A Literary Smorgasbord

Smorgasbord is “a wide range of something”, a something author Elizabeth Hay delivers with panache in her Giller award winning novel, Late Nights On Air. She’s given me much food for thought.

At first, I was taken aback by her style. In telling the story of a group of characters working in a radio station in Yellowknife, circa 1970s—all struggling with their lot in life—Elizabeth Hay uses an omniscient narrator. Though I consider myself fairly well read, I had not come upon this way of telling a story very often. But I got used to it rather quickly. Thank God, because if I had aborted my reading of this excellent novel, I would have been poorer for it. I liken getting used to it like the way I acquired a taste for olives. Once my buds were stimulated, there was no going back.

What is remarkable about Late Nights On Air, is Elizabeth Hay’s ability to show a multitude of characters with such vibrancy and humanity. You can’t help falling in love with them, and wishing them all a pleasant journey. A few have little redeeming qualities, but you know there is much below the surface, and Hay is good at teasing that out. As well, she keeps us turning the page, which is a feat in itself for a literary novel. It’s as if she weaves her characters’ stories together with invisible threads. Her work is seamless. But it’s not an entirely pleasant ride, which makes the story that much richer. As in real life, she shows there is no easy path to love or success.

Northern Lights at Yellowknife, Wikipedia Commons image

And this whole literary smorgasbord is delivered with humor and on occasion, that poetic turn of phrase that is so delicious. The kind that helps you savor the author’s take on life and relish in the discovery. Though much of the story takes place in a young Yellowknife, there is a canoe trip to the Barrens in northern Canada that is quite remarkable in both what it reveals about the players and also about the landscape. Here, Hay uses her words like painters use a brush.

Underlining the work of the radio people in their “late nights on air” is the drama of what is to become of the land and the people of Yellowknife, once the McKenzie Pipeline goes in. Here, Hay mixes fact with fiction. She uses the real life story of Justice Thomas Berger,  who is sent by the government to address the concerns of the natives and other locals in that region. Berger made a name for himself during this period, largely because he listened to the natives’ claims and their fears of losing their livelihood. His legacy lives on through Hay’s pages and otherwise.

What I find so topical of the book, is how its recurring theme is being replayed right now with the whole Enbridge Pipeline controversy that has enveloped my nation and also the USA. If only we had a Berger now to guide us through this quagmire. But I digress. Late Nights on Air is a book that’s more than the sum of its parts. It’s a true literary smorgasbord.

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