Synopses & Reviews
What had happened, from those days until now? And why had it? And how had his life gone? And who was to blame? Or why did he think he had to blame anyone? Certainly he couldnt even blame Mr. Roach, caught in the same turmoil as everyone believing half-truths in order to blame other people. (p. 141)
These are the forlorn thoughts of Alex Chapman, the tragic anti-hero of David Adams Richards masterful novel The Lost Highway. An exploration of the philosophical contortions of which man is capable, the novel tracks the desperate journey of an eternally lost and orphaned child/man who has nearly squandered his frail birthright but might yet earn some degree of redemption.
Alex spent a stunted childhood watching his gentle mother defiled by rough-handed men including Roach, his biological father. Upon his mothers death Alex is passed into the care of his hard-nosed great-uncle Jim Chapman, nicknamed “The Tyrant” by their Miramichi community. Alexs uncle becomes a symbol of all that he loathes. Alex distinguishes himself from this brutal masculinity that stole his mother from himby becoming a self-imposed ascetic, entering the local seminary and rehearsing his own version of piousness. But when he is tempted by the Monsignors request to deliver charitable funds to the bank, Alex pockets the money and flees to the home of Minnie, whom he worships and who he has learned is now pregnant by Sam Patch, a good man, but too rough in Alexs eyes. He attempts to talk Minnie into using the money for an abortion, and it is only her refusal that sends him back to the seminary to return the money. “Do you remember if the phone rang in the booth along the highway that night?” (p. 87) asks MacIlvoy, a fellow seminarian who had gotten wind of the theft and tried to detour Alex from this path. But of course Alex had ignored the rings, as he would ignore many warnings in his tragic life.
Caught red-handed and forced to return as a prodigal son-that-never-was to his uncles house, Alex again flees to yet another refuge, this time to the safe moral relativism of academia, where he becomes an expert at reducing meaning to ethical dust. However, he finds himself unable to navigate the easy duplicity in which his peers are fluent, and takes an isolated and idealistic stand which causes him to be drummed out of the facultyas a figure of ridicule. A bitter and alienated Alex once again returns defeated to a shack on his uncles property, spending his days in the family scrapyard forging dreadful humanoid creatures out of junked metal, a modern-day Prometheus. One day he is asked by MacIlvoy, now the local priest, to create a Virgin for the church grotto. Some part of him still influenced by divinity guides his hand to create a beautiful Madonna, her face inspired by a lovely young girl he spots one day in the market. Two days later he finds out that the girl is Amy Patch, the child he urged his childhood sweetheart to abort fifteen years earlier. He will also find out that it is once again the fate of this innocent girl, at his own hands, that will determine whether he will ever experience the grace he so dearly craves.
Trudging the lost highway while mulling over his grievances as usual, Alex runs into Burton Tucker, whose own mind and body have been stunted by the brutality of his birth mother. The generally pliant Burton runs the local garage, offering lotto tickets as a bonus for oil changes. He is on his way to deliver some good news: Jim Chapman is a winner, to the tune of $13 million. Alex realizes that he could have been the one to bring Jims truck to Burton and receive the winning ticket, but he had refused because of the grudge he held against Jim. Once again, Alex has been thwarted by an ironic twist of fate and it is too much to bear. He decides at that moment that his uncle must never see the money, and begins a treacherous intrigue, which he justifies through the tortured ethical logic with which he has become so skilled. He unwittingly aligns himself with a very dangerous partner, Leo Bourque, the childhood bully who made his schooldays such hell, and whose days of playing cat-and-mouse with the weak Alex are not over. Their twinned descent will become deadly, marked by murder both actual and intended.
How far would any of us go to avenge a terrible wrong done to us at birth? To whom shall we assign blame? And can we achieve redemption, no matter how grievous our sins? David Adams Richards The Lost Highway is a taut psychological thriller that goes far beyond the genre into the worlds of Leo Tolstoy, and Emily Brontës Wuthering Heights, as well as classical Greek mythology, testing the very limits of humankinds all too tenuous grasp on morality.
From the Hardcover edition.
Synopsis
From the two-time winner of Canada's prestigious Governor General's Award, a suspenseful story of greed, betrayal, murder, and a lottery ticket that may or may not be worth millions. For twenty years, Alex Chapman--a worn-out academic and failed priest--has been at war with his great-uncle James, a man known in his small-town community as "The Tyrant." Embittered and disillusioned, Alex believes that James is responsible for his harsh childhood, for the loss of his one true love, and, ultimately, for the unfortunate direction his life has taken. So when Alex runs into the slow-witted local auto mechanic who claims he has just given James Chapman a winning lottery ticket worth thirteen million dollars, Alex sees his chance for revenge, and plots to steal the ticket away from his aging uncle.
Thus begins an emotionally shattering story of a family's deep-seated grudges and dangerous passions, all set around a lonely, country road where rival provinces have converged for years. A chilling exploration of what happens when our moral questions become matters of life and death, The Lost Highway is a page-turning tale of small-town jealousy and corruption.
About the Author
David Adams Richards most recent novel,
The Friends of Meager Fortune, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (Canada and the Caribbean). His novel
River of the Brokenhearted, was received with immense critical acclaim.
Mercy Among the Children won the 2000 Giller Prize and was nominated for the Governor Generals Award and the Trillium Award. He is the author of the celebrated Miramichi trilogy:
Nights Below Station Street, winner of the Governor Generals Award;
Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace, winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award; and
For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down. His 1998 novel,
The Bay of Love and Sorrows, has been made into a feature film.
From the Hardcover edition.
Reading Group Guide
1. Alex and Leo could be described as flip sides of the same coin. Would you agree with this assessment? In what ways are theysimilar, and different, in their histories, philosophies, and actions? Where does Burton fit in, by comparison? Why do you think Richards chose to open and close the novel by focusing on Burton?
2. Compare Alexs moral reliance on subjective theories of “approval and disapproval” (p 171) to Amys revelation about the “spirit of the law.” (p 177) How do these perspectives differ? Consider the following passage describing Alex thinking about his mother: “For a moment when thinking of her each day, he no longer wanted to rely upon approval or disapproval. He only wanted to love and forgive.” (p. 141). What prevented Alex from following through with this?
3. Alex describes his life since his mother died as a journey spent defending her. (p. 353) What do you think he means by this?
4. Alex experiences occasional attacks of conscience that are triggered by an awareness of the natural world, such as when he imagines the wind urging him to confess. (p. 114) How does Alex view his environment? Discuss these views in comparison with those of Amy and Markus.
5. Alex came to his love of art and culture during a time when he witnessed his mother being used by men whom he considered to be the antithesis of cultured. He scorns hockey, which he sees as the domain of the rough boys and men who humiliated him all his life, yetlater, he worries that hes been as close-minded as the men he disdains. (p. 144) Do you think his pursuit of art was grounded in passion, or hatred? What prevented him from pursuing it further?
6. Before Alex falls once again under Leos influence, he approaches Minnies house and the question occurs to him: “Is this the way of my and Leos chastisement? (For some reason, he did not know why, he included Leo.)” (p. 102) How does Alex sense that Leo will be important in his future? Discuss the next passage, in which he imagines “strange beings” above him “praying for him, asking him to be still and know that I am God.” Is there something divine at work here? Do angelic beings appear elsewhere in the novel?
7. Leo claims that responsibility for his actions isout of his hands because “what has to be must be.” (p. 355) Alex at times finds this idea attractive but it is at odds with his assertion that man is creator of his own destiny. Where does the lottery ticket fit into their philosophies? Why do you think Richards chose to populate the book with so many twists of fate?
8. After aligning himself with Leo, Alex suddenly feels “as if he had joined some other part of the highway…” (p. 169). What do you think this means? What does the highway represent in this novel?
9. Flannery OConnor wrote in an essay that “[I]n my own stories, I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace.” Would you say this takes place in The Lost Highway? Why or why not?
10. Leo appears back in Alexs life as if in response to Alexs prayer to the God he claims to no longer believe in: “Send me a friend now, to help me--if you exist, you owe me that!” (p. 145). Is this an example of hubris on Alexs part? Are there other ways in which this novel might be described as a modern twist on classical tragedy?
11. Consider the passage from Aristotle that Markus Paul marks for Alex. (p. 338) What do you think would have been Alexs future had he not run into Burton and made the decision he did that fateful day? Would he have been a better man without that temptation?
12. Sometimes funny, generally appalling, perhaps what makes us most uncomfortable about Leos and Alexs philosophical rationalizations of wrongdoing is that we may see our own behaviours reflected in them,even if only slightly. Would you agree with this statement? Why/why not?
13. (BONUS QUESTION) If you won the lottery, what would you do?