Fifth and finest, featuring heroine Frances McFadden
Home & Away, a Frances McFadden novel, by Ian McKercher.
Review by Susan Cornell
Home & Away, Ian McKercher’s fifth Frances McFadden novel, is arguably his finest work to date. This World War II story is composed of two entwined plot lines. Borrowing a sports metaphor, he presents the odd-numbered chapters set at the Bank of Canada with Frances as “the home game.” The even-numbered chapters, “the away game,” track the adventures of her boyfriend, Paul Roderick, in occupied France.
Will this switching back and forth confuse the reader or prompt more attentive reading? Is one story line more interesting than the other, encouraging readers to skip chapters for the plot they prefer?
I found his use of chapter titles set guardrails to keep me in the correct field of play. Also, the “away” chapters are much shorter than the “home” chapters, emphasizing the quickened pace of life in the war zone. That said, the “home” chapters do not drag. Peppered with subplots, (anti-Nazi rioting, intrigue at the Governor General’s, seances with the Prime Minister, security leaks at the Bank) McKercher keeps both plot lines hopping.
If you have read any of the earlier novels, you know that Frances is a rising star in the clerical hierarchy at the Bank of Canada where she exercises as much sway as Governor Graham Towers. She intervenes like a helicopter parent when internal or external forces threaten the Bank’s critical work financing the Canadian war effort. Is she “the power behind the throne?”
Frances is embarrassed when teasingly called “Queen of the Bank,” but she hobnobs so easily with Hollywood royalty and the House of Windsor, what sobriquet would be more appropriate?
Three thousand miles away, Paul Roderick is trapped in France when the armistice with Germany is signed in June of 1940. Paul gets involved subverting the occupying Nazis in a number of ways, playing an exciting game with fatal consequences if detected. Does he gamble on staying in France or slip to safety across the Spanish border?
McKercher uses correspondence between characters to illuminate views on the war from as far away as a rancher in Argentina, a parent in California and most interestingly, a princess in England. All to say, there are many perspectives on a war which remind us to contemplate carefully who did what to win it.
Sidebar subplots lure the reader to shady dealings in the construction of “temporary buildings” in Ottawa, to an abortionist in Montreal and to a blackmailer in California.
It’s a balancing act to keep the double helix story line and the various subplots from overwhelming the main theme of the novel – which seems to be that resilience and daring win the day – but the variety of these diversions draws us deeper into Frances’ world.
McKercher does have a weakness for alliteration which he uses most effectively to paint character descriptions that blossom in the mind’s eye: “She wore a blue halter top that just barely halted” and “He had the thin-lipped smile of an undertaker’s understudy.”
The copyright page has the standard boilerplate quote found in every historical fiction novel: “This book is a work of fiction wound loosely around historical events and personages.” Right, but then the author inserts, for easy reference, 18 pictures of real people who are characters in the novel, daring readers to parse the fine line between fact and fiction. Is this an aid to the visual learner or a sleight of hand designed to distract the truth from creative license?
Characters, anecdotes and historical information are the ingredients that make Home & Away a compelling and entertaining read. Despite the circumstances, Frances’ humour is ever present, as are her wisdom and humanity. A highlight of McKercher’s books is the dialogue through which the author conveys a wide variety of personalities, often with an amusing tone. Equally intriguing here are the little-known facts woven into fiction. Who could have guessed that the invention of drywall and the paint roller in 1940 would be critical to advancing a subplot?
Susan Cornell is a former resident of Second Avenue now living in Kirbyville, Texas, where she makes art.