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The Delusionist
Vancouver, summer 1962. Cyril Andrachuk and Connie Chow are seventeen and in love.
Cyril is the only Canadian-born member of the Andrachuk family, his parents and older brother having survived Stalin’s systematic starving of the Ukraine. His brother’s brittle bones are not the only legacy of Stalin. Cyril’s famine-free childhood has built up a distance between him and the rest of the household.
His family’s past charges Cyril’s present with bitter overtones he barely understands and Cyril’s love of art is beyond his family’s comprehension; Cyril is destined to be a working man, not a working artist.
In this house built on the edge of a cemetery, where his mother reviews the burials over her morning tea, creativity and joy are suspect. Mourning the early death of his father, Cyril finds solace in lovingly drawing his father’s metal-working tools and in his happiness with Connie. But his family’s resentment sows the seeds of betrayal, and Cyril must find a way to live with his family’s past in order to find his future.
Art, love, and history furnish the setting in this tale. The Delusionist is a novel of longing, loss and rediscovered joy.
Cyril is the only Canadian-born member of the Andrachuk family, his parents and older brother having survived Stalin’s systematic starving of the Ukraine. His brother’s brittle bones are not the only legacy of Stalin. Cyril’s famine-free childhood has built up a distance between him and the rest of the household.
His family’s past charges Cyril’s present with bitter overtones he barely understands and Cyril’s love of art is beyond his family’s comprehension; Cyril is destined to be a working man, not a working artist.
In this house built on the edge of a cemetery, where his mother reviews the burials over her morning tea, creativity and joy are suspect. Mourning the early death of his father, Cyril finds solace in lovingly drawing his father’s metal-working tools and in his happiness with Connie. But his family’s resentment sows the seeds of betrayal, and Cyril must find a way to live with his family’s past in order to find his future.
Art, love, and history furnish the setting in this tale. The Delusionist is a novel of longing, loss and rediscovered joy.
256 pages, Paperback
First published June 7, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 17, 2019
Light read, enjoyed the local Vancouver backdrop to the story.
June 17, 2022
3 or 3.5. I loved the Vancouver references. Light in tone but a lot of depth. I wish the author had gone a bit deeper with certain storylines.
December 19, 2014
The story really caught my attention from the first chapter. It was interesting to follow Cyril over the course of four decades as he navigates through his life and his creativity and his family and all of the emotions tied in with everything in his life. I really felt sorry for Cyril; from the first chapter it’s clear that he feels like an outsider from his own family, his interactions with his mother and brother often tense and awkward. It informs some of his actions and his behaviour as he seems adrift somehow.
The other characters that populate this novel were also interesting, from love of his life Connie who weaves in and out of his life, to his long relationship with Gilbert. As frustrating as his mother and brother were in their behaviour towards him, they were interesting in their own way and were never at any point a caricature or a one-note. The Holodomor in Ukraine in the 1930s very much informs their characters and what they survived, and their nationalism was interesting to follow especially when they encounter other Eastern Europeans like the Hungarian artist teacher Novak.
Overall I really enjoyed reading The Delusionist and following Cyril’s ups and downs. The novel has a great sense of time and place as the story goes through the decades, and of course the bits of Canadian-ness shines with its sense of multiculturalism. I highly recommend checking out this book if you’re looking to read some Canadian and indie fiction.
My full review of this book can be found on my blog, caffeinatedlife.net: http://www.caffeinatedlife.net/blog/2...
The other characters that populate this novel were also interesting, from love of his life Connie who weaves in and out of his life, to his long relationship with Gilbert. As frustrating as his mother and brother were in their behaviour towards him, they were interesting in their own way and were never at any point a caricature or a one-note. The Holodomor in Ukraine in the 1930s very much informs their characters and what they survived, and their nationalism was interesting to follow especially when they encounter other Eastern Europeans like the Hungarian artist teacher Novak.
Overall I really enjoyed reading The Delusionist and following Cyril’s ups and downs. The novel has a great sense of time and place as the story goes through the decades, and of course the bits of Canadian-ness shines with its sense of multiculturalism. I highly recommend checking out this book if you’re looking to read some Canadian and indie fiction.
My full review of this book can be found on my blog, caffeinatedlife.net: http://www.caffeinatedlife.net/blog/2...
May 10, 2015
This is a sweet sad book of misunderstandings and missed chances. It feels nicely simple but there's a lot packed in it - the long and winding love story between Cyril and Connie, Cyril's friendship with Gilbert which leads you to wonder who has really 'failed', Cyril's art and its relationship to his family, and indeed that family and the strange way in which he is doomed always to be the outsider. Cyril was born in Canada after his parents and brother had endured terrible things before immigrating and they cannot forgive him for this. He is also blamed unreasonably for a death... and yet you could see how that might happen.
The book produces some wonderful images - the house by the cemetery, the art classes.
The book produces some wonderful images - the house by the cemetery, the art classes.
November 16, 2014
Buday does a great job by following Cyril through his life, making this book a fantastic coming-of-age novel. We see Cyril trying to come to grip with not only his past but also struggling to deal with his station at that point in his life. While the plot is a bit complex at times, this book does document an element of the human condition well.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews