tl;dr

Novels about men who travel out into uncharted territory to discover the unknown rarely consider those that are left behind.  West bucks that trend.

opening remarks

Even if I hadn’t heard a great deal that’s positive about Carys Davies short novel (technically novella), I’d still want to read West based just on the gorgeous cover.

knee-jerk observations

12-year-old Bess watches as her father rides off west.  Her aunt believes he’s a fool and that they will never see him again.  Bess thinks otherwise.

Cy Bellman, Bess’ father, would appear to be searching for a large animal, a beast with a skull as big as a man, half-buried somewhere in the West.

Not everyone is as convinced as Bellman that woolly mammoths – or whatever the beast is – can be found out West.  Bellman though is not discouraged.

I like that the story alternates between Bellman’s journey and Bess’ patient wait for her father to return.  Those left behind are rarely given a voice, and in the hands of another author, West would only be a story about exploration (a possible fool’s errand) and survival. 

Back home there isn’t much community love for Bellman’s journey of discovery.

Searching for giant monsters out in the mostly uncharted west is, apparently, the 19th Century version of a mid-life crisis.

While Cy ventures further west, now aided by a young Native, Old Woman From A Distance, back home Cy’s next door neighbour, Elmer Jackson, has designs on 12-year-old Bess.

There’s a naivety to Bellman, an expectation that everything will turn out OK.  It’s a necessary attitude if you plan to travel thousands of kilometres on the off chance that you’ll discover a giant, previously undiscovered beast.  It does mean, though, that he assumes he and his companion are getting along fine even if they can’t communicate.  What Cy doesn’t know, but we do, is that Old Woman From A Distance’s sister was murdered by a man with red hair and a beard, the same colour as Cy’s.

This is the truth:

The Gist Of It

West is a story about a man who runs away from his responsibilities, in particular, his daughter.

This is never said outright, and it’s clear that Cy Bellman is taken with the idea of discovering his very own behemoth. However, given there’s thin evidence that these beasts exist and the journey out west is long and treacherous with a high chance of death, Cy’s decision to have his sister look after his 11-year old daughter, Bess, reads like a man who has never come to terms with the death of his wife.  Does that make Cy selfish and foolhardy?  Yes.  But what’s terrific about this very slim novel is that Davies never judges Cy.  Even his eventual fate feels like a natural outcome of the story, rather than authorial punishment.

The highlight of the novel isn’t Cy’s search for the impossible, but that Davies doesn’t forget those left behind, especially Cy’s daughter Bess.  Rather than despise her father for abandoning her, she admires him; she’s proud of his desire to chart the unknown.  Bess is lonely, her Aunt isn’t a great conversationalist, and she increasingly distances herself from the next door neighbour, Elmer Jackson (a difficult task given he comes over for dinner most nights), but when she’s not missing her father she’s following his course on the few maps describing the west owned by the library.  It’s a beautiful, tender portrayal that’s undermined slightly by the lascivious attitude of some of the men – let’s not forget that she’s only 12.  It’s not that I’m a prude or don’t acknowledge that back in the day young girls, still children, were seen by some men as fair game, but Elmer’s lust for Bess felt like a predictable, familiar choice for what’s overall a very smart book.

With the bulk of the novel divided between Cy and Bess the perspective of the young Native American, Old Woman From A Distance, is limited.  What we do get, specifically in the later part of the novel, reads as a respectful treatment of his culture, at least from my uneducated perspective.  It does highlight the poor treatment Native Americans received from white people, who viewed them as ignorant and always asking for more than they deserved.  Old Woman From A Distance also turns out to be the hero of the piece, which is pleasing and unexpected.

I’ve seen West described as a western fable – I’m not sure what that means – and I’ve read one review that focused on how objects – like a knitting needle – journey through the story, moving from person to person, which I’m sure is a deliberate move on Davies part.  For me, though, West’s strengths are in its storytelling and its sensitive, generous portrayal of its characters.