Sweetness and quirk on the Canadian prairies

A whimsical adventure story by debut novelist Emma Hooper
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
Johanna Thomas-Corr22 January 2015

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper (Fig Tree, £12.99)

Etta and Otto and Russell and James is not a children’s clothes boutique in Notting Hill but a whimsical adventure story by debut novelist Emma Hooper. Described by the author as a “love letter to my homeland”, it’s generated a huge publishing buzz and earned the author — a Canadian folk musician living in England — a reported six-figure advance.

Octogenarian Etta has lived on dusty farms in Saskatchewan all of her life and never seen the ocean. One day, she embarks on a 2,000- mile journey of self-discovery across the Canadian prairies, amassing a cult following and befriending a talking coyote called James. Whether the chatty dog is down to magic realism or just Etta’s dementia — memory loss as literary technique is in vogue now — it makes for an entertaining twist on Forrest Gump.

Only unlike the eponymous movie hero, Etta is not searching for a teenage sweetheart but leaving one. Two, in actual fact. Her departure is a surprise to both Otto, the husband she married on his return from the Second World War, and his disabled best friend Russell, who has pined for her for more than 60 years across their adjoining farms. He’s also never left Saskatchewan and so sets off in pursuit of Etta, leaving Otto at home with only his wife’s recipe cards and his traumatic war memories for company.

There’s a beautiful rhythm to Hooper’s prose, as you might expect from a musician. Her sentences, with their multiple clauses, artfully delay key pieces of information in order to build up a vivid picture of the dusty Canadian prairies — but she’s at her best in the flashbacks to the war, particularly Otto’s semi-literate letters to Etta: “Once we can dance with the guns and run with the guns and embrace each other with the guns we’ll be ready to go…” Hooper’s gentle humour also makes good use of the censored war letters, exposing the absurdity of receiving messages with all the most significant details cut out.

But, ironically, the same problem is true of the novel. Too much about the characters, as well as their lives between the war and their old age, remains unsaid. There are plenty of hints and details about prairie living — the cinnamon bun-baking, dandelion-picking and gopher- hunting — the kind of quirky descriptions you might expect from an author whose band is called Waitress for the Bees. But in a 278-page book, you can’t have only quirks. Quirks, after all, need something from which to quirk — otherwise they don’t really quirk.

This reliance on baking and tending animals at times of crisis means we experience a kind of sentimental intimacy with the characters but long for a glimpse into their interior worlds instead.

Life, as Hooper sees it, may not be as simplistic as Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates but it’s not far off. One of the central metaphors for Otto’s self-discovery is the baking he attempts to perfect Etta’s cinnamon buns. One batch follows another batch, followed by another. I’m afraid that’s too much sugar for me.

Go to standard.co.uk/booksdirect to buy this book for £10.99, or phone 0843 060 0029, free UK p&p

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