5.0 out of 5 stars
Rich, March 5, 2003
This review is from: The Deep (Paperback)
Unpublished review:
When you speak of literary contests and collections, few are spoken of with higher regard than the O. Henry Awards. Every year since 1919, they've selected the cream of the literary crop for an annual anthology, including among them, the Award recipients. While such established writers as John Updike, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, and Alice Munro have regularly graced O. Henry's pages, 2001's winner was none other than Guelph's own Mary Swan.
"The Deep", an 89 page "short story", follows the tale of twin sisters, Ruth and Esther, who travel to France during World War I to assist at refugee camps. Coming from a privileged, if disjointed, family they aren't quite ready for what they find. The new world is one where relationships are necessarily temporal, lost limbs are a welcomed relief from battle, and best friends die without seeing their killers' eyes. Described throughout with various levels of dream-like disbelief and nightmare-like horror, this reality soon becomes all they can identify with, and they wonder how they could possibly return to the simple life they once knew.
"The Deep's" strengths lie in its descriptions. The story is a collection of events, rather than a single narrative or linear plot, which eventually takes the form of a story collage. Within this collection, Mary Swan manages to paints some staggering situations. Imagine a world in which a sister can describe the sequence following the last time she sees he brother as: "Then back to camp, then onto a ship, then marching down a dark, rutted road on the way to the trenches for the fire time. The scream of a shell, and nothing more". Or where a man can lose his hands and have it described as: "He'd been reaching for something or someone when the shell came; he was not too badly hurt, except for that".
These revelations come to Ruth and Esther much as they come to the reader. This isn't a story of front lines or gore, but rather a story of emotional attachments and reactions. We meet characters who are searching for love ones - assuming "missing", not "the other thing" - and who are grappling with the tragic past, wondering what they could have done differently, how lives might have been saved. Ruth and Esther experience the war through the stories they hear, the people they see cry, and the lives they see change - rather than the blood and guts, which is a welcomed relief.
The story does, however, falter slightly with its use of a shifting point of view, which is neither handled consistently nor particularly effectively. There is nothing to distinguish Esther's narrative voice Nan's or the Headmistress'. Each switch seems primarily as though it were the same person speaking in another's place, which leaves little room for dynamic and makes differentiating between the narrators a chore.
But it matters very little in the grand scheme of things. "The Deep" is a story filled with vivid descriptions, strong relationships, and profound heartbreaks. It's a brisk read, and a worthy prize winner.
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