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As most people walk the streets of the typical North American city, they give little thought to the sometimes sedimentary way in which their modern urban environment has risen out of the deposits of previous generations in a ceaseless cycle of building, destruction and rebuilding. In his latest novel, set in his hometown of Toronto, Michael Redhill makes that subject the springboard for a haunting exploration of a historical mystery that insinuates its way into the lives of a group of contemporary characters.
David Hollis teaches "forensic geology," a field he describes as "combining landforms with sleuthing." In his early 60s, he is diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease and knows he is faced with an inevitable decline into disability and eventual painful death. His final professional work is a monograph in which he argues that the wreckage of a mid-19th century steamer, the Commodore Walker, containing a priceless photographic record of the Toronto of that era, lies buried in ground about to be covered over with concrete for a new hockey arena. Dismayed by the derision that greets his work, and his steadily worsening physical condition, he commits suicide by falling from the deck of a ferry on its way from the city to the Toronto Islands in Lake Ontario.
A few months after his death, David's widow, Marianne, ensconces herself on the 33rd floor of a Toronto hotel overlooking the construction site. There, she waits patiently for physical evidence to corroborate her late husband's theory, motivated by his belief that "There is a vast part of this city with mouths buried in it…But we stop them up with concrete and build over them, and whatever it is they wanted to say gets whispered down empty alleys and turns into wind. People need to be given a reason to listen." At first, only John Lewis, her daughter Bridget's fiancé, is aware of the purpose of her hotel vigil. John played a role in David's suicide that he refuses to acknowledge to himself or reveal to the women of the Hollis family. Gradually, he becomes obsessed with Marianne's quest and is determined to do what he can to halt the construction before the past is entombed forever.
Interwoven with the modern narrative is the story of J.G. Hallam, set in Toronto between 1855 and 1857. Hallam has come to the rough, young city to establish an apothecary business like the one his family has operated successfully in England. Soon, he finds himself crushed by ruthless competitors, and he develops an unusual friendship with two other down-on-their-luck Torontonians: Sam Ennis, an Irish photographer of somewhat unsavory personal habits to whom Hallam provides the silver nitrate used in preparing glass photographic plates; and Claudia Rowe, one of Ennis's models and the widow of a telegraph worker whose disappearance has prevented her from collecting on a substantial life insurance policy and who now is consigned to a life of poverty.
When Hallam finally abandons his apothecary business, he forms a photography partnership with Ennis and Rowe. In time, they produce a nearly complete photographic record of the city of Toronto in 1856. On the way home from England, where the photographs are used to support Toronto's bid to become the capital of the Province of Canada, the Commodore Walker runs aground in the city's harbor, and this irreplaceable photographic evidence is lost.
In lyrical prose, Redhill returns time and again to the theme of destruction and rebirth that is reflected in the cycles of city life. J.G. Hallam, in 1856, "could not imagine a future when the streets would not be pockmarked in regular intervals by butts of brick and piles of wood, forged and cast nails being ground underfoot for future generations to chance on." One hundred and forty years later, John Lewis reflects that "Boats and dead pets and lost shoes became layers of earth; wooden carts, yellow brick and stamped tin ceiling tiles, cherished knickknacks and empty liniment bottles and gutta-percha photograph cases and ceramic dolls with their painted eyes rubbed almost clean --- all things cooperated with extinction; only people held them tight."
We live in a world obsessed with the idea of novelty, the quest for the latest "new, new thing." Pausing for a few hours to savor CONSOLATION may be a worthwhile antidote for that neurosis. Although it undoubtedly will have special resonance for readers living in Toronto or those familiar with the city, this compelling novel deserves a wide audience.
--- Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg (mwn52@aol.com)
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