Ms. Hen reviews The Canary

 

The Canary

Michael Loyd Gray

Bottom Dog Press

2013

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel, because she is interested in both Amelia Earhart and Ernest Hemingway. She knew they were contemporaries, and wondered if they had ever met. She did some research, and did not find out if they met, but she found this novel that is about their fictional friendship in Chicago when they were in high school in 1915.

This novel takes place when Amelia Earhart crashes her plane, and lands on a small island in the South Pacific. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, crash the plane, and survive for a while, but nobody finds them. Fred dies soon after they land. Amelia struggles to find food and water, and is at war with the crabs on the island, which she believes are an army against her.

While she's on the island, she remembers her life when she was young, the time she was friends with Ernest Hemingway in Chicago. She was about to graduate high school, and he had two years to go. They went to different schools, but met in a diner. They would meet on the weekends, and go out to eat, or go to a baseball game, or a museum. Amelia remembers the growing boy with the big smile.

Ms. Hen thinks this book is quirky. There is no big romance between Ernest and Amelia, but she thinks there might have been in real life. They go out to eat and talk about the future. Ms. Hen thinks the best part of this novel is when Ernest convinces Amelia she should try flying, and flaps his arms, and tries to fly. Ms. Hen thinks that this is something completely in character for Ernest Hemingway.

When Amelia is on the island fighting the crabs, the writing is very dreamlike. The text is in italics, which Ms. Hen thinks works for this section. Ms. Hen likes to imagine that Amelia Earhart did live for a little while, that she didn't crash into the ocean and die. Ms. Hen thinks the part about the crabs is well written, and vivid.

Ms. Hen liked this novel. She thought the parts where Ernest and Amelia were hanging out together were a little boring, but life can be boring sometimes. Both characters went on to live amazing and fascinating lives, and this novel puts them together at the beginning of their lives, when their dreams have not been formed quite yet, and they did not know what the wide world had in store for them. Ms. Hen and other readers know what will become of them; their talents would dazzle the public and they would become stars.