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Title: Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler
The years after the American Civil War were characterized by excess, ornamented by cults and corruptions.
Dr. Carr grew tired of waiting. He transferred the peppermint to his left hand and gripped her jaw with his right. His thumb drove directly into the bruise at her mouth. Sarah Canary winced. "Give me the watch," Dr. Carr said loudly. He applied pressure on the jaw at the hinge. Slowly, painfully, Sarah Canary allowed her mouth to be pried open. As soon as a gap appeared between the upper and lower teeth, B.J. began to reel in the watch chain. The gap widened. The watch slipped into sight at the back of her throat, slid over her tongue, and dangled wetly in front of her face at the end of its chain.
Summary:
Fowler's remarkable debut recounts the 19-century adventures of a mysterious wild woman—and of the Chinese railway worker, insane-asylum escapee, suffragette, and exhibiter of circus freaks who pursue her through the Washington Territory—in this baroque tale of mystery, cruelty, and wonder as bombastically excessive as Barnum and Bailey itself.
When a strange-looking, white woman enters Chin's half-hidden campsite in Washington Territory, the Chinese rail workers don't want anything to do with her. But when the woman begins warbling, singing, and babbling loudly, Chin's uncle orders him to escort the woman back to the nearby insane asylum. Chin obeys, and so begins a wild-goose chase that leads the dutiful Chinaman through terrifying forests, into confinement at the asylum, into jail, and through countless other escapades he never would have imagined or wished for.
Who is the mysterious Sarah Canary, so called because of her disturbing, nonsensical warbling? Each new encounter brings a fresh invention of Sarah's past: an exhibiter of freaks claims that Sarah was raised by wolves in Alaska. Adelaide Dixon, solitary and opinionated suffragette, claims that she's on the lam after murdering her abusive husband. To Chin, Sarah is an ever-elusive mystery, captivating in her very unresponsiveness to other mortals and in her determination to remain free.
A fascinating romp, in which actual events are so cleverly intertwined with the author's fanciful inventions that the reader grows unsure which to disbelieve. (Kirkus Reviews)
Review: Sarah Canary is possibly the weirdest book I've read in years. No one knows who Sarah Canary is or where she comes from but everyone thinks she is very odd looking. And she never talks, but makes bird-warbles. So why does she attract such a weird cast of characters, all of them want her for something to advance their own concerns, whether those concerns were altruistic (Suffrage) or voyeuristic (freak show).
Fowler interspersed the story of Sarah Canary with actual historical events which were all odd or cultish in nature. It dawned on me, at some point, that Sarah Canary is Fowler's first novel and she was forty when it was published in 1991 and so she was likely collecting stories about odd historical events throughout history especially during the years after the Civil War. She my have been collecting these stories for forty years and then tried to see if she could cram them all into her book. These odd snippets of information made for a rather zany, character-driven novel. It was hard to know where the story would go next, and next, and next. But wherever it went the story was odd and often very funny.
Sarah Canary was a book club selection. No one in the club could figure out why the library placed this book in a book club kit, except maybe it was selected because it was set in Washington, where we live. Few of the women finished the book. I think only four people did finish it. Those of us who did, liked the book, or at least thought the book was fun. Those who didn't, scratched their head and gave up. I will never tell anyone to read the book, but I am glad I did. The discussion actually enhanced what I thought of the book. Sarah Joy Fowler was interviewed in the early 2000s and asked about this book and about the title character. She made a comment which made the interviewer think that Fowler's answer was Sarah was so weird because she was an alien. Whoa! What? THe interviewer is guessing and Fowler never said so. But, well, that just turned the whole book on its head and it gave me a whole new way of looking at things. One never knows what they will find when they open up a book. And I certainly wasn't expecting an alien, if indeed Sarah Canary came from another planet. Ha!
Here is a link to the discussion guide questions: Reading Group Guides: Sarah Canary All of the questions are really great and helped open up the discussion.
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