The Romantic (Hardcover)

'You finish Gowdy's books charmed, intoxicated by the language and very disturbed.' Independent 'Gowdy is a strong and sympathetic writer, capable of conveying real emotion in the most removed of settings.' Guardian 'Barbara Gowdy is beginning to claim a place alongside those other major Canadian writers, Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields and Alice Munro... she is always absorbing.' TLS

This novel is, primarily, the story of the relationship between Louise Kirk (the romantic of the title) and Abel Richter. However, the narrative is not a straightforward, chronological account of their relationship; instead it unfolds gradually, giving the reader snippets of information from which to build up a picture of the characters' personalities and their attachments. There are three main periods in which the narrative is set. First we see Louise as a ten-year-old girl trying to please her glamorous, ex-model mother, Grace. Then Grace makes the decision to leave, which coincides with the appearance in the neighbourhood of the Richters, the exotic German family with whom Louise becomes obsessed. At first, becoming friends with Abel is nothing more than a ploy for Louise in order for her to get the attention of his mother, Greta, but later she falls in love with him. The narrative jumps to Abel and Louise's relationship when she is 18 and becomes pregnant - only to have an abortion because of Abel's infidelity. Finally, Gowdy describes Abel's death from cirrhosis of the liver, brought on by his alcoholism, and the events that follow. Gowdy's language is evocative and compelling. Her style draws the reader into Louise's world, into her daydreams and her plot-filled imagination. The contrast between her fighting with the world for what is right and Abel's passive nature, summed up by his inability to deal with the cruelties of everyday life, is constantly reinforced. He is unable to refuse anyone, even if this means hurting those he loves, including Louise who he 'loves too much'. This is a wonderfully constructed narrative; the ending is known from the beginning, but the reader is left constantly wondering how that ending will be reached. (Kirkus UK)

In this tender romantic tragedy by the ever-insightful Gowdy (The White Bone, 1999, etc.), love's labors lead to naught when a long but not easily entwined couple let alcohol come between them. Skittering back and forth across more than a decade of Louise Kirk's involvement with Abel Richter, the narrative opens in 1960, when Abel moves into ten-year-old Louise's Toronto neighborhood not long after her mother abruptly walked out. Seeking a surrogate, Louise is drawn first to Abel's larger-than-life mother, but soon she attends more to the quiet, gentle boy who never speaks ill of anyone. Louise is inclined to rage, however, and as time passes Abel gives her plenty of reason. His family moves to Vancouver not long after they realize they love each other, and Abel doesn't answer any of her letters, but when he comes back for a visit Louise throws herself at him with such abandon that she immediately becomes pregnant. He doesn't know, though, having returned to Vancouver, and when Louise flies out to tell him she finds him kissing someone else. She aborts with the aid of her herb-wise housekeeper and gets on with her life. A determined underachiever, she follows a stint as a bookstore clerk with a secretarial job for a semiretired broker and dallies with a draft dodger from the States. But she knows that the Richters have returned to Toronto, and when word comes that her mother has died, followed shortly by the urn containing her ashes, it's to Abel that she turns for comfort. Unfortunately, he's already well down the alcoholic path to self-destruction, and Louise is just in time to help him enter his final phase. Somewhat reminiscent of Leaving Las Vegas, but Gowdy's version of booze-thwarted love shows considerably more complexity, and her focus is squarely on the survivor. (Kirkus Reviews)

‘Gowdy has a remarkable ability to capture daily life through brief, emblematic descriptions that are never clichéd, frequently funny and alarmingly precise'