The Vancouver Sun review of Spanish Fly

Presto, Change-o
Will Ferguson tries his hand at something new

Robert Wiersema

With the publishing industry in tenuous shape, it's rare to see an author shift gears in mid-career, moving away from the tried-and-true. It's especially rare to see a successful writer change horses in midstream -- these days, a good thing tends not to be messed with.

Calgary's Will Ferguson is one of Canada's most successful authors, with numerous bestsellers and Leacock Medals for Humour to his credit. His books, including How to Be a Canadian, Bastards and Boneheads (a historical analysis of Canada's political leaders) and Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw (a hoser-meets-Bill-Bryson travel memoir), have brought him a significant following.

So what is Ferguson doing writing a serious novel about con men and grifters in the American Southwest during the 1930s?

The answer is simple: He's excelling at something new. His novel Spanish Fly is a remarkable work, steeped in history and arcane knowledge but rooted in the intimate timelessness of the human heart and soul. There are a few laughs, but this is a serious, and ultimately heart-rending, story.

Jack McGreary has outgrown Paradise Flats, the small dying town in the Texas borderlands where he lives with his father following his mother's death. It's 1939: The United States is still in the grips of the Great Depression and war is building in Europe, chronicled in newsreels and radio reports.

Jack's father encourages him to travel to Canada to enlist to fight the Fascists, but Jack is largely content to plod along at home. He has a job at the salt mine (literally), he's in fruitless pursuit of the librarian's daughter and he's struggling to provide for his family.

When he witnesses a con man working a fake change scam on a series of downtown businesses, however, Jack is forced to confront his future. Rather than report the scam to the police, he aids the con man and is then invited to take to the road with the crook, Virgil, and his female partner, Miss Rose.

From their headquarters in Silver City (an apartment that "smelled of stale sunlight and old dust"), the trio of grifters cut a swath through the small towns of the Texas dust bowl. Jack has a natural acuity for the grift and their schemes grow increasingly ambitious.

Virgil is a fount of con history, with himself usually cast in a starring role. As he spends more time with the couple, Jack grows perilously close to the mysterious Miss Rose.
When a con goes wrong, though, Jack's new life, and those of his companions, are at risk, and it will take the con of all cons for them to escape.

Or will it?

Spanish Fly is a veritable encyclopedia of cons, and by late in the book both Jack and the reader find themselves unable to take anything for granted. It's impossible to trust anyone in a world where you shouldn't even believe your eyes -- eventually an untenable position for someone as big-hearted as Jack.

With Spanish Fly, Ferguson has created a convincing world populated with realistic (if enigmatic) characters. Although the novel is focused on Jack, Virgil often takes centre stage. He's a larger-than-life figure with an unending series of memories and anecdotes that somehow fail to add up to a life.

The world he and Rose inhabit, one of marks and short cons, is utterly convincing: You nearly choke on the dust and desperation.

Spanish Fly develops a unique narrative structure. Most chapters chronicle a single con, a single lesson in Jack's ongoing education. There is a thrill in watching the grifters get away with their crimes; it mirrors, in the reader, the moral dilemma at the heart of Jack's story.

As far as the novel goes, there's no con, no grift, no false promises. Spanish Fly is the real thing. It's a novel of heart and soul, wise and occasionally clever and -- dare I say it? -- mature. It may alienate some of Ferguson's fans, who will search in vain for a punchline. But it will undoubtedly draw him new admirers.

The Vancouver Sun
Oct 13, 2007