Formidable Questions, Subtle Answers

Alan Cumyn’s new novel, The Famished Lover, is a sequel to his earlier novel, The Sojourn, which tells the story of Ramsay Crome, a young Canadian painter turned soldier who is granted a week’s leave during World War I. During his time away from the front, Ramsay travels to London to visit his uncle and, while there, falls in love with his cousin Margaret, who is already well on her way to being engaged to someone else. All the same, she and Ramsay exchange furtive kisses, go for long walks, see plays, visit Westminster Abbey, talk about him painting her portrait, argue about the war and then, with almost everything left unsaid between them that needs to be said and definitely without sleeping together, Ramsay returns to the battlefield where he has barely enough time to turn down a transfer away from the front before being captured by the Germans. So ends The Sojourn, a novel that, in leaving readers with so many vexing questions, may have provoked...