Aubrey McKee

by Alex Pugsley

I am from Halifax, salt-water city, a place of silted genius, sudden women, figures floating in all waters. “People from Halifax are all famous,” my sister Faith has said. “Because everyone in Halifax knows each other’s business.”

From basement rec rooms to midnight railway tracks, Action Transfers to Smarties boxes crammed with joints, from Paul McCartney on the kitchen radio to their furious teenaged cover of The Ramones, Aubrey McKee and his familiars navigate late adolescence amidst the old-monied decadence of Halifax. An arcana of oddball angels, Alex Pugsley’s long-awaited debut novel follows rich-kid drug dealers and junior tennis brats, émigré heart surgeons and small-time thugs, renegade private school girls and runaway children as they try to make sense of the city into which they’ve been born. Part coming-of-age-story, part social chronicle, and part study of the myths that define our growing up, Aubrey McKee introduces a breathtakingly original new voice.

Genres: Fiction, Book Club, Canada, Coming Of Age

388 pages, Paperback

Published June 23, 2020

Reviews

[Katie]

Perhaps I would have loved it, had I been born a few years earlier and grown up in a more insular hometown. I will recommend it to my Gen X husband from the North Country.

For this suburban xennial, though, it felt a bit contrived. The autism references turned me off quite forcefully, although the mania of run-on sentences suggested neurodiversity might have been tied in there appropriately in some better way. There were brief moments I felt understood, but for the most part I hate-read it.

The end tied it up nicely and would add a star, were I willing to boil my mixed feelings down to a number between 1 and 5. Alas.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alex Pugsley’s first novel, Aubrey McKee, depicts the first 20+ years of the book’s eponymous protagonist, who grows up in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 14 richly imagined sections, Aubrey narrates his story in a lively, warm and self-deprecating manner, along the way introducing the reader to a succession of intriguing and eccentric characters who help to shape his childhood and adolescence. Aubrey, a child of privilege with an active imagination and creative leanings, does not always follow a straight or smooth path to adulthood. His is no ordinary upbringing. The McKee household is unstable: Aubrey’s mother leaves his lawyer father to dedicate herself to her acting career. In his teens—a period of emotional desolation—he falls in with a rough group of older boys led by streetwise Howard Fudge, small-time hoodlum and drug dealer. Later, Aubrey and a group of friends led by childhood mainstay Cyrus Mair form a punk rock band and briefly gain notoriety within the city’s vibrant music scene before the project implodes, a victim of internal bickering, changing tastes and diverging passions. Cyrus emerges as chief among the novel’s large cast of eccentrics. The illegitimate son of a former provincial premier, Cyrus assumes something like legendary status in Aubrey’s private mythology, first as a garrulous five-year-old oddball who declares himself “the world’s best escape artist,” and later as a nerdy and reclusive deep thinker, a boy with a brain in overdrive who pushes those around him to strive for and sometimes achieve seemingly impossible goals. A tragedy affecting two of Aubrey’s closest friends rounds out the book, with Aubrey disillusioned and ready for new adventures elsewhere. Pugsley’s prose is elegant, detailed and resonates with startling visuals and memorable turns of phrase. The story of young Aubrey’s Halifax years is packed with incident and heavy with philosophizing and life advice. The novel tells a richly entertaining story, but it is also a book that at times can seem relentlessly verbose and at the end comes across as longer than it needs to be. Still, this first volume in a projected five-volume series of autobiographical novels charts the early growth of a young man whose exploits are well worth following.

[Bruce Geddes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding. Has to be the favourite for the 2020 Giller.

[Elderberrywine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aubrey is the protagonist in this coming of age tale, set in the early ‘70s. I was definitely getting Catcher in the Rye vibes, I have to admit. The timing isn’t all that far off, only about a decade or so later, but the setting is a far grittier port city than New York ever was - Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Aubrey and his friends wander through their high school years with probably more drugs and more female members of the pack but with as little parental supervision, with all their relationships revolving around the seriously weird golden boy, Cyrus Mair. They meet accidentally at one of Aubrey’s sisters’ birthday parties, and Aubrey befriends this brilliant oddball of a boy, but who wouldn’t be odd as he was raised, from the age of four, by his elderly great-aunt, the Pigeon Lady. She is the survivor of a very wealthy old money family, and lives with Cyrus in a moldering mansion, filled to a great estate with flocks of pigeons, all well known to Emlyn Mair. As Aubrey, visiting Cyrus, mentions he has seen a pigeon in the house, Emlyn asks
“Which one?”
“Grey with a white wine.”
“That’s Maisy. . . She goes with Frank. She’ll find her way out, I expect. Always has.”

But as entertaining as all the characters are, the star of the show, as far as I was concerned. was Halifax itself. Following WWII, Halifax was hectic but grungy, a jumble of warehouses, clapboard homes and grimy public buildings, its waterfronts haphazard with sea-craft . . . a shabby little city, a city of somber wooden houses in dark greens and heavy reds, a city of rusting cranes, of splintered and water-lapped jetties. . .But those growing up here remember it differently, home to twisting streets, hopscotch kids, clapboard houses - a folk expression of the Maritime Demonic.” And did I mention the weather?

[Chris Howells · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the story of the titled character and his monied journey through adolescence into young adulthood. We are presented with an assortment of characters, whom I found predictable and a little boring, but almost and I emphasise almost, rescued by the family dynamic. Four sisters populate this novel like four furies. Maybe it is my working class snobbishness but I found it difficult to really care about any of the characters and imposing a history, imagined or otherwise, I do not care to check, about the location just added to its dullness. So many novels use a cosmopolitan backdrop as central to their narratives and unless you are part of this self referential mindless elite, there is very little to hook onto. I see from other reviews I am very much in the minority, and that is what it is, but I write this mostly for myself and my opinion at the moment holds. Who knows, maybe in some future dotage I will revisit this novel and get something out of it.

[Anna P · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would love to give this book 5 stars, and I liked the style, the characters and their voices… but at one point (around the middle of the novel) I found it kind of repetitive and tiring… you know the story: a good kid from a (sort of ) good family hits a rough patch and falls in with the wrong crowd. I mean it was super refreshing at first, and captivating and realistic (great description of Halifax in 1970s) but at one point I just got tired of yet another misadventure or misdeed. We don’t often hear stories told by people with this kind of experience, but I guess I wish the story concluded somewhere earlier without dragging the reader through the longest streak of juvenile delinquency. There was a lot of promise at the start, but then I just lost interest and got depressed…

[litost · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Aubrey McKee. I was doubtful at first: it’s long; it’s a novel in the form of linked short stories; it is set in Halifax, but in the well-to-do South End; but I was totally turned around by the story called Fudge. The narrator meets tough kids from the North End and starts selling drugs. It all ends badly of course, but it portrays the gritty Halifax I remember. In fact, Halifax is like a character, and essential to the stories. I’m amazed at how well Pugsley describes his youth. He uses the language & context of an adult, but sees it through the eyes of a child. His language is sophisticated and a bit verbose, but wow, can he write.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the title implies, Aubrey McKee is the main character in this novel. Halifax is the next most prominent character. As a young boy Aubrey delivers newspapers in the South End. As a young teen he and his friends go to the Oxford Theatre and the King of Donairs. As a young adult he hangs out at the Seahorse Tavern. There isn’t much of a plot. It’s more a series of sketches featuring other characters who come and go in Aubrey’s life. His childhood friend, his first crush, the other kids in his punk rock band. It was fun recognizing the Halifax scenes but I would have enjoyed this book more if I’d grown up there in the 60’s and 70’s.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first I thought maybe a wordy and toned down Forrest Gump but then it felt a bit like JD Salinger-ish. There's a lot to digest and so many things that happen in rapid succession. I felt at times there was too much description and the want to flex a robust vocabulary muscle. Despite this penchant to carry on, there was humour and much insight into "being human" and I enjoyed the Halifax history and fun facts.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the people in this, and the way that the arc follows that development rather than a more typical kind of thread. The detail is good for that too, but I think it gets bogged down a bit. It feels like Pugley couldn’t or didn’t want to quite get a handle on the complexity and that made it more of a slog that it felt like it should have been. Very good overall though.

[Barbara Zeller · Rating 5 out of 5]

All you need to know about this book, that seemed to shadow my growing-up experiences in my city, is in this one line: “...to give expression to the lives I encountered, and to make sense of some of the mysteries that seemed to me the city’s truths.” The author takes us from childhood to young adulthood in stunning prose with characterizations that include the city itself.

[Martha Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book would likely be a 3.5 for most, but I like to read about coming of age in the 70s. And I have a soft spot for any books about Nova Scotia. So this kept my interest right through — and made me want to learn more about the late 70s music scene in Halifax.
So this book is a little bit history and a little bit rock and roll.

[Lisa Hutchinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed the well developed characters. Looking forward to the next books

[Sandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

couldn't finish it

[Heather Neufeld · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got lost in the middle, too much work. Good vignettes on Halifax in the 70s and 80s though. Maybe just not in the right mindset right now, made me tired how it jumped around in time.

[Britt-Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

More about Halifax than most folks need to hear.

[Cindy Bellomy · Rating 4 out of 5]

So well-written that it gets 4 stars, but if I ever think, “I’m ready to be done with this book”, I view that as a bad sign. A bit too long, but interesting storylines & well-drawn characters.

[Anders van Winkle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the non-linear storyline, where each chapter jumps around (sometimes years) from some memory or event in Aubrey's life. It was also fun to see the world through a child's point of view in the earlier chapters. It's not a point of view I read normally. While the book started off great and ended great, there was a lull in the middle that dragged for me. Otherwise I would have given this 5 stars.