Synopsis
Doctor Thomas Neill Cream (Mystery at McGill)
Published by Talon Books
Large Mixed Cast
Fifteen years to the day after the death of their father, three brothers get together and drive out to the place where it happened - an old fishing spot on the river down Dangerous Passes Road
Each is facing a crucial rite of passage:
Carl, the youngest, is to be married later in the day, and it is this occasion that has brought the three of them together
Ambrose is losing his lover to AIDS
Victor, the eldest, has just left his second failed marriage
They have never really spoken with each other because they all have their own individual secrets to hide, and because they share an ambivalence about the death of their father
Could they have prevented it? Would they have wanted to save the town drunk, dreamer, poet, fisherman, the man who embarrassed them in front of their friends and locked them in the sentimental prison of his poems?
Are they ready, finally to reveal themselves to each other and move on with their lives?
Can they survive this unsparing encounter with their own manhood?
In voices that interweave, alternate and play off one another with the exquisite lyricism of chamber music, the brothers reveal themselves as trapped by their father's inability to let his boys grow up, and their own inability to accept him as an adult