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The Next Rainy Day

by Philip David Alexander

The Next Rainy Day is a fictional study of grief within families torn asunder by the loss of a child. The tragic effects are emotionally and powerfully depicted through the interconnected stories of two families in crisis.

One narrative focuses on a first-person account by Bert Commerford, a tentatively reformed alcoholic who faces a series of devastating losses: a failed auto mechanic business; the death of both his wife and star hockey player son; and the downfall of his ne’er-do-well oldest son. Through the process of his family’s final and somehow inevitable decay, he starts to examine – albeit somewhat ineffectually – his own responsibility, confronting his abuse of his wife, neglect of his sons, and ultimate blindness to his family’s problems.

This story intersects with that – told in the third person – of sometime cop Grant McRae, whose little boy was struck by a hit-and-run driver and whose wife has now withdrawn to the comfort of evangelical Christianity. McRae begins to question his chosen profession and seeks a way to come to terms with the death of his son.

While the structuring of the story is gripping, as we await the inevitable collision of these two families, the overall result is diluted by a rather nihilist approach to the effects of these tragic events, particularly on the fathers of the doomed children. One succumbs to isolation, drunkenness, and self-pitying despair, while the other wreaks revenge that leaves an awkward blend of torment and a “kind of peace.”

It is this latter in particular that is improbable. This character had shown himself to be a man of some sensitivity, deeply affected by indescribable grief, a rampant distaste for the violent nature of his job, and an unfulfilled longing for reborn intimacy with his wife. It is hard to believe that his final act of revenge can in any way bring him the peace he craves.

The reader is left wondering just what the author makes of the actions of his characters. How much are they responsible for the disasters in their lives? And if a random act of violence leads to more violence in the form of vigilante justice, is that acceptable? The ending seems to imply – although it’s not completely clear – that such “justice” is not only acceptable, but creates an outcome that is somehow right for both fathers touched by the same tragedy in vastly different ways.

 

Reviewer: Laurel Smith

Publisher: Dundurn Press

DETAILS

Price: $21.99

Page Count: 268 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 1-55002-593-7

Released: Oct.

Issue Date: 2005-12

Categories: Children and YA Non-fiction, Fiction: Novels

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