The Antagonist

by Lynn Coady

Against his will and his nature, the hulking Gordon Rankin ("Rank") is cast as an enforcer, a goon -- by his classmates, his hockey coaches, and especially his own "tiny, angry" father, Gordon Senior.

Rank gamely lives up to his role -- until tragedy strikes, using Rank as its blunt instrument. Escaping the only way he can, Rank disappears. But almost twenty years later he discovers that an old, trusted friend -- the only person to whom he has ever confessed his sins -- has published a novel mirroring Rank's life. The betrayal cuts to the deepest heart of him, and Rank will finally have to confront the tragic true story from which he's spent his whole life running away.

With the deep compassion, deft touch, and irreverent humour that have made her one of Canada's best-loved novelists, Lynn Coady delves deeply into the ways we sanction and stoke male violence, giving us a large-hearted, often hilarious portrait of a man tearing himself apart in order to put himself back together.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Book Club, Literary Fiction, Novels, Canadian Literature, Young Adult

337 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Lynn Coady is an award-winning author, editor, and journalist. Her previous novels include Saints of Big Harbour, which was a national bestseller and a Globe and Mail Top 100 book, and Mean Boy, a Globe and Mail Top 100 book. Her popular advice column, Group Therapy, runs weekly in the Globe and Mail. Coady is originally from Cape Breton Island, NS, and is now living in Edmonton, Alberta.

Reviews

[Ron Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dear Lynn Coady,

I know, I know — those reviews written in the style of the book being reviewed are always an embarrassment, a too-cute indulgence that some friend or editor should have snuffed out before they saw the light of publication. Maybe you saw just two months ago when a certain New York Times critic tried to write a poem about Calvin Trillin’s poems. (No, iamb not kidding!) But your strange epistolary novel, “The Antagonist,” sent me reeling, and I can’t help reaching out to you privately. Besides, when a person — a grown man! — summarizes the plots of books for a living, the thirst for novelty can sometimes drive him to desperate acts.

Don’t worry: Living in Alberta, you’re too far away for me to knock on your door. But you might want to leave that Canada stuff off your bio anyway. Sure, “The Antagonist” was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, but down here we care about that as much as we care about the metric system. Forget your previous four books, too, and all the accolades they’ve received up there. Try passing yourself off as a debut author — we love debut authors!

And, as I said, I love your new book, with its unsettling mixture of comedy and pathos. You can be an incredibly funny writer, sarcastic and profane, right up till the moment when the tragedy below the surface suddenly erupts.

Still, what a tough sell: an “e-pistolary” novel, a whole book composed of e-mail messages from an angry, guilt-ridden man who’s just discovered that an old college friend has written a novel about him. Any number of things could have soured this high-concept project and made it sound cute ;-) or like a tedious postmodern stunt. But you’d already written a sharply funny novel about a poetry class, so I was willing to give “The Antagonist” a try.

How flexible the e-mail form becomes in the hands of your giant narrator. A once-promising hockey star, Rank, as you call him, glides across these pages with remarkable power and grace, turning on a blade from rant to reflection as he crashes through the story of his adolescence, when he did more damage than he can ever forgive himself for.

You’ve created male narrators before, of course, but Rank is a fantastically odd and believable character, a man cursed by a cruel combination of sensitivity and physical brutality. And you’ve captured his relationship with his parents with such raw pain: the way he’s haunted by the loss of his mother and provoked by the adoration of his obnoxious, small-minded father.

What really infuriates him now, though, is that his old college buddy, a quiet, judgmental geek, would dredge up his past, his most intimate, unguarded conversations, and use them to create “a dangerously unbalanced thug with an innate criminality.” That’s a great moment when Rank practically howls, “You have taken something that was mine and made it yours, without even asking.” I could feel his drunken rage as he screams into the computer: “I gave it to you, these intermittent chunks, I pulled off hank after bloody hank of flesh and just handed them over and you were so coy, you averted your eyes and pretended to be embarrassed like the rest of them when really you were squirreling away all those hanks and secretly stitching them together and building Frankenstein’s monster.”

I have to say, at first I was conscious of how hard you were working within this epistolary structure to get Rank to switch from first-person diatribe to third-person narrator, but soon I didn’t even notice your formal dexterity, and I was just carried along by the force of Rank’s flailing search for retribution, for explanation, for absolution. For three months in 2009, he pounds out this extended e-mail rebuttal to his friend’s novel, goading him to respond, threatening him, daring him to call the police. And, in the process, he retells the tumultuous tale of his accidentally violent life and discovers just how problematic it is to replace Adam’s half-truths and oversights with “the glorified, terrible, complex, astonishing truth of Reality.” How exactly can he correct the record without suffering again the exposure he finds so abhorrent? (You don’t have to answer that — I’m just being rhetorical.)

It’s an extraordinarily clever and sympathetic exploration of the cross-currents of male friendship, the intense relationships we make and abandon in school. How ill-fitting those intimacies feel years later whenever a college reunion or some chance encounter forces us to try them on again. Who owns our adolescent memories, our forgotten brutalities, our drunken confessions of affection and dread? (By the way, there are three Lynn Coadys on Facebook, but you were easy to find.)

I was curious to read in an interview that you had a somewhat similar experience, when an old friend confronted you about using the details of her life in your first book. She won’t see herself again in “The Antagonist,” but your ability to transform the kernel of that young woman’s ire into the fictional life of this once-reckless and now thoughtful 40-year-old man is absolutely brilliant.

What particularly held me, though, and made me parcel out the last few pages is the vein of spiritual angst that runs through your whole novel. Do you know John Updike’s “In the Beauty of the Lilies” from 1996? It’s one of his most overtly religious books, although it sometimes has trouble transcending its clinical tone. In the first chapter, the Rev. Clarence Wilmot suddenly feels “the last particles of his faith leave him . . . a set of dark sparkling bubbles escaping upward.” No doubt there are people who lose their faith like that, in a moment, the way Mary McCarthy describes hers dropping away during a bit of playacting at Catholic school. But in “The Antagonist,” you give such a full sense of the stickiness of faith, the frustration and terror felt by those of us who can’t shake the presence of something beyond — God or the gods. Rank may enjoy mocking those crude, histrionic preachers on TV, but he still lusts after the spiritual certainty that such orthodoxy promises. “We want to be swept up,” as Rank says. “We want it to remove every last doubt we ever entertained about our randomness as creatures of the earth. . . . We want to be as little children and believe.”

Gradually, I came to see that Rank’s e-mails to his old friend, this vampiric author who refuses to answer his grievances, are directed to a larger, even more implacable creator. In his own roughly poetic way, Rank reminds me of Emily Dickinson maligning God by noting that “He fumbles at your Soul.” You’ll think I’m being too grandiose, but poor Rank reminded me of a hulking, hockey-playing Job, railing at the whirlwind. In Rank’s case, the whirlwind never answers, but his anger gradually crystallizes into the kind of devastating knowledge he needs, and I need. It’s all tremendously, surprisingly moving.

I just wanted you to know that.

Your grateful reader,

Ron

[Jennifer (formerly Eccentric Muse) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel gets the early nod for the 2013 EccentricMuse Skippy Dies Award (a novel starring adolescent males that I’m completely surprised I enjoyed as much as I did).

Coady balances gritty realism with literary flourish to carve a portrait of a young man who grows up to become something other than everyone thought he would; and one who excavates his past in a series of emails spurred on by reading a former friend's novel in which he plays either a major or a minor role (it's not clear which; it doesn't matter).

In telling Gord Rankin Jr.'s story ("Rank" - a hockey-scholarship-earning/bouncer/enforcer who seems fated for a life of "innate criminality"), Coady creates a beautifully nuanced portrait of an adolescent boy who's endured traumas and been pigeon-holed by, among other things, his size - his sheer physical presence, or maybe just his presence itself - into a life he doesn't fit but doesn't seem able to escape. But she does a whole lot of other things, too, including painting an introspective, mid-life musing on identity - the shaping of it; the truth of self-fulfilling prophecies and the falsehood of fate; the early patterns and events that seem to lead inevitably in one direction and then, just as inevitably, veer off in another.

It's a novel about tragic, random events that seem like omens - at least, to 20-year-old Rank; conclusions that seem foregone but aren't, as it takes a series of unanswered emails and and additional 20 years to reveal to him. It's a novel about how stories can seem to be our own, how stories are important, but how stories never tell the whole story. It's a novel of deep feeling, of friendships and how fragile they are - like a human heart, Rank! - of adolescent boys inside of grown-up bodies, and how fragile they are.

Looking forward to reading more by Lynn Coady.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live" --Joan Didion

I almost skipped this book on my reading list and am so glad I didn't. First of all, the voice is terrific: Rank is consistently a very believable character whose narration ranges from very angry rants to emotionally restrained and self-critical reporting to nearly heartbreaking confessions. The formidable plot has us following three mysteries: what happened to Rank's mother (or at least "how"), what happened at the Icy Dream, and what happened in college that made Rank run away and never come back. These are all critical milestones in the coming-of-age story of Gordon Rankin, who re-lives his adolescence in a series of emails to a former college friend upon finding out that the other, now a writer, has taken parts of his person and facts from his life and used them in his book. Rank decides that writing his own version of what happened will set the record straight but as he does so he begins to wonder if the story of his life he's been telling himself for twenty years isn't as biased as the one his former friend published.
Add some wonderfully realized and spot-on depictions of male friendship and father-and-son relationships, plus a thoughtful and intriguing exploration of how the influence religion (namely the guilt factor and the fear of God and hell) can skew our view of ourselves and past events and deeply affect our actions for years to come, and you have a truly though-provoking and compulsively readable novel you won't be sorry to pick up. A great surprise of 2013.

[Kerry Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

The jocks in my classes at university were always kind of fascinating. Mostly because one didn’t encounter them very often– I went to Uof T whose sports programs were notoriously poor-perfoming. But also because their academic skills always came as a kind of surprise, and because some of them were so big that they couldn’t fit into those chairs that had the desks attached, and had to sort of get wedged in, and I remember how completely uncomfortable these guys looked, how they rendered the world lilliputian, but somehow they were the freaks.

The jock, Rank, was only one of the many characters in Lynn Coady’s The Antagonist who I recognized so completely, who made me think, “I know these people.” Like Rank, I was also “born in a small town”, and so I recognized his father also, a guy called Gord who starts every sentence with, “That little fucker…” And the deadbeat, and his fat friend, and then the middle class versions of these guys who Rank encounters when he gets out of that small town and goes to university (and tries and fails to wedge himself into one of those impossible desks).

Or maybe what I mean is that Coady’s book had me realizing that I didn’t know any of these people at all, actually, and that my recognition of these type had no real connection with these characters’ inner workings, the circumstances of their lives. Coady has taken all kinds of familiar tropes here– foundling child grows up to be Paul Bunyan, to have the strength of Superman, local boy does bad and local boy does good, and local boy does everything he can to escape being created by a father who didn’t create him after all, or at least not biologically-speaking, and by the time Coady is through, these tropes are as unrecognizable as the types are, and here we’ve got a startlingly original novel with incredible depth and devourability.

Not that this is a novel without precedent. Coady’s last novel, 2006′s Mean Boy was a hilarious satire of university creative writing programs, and it had many of the same metafictional elements as The Antagonist (which is, in its own way, also a campus send-up). It even had an antecedent to protagonist/antagonist Rank, a big strapping drunk guy who’s prone to homicidal rages.

Rank is the whole story here, however, it’s his fingers at the keyboard tapping out a message to ghost from deep in his past. Or perhaps the ghost is himself, his younger self, who he’s just encountered in fictional form in a novel written by a former friend. A big strapping drunk guy who’s prone to homicidal rages, and Rank has recognized himself in his old friend’s story. Coady’s novel is Rank’s response to this recognition, a letter to the author to set the record straight.

Coady handles the structure (an email) so elegantly, with flourish (“Consider this the first chapter”), but eventually the structure fades away for the reader and the story runs the show. Rank (whose name is actually Gordon Rankin, Jr. He notes the moment of his uncomfortable awakening that he’s spent most of his life instructing people to call him “Stinky”) goes back to his childhood and adolescence to get to the root of his true story, the awkwardness of being a fifteen year old boy in a giant man’s body, and the expectations this body has foisted upon him. Which are mainly his father’s, that he’ll take care of any punks hanging around their family business, and with his outsized strength, this gets him into serious trouble.

Stories of a subsequent court case are woven around a later plot-line involving Rank and his friends at university (which he attends after achieving an unlikely hockey scholarship), and the inevitability of Rank once again conforming to type. The plot gestures toward this second story culminating in another act of violence, and there is also mystery surrounding what exactly happened to Rank’s mom, both of which make for compelling reading, even more-so because of the immediacy of Rank’s own voice, and the urgency of his message as he types the story home. He’s incredibly likable, but he’s terrifying, and there are these moments at which he undermines himself, and others where the story does it for him. He’s also a narcissist who can’t bear to look in the mirror, so convincingly embodying all of these contradictions, and the result is one of the most fascinating fictional creations I’ve encountered in a very long time.

And what’s even more fascinating, of course, is that he’s his own creation here, competing with someone else’s version of him, which opens up all kinds of questions about story and character, and the execution of both in real life. Embodying even more contradictions: Rank writes, “Even now, speaking to me from twenty years ago, you had me pegged./ Which makes no sense when I think about your book. How could it you could have me so nailed down and still get everything wrong?”

Lynn Coady has arrived with this amazing novel which combines its depth with broad appeal, and her trademark humour is also on display to balance out the story’s heaviness. She also manages to finally bring together the various plotlines in such a satisfying way, though this didn’t mean, of course, that I was any less devastated to have to stop reading because the story was over. (I was. I was. This is a novel that casts a spell.)

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about Lynn Coady's The Antagonist. The first third of the book felt really slow to me and I had a hard time relating to the story and the characters. Perhaps this is just due to the nature of the characters involved - I am not usually drawn to strong, sporty, male characters. But as the novel progressed, as the story started to unfold, and as Rank's angry jock persona started to evolve into one with real depth and emotion, I found myself pulled into the book and the writing.

For a while, I wished this email correspondence was a back and forth instead of a one-way conversation. But as Rank continues to write, the reader realizes that this is how Rank is able to develop, grow, and learn from his own introspection. It doesn't mean that the reader isn't left with questions about Adam, which can certainly be frustrating.

In my opinion, this book is primarily about how one person's identity is almost entirely created within the imagination of a person - be it the identity holder's imagination and life story, or the people in his life who come into contact with this story at key moments. Although there are some overlapping elements, the two identities are not identical and a person can be defined entirely differently depending on who is telling the story.

As this book concluded, I found myself impressed with Coady as a writer, I was invested in Rank's life, and I wanted to know more. This is definitely a good read.

[The Bird Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every guy that I hung out with in college wrote this book. Every guy that played football, that belonged to a frat, every guy that just got too drunk on the weekends this is the story that they would write. It’s about regret, and a little bit about embarrassment and shame. It’s also about knowing all of those things, and still thinking it’s horribly unfair to be called out. For anyone to be called out. We are not those people anymore, those people that did those things, that behaved that way.
This is the story of what happens when your past comes back, not even to haunt you, but just to surprise you. Who is thinking about you? Who is remembering that person? The way that this story is structured is brilliant, one half of the book is silence, and yet, the reader feels no silence at all. I think it was incredible what the author was able to do with the voice, one lone voice out in cyber space conveyed so many things, so many different emotions.
This is a powerful book that sneaks up on you. It markets itself as many different things, but none of them prepare the reader for what they’ll find inside.

[Maree Cox-Baker · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just couldn't get into this book. Was very disappointed because I had heard good things about it. So many books to read no need to waste my time on books that don't grab me.

[Ian M. Pyatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

My oh my! I loved the idea of the story being told through the eyes of, "Rank" a seemingly troubled youth via a series of emails with a one-time friend named Adam, trying to debunk Adam's version of Rank's life and a troubling secret.

Rank was a well-conceived character and as was his life story. I felt a little sorry for his father that his wife died early, the struggles with he had with the restaurant and the thugs who invaded it at times.

Rank's group of university friends certainly brought a smile to my face at times, although I have no experience about dorm living as I lived at home when I went to college.

I found this to be an easy read and recommend for those who want something a little different, with a touch of family/friend dynamics, the odd chuckle and want to support Canadian authors.

[Mmars · Rating 4 out of 5]

What begins as a slog through anger Rank aims at his father and the frat boys Rank hung out with at college, ends up being penance in the form of emails written to Adam, one of those frat boys, who has written and published a fictional account of Rank’s life. Rank wants to set the record straight. And all those painful memories must be recounted. All those repressed youthful behaviors. All the unresolved “crimes” he has committed most often due to his size and strength.

Although the reader doesn’t know at the beginning of the book that Rank is now 40 and living a respectable life, knowing this would have helped me through the slog. Living a respectable life, however, does not mean that he is emotionally mature and that he has come to terms with his past. And THAT is what happens in this book. Rank finally, truly, grows up.

Somewhere past the midway point he has a conversation with a priest in which the topic of penance comes up. And it is at this point that the Antoagonist changed from passable contemporary fiction to a novel of note. There was a theme! A central idea!

And forget about hockey. This is NOT a sports book. That’s just one part of Rank’s life. Not that it’s unimportant, but it should not be used to promote the book. Because, dear Alfred A. Knopf, you’d have a much wider audience emphasizing the “everyman” experience of being forced to come to terms with one’s past and doing penance and, finally, painfully, growing up

[Dina Desveaux · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why oh why won't Goodreads give us 1/2 stars?
This is definitely 4.5 stars. I can't quite bring myself to rank it alongside Marquez or Murakami, but damn it's a fine novel. And, if I were ranking on its ability to make me laugh out loud and cringe simultaneously, there it ranks at 5 stars, no contest.

The Antagonist:

“Do you remember that asshole from high school? The one who strutted tall in the halls, walking with a such a wide swagger you’d think he had a dick the size of a Volkswagen between his thighs?” (from Andrew Wilmot's review)

Meet Gordon Rankin Jr., aka Rank, the refreshing protagonist, self-loathing misfit and hockey enforcer (goon) who tries to resist the roles thrust upon him by society's stereotypes of appearance and class. We all recognize in Rank the antagonists of our youth, and many of us recognize in his nemesis, Adam, those same antagonists of our university years. I believe fewer readers recognize or resonate with the specific roles thrust upon Rank due to the combination of undesirable class & the kind of atypical appearance that begs pigeonholing. I am one of those readers.

Coady's epistolary novel fuses comedy and pathos seamlessly.

Premise: Rank has just read a novel written by his old university pal, Adam, and he's infuriated to find himself further pigeonholed and misrepresented as “a dangerously unbalanced thug with an innate criminality”. The entire novel is one long rant (via email) from Rank to Adam.

I loved this book. The writing is deliciously sarcastic.

I’ll admit, as some reviewers pointed out, that the book sagged in the middle. However, just when I started feeling a little dragged down, two of the best scenes pulled me back in—the Heraclitus scene that ends with Wade asking, “Is it the same foot?” and the scene explaining how Catholicism soaks into your skin like vitamin D—both of these scenes had me laughing so hard, my cat stared at me in disbelief.

My feeling is that readers will either love this novel or they won't connect with Rank at all.
I can't imagine anyone not recognizing the skill of a masterful storyteller and writer in Coady.

[Shirley Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ms. Coady is one of Canada's premiere novelists, and that is very apparent when you read this book that was one of the finalists in the 2010 Giller Prize awards. There have been a lot of things in the news here in Canada lately about hockey enforcers and the toll it takes on their lives. This book illustrates this issue very well indeed. Rank is just that-a big, brawny guy who has been expected all his life to act as an enforcer-in hockey, in his various jobs as a young man, and in just about everything he does. This role does not sit well with him, and he spends his entire life trying to reconcile himself to this unasked-for role. And the book takes us to its inevitable conclusion-an event that rips up Gord's life and causes him to retreat within himself. The characters in this book are very memorable. We have Rank himself, and his three college friends as well as Rank's twisted and angry father. And throughout the ghost of Rank's mother whose demise almost tore Rank to pieces. As serious as this topic is, the book has hidden gems of humour buried throughout. These help to make the characters real and the story not so tragic and sad. This book is a triumph to Ms. Coady's subject and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow!! I really enjoyed this book!! It completely took me by surprise. Coady’s premise - a collection of emails from a man, “Rank”, to his old college friend to rebut the “truth” this so-called friend wrote in a novel - was unique and just worked remarkably well. Rank, the titular antagonist, made for quite an endearing protagonist here. The emails, written over a fairly short span of time, covered much of Rank’s forty years with both humour and heart. A genuine, honest feeling and character sprang off the page and I was so disappointed when those emails ended! I wanted the story to keep going! Not that the story ended on an incomplete note, but I really became quite attached to both Rank and the so-called antagonist of his own lifestory, Gordie Sr. Their relationship was so well captured - and the humour! The beginning emails with all of their raw hurt and anger begged to be read aloud and shared. I would definitely be interested in listening to an audio version as well! I loved the book!

it was quite difficult to recall that Rank was actually created by a female author. It was even more difficult to remember that he wasn’t real - Coady did a wonderful job! This was so well-written. I am looking forward to tracking down her earlier books! What a talented author!

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that grows on you incrementally as the story progresses. There is a depth to this writing that is very subtle and almost elusive, but it is there. Everything about this book is creative -- the premise, the style, the genre, the characters. I thought Rank was a unique and sympathetic protagonist,and I thought the character of his father was hilarious and brilliant. What I loved about this book was the way the characters started out as one-dimensional (even risking caricature), but became three-dimensional by the end. I also loved that there were themes about adoption that were subtext rather than primary -- and that Rank's central conflict was about coming to terms with his father, who happened to be his adoptive father -- rather than a conflict about adoption and identity. These are clearly very important themes, but they can become overused and cliched, and it was pleasurable to read a different perspective. One of my only criticisms was the homophobia, which was typically used for humor -- I realize the homophobia was expressed in Rank's voice, but I would have preferred if his homophobia had been challenged by another character, so that the reader didn't come away feeling that gay people were being derided for the sake of a joke.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have had this book on my 'To Read' list for quite some time-since it's Giller Prize nomination and am glad I finally took the time to read it. The Antagonist is amazing. Lynn Coady's talents as a writer shine throughout. Gripping, sad and redeeming all at once, you can't help but relate to Gordon Rankin Jr. (Rank). His story spills out through his fury at an old university friend who used Rank or a caricature of Rank in a book. Rank's anger at his father and his friend but mainly at himself pulls the reader right into his life; enmeshed in the tragic and poignant experiences that have shaped him from his teen years on. A big guy with expectations right from age fifteen of being the enforcer, Rank's perspective throughout the book is unabashedly and candidly revealed resulting in a thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking read. Highly recommended.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s like seeing pictures of yourself that you didn’t even know anyone was taking—candid camera—a whole album of worst-moment closed-circuit stills. There you are taking a dump. There you are saying precisely the wrong thing at the wrong time. There you are stepping on someone’s puppy while scratching your crotch.


***


Do you remember that asshole from high school? The one who strutted tall in the halls, walking with a such a wide swagger you’d think he had a dick the size of a Volkswagen between his thighs? The guy no one wanted to fuck with because, rumour has it, his fists could crush granite and knock someone’s mind all the way from reason back to stone tools and the missing link?

Gordon Rankin, protagonist of The Antagonist, is that guy. Only, he’s also not.

You might think, while crossing the street to avoid the six-foot-whatever monstrosity of genetics wearing an Icy Dream uniform, that Gordon Rankin—Rank to his friends, family, and faithful fearful—is a walking signpost for the juvenile detention system, but that would be only half the story. Less than that—Rank’s mistakes have been minor in number. It’s his size, his scope, and his associated abilities that have given his few infractions an imbalanced gravity.

The Antagonist details Rank’s existence through a series of emails written to a former friend-turned-author named Adam Grix between May and August of 2009. Through a chance encounter with a university friend-upon-a-time, Rank learns that Adam, to whom Rank had confided some of his darkest secrets twenty years prior, has written a book not so loosely based on the half-drawn image of Rank that Adam assumed he had known. Rank, understandably hurt and pissed off, emails Adam to set things right and tear apart his novel as the surface work of tabloid fiction it is. Along the way we meet Rank’s parents—the angelic Sylvie, and the bottom feeder vein-buster Gordon Sr.—past loves, friends, and tragedies both owned and inflicted upon our unexpected hero. It isn’t long before a book-within-a-book meta-narrative evolves; Rank’s emails quickly transition from defensive posturing to a volatile form of self-therapy, then into a non-linear autobiography.

The non-linear nature of the book is its largest asset, but also an early liability. The Antagonist gets off to a bit of a rocky start. Written as if from Rank’s hand, the early image we’re given of our rock-solid goliath is hardly that of a deep thinker. Yet Coady’s writing is smooth, deliciously sarcastic, and vivid. At first, I struggled with The Antagonist in much the same way that I did with Emma Donoghue’s Room, published in late 2010. In Room, the author structured the book entirely from the perspective of a five-year-old boy. The problem, however, was that the voice of her protagonist was never convincing—it felt less like that of a five-year-old boy, and more like a middle-aged woman writing from what she imagined a five-year-old boy might sound like. The unfortunate result was a book that lacked sincerity and severity. But unlike the child protagonist of Room, Rank’s voice is given its proper evolution through the narrative. Though hidden from the reader at first, Rank’s intelligence and verbosity are given their dues, and the non-linear structure of the story, pinpointing the necessary dots on the line of Rank’s evolution, provides added weight to the opening chapters after the fact.

For all of Adam’s creative backstabbing and his misrepresentation of his former university friend, Rank still must come to terms with the three things that combined to set his feet marching down the wrong path in life: his size, his strength, and the abusive, quick-to-assume-the-worst-about-everyone nature of his father, Gordon Sr. Through the one-sided chain of emails that, in a roundabout way detail every last crucial detail as to the why and how of Rank, we see accusation, adolescent upheaval, and the acceptance of adulthood through the acknowledgement of past transgressions. Rank’s voyage of self-discovery begins in a place of anger, resentment, and betrayal—Adam’s betrayal offering a window into a lifetime’s worth of memories of being used and having the unwanted role of childhood enforcer thrust upon our sorry tour guide—and ends in catharsis that, through Coady’s graceful plotting and subtle character growth, feels entirely welcome and earned.

We cheer for Rank because we recognize in him the antagonists of our youth, and we hope the same soulfulness resides within them—hope for the species, and all that. The Antagonist defies early expectations. Lynn Coady’s newest is an intriguing, rewarding book, and once started I found it difficult to stop reading.

[Chelsey Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book more because of who wrote it rather than an interest in the plot. I wasn't all that drawn to the idea, but once I started, Rank pulled me in quickly. He's such a surprising character and even though he and I are so, so different, as the book goes by, I think a lot of people would start to see aspects of themselves in him - his desire for people to interpret him properly, not to peg him down as a certain stereotype, etc. It's a pretty universal struggle from adolescence into adulthood. He wants to be recognized for what he is, and yet he thinks very little of himself at times. He's worried that only his mistakes will define him in others' eyes, but he won't look at himself in a different light, either. I think that's a very natural place to go when mistakes are made, accidents happen, that define others' lives. Rank only sees how he has hurt those around him, is desperate for everyone to see them as they were, accidents, but takes full responsibility as if they were intentional. His struggles with religion, similarly, show his need for forgiveness and self deprecation. At the same time, he is a fiercely proud character. I ended up very fond of Rank by the end.

Both books I read by Coady astounded me with her casually portrayed insight - she doesn't shove it down your throat and the writing itself is accessible without being lazy, but she creates HUMAN characters that show an amazing eye on her part. The books have dramatic plots, but they feel as though they naturally occurred because of the people involved rather than were plotted.

I thought this was a wonderful character study that cemented Coady as a favourite of mine.

[Steven Langdon · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of the 2011 Giller nominees involve violence, either with violent incidents playing crucial roles in plots (as in Ondaatje and Bezmozgis,) or with violence as a central theme in the books (from the rise of the Nazis in Edugyan to the agonizing of a "reformed" terrorist in Gartner's title story, "Better Living with Plastic Explosives.") In a world of international terrorism, and continuing warfare (from Somalia to Libya,) literature may be moving inevitably in harsher directions. The novels by deWitt and Coady are especially dominated by this focus on violence.

"The Antagonist," by Lynn Coady, sets its violence in the more agonized context. While Eli Sisters manages to overcome his doubts about killing fairly readily, Coady's Gord Rankin has his whole world overwhelmed and devastated by the physical force he unleashes on others, despite his efforts to counter the violent directions in which social expectations and family pressures push him. In a book that traces his gradually developing insights into himself, and his struggle to confront honestly the experiences that have shaped him, Rankin emerges as a complex and multilayered man, far more fully realized than the characters in deWitt. Coady's book is the one novel set in Canada in this year's list (a foreign locus that has led to much commentary.) But "The Antagonist" has a depth and universality that could well have led to a Man Booker nomination as well (as with Edugyan.)

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was not sure about this book when I started to read it, it did not really appeal to me, especially when my reading club selected it as a "Hockey" book. That is really not the main theme. Once I got into it though, I could not put it down. The main character finds out as an adult,that his best friend from university, Adam, has written a book about him and he is angry and wants to set the story straight. He contacts Adam by email and facebook and begins to write his story without leaving out the important parts.

Gordon Rankin "Rank" is the voice in this story and it is an angry one. He is an adopted boy who grows up, physically anyway, in a home with a very angry, small father. Rank is larger than any of the other boys in town and his father uses that, to the point where Rank ends up in a juvenile detention centre for a fight that gives another boy brain damage. Once out, he begins to play hockey and eventually gets a scholarship for University. He meets 3 others and they become inseparable. Rank quits the hockey team because he does not want to be the goon and the struggles of how he will be able to continue school begin. As Rank's story continues, we meet several other people from is life, how they effected him and he begins to reconcile with his past. A good read that really makes you think about how young boys are molded to fit a certain path and how that effects them for life.

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting read, and well-written, but . . . the contents did not match the purported structure. I was only very rarely convinced that Rank was writing these emails. Almost always the voice of the "offstage author" was much louder than Rank's voice. Of course one does not learn until the end that Rank went back to school and became a teacher, but it is impossible to believe he ever used the words "evolutionary-determinist" to describe something. Does any reader believe that Rank describes his male cohort of college friends being from "disparate social echelons" (I'm paraphrasing a bit, can't really remember the exact pompous phrase).

So here's the thing. Why the unbelievable email format? Are readers really supposed to note the day and time of each email, as if it matters (it doesn't). Why not just tell the story with an omnipotent narrator (that Rank even references at one point, of course, as if it is something EVERYONE thinks about, right?, not just writers) with some relics of Rank's actual voice from fragments of emails or whatever. This is in effect what the book actually is. So why pretend otherwise?

I would have enjoyed the writer's voice more if I wasn't distracted by the intrusive and unconvincing structural pretense.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any first-person novel must, by virtue of the form, be a meditation on the construction of identity, the coherence and contradictions of personal and reflected versions of ‘self.’ In her novel The Antagonist, Lynn Coady has imagined the perfect context for this exploration, one in which Gordon Rankin (“Rank”) discovers that his best friend from college has written a novel based on events from Rank’s own life. What follows is a series of dense e-mails in which Rank ‘corrects’ Adam’s version of the story with his own and, as a result, offers a piercing exploration of a life lived in relationship to becoming the man others need and expect him to be. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, Rank’s story is always compelling. Rank himself is both a unique creation and a perfect contemporary anti-hero. You know that feeling when metaphors express an image so appropriate to the character, so perfect in their execution, so smoothly incorporated into the physical and psychic setting of the story that you can actually feel the words resonating like a song you’ve never heard before but already love before it’s even played all the way through? Lynn Coady has provided that experience on nearly every page of this wonderful book.

[Margarita · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this book is interesting, but the manner in which is written is all over the place. Its narrative voice jaggedly alternates between first person and third person. Transitions aren’t smooth. The story takes place in the present, but looks back a lot at the past. This swinging motion would have worked better, as would the one sided dialogue had the narrative voice been more consistent. The themes in this book are numerous and because of this, none of them were very extensively explored. It lacks sufficient focus to make it feel like a well rounded story. Is the focus on religion and its impact on the individual? Or, is it on the Father/Son relationship? The Mother/Son relationship? Or, how about the friendship between 4 college boys? Or, ultimately, is the focus on the outcome(s) of misunderstandings and misperceptions? The read is still enjoyable because Coady does a very good job at constructing the main character, Rank, as well as creating a very convincing Father/Son dynamic. This dynamic is by far the most enjoyable part of this book.

[Bree Hobgood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved this book. It was such a delight to read it, without previously learning of the plot, that I won't go into the plot here, but I'll tell you why it was such a good read. The author nailed what it was like to be a college student in the 90s, and not in a "make-fun-of-Dave-Matthews-Band" way, but in a "that's-exactly-right!" way. Although the characters were a few years older than me, from Canada, and male, I knew versions of all of them. The story was told as a one-sided stream of email correspondence, which I also loved, although I was worried, at first, that this would make the story seem lopsided or tedious. I was wrong! It actually made for interesting character development/evolution. I can't wait for others to read this!

[Esil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprisingly good book. I loved the conceit -- a series of e-mails in which the protagonist writes to a former friend who used him as a character in a novel. The time shifts and meandering narrative were very skillful. I generally like second person narratives -- they are risky but when they work they can be brilliant.

[Paula Dembeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of Gordon Rankin Junior, adopted as a newborn by Sylvie and Gordon Rank Senior. He was a big baby who grew up to be a big man, fulfilling a role that his father began carving out for him early in life as a big imposing kid. Beside the story of how and why that happened, lies another cleverly crafted piece Coady has included on writing a novel.

Gordon Rank Junior, who comes to be known simply as Rank, is the narrator, writer and “The Antagonist” of the title. His mother Sylvie was a quiet, deeply religious woman and the light in Rank’s dark life while his father known as Gord, was a man Rank despised, a short slight man with “small man syndrome” who delighted in his son’s foreboding size . Rank experienced two large growth spurts, the first when he was fourteen and shot up to be 6’ 4”. He grew large amounts of body hair and his voice deepened. Suddenly people saw him differently. Overnight he went from being teased for being so big, to being treated as if he was already an adult. But Rank was still a young boy who just happened to be parading around in a body that towered over others. Looking like a grown man endowed him with a kind of instant authority that told others to make way and listen to what he said. Everyone believed that at two hundred and fourteen pounds, Rank could always handle himself and because they believed it, so did Rank.

His father Gord enjoyed creating situations in which his son had to rely on his size and strength to overcome or intimidate his opponents. He then sat back and watched what happened from a distance where he was protected and could live out his fantasy of being a physically bigger man. Watching his son throw his weight around gave Gord the feeling he had some power.

Gord hired his son to work at the Icy Dream, his small “Dairy Queen like” ice cream franchise. But he did not hire him just to work behind the counter, he hired him as his one man enforcer to deal with the teenagers who liked to hang out there. The parking lot at the Icy Dream was the place the toughies and druggies liked to go to get high and they often got into fights. They knew Gord hated them being there and that of course increased their fun. The fights always attracted attention and other liquored up punks from town would drift in to watch the drama unfold. Gord never called the cops, he wanted to handle it himself, but his way was to send his son Rank out to deal with it while he watched, protected behind the counter inside the store.

Rank hated the position of enforcer his father put him in, but as a young teenager he was forced to do his father’s biding. Even the police came calling to talk to Gord about what they knew was going on, warning him to quit using his son as a one man vigilante force and to call the cops when the kids in the parking lot were trouble. The police knew Gord enjoyed provoking the kids and watching his son sort it out, putting on a show and cheering his son from the sidelines. The men at the local legion said watching the activity in Gord’s parking lot was better than watching TV. And so it continued, with Rank taking on a role that seemed predestined for him and his father using his son to make his authority felt. It was not long before Rank got into real trouble when he struck Mike Croft a local hood, who went down, hit his head on the pavement and was out cold. Croft suffered brain damage and was never the same. Rank was charged with aggravated assault and sent off to juvenile detention. There he met a sympathetic counsellor who got him into hockey, a game Rank came to love until the coach forced him to take on the role of an enforcer.

There was just one unfortunate incident after another as Rank seemed on the road to becoming a first rate loser, moving from the skirmishes at the Icy Dream to designated enforcer for his hockey team and then becoming the jock in his group of buddies at college. There his intimidating size led him to be chosen for the trip to the local dealer to get the group’s dope. Later his size helped him get a part time job as a doorman/bouncer at a nightclub. And then an ugly incident occurred and Rank fled the scene, frightened to face the consequences.

When we meet Rank he is a forty year old teacher who comes upon a novel written by his former college buddy Adam Grix. Adam was the nerdy one in the group, the one with the glasses who was always awkward around girls. The two shared lots of beer and conversation during those college years but Rank has not seen his friend since a fateful night twenty years ago. Rank is pleased his friend has attained some success, buys the book and begins to read it but is shocked and angry when he discovers Adam has made him into one of the characters in his novel. And it is not a sympathetic portrait, but that of a brutish loser.

Rank reads the book several times, each time becoming more and more angry. He feels Adam has no right to take something that was his and make it his own. He didn’t even ask Rank’s permission. He rages at the way Adam has used some of their intimate unguarded conversations to create the character of an unbalanced thug. He feels he has been wronged, exploited and misrepresented and must set the story straight by making sure Adam knows the true story of his life.

Rank strikes back by seeking out Adam on his Facebook account, congratulating him on his book and asking for his help in writing his own. But Rank’s initially friendly e-mails quickly become more menacing and Adam stays silent after sending out two short responses, one encouraging, and the other not. Adam’s lack of any further response does not deter Rank, who keeps writing and goading Adam, maintaining a threatening tone and sending him pieces of his book in a long series of e-mails. But in starting his rebuttal and beginning his story, Rank must address the same questions every writer asks himself: Who is he writing the book for? Is it Adam? If it is, Adam is not listening to him or at least not replying to his emails. How can Rank judge how he is responding to his work? As Adam maintains his silence, Rank soldiers on, but begins to wonder why he is doing it. Is it a simple act of self-justification or is he actually saying something. And as we read Rank’s e-mails we understand why Adam remains silent as Rank’s words become more and more menacing and even threatening.

Rank’s obsession to complete his story consumes all his time and energy as he hammers out his missives in the chain of one sided emails. He is under a tight deadline because he must return to his teaching job in the fall. But things turn out differently than Rank intended. To write his story he must think back, re-examine his life. As he does, he finds it more and more difficult to replace Adam’s half-truths with his own belief of the truth and comes to see that the stories he tells himself are as limited as the one Adam has told about him. Rank begins to ask himself if the impression he has given friends is closer to the truth of who he is than the image he has of himself.

The process of reclaiming his story from Adams’ novel helps Rank lose his sense of betrayal and hostility to reach a state of grace and inner peace. He commits to going back and reading Adam’s book once again but this time from a different perspective, the one he has gained from distancing himself from Adam’s narrative and from what he has learned from writing his own story. He sees how defensive he had been, quickly picturing himself as one of Adam’s characters and becoming angry at how he had been portrayed. It may be that the story was never about him and in all fairness, in reconsidering, the character he thought of as his own was not really as bad a jerk as he initially thought.

This is Rank’s journey to accept himself. We all begin thinking we are the center of our own life story, only to realize as time goes by our story is only a few words among many in this great big world and we are only a small hardly noticeable blip in the passing of time.

This novel is beautifully written with strong complex characters. It explores questions of identity asking whether we really show people our true selves or if we put on a performance to face others. How do others actually see us when we go out in world each day? Do we ever see ourselves as other see us? Do we become the person other people think we are? What happens when we are not suited to the persona others have created for us?

Beside this narrative lies another parallel piece which explores the difficult craft of writing. At some point, every writer asks himself who owns the past, whether they be drunken confessions, misplaced affections or forgotten fights. Does a writer have the right to use the details of other peoples’ lives in their novels?

Coady has captured Rank’s character in a voice that can be at times brutal, then vulnerable and even funny. She tends to dance around some of the major events that frame Rank’s story, as she keeps readers wondering about two things: what Rank did in the past that was so terrible and what happened to his beloved mother Sylvie. Some may find that frustrating.

She captures the rapport between the boys at college, nailing their interactions and macho behavior as if she was one of them, including some funny moments to ease some of the serious nature of the narrative. Coady can make even someone like the obnoxious Gord, show a few moments of grace, giving a glimmer of a suggestion he maybe isn’t as bad as Rank thinks he is.

This was a great read, a book that was short listed for the 2011 prestigious Scotiabank Giller prize, a considerable honor.

I highly recommend it.

[alexander shay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the kind of story where some event happened in the past and the narrative dances circles around this event, getting slightly more specific and detailed in each passing referral. So you don't really know the point of the book until it's over and you have all the details. I'm coming to find that in most cases, I don't like this kind of story format. And with this book in particular, I felt like I'd missed something, like Rank had told the reader the thing he'd needed to and I couldn't tell what it was, like it was still partially hidden after all.

I waffled back and forth through the book about I felt. At times, I was frustrated; the narrative jumps around in time and between Rank the writer and the story he is writing, the characters in the story he is writing also exist in real life, and for all the time Rank spends complaining about Adam I still don't know the type of character Adam is because he's only on the page for a couple seconds. Rank's other friends, like Kyle and Wade, spent MUCH more time on the page.

But at one point, there's a part where Rank mentions how he realizes the book Adam wrote that is "about" Rank (the reason behind Rank writing his own narrative) is not about Rank at all, which made me wonder if that was why Adam had so little page space--Adam was the excuse to write the story, but the story wasn't his story. Even so, there are a few events in the story that Rank goes on and on about how Adam didn't include them in his version of events despite their real life importance, and yet Rank doesn't describe those scenes in much detail himself. There's a bit of hypocrisy in the narrative that I can't quite tell if it was deliberate on the part of the author without Rank's awareness or if Rank the writer is aware of it.

And the ending was such a let down. It wasn't quite deus ex machina, but it was pretty convenient that Rank befriended an EMT guy and certain events happened in the news. Which just so happens to change the way Rank views his past and get a weight off his shoulders that I couldn't quite tell if he'd gotten off or not through the telling of the story--and even then, you close the book and wonder if that's what really happened, because you aren't told one way or the other really, you're just given this information bomb and left to decide what Rank does with it.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted at www.bookertease.blogspot.ca

Let’s start with a bit of honesty here. I did not want to read this book. I remember hearing about it when it came out and heard that it was about hockey, and I was not the least bit interested. I put the book out of my mind immediately. But then (a little more honesty here) when Jian Ghomeshi put his piece on Facebook about being fired from the CBC (before we found out that he is a woman beating asshole) he mentioned that his sex life was no worse than the scenes in Lynn Coady’s Giller Prize winning novel (Full disclosure here – He was NOT referencing The Antagonist, but rather her novel of short stories Hellgoing – which looks awesome… but I still got that totally wrong). I admit, I was intrigued. Then a copy came into the library where I volunteer and so I picked it up. It was in pristine condition and $1.50; really how could I say no? Still, it sat on my shelf until a friend of mine told me that I needed to read it, and since I have never really seen her as a sports book fan I decided to give it a try. I was still pretty hesitant though.

I abhor sports memoirs, in all mediums. I am not sure why I detest them so much, but I really do. When I was in university I lived with my uncle and his 4 sons, who all played hockey; in fact, their entire lives revolved around hockey and sports in general. When they were little they would get up every morning at 6 am and stand at attention outside of my bedroom door, listening to O Canada (this is completely true. They had a jock jam’s cd with O Canada on it and they would listen to it before every game that they played). And then they would go crazy playing with their plastic mini sticks and yelling and hitting each other. It was chaos. I am pretty sure the tv in that house only had two channels; TSN and CBC, but only for Hockey Night in Canada. Except if there was a channel playing a sports movie; those got watched incessantly. I am pretty sure those boys (who are almost all grown now) can still site Remember the Titans and Miracle verbatim. Luckily I had my own tv, but I still saw Remember the Titans more times than I care to remember.

All that being said, this is NOT a sports memoir; AND – it’s REALLY good. Other than the fact that the main character, Rank, played hockey as a kid, this book really has nothing to do with sports at all. Instead it is a deeply psychological look at someone who has been completely betrayed by someone they considered a friend, and how that betrayal then forces him to look at who he used to be and why he used to be like that. Honestly, I am not really sure how it ever got the ‘sports’ designation in the first place.

Gordon Rankin Jr (Rank) runs into an old friend one day, out of the blue. The two chat superficially for a few minutes and as they part, his friend tells him to check out a book that was just published by another old friend. Unassumingly, Rank checks out the book and gets hit with one of the biggest surprises, and betrayals, of his life. The author has written a fictional story about Rank’s life including an account of an accident that, although inevitable, changed and defined Rank’s life. In retaliation Rank starts emailing the author, telling him the real story. The book consists of these emails, one after another, so the only side of the story that we ever get to see is Rank’s. He is passionate, cagey, belligerent, heartfelt and thorough. He talks about his adoption, the loss of his mother, his father’s short man syndrome and the way he used Rank, a giant hulk of a boy, to intimidate people in a way that Gordon Sr never could. His stories and memories are surprisingly insightful as he recalls being a child in the body of a man, and how people expected him to act and think like a man based solely on his size. He repeats, more than a few times, that he was only a kid; he thought like a kid, he acted like a kid. He listened to his father, because that’s what kids do. But at 15 he was bigger than most men in town, and was expected to act like that meant something. Even after the life altering incident occurs and Rank is in university, his size makes people expect certain things of him. He is expected to be a big oaf, big and dumb and good at sports. Rank does what he’s told as always, it seems at this point that he never really grew into his manhood.

It took me a little while to get into the story. When Rank starts emailing the mysterious author his emails were passionate and not always coherent. He starts and stops a lot, he’s trying to get it all out at once, and he wants his old friend to understand. To understand how horrible his life was, how horrible his father was and how horrible the betrayal was. At first he refuses to talk about his mother, and so whenever he mentions her he goes off on a tangent about how saintly she was and how he doesn’t want to talk about her. The more Rank gets into his life story though, the more I find myself angry alongside of him.

I’ve been told that this is an epistolary novel; a story told through a series of letters. It’s certainly an interesting perspective and although I was suspect of the format at first, it has grown on me. It differs from the normal first person perspective in the sense that the narrator isn’t actually narrating to us, he is narrating to the person he is emailing and so there is always going to be that skew of what he wants the recipient to see, what he wants him to feel. I feel myself getting swept up in Rank’s self-righteous anger, but I am not blinded by his side either. So many times I wanted Rank to tell people to bugger off. To tell them that he’s just a kid and just plain doesn’t know the right thing to do.

I am super interested to see where the rest of the story goes. I think that there must be more to his mother’s story, and as I am writing Rank is visiting his father and remembering why he stays away. Rank and his father have a very turbulent relationship, although Gord Sr thinks the sun and moon shines out of his sons behind. I am interested in seeing more of their relationship as adults. And I am definitely interested in seeing how Rank has come to these realizations about his youth, and how he finishes his story. Will he come to the realization that maybe being outed was the best thing for his psyche?

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh wow how I hated this book in the beginning. Thanks to those of you who said that it would get a lot better, because it really, really did.

[Mj · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Antagonist by Lynn Coady quickly engaged me. I was impressed by that author’s writing skills and insight. I also thought the timing to read “this hockey themed book” was perfect. It was a monthly book club selection while the World Junior Hockey Championship was taking place in Canada.

The book should appeal to non-hockey fans as well because although hockey is mentioned, there is much more to the storyline. The Antagonist has a strong psychological fiction aspect to it which I quite enjoy and always learn from. It also has many components of a mystery/thriller as Coady tempts readers with an issue early on but only reveals the information bit by bit, in the form of emails, holding and building suspense until the real cause is finally revealed.

Gordon Rankin Junior or Rank (his nickname) is the hockey player and central male character. Both his coach and angry father seemingly expect his role on ice to be one of “enforcer”, sometimes referred to as “goon.” Rank seems hurt and angry about many general things and some specific things. Some appear quite justifiable. Many find Rank very large for his age and therefore consider him dumb and a thug (a huge stereotype). I thought he was both thoughtful and insightful in his comments. I also didn’t find him to be a bully by nature. Rather, I think he was a misunderstood young boy/man. I particularly sensed his pain when he was trying to explain his feelings to his ex-friend Adam.

I am not sure what age Rank was communicating with Adam as much of the story takes place via emails. Rank seems to have matured since his youth and have spent a fair amount in self-reflection. Yes, his comments are rambling but so might anyone’s be in a journal or in one’s head when trying to sort out some hurtful things.

Initially in the story, there were only 3 emails with dates and time, so I didn’t feel any sense of urgency (yet). I liked Coady’s use of this email format to convey Rank’s thoughts. She could have chosen a journal format, stream of consciousness or another method but I found emails to be a very effective method to help readers get into Rank’s head and to understand where he was coming from and how he was thinking and feeling. It also enabled Coady to inform the readers about past events from Rank's perspective. Because I was learning about things directly from Rank, I found myself sympathizing with him more than I might have, had the information been received second-hand.

I enjoyed Coady’s descriptions, analogies, and her use of teasers about things to come to build tension. She also effectively writes metaphorically. For example when she describes Rank as "always yanking off hunks of self-flesh." I got a real sense of how Rank may have felt in his youth when he was to frequently compromising himself and giving away more and more pieces of his “real” self.

The whole shame section and Coady’s terminology of “a grocery list of shame”, “bullet points” and “shame pellets” was very powerful in terms of language and impact and the pain and damage to Rank it conveyed. It just reinforced to me how wounded Rank was and how much his self-esteem and self-love has been negatively impacted. Heck he is ashamed of practically everything; not just actions that he and likely others deemed to be bad (details to be revealed by the author later in the story) but he is also ashamed of his positive actions i.e. hockey accomplishments that most people would think he should be proud of. He gives himself no credit for anything…..just shame.

I was particularly intrigued by the hockey analogy of “being born the illegitimate offspring of fornication, passed like a puck to the nuns……and slapshot straight into the upstanding, two-parent home of Gord and Sylvie. Goal!” I am wondering if Coady is speaking the truth and giving us a clue about Rank's life or again speaking metaphorically. Whatever it is, it is another hook that is keeping me reading.

Again, I was impressed early on by Coady’s introduction of intrigue and suggestions of what’s to come. She got me thinking about what is true and what isn’t and added so much mystery and interest. Yes, The Antagonists is much more than a hockey book. 4 stars

[Mike Heenan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This had all the flavors, laughter, tears, dialogue that was spot on to the times. I loved this book.

[Barton Hacker · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Audi book)

I'm not sure why this book intrigued me as much as it did. It's certainly not an uplifting story. In fact, it's quite the opposite. However, it's well written, well narrated, and arguably original. I couldn't put it down.