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Canadian Authors - General fiction - |
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Elizabeth And After |
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 Elizabeth And After byMatt Cohen Random House Canada (Vintage Books) 370 Pages, 2000 ISBN 0676972578 Reviewed by Zaheera Jiwaji Winner of the 1999 Governor General's Literary Award. The Elizabeth of the title is Elizabeth McKelvey, whose burial marks the opening for this last novel by author Matt Cohen. When she died, Elizabeth was 51 years old, wife to William, mother to Carl, schoolteacher to many, and a much admired and respected citizen of the town of West Gull, Ontario. She was the "possessor of chestnut hair" and "a healthy living body before it took an unplanned trip through a suddenly stationary windshield attached to a car that had accordioned into a large oak tree". She was also, as we all are, more than what can be succinctly eulogized. Elizabeth McKelvey was a mystery to even those who knew her best. Struggling with a long illness, Matt Cohen died three weeks after receiving the 1999 Governor General's Literary Award for this work of fiction. Knowing this adds depth to the reading of ELIZABETH AND AFTER, a novel which merges the writer's life to this poignant story of death, the timeless story of those we leave behind and the lasting influence we may have. Partly told in flashbacks, we get to know Elizabeth through the eyes of the men in her life, and particularly through the eyes of her son Carl, who more than ten years after her death returns to West Gull, now divorced. He is broken and battered yet motivated to alter his ways for Lizzie, his seven-year-old daughter. The present and the past are symbolically illustrated by Lizzie and Elizabeth. The story that unfolds reveals the myriad of possibilities that a life holds, along with the pain of a life unlived. This is not an easy work to read. Profound, often disturbing and ominous, ELIZABETH AND AFTER acts as a foil or a mirror, yet surprises with unpredictability. Cohen rewards the reader with humorous passages, memorable characters, vivid settings and a familiar sense of place. Wonderfully uplifting although it begins with death, ELIZABETH AND AFTER is a tribute to Matt Cohen’s genius in articulating that ephemeral thing called the gift of life. Readers will be saddened to know that there will be no more novels from Matt Cohen, yet his unique legacy of twenty other literary works will live on, as will Elizabeth. |
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