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Close To Hugh
As in her bestselling, Giller-shortlisted novel Good to a Fault, Marina Endicott returns with her sharply observant eye, compassionate heart and witty pen to the trappings and travails of modern life--showing us how two generations in a seemingly ordinary small town navigate extraordinary rites of passage during one fateful week in autumn.
Close to Hugh is a glorious, exuberant, poignant comic novel about youth and age, art and life, love and death--and about losing your mind and finding your heart's desire over the course of seven days one September. As the week opens, fifty-something Hugh Argylle, owner of the Argylle Art Gallery, has a jarring fall from a ladder--a fall that leaves him with a fractured off-kilter vision of his own life and the lives of his friends, who are going through crises (dying parents; disheveled marriages; wilting businesses) that leave them despairing, afraid, one half-step from going under emotionally or financially. Someone's going to have to fix all that, thinks Hugh--and it will probably be him.
Meanwhile, beneath the adult orbit, bright young lives are taking form: these are the sons and daughters of Hugh's friends, about to graduate from high school and already separating from the gravitational pull of their parents. As bonds knit and unravel on cellphones and iPads and Tumblr and Twitter, the desires and terrors and sudden revelations of adolescence are mirrored in the second adolescence of the soon-to-be childless adults.
With exquisite insight and surefooted mastery, Endicott manages something surprising: to show us, with an unerring ear for the different cadences and concerns of both generations, two sets of friends on the cusp of simultaneous reinvention. And, as always in Endicott's wonderful fictional worlds, underpinning the sharp comedy and keenly observed drama is something more profound: a rare and rich perspective on what it means to rise and fall and rise again, and what in the end we owe those we love.
Close to Hugh is a glorious, exuberant, poignant comic novel about youth and age, art and life, love and death--and about losing your mind and finding your heart's desire over the course of seven days one September. As the week opens, fifty-something Hugh Argylle, owner of the Argylle Art Gallery, has a jarring fall from a ladder--a fall that leaves him with a fractured off-kilter vision of his own life and the lives of his friends, who are going through crises (dying parents; disheveled marriages; wilting businesses) that leave them despairing, afraid, one half-step from going under emotionally or financially. Someone's going to have to fix all that, thinks Hugh--and it will probably be him.
Meanwhile, beneath the adult orbit, bright young lives are taking form: these are the sons and daughters of Hugh's friends, about to graduate from high school and already separating from the gravitational pull of their parents. As bonds knit and unravel on cellphones and iPads and Tumblr and Twitter, the desires and terrors and sudden revelations of adolescence are mirrored in the second adolescence of the soon-to-be childless adults.
With exquisite insight and surefooted mastery, Endicott manages something surprising: to show us, with an unerring ear for the different cadences and concerns of both generations, two sets of friends on the cusp of simultaneous reinvention. And, as always in Endicott's wonderful fictional worlds, underpinning the sharp comedy and keenly observed drama is something more profound: a rare and rich perspective on what it means to rise and fall and rise again, and what in the end we owe those we love.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published May 26, 2015
About the author
Marina Endicott
14 books139 followersMarina Endicott was born in Golden, BC, and grew up with three sisters and a brother, mostly in Nova Scotia and Toronto. She worked as an actor and director before going to England, where she began to write fiction. After London she went west to Saskatoon, where she was dramaturge at the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre for many years before going farther west to Mayerthorpe, Alberta; she now lives in Edmonton. Her first novel, Open Arms, was short-listed for the Amazon/Books In Canada First Novel award in 2002. Her second, Good to a Fault, was a finalist for the 2008 Giller Prize and won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, Canada/Caribbean region. The Little Shadows, her latest book, longlisted for the 2011 Giller Prize, was a finalist for this year’s Governor General’s Award and will be published in the UK and Australia in spring 2012. She is at work on a new novel, Hughtopia.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
July 15, 2017
This is a fascinating book, and a great story. I felt some resistance near the beginning because it dives, and dives deeply, into the ‘right brain world’. The world of art, of dance, of music, of writing, of theatre – and I wasn’t sure I wanted to visit that world.
Yet there I was; and there was a reward. Once I stopped resisting, this book completely took me in – into a world that is really a community of mostly arts-type people who have known each other since childhood. And the story is largely about how they keep each other ‘real’ even though their working lives are based in illusion and/or artistic expressions of reality.
At times, when references to plays, lyrics from songs, and lines from poems went over my head, I was convinced I am a literary troglodyte. Then, I realized that it didn’t matter. Only the words themselves mattered, and in this book they flow like a sparkling river on a bright Spring day.
This book mines and evokes a wide variety of emotions and feelings, including humour. Hugh (gallery owner and friend to almost everyone in the book) is, of course, one of the main narrators and the play on words with his name and his own confusion between his name and “you” peppers the pages. Some of his confusion comes about because he starts off the week falling off a ladder, then later that night, he falls down some stairs. Some examples of the play around his first name from a few Chapter titles alone:
1. Hugh Can Take It
2. Falling for Hugh
3. Hugh Belong to Me
4. Guess Hugh’s Coming to Dinner
5. I Only Have Eyes for Hugh
6. Hugh be the Judge
When teenage Elle (her birth certificate name is Baby Girl because someone forgot to enter a real name) is the narrator, she uses the designation L for herself and it reads like a typical teenager’s diary. Well, maybe not so typical – she has some very adult-size thoughts among the more naïve teenage thoughts. When Della (L’s mother and one of Hugh’s oldest friends) narrates, it is all in free-verse poetry.
Newell, another of Hugh’s oldest friends doesn’t narrate, but he is bigger and shinier than life, and is a current of calm and caring throughout. Newell is a successful and wealthy actor, caught up in a triangle relationship with Burton (old, has-been actor with a huge ego and only a faint glimmer of any redeeming qualities) and Orion (young, an enormous acting talent, and friend of L, Jason, Savaya and Nevaeh - which is heaven spelled backward). Ruth, who was a surrogate mother at various times for Hugh, Della, and Newell is still their referee, their cheerleader, their strength, their rock.
There are other characters in the book, and each one is so unique and well-developed that it is not difficult to follow their thoughts and experiences. Each character is necessary to the story and fully integrated into the storyline.
This book is full of riches. There were many times while reading that I was impelled to stop and think about what I had just read. That also led me, at times, to sit down and write out my thoughts and feelings. I have not experienced this with very many other books so it was a true adventure for me. There is some interesting symbolism in the book: ladders and stairs, windows and rain – these are some of the recurring themes that signal shifts and changes, sometimes in pairs and sometimes by themselves.
At 400 pages, ‘Close to Hugh’ is not a quick read, but I would have loved it even more if it had continued on to double its size. This is a very satisfying read on many different levels, and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys a wonderfully crafted, well-written and strong story with highly individual characters who gradually begin to feel like very good friends.
Yet there I was; and there was a reward. Once I stopped resisting, this book completely took me in – into a world that is really a community of mostly arts-type people who have known each other since childhood. And the story is largely about how they keep each other ‘real’ even though their working lives are based in illusion and/or artistic expressions of reality.
At times, when references to plays, lyrics from songs, and lines from poems went over my head, I was convinced I am a literary troglodyte. Then, I realized that it didn’t matter. Only the words themselves mattered, and in this book they flow like a sparkling river on a bright Spring day.
This book mines and evokes a wide variety of emotions and feelings, including humour. Hugh (gallery owner and friend to almost everyone in the book) is, of course, one of the main narrators and the play on words with his name and his own confusion between his name and “you” peppers the pages. Some of his confusion comes about because he starts off the week falling off a ladder, then later that night, he falls down some stairs. Some examples of the play around his first name from a few Chapter titles alone:
1. Hugh Can Take It
2. Falling for Hugh
3. Hugh Belong to Me
4. Guess Hugh’s Coming to Dinner
5. I Only Have Eyes for Hugh
6. Hugh be the Judge
When teenage Elle (her birth certificate name is Baby Girl because someone forgot to enter a real name) is the narrator, she uses the designation L for herself and it reads like a typical teenager’s diary. Well, maybe not so typical – she has some very adult-size thoughts among the more naïve teenage thoughts. When Della (L’s mother and one of Hugh’s oldest friends) narrates, it is all in free-verse poetry.
Newell, another of Hugh’s oldest friends doesn’t narrate, but he is bigger and shinier than life, and is a current of calm and caring throughout. Newell is a successful and wealthy actor, caught up in a triangle relationship with Burton (old, has-been actor with a huge ego and only a faint glimmer of any redeeming qualities) and Orion (young, an enormous acting talent, and friend of L, Jason, Savaya and Nevaeh - which is heaven spelled backward). Ruth, who was a surrogate mother at various times for Hugh, Della, and Newell is still their referee, their cheerleader, their strength, their rock.
There are other characters in the book, and each one is so unique and well-developed that it is not difficult to follow their thoughts and experiences. Each character is necessary to the story and fully integrated into the storyline.
This book is full of riches. There were many times while reading that I was impelled to stop and think about what I had just read. That also led me, at times, to sit down and write out my thoughts and feelings. I have not experienced this with very many other books so it was a true adventure for me. There is some interesting symbolism in the book: ladders and stairs, windows and rain – these are some of the recurring themes that signal shifts and changes, sometimes in pairs and sometimes by themselves.
At 400 pages, ‘Close to Hugh’ is not a quick read, but I would have loved it even more if it had continued on to double its size. This is a very satisfying read on many different levels, and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys a wonderfully crafted, well-written and strong story with highly individual characters who gradually begin to feel like very good friends.
June 26, 2017
When we give someone else power over us, when we take power over them by loving, what a long string of obligation we begin to unwind through the maze of life.
Close to Hugh is just exactly my type of book: The language is playful and artfully formed into layers of meaning that demonstrate the point of enjoying a story on the page; literature is an artform unlike any other and too few authors seem to want to use all the colours in their crayon boxes; acting like art and form are two distinct disciplines that must be tamed and balanced. But here, Marina Endicott stretches the limits of every carefully selected word, and just when it begins to seem a bit cute, she winks at the reader and shows that she was in on the joke all along. Brilliant.
I think this would make for a terrible audiobook. From the start there are puns made on the main character's name – Can I talk to Hugh? Of course you can talk to me. Not talk to “you”. Hugh. – and the puns signal that a section will be told from his point of view (featuring titles like “Hugh Can Take It” and “Hughreka”). Other characters' names are similarly complicated – when Hugh first met his foster mother and was told to call her “Aunt Ruth” he thought they were saying “Aunt Truth”, Nevaeh is “heaven” spelled backwards, Savaya was named after a coffee shop, who knows where Orion's Mom came up with his name – and when the brilliantly artistic girl next door decides to change her name from “Elle” to “L”, she complains, “You know it's L, the letter L. Not Elle. I can hear the Elle in your voice, but you can't seem to hear the L in mine.” Funny on the page, but how would that work on audio? When Hugh meets Ivy and is lovestruck, sections from her point of view start appearing with their own punny titles: “I've Been Everywhere” or “I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face”. But this Hugh and Ivy – this you and I - doesn't even scratch the surface of what Endicott has wrought.
For the plot, there's a group of old and artistic friends who, as their kids are about to leave for university, are feeling both incredibly old (and I don't really get that they all feel ancient at around 50) and incredibly free; as though entering a second adolescence. The midlife experiences of this generation are mirrored by those of the teenagers themselves: a group of highly talented artists (actors and dancers and costumers in addition to L's visual artistry) who feel like they've invented art; invented sex. And no matter that generation after generation will relive the same struggles, every single person is searching for the same thing: to be known – really known – by someone else. Ah, but everything in this book is an illusion and even misunderstandings – whether recent or forty years old – can seem real enough to cause rifts.
So much is illusory: there's a feast of trompe l'oeil foods, a meditation on Escher prints – and not just his staircases but stairs and ladders everywhere in the book – and a gender crossed Streetcar Named Desire (but does that just serve to further confuse whether Tennessee Williams was voicing himself through Stanley or Blanche?). There are sickbed delusions, and those things in front of our noses that we choose not to acknowledge, and just when a misunderstanding between friends is veering from drawing room farce to real-life calamity, a reading of The Importance of Being Earnest leads Ivy to confess that such unrelenting cleverness from Oscar Wilde grates on her. Ha!
I loved the Canadianess of Close to Hugh – what better way to describe Mimi's mid-70s fame than to casually cite her role on Mr. Dressup or her place on Pierre Trudeau's arm? – and Endicott makes Peterborough actually sound like a happening place. Characters love each other and hate each other – some are gay and some are straight, some are confused – and it's all handled with wit and sensitivity. And and and there are frequent sections from Della's point-of-view (Hugh's friend/foster sister) that read like open verse poetry, and although her experiences are not mine, I was often left gasping at the truth of these sections, and this is the overarching point that I've been trying to make through all this blah blah blahing: by using all those colours in her crayon box, Endicott was drawing from some deep well and naming those connections that we tend to forget are tying us all together. This book has truth and beauty and meaning and Endicott hid it all inside stupid puns.
What is he going to do with this cracked and useless heart? Make art?
But, like all art, literature is subjective, and although Close to Hugh is exactly to my taste, that might not be universal. And to anyone who doesn't connect with this book like I have, I wish you well in your quest.
May 19, 2015
Disclosure: I was fortunate to receive this book for advanced reading and an honest review. At my most generous, I can only muster a 3 stars rating. I was so excited to read my copy especially since the preview was so well done but regretfully, I was not wowed.
There were some good aspects and I will note them. I think there was a terrific story but the writing style made reading this book too tedious. Short, choppy sentences; difficult to understand prose and puns (Hugh/you) throughout. Here is an example:
To paw, period. To own, to care for. To be a caretaker, to own, to hold onto for others. Hugh steps in water and feels the slick slide of it, falls to one knee - saves himself, hurts his leg. Pants black-smeared. Now he will have to climb all those stairs to change. Twenty eight stairs in all. This, it seems, is what sends him over the edge. He is separately dismayed, outside himself, to hear the sob.
Small entire chapters titled Della are simple soliloquies which read more like Morse code. Overall a hefty read and were I the editor, I would have chopped off 1/3 of this book. The plot trundles on - short on plot and heavy on words. Plus there is huge cast of characters and some sectional chapters are interspersed with titles such as Orion or L in which case, these characters are also soliloquizing.
The most lovable characters are Hugh, Ruth, and Ivy. Hugh with a big heart of gold wanting to make everything right for everyone. His mother is in the hospital and he had a fall and the reader picks up bits and pieces along the way that his biological mother was not always around and she kept saying sorry sorry and Hugh trying his best to comfort her and to be there for her while appearing conflicted at times.
Ruth is the stabilizing influence in Hugh's life as well as Della's and Newell's who are foster siblings to Hugh. Ruth was a foster mom to these three. She is featured as old and poor but carrying a truckload of affection. Della and her lawyer husband are struggling with various problems - finances, their relationship of 30 years plus the husband suffers from depression, is anxious about his clients and is drained from the demands of his job.
Ann is a former girlfriend of Hugh. And in comes Ivy, the new actress/teacher with a memory problem and her lines. There was instant chemistry; Ivy and Hugh fall in love and support and aid each other along life's travails.
The book focuses on the arts. Hugh is a gallery owner and many of the children of the adult characters are also attending an arts master class. There is the juxtaposition of young and big/has been talent. Growing pains, drug use, hints of some abuse, acceptance of sexual orientation, love triangles and friendships.
I enjoyed the setting and location in the book especially since I am so familiar with the geography. The reader is transported to Peterborough and Bobcaygeon or back to Toronto and Queens Park and Wellesley Street and College and Carlton Streets etc.
The ending is centred around the death of Mimi, Hugh's mother and suddenly the loose ends are tied up rather quickly and disjointly as the rest of the book. While I would not rave about this book which is influenced by personal preferences, I am curious about other works by Endicott.
There were some good aspects and I will note them. I think there was a terrific story but the writing style made reading this book too tedious. Short, choppy sentences; difficult to understand prose and puns (Hugh/you) throughout. Here is an example:
To paw, period. To own, to care for. To be a caretaker, to own, to hold onto for others. Hugh steps in water and feels the slick slide of it, falls to one knee - saves himself, hurts his leg. Pants black-smeared. Now he will have to climb all those stairs to change. Twenty eight stairs in all. This, it seems, is what sends him over the edge. He is separately dismayed, outside himself, to hear the sob.
Small entire chapters titled Della are simple soliloquies which read more like Morse code. Overall a hefty read and were I the editor, I would have chopped off 1/3 of this book. The plot trundles on - short on plot and heavy on words. Plus there is huge cast of characters and some sectional chapters are interspersed with titles such as Orion or L in which case, these characters are also soliloquizing.
The most lovable characters are Hugh, Ruth, and Ivy. Hugh with a big heart of gold wanting to make everything right for everyone. His mother is in the hospital and he had a fall and the reader picks up bits and pieces along the way that his biological mother was not always around and she kept saying sorry sorry and Hugh trying his best to comfort her and to be there for her while appearing conflicted at times.
Ruth is the stabilizing influence in Hugh's life as well as Della's and Newell's who are foster siblings to Hugh. Ruth was a foster mom to these three. She is featured as old and poor but carrying a truckload of affection. Della and her lawyer husband are struggling with various problems - finances, their relationship of 30 years plus the husband suffers from depression, is anxious about his clients and is drained from the demands of his job.
Ann is a former girlfriend of Hugh. And in comes Ivy, the new actress/teacher with a memory problem and her lines. There was instant chemistry; Ivy and Hugh fall in love and support and aid each other along life's travails.
The book focuses on the arts. Hugh is a gallery owner and many of the children of the adult characters are also attending an arts master class. There is the juxtaposition of young and big/has been talent. Growing pains, drug use, hints of some abuse, acceptance of sexual orientation, love triangles and friendships.
I enjoyed the setting and location in the book especially since I am so familiar with the geography. The reader is transported to Peterborough and Bobcaygeon or back to Toronto and Queens Park and Wellesley Street and College and Carlton Streets etc.
The ending is centred around the death of Mimi, Hugh's mother and suddenly the loose ends are tied up rather quickly and disjointly as the rest of the book. While I would not rave about this book which is influenced by personal preferences, I am curious about other works by Endicott.
June 29, 2015
Marina Endicott is one of those authors whose books I keep buying but never seem to get around to reading (Good to a Fault and The Little Shadows have both been languishing on my shelves since publication, never quite exciting me enough to pick them up and read them) so I nearly didn't bother with 'Close to Hugh' (how many unread books by an author do I need?). Anyway, I'm glad I did, and I'm glad I persevered past the slightly confusing first few pages which throw several characters at the reader without explaining what the relationship between them is, because this novel ends up being a real treat. It reminded me a bit of Eleanor Catton's The Rehearsal which I read recently - both use theatre and performing arts schools to tell their stories, both blur the lines between plays and reality, but whilst I admired the risk-taking of 'The Rehearsal' it did seem occasionally a little too in love with its own cleverness and ended up being a bit cold. 'Close to Hugh', despite being full of double meanings, puns, wordplay and metaphors, wears that aspect much more lightly but is just as rewarding, and manages to be full of warmth, wit and engaging characters. Novels are often described as 'multi-layered', but seldom is that more true than here - as one review in the Canadian press pointed out, everything in this book seems to have about six different meanings, which makes it a very rich reading experience. I'm sure if I was to reread it I'd find plenty that I missed the first time. One of my favourite new books of the year so far - I suspect those other two Marina Endicott books won't be staying unread for too much longer.
June 24, 2015
I loved Marina Endicott's first book, "Good to a Fault" but was quite disappointed in "Close to Hugh". It seemed to take a long time to get into the story and figure out the 'who' and the 'what' of the story. It was definitely a story about pain as everyone was suffering some kind of pain either physical, mental or emotional: the pain of losing a parent, the pain of having a marriage disintegrate, the pain of growing up, etc. and Hugh was trying to fix everyone's problems while ignoring his own pain. I found the constant reference to the confusion over the words Hugh/you to be annoying as well as the pages of rambling, disjointed thoughts of some characters. This was a book I had to force myself to finish.
Read
September 20, 2015I can't do it. I tried. It's so long, and while I really do enjoy the parts with Hugh, the rest is strange with the stream of consciousness writing, and I just can't get into it. It's just not keeping my interest enough to want to continue investing in this rather large book. :-(
February 2, 2016
The two previous Marina Endicott novels I've read ("Good to a Fault" - shortlisted for the Giller Prize, and "Little Shadows" - shortlisted for the Governor-General's Prize) are both set in the west, and were excellent at capturing the ambience of prairie towns and cities. "Close to Hugh" represents a complete change in scenery, to Peterborough, Ontario, and nearby Toronto. And Endicott is not quite as adept at capturing the particularities of this quite different part of Canada.
But this doesn't matter. Because Endicott has also taken on another change -- this book is a far more ambitious and sophisticated effort than her previous work. Complex characters interact on all sorts of levels -- exploring the meaning of family, tracing the interplay and conflict of generations, probing the depths of artistic expression (both in the theatre and on canvass,) portraying the complexities of sexual ties (among both gay and straight characters) and confronting the demands of love.
"Hugh" is a compelling figure, shaped by a conflicted upbringing (his actress mother loving him yet leaving him on his own so often -- to be rescued by dependable Ruth, also the safety-line for Della and Newell,) yet a man able to nurture others and keep his own life, and small art gallery, somehow surviving. And those close to Hugh, his relatives, his dying mother, his surprising lover (Ivy, another actress) and his friends and enemies create a complicated but believable mosaic that turn this book into a wonderful experience as their interactions play out.
At its core, this is a book driven by a delightful but vulnerable love affair, afflicted by all these complexities and by the threats that aging brings. Its counterpart is an equally dramatic set of relationships among the gay characters in the book. The outcome of all this will surprise you -- but the whole book will leave you waiting impatiently for Marina Endicott's next fine novel.
But this doesn't matter. Because Endicott has also taken on another change -- this book is a far more ambitious and sophisticated effort than her previous work. Complex characters interact on all sorts of levels -- exploring the meaning of family, tracing the interplay and conflict of generations, probing the depths of artistic expression (both in the theatre and on canvass,) portraying the complexities of sexual ties (among both gay and straight characters) and confronting the demands of love.
"Hugh" is a compelling figure, shaped by a conflicted upbringing (his actress mother loving him yet leaving him on his own so often -- to be rescued by dependable Ruth, also the safety-line for Della and Newell,) yet a man able to nurture others and keep his own life, and small art gallery, somehow surviving. And those close to Hugh, his relatives, his dying mother, his surprising lover (Ivy, another actress) and his friends and enemies create a complicated but believable mosaic that turn this book into a wonderful experience as their interactions play out.
At its core, this is a book driven by a delightful but vulnerable love affair, afflicted by all these complexities and by the threats that aging brings. Its counterpart is an equally dramatic set of relationships among the gay characters in the book. The outcome of all this will surprise you -- but the whole book will leave you waiting impatiently for Marina Endicott's next fine novel.
May 22, 2015
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
On the whole, this was a difficult book to like. Some characters were definitely under-developed, while others seem to be thrust upon the reader with all their imperfections beautifully described. The one exception being long-suffering Hugh, who has become a type of Mr. Fix-It for the family. I feel that the story is a good one, with its multi-generational contrast, but perhaps not as intriguing as it could be.
On the whole, this was a difficult book to like. Some characters were definitely under-developed, while others seem to be thrust upon the reader with all their imperfections beautifully described. The one exception being long-suffering Hugh, who has become a type of Mr. Fix-It for the family. I feel that the story is a good one, with its multi-generational contrast, but perhaps not as intriguing as it could be.
October 9, 2015
Hated this - did not finish. If there was one more pun on Hugh's name I would have stuck a fork in my eye.( So I stopped reading ). Where was the editor? Why did you let the author get away with this? Why was it nominated for a Giller? Please do not waste your time on this one.
November 11, 2015
Good reads doesn't have a "gave up" status, so I guess I'll say I'm done. I gave it 75+ pages, and it wasn't bad. In fact, in other circumstances, I might finish it happily enough. But . . . I just didn't much care what happened to anyone, and life is short, and there are many books.
February 9, 2026
I have loved this author’s other books but this one didn’t resonate with me. The book is indeed about people who are close to Hugh, but there are just so darn many of them and it took forever to try to figure out who is who and what the connection is. Just tell us for Pete’s sake! It would have been helpful to have page numbers as I flipped back and forth trying to figure out who the characters were, but none to be found. As with the main title, many chapter titles are puns on Hugh, such as Hugh can’t go home again, and A case of Hugh etc. Cute at first but got old.
June 13, 2024
I got tired of the “Hugh/you” element very quickly but thank goodness the storylines more than made up for this. Love and loss and growing old, serious topics but with a lot of humour to ease the sadness.
April 26, 2015
I received a copy of this from the publisher via Netgalley.
A week in the life of Hugh, a gallery-owner, whose mother (Mimi) is dying in the hospice. The plot revolves around a drama masterclass being held at the local high school, which is being run by Newell, Hugh's foster-brother, and Newell's boyfriend, Burton, whom Hugh hates. Ivy is an actress, also in town to facilitate the masterclass and she and Hugh immediately fall in love. The cast of characters, all of whom are tightly connected, include Della, a foster-sister to Newell and Hugh, Ann, a girlfriend of Hugh's from decades before, Ruth, who informally fostered Hugh, Della and Newell, and their various teenage sons and daughters, who are attending the class.
Hugh falls 15+ feet off a ladder at the beginning of the week and struggles with a constant headache and complicated feelings for his mother. Della and her husband, who are celebrating 30 years of being together, almost break up and there are other love triangles/pairings, most importantly the love Newell feels for the teenage Orion, which threatens Burton.
Things I liked:
Ivy and Hugh - a couple who meet, like each other, express this liking and have a supportive, loving relationship which enhances each of their lives.
The Newell/Hugh/Orion triangle, which explored the meaning of love, loyalty and obligation.
Hugh in general - a man with honour, who lived up to his obligations.
Ruth - a very well-drawn, instantly recognizable character.
Things I liked less:
The limited cast and scope of action was a bit claustrophobic at times.
I often found the Della sections impossible to understand.
I just wanted Hugh to open his mail/check his messages/plan more than 5 minutes ahead.
A week in the life of Hugh, a gallery-owner, whose mother (Mimi) is dying in the hospice. The plot revolves around a drama masterclass being held at the local high school, which is being run by Newell, Hugh's foster-brother, and Newell's boyfriend, Burton, whom Hugh hates. Ivy is an actress, also in town to facilitate the masterclass and she and Hugh immediately fall in love. The cast of characters, all of whom are tightly connected, include Della, a foster-sister to Newell and Hugh, Ann, a girlfriend of Hugh's from decades before, Ruth, who informally fostered Hugh, Della and Newell, and their various teenage sons and daughters, who are attending the class.
Hugh falls 15+ feet off a ladder at the beginning of the week and struggles with a constant headache and complicated feelings for his mother. Della and her husband, who are celebrating 30 years of being together, almost break up and there are other love triangles/pairings, most importantly the love Newell feels for the teenage Orion, which threatens Burton.
Things I liked:
Ivy and Hugh - a couple who meet, like each other, express this liking and have a supportive, loving relationship which enhances each of their lives.
The Newell/Hugh/Orion triangle, which explored the meaning of love, loyalty and obligation.
Hugh in general - a man with honour, who lived up to his obligations.
Ruth - a very well-drawn, instantly recognizable character.
Things I liked less:
The limited cast and scope of action was a bit claustrophobic at times.
I often found the Della sections impossible to understand.
I just wanted Hugh to open his mail/check his messages/plan more than 5 minutes ahead.
May 30, 2016
Set in Peterborough, Ontario, loosely around a group of young adults in a theatre /drama master class, and other artists of various kinds as characters, and in fact at the beginning of the book I got out a piece of paper to try to keep track of the characters because there were so many and I was trying to figure out the relationships between them, but it got easier as I got further into the book, and got hooked on the characters. I read some other reviews of this book, and readers either loved or hated it, some not even finishing it. I can see how this book might not be for everyone, but I love word-play and I especially loved the word-play throughout this book. I also enjoyed the love story between Hugh and Ivy, and how surprised they both are about falling in love with each other.
October 23, 2015
Wow, this book was exquisitely written. It was the writing: the oozing emotion out of simple words, phrases, the poetry, the raw-ness of the characters, that pulled me through this book. Not a light piece, but something to be chewed and tasted and thoroughly explored. There's so much insight and accurate portrayal of love and life and the awkwardness of being human to make this book profound. So many characters, but their integration (even though the teens are more like university students) as a community is well portrayed. Walk into this world: it is heavy with emotion, but well-written.
Recommended for art and theatre lovers, too.
Recommended for art and theatre lovers, too.
December 8, 2015
I enjoyed this book very much. The cast of characters were all interesting and an attractive mix of age, personality, character and disposition. The weaving of all the interactions between them all was very cleverly done. I appreciated the range of emotions each character experienced, and how they were dealt with. I very much appreciated the author's humor and the many versions and insertions of the "close to Hugh" theme. It was good story with a satisfying ending.
July 5, 2015
The puns on Hugh's name were a bit much but there were lots of things I liked about this book--like Hugh's immense love for his family and friends; and Ivy's calm and practical take on life; the lovely Newell; the nasty Burton . . . Not much in the plot department and a cast of characters that needed trimming but, at its best, reminded me of Robertson Davies.
December 8, 2015
Intriguing, frustrating, brilliant. Those who love art and drama and literature will glory in this book. Others, I fear, might be frustrated despite it's finely woven structure and fascinating characterizations. The interplay of these characters and the parallels drawn in the relationships would provide no end of thought-provoking dialogue.
June 24, 2015
I soon discovered this is not the kind of book I enjoy - too many characters, whose lives are intertwined in complicated ways. Not an easy read, and I gave up before I read the first chapter. Very disappointing as I loved Endicott's book "Good to a Fault".
August 1, 2015
Tons of detail and tons of characters. I liked the way the younger people actually interacted with the older ones (which happened in my life when I was in my early 20s.) This story felt truthful and real.
I liked the poetic/thoughts sections and the relationship between the two major characters.
I liked the poetic/thoughts sections and the relationship between the two major characters.
February 10, 2016
Exceptional, multilayered novel.
June 20, 2015
What a wonderful, touching, astute and marvellous book! Close To Hugh will stay close to me for quite some time. I borrowed this from the library but I need to buy my own copy.
January 16, 2016
Dreadful blabber with no point or focus.
September 23, 2016
Advice, insight, and nature magick too. Breathtaking, gorgeous prose.
"Around the desk small trees, narrow wrist-span saplings, have sprung up without being asked. They'll have to be thinned but they're so pretty now. And above, clouds in tatters streaming away from the moon. A spray of stars far above, revealed again but always there.
We are so small, how comforting. We are not everything. We lose (childish hope) (most loving heart) (everything) but the stars go on."
More insight, more good advice.
"...You have to be with the ones you are meant to be with, during this short blink of a life, not fritter away years with the wrong people, not helping them anyway."
Heart-wrenching insights aplenty.
"Then Ivy's door opens Staring down at her phone, she says, 'Oh no—we have to hurry—Hugh's mother died last night.'
Because don't be fooled, there is no good in the world. In this whole life, you will only lose everything you love, one thing at a time, and no matter what good thing might happen it will never be enough to make up for death."
How is reality determined? Playing Pokémon Go, I see that reality can have different layers (people at Pokéstops and Gyms, knowing that they are there, but not seeing anything). This, of course, takes a different much more complex and layered approach; this is another example of the brilliance of Endicott's book. Do we make things happen because we believe them? If we believed something else, could there be a different outcome? How do we believe it? How can we affect things? So many interesting questions arise.
"Gerald touches the frame on the other side. His hand on the grain of the wood. 'I dream every night that they aren't dead, that they weren't. I gave up too soon, I shouldn't have called 911, they were just sleeping and I was too stupid to see it.'
Yes, that the dead would have waked had he not been so fast to call it death. That he was mistaken, that empty hand not empty."
More beautiful riffs on language (often employed in the poetry).
"...In the empty room he sang under his breath. Gould [for Glenn Gould], ghouled, haunted and driven like a leaf. ..."
Deep and intimate description of death, dying, personhood, transformation, stages of dead. Gorgeous and sensitive writing.
"Mimi is still. Then not quite still. A twitching in her hand. He takes her hand. The pain is easier now, is it? She's so far gone. Her skin loose, her bones revealed, her shadow shrunken. Not his mother now but a dying woman, a mystery, almost separated from us on earth."
Nice use of words. Endicott's entries are poetry for some characters and it mixes things up, tells us different pieces of information.
"fall on the sword with my old Mighton old flame / kind old kindles king kindling."
Drama, the play, theatre. Endicott writes it well.
"At the end of the little scene there's silence in the room. Burton, even, was caught in the silken net. What a lovely thing acting is, theatre is. Playing at life so well that we believe, we do believe."
Endicott never looks away. She brings us to the edge, she tells us intimate details, and she does it poetically, with story, power, and awe.
"In the middle of the night they semi-wake and once more make careful, yielding, boundary-dissolving love. Ivy's head fills with unexpected visions: a wolf on a winter hillside, a woman bending near the earth to touch a flower. A great map of all the world, made well.
They sleep."
Gorgeous writing. I can see the movement, feel the stirring of the installation, acknowledge the sacredness of the moment.
"For a bad moment L's hands might stretch out and tear everything down, pull pull rip ruin the whole thing.
But no. On all fours, she crawls out backwards to the door like an olden slave making obeisance, obeised/abased, removing herself from the presence."
Lovely observation... The teacher observes, the student declares.
"...'Teaching is tiring: it takes a long time of looking before you see something really good, before you find, are shown, the things you've been looking for.'
'I have been here all along,' L says. Dignified. She's only young, still."
Funny, play on words. Nice.
"Lise has an agenda. Not as in something she wants, but an actual paper agenda in her hand. ..."
Beautiful. Lunar. Vision. Even in nursing homes, there can be magick.
"She is sitting up in bed, awake in the dark. Alert. Hands folded at the sheet's edge. Her reading glasses flash, bug-eyed, as her head turns. The curtains are open, clouded moonlight coming in; a nightlight somewhere low down gives the floor a pale glow."
First movements towards love, towards life, towards Ivy. Gorgeous.
"He puts out his hand for the spoon, which she slides back through the peephole. He scoops it full of ice cream, says, 'Come close—' and threads the spoon through the wooden O again, into her waiting mouth.
Ivy's eyes are bright, her mouth full of spoon and mango. In the low light he could put his hand through the glass, as if it was water, and touch her face."
One of the many reasons I love this novel: the connection between generations, the love of youth, not the jealousy of it, the portrayal of female power, the understanding that flaws are not imperfections, but something to celebrate.
"'Oh, Ivy, please, Ivy,' says Ivy. Besides liking L for herself, Ivy loves girls at this age, girls going wild, going like roller derby girls, each one a firecracker, a graceful, mad bacchante flying toward you in a violent swirl of eyes and arms. They make her think of the girls she hung out with, nights in swimming pools behind rich people's houses, sneaking from yard to yard all night, each new pool still as heaven, blue-lit from below. They make her remember dancing, and walking through dark streets with people you don't know. Being in hot smoky places, never going home, being up all night at a party with hot knives cooking in the kitchen at the Delta Phi. Various, oh various, various people, and never any reason why not to. ..."
I won't cite or quote them all, but here's a paragraph of the clever Hugh thing, you thing. Hugh. You. It is a great concept/technique, it embodies a sense of self, a sense of otherness.
"Hugh lives his life in the second person, never quite sure whether it's Hugh or you. Either one demands, accuses, requires responsibility. You'll do it—or was that Hugh'll do it? You/Hugh said everything would be okay. Why did you leave? Where did Hugh go?"
Thus it BEGINS, with a play on Hugh (in narrative and titles), as in the entire novel. Clever, sometimes too much, but mostly comforting because it is constant, but life is not.
"You can bear pain. Hugh can. But you can't stand to see it in others. It makes your hands and feet hurt. The grey room is full of grey people in various stages of pain. A little party: grouped by the window, sitting on the bed, ten or twelve of them. A woman kneeling by the nightstand says, It's all up to you, up to Hugh. Her cloudy hair, her dress in tatters. No.
No. It's a dream.
Eyes open.
Light? No. Three a.m. 3:02.
Okay.
3.07."
Read
May 3, 2024Endicott has the knack of rendering each character's vulnerability, endearing them to the reader. For me, the was the heart of the book, and Elizabeth Hay would say. I found it interesting how she used different writing devices and strategies for specific characters, for example some were texts, others stream of consciousness prose as though we are reading their thoughts. Love stories are interwoven in various iterations with assorted kinds of relationships: mother/son; husband/wife; LGTBQetc. older man/younger man; teen crushes; late encounters. It teems with sensory details: fashion/costumes with detailed descriptions - textures, colours, form, shapes and there are many references to art and artists, as well as classical music (glenn gould for instance ).
References to mental illness ( hugh hitting his head and suffering from the effects of a concussion; his mother being bipolar; Burton’s volatility;
The use of both vernacular many times throughout the narrative grounds Endicott's more poetic, descriptive sections.
The head hopping narrative made for more intense, fast paced reading- that was countered though by the slow beautiful poetic and prose like passages used in the scenes between Hugh and his dying mother.
The duality of life themes run through the story. Juxtaposition of pain and anguish, balanced with love/hope; the steady slow zen rhythm of the protagonist Hugh, versus the high strung nervous youthful energy of the teenagers. juxtaposition of discordant with harmonious prose like in contemporary classical music.
What adds to the brilliance of Endicott's novel is the clever use of homophones - Hugh/you and tying it in with cliches. Even homophone suggests homophobia, or homosexual; and when thinking about it more, it could even be seen as a metaphor for gender fluidity, eg a person may look male but is female etc.
Other themes that arose: of being alone in life; that no one really knows you; that relationships are compromise and negotiation.
References to mental illness ( hugh hitting his head and suffering from the effects of a concussion; his mother being bipolar; Burton’s volatility;
The use of both vernacular many times throughout the narrative grounds Endicott's more poetic, descriptive sections.
The head hopping narrative made for more intense, fast paced reading- that was countered though by the slow beautiful poetic and prose like passages used in the scenes between Hugh and his dying mother.
The duality of life themes run through the story. Juxtaposition of pain and anguish, balanced with love/hope; the steady slow zen rhythm of the protagonist Hugh, versus the high strung nervous youthful energy of the teenagers. juxtaposition of discordant with harmonious prose like in contemporary classical music.
What adds to the brilliance of Endicott's novel is the clever use of homophones - Hugh/you and tying it in with cliches. Even homophone suggests homophobia, or homosexual; and when thinking about it more, it could even be seen as a metaphor for gender fluidity, eg a person may look male but is female etc.
Other themes that arose: of being alone in life; that no one really knows you; that relationships are compromise and negotiation.
August 1, 2017
I’ll read anything Marina Endicott writes for the same reason I read Ian McEwan: for the stunning prose and intimate examinations of characters that reveal existential truths.
Written in several different points of view, Close to Hugh is a story that brings together a cast of quirky and interesting characters who have all been broken by the past in some way. At the centre of the novel is Hugh, a loveable eccentric who suffers a fall from a ladder, which changes the way he looks at the world. The reader experiences a kind of unravelling of the carefully built walls around his “previous” life.
The story unfolds in a kind of puzzle. The structure itself beautifully expresses the complexity of the human mind. At times, the structure is almost playful in style, yet always profound in its effect. Puns in chapter titles, metaphors, and excerpts about Buddhism from Wikipedia that start each section all have deeper meaning and create the impression that these characters are in a play within a play.
I found that I didn’t so much read this story as discover it through the lurking ironic undertone, the surprising insights into existence. The shifts in narrative, sometimes using stream of consciousness, provides compelling insight into how these characters, and indeed all individuals, are linked, navigating past hurts to find love.
The author captures how humans think, their roving thoughts, judgements, observances. There are many beautiful moment and profound moments, but this, one of my favourites, remains with me like a gift:
“How long life, how long childhood lasts.”
Written in several different points of view, Close to Hugh is a story that brings together a cast of quirky and interesting characters who have all been broken by the past in some way. At the centre of the novel is Hugh, a loveable eccentric who suffers a fall from a ladder, which changes the way he looks at the world. The reader experiences a kind of unravelling of the carefully built walls around his “previous” life.
The story unfolds in a kind of puzzle. The structure itself beautifully expresses the complexity of the human mind. At times, the structure is almost playful in style, yet always profound in its effect. Puns in chapter titles, metaphors, and excerpts about Buddhism from Wikipedia that start each section all have deeper meaning and create the impression that these characters are in a play within a play.
I found that I didn’t so much read this story as discover it through the lurking ironic undertone, the surprising insights into existence. The shifts in narrative, sometimes using stream of consciousness, provides compelling insight into how these characters, and indeed all individuals, are linked, navigating past hurts to find love.
The author captures how humans think, their roving thoughts, judgements, observances. There are many beautiful moment and profound moments, but this, one of my favourites, remains with me like a gift:
“How long life, how long childhood lasts.”
March 10, 2022
Not an easy read. There are challenges, certainly, and if you pick this up you'll have to be prepared to meet them. But that's just a matter of packaging, style, form. It's the content that counts, and the content is rich and deep, heartfelt and human.
This is not my first Endicott. Had I not already read her work I may (may) have given up early on, not suspecting there would be rewards for persistence. Fortunately for me, inertia carried me over the sticky early going and I fell into the world she crafted. A deeply human, deeply humane world, where the usual insanities were part of the warp and weft of the everyday disappointments, betrayals, lies and deep truths of living.
I recommend this, but only if you're prepared to do a little work with a book. Some won't have the time or the inclination, and that's fine. If that's you, move on without regret.
My regret is that it's over a little too soon. I miss Hugh already.
This is not my first Endicott. Had I not already read her work I may (may) have given up early on, not suspecting there would be rewards for persistence. Fortunately for me, inertia carried me over the sticky early going and I fell into the world she crafted. A deeply human, deeply humane world, where the usual insanities were part of the warp and weft of the everyday disappointments, betrayals, lies and deep truths of living.
I recommend this, but only if you're prepared to do a little work with a book. Some won't have the time or the inclination, and that's fine. If that's you, move on without regret.
My regret is that it's over a little too soon. I miss Hugh already.
May 5, 2023
When I started this book I truely had no idea what to think. It had sat on my bookshelf for months without a sleeve so I had no description and only a vague memory of why I bought it in the first place (on sale for 3$ at my local bookstore).
During the first 1/3 of the book I had a tough time keeping up with the characters and the underlying story that had yet to be told. The witty chapter titles (most with some word play surrounding the name Hugh) were the only thing that kept me involved.
I went into the last 2/3 of this book not knowing what to expect but came out of it with a deeper appreciation for what it means to truely love another person. The story of Hugh/Ivy and L/Jason really resonated with me. Over the course of 7 days, Endicott will bring you through just about every emotion; Confusion, Surprise, Happiness, Anger, Sadness, and of course, Love.
This was a beautiful book. I highly recommend it, even if Hugh have to pay full price to read it.
During the first 1/3 of the book I had a tough time keeping up with the characters and the underlying story that had yet to be told. The witty chapter titles (most with some word play surrounding the name Hugh) were the only thing that kept me involved.
I went into the last 2/3 of this book not knowing what to expect but came out of it with a deeper appreciation for what it means to truely love another person. The story of Hugh/Ivy and L/Jason really resonated with me. Over the course of 7 days, Endicott will bring you through just about every emotion; Confusion, Surprise, Happiness, Anger, Sadness, and of course, Love.
This was a beautiful book. I highly recommend it, even if Hugh have to pay full price to read it.
May 4, 2020
I have never had such difficulty deciding whether I liked a book or not. I did settle on giving this 3 stars as I quite liked the plot line focused on Hugh and his personal relationships. In my view, had the book stuck to the storyline of just Hugh, it would have been a much better novel. What I didn't like was the plot line focused on the teenagers -- they didn't sound like teenagers to me. I also got quite confused about the other relationships in the book -- who was the son/daughter of whom; who was married to whom (or the ex-partner of whom). Since I don't like poetry, I skipped through those pages.
Endicott does nicely capture the "feel" of life among the arts community in a small, Canadian city and I could relate to the overall tone of the book. I would be interested in reading another novel by her.
Endicott does nicely capture the "feel" of life among the arts community in a small, Canadian city and I could relate to the overall tone of the book. I would be interested in reading another novel by her.
March 10, 2020
I really liked this novel. I got through it fairly slowly but found that the story really resonated with me, so I enjoyed savouring it.
The story was based an a set of characters in the arts community who grew up together and lean on one another as an extended family. There's sad stuff, there's happy stuff. I lived this book in my head. And there's lots of word play; I loved it.
I work in a highly technical field, but have a creative side that I have left locked up for a while. This book inspired me to slow down and reconnect with my family, my extended family, my creative side. Good stuff.
The story was based an a set of characters in the arts community who grew up together and lean on one another as an extended family. There's sad stuff, there's happy stuff. I lived this book in my head. And there's lots of word play; I loved it.
I work in a highly technical field, but have a creative side that I have left locked up for a while. This book inspired me to slow down and reconnect with my family, my extended family, my creative side. Good stuff.
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