The acknowledgements didn’t make a lot of sense when I read them before starting The Observer by Marina Endicott. Neither did the author photograph on the back jacket flap. Both told me, however, that this book was part of the author’s life.
“Author photo: Bill Ormshaw, 1992”
Throughout my reading, I often flipped back to both the tiny photo and the acknowledgements. Understanding them as I read the story of Julia’s life in small town Alberta with her partner Hardy, a newly-minted RCMP constable.
The Observer is fiction, sort of. In her acknowledgements, Ms. Endicott says that it’s what she remembers of that time. And what she couldn’t remember, she made up. That time was when she and her husband lived in Alberta, where he was a Mountie in a small town.
As that alone, it would be an interesting insight into the world of small town policing. But where they lived in Alberta was Mayerthorpe, the site of a tragic shooting of four Mounties in 2005. That is not part of this story, other than at the very end. It’s brief and understated – and hits you all the harder by being that.
The red does make for pageantry
“Except for the black-clad family members in the front, the centre section was all red serge. The red does make for pageantry.”
Endicott conveys the whole scene with those two sentences. Her writing throughout the book is like that – tempered, and a bit of irony. Always with a sense of foreboding, a fear that something horrible is going to happen. But the fear too is tempered by the quietness – almost detachment – of the writing.
That way of writing itself illustrates the life of a police officer’s spouse. The fear, and the need to keep it in check. So detach as much as you can. A Mountie’s wife gives Julia a piece of advice – think of how you’d spend the insurance money. Morbid, but necessary to keep yourself separate, to know you can survive if need be. That knowledge, or strength, can maybe also help your spouse survive. Somebody has to stay on an even keel – at least try to.
The Observer is a book about PTSD told in a “day in the life” kind of way. So it takes a while, sometimes, for the severity of what’s happening to sink in. All the more powerful for that, I think. You come to care about the people in the story, even though you’re not told all that much about them. It’s very much Julia’s story. But that’s enough.
This is a beautiful book, I don’t think it was ever on CBC’s Canada Reads but I would have put it on and would have been happy to champion it as the book that every Canadian should read.
This book reminded me of the West Country Trilogy by Tim Pear in the spareness – and depth – of its writing style. See my Musical Ride for a not-so-understated look at Mounties and horses.
See The Observer on Amazon.ca for more about the book.
