The Adversary, by Michael Crummey. Pub 2023
Michael Crummey is a favourite author. I’ve read almost all his novels and short stories, and a few books of poetry, too. I heard about this book coming out, and while I’d normally wait till Christmas or for a paperback version, I also saw that Crummey was going to be part of the 2023 Vancouver Writers Festival. I thought I should read it before that to avoid spoilers, so I bought the book when it was released a few weeks ago. By the time I went to buy tickets, the festival event was sold out. I read it anyway.
The story takes place in a northern outport community on the East coast of Newfoundland. In the village of Mockbeggar, two rival mercantile companies, each run by a feuding brother and sister, struggle to stay solvent and thwart each other’s ambitions through difficult seasons, plagues, invasions, and civil upset. After inheriting his father’s business and authority as Justice of the Peace, Abe Strapp begins a reign of depravity and violence in the community, including murder, extortion, and opening a brothel. Abe’s sister, the Widow Caines, inherits her husband’s business at his death, and tries to assert her own role and place at the head of the community. Neither sibling is much liked by the townspeople – both have proven to be avaricious, untrustworthy, and mean – but for the fishers of that time, the subjugation by the merchants was absolute, requiring them to take sides in the sibling rivalry, and so they all suffer in abject poverty under the hardships and turmoil of the brother-sister war. Over the next several years, the merchants plot and scheme against each other, using the people closest to them to execute their plans to tragic and ultimately futile effect. By the end, no one is left standing or unscarred.
The title refers to the Devil, referenced a few times by the local Church of England clergyman, known as The Beedle and allied with the brother. As expected for the time, the church plays a big role in the community. More broadly in the story, every character has or seems to require an adversary for their motivation: their aims are not success or the flourishing of their business or community, but the bringing down of their competition. Every relationship and interaction is tainted with the bitterness of historic feelings of wrong or freighted with the one-upmanship of the siblings’ competition. The town motto seems to be “the friend of my enemy is my enemy”, and those who try to stay neutral are treated even more harshly.
I liked the book and was drawn in by the story and characters, hoping against hope for a positive resolution. The ending did not deliver that – it felt rushed and chaotic and unresolved. Perhaps that’s the message – that a life and a community that is entirely adversarial ultimately ends with tragedy for everyone – but even that was not clear. Perhaps the Widow “won”, perhaps no one did.
I’m glad I read it, as I like Crummey’s writing and the historical settings of the outports (several of his previous books are set in similar spots), but this isn’t my favourite of his. Not bad, just not great.
Fate: it stays with my Crummey collection.
1 – book with a murder
4 – published in 2023
13 – set somewhere I’ve never been (Newfoundland)
28 – a favourite author
33 – Canadian author
rclr 