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Fair
In this spare, poetic novel, a young homeless man finds solace in friendship, falls prey to the machinations of a malevolent gang of thugs, and ultimately is swallowed up by the inevitability of consequences on the dangerous and deceptively sunny streets of L.A.
160 pages, Paperback
Published June 22, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 28, 2025
Woah that one was very dark. I really liked it but woah. I don't think I'll be forgetting Eyan for quite some time.
December 18, 2020
The book Fair by Ed Seaward is a novel about lost people. Those that walk unseen around our cities, wandering on the streets because they don’t have any other place to go.
The major character is Eyan, a homeless boy with no teeth, which makes his face look like one from an old man. What a brilliant image for a sad reality; that the people who are homeless get older faster than the rest of us.
Eyan is a sensitive boy with a love of words. He has a notebook where he writes everything he can remember, every word he learns and loves. Words are not only words. They tell stories, and each word in Eyan’s notebook tells a different story. With any of them, he can remember the moment he learned it, and the story that came with it.
But living in the street is not like living in a house. I asked the author how found the inspiration to write this novel and he told me it was a long story. I hope he will tell me one day.
The varied characters that come to life in this novel are like no other. One of the most important characters in the story is the professor. I thought at the beginning that Eyan was imagining him, but though the professor looked as if he was taken from a classic novel, he is a genuine person with his own problems.
The professor walks around with a supermarket cart full of books. He has a strange edition of Milton, The Lost Paradise, but it must be an academic edition, maybe an essay he wrote about Milton, because when Eyan is offered another edition, the classic with the pictures, he doesn’t like it because the professor’s had no pictures.
The relationship between Eyan and the professor is sweet and touching. Every night they sit on the streets and the professor reads him a fragment of a poem. Eyan listens, and sometimes he writes a word on his notebook. At lunch, on special occasions, the professor takes Eyan to a diner and they have lunch.
I thought that the professor wanted to take advantage of Eyan, and I was wondering what problems he would have, but I mislaid my worries.
There will be problems, and some people will take advantage of this naïve soul who lives in a space without time, every day equal to the previous one, with no changes except for the occasional free coffee from the stand vendor.
At times, the novel keeps a pace that looks like an interminable day that has no beginning and will never end. In this endless time, there is a piece of eternity, and it is in this space where the angels and the rebel angels can fight, following the readings of the professor. While time is out of the equation, Eyan lives his life without problems, walking through the entire city with no hurry, sleeping where he wants.
But time cannot be delayed eternally, and the arrival of time is, like in the Goya painting, the arrival of Saturn devouring its children.
I had some hard times reading this novel. It made me step into a world where there is no meaning, or purpose, where every day is just a copy of the previous day, and people are ghosts in a mental state that is neither awake nor asleep. That middle place, where Eyan lives most of his life, is a tragic remembrance of all the people who are left behind by this society of ours. Broken lives, barely lived, and people who wonder around without a place to rest, owners only of their memories of what used to be a home.
I will not tell you how it ends, but most of these stories, in actual life, end badly. Unfortunately, every year many homeless people die of disease, violence and sadness. I cried reading this novel, for Eyan, for the professor, for all who have to live out there, in the open.
The major character is Eyan, a homeless boy with no teeth, which makes his face look like one from an old man. What a brilliant image for a sad reality; that the people who are homeless get older faster than the rest of us.
Eyan is a sensitive boy with a love of words. He has a notebook where he writes everything he can remember, every word he learns and loves. Words are not only words. They tell stories, and each word in Eyan’s notebook tells a different story. With any of them, he can remember the moment he learned it, and the story that came with it.
But living in the street is not like living in a house. I asked the author how found the inspiration to write this novel and he told me it was a long story. I hope he will tell me one day.
The varied characters that come to life in this novel are like no other. One of the most important characters in the story is the professor. I thought at the beginning that Eyan was imagining him, but though the professor looked as if he was taken from a classic novel, he is a genuine person with his own problems.
The professor walks around with a supermarket cart full of books. He has a strange edition of Milton, The Lost Paradise, but it must be an academic edition, maybe an essay he wrote about Milton, because when Eyan is offered another edition, the classic with the pictures, he doesn’t like it because the professor’s had no pictures.
The relationship between Eyan and the professor is sweet and touching. Every night they sit on the streets and the professor reads him a fragment of a poem. Eyan listens, and sometimes he writes a word on his notebook. At lunch, on special occasions, the professor takes Eyan to a diner and they have lunch.
I thought that the professor wanted to take advantage of Eyan, and I was wondering what problems he would have, but I mislaid my worries.
There will be problems, and some people will take advantage of this naïve soul who lives in a space without time, every day equal to the previous one, with no changes except for the occasional free coffee from the stand vendor.
At times, the novel keeps a pace that looks like an interminable day that has no beginning and will never end. In this endless time, there is a piece of eternity, and it is in this space where the angels and the rebel angels can fight, following the readings of the professor. While time is out of the equation, Eyan lives his life without problems, walking through the entire city with no hurry, sleeping where he wants.
But time cannot be delayed eternally, and the arrival of time is, like in the Goya painting, the arrival of Saturn devouring its children.
I had some hard times reading this novel. It made me step into a world where there is no meaning, or purpose, where every day is just a copy of the previous day, and people are ghosts in a mental state that is neither awake nor asleep. That middle place, where Eyan lives most of his life, is a tragic remembrance of all the people who are left behind by this society of ours. Broken lives, barely lived, and people who wonder around without a place to rest, owners only of their memories of what used to be a home.
I will not tell you how it ends, but most of these stories, in actual life, end badly. Unfortunately, every year many homeless people die of disease, violence and sadness. I cried reading this novel, for Eyan, for the professor, for all who have to live out there, in the open.
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December 10, 2021Phenomenal! Why wasn't this book shortlisted for every major fiction prize in Canada?
It's the story of Eyan (pronounced Ian), a homeless young man, perhaps 20, though he doesn't really know. His synapses aren't quite connecting, though he can read and write, his memory is often vague; he has no idea of time. He is adrift in Los Angeles, after his mother and sister vanished. Sparse hints of their fate are dropped. It is enough. Our focus is on Eyan, who grows on us with every step of his wandering in the City of Angels. We become intimates of his world, the places he curls up at night, his friends, including the remarkable "professor" who reads to him from "Paradise Lost." He longs for fairness, for a world of justice, but what hope is there when even the angels are at war. He inadvertently becomes a mule for a local dealer, Paul, who knows Eyan is invisible and perfect for the task. Paul and his "eyeless" henchmen (they wear reflective sunglasses) struggle to rule skid-row and a string of murders follows in their wake. The book is bleak, but Eyan finds joy in his friendships; in his memories of one of his mother's boyfriends; in the words he meticulously spells out in his notebook with pen clipped to the cover; in a diner adorned in red pleather when he and his friends feast of hamburgers deluxe; in the signs above Hollywood and his long walks; in secret safe places and in small acts of kindness such as morning coffees from a vendor on Venice Beach. Sparse, poetic and filled with metaphor and meaning, this is a book to savour. I will re-read it. Definitely.
Remarkably, this is Ed Seward's first published novel (The Porcupine's Quill, 2020). I look forward to others.
It's the story of Eyan (pronounced Ian), a homeless young man, perhaps 20, though he doesn't really know. His synapses aren't quite connecting, though he can read and write, his memory is often vague; he has no idea of time. He is adrift in Los Angeles, after his mother and sister vanished. Sparse hints of their fate are dropped. It is enough. Our focus is on Eyan, who grows on us with every step of his wandering in the City of Angels. We become intimates of his world, the places he curls up at night, his friends, including the remarkable "professor" who reads to him from "Paradise Lost." He longs for fairness, for a world of justice, but what hope is there when even the angels are at war. He inadvertently becomes a mule for a local dealer, Paul, who knows Eyan is invisible and perfect for the task. Paul and his "eyeless" henchmen (they wear reflective sunglasses) struggle to rule skid-row and a string of murders follows in their wake. The book is bleak, but Eyan finds joy in his friendships; in his memories of one of his mother's boyfriends; in the words he meticulously spells out in his notebook with pen clipped to the cover; in a diner adorned in red pleather when he and his friends feast of hamburgers deluxe; in the signs above Hollywood and his long walks; in secret safe places and in small acts of kindness such as morning coffees from a vendor on Venice Beach. Sparse, poetic and filled with metaphor and meaning, this is a book to savour. I will re-read it. Definitely.
Remarkably, this is Ed Seward's first published novel (The Porcupine's Quill, 2020). I look forward to others.
December 2, 2020
In reading Ed Seaward’s debut novel Fair, one of the first things I noted was how aptly titled it was. Not only does Fair refer to a seminal moment in the main character’s childhood where he felt life and in particular a certain individual treated him with fairness, it also reflects the narrative voice of the novel. This goes far in a story filled with poverty and the abject unfairness of life.
The main character, Eyan is a young man, 20 years old but aged by the many episodes of calamity in his life, including the loss of his teeth and years of living without a home in the streets and encampments of Los Angeles. We get glimpses of the things that led him to this place; his mother’s abusive boyfriends, abandonment, troubles in school. He has experienced so many blows, literally and figuratively that his mind and body are shattered. He is only able to speak and think in fragments.
The third person narrator does not overly sympathize with Eyan or condemn the forces and people who brought him to this way of life, but lays them out in stark detail, leaving the reader to make their own conclusions.
The beginning half of the novel moves along in a dream like manner. Much of this is due to Eyan’s wanderings through the city. With no direction, job or agenda he spends his days walking. Covering the vast expanse of Los Angeles, from the seedy boardwalk culture of Venice to the studios of Burbank to the city within the city of Skid Row. We get the feeling he is looking for connection, redemption, a reason to keep going. He finds this when he is introduced to the character called the Professor. We are given glimpses of the story of his fall from a respected professor of literature living and teaching in Chicago to a man with a shopping cart and a battered copy of Paradise Lost.
The professor takes Eyan under his wing, reading to him occasionally taking him for a meal in the diner. He becomes the father figure Eyan never had and ignites in him sparks of curiosity and intellect that he thought long dead. Listening to the professor read excerpts from Paradise Lost and expound on them causes Eyan to reflect on his life and highlights the importance that we all need stories to survive.
During the last third of the novel other sinister denizens of the street come into play as Eyan becomes embroiled in a series of murders and it all comes to a dramatic conclusion.
But ultimately this is not a novel for someone searching for an active page turning plot. It is a novel that stays with you and asks you to slow down to empathize with these characters and examine the structure of American society today that leaves so many ignored and destitute. It asks you to see that sometimes when life is simplified it becomes the most profound.
The main character, Eyan is a young man, 20 years old but aged by the many episodes of calamity in his life, including the loss of his teeth and years of living without a home in the streets and encampments of Los Angeles. We get glimpses of the things that led him to this place; his mother’s abusive boyfriends, abandonment, troubles in school. He has experienced so many blows, literally and figuratively that his mind and body are shattered. He is only able to speak and think in fragments.
The third person narrator does not overly sympathize with Eyan or condemn the forces and people who brought him to this way of life, but lays them out in stark detail, leaving the reader to make their own conclusions.
The beginning half of the novel moves along in a dream like manner. Much of this is due to Eyan’s wanderings through the city. With no direction, job or agenda he spends his days walking. Covering the vast expanse of Los Angeles, from the seedy boardwalk culture of Venice to the studios of Burbank to the city within the city of Skid Row. We get the feeling he is looking for connection, redemption, a reason to keep going. He finds this when he is introduced to the character called the Professor. We are given glimpses of the story of his fall from a respected professor of literature living and teaching in Chicago to a man with a shopping cart and a battered copy of Paradise Lost.
The professor takes Eyan under his wing, reading to him occasionally taking him for a meal in the diner. He becomes the father figure Eyan never had and ignites in him sparks of curiosity and intellect that he thought long dead. Listening to the professor read excerpts from Paradise Lost and expound on them causes Eyan to reflect on his life and highlights the importance that we all need stories to survive.
During the last third of the novel other sinister denizens of the street come into play as Eyan becomes embroiled in a series of murders and it all comes to a dramatic conclusion.
But ultimately this is not a novel for someone searching for an active page turning plot. It is a novel that stays with you and asks you to slow down to empathize with these characters and examine the structure of American society today that leaves so many ignored and destitute. It asks you to see that sometimes when life is simplified it becomes the most profound.
July 20, 2020
Today I finished reading Fair, the debut novel from author Ed Seaward.
This is the story about a homeless young man, Eyan (pronounced Ian) who lives in the parks and alleys of Los Angeles. He has a learning disability and as a result is uneducated. His story is one of survival. Happy to live on his own, he has a chance meeting with a childhood friend Marc who takes him to meet a man simply called the professor, who once taught at the University of Chicago.
The professor enjoys teaching Eyan and telling him stories. Eyan's favorite is Paradise Lost written by John Milton in 1667. Seaward has included seven etchings of various scenes from that story which were created by William Strang and included in a 1896 copy of the book published in London. At the end of the book, Seaward explains the reason for their inclusion in this novel: They are presented herein to enrich the reading experience and to invite readers to engage with the story through a different means of artistic interpretation.
Fair is a literary work, descriptive and gritty which gives allows the reader to get inside Eyan's head. It's a different style of story that I usually am drawn to and I'm glad I read it.
This is the story about a homeless young man, Eyan (pronounced Ian) who lives in the parks and alleys of Los Angeles. He has a learning disability and as a result is uneducated. His story is one of survival. Happy to live on his own, he has a chance meeting with a childhood friend Marc who takes him to meet a man simply called the professor, who once taught at the University of Chicago.
The professor enjoys teaching Eyan and telling him stories. Eyan's favorite is Paradise Lost written by John Milton in 1667. Seaward has included seven etchings of various scenes from that story which were created by William Strang and included in a 1896 copy of the book published in London. At the end of the book, Seaward explains the reason for their inclusion in this novel: They are presented herein to enrich the reading experience and to invite readers to engage with the story through a different means of artistic interpretation.
Fair is a literary work, descriptive and gritty which gives allows the reader to get inside Eyan's head. It's a different style of story that I usually am drawn to and I'm glad I read it.
December 3, 2020
Couldn't put it down, the voice and rhythm pull you along til the very (shocking!) end.
November 13, 2022
A captivating story, written with great show-don’t-tell efficiency.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews