The Long Stretch (1999) is the first entry in Linden MacIntyre's Cape Breton Trilogy, which includes the novels The Bishop's Man (2006) and Why Men Lie (2012). Looking at this novel in isolation, it's easy to see why the author felt compelled to return to these characters in later works. The Long Stretch, filled with ghosts whose past actions have determined the course that many lives follow in the present, leaves more than a few questions unanswered and narrative possibilities unexplored. In these pages there are secrets and bad behaviour galore as well as enough half-truth, rumour and innuendo to fill ten novels. Sextus Gillis has returned to Port Hastings, Cape Breton, after an absence of many years and while in town encounters his cousin John (a recovering alcoholic) on the street outside the liquor store (where else?). They retreat to the kitchen of John's family house (located on "the long stretch" of road outside of town), where John now lives by himself, and what follows is a night-long booze-soaked conversation between the two. The cousins share a fraught personal relationship (John's wife Effie ran off to Toronto with Sextus; Sextus--a journalist--published a novel loosely based on the Gillis family's private history, borrowing liberally from John's experiences), which makes their conversation--filled with confession and accusation--occasionally tense and even physical. The novel, set in November 1983, describes events mostly from the previous two decades, but also reaches back to their fathers' experiences overseas in WWII. For a narrative based largely on an extended dialogue between two people, the novel generates great suspense as we wait to see what rumour will be debunked and secret revealed next. The narrator is John, and as the conversation moves forward he recounts his own impressions of those times for the reader's benefit. This is a complex story of tragedy, betrayal and relentless disappointment as the characters struggle to make their own lives and those of their families livable during a seemingly endless cycle of boom and bust engendered by flawed government economic initiatives in a chronically disadvantaged region. More than anything else, though, it is a study of how misunderstanding, hidden truth and lingering resentment can lay waste to lives and families. A compelling read. ( )

The first of MacIntyre's award-winning Cape Breton trilogy, The Long Stretch is a beautifully crafted illustration of the axiom: the sins of the parent shall fall upon the children.

The narrative, set on Cape Breton Island, reveals the mystery and horror of one brutal act during WWII, and how the men involved in that crime attempt to retain some semblance of normalcy for themselves and their families in the years which follow.

Written in a staccato style of stuttering sentence fragments, MacIntyre creates a story of tension, pain and ultimately of love without recourse to graphic descriptions and hysteria-blown scenes. A master work of literature from a master Canadian journalist. ( )

Jack and Sextus Gillis, cousins, meet after thirteen years and spend an evening reminiscing about their fathers and their friend, Angus MacAskill. Jack’s father Sandy was injured in Holland near the end of World War II; Angus was present but because the two men give few details about how the injury occurred, rumours aboud when the men return home to Cape Breton. The most frequent rumour is that Angus shot Sandy because of jealousy over a Dutch woman.

Nether of the two cousins was especially close to his father, each tending to favour his uncle, and the relationship between the cousins was acrimonious after Jack’s wife (Angus’s daughter) ran off with Sextus. Nonetheless, when the cousins encounter each other, they try to piece together what actually happened to Sandy, to find the truth behind all the rumours and speculations.

A major theme of the novel was outlined by the author: “the extent to which lives are shaped by collateral consequences. Decisions or unconsidered actions by individuals we could not have known contribute to who we are or will become.” The actions of Angus and Sandy in the war affect their families even though the family members, like Jack and Sextus, do not know the details of what happened: “Personalities yet unformed will be marked by an event of which their generation will have no knowledge.”

Because the pivotal event between Angus and Sandy took place during the war, obviously the book is also about the effects of war: “The deviance of what people do in war becomes appallingly clear only to the survivors. It is in the aftermath of war that the greatest disfigurement occurs in the human soul.”

The search for truth is also a unifying idea in the book. One character says, “’you spend your whole life either searching for [it] or hiding from [it]’” or “’let other things get in the way of truth.’” Jack has difficulty accepting certain truths about his father, but in the end seems to adopt the philosophy of his friend Millie who says, “’Life is a sequence of mistakes and consequences and a process of getting smarter because of them. . . . The hard part is those rare, big ones. They’re the ones that either destroy you or make you wiser.’” The older generation is largely destroyed but for Jack and Sextus there is hope that they have gained some wisdom.

The reticence of the older generation to discuss serious issues reminded me so much of my parents’ generation which tried to shield children from unpleasant truths, so I found this book very realistic.

The portrayal of life on Cape Breton and the changes brought by the construction of the Canso Causeway was very interesting.

This is a book that gives the reader some ideas to ponder, but it is also entertaining; there is certainly an element of suspense throughout as we wonder whether the truth will be completely uncovered. ( )

My education in Canadian literature continues apace with this, my third book by award-winning TV journalist and documentary film maker Linden MacIntyre. First I read his 2009 bestseller THE BISHOP'S MAN, then, CAUSEWAY, his memoir of growing up on Cape Breton before the Canso causeway "changed everything," and now his earlier bestselling novel, THE LONG STRETCH. Obviously I've read the three books in bass-ackwards order, but I don't think it matters, as they are all complete and absorbing books each in their own way. But, having read the memoir, I can see the autobiographical threads running through both novels, as MacIntyre's own father was a "hard rock miner," often away from home during Linden's boyhood.

Cousins Johnny and Sextus Gillis, characters who showed up in The Bishop's Man, take center stage here, as do their fathers and other folks from "the long stretch," an 'out back' remote area on the west end of Cape Breton Island. There is a dark violent secret dating back to the closing days of WWII in rural Holland that grimly ties the lives and misfortunes of Johnny's father, Sandy Gillis, and a neighbor, Angus MacAskill. And there is a scandalous rupture of a marriage that has Effie MacAskill (Johnny's wife) running off with Sextus, by then a successful writer and newspaperman who has 'escaped' to Toronto from the provincial village where they all grew up. Effie is - to try to show the ties here - Angus's daughter and sister to Duncan, who becomes a priest (and the central character in THE BISHOP'S MAN). I'm not going to give you a complete schematic of the cast of characters here, but take my word for it, they're all connected in some way.

MacIntyre employs an intriguing 'frame' device for telling the story of two generations here, with Sextus returning home from Toronto after both their fathers (and Angus too) are all dead, and spending a long binge-drinking afternoon and evening with cousin Johnny. Slowly the dark connections and sordid stories of the past forty years or so emerge as the two men work their way through drink after drink after drink, toying dangerously with a pistol and even coming to blows at one point as a Lear-like storm rages outside. Sextus is looking for something from Johnny, exactly what perhaps even he doesn't know, but he obviously harbors a long-time simmering resentment for the closeness Johhny enjoyed with Jack (Sextus's father). Yeah - it's that fathers and sons thing again, and that age-old difficulty between them, the seeming inability to connect, to simply let each other know they love each other. Ya know?

This is one hell of a book, and I mean that in the best possible way. MacIntyre has a way of getting at the truth of what really matters between people, and also of showing the difficulty of expressing it. Here's one way he explains it -

"The truth ... is real simple: Life is a sequence of mistakes and consequences and a process of getting smarter because of them. Most of them, anyway. The hard part is those rare, big ones. They're the ones that either destroy you or make you wiser."

Narrator Johnny Gillis was nearly destroyed, but not quite. He seems a little wiser at least, even if he hasn't quite figured it all out.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Perhaps one of the most
important 'characters' in this book - and also in the other two - is the rock hard and unforgiving landscape of Cape Breton. If you've never been there, you'll feel like you have been by the time you've read Linden MacIntyre's books. He has absorbed the 'feel' of the place he grew up and renders it like the talented artist he is.

These are not 'happily ever after' kinda books, but I love the way this guy writes. I hope there's another book coming soon. ( )

The Long Stretch : A Novel by Linden MacIntyre (2000) ( )