Book Review

By Derryll White

Aubert, Rosemary (2003).  Leave Me By Dying

Rosemary Aubert sets up tensions at the very beginning of the story – working class Ellis Portal and wealthy law student Gleason Everett Adams, the moral stand of Ellis’ brother Michele and the 1965 events in Selma, Alabama, opposition to American involvement in Vietnam.

In the first 60 pages or so Aubert has more story lines going than James Patterson covers in five novels. And she accomplishes it all in a highly readable manner, posing moral truth and reason in opposition to the dogmatic qualities of Canadian law and jurisprudence. The reader cannot help but be involved in the overarching reach of ‘Leave me By Dying.’

The visit to Ellis Island and the immigration halls is but one of many poignant incidents in this book. One should note, however, just how effective and emotional this device is. Although on American soil it also shines the light on Canada’s large diverse ethnic composition. We all need to be reminded from whence we came.

Rosemary Aubert again successfully encourages her readers to look at Canadian society – both its culture, economics and judiciary – and to ask germane personal questions.

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Excerpts from the novel:

PROFESSOR – If I missed the comforting clutter of law books in the library, it certainly wasn’t a problem in Kevin’s office, in the nether regions of Falconer.  His room was a cell, no bigger than ten feet square.  Worn Turkish carpets hid a cement floor.  An iron-banded wood-planked door creaked ominously whenever it opened.  Shelves were stuffed with books, and more books covered the small lamp tables and a couple of scuffed leather armchairs.  His desk and the chairs always had to be cleared before his students could sit and tutorials begin.  This was a movie-set version of a law professor’s lair.  I had been there before and I knew the clichés ended with the décor.  Myron Kavin was a modern man, a clever, hard-nosed realist.

WORKING GIRLS – Before he could answer, two remarkable beings materialized out of the semidarkness.  After a moment I could see them quite clearly: two women nearly as tll as Gleason.  One was a brunette with a pixie haircut that set off her dark, liquid eyes.  Her lips were a red pout.  Her skin seemed pearlescent against the blackness of her blouse with its long tight sleeves and its neckline so low I could easily see the shadow between her breasts.  The other was blond, even more pearlescent and pouty.  She wore a short skirt split on the side almost to her waist.  As I watched in astonishment, she rubbed a lean white leg against the front of Gleason’s silk trousers.  “Are you here for some entertainment?” she murmured at him.

AMERICAN DREAM 1964 “Guys like us are going to change everything?” Michele repeated skeptically.  “You mean Canadians?”

Both my brother and I burst out laughing, but Boomer didn’t think it was funny.  “Canadians willing to take in men who refuse to be co-opted by the military-industrial complex.  Social workers who refuse to assist in the replication of tool-died capitalists.  Lawyers who are champions of the poor and not pawns of the rich.”

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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