"No one an island"? Our inner cynic scoffs; we are all islands. Everyone is a castaway, sending messages by bottle or semaphore, writing sea-shell letters on the beach spelling "Help. Lost. Help".
The truth remains. Even castaway, we are not separate. What we do ripples out to others, whether in quantum entanglement or the tug of family across generations. Across centuries, even. What you throw to tides may ripple in result a thousand years later. Or not, says the cynic. Fine, let us have a synthesis. No one an island; but all are castaways on strange isles.
"The Calgary Chessman" is the expertly-depicted voice of Cas Longmore, telling us of her marooning. Cas is a creature from south-hemisphere paradise, leaving lonely footprints in the cold grey sand of an isle of the inner Hebrides. Think cold, think rainy, think isolated. Not that Cas is abandoned; just detached. As is the island. Reachable, at times. Cassandra has both friends and family. Granted, family are on the other side of the globe. Her dead-souled husband is a voice on the phone, a voice in her head. Her temperamental adolescent son is off boarding-school, visiting for vacation. Cass is a modern island. Not deserted; just isolated.
"The Calgary Chessman" begins with a tense and mysterious episode we do not understand. Something dark and dangerous occurs. We shall find out more, by and by. In the meantime the novel gives the daily life of a person who fascinates even without dark mystery. A science nerd, a teen-mother whose kid is now a teen, the kind of person who would move to a lonely house in the Hebrides, then jog miles to chat with an old man at a fence. Worried about money, worried more about becoming fatally separated from her mercurial son. Who has his own reason for isolation.
We wonder what dark things cast a deep, intelligent woman with a need for love, onto such a lonely shore? We shall see. A lonely walk on that shore, and we find an ivory token: a grumpy-faced chess-queen in her throne. Tossed to waves centuries past. A reminder to Cas and reader: we may be islands, but we aren't alone. What we do, what we think, whether and how we love, spreads outwards to all the other castaways.
Cas is unsure if she even can still love. Though two male sails show on the horizon: the annoying-but-handsome archeologist Niall, and pathologically taciturn-but-nice Ewan. Drew, the dark shadow of her ex, says: never. You're doomed to be alone. When she listens, the little chess-queen turns her throne around in annoyance. Her view: ‘Tell Drew to stuff himself. Take a chance. Make a play. And don’t forget your friend Bernie. Hey, there a lot of islands in this archipelago.’
'Calgary Chessman' is the inner dialogue of a marooned self, regaining the courage to connect. A special person, wonderfully and masterfully created by Ms. Marjot. But all that sounds too deep. So let's write the essentials in sea-shells on the beach, so that passing planes can get the message:
Hey reader! Calgary Chessman is a well written character-study romance-adventure of a woman regaining her ability to connect. Deciding to believe she need not be alone. Also finding treasure and sex and coming to terms with being who she wants to be. Bet that beats your little island!
A wonderful read; and only the first of three.
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Told with Sensitivity and Insight
