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The Odd Couple
A Review by Adrienne Miller

While the construction business in Ottawa, Canada might not seem the most exciting setting for a story, this brash, ribald first novel bursts with energy and spirit. Jerry McGuinty and Simon Struthers are as unalike as two men can be: Jerry is a rough-around-the-edges working-class plasterer (and eventual real estate tycoon) who dreams of building "houses of first-class quality for the smarter family"; Simon is a smooth, over-privileged, womanizing civil servant. Each ends up wanting the same piece of land for his own Big Statement. The Jerry McGuinty story is the more heartfelt and thus more convincing of the two. His ambition ultimately ravages his relationships with his wife Kathleen (a former sandwich-truck driver, then an alcoholic) and his son Jerry Jr. (In response to a terse little birthday card of Jerry Jr.'s, Jerry heartbreakingly says, "It depressed me more than anything I had known. To remember me but tell me nothing, like I wasn't worth telling. It was the cruelest thing you did, my Jerry, and then you did it again at Christmas.") In dirty, brawling, vulnerable Jerry, McAdam has created a sui generis character, even if his (often very funny) steam-of-consciousness ramblings ("Dirt's the future, not the past. Change it, move it, smell it, use it. That is a birch tree, not a bone.") can occasionally feel a bit indulgent. Some Great Thing is a boisterous, uncompromising debut.

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