Strong Men Need Not Apply: Richard Ford’s Canada

Like most of Richard Ford’s books, all of which I have thoroughly enjoyed since reading The Sportswriter back in the 1980s, Canada is first and foremost about how events, small or large, out of our control shape our lives. The events or situations in Canada which would be the main course for most other authors and readers – murders, robberies, deviant behavior, ripped apart families, etc – are side dishes or even left in the kitchen. Ford isn’t so interested in the inflection points themselves, but how they shape the characters from that point onward.

But here is what I find most fascinating about Ford’s novels (and Canada is no exception): So often the events are experienced as out of the character’s control, but they really aren’t. For the most part, his characters don’t make decisions, and hardly make an effort to take control of their lives. They just bob on the surface of life. They take what comes and leave what goes, few questions asked. For the most part, they are spineless and weak human beings. And they are fascinating under Ford’s pen.

The main character in Canada, Del Parsons, is only fifteen so we can more easily forgive him for not making decisions that could more positively affect his life. He’s not mature enough. As the narrator (fifty years later than the timeline of the story), he even tells us readers this in so many words. But as with Ford’s adult characters, especially the men, should we really give Del a pass?

Here’s a minor but excellent example. Del wants to go to school but can’t because he has followed blindly what the adults have planned for him after he is separated from his parents. He learns of a school near where he is forced to live in Saskatchewan. He rides his bike there to check it out. It’s a girls school run by nuns. Two girls come to the fence he stands at and taunts him. Then the nun comes over and shoos him away. We know that Del desperately wants to go to school, it’s his obsession, but this is the sum total of his effort to do so.

He doesn’t, for example, even ask the nun or the girls where boys in the area go to school, nor does he ask the adults he lives with. Of course, we also know he is scared – his living conditions are at the ragged edge of hostile. But still. He makes no effort.

While most readers would throw up their hands and wish Ford would send his characters to assertiveness training, I see it differently. Ford novels reflect American society’s problem with boys and men. Political and cultural trends of the last forty years – you can read about this in countless articles – favor girls over boys. Men, or at least traditional males (whoever they are), are being “hollowed out.” Of course, this is highly controversial and probably doesn’t get much support from one entire gender.

I’m not making the argument for or against men being hollowed out here, just the observation that Ford brilliantly captures this cultural ethos in his novels. Even more so in Canada. Del’s sister and fraternal twin, Berner, takes matters into her own hands when faced with the separation from the parents (and from her twin), even though, ultimately, life punishes her for it.

Canada exemplifies once again Ford’s concern with the white space around events. His writing is meticulous, excessively detailed, but emotionally restrained, or even bereft. Some will find it lugubrious, rather than exuberant. But know this: His characters may let life control them, but Ford has a white knuckle grip on his narrative and the characters who populate his stories.