Season of Life (Jeff Janoda, 2022)

Jeff Janoda is a Canadian teacher, historian and writer whose ability to research and vitalise historical events disparate in time and space is admirable.  His terrific 2005 novel Saga takes us into the world of old Nordic stories. Sundog (2019) is a gripping yarn set in the last days of World War Two.  His third novel, Season of Life pulls the reader into the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863.  The American Civil War was known to The Varnished Culture through that historical textbook, Gone With the Wind and a few episodes of an interminable, sepia-coloured documentary tv series.  Now that we have read Season of Life, that bloody and shattering war is real to us.  A word of advice – any reader not familiar with the causes, personalities, strategies, incidents and geography of the American Civil War, is urged to do just a little research before tackling this dense and fast-faced book.

Basil Biggs is a free black man who, driven from his farm by the marauding Confederate Army, hides in a neighbour’s barn until he is drawn into the aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg.  He is a decent and laconic man, rendered even quieter by the fact that he “talks like a white man” which can only mean trouble. He’s unsentimental, referring to the mother of his children as “Mary Jackson” and he doesn’t seem to miss his family all that much. Cornelia Hancock is a middle class white woman, tortured by her enforced indolence and her love for her sister’s husband, a doctor at ghastly field hospitals.  She joins her brother-in-law as a nurse. Biggs and Cornelia’s paths cross. Janoda integrates historical figures – such as the stern, hot-tempered commander, General Meade (see image below), who fails to follow through, and a diverse group of fictional officers, soldiers, marauders and the dispossessed. This is an action-packed narrative, but, like all of Janoda’s work, psychologically acute and convincing. There is no shuttled-in romance or melodrama.

The supernatural element to the plot comes as a surprise but is a welcome and enriching aspect of story. Birds of omen are put to good use. “Two black dots spun downward out of the blue sky and became crows. They flew directly toward the wagon and alighted on the lazy back of the wagon seat, between Charlie and Calvin, who gave them the ritual biscuit, one each. They ate them quickly, squawked their thanks and then hopped off and flew up to Biggs sitting far above on the top-most tier of coffins, facing forward. They alighted on his shoulders…’All right friends,’ Biggs said.  ‘Where to today?’  They exploded up into the air.”  There are episodes which may be hallucinations but, if so, they are mass hallucinations. The appearances of the dead or demons are all the more frightening for being rare and unexpected. There is a supernatural scene of great strength but, unfortunately, just a few episodes which jar. Similarly, overall there are a few clichés – Cornelia is thought to be too pretty to nurse, Biggs’ mother was a sort of psychic, magic healer, letters from the dead arrive.

At times Season of Life reminded us of the great movie, Patton, or a first-person shooter game with odours and amputations.

Highly recommended for those with an interest in the American Civil War, or in a real-life, insightful mélange of the real and the fey, daily struggles for life and liberty, spies, Abraham Lincoln, the arrangement of cemeteries, blood and guts.

As we wrote in our review of Sundog, We await Mr. Janoda’s next novel with interest.  Where will he go now?  We are sure to be going with him.

[Editor’s note: The American Civil War was anything but civil. Well over half a million people perished, and that cannot only have been due to the recognised causes (or pretexts) for war: abolition of slavery, states’ rights, and economic differences. This is not the first work to reflect upon the supernatural elements of the conflict: moral battles between good and evil, the lessons from the dead, the spiritual struggles: but it seems to be one with the most resonance.]