Ballistics: A Novel - Hardcover

This first novel by Canadian Wilson is set in a lushly described western Canada. In the 1960s, the area attracted American visitors, exiles, and fugitives, one of whom, AWOL army veteran Archer Cole, is a central figure in this mostly gripping if somewhat overwritten story. Unwilling to face another tour of duty in Vietnam, Archer, along with his 14-year-old daughter, Linnea, has crossed the border. In isolated British Columbia, they meet the cantankerous Cecil West and his then-adolescent son, Jack. In narratives alternating in time and told by Archer and Jack’s son, Alan, later grown and returned home from a stalled academic career, we learn, when Cecil sends Alan to find his dad, who left when Alan was a year old, the intricate circumstances surrounding that departure. Further complicated by a forest fire (fire plays a major role in this novel), the action heads toward an inevitable crisis. Though not unexpected, the ensuing action is forcefully related. Readers, who may be reminded of Russell Banks or the Ken Kesey of Sometimes a Great Notion, will find this a muscular, often violent, and dramatic story. --Mark Levine