
Davies follows this advice to the letter in his fictional family history, which traces two centuries of the Gilmartin ancestry. If this sounds like another overdone generational novel, expect to be surprised...
...Gilmartin, a witty entertainment editor at a Toronto daily newspaper is as bewildered at his murder, in the opening paragraph, as the reader. Gil discovers his wife in bed with her lover-the Sniffer, a drama critic at the same newspaper. In a "fury, fed...by sexual excitement," the Sniffer deals a fatal blow...