Tranquille Dark

Elma (Martens) Schemenauer - Amazon Review

4 STAR - homelessness: delving into difficult questions

Most Kamloops (British Columbia) residents and visitors have found themselves on Tranquille Road, perhaps many times. It's a major business street and transportation artery in North Kamloops. The name, pronounced tronKEEL, is French for tranquil, calm, peaceful.

Some aspects of the street fit the name—free parking; wide, well marked pedestrian crosswalks; several churches; and an interesting mix of shops and restaurants.

But there are untranquil aspects, and Alex McGilvery explores some of them in TRANQUILLE DARK. The novel is about homeless and mostly homeless people of the area. He portrays them and their lives in a way that rings true, promotes empathy, and sometimes shocks readers. 

The story centres on a character known only as Blue. He camps under the Halston Bridge, stores his meager belongings in a tree to keep them away from bears, and fights his addiction to alcohol one day at a time. 

Blue struggles with a nagging question. In the words of the novel, "What could he do to give his life a purpose?" Day by day survival takes a lot of effort, but now that booze isn't blurring his perceptions, he's bored and wants something more. He eventually finds it in surprising places, and reveals himself to be a far different man from what readers originally took him for. 

Blue's friend Sam also isn't what he seems to be. Neither is the woman lawyer in the expensive suit. 

Neither is the opioid crisis. Behind the crisis is a chilling reality not suspected by most people in the media, law enforcement, and social services. 

This isn't a book for Pollyannas, but it's an attention-holding read that delves into difficult questions and ends on notes of hope. 

There's lots of action around, and McGilvery plunges right into it. The first sentence in the book is, "The fight started between two young punks as Blue walked south on Tranquille toward the Duchess." 

The author's use of specific details appeals to readers' senses and makes them feel as if they're really there. Examples: 

-"The kid pulled a knife. It snicked open—a gas-station karambit, cheap steel, crap quality, but it could still kill." 

-"A car honked at a man pushing a shopping cart overflowing with torn black bags and a cardboard sign reading 'Bless you.'" 

-"A woman with grey hair in a comfortable pair of grey pants and emerald green blouse came into the room and pulled up a chair." 

-"Molly paced about the small camp, trying to work out the stiffness from steeping on the ground." 

At the end of the book, a young woman who has quit taking drugs and made it off the street learns to knit. She says, "I'm getting better at keeping the tension even. It helps on the bad days." 

Blue replies, "Bad days will happen." They'll happen to her in the future, and to him, and to most of us. Bad days are part of being human. But as the novel demonstrates, help exists, and it can come in unexpected ways.