Abstract

This is a novel about relationships, especially familial relationships, and is primarily concerned with issues of love and violence. The story revolves around Jeremy Leduc, the narrator, and his father, Glen Leduc, the Fire Chief in the fictional town of Seymour, Alberta. Jeremy is a 25 year-old university dropout and self defence instructor who returns to Seymour after the failure of both his martial arts school and his relationship with Ellie Donnelly, the lawyer he lived with for four years in Boston. In Seymour, he confronts his past and attempts to set up a framework for the future. Issues of self-protection--including the fighting theory of interception--haunt Jeremy as he strives to discover how to interpret his world and how to achieve some sense of goodness within it. Outside of the Leduc family story and the flashbacks of Boston, the larger community of Seymour is explored. The house across the street and the events that occurred there, as well as the young people Jeremy encounters and re-encounters in the small Western Canadian town in the midst of Rodeo Days are of prime importance to the story. The novel is divided into seven parts and the present-tense action takes place over seven days.