Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul

By David Adams Richards

Highly charged and profoundly important, Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul is a new masterpiece from one of Canada’s greatest writers.
 
On a bright morning in June 1985, a young Micmac man starts his first day of work—but by noon he is dead, killed mysteriously in the fourth hold of the cargo ship Lutheran. Hector Penniac had been planning to go to university, perhaps to study medicine. Roger Savage, a loner who has had to make his own way since his youth, comes under suspicion of killing Hector over a union card and a morning’s work. Even if he can’t quite put it into words, Roger immediately sees the ways in which Hector’s death will be viewed as symbolic, as more than an isolated tragedy—and that he is caught in a chain of events that will become more explosive with each passing day.
 
The aging chief of Hector’s band, Amos Paul, tries to reduce the tensions raised by the investigation into Hector’s death and its connection to a host of other simmering issues, from territorial lines to fishing rights. His approach leads him into conflict with Isaac Snow, a younger and more dynamic man whom many in the band would prefer to lead them—especially when the case attracts press attention in the form of an ambitious journalist named Max Doran, the first of many outsiders to bring his own agenda and motives onto the Micmac reserve. Joel Ginnish, Isaac’s volatile and sometimes violent friend, decides to bring justice to Roger Savage when the authorities refuse to, blockading the reserve in order to do so. And though perhaps no one really means for it to happen, soon a single incident grows ineluctably into a crisis that engulfs a whole society, a whole province and in some ways a whole country.
 
Twenty years later, RCMP officer Markus Paul—Chief Amos Paul’s grandson, who was fifteen years old when Hector was killed—tries to piece together the clues surrounding Hector Penniac’s death. The decades have passed, and much about the case has been twisted beyond recognition by the many ways that different people have sought to exploit it. But, haunted by the past, Markus still struggles towards a truth that will snap “those chains that had once seemed impossible to break.” (290)
 
This is a novel that begins with an instant from today’s headlines, and digs down into the marrow to explore the oldest themes we know: murder and betrayal, race and history, the brutal and chaotic forces that guide the groups we are drawn into. Nothing is one-sided in David Adams Richards’ world—even the most scheming characters have moments of grace, while the most benevolent are shown to have selfish motives, or the need to show off their goodness. All are depicted with an almost Biblical gravity, framed by an understated genius of storytelling that makes this novel at once both an utterly gripping mystery, and a vitally important document of Canada’s broken past and divided present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9780307376060

David Adams Richards

David Adams Richards is a resident of Fredericton and is one of only three Canadian writers who have won Governor General's Awards for Fiction and Non-Fiction. His novel Mercy Among the Children won the 2000 Giller Prize, while his most recent novel, Incidents in the Life of Marcus Paul, won the 2012 Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award.

Reviews for Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul

[thebookjunky · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Best one yet from David Adams Richards. He continues to refine his talent for showing how truth is relative, and how our words and actions so often ripple in unintended ways. The only thing that seems certain is the opening line of the book: "The day Hector Penniac died in the fourth hold of the cargo ship Lutheran, he woke up at 6:20 in the morning." Was it an accident or was he murdered? Who knows, and who will say? So much is said and done thoughtlessly. Integrity and morals are constantly shifting and re-adjusting to circumstances and expectations. The book describes a cascade of untruths and truth, indistinguishable from each other. It is a rich and complex novel, examining politics, racism in both First Nations and whites, poverty, and the nature of the human condition. Classic Richards themes, at his best.
Highly recommended.

[book won in publisher contest, from booklounge.ca]

[romonko · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really don't know what to say about this book. It came to me highly recommended by numerous people because they know I am a big fan of Canadian literature. I know that David Adams Richards is a wonderful novelist. His stories are stark and bleak, and they don't always have happy endings. His books are difficult to read because they are filled with sadness and hopelessness and this one is no different. Even the ending in this book seems to return full circle to that terrible summer of 1985 along the Mirimichi River. The story goes back and forth seamlessly from summer and fall of 1985 to the year 2007 as we follow the life of Markus Paul. In 1985 Markus is only 15 years old. His mother and father are dead and he lives with his wise old grandfather Amos Paul who happens to the chief of the Micmac reserve they live on. This story is about guilt and lies, but it is also about the giant chasm between the native Canadians and their white neighbours. This is certainly not a new story, but it is one that hasn't changed much over one hundred years. A young 17 year old Micmac boy is killed in a workplace accident while he was unloading pulp on a vessel. The hold he was working on held five people, including himself-3 white males, 1 small child and Hector Penniac. Somehow Hector ends up dead and the repercussions of his death rock the First Nations reserve as well as their close white neighbours. Lives are changed forever with this terrible tragedy and it takes 21 years and the perseverance of Marcus Paul, now a decorated RCMP officer, to finally solve the puzzle of what happened on board the Lutheran. By that time 2 people had lost their lives as a result of the incident, and Amos Paul, Markus' grandfather has died. It was Amos that knew that something wasn't right about the 4th hold. He held onto that idea until he died even though it caused him to lose his position as chief and also it caused the people on his reserve to turn away from him. Amos was too meek and mild to get his point across, and instead it was left to the bullies and misguided young men on the Reserve to take action. That is what caused all the death, distrust and damage. The wrong solution to the crime won out over the right one because the men who propounded their solution were loud and made sure that their point was the one that was put forth. It forever changed lives of many people that were touched by the tragedy and resulted in hopelessness and despair to those left on the reserve. Markus' determination to solve the crime finally bears fruit, and the truth will help his community to heal. That is the happy ending that we get in this book. The happy ending doesn't come to Markus Paul. We see so clearly how small actions and the resulting cover-up can send shock waves through a community. We learn that "it's not the trap that kills the beaver, but the drowning that follows."

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book shows David Adams Richards is a powerful writer and story teller. He examines the effects of the death of a young Aboriginal man on his community. Hector Penniac dies on his first day of work, and it isn't clear whether it is an accident or a murder. The community comes to believe Roger Savage, a while man whose property extends onto the reserve, is guilty of killing Hector. But is this true?The author does an outstanding job of showing how perception can become reality; and of showing how people shape truth and perception to their own ends. The story is partly a mystery story, and partly an expose of political intrigue in band governance. Superbly well told, with every character deeply developed -- and often conflicted. Highly recommended!