Reading Well: The Second Life of Samuel Tyne by Esi Edugyan

The Second Life of Samuel Tyne (2004) is the first of three novels by Esi Edugyan in the queue. This one follows a Ghanaian family that emigrates to Canada, settling into a fairly settled life in post WWII Vancouver and then relocating when the patriarch–the Samuel Tyne of the title–surprisingly inherits some land in a rural community. The immediate family is a foursome: a largely unhappy marriage that has produced a set of distant, problematic twins.

This was a surprising novel: it is not, or at least, not primarily, a novel of the immigrant experience, nor is it a novel centered on manifestations of racism in Canada in the last half of the 20th century, although both of those themes certainly inform and impact the narrative.

It is, far more, a novel about dissatisfaction, distance, and violence–both emotional and physical–in human relations. It may be bleakest novel I’ve read in decades, summed by this observation:

That was the nature of marriage, he thought solemnly, an argument that only ends with death.

Relationships in The Second Life of Samuel Tyne are rarely fulfilling, and only momentarily satisfying, for the most part–even an epilogue tracing the final years of the main characters falls short of any optimism in its resolution.

The story really centers around the fragile, and continually degrading, mental health of the twins, caught in a country and time without much support for either them or their parents. Friends, neighbors, and eventually much of the town gets caught up in their behavior, and their isolation remains a gulf the parents struggle to bridge.

I can’t say it was a pleasant read, but it was a minorly powerful one, and is certainly impressive as a debut novel: I look forward to the later works by Edugyan.

#WhatIWishICouldDo

Edugyan paints a picture of the inner working of Samuel’s mind that is remarkably consistent and insightful. His flaws are on full display, but there is a consistency to his being that brings him into a full, three-dimensional, humanity. The fact that, as a reader, you can see him make his own bed does little to reduce our sympathy when he must lie in it.