Newfoundland writer Michelle Butler Hallet’s highly original novel Sky Waves was first published in 2008. Written in a fragmented series of vignettes, monologues, interoffice memos, political speeches and advertising copy, the story centres around St. John’s radio station VOIC and the many people who work there and others who are connected to them. The nonlinear timeline jumps around different decades in the later 20th century as well as early in this century. Technology, art, religion, history and politics intertwine through Newfoundland’s class system and the uneasy proximity of privilege and poverty.
Threaded throughout the novel are the mysterious circumstances surrounding the crash of Newsbird, the Tiger Moth plane belonging to VOIC, which kills the pilot who happens to be the station’s founder, Robert Wright, while he is searching for a child who is lost in the woods. This event was inspired by a real-life plane crash involving the author’s great-uncle. As well, she used a certain amount of her experience working at VOCM Radio Newfoundland to create the fictional world of VOIC.
To attempt a synopsis would be futile, as any semblance of a traditional narrative was not on Hallet’s agenda. The same could be said for trying to list the cast of characters since there are so many of them. Off the top of my head, the most memorable characters are two of the women, who happen to be school friends. Nichole Wright, niece of Robert Wright, is a workaholic advertising copywriter at VOIC. A headstrong and independent woman, proud of her place in the workforce, she is often the target of the sexist attitudes of the men at the station, but always manages to give as good as she gets. It is very tempting to speculate that she is a fictional version of the author herself, but Hallett quashes that idea in the acknowledgements at the end of the book.
Nichole’s friend, Claire Furey (who refers to her school chum as “Nicks”) is the daughter of sculptor Gabriel Furey. Unable to fully stave off his personal demons with a thirst for alcohol, he abandons his wife and daughter for an impoverished life in Toronto, leaving Claire with her own issues of abandonment. These issues are further complicated by the fact that she has seemingly inherited her father’s artistic talent and pays homage to him in her artwork. Like her father, she is so dedicated to her art as to endure a life of poverty.
The spark of artistic creativity and the airborne signal of a new technology – or as Hallett onomatopoeically conjures it: bzht – are at the heart of Sky Waves. They are like twin microbes caught up by the sweep of independent Newfoundland’s relationship with Canada, the dark secrets of the Catholic church and its hold on both true believers and detractors alike, and the slow death of old traditions making way for a new century. All of this is rendered by Michelle Butler Hallett’s singularly imaginative vision in a muscular and economic prose style. Her shrewd facility with the English language is at times as breath-taking as those three Morse code “bips” must have been to Marconi during that first wireless transatlantic communication on Signal Hill in 1901.
Michelle Butler Hallett is the author of six novels, including her most recent novel, This Marlowe, which was nominated for both the ReLit Award and the Dublin International Literary Award. She lives in St. John’s.
- Publisher : Breakwater Books Ltd. (Oct. 24 2008)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 200 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1897174330
- ISBN-13 : 978-1897174333
StevenMayoff(he/him) was born inMontreal and moved to Prince Edward Island, Canada in 2001. His books include the story collection Fatted Calf Blues (Turnstone Press, 2009), the novel Our Lady of Steerage (Bunim &Bannigan, 2015), the poetry chapbook Leonard’s Flat (Grey Borders Books, 2018) and the poetry collection Swinging Between Water and Stone (Guernica Editions, 2019) and the novelThe Island Gospel According to Samson Grief(Radiant Press, 2023). As a lyricist, he has collaborated with composer Ted Dykstra onDion a Rock Opera,which will receive its world premiere at the Coal Mine Theatre in Toronto in February 2024.
