This extraordinary book is written with such power and grace that readers may be tempted to stop and savour every paragraph. Wynne-Jones speaks with authority about surviving in the Canadian outback so that when his protagonist, fourteen-year old Burl Crow, fishes for food or builds a travois to transport his wounded father, the details feel exactly right. This deceptively simple tale of a teenage runaway broadens in unexpected ways when Burl encounters the Maestro, a pianist and composer who has built a retreat in the wilderness on the shores of Ghost Lake where he can write his masterpiece. Almost despite himself, this eccentric and solipsistic man, loosely based on the Canadian musician Glenn Gould, offers Burl a kind of salvation; a roof over his head, sustenance in the form of canned goods, and perhaps most important, the opportunity to find good in himself, an impulse that has been all but destroyed by the brutality of his father and the negligence of his mother. There is nothing easy or gentle about this tale. Burl lies and cheats his way through to a kind of survival, aided by adults whose moral compass has wavered. His plans to acquire Ghost Lake after the Maestro’s death come to grief when his father finds and destroys everything he has learned to cherish.

There is a level of actual and implied violence in this story which makes for a tense and challenging read, yet Wynne-Jones nevertheless offers the possibility of redemption. Burl at last returns to civilization and to the care of a former teacher who recognises his true worth. While Burl’s adventures in the wilderness will appeal to teenage boys, the psychological complexity of the story will also attract sophisticated readers of either sex.

2008-01-04