Onyx reviews: Broken Man on a Halifax Pier by Lesley Choyce

Reviewed by Bev Vincent, 08/04/2019

It's the unlikely beginning of a beautiful friendship...and more. Fifty-five year old Charles Howard, a failed novelist, is confronting an uncertain future after losing both his job as a newspaperman and all of his money to a conman. Standing on a Halifax pier, like a character out of the Stan Rogers folk song, "Barrett's Privateers," from which the novel draws its title. Out of the fog appears an unlikely vision, Ramona Danforth, a classic beauty who, as it turns out, is a former actress (who once kissed Tom Hanks in a movie) at a crossroads in her own life.

This unlikely duo decides to spend the day together, although their first adventure is almost their last. Charles suggest they take a drive in her Lexus to Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore, a rugged coastal region where the residents are almost all fishermen and women. Stewart Harbour is the fishing village where Charles grew up, a place he escaped as soon as he could, after his older brother sought his fortunes out West. Charles left behind a high school girlfriend and his now-deceased parents.

The potentially ill-advised trip down nostalgia lane is short-circuited by a roadside incident involving a deer struck by another car. When the RCMP officer responding to the scene is unable to do what needs to be done, Charles acts. Ramona is aghast and abandons him on the highway. He figures he'll never see or hear from her again. He's wrong, though, and this test of their nascent relationship proves that there's a spark that can withstand adversity.

They'll need it. Although Ramona has plenty of money, thanks to a trust fund, Charles doesn't have a penny to his name. He isn't exactly welcome in his hometown, either. There's the matter of the abandoned girlfriend, who subsequently married, had a son and divorced. There's also the perception that he abandoned his parents, not even returning for their funerals. And the complications keep adding up, including Charles' attempt to rectify a long-brewing problem involving his ex-girlfriend's adult son.

Life in a fishing village is never easy, and the adversities run deep. Charles and Ramona team up, living in his father's old fishing shack on the peninsula next door to Rolf, an elderly rogue who is one of the few people who seems genuinely happy to see Charles. He also has a surprise for Charles: he maintained Charles' father's fishing boat.

The other surprises Charles has to confront are less welcome. Ramona has her own challenges as well. Her mother is suffering from dementia and her father, who abandoned Ramona and her mother for another woman, shows up again, admitting his failures and seeking to be part of the family again.

There are daring adventures aboard fishing boats in the midst of storms and, ultimately, a rare Maritime Canadian hurricane that threatens to destroy Stewart Harbour and everything Charles and Ramona have accomplished. You can go home again, Choyce seems to be saying in this heart-warming and gripping novel about two lonely people who learn how to love, but there may be outstanding bills to be paid before life can return to a semblance of normality.