The Custodian of Paradise: A Novel

Newfoundland Trilogy #2

by Wayne Johnston

A Book-of-the-Month Club "Best Novel of 2007." In the waning days of World War II, Sheilagh Fielding makes her way to a deserted island off the coast of Newfoundland. But she soon comes to suspect another that of a man known only as her Provider, who has shadowed her for twenty years.Against the backdrop of Newfoundland's history and landscape, Fielding is a compelling figure. Taller than most men and striking in spite of her crippled leg, she is both eloquent and subversively funny. Her newspaper columns exposing the foibles and hypocrisies of her native city, St. John's, have made many powerful enemies for her, chief among them the man who fathered her children―twins―when she was fourteen. Only her Provider, however, knows all of Fielding's secrets. Reading group guide included.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Historical Fiction, Book Club, Literary Fiction, Canadian Literature, Literature

530 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Wayne Johnston was born and raised in Goulds, Newfoundland. After a brief stint in pre-Med, Wayne obtained a BA in English from Memorial University. He worked as a reporter for the St. John's Daily News before deciding to devote himself full-time to writing.

En route to being published, Wayne earned an MA in Creative Writing from the University of New Brunswick. Then he got off to a quick start. His first book, The Story of Bobby O'Malley, published when he was 27 years old, won the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel award for the best first novel published in the English language in Canada in that year. The Divine Ryans was adapted to a film, for which Wayne wrote the screenplay. Baltimore's Mansion, a memoire dealing with his grandfather, his father and Wayne himself, won the Charles Taylor Prize. Both The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and The Navigator of New York were on bestseller lists in Canada and have been published in the US, Britain, Germany, Holland, China and Spain. Colony was identified by the Globe and Mail newspaper as one of the 100 most important Canadian books ever produced.

Reviews

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

And that's how it started, Miss Fielding, the very serious but entertaining game of inventing synonyms for God and imagining what it was like after he cast out his fraternal twins and paradise was deserted but for him. The “hermit of paradise” we called him. “The recluse of paradise.” Even “the charlatan of paradise,” because we could not shake the notion that the fall was “fixed”. My favourite was “the custodian of paradise.” “We are all three of us, you and I and Miss Fielding, custodians,” I said, “withdrawn from the world to preserve, to keep inviolate, something that would otherwise be lost.”

It seems obligatory to mention that I had fallen for Sheilagh Fielding while reading The Colony of Unrequited Dreams: with her wit and fire, this fictional newspaper columnist made the perfect foil for the actual first premier of Newfoundland, Joey Smallwood; the pair together used brilliantly by author Wayne Johnston to give Canada's youngest province (but the site of North America's oldest European settlement) a proper origin story. Had I known that The Custodian of Paradise was a retelling (and expansion) of that first book – from Fielding's point-of-view this time – I would have picked it up sooner: what reader wouldn't want to know more of the inscrutable Fielding? Something about this book's lukewarm reception must have made an impression on me when it was first published, something must have kept it off my radar, and now that I've finished it, I feel...lukewarm. Perhaps some things are meant to remain a mystery; perhaps I just didn't want to know Fielding's sorry history after all; to behold her (mismatched) feet of clay.

I wrote those words when I was half Sarah's age. A girl. Seventeen and soon to meet the man I fear has followed me to Loreburn. Fear it, yet fear even more that I have hidden too well for him to find me.

As Custodian opens, Fielding makes her way to a deserted island off the coast of Newfoundland; a place that had once been settled (precluding the need to build a house there by herself) but now abandoned save for feral dogs and a small herd of horses. She brings with her journals and letters (written by herself and others) in order to review and record the story of her own life; and she also brings a large quantity of Scotch, despite having been sober for years, just in case she can't handle confronting her own truths. The format, therefore, jumps from quoting old letters and journal entries, filling in the missing parts of her history, and commenting on everything while narrating what is happening in the present. The narrative mirrors what was mostly told from Smallwood's point-of-view in Colony (with a significantly felt change in perspective; and especially as regards their “romance”), and introduces some maddeningly drawn out mysteries: Just who are the “Provider” and his “delegate” who have followed and protected Fielding for her entire life? And could either of them really have trailed her out to godforsaken Loneburn?

Some day, Miss Fielding, I will ask your forgiveness for three transgressions, two of which have yet to be committed.

I was truly intrigued by all the mysteries that the Provider represented – what did he know of Fielding's history and what are these two eventual future transgressions going to be – so even when the narrative seemed to drag, I was always led forward by the promised resolutions. Yet when the answers came, they really didn't satisfy me; and coming as they did near the end, they left me feeling overall unsatisfied. Which is too bad because of all that I had enjoyed along the way: the perfectly captured time and place; an exploration of religious hypocrisy and the iron fist of imposed community morality; and especially, Fielding's “use of an irony so close to absolute that I would seem to the tone-deaf majority to be saying the very opposite of what I meant” – I was constantly delighted by the clever turns of phrase that Johnston put into Fielding's tongue and pen. It was just too bad that Fielding's story was so sad: her quips don't come from a place of power, but of inferiority, and in the end, this outsized, brash and intelligent, ahead-of-her-times woman, seemed merely pitiful.

So, what do the experts say? Colony was not loved by The New York Times:

Now and again, Sheilagh’s wit saves a scene. (“You reduce everything to comedy,” her father says. “Elevate,” she retorts.) Occasionally, Johnston’s prose shifts skillfully into the present tense, as if dropping into a lower gear for power. But by the time Sheilagh limps from a sanitarium, her right leg withered by tuberculosis, even he seems to have lost patience with his twice-told story. Without a strong countervailing voice to balance hers, Sheilagh Fielding, so alive at the beginning of the novel, becomes merely a collection of forced and unlikely eccentricities, and the characters around her little more than silhouettes.

While The Walrus finds genius in this book in the context of Johnston's body of work:

In choosing to dig up his own site, to unearth settlements and gardens lodged within the archaeo-logical record, Johnston is going about the business of the major novelist in mid-career: custodianship of his own properties. Asserting that a spit of rock in the Atlantic Ocean is a snowbound Eden is not so strange if your spadework has revealed the layers underneath. Chip away at connections, sift through stories and metaphors, especially of the sort you have been digging away at for years, and conclusions become inevitable, as do perfect truths and perfect paradoxes.

And Quill & Quire, after a wishy-washy review, concludes:

By the book’s end, many mysteries have been laid to rest, only to be replaced with new ones. This raises the happy possibility that Johnston intends to return to the scene again.

And although it has taken many years for that “happy possibility” to come to fruition, I am currently in possession of the third volume of this ostensible trilogy and am delighted to see that it also features Sheilagh Fielding. Custodian may not have blown my socks off, but I'm in danger of tripping over them as they dangle; I am always willing to dip into Johnston's world.

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

Wayne Johnston is a national (Canadian) treasure. He creates characters both real and fictional who can come from only one place: Newfoundland. Even when he transplants them to New York temporarily or permanently, as he seems to do frequently (not sure why), they still retain their quirky idiosyncrasies that mark them as Newfoundlanders. That his tales are tall--even when dealing with historical figures such as Joey Smallwood--is irrelevant, when the characters are this appealing and this richly rendered.

The Custodian of Paradise is so atmospheric that I could almost hear the fog horn blow and feel a damp chill in my bones while reading it. I couldn't help but make the inevitable comparison to The Colony Of Unrequited Dreams, to which it is indirectly linked. But, no matter how much I loved Shelagh Fielding, riddled with vices, physical and emotional infirmities--and oh, how I did love her--I was left wanting something more from this novel than just a deeply detailed character study.

As wonderful, sad, witty, traumatized, complex, troubled, strong and funny as Fielding is, she didn't have enough foils to play off of. She was stuck out there alone on the abandoned isle of Loreburn, and had to tell her story through flashbacks, letters and her journal entries. Hence we got a quasi-epistolary style (not as much as in Clara Callan, in some ways a similar novel, but close), which almost never fails to be clumsy. It just didn't let her shine. Then again, the whole point was to show how 'internal' she was; how much she had repressed, how she had swallowed her heartbreak and loss and drawn in upon herself to the point where she was left isolated, ill and alone with her demons on an abandoned island off the coast of Newfoundland. So I guess I can forgive this stylistic issue.

Really, her character or the lack of supporting characters around her was not my major issue: it was the device and plot of 'The Provider.' Tales of Newfoundland and Newfoundlanders are rife with mysterious visitors and long-lost crazy relatives--heck, the island is overrun with them--but this one (The Provider) was just...unreal. It went beyond the mysterious stranger into magical territory for me. Seven feet tall, able to withstand raging snowstorms and appear and disappear seemingly at will, I just didn't buy it. And I didn't buy two other things: 1) The Provider's motivation for shadowing Fielding her entire life (much less his ability to do so); and 2) Fielding's motivation for finding and staying on Loreburn.

Now, perhaps I'm being too much a stickler for these details being grounded in some kind of contextual or psychological reality. But in The Colony Of Unrequited Dreams, Johnston created a fantastic story, much of which was as outlandish and unlikely, but none of which violated the psychological motivation or inherent logic of the character(s). The Custodian of Paradise is slightly less successful, as while Fielding's character is extremely tight psychologically, her motivation for going to Loreburn is less so. Perhaps it's precisely because she is so well-thought out psychologically, any inconsistency in motivation stands out in relief. And when that motivation is linked to a character who is more magical than real, well...it just doesn't add up.

Fielding's cynical exterior, quick wit and toughness belie her tortured heart. We know the pain that lies behind every smart-mouthed utterance and quick-witted insult. It is heartbreaking to know how tortured she is, and to watch her conceal her longing and pain behind a tough facade. I won't give away details here, but this--this!--is the heart of the story, and of Shelagh's character, and this is the reason to read this book. I'm just not sure that Johnston had to put her way out on that island being followed around by a mysterious father figure to tell it.

All that aside, this is still among the finest of the many novels I've read over the past couple of months, and I'd rate it second only to Colony among this author's many exceptional novels.

[Ruthie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it would have been better to have read The Colony of Unrequited Dreams before reading this novel. Apparently readers were introduced to the main character, Sheilagh Feilding, in that book and were left wanting to learn more about her. As a stand alone character I found her to be a character who was so difficult to like, hard to sympathize with and even harder to truly understand. She is so self-destructive and pushes away everyone who likes and/or tries to help or befriend her. She is brilliant but a physical oddity and life is cruel to her. She faces her challenges with cutting wit, using words to fight back against those who hurt her. Life never gives her a break, but she wouldn't have recognized one or taken anyways.

There is a huge mystery looming over this story and it is compelling, but I felt it just took too long to unravel. In the end it was rather anti-climatic for me. The settings are all wonderfully described, the writing is good, but I just felt that the pace was too slow for me, the pay-off just not there.

[Penny (Literary Hoarders) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I thought I would be rating The Custodian of Paradise - a book all about Sheilagh Fielding. Sheilagh is an amazing character and in First Snow, Last Light we hear how the loss of her twin babies haunts her for her entire life. The Custodians of Paradise is all about Sheilagh, how she became pregnant, how she gave her twins up to be raised by her mother that left them and who Sheilagh grows up to be beginning at age 15.

But holy cats! This was long-winded and repetitive!!! Repetitive and long-winded. Really. Really. The ending should have pulled at my heart-strings and possibly had me shed a tear, but by the time I crossed the finish line I was just so relieved I couldn't feel any other emotion but joy. I was finally finished! :-( Bummer!! Great beginning, Sheilagh is a character and there is quite a bit of Newfoundland history before Confederation (lots of Joey Smallwood) but the constant repetition over 580 pages was just too much.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I'm travelling I like to read fiction set in that part of the world. In this case, I was in Newfoundland and wanted something "Newfunese". I particularly enjoyed Baltimore's Mansion by Johnston and thought Colony of Unrequited Dreams was pretty good so I chose another by him. (I was very pleased to discover that they study the former in highschool there.) To say that the protagonist, Sheilagh Feilding, has had a hard life is like saying Newfoundland is a bit rocky. In fact her life has been so awful for so many reasons that it almost challenges creduality. The bulk of the book has her in middle age living alone, by her own choice, on deserted "outport" island shortly after the second world war. She is a tortured soul trying to come to grips with her many, many demons. I found myself wondering if it would have been a better book if written by a woman. Or perhaps more realistic. It seems overlong at times and I found myself thinking, "Wrap this up, Wayne!" towards the end. Smallwood plays a minor role in this story as well. There are much better books set on The Rock.

[Ian M. Pyatt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this to be a bit too long, same with some of those letters from "The Provider" and did not necessarily know what the relevance was and why there was so many of them. Her letters to Smallwood were a nice touch though.

I did not mind the re-hashing of the life that Smallwood and Fielding when through and enjoyed the more detailed versions of some of those events be they in St. John's or NYC.

I felt sorry for Fielding at not knowing who her maternal father was, her mother running out on her and the fact her babies were taken from her in such a devious way and her "adopted" father was quite the character though.

I know the last of this trilogy is lengthy as well, but hope it brings me the same joy as the first book did.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surely, a wish that a fictional character be something other than the person portrayed by its author, tells us more about a reader than it reveals anything about the book. Just as surely, if an author has any at all understanding of his story, he has the right to birth his characters in the image of his choosing. And yet, I can't refrain from feeling disappointment at Wayson Johnston's disfigurement of Sheilagh Fielding in his sequel ("sequel" is a stretch for much of the novel; "reiteration," though less kind, would be more accurate) to The Colony of Unrequited Dreams.

The character of Sheilagh Fielding in Colony was developed with the artistry of restraint, the craft of a master: revealed by light and shadow rather than flesh, drawn with negative space, she glowed through her newspaper columns, her journal entries and snippets of her History, and the frustrated and myopic point of view of Smallwood, by comparison a minor figure. When Johnston recreates her as the POV of The Custodian of Paradise the reader, sadly, becomes privy to her doubts and insecurities, her regrets and fears. What, in Colony seemed heroic and stoic, inscrutable and unassailable, becomes, in Custodian self-absorbed and weak, ordinary, as victimized and uncomfortable as Smallwood himself in the prequel, albeit with much greater social and psychological justification.

If the hard-nosed, hard-drinking, hard-done-by Sheilagh Fielding were Johnston's symbol for the colony of Newfoundland and it's unrequited dream of nationhood, then perhaps the more timid, less heroic, often deluded Sheilagh Fielding of Custodian might symbolize the province of Newfoundland under the gargantuan wing of a Provider who rescues, preaches to, supports and overshadows her. In Custodian, for me, Sheilagh, perhaps for the sake of historical authenticity, loses her mystique, her charm, her witty aloofness, and is supplanted in importance by the difficult-to-believe, difficult-to-either-like-or-empathize-with, difficult-to-identify-or-comprehend Provider. O Canada? Clearly I must be wrong on this one.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after I saw the play Colony of Unrequited Dreams at Neptune Theatre in Halifax. It helped me understand some of where Sheilagh Fielding was coming from in the play. It is an interesting story and she is probably one of the most unique characters I have seen in a novel. I enjoy her witty and most often sarcastic comments and responses to other characters. I brought the book with me on vacation and wanted to keep reading it on the beach. There are some interesting relationships . Sadly there are very few who care for her. I plan on reading other books by Wayne Johnston. I will definitely read Colony of Unrequited Dreams. My husband is from Newfoundland and I know this is fiction but lots of history woven throughout. While I was reading it I was often asking my husband if he heard about different parts. Interesting to hear about Prohibition in Newfoundland . I am glad I saw the play which lead me to this book and this character.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gripping book that once you settle into it demands you keep reading. Johnston's prose makes you thoughtful and the story is a heartbreaking mystery, not quite a tragedy but the musings of reality. Beautiful descriptions and a cast of characters you both feel sad for and are amused by feed the plot in what feels like it could be a dream, or some memory one tries hard to forget but must eventually reconcile.

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily the most elegant book I've read this year. With brilliant dialogue, exquisite wordsmithing, and an intriguing and cohesive plot line, it tells the story of a woman author who seeks solace on an insulated Newfoundland island. This is a winner-please read.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a book club selection and perhaps the fact that I had a lot going on while I was reading coloured my opinion, however, I did not enjoy this book. It was way too long ( a comment that most of the rest of the book club made) and I really didn't care about the characters, the mystery or why the characters did what they did. The writing was very good, however, and we had a very good discussion about the book.

[David]

Apart from The Divine Ryans, I like Johnston’s Fielding books best. Gives me hope for the newest one. I am slowly growing tired of the “Luke, I’m not really your father” mode that Johnston seems to be mired in. At least in this one, mothers and sons, mothers and daughters, fathers and daughters, even sisters and brothers play a significant role in addition to the eternal father/son tension that informs all of Johnston’s books.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It drug on in a few places. Overall a good story.

[Belinda Waters · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took me forever to read. It was good writing but not an easy one to read.

[Faye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adore Wayne Johnston. I think that few writers have had his mastery of language since Charles Dickens, and those of you who know the depths of my mad-crazy Dickens love know that that's the biggest compliment I can give to a writer.

I loved The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and the mysterious character of Fielding that kept popping up throughout it, so I was excited to read this book, knowing it was from Fielding's POV and would fill in a lot of the gaps and answer a lot of the questions in TCoUD. For the first half of the book, I was completely in love with it, as I'd expected to be. Johnston's dialogue seriously astounds me - so much wit, so much irony in every phrase, yet it never seems forced, like he wrote the scene around the comebacks and one-liners he wanted the characters to say. It always feels organic and just plain AWESOME.

But then there came a point when (please forgive me some spoilers here) one of the characters wrote a letter to his daughter, in which he went into great detail to describe "tenderly and lovingly" (the daughter's words, not mine) his daughter's naked body. Um... EW. It took me right out of the story, since I had to put the book down for a while to walk off the shudders, and by then I was reluctant to go back. After that, a lot of little things started to irritate me - the incessant sexual innuendo got old really quickly, the uber-mysteriousness of Fielding's "Provider" started to feel melodramatic and forced, and the Big Reveal of the answer to the Big Mystery at the end also left me shuddering and therefore fell totally flat.

So now I don't know. Did I love it? Did I hate it? Did I love to hate it? Did I hate to love it? Did I just read it at a bad time? I honestly don't know. I'm giving it 4 stars simply because I can't imagine giving Wayne Johnston less, for the quality of his WORDS if nothing else. But I'm disappointed in that second half.

[Gail Amendt · Rating 4 out of 5]

WARNING - if you have not yet read The Colony Of Unrequited Dreams, and think you might like to do so, read it before you read The Custodian of Paradise. While both books are said to stand alone, The Custodian of Paradise is a sequel, and I think would serve as quite a spoiler if one read the two books in the wrong order. I am so glad that I got to know the delightfully unconventional, tragically damaged and hilariously witty Sheilagh Fielding in The Colony of Unrequited Dreams before I got to know her even better in The Custodian of Paradise.

I finished TCOUD wanting more of Sheilagh Fielding, and in this book Wayne Johnston delivered. In creating a fictional foil for the real life character of Joey Smallwood in TCOUD, Johnston created a larger than life character that almost dwarfed Smallwood and whose story just need to be continued. I'm glad he decided to tell her story in more detail. It doesn't pack the historical punch of TCOUD, it being hard to beat the story of the birth of a province and all, but it is an interesting look at society in the early twentieth century, when women were judged harshly if they smoked, drank, or even remain unmarried, and when a pregnancy out of wedlock spelled social ruin for the woman and her family. It examines the length to which families of the time would go to keep secrets and preserve their family's reputation. It also provides an interesting glimpse into prohibition and the underground economy that it created. If Wayne Johnston decides to write about Sheilagh Fielding again, I will be first in line to read it.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second in the trilogy. A well written, captivating read. In-depth details of Fielding do not disappoint. Not sure how I feel about “the provider”; the demons driving his decisions are beyond disturbing; he’s apparently seven feet tall, able to withstand raging snowstorms, and able to appear and disappear at will... is he an illusion of Fielding’s delusions or is he in fact a real person and Fielding’s biological father....4🌟’s.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this one very quickly and found it quite absorbing like I was engaged in something illicit myself as Sheilaugh feels she is in much of the book. I really enjoyed the setting (far way place I have never visited, different time... seems like that is a theme with me) and now would love to visit St. John, Newfoundland, even looking up information about the city.

The characters were all very strong figures, unique, and flawed, yet somehow unrealistic. I never understood the motives behind actions taken by Prowse, Smallwood, Dr. Fielding, Mrs. Fielding and Sheilaugh herself. The Provider character was a real odd ball. Very conflicted and confused.

Despite it not all making sense, I figured the ending would make it all make more sense and I expected a real "aha" moment. But, the ending was a bit of a let down. I expected a bigger surprize than that the Provider was lying all along, suffering his own demons and manipulating Sheilagh.

[Peter B · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel has an absolutely tremendous first 100 pages. The female protagonist finds a small deserted island to live on. She is trying to deal with her past and presumably her present. The island off the coast of Newfoundland is an abandoned townsite with a pack of dogs and a herd of horses. And then it goes into a series of letters and a series of conversations set up by the author to show just how clever at repartee he could be. In short, the novel seems to be Johnson entertaining himself.
I am not sure how small St. Johns was, but it seems illogical that everyone in town would know of her difficulties at school, and even if they did, if they would make such a fuss about it.
It is probably more likely the reader (me) than the book, as at the end I was skimming to get through it and the predecessor to this one, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, I left unfinished.

[Ruth Seeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Johnston is a master storyteller, and The Custodian of Paradise is no exception. This novel focuses on Sheilagh Fielding's odd life (readers of The Colony of Unrequited Dreams will remember her from that novel). Long, but worthwhile. This novel may be challenging for young readers - it may be difficult for them to believe how damaging something as commonplace as divorce was a century ago, how scandalous it was for a woman to smoke and drink, how an illegitimate birth could ruin not only her life but also her family's, how much secrecy lay at the heart of the families who made up 'the quality.' It is, therefore, an important book not only for its literary value but also for its contribution to social history.

[Andy Oram · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel paints a “paradise” of degraded poverty, illiteracy, class privilege, and hypocrisy, along with a protagonist who rebels against it. The battle goes on much too long--too many dreary scenes of isolation, too many conversations and letters saying the same thing repeatedly, too many ill-tempered screeds. The narrator is so mean-spirited, snobbish, impulsive, and vituperative that I for one could never develop any sympathy for her. Her one enjoyable quality, her wit, does not redeem her, as her associates tell her too often. Mysteries abound, and they do drive the novel along and make it an intriguing read, but the resolutions of the mysteries are not worth the effort expended by author or reader in getting to them.

[Andrea Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully crafted story of one of the most memorable characters in Canadian literature. Wayne Johnston writes about the estranged life of Sheilagh Fielding, who readers met in The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. Sheilagh's heart and soul laid bare, the past that she continues to be haunted by lead her to choose a remote island off the coast of Newfoundland to confront her demons and yet it is not as the reclusive Sheilagh had thought. Will she find the answers she is looking for or continue to go down into the darkness of her broken heart and soul? I highly recommend this amazing story that is sure to become a literary classic. Bravo to Wayne Johnston for creating a truly complex character whose scars are worn with fierce pride!

[Mary Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was haunting. There is a type of mystery, as I guessed and wondered about the identity of the prime people in the life of the main character. But it was such a portrayal of deep cultural biases and prejudices. It is a tragic story of deep wounds from early relationships. The story pulled me along. I could not put it down.

[Camille Siddartha · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was really sad. That this woman was privileged and was treated like a freak, being 6'3, super educated, and she lived with the dregs. She stood alone and was alone this way. If she had internet, she probably could have found someone to love her. She didn't, she instead went internal and stayed that way, so fond of herself that she ended up that way.

sad, sad story.

[Patsey]

Language. That is this book for me. All about the choice and placement of the words.
Homiletic. Shibboleth. Philippic....
And the 1st person account with letters...and the puns oh my! I was in awe of Mr. Johnston. The story was the background to the words but I stayed with the mystery to the end.

[Maureen Lauzier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book because I liked his book A colony of Unrequited dreams. I like this book even more. The author has a very unique style. It’s not a r typical love story.

[Max · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not exactly a sequel to the "Colony of Unrequited Dreams". The Custodian of Paradise covers the same period in time, not a successive one, albeit from a different point of view. However it is not only the point of view which has changed -- although the same characters appear they possess completely different personalities in each novel, and some important events in the first novel do not occur at all in the second, while others have been significantly altered. Yet the second novel is not a stand-alone novel either, because the historical setting, among other things, so beautifully rendered in the first, is not fully explained in the second. One needs to read the first novel to understand the second, and be willing to accept that things are quite different.

This novel leaves much to be desired on many fronts. Although it is wonderful to meet the character Fielding again, she is a much weaker person in the second. She still possesses her irony, but she is far more sensitive and lacking in self-confidence. She is also physically weaker - her act of rescuing Joe Smallwood from a blizzard along the Bonavista Line is attributed to someone else (who also rescues her). Likewise Smallwood becomes a minor, shallow character whose actions are of little consequence. Prowse, self-absorbed and mean in the first, is downright evil in the second. None of these character changes are improvements in any way. The new characters are less believable, less sympathetic, and far less interesting.

A new character, Fielding's 'Provider', is introduced. There is no inkling of the existence of this omniscient, powerful person in the first book. While at first there is a compelling mystery surrounding this person, as the novel progresses he is revealed to be unpleasant, incongruous, and completely unbelievable. Perhaps he is meant to represent God, alluded to in the title of the book.

I'll probably read the first novel again (for the fifth or sixth time) but this one I'd rather forget.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book from my dad for Christmas when it came out, and I fell in love with it immediately. To be honest, I can't quite put my finger on why I love it so much, although the main character - Sheilagh Fielding - is definitely a huge part of that (no pun intended, as she's 6'3").

I think that another reason I love it is that Fielding is definitely her own woman who could never be called conventional in any sense of the word. She even carries a cane, which she received as a Christmas present from her absent mother when she was a child, and used it since then. Later on it did become necessary, but long before then it had become part of her identity.

The novel starts off in the last days of World War II as she seeks passage to go to a super remote island off Newfoundland's southern coast, where she'll live for a period of time, completely shut off from any other human being, aside from the monthly delivery of supplies. She went there to write, and through her writing, we learn about her life and what made her the woman we first meet in Colony Of Unrequited Dreams (book one of Wayne Johnston's Newfoundland trilogy), which is part of this series, but can also be read as a standalone book, like this one.

In Sheilagh Fielding, we find a woman who is not like other women and who has never really had a strong connection with many people, if she ever had any at all. She has a sharp tongue and a quick wit. She doesn't seem like the kind of person I'd like to know in real life, but as a heroine in a novel, she makes for entertaining reading.

This is not a feel good book, and so I don't recommend it if that's what you're looking for. If you like unconventional people who could be real, then this book just might be for you.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of all, you must read "The Colony of Unrequited Dreams" before this one. The two books are set in tandem, but knowing what goes on in the first book helps a great deal when reading the second one. Here we again encounter Sheilagh Fielding, and "The Custodian of Paradise" is all about Fielding, her troubled life, and her painful journey to discover both the truth of her parentage and grieve for her son. Again, Johnston uses multiple narratives, such as journal entries, letters, articles, and memories to shape the story. At the beginning of the book, Fielding takes up residence on an uninhabited, isolated island off the coast of Newfoundland. She's going to read journals, write, and not drink a drop of the Scotch that has been her vice and necessity for decades. She's also going to discover and/or come to terms with her lifelong protector, a mysterious figure who has lurked in the shadows, watching over her. The island is a rugged, overgrown and frankly scary place for a woman who has only one good leg and relies on a cane to walk, but the passages set there were the most intriguing to me. To be honest, I grew weary of the endless letters and ruminations about Fielding's past and all the wrong that was done to her. It verged on maudlin at times. There also seemed to be something of a Christian message ... won't go into details so as not to spoil it but ... I was not keen on that part. Just didn't like chunks of the book although I do like Johnston's writing very much, most of the time. It took me 8 days to finish the book and usually I get through a book much more quickly than that.

[Mary Oxendale Spensley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half or so of this novel was the most compelling book I've read in a long time. Sheilagh Fielding is a fascinating, plausible character. She goes through horrifying life experiences, surrounded by mostly callous and aloof relatives and peers.

I will say I wondered how a young girl could have the gift of Oscar Wilde's wit and irony when she'd been raised in a rigidly conventional household and schooled in an elitist academy unlikely to stock anti-establishment literature in their library. She didn't have any confidants to bounce her wit off, but since she was so sharp, I let it go.

But as we moved to the latter part of the novel, the story became implausible and even melodramatic. To avoid spilling plot details, I'll just say that the Provider's method of disguising himself is ludicrous. He'd still be recognized, especially by Dr. Fielding, maybe not instantly, but within a few minutes. His ability to appear at the right place and the right time in a whiteout blizzard is also unlikely.

Although Sheilagh's attitude toward the Provider shifts, his conflicted and menacing behaviors do not warrant her final attitude toward him, although throughout the novel, she displays immense gratitude toward people who don't deserve it.

Up to that blizzard, and the subsequent letter detailing a history straight out of a True Confessions article, I loved, practically revered, this novel. I grew suspicious, but hoped the implausible details would be sorted out. I'm sure editorial changes could have fixed the unbelievable bits, but that didn't happen. I give it three stars because the first part is a five, the second part a two.