Trafford Publishing: Justin Fowles

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Justin Fowles

by James Jackson

315 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1832; ISBN 1-4120-1454-9; US$26.00, C$29.58, EUR21.50, £15.00

A feisty, aging ex-RCMP officer rages against American expansionism, tracks a murder mystery, loses his love and finds a strange substitute as he fights going gentle in the good night.

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about the book about the author reviews sample excerpt catalogue info

About the Book

Justin Fowles, confused patriot, geriatric lover, late-blooming romantic, is aging restlessly in Prospect, on the south coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Justin rages at his banishment from the RCMP and is sure the Force still spies on him; he suspects the nearby Combat College is an outpost of American expansionism; he fears for his relationship with Annabelle MacKinley, the much younger publisher of the local newspaper.
Whether anti-Quebecois or anti-American or simply a Canadian nationalist is open to question, but Justin's world is turned upside down when he finds the nude murdered body of a beautiful young woman floating in Prospect Inlet. The body disappears, and in his search for it he loses Annabel and comes face to face with his troubled past. In his perplexity the search for a murder victim becomes a quest for some idealised vision of youth and fulfilment, which ends in a climax as shocking as it is unexpected.

About the Author

James Jackson dropped out of the University of British Columbia in 1941 to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. He completed a tour of operations in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
He returned to UBC and went on to a Master of Fine Arts degree with the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. He returned to Canada to teach at the University of Western Ontario, followed by appointments at the Air Force College in Toronto and with the University of Toronto. During his time in Toronto, Baxter Publishing published To the Edge of Morning. His final job was as University Registrar of Carleton University in Ottawa, where he also conducted a seminar in creative writing.
Visit the author's website at www.jaxonbooks.ca.

Reviews

From the zine, the Salt Spring Island TATLER (www.saltspring.com/tatler/):
"Justin Fowles is not simply good writing, it is great writing. Fluent, fluid, graceful prose so smoothly achieved that one must ascribe to it the description 'the art that conceals art'. One of our favourites is the fresh, individual work of Mordecai Richler. . . none better than his final novel, Barney's Version. Justin Fowles is as different from Richler's work as the mind might conjure. Yet it is our view that [both books] share the honoiur of being equally at the height of their field. They gift us with the best we can wish for books, delightful reading."

Sample Excerpt

... When he got to his room behind the store it was not yet noon, but he opened a can of spaghetti and ate it cold with beer, and fell asleep on the unmade bed. He had no idea how soon he woke, hearing a noise. He opened one eye cautiously, to see Annabel at his kitchen table, holding a coffee mug and rummaging through her usual bundle of overstuffed manila envelopes. Annabel owned the local newspaper, and carried much of her office with her. Her presence shocked him awake; he hoped she didn't intend a post-mortem on last night. He mumbled guardedly, "Well, a pleasant surprise!"
Annabel chose not to look up. She was not at all sure that her visit was a good idea. She had copy to prepare and a meeting to attend and she didn't have the time, especially as she'd have to practically break Justin's arm to get the straight answer she wanted. She needed to judge his mood. She said, "Are you all right, Justin?"
He said warily, "I am fighting fit. Or will be when fully awake. I wasn't expecting you."
"I just thought I'd drop by and see how things were going."
"Most unusual," he muttered, sure now of the worst, grasping for a diverting topic indicative of mental vigour. "As it happens you're just in time for an important announcement. I've decided I must restock the store. It's early in the season and there are already two fat boats in port laden with Yankee dollars. I've decided it will be a big year for Prospect and I must throw my energies into merchandising. Moreover last winter I manufactured at least fifty genuine arrowheads, flensing blades, penis sheaths, scalping knives and soapstone carvings. Not to mention a magnificent feathered headdress-"
"Of local aboriginal origin, of course," said Annabel.
"A diverse culture. Yes. So similar in many ways to our own multicultural society here in Canada, ma'am. And different from your great melting pot. Hah! In three cardboard boxes, somewhere in this mess. I must overcome sloth. Laziness. A natural inclination to do bugger all. It's a defect of character and the first halting step toward senescence. I must fight it."
"Oh dear," said Annabel cynically. "A change of lifestyle. For one so young." His ability to evade an issue always amazed her, but she held back, not being all that confident about what she had to say.
"No dear girl, not a change; a reversion. To the hyperactive person you never knew. And put your mind at rest; this isn't another manic syndrome. I've made a rational decision-" Justin saw Annabel as a person of thoughtful, somewhat judgmental calm, so that whenever he indulged his imagination he felt she tested each sentence for imprecision and hyperbole. He added somewhat deflated, "I am capable of rational decision, you know."
"Of course you are, Justin," she said quietly. "But I was worried about you. If you'd buy a phone I could have phoned without bothering you."
"My God, woman, don't ever worry about me. I have the constitution of a grizzly and the spiritual strength of the Pope. I may be somewhat dogged by guilt, but as you've said yourself, I am extraordinarily sane, and I-"
She said, "Cut the horseshit, Justin. What were you doing this morning?"
"I was in the store this morning," he said with forced vivacity. "I even opened today, Sunday, in the expectation of tourists. But my magnificent sign should be down by the wharf. It's useless on the lower road. I must petition the regional Committee of Condemnations and Rectitude to reconsider-"
"Oh come on," she said, thoroughly out of patience. "Late this morning."
"Well," he said, and paused. This was not her usual lightness of spirit.
"I intended to breakfast at the hotel, perchance with the Fabled Jazz Hall Lady, but everything was closed. And then I intended to drive down to Port Renfrew." He hesitated. "Or up to Sooke."
Annabel shouted, "Stop evading the issue, asshole! You intended this and you intended that but what did you do?" She put her hand to her face, closing her eyes in annoyance at having let go, and added contritely, "I'm sorry. I can hardly accuse you of being evasive when I'm being indirect. I was bugged last night by your Mary Evens fixation. This thing is out of control."
"Ha!" he shouted, striking the air for emphasis, as if he had to convince himself as well as her. "She seems so innocuous that she demands suspicion! A master of disguise and mannerism! An agent of the utmost cunning patience; three months and she has yet to make a move!"
She stared at him balefully. He saw he had pressed her too far, but the relief of not having to discuss his impotence filled him with affection. He rose from the bed, almost tripped on a pile of books, turned back to retrieve his glasses, shuffled across the linoleum and stopped behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and his face in her hair, and then went over to the stove. He said, "More coffee?"
"Okay," she said, still unsure whether she had made her point. "I mean thanks. I really hate to bug you like this. It breeches our understanding."
Justin was groggy from the nap and still confused by her unexpected presence, but alert enough to realize he had to give way. He took a deep breath. "As to what I did, I ended up this morning on the East Ridge, watching the Seymour place. So now you know. Ah, how confession cleanses the soul!" He paused, expecting her reply, then added, "I'm sure now she's not RCMP. She may be CSIS, but if so she's inept and I can ignore her. That collection of mutes and pass BAs."
He brought the coffee and sat down across from her. She knew it would be pleasant to share coffee with him and chat, but now she had opened the question she had to take it as far as she could. She said, "You haven't even met her! A couple of weeks ago the kids and I had tea up at her place, and what a hoot it was! The kids, bless them, behaved like angels. Mary Evens may be a nut case, but she's harmless."
"You actually had tea with her? And you didn't tell me?"
"There was nothing to tell."
"In the world of intelligence, even negative reports are precious." He was astonished at her guilelessness.
"I'm not in the world of intelligence, and I'm not running to you every time I meet someone."
"You may have given me away to her." "You could have saved me days of painful uncertainty."
"My poor, poor baby," she said mockingly. "That's entirely your own problem, dear heart. What I want to know, what I really want to know is how long does this idiocy go on?"
He couldn't bring himself to admit that the conspiracy Mary Evens represented was crumbling around him. He said, "That's the question, isn't it".
She looked up at him in astonishment. "Do you know what you're saying?"
"I'm saying that's the question. Yes."
"Oh no- Justin!" She was gripping the edge of the table, glaring at him in frustration. "You're pushing me too far. Everyone has their pet obsessions, and you project yours with imagination and civility. Maybe I'm too permissive but I'm not much disturbed by a retired policeman who thinks the police are watching him. It's sort of a cozy domestic illusion. But now you're conceding it can go on forever. Don't you realize? This thing has already made you a village eccentric."
"My methods are invulnerably secret!"
"Oh face reality, Justin! Susan came home crying a week ago. One of her little friends told her I was screwing a nut case."
"That's a bloody slander!"
"It's beside the point. Village gossip is village gossip and it doesn't rule my life. And I'm sorry about this; we agreed to keep this relationship light. But personally, for me, your thing about Mary has gone too far." She was losing control, and cursed herself inwardly. "It's beginning to bug the hell out of me. You've-you've got to promise me to quit tailing that poor woman."
He reached across the table and gripped her hand, because it was the first time he had seen tears in her eyes and it made him afraid. He said, "I didn't mean to do this to you. I'm terribly sorry. But yes, okay. Yes I'll promise." He was confused not just by her outburst, but by the depth of feeling it revealed, a jarring departure from their usual relaxed banter. It was quite new between them, a moment of emotional truth in which he suddenly realized, with an instant's jolt of panic, that there was no way out of a full confession....

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