Sylvanus Now (36 page)

Is it all right? he wanted to ask, but a thick saliva filled his mouth, and he fell back dizzily, dragging in air that smelled like death; his child was born and it smelled like death. An upsurge of nausea gagged him, and he shrank back outside, laying his head against the hard, cold wood of his house.

“Syllie.” It was Eva. She tugged on his arm, coaxing him back inside. He stumbled behind her and stood weakly as she laid the infant in his arms, all scrawny and wrinkled and red and encrusted with what appeared to be fish gurry. His vision blurred and he felt that he might be sick again. Immediately, the infant was whisked out of his hands. He watched as its mouth opened and a whimper sounded from it, then another.

Not for nothing is it said that the lungs are the wings of the heart, for he fair flew toward the door, heeding not his mother’s cries that he stay put, and pushed through it. Ignoring the old midwife’s orders to “Get out, get out, I’m not done, yet!” he lurched to his Addie’s bedside, staring down at her face, white as marble, her hair damp upon her pillow.

She opened her eyes, more blue than the mother’s, and closed them again, weakly reaching for his hand.

“Sylvia,” she said. “Her name is Sylvia. Sylvia Now.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
HANK YOU
to biologists Michael Chadwick and Jeffery Hutchings, and to the researched work of fishery historians Cynthia Boyd, Miriam Carol Wright, Raymond Blake, and Barbara Nies. Much appreciation to Ralph Getson at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; to Douglas Laporte for his many referrals and errands; to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Moncton, New Brunswick, for the use of their library; and to John Dalton for his invaluable sermonizing.

Thank you to the Canada Council for the Arts and the Nova Scotia Arts Council. Without their financial support, this book would not have been written.

Thank you to my story editor, Cynthia Good, line editor Jennifer Glossop, editor Sandra Tooze for bailing me out again, my agent, Beverley Slopen, and my heart friend, Jill Aslin.

And thank you to my uncle Bill Dyke, who stands witness to the historical drama of this novel, and to that woman, Connie Jodrey, who wept over her hoe.

And for their appreciation of my solitude, I wish to thank my children, David and Bridgette Morrissey; my siblings, Wanda, Glenn, Tommy, and Karen; and their partners, Charlene, Lindy, Dianna, Frony, and Andy.

And most especially, my dad, Mr. Enerchius Osmond from the Beaches, Hampden.

A Penguin Readers Guide

Sylvanus Now

About the Book

An Interview with Donna Morrissey

Discussion Questions

ABOUT THE BOOK

Sylvanus Now is a simple man. Born without book smarts, he nevertheless learned early on what he wants in life, and he’s succeeded in nearly everything he’s set out to do—but there are some things he can’t control.

Donna Morrissey’s third novel,
Sylvanus Now
, is set in the 1950s in Cooney Arm, a small Newfoundland outport struggling to survive in the wake of national and international fishing trawlers and their overfishing of the ocean. Like all of Morrissey’s settings, this one is dominated by the sea, rocky shores, and an outport full of neighbours who can’t help themselves from sticking their noses in everybody’s business. But although the issues of conservation, modernization, and government regulation of international waters touch the inhabitants of Cooney Arm, the novel is much more a romantic love story than a polemic.

At its heart are Sylvanus and Adelaide, a mismatched couple destined for misery. The youngest son of a fisherman and his wife, Eva, Sylvanus is “the unsanctioned egg, the one who shuddered from her old woman’s body long after the others had been born and grown, and a month after her husband and eldest had been lost to sea.” He’s full of hope and faith that love will conquer loss, that the sea, the mother, will provide, and that Addie will eventually find happiness in Cooney Arm.

But happiness has never come easy to Adelaide. With her pale skin, brilliant mind, and revulsion of the sea, Addie’s an outcast in her childhood home of Rocky Head, a fishing village not much different from Cooney Arm. Not that she cares. Addie has no use for the boys who smell of fish and the girls who long to marry and have babies and, perhaps, end up working the flakes. She resents the endless trail of brothers and sisters who follow her, making noise and mess and not caring that it’s Addie who’ll have to pick up after them and cook their meals. And she comes to despise her own parents, a hardworking couple who have child after child, and whose abandon in the bedroom spells the end of Addie’s education.

Indeed, at fifteen, Addie has all but given up. Forced to leave school to work the flakes, she faces the two truths of outport life: a girl who leaves school never goes back, and without an education or money she never leaves the outport. Unless, of course, she marries.

And so Addie and Sylvanus settle into a house built on a meadow with the door facing the woods, the window facing the sea, and a solid wall facing the town and flakes of Cooney Arm. Sylvanus has everything he’s always wanted. He’s master of his own boat and he loves and worships his wife, but changes outside of his control are occurring, both in the fishery and in his beloved Adelaide.

As Addie begins to lose her battle with depression, Sylvanus realizes that he, too, is sunk. The haddock fishery is on the verge of collapse, and every fisherman—along with governments, corporations, and merchants—knows that “a fish once lost can never be found.” So what now?

Caught between his desire to please his wife—his promise that she will never work the flakes—and his own desire for independence as well as his determination to treat his other great love, the sea, as she must be treated, Sylvanus must navigate his and Addie’s rocky future.

AN INTERVIEW WITH DONNA MORRISSEY

Q:

Your second novel,
Downhill Chance
, was as successful and acclaimed as
Kit’s Law
. How did you feel when you set out to write
Sylvanus Now
? Was it easier to write your third book than it was to write the second? Do you feel you’ve honed the writing process in any way?

With
Sylvanus Now
I felt less anxiety than writing
Downhill Chance
. I knew that I wasn’t a “one book” phenomenon. I also learned from writing the previous two books to trust the process of writing, that the difficult passages will be resolved, that the most I could do was give it time, not desert it, stay with it, and as before, it would come.

Q:

Sylvanus is a captivating and very likable character. He has a huge capacity to love and an inner calm. He reminds me a bit of Luke in
Downhill Chance
. What or who was the inspiration for Sylvanus?

Sylvanus was inspired by my father. My father wasn’t a fisherman (he fished in his early years, and the opening passage regarding the suit on hold at the merchant’s was taken directly from my father’s life), but he was mainly a logger. He loved the woods, and I transplanted that love to Sylvanus’s love of the sea.

Q:

Adelaide is clearly suffering from depression after several miscarriages, yet people expect her to get over it. And, after the birth of Sylvie, we’re left with hope that she might. Is this how mental illness is handled in these outports?

In the past—as most anywhere—there certainly wasn’t much known about postpartum depression. Depression was acknowledged, but the most a friend could offer was help with the housework during those trying first weeks, and no doubt the woman was expected to “get herself together” within a reasonable time period. Today there is much more help for such illnesses (thank God).