The first American edition has recently been released of Robert J. Wiersema’s debut novel Before I Wake.
Book details:
Hardback. Octavo. 312pp. Bound in maroon boards and published by St. Martin’s Press. The dust jacket is designed by Pete Garceau. $21.95
Author details:
Wiersema is a bookseller in Victoria, B.C. where he runs the reading program and takes care of the PR for Bolen Books. His book reviews have appeared in the Vancouver Sun and the Globe and Mail
Review:
Wiersema weaves a provocative tale of pain and redemption that is told using multiple narrators.
The novel begins with a traumatic car accident that turns the Barrett family upside down. The accident leaves their only child, a 3 year old girl, in a coma with little chance of survival.
Early on the novel has a Jane Hamilton Map of the World type of feel where the suffering is so great that the relationships that touch the event almost have to deteriorate.
There is that fraying here- Simon, the little girl’s father, was having an affair with a woman at his office and the enormity of the accident pushed him out of the relationship with his wife and out of the house.
Another thread is the path of Harry Denton, the man who was driving the car that hit the little girl. The depth of the tragedy pushed Harry immediately over the edge. Denton, a father and husband himself, was unable to return to his family after the accident and starts living on the streets.
Then Wiersema switches gears and things start to get a little otherworldly.
Sherry, the little girl, was taken off life support to die but instead started breathing. She then returns home in a catatonic state. The nurse caring for her soon realizes that her debilitating arthritis had completely healed. She then realizes that it was the contact with the comatose girl that had healed her. Next she brings her sister in and boom her cancer was gone, then her sisters friend and boom her cancer was gone. We’re talking miracles.
Then the local paper gets hold of the story and…
Denton decides he can’t go on living after what happened and jumps of a cliff in the hope that he would hit the rocks below and be put out of his misery. No such luck for Harry as his suicide leap is buffeted by some nameless life force. Harry lives only to walk the earth being invisible. The only place he is noticed? At the library! Where he and his fellow guilt travelers spend the evenings reading and hanging out in book purgatory.
With all these miracles going on you know that the church has got to be lurching about. Father Peter is hell-bent on discrediting the miracles taking place in the Barrett home. He is Iago evil and will stop at nothing to see these miracles cease.
And only… can stop them.
A solid debut and a thoroughly enjoyable read.
Book Patrol puts it on the: Second Shelf
Here is the dust jacket of the Canadian edition, the true first edition, published by Random House. The tagline reads “The greatest gifts have the highest cost…”
