The Night Season is about the wanderings, literal and figurative, of a fifty-something, newly single, out-of-work academic in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Paul Bowdring’s second novel is a melancholy story that winds its way through Joycean-like scattered memories. The first-person narrative swings between present and past, the present kept to a minimum in the first half of the book. This is alternately intriguing and frustrating, as well-composed episodes contrast with the near absence of a discernible plot.

Within these episodes, however, Bowdring’s narrative voice is beautifully rendered. The imagery and clever word play reflect a character impassioned by the written word. This passion – obsession even – is reinforced by the ubiquitous presence of literary quotations. Ranging from Eliot to Shakespeare to Nabokov, they preface every chapter and mark each phase of the book’s development. They are an integral part of the character’s memory, emotional and chronological reference points that also serve as a vicarious means of expression.

Expression is a recurring theme in The Night Season, as Bowdring’s hero becomes increasingly numbed and impotent. Epigraphs often creep into the narrative, but it becomes clear that this is due to the character’s – not the author’s – dependence upon them. His memories are vivid, including those of his own behaviour, and yet he is oddly lacking in self-awareness.

Many basic questions are left unanswered, but it’s unclear whether that’s the author’s intention. For example, the narrator refers to his disillusionment with academic life, but the roots of this dilemma are left unexplored. More significantly, the breakdown of his marriage has ambiguous beginnings as various stages of the relationship’s demise are visited, but no precipitating factor is revealed. Consequently, the breakup appears blameless and inevitable, and Bowdring is less concerned with the how or the why than the after-shock.

Bowdring takes his time with this story, weaving his way through the streets of St. John’s in rich and often humorous prose. The Night Season is a strange, desperate, but ultimately rewarding journey toward an unknown destination.