‘Atomic Storybook’ by Ed Macdonald

Reviewed by Lonnie Smetana

Atomic Storybook is the second novel from Ed Macdonald, whose first novel was the well-received Spat the Dummy. Despite his relative newness to writing full-length novels, Macdonald is a seasoned writer. He has written and produced many hours of television as well as scripts for both screen and stage, and has won three Gemini awards for his work on shows like This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Made in Canada.

In an interview with the Cape Breton Post from earlier this year, Macdonald discussed his stylistic leanings: “I like the unconventional stuff, mainly because the trend in just about everything these days is decidedly more mainstream.” Rest assured that the “unconventional stuff” comes through in abundance. The protagonist, a young painter named Owen, is regularly abducted by beings he calls “the space pricks.” They perform experiments on him and speak to him telepathically to interrogate him with absurd riddles.

Owen has a motley circle of friends, including one of his closest friends, Mark. Mark and Owen have one key element in common, a Dr. Wise who has a proclivity for dispensing red pills. I have to admit that the potential symbolism of the red pill didn’t strike me until a bit later in the book. It’s tempting to see the red pill in the same way the sci-fi film The Matrix did, borrowing from Alice in Wonderland: a choice that once made leads you into a rabbit hole of a world where you have to question much of what you encounter. Macdonald does an excellent job through multiple perspectives of keeping the reader on edge as to what is real and what is not. It’s impossible to be sure if the red pills are actually just placebos or if Owen is merely immune to their effects.

We also get glimpses into what might be Owen’s previous lives — one as a twelfth century English monk, one as an agent that comes to question Albert Einstein, and in yet another, one where he shares a ward with Albert Einstein’s son, Eduard, in the Burghölzli mental hospital. Interspersed along the journey through these past lives are the realities of Owen’s current life. These realities show us the full range of human behaviours from cruelty to tenderness.

The narrative is also interrupted periodically by samples of Owen’s writing, generally postcard-length prose poems. It is in these sections that might otherwise be easily dismissed as non sequiturs, that some of Macdonald’s finest prose emerges. Ranging from elegant to raw, he achieves some wonderful imagery, packing a lot into a short line: “She became a scar on the palm of her father’s hand.”  The major variation from the prose poems is a short story titled “The Belling Deer” – a dark tale about the Devil and his daughter.

Even with all of the carefully crafted surprises, there are aspects of the novel that one might label conventional. Owen, lives with his wife, Iris in Toronto. Most of the time. Iris has a habit of becoming tired of Owen, leaving him only to return days later when her resolve slackens. She and Owen typify the struggle between romantic sentiment and reality. They end up like so many couples that marry for misguided reasons. The bloom comes off the plum and they realize the story they have been telling themselves is a fabrication. Specifically in this case, Owen has a talent for spilling outside the borders of the biography that Iris wrote for him long before they met.

The beautifully designed cover promises that the story is “about the early years of Albert Einstein.” While this is true, I am reminded of a Roland Barthes essay in which he wrote that “Einstein embodies the most contradictory dreams.” The same could be said here.  The sections involving the Einsteins were filled with promise and narrative interest but that promise did not feel fully realized in this novel, certainly not to the degree they were incorporated.

The flashback to Owen’s life as a monk is dealt with in a cleaner, more economical fashion. The Einstein scenes become more of a distraction from the main story rather than well-integrated flashbacks. However, there is a moment from one of the Einstein sections that is pure brilliance. Consider an intellect like Albert Einstein’s trying to ponder the actions and motivations of a house fly. I had to put the book down for a while and ponder the scene for myself. It’s a barometer of excellent writing when a novel can get you to stop reading, causing you to daydream and get lost in one magnificently imagined scene.

Considering the novel as a whole work, Atomic Storybook can be thought of as a conflict between the stories we tell ourselves about our lives ,and the stories about us that are created by others. Owen and the people closest to him struggle to influence the realities around them in varying ways. For some, the burden is too much and leads them to depravity.

I’ve not done justice to the varied cast of characters that are part of Owen’s real and imagined lives. This is a case of me shaping my own reality around Owen, just the sort of outcome he’d rebel against. Pick up this novel for yourself and shape your own story around it. Or just let Owen and his friends take you out of your own reality for a while.

Anvil | 256 pages |  $20.00 | paper | ISBN # 978-1927380437