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Quintet

by Douglas Arthur Brown

Douglas Arthur Brown’s Quintet is deceptively simple. In form, it’s a journal passed through the hands of three men: Cameron, Rory, and Adrian Hines. The three men are identical triplets who realize while attending their parents’ funeral that they’ve grown apart. One of the brothers decides that they need to rectify the situation, that they need to communicate, and suggests the journal as a method for doing so. They each maintain the journal for four months, and then must pass it on to the next brother. (The title is explained near the end of the book.)

The journal format allows for impressive depths of emotion. There is something raw in the journal entries, as each triplet expresses things they’d only tell the other two. The sense of distance between the brothers, especially between the triplets and their older brother Talbot, is palpable. This distance remains between them, although the triplets begin to get closer as they share secrets about themselves and the family.

The resulting book is a page-turner. The voyeuristic view of the family is irresistible, and the developments in each triplet’s life are always revealing and sometimes shocking. Quintet manages to capture intense emotion without being cloyingly emotional itself: at any moment, one brother’s tragedy can be viewed from the distance of another brother’s eyes.

Though Brown is from Cape Breton, and the triplets as well, Quintet is more than just a Maritime novel. The triplets have spread out geographically, one residing in Halifax, one in Toronto, and one in Copenhagen. One is gay, one is married, and one is divorced. There are deaths, children, and drug problems. And over everything looms the presence of Talbot, who has his own secrets that must eventually come out. Quintet captures the difficulties of adult sibling relationships, and their tendency to drift, better than any other novel I can think of. It is richly detailed, complex, and rewarding.

 

Reviewer: Clark Sheldon

Publisher: Key Porter Books

DETAILS

Price: $19.95

Page Count: 304 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 978-1-55263-997-9

Released: Feb.

Issue Date: 2008-4

Categories: Fiction: Novels