Action-packed and breezy read with Autumn Leaf

Autumn Leaf is the story of a friendship that develops when three people are thrown together by circumstance in remote British Columbia. However, like the leaf that floats on the wind, author Ken Gervais chooses to keep the story breezy instead of delving into the psyche of three troubled individuals, who choose not to be blown in every direction but to take control of their paths.

The story, published by Pemmican Publications Inc., revolves around one-time Commonwealth middleweight boxing champion Victor, now 54. It’s easy to assume that Victor is a washed up boxer, never having been able to recover from his bout of fame. But that isn’t the case. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that Victor’s medic-on-the-move gig came about because of the tragic loss of his son followed closely by the death of his wife. Victor had a life after boxing, has money from boxing, and has a grown daughter, who lives in Vancouver with her two children and husband. As Victor later tells Pauline, one of the two young people he befriends, he chose not to be around his grandchildren because they didn’t deserve to be exposed to a man, who was always sad.

Pauline is a young, recovering drug addict, whose brother, a drug dealer, has disappeared. She expects he has been murdered. Pauline takes to Victor’s lessons of self-defence in only the way a woman fighting for her life can and she repays Victor, grudgingly, by helping Victor steal painkillers so Victor can properly treat the workers at the camp he is stationed at.

Sean is the third member of this motley crew. He is the good looking First Nations man that talks Victor into heading up to Fort Nelson to work at the camp and introduces Victor to Pauline. Sean ends up idolizing Victor and hooking up long term with Pauline.††

Autumn Leaf is not short on action. It moves quickly from one action scene to the next, from Victor being knocked out in the bar brawl that opens the story to Pauline knifing Victor’s attacker at the work camp. Gervais establishes the physical setting of the work camp well, which is where most of the story takes place, but he fails to set up the emotional and mental aspects of working in an isolated camp. Had he connected the characters in their isolation to the barrenness of the wintry north, the story would have been rich.

Gervais only skims the surface of Victor and Pauline and barely touches on Sean. Pauline is the character with the most growth, changing from a drug addict to someone, who decides to live a clean life. Her motivations are unclear and her struggle is not chronicled. Victor’s attachment to these two twenty-somethings is equally unclear. He bemoans connections and being hurt by relationships, yet he accepts the friendship that Pauline, in particular, wants to give.

Autumn Leaf is a novella and Gervais’ debut work. Novellas are a tricky length of work. They don’t have to be as tightly woven as a short story but there’s not as much room to play as with a novel. Gervais’ characters are flawed but endearing, and the setting of the story is compelling. Deeper writing and stronger editing would have produced an absorbing study in characters and settings. Instead, Autumn Leaf is an easy-read action novel.