The Ambulance Driver
By Chris McNaught,
Baico Publishing, Ottawa, 2008 ( historical fiction )
A character in The Ambulance Driver recalls Morley Callaghan saying
something about life being a violin of more than one string. Chris
McNaught's is definitely a book of more than one string...it is a
veritable " harp of life ", of chords, of interlacing threads,
weaving past and present, taking us into so many worlds, a book far
denser than it looks, so much more than its 267 pages.
The Ambulance Driver is much more than the story of Marie Rioux,
Quebec lawyer who
" used to spend ninety percent of (her) time pleading the
fraudulent unsound cases of second-rate people, and a hundred
percent of it suppressing instinct and desires " ; it is an affaire
with Victorian luminaries and a taste of the "gas-swill " hell of
WWI; it is a harsh light on the ugly underworld of the cigarette
industry and a sun-filled tour of the bucolic world of Alfred Lord
Tennyson.
Chris McNaught writes with great beauty and wit, a beguiling
combination. He describes the ambience in a military cemetery, "…in
the early evening air, the fraternity of lives lived and snuffed in
a flare of a match, convene in whispers of what might have been "
and the paintings in the Watts Galleries: " the denizens of the
principal gallery upstairs, bustled in a world of dark tail-coats,
virgin gowns and scarlet tunics. Their snow-apple flesh was
untainted by bain de soleil, the hair pulled back from aquiline
noses inflating noble brows ". There is even a terrible beauty in
his description of the horror of war: " German aerial bombers
obsessed over (the) bridge periodically throwing Lilian into a
dug-out to watch bits of patients and hospital staff litter the air
before dropping in the nearby cemetery ".
The lines of poetry and literary allusions woven all through the
text will be for some readers, meetings with old friends, and will
perhaps, for others, point the way to new ones.
When describing Marie as being " driven by a keen instinct for…'
the pure romance of history '…naturally attuned to the deeds of men
and women, which…grounded the passage of Time ", the author is, I
believe, describing himself. The Ambulance Driver presents the
Victorian illuminati's ideals of a decent, fair and civilized
society, and the reality of their times. It also serves to reassure
us that " beauty may survive the strip mall and homogenized culture
" of our world and its mega-corporations.
Graced with charming watercolour and ink illustrations by the
author, this novel will send you packing off to google Dimbola, the
' Freshwater Circle ', Julia Margaret Cameron's photographs, and
much more…perhaps the tobacco industry, and Sofie von Otter !
Oh yes, and the ending ? Definitely worthy of Ruth Rendell.
Pat Marshall, Ottawa
Former Canadian Representative, The Brontë Society