Fast and fun, but could it have been more?
Many of us have been anxiously awaiting a new Will Ferguson novel to devour as eagerly as we devoured 419, for which this gifted Calgary author won the Giller Prize in 2012. But for me, The Shoe on the Roof, his newest (and 17th) release, isn’t that book.
Ferguson is a clever writer and the premise is indeed crafty: medical student Thomas Rosanoff, dumped by girlfriend Amy Lamiell, aims to win her back by “curing” her beloved brother, who’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia and claims to be Jesus.
The cure involves bringing him together with two other men who also claim they’re Jesus, so they’ll each recognize the folly of their delusions. What could possibly go wrong?
Ferguson, long fascinated by con-artistry, mixes comic scenes with serious questions: Is faith simply a seizure in the temporal lobe? Is identity malleable? With a Dan Brown earnestness, he juxtaposes modern science with ancient Christian symbolism.
But the book feels dated, in its references to “winos” and “hobos,” and the assumption that it’s still OK to make comic fodder out of schizophrenia stereotypes.
There’s a far-fetched father-son backstory and a murder mystery so peripheral I almost forgot about it until the culprit was caught.
Ferguson has lifted the multiple-Christs premise from actual cases in the annals of psychology. He also seems to have borrowed his characters’ surnames from real-life psychologists including Aaron Rosanoff and James Lamiell. He’s given Thomas’s prof the name Cerletti, a wink to the real-life discoverer of electroconvulsive therapy.
The shoe of the title refers to the actual 1977 case where a Seattle patient, claiming to have floated above the hospital during surgery, accurately described a blue tennis shoe on the roof.
The novel’s setting is Boston but there’s none of the travel writing that Ferguson can do so beautifully. There are some thoughtful lines: “Heartbreak is a fractured bone, poorly set,” and “The past collars us whether we acknowledge it or not; the only difference is the length of the leash.”
The Shoe on the Roof is a fast read and sometimes a fun one, but left me feeling it could have been so much more. Marcia Kaye is an award-winning journalist specializing in health issues.