Book Club: Fisher's Hornpipe, by Todd McEwen

Soon after splitting his head open on the ice of Walden Pond, William Fisher thinks to himself "I feel like an audience." The question that prompted Fisher's internal reply - "How are you?" - is repeated many times throughout the book, and his answer is an apt one as he loses control of himself and events around him.

McEwen is a phenomenal writer, and his novel is peppered with the sort of phrases that made me wish I had a pen handy to record them for posterity. It seems a minor miracle that I have not crossed paths with this book earlier in its 25 years of existence.

The secondary characters - not that there are more than a handful that merit even their own names - never seem to develop beyond their impact in Fisher's life, almost as if they exist more for narrative convenience than for their own sake. But this probably shouldn't be surprising, considering an early shift from first person perspective to third that makes it clear we are viewing this story through a long lens.

Those hoping for a denouement, or any sort of real resolution, had best look elsewhere. McEwen has the courage here to take a nod from real life and leave Fisher on a beach in Rhode Island, in a sort of Gatsby-esque ending that leaves the reader simultaneous fulfilled and yearning for more.