BiC congratulates Colin McAdam. Some Great Thing is an arresting novel in many ways. There are the contrasts it sets up: Jerry McGuinty, whose story we hear, is a plasterer, a labourer with an artist's soul. Refined civil servant Simon Struthers, the other main character, was born into privilege and wealth, but lacks imagination and drive, and is immured in the solitary, prosaic dailyness of a life empty of passion for someone or some thing. McGuinty is galvanized into action by his love for wife and son, and his ambition to succeed as a builder of fine homes. Simon, on the other hand, is rendered inert by his own emotional chemistry. This is also the sad story of Jerry's attractive wife, Kathleen. While Jerry is driven to build a business and create wealth for his family against all odds, Kathleen's life beat tends in the opposite direction: she is a destroyer who squanders the love of a devoted husband, the blessings of motherhood, and the material security Jerry offers her by indulging her alcoholism. One might even say that Some Great Thing displays the beauty of the beast and the beastliness of beauty.
All this doesn't begin to explain what makes the novel a show stopper. Perhaps most significant is its narrative style, its pyrotechnics. The novel often reads like a play; it is as if the narrator is 'telling' his story by way of a dramatic monologue, sharing with us his most privateùbiting but sincereùthoughts and observations. And then there is the language itself: provocative, at times vulgar, the narrator's speech is nonetheless lifted in the end beyond the bricks and mortar of vocabulary and shaped into truthful, poetic pronouncements on the condition of love or absence of it, on the ugliness and beauty of life itself. What a feat!
BiC would like to thank this year's superb crew of judges: Michael Winter, Bill Gaston, and Camilla Gibb. And as always, we thank Amazon.ca, and W.P. Kinsella for his work throughout the year and the 2004 shortlist.