A Year of Lesser: A Novel - Softcover

Bergen, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006481078 ISBN 13: 9780006481072

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1997

Synopsis

David Bergen has created a richly layered story of sexual intrigue, vanity and betrayal in the small prairie town of Lesser, a community where everyone's most private moments become public knowledge. We meet Agnes, the local hairdresser who dispenses advice on husbands who stray, Michael, the physicist who loves to kill animals and have them stuffed, Phil, the charismatic minister who saves souls in his home, Melody, the pregnant teenager who turns to Johnny for help. As the seasons pass, love is won and lost, babies are created, an unexpected death redefines relationships, people fall from grace.
As time catches up with Johnny, Loraine and Charlene, this sensuous, visceral novel provides an unforgettable portrait of the many faces of love. Its frank exploration of sexuality and its remarkable depiction of the power of caring resonate in the mind. A Year of Lesser searches for salvation amid the wreckage of ordinary lives.

About this title

Review

Lesser is the name of a fictional small town just outside of Winnepeg, and Johnny Fehr is the name of David Bergen's protagonist in his accomplished first novel, A Year of Lesser. Johnny is a drinker, a doper, a womanizer in a place small enough for everyone to know all about his sins. At the beginning of the novel, Johnny's father commits suicide; by the end, he has lost everything that ever mattered to him: wife, lover, and friends. But Bergen's novel is not really about the changes in Johnny's fortunes, but rather, the changes in his soul. Johnny, raised in the rigid strictures of the Mennonite faith, may be a sinner, but he's a sinner with a powerful yearning for grace.

How Johnny Fehr stumbles his way toward that state of grace despite the town's malice and his own weakness is at the heart of A Year of Lesser. In Johnny Fehr, David Bergen has created a flawed yet deeply human character, one of whom readers will acknowledge "there, but for the grace of God, go I."

About the Author

David Bergen's first collection of short stories, Sitting Opposite My Brother, was shortlisted for the Manitoba Book of the Year. He is a high school teacher in Winnipeg.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0006481078
• ISBN 13: 9780006481072
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 215