SIBLING SHENANIGANS HAVE SADISTIC BENT

Demi-Gods

Eliza Robertson Hamish Hamilton | $29.95

Don’t let the summery, slightly sexy cover of this book fool you. It’s neither as bright nor as carefree as the cover art — what with its bathing suit-clad girls and blue sky — would have you imagine.

In fact, the tale bound between the hardcover confines is unsettling, slightly odd — and a tad bit incestuous. Montreal-based author Eliza Robertson brings readers to her native Vancouver Island in her debut novel, ushering readers with her descriptive writing style into the dense greenery and seaside shenanigans of a dysfunctional family set between Saltspring Island, Victoria and San Diego (yes, as in California).

The book centres around two sisters, Willa and Joan, who grow close to their two new stepbrothers, Patrick and Kenneth. Maybe a little too close. Under the unwatchful eye of their seemingly self-absorbed guardians, the step siblings develop intimate relationships: one ending in marriage, and the other in a twisted dalliance that culminates with a deadly event. Set in the summertime months spanning the 1950s to early 2000s, the story unfolds at a slow, patient pace. As the reader wades into the depths of the family’s dynamic, Robertson also offers up a not-so subtle reminder of the slightly perverse, sometimes debased emotions that run rampant in adolescence — adoration, obsession, lust, to name a few.

From their first few encounters, Willa and Patrick have an off-base dynamic, one that probes the parameters of pain and pleasure, as well as appropriate and inappropriate. Through a series of comfort-rattling encounters, Willa and Patrick explore a relationship that’s one part sexual, and more than a few parts sadistic. The murky moments and fumbling encounters are crafted by Robertson in a way that makes them capable of conjuring up kernels of memory from one’s own encounters — or at least give one pause to wonder what they would have done had they been presented with a similar situation in their own youth. Overall, DemiGods is an entertaining read that leaves one feeling a tad sickly, yet completely satisfied.