‘The Matter of Sylvie’ by Lee Kvern

Reviewed by Robin Dudgeon

There is no doubt that Sylvie Burrows is special. In her second novel, The Matter of Sylvie, author Lee Kvern explores the effect one extraordinary child has on the lives of those around her.

The Matter of Sylvie is organized in short alternating chapters in which Kvern indirectly explores the effect Sylvie had on her family without ever writing as Sylvie. The book instead follows three different storylines. Each of the storylines follows a character on a particularly rough Wednesday: Jacqueline in July of 1961, Lloyd in February of 1973, and Lesa in October of 1987.  Although each storyline starts separately, by the end of the novel they merge.

Jacqueline Burrows is a mother of three in July of 1961, with another baby on the way. Her unfaithful husband Lloyd is an RCMP officer and is not often home, leaving her to deal with their three children. It’s Sylvie that’s the most difficult because she has severe brain damage. Every minute of Jacqueline’s every day is consumed by Sylvie.

Sylvie is the only kid in the neighbourhood who gets up at the crack of dawn and doesn’t sleep until long after dark. The only things Sylvie will sit still for are drawing, having her hair washed, and Smarties. Kvern describes Sylvie beautifully:

So beautiful, Jacqueline thinks. Sylvie, she means, despite the cruel jagged line across both lips and her slightly off-kilter eyes. Sylvie’s face is alight, electric almost… If you look at Sylvie’s eyes, they are blackish-brown, bottomless really… it’s as if Sylvie’s wires are crossed and the only time she can find stillness in this fleeting, forever life is after a seizure, which she has three, four, five times in the course of a week. Then Sylvie lies perfectly still, eerily motionless as if already dead, her dark eyes dim, vacant.

The most captivating part of The Matter of Sylvie is the portrait Kvern paints of a woman pushed past her wits’ end. On this particular Wednesday Nate is sick with sun stroke, Lesa is defiant, her husband is MIA, and Sylvie is tearing apart the house. Jacqueline is haunted by the fear that her unborn baby will be another Sylvie. Kvern does an especially good job of describing exactly how exhausting it is caring for a special needs child, and deals with the reality in a brisk and lyrical style.

In 1973 Sylvie’s father Lloyd, in the meantime, has a particularly difficult Wednesday when he is patrolling the dark streets of Smoky Lake, Alberta. The cases he deals with force him to reflect on his treatment of his family. Kvern paints a touching portrait of a man who cheats on the devoted wife he loves and can’t look past his handicapped daughter’s skewed face.

Sylvie’s older sister Lesa is coming home in 1987 for the first time in three years to participate in her mother’s memorial for her dead father. Her father’s cancer “devoured him slowly over the course of eleven years– from the inside out like a ripening pear, then overtly so, and no one noticed until the dark bruises appeared on his yellowing skin.”

Perhaps it’s Lesa’s story that is the saddest. Not only was she Sylvie’s guardian but she was expected to be her parent. Even at five years old Lesa was expected to look after Sylvie. If something happened, such as Sylvie wandering into the forbidden back alley and nearly being abducted by a stranger, it was Lesa who was to blame. She was always the victim of her mother’s sudden rages. After her father died she and her mother drifted apart.

The Matter of Sylvie is a page turner, which I finished in just over a day. It’s the pacing that makes it so appealing. Kvern takes her time to reveal things. SPOILER ALERT: It’s hinted at for most of the novel that Sylvie ‘went away’ in 1963, but it’s not until over half way through that we find out her parents had her institutionalized at the Michener Institute, where she could be cared for properly.

The Matter of Sylvie is Lee Kvern’s second novel, following 2001’s Afterall, and has been short-listed for the 2011 Alberta Book Awards.