Journeymen

There is always one person at a party who can tell a good story. Maybe she starts slowly, setting the stage with some ridiculous coincidences, until a crowd inevitably gathers and hangs off her every word. The excitement builds, along with the increasingly absurd encounters, until, finally, the adventures are just too much to believe. But everyone thoroughly enjoys the journey and no longer cares if the story’s true or not. They leave the party thinking, What fun!

Alfred Homer, the hero of André Alexis’s latest novel, is that type of storyteller. With a dry wit and ironic twist, Alfred calmly narrates an implausible road trip down the back roads of a (mostly) familiar Canadian landscape, meditating on the nature of art, identity, and grief along the way.