Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant
– available at Polar Peek Books & Treasures in Fernie
– Reviewed by Angie Abdou for The Fernie Fix’s September 2010 Issue

As we head into the new school year, I thought I’d recommend a funny novel. Funny’s good.  Nothing wrong with funny. Or, as Jessica Grant’s protagonist would say, I would not say no to funny.

Really, Jessica Grant doesn’t need me to tell people to read Come, Thou Tortoise. It’s been nominated for a host of awards, and won the Books in Canada First Novel Award. Lisa Moore publically promised that the book will make readers split their sides laughing, and Michael Winter put out a plea: “Please—I beg you dear reader—read Jessica Grant.” Bigger voices than mine have endorsed Come, Thou Tortoise, but in case you haven’t heard them, let me say one more time: you really should read Grant’s funny, original, clever and profound first novel.

Let me, however, get a little bee out of my bonnet: there are two things that irritate me about Come, Thou Tortoise. First, there’s the absence of quotation marks (which is a trend I can tolerate because I kind of get it). Second, there’s the absence of question marks (which is just plain weird and confusing). I mean, really, what’s wrong with question marks.

Get it.

Yeah, me neither. So, I don’t like Grant’s approach to punctuation, but I’m willing to endure one stylistic oddity for the sake of all the other delightful surprises Come, Thou Tortoise has to offer.

The novel has two narrators: the IQ-challenged Audrey Flowers (who answers to “Oddly”) and Winnifred (Oddly’s beloved tortoise). Yes, a tortoise narrates. I suppose I’m obliged here to give some indication of what the novel is about, but I don’t feel like it. With this book, the fun really is in the surprise, and, anyway, Come, Thou Tortoise is about what all great novels are about: death, life, meaning, love, conventions, survival.

In the spirit of the list-obsessed Audrey, let me instead give you five reasons that Fernie readers should pick up a copy of Come, Thou Tortoise pronto:

1. It’s very punny (even the punniest), and a town with Kevin McIsaac on city council has already voted loudly and clearly in favour of punny.
   
2. There’s a rock-climber named Cliff. If that’s not enough, he has a brother named Ridge. And, get this, Cliff is a gear-head: “Which means someone who loves gear for its own sake.  He often slept in his own harness.” (You can, if you must, tell me that you’ve never ever slept with your new skis or new bike or any new gear belonging to you or your significant other, but I don’t believe you.)
3. There’s a plane in Audrey’s basement, and you’re already dying to know why.
4. Maybe you can figure out what Jessica Grant is doing with (or without) question marks, in which case you can explain it to me and feel very smart.
5. For about twenty bucks, you get a trip to Newfoundland.

As the plane lands, the pilot will announce that the weather in St. John’s is what you’d expect. True, but the weather is the only predictable thing in this universe. Kudos to Jessica Grant for bringing into being a world like no other.

Enjoy. I know you will.

Copyright © 2010 by Angie Abdou, Ph.D.