Review: A New Season

If you’re a reader in need of a book that will make you laugh, think, feel, and laugh some more (all while being unapologetically Canadian), Terry Falls is your man. I have loved every book of his I’ve read and his latest, A New Season, was no exception. In fact, it may have just become my favourite of all his books. It was full of so much…*waves arms around*...life! It had humour, grief, and love of all kinds as well as some soul searching and travel thrown in for good measure. It was, if we want to get right down to basics, a damn good novel.

Here’s the book’s description:

Jack McMaster seemingly has it all. A beautiful house, a loving son of many talents (including cooking, which is great news for Jack, if not for his waistline), even a special bond with his buddies in his ball hockey league. But he's also learning to live with loss, leaving a gaping hole in his life--a life that will never be the same as before. Jack passes his days knowing he has the support of his family and his friends, but he can't shake the feeling that his life has gone gray, and that time is slipping by so quickly.
Then, a short and shocking video from an unexpected source gives him the gumption to make a change and maybe even haul himself out of his melancholia. Inspired by his lifelong fascination with 1920s Paris, Jack finally visits the City of Light, following in the footsteps of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and wandering the Left Bank. Slowly, the colour seeps back into his life, aided by a chance encounter in a café that leads Jack into the art world, and a Paris mystery nearly a century old.
Full of sincerity and warmth, A New Season shows us all that sometimes, making a change in your life can save your life.

For a book about a man dealing with overwhelming grief, it’s quite funny. Which isn’t a surprise for anyone who’s read Fallis’ books before. His humour isn’t for everyone but I adore it. It’s quick and dry and there were many literal lol moments as I was reading this one (always interesting when one is reading in a full staff room on one’s lunch break). I wish I could include some of the most excellent quotes to give you an idea of how witty the book is but 1. I read an egalley so it’s always possible some things may change and 2. We’d be here all day while I tried to choose some of the best quotes. This book isn’t humorous in an obvious way - it’s not like those blockbuster comedies many of us love to watch - but it’s quieter and Fallis uses his humour at just the right moments.

OK, so this bit is hard to write without giving anything away and I really like that the book’s description gives you enough information to know what you’re reading but is still vague enough to keep the book’s secrets, well, secret. First, the book is set in the summer of 2022 when the world is emerging from major pandemic restrictions and I want you to beware of that if you’re sensitive to these storylines and/or lost someone due to COVID-19. Second, and this is the doozy, I have been wrestling with the idea that if this novel had been written by a woman, it could be categorized as a romance. Not a typical romance where the love story is the only real objective of the narrative, but my favourite kind of romance where there’s a whole lot of life happening for the main character but, at the end of the day, there’s going to be a Happily Ever After. I love Fallis’ work, that’s not what’s up for debate here. What is, however, is how books are marketed and how publishers treat books written by men and women differently. I think if this book had been written by, say, Theresa Fallis, the illustrated cover would look a whole lot different and we’d be having a totally different conversation. I’m not sure if I have a real point here - it’s just something that’s stuck in my brain as I considered the book and how I’d write this review and recommend it to others.

But putting the notion of this being considered a romance or contemporary fiction aside, this book is a love story. Or, perhaps more accurately, a love song. Jack is an amateur songwriter and guitar player - he enjoys it but knows he’s not good enough to make it professionally so he’s just had fun creating and playing for the past few decades. So, music and songs are a big deal to Jack and that’s why this book kind of feels more like a love song. He’s even written a couple of love songs that are included in the novel (which, yes, were written by Fallis). This book isn’t just a love song about love. It’s also an ode to friendship, family, Paris, and, yes, even ball hockey and the good buddies one makes playing it.

I loved that this book was a bit of an ode to Paris and the writers of the Lost Generation (Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald being the most famous). Jack is unapologetic about his love and (mild) obsession with the time and the writers and it was so lovely to see him go after his dream of living in Paris and walking the same streets as those authors he’d long admired. The extra little twist added in was such a delight and really elevated the story (why, yes, that is purposely vague).

A New Season is an uplifting book, even amongst all the grief, that shows it’s ok to live life after a tragedy and perhaps, it’s even more important to do so now after what we’ve all lived through. Terry Fallis has written a novel that is funny and heartwarming and will keep you entertained (and feeling all the feels) from the first page to the last.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, McClelland & Stewart (an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada), via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*