The Hauntings of Hood Canal
by Jack Cady
(St Martin's Press, $23.95, 304 pages, hardcover, October 2001; ISBN:
0312280793)
Sugar Bear Smith accidentally murders a child  molester.
The young and seductive witch who loves Sugar Bear does everything in
her unpredictable powers to save him from his guilt and from the authorities.
The owner of the local bar wavers in her affections between a persistent
and charming police officer and a pool hustler who's planning a grand
hustle. Meanwhile, at an alarming rate, people are driving their cars
off the road and drowning in Hood Canal. And maybe there are forces
straight out of Greek myth on the loose in the state of Washington.
These are only a few of the ingredients of the chunky and delicious
soup that is Jack Cady's The Hauntings of Hood Canal.
Cady narrates his novel in a folksy, conversational manner. From the
first paragraph, it feels like the narrator's enjoining you to sit down
and have a beer while he spins his tale -- his tall tale. For as charming
as the unidentified narrator may be, it's hard to shake the impression
that, like the many hustlers in his story, he's trying to pull a fast
one.
Cady plays with the tall-tale aspect of his novel by having his narrator
frequently segue into the tall tales that grow out of the novel's events.
By underlining that those other stories are just made up, the narrator
is slyly trying to convince his audience that his version of the events
can be trusted. Readers, thanks to Cady's subtle balancing act, are
both seduced and wary.
Cady has great fun balancing all these layers of lies and fiction.
Ultimately, The Hauntings of Hood Canal, as a novel, loses a
bit of steam, but its mood is eerily enchanting and the author's voice
is pure folk magic.
Originally published, in slightly different form,
in The Montreal Gazette, Saturday, 12 January 2002.
Claude Lalumière's Fantastic Fiction
is a series of
capsule reviews first published in the Saturday Books
section of The Montreal Gazette.
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