Etta and Otto and Russell and James
Emma Hooper
Penguin
Emma Hooper’s debut novel opens with a letter from wife to husband: ‘Otto,’ writes Etta, ‘I’ve gone. I’ve never seen the water, so I’ve gone there.’ Starting out in rural Saskatchewan during the Great Depression, the story leisurely shuffles along in the footsteps of 82-year-old Etta on her cross-country journey towards the Atlantic. Structurally, the novel benefits from Hooper’s musical background. Her rhythmic prose is one of the book’s delights, and the novel’s asymmetrical chapters and limping pauses skillfuly direct the reader to speed up or linger accordingly. Hooper describes the experience of constructing a novel as being akin to playing a symphony: ‘It’s one long piece, but the white space […] between the movements is very important.’ Space also becomes crucial as physical environment, with the flat, open spaces of the Canadian prairies setting the pace as much as the scrupulously planned white spaces on the page.
Sadly, Hooper is not as artful when it comes to character and plot development. The book has been described as ‘poetic’ and ‘lyrical’, which can be read as euphemisms that signify a general aimlessness. It’s hard to blot out the feeling that the stakes are not very high. Etta comes across more like a fairytale heroine than a real person, and the fantastical elements – including French-speaking fish skulls and a singing coyote with an affinity for ‘cowboy songs’ – reinforce this feeling. The characters share a risk-it-all nihilism that doesn’t actually *feel* risky. The couple’s long-term friend Russell runs after Etta only to leave her for dead after a perfunctory conversation during which she convinces him to instead go on an adventure of his own. ‘Because you want to and you’re allowed to and you can,’ she argues, doling out the same advice to Otto: ‘Be scared, and then jump into that fear. Again and again.’ The importance of chasing your dreams and taking chances is the grand theme here but this comes off as a little superficial if the reader is not remotely invested in the consequences of those risks.
Words: Eliza A. Kalfa
