Austinist Reviews: A Map of Glass by Jane Urquhart

Canada is the source of many of the things that make our lives worth living: hockey, beer, cheap pharmaceuticals, and good writing about unbalanced people. Indeed, for such a sparsely populated country, Canada is home to an inordinate number of our favorite writers: Atwood, Munro, Shields, Martel. So we had high expectations for one of its most recent literary exports, A Map of Glass by Jane Urquhart.

Urquhart’s latest novel centers on three unbalanced people: Andrew Woodman, who wandered into the harsh Canadian winter in an Alzheimer’s haze and froze to death; Sylvia Bradley, Andrew’s lover who suffers from her own unnamed condition that has kept her emotionally and physically separated from everyone but Andrew; and Jerome McNaughton, a young artist who found Andrew’s frozen body and tries to help Sylvia find some closure even as he avoids dealing with his own emotional issues.

A Map of Glass shares many traits with its Canadian brethren: a strong sense of environment and how it both affects and reflects our mental states (Andrew is figuratively frozen in his mind by his illness and literally frozen in the ice); an interest in history, both national and personal (nearly half the book is taken up by a history of Andrew’s ancestors); modest, ordinary characters who are honest—sometimes brutally so—about their own shortcomings; and beautifully lyrical writing that explores the interiors and exteriors of the story with equal precision.

But there is something missing, something that keeps us from adding Urquhart to our list of favorite writers: a sense of humor. A Map of Glass is as unrelentingly bleak and somber as a January snowstorm. The all-pervading melancholy, combined with an absence of plot and underdeveloped, unsympathetic characters, makes this a slow slog. We become as mired in misery as Sylvia and Jerome, desperately wanting to shout, “Take a pill and get over it!”

That said, this book stuck with us. Its lyrical passages, thematic explorations of nurture and nature, and final Martelian twist kept us thinking about the story long after we turned the final page. So, although we can’t recommend packing this for a day at Barton Springs, it’s a beautifully written, thought-provoking read for a rainy, melancholy afternoon. You just might want to stock up on some pharmaceuticals and beer first.

A Map of Glass
by Jane Urquhart
(MacAdam/Cage, $25.00)

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