Review of Black Water Born
"Star-crossed from birth"MARGO WHEATON
reprinted with permission from "The Globe and Mail", Canada's National Newspaper
Black Water Born
By Fara Spence
Black Water Born is Newfoundland writer Fara Spence's second novel and chronicles the stormy relationship between hapless ne'er-do-well Lucky Steele and socially graced and gifted Helen Pittman. The book is set against the historical backdrop of turn-of-the-20th-century Newfoundland, and issues of the day such as religious sectarianism, the suffrage movement and the struggle for sealers' and fishermen's rights colour the text but do not, for the most part, shape it. For Spence, the real story is the one made by the trajectory of star-crossed love.
The novel begins with the messy dissolution of Lucky Steele, the mysterious woodworking outcast of Burgoyne's Cove who, due to the unusual circumstances of his birth, is savagely ostracized by his community. In the book's prologue, his mother, after falling off a ship headed to England, is washed ashore, where she gives birth and refuses, in her final hours, to reveal the family name, thus leading members of the tiny community to long suspect the worst about Lucky's origins.
The solemn, repeated assertion that Lucky is "black water born" captures not only a sense of their awe at his elemental ocean birth but also captures their deep-rooted fear of impenetrability and possible taint. Buffeted by shame, his own proud, fierce nature and his scandalous love for the respectable Helen, Lucky takes early to drowning his sorrows and quickly runs afoul of a community poised to judge him by committing a variety of "sins" which culminate in a drunken climb into Helen's bed.
It is at this point, when the love story assumes the status of background abstract yearning, that the novel deepens. Spence's focus shifts from the predictable vacillations of romantic pursuit to the more believable and pressing issue of immediate personal survival. On arriving in St. John's, Lucky rents a room above a tavern and quickly falls into the sort of disreputable life he has always been falsely associated with, a world of rum smuggling, gambling, prostitution and violence. Separated from Helen, he comes into close contact with the spirited, vulnerable Lizzie, who's been banished from Burgoyne Cove to the brutal Libby Home for Unwed Mothers, and the barmaid Augusta, who selflessly tends to Lucky after he's been stabbed by thieves.
Spence develops all three characters along a plotline that runs counter to the romance of Lucky and Helen -- that of the existential journey of the orphan -- and convincingly depicts the material and emotional consequences of being orphaned by one's own community. The obstacles against which the characters must contend are not those opposing true love, but rather those like hunger, poverty, illness and the cold, which threaten life itself. Spence's portrayal of the fragile bond that forms among Lucky, Lizzie and Augusta is psychologically astute and moving.
Spence's keen insight into the spiritual deepening that social alienation can sometimes occasion is reflected in her characters' steady and believable maturation. Observing the haggard Augusta sweeping the floor with awkward, exaggerated movements, Lucky experiences a tenderness toward her that seems truer and wiser than the operatic love he shares with Helen: "He liked her hands the most. They were delicate and long and white. As she twisted them over the handle of the broom, Lucky knew she had no idea how stately they were."
When Lucky and Helen are finally reunited and cast into a final life-and-death adventure, the writing slides into the melodrama that Spence so far has managed briskly to keep at bay.
Even so, it's clear that Spence is a born storyteller. Black Water Born is a work of sharp observation and immediacy that kept me turning the pages steadily...
