The Antagonist

December 3, 2012
Canadian author Coady’s new novel (after Mean Boy) is composed of letters from Gordon Rankin Jr. to his university pal Adam, a correspondence that began when “Rank” recognized a less-than-flattering portrayal of himself in Adam’s recent novel. Angry at seeing his life story pilfered for a forgettable novel—make that angry at his life—the almost 40-year-old Rank begins e-mailing Adam. His rancor turns into an odd epistolary autobiography, covering his early years in a small town in Canada and his aborted college career, both periods when he got into trouble for violence. (Rank is “genetically blessed” with size.) The prose is sharp and very funny, and some of the characters, particularly Rank’s father, Gord, a bitter failure of a man, are deftly etched. Coady is an ambitious writer, exploring themes of masculinity, religion, and the perils and promise of the fictional enterprise, and her decision to write from the male perspective is brave and successful. But the plot often meanders and the handling of narrative perspectives creates formal questions that are never answered. (At times, a third-person “omnipotent narrator,” either the author or someone else with access and hindsight, takes over Rank’s first-person duties.) Still, the pathos and humor brought to a challenging life story will appeal to many readers.

December 1, 2012
An embittered man blasts an old buddy for fictionalizing his life. But, wonders Coady (Saints of Big Harbour, 2002, etc.), who can know what the facts are? This novel in emails is told by Gordon "Rank" Rankin Jr., who has just discovered that his life has been turned into fodder for a novel by Adam, with whom he shared a lot of drinks and a few intimacies in college. Now firmly middle-aged, Rank is angry at the perceived betrayal, and his early missives have a threatening tone. But while he doesn't exactly soften--he exemplifies the book's title throughout--he does grow expansive, venting about his dead mother, hot-tempered father, squandered hockey scholarship, drinking and more. If Rank isn't an unreliable narrator, Coady at least makes him a profoundly benighted one, incapable of recognizing that his anger is mainly with himself. That's revealed in the condescension he expresses about nearly every person he recalls interacting with (besides his sainted mother), and that's most clearly in evidence with his much-mocked father, nicknamed Gord, who's shallow but by no means a failure as a single father. The novel's plot turns on a handful of violent incidents that implicate Rank, and Coady expertly renders a man who's compelled to address his past but not entirely ready to look in the mirror. Like many narrators of questionable stability, Rank gets over on raw intelligence; Coady gives him a wit that makes his anger and smugness tolerable. And bubbling under this story is an interesting tussle with the question of what novelists owe to the experiences that inspire their fiction. Has Adam sold out Rank? We never hear Adam's side of the story, but Rank's response (and by extension, the novel) is a caution to tread carefully. Smartly tuned and as unsettling as it intends to be.

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Starred review from January 1, 2013

What makes a bully tick? In the case of Gordon Rankin--"Rank" to his friends--the external hulk does not really mirror the inner self, who fears his own strength and is reluctant to engage. As the adopted son of a saintly mother and an overbearing father, Rank was encouraged to use his size and strength to help deal with the teenaged hoodlums who hung around his father's ice cream shop and then to earn a hockey scholarship through his role as an enforcer. Years later, when a long-estranged friend publishes a novel in which the brutish central character is based on a thinly disguised Rank, Rank rails at the unjust expropriation of his story. In a long series of unanswered emails to his friend, he explores his past and the catastrophic incidents that led him to disappear from view. VERDICT What begins as a self-justification fueled by rage ends as an endearing journey of self-discovery and self-forgiveness. Nominated for Canada's Giller Prize, this very human drama, laced with humor and insight, is strongly recommended.--Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Kingston, ON

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2012
Forty-year-old Gordon Rank Rankin discovers that a close friend from university days has used him as a primary character in a novel. Infuriated by Adam's portrayal of him as a teenager, Rank begins to blister Adam with angry e-mails to set the record straight and, ultimately, to come to terms with Rank's own deeply conflicted feelings about himself and his life. Coady, 28, is a rising star in Canadian fiction, and she has turned the very neat trick of engagingly, entertainingly, and insightfully examining the predicament of a boy of 14 (the young Rank) whose growth spurt unexpectedly places him in a large, powerful man's body. Suddenly, Rank looks dangerous, and people, including his splenetic father and, later, his university hockey coach, want to make him their enforcer, a role Rank doesn't want to play. His e-mails evolve from clumsy rages to thoughtful, measured ruminations on crucial events in his life, and he becomes a genuinely fascinating character. But it is Coady's ability to realistically portray Rank's teens and university years and empathically conduct his search for self that makes The Antagonist more than just entertainment. It's deservedly long-listed for Canada's prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)