The Friends of Meager Fortune

by David Adams Richards

Growing up in a prominent lumber family in the Miramichi, brothers Will and Owen Jameson know little of the world beyond their town and the great men who work the forest, including their father. But as young men, the boys couldn’t be more different — where seventeen-year-old Will is headstrong and rugged, able to hold his own in the woods or in a fight, Owen, three years his junior, is literary and sensitive. What worries their mother Mary, however, is the prophecy told to her by a local woman upon Will’s “that her first-born would be a powerful man and have much respect — but his brother would be even greater, yet destroy the legacy by rashness, and the Jameson dynasty [would] not go beyond that second boy.” She tries to laugh it off, but the prophecy becomes a part of local legend and hangs over the heads of the boys like a dark cloud.When their father dies in a freak accident and the management of the Jameson tracts and company falters, Will, as the true inheritor of his father’s “shrewd mind and fists to match,” quits school to take over. He’s a strong leader of men, but perhaps too strong at times, and dies while clearing a log jam during a run. Reggie Glidden, Will’s best friend and the Push of the Jameson team, takes Owen under his wing, searching for any small sign that the younger boy has his brother’s qualities. But Owen knows his limitations and, after his brother’s death and then rejection by the girl of his dreams, Lula Brower, he joins the army and heads off to war hoping to get himself killed. Instead, he returns a decorated war hero.Then he falls in love with the beautiful, childlike Camellia — the wife of Reggie Glidden — and soon Owen and Camellia find themselves watched on all sides, caught in the teeth of an entire town’s gossip and hypocrisy despite the innocence of their relationship. But for the community, it’s as if taking Owen Jameson — and therefore the whole Jameson family — down a peg or two will give them control over their changing world. Inexorably, Owen and Camellia are pulled into a chain of events that will end with death, disappearance, and a sensational trial.At the same time, realizing his destiny, Owen takes over the family business and begins what will become the greatest cut in New Brunswick history, his men setting up camp on the notoriously dangerous Good Friday Mountain. The teamsters spend months in fierce ice and snow, daily pitting themselves against nature and risking their lives for scant reward, in the last moments before the coming of mechanization that will make them obsolete. This heroic, brutal life is all Meager Fortune, the camp keeper, knows. A good and innocent man, he shows unexpected resolution in the face of the betrayals of the more worldly men around him.With The Friends of Meager Fortune , award-winning author David Adams Richards continues his exploration of New Brunswick’s Miramichi Valley, both the hard lives and experiences that emerge from that particular soil and the universal human matters that concern us the work of the hands and the heart; the nature of true greatness and true weakness; the relentlessness of fate and the good and evil that men and women do. It is a devastating portrait of a society, but it is also a brilliant commemoration of the passing of a world — one that cements David Adams Richards’ place as the finest novelist at work in Canada today.From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Historical Fiction, Canadian Literature, Novels, Book Club, Romance

384 pages, Paperback

First published September 19, 2006

About the author

David Adams Richards (born 17 October 1950) is a Canadian novelist, essayist, screenwriter and poet.

Born in Newcastle, New Brunswick, Richards left St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, one course shy of completing a B.A. Richards has been a writer-in-residence at various universities and colleges across Canada, including the University of New Brunswick.

Richards has received numerous awards including 2 Gemini Awards for scriptwriting for Small Gifts and "For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down", the Alden Nowlan Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the Canadian Authors Association Award for his novel Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace. Richards is one of only three writers to have won in both the fiction and non-fiction categories of the Governor General's Award. He won the 1988 fiction award for Nights Below Station Street and the 1998 non-fiction award for Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi. He was also a co-winner of the 2000 Giller Prize for Mercy Among the Children.

In 1971, he married the former Peggy MacIntyre. They have two sons, John Thomas and Anton Richards, and currently reside in Toronto.

John Thomas was born in 1989 in Saint John, New Brunswick.

The Writers' Federation of New Brunswick administers an annual David Adams Richards Award for Fiction.

Richards' papers are currently housed at the University of New Brunswick.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first exposure to David Adams Richards was “Mercy Among the Children”. He impressed me immediately as what I think of as a great storyteller. His novels are the kind you want to curl up in front of a fire with and read for hours at a time.

“The Friends of Meager Fortune” elevated my respect for him to another level. It is arguably an epic work. He vividly and thoughtfully chronicles the harsh world of the New Brunswick lumber trade in the days when men were men and danger was the price of earning a living. It’s worth reading on that basis alone.

But it also offers deep and probing character studies and a sharp-edged look at how society arbitrarily draws and redraws it lines of right and wrong. The title itself reverberates on many levels but I won’t give those away.

Leave yourself plenty of time to enjoy this classic. It’s worth savoring.

[kp · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many things I find hard to express, and one of them is the effect that any novel by David Adams Richards is likely to have on me. He combines an Elizabethan sense of tragedy with a compassionate yet clear-sighted regard for the human soul. He captures all I know to be true of human beings: their self-deluded solipsism, their fierce love, their capacity for awe and spite and terror and regret and adoration and deceit and suffering and pride and beauty.

This novel focuses on a lumber family before and after the second world war and the New Brunswick community in which it rises and falls. Adams Richards knows that epic plots that play out in the small corners of the world as well as on the great stages of public history. He limns small-town life, narrow-mindedness, simple generosity and family bonds with deep wisdom and recreates the lives of the foresters, still working the woods in these days with horses and axes, with a rough and brooding tenderness. The scenes set on Good Friday Mountain, where a group of men struggle through weeks of ice, snow, danger, and treachery to bring down a chunk of forest, are breathtaking, but what really gripped me in this novel was feeling the winch tightening as the full force of a community's spite and sorrow bears down on the innocents in its midst. The novel is about what one character calls "a famine in the soul," but that famine can never quite devour the possibility for goodness inherent in human beings, and Adams Richards gives us a tribute to and an elegy for the love that sometimes saves us and for a way of life that has disappeared.

[Diane Stephens · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful book. Well written, with wonderful characters, and a great story! I love finding hidden gems like this but will never understand how great books slip through the cracks, and lack the reader recognition they deserve.

[Carolyn Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Award winning, David Adams Richards is quickly becoming my favourite Canadian novelist.He is a great story teller with the gift of transporting the reader to the time and place where the books are set.He has the gift of drawing you into the lives of the hard and brave men and of the women they love. This book is set in the lumber camps of the Miramichi in New Brunswick, and the hard and dangerous lives of the men who work there. The time is just before and after WW2, when the work is done with saws, axes, horses and sledges and reads like a Greek tragedy.This way of life will quickly become obsolete with the mechanization of the lumber industry.
I won't go into the summary of the book as this has been well done already. I will comment on the book's clever title. I thought meager fortune referred to the poverty in which many of the people in his books live, or that meager fortune indicated the misfortune/bad luck which is the fate of many of his characters. Part way through the book we learn that Meager Fortune is actually the name of a physically small man doing odd jobs in the camp. Early on the lumberjacks consider him simple minded, but he shows himself later to be heroic and kind in a place of great danger where there is little compassion for other workers.
4.5 stars

[Stephen Hayes · Rating 1 out of 5]

I haven't finished this book, and I doubt that I will. My wife picked it up cheap in a book shop that sells remainders, and read it. She said that she found the style difficult, and that she had to read each sentence twice.

It's about a logging family in eastern Canada before and after the Second World War, and small town gossip and rumours.

I picked it up for bedtime reading when I was too tired to read anything more demanding and found it too demanding. I too found I was having to read every sentence twice, though I'm not sure why. The sentences are not over long, nor are they complicated in structure. But on first reading, the meaning doesn't seem to get through, and one has to read it again to see how it connects with what went before.

Maybe I'll pick it up again later, maybe not.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Epic tree-cutting. High drama, poetics and a million little stories.

[Donella · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book brought comparisons to Shakespearean tragedy to mind -- it starts with a prophesy (that cannot be averted) and ends in tragedy. In between this is an account of logging in New Brunswick in the brutal cold, while men still logged with axes, saws, and horsepower, and sent the logs down flooded rivers in spring -- before this world disappeared due to mechanization. It also highlights the frailty of human nature, and the immensely devastating impact of rumour, gossip, and innuendo and how unchecked, they can destroy reputations and lives.

"There are still places in our life, swallows in the air and brooks sounding like children when darkness is coming, filled with the memories of young women far up on rivers picking out berries in the trembling grasses.
But the world has moved on, and they are unknown."

[Ian M. Pyatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a story-teller DAR is! Absolutely brilliant with the main story lines and the sub-plots with all the various characters weaving in and out through out the book.. Learned alot about the physically demanding & toll on humans in the logging industry before machines took over.

[Dan Witte · Rating 1 out of 5]

Man, talk about a town called Malice. To quote Jack Nicholson’s Joker, this town needs an enema. Yikes! I kept wondering about the title until a character named Meager Fortune gets awkwardly introduced around halfway in, and my main takeaway from this late-arriving plot contrivance is that if he really did have friends, he was the only one in this dark and clunky dirge who did. Some combination of bad writing and terrible editing produced a book I can’t believe was published. Even more astounding to me is the praise heaped on this author, who has won the Governor General’s Award and the Giller Prize. You’d never guess it from reading this book, where our mysterious narrator breaks the most fundamental rules of storytelling by telling us what he should be showing us, battering us over the head with his ham-fisted moralizing, and failing to offer redemption or salvation to even one of his miserable protagonists. Even allowing for presumed scholastic shortcomings, the author cues up the most artless narrator I’ve read in a published work. And, spoiler alert, the horses die. The whole time I read the book I knew they were going to, which just added more pall on top of the pall. I might still downgrade this to a 1-star book, but I thought he did an admirable job describing conditions for loggers in the Arcadian forest of New Brunswick.

[Bobbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered this book and author when I was in New Brunswick a year or so ago. He's won numerous book awards, so I bought this one and loved it. Here is the description of the novel from Amazon.

"Mary Jameson, the widow of a lumber magnate, hopes to stymie the prophecy she receives from a fortune-teller—that her oldest son will be powerful and her younger son will bring glory upon the family, but they will be the end of the family. When Will Jameson, the brash older brother, suffers a fatal logging accident, and Owen, the intellectual younger son, returns a wounded hero from WWII, it seems the prophecy may come true. Owen assumes leadership of the family business, but faced with stiff competition, he sends men to fell timber deep in hazardous terrain. Logging troubles, combined with Owen's military service with Reggie Glidden, Will's best friend, and a romantic entanglement with Reggie's wife, touches off a devastating sequence of events. The book's most resonant moments spring from Richards's account of Jameson's loggers. Though undercut in places by a thick colloquialism, Richards's work at its best approaches the poetic nuances of Greek tragedy."

[Sheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of very brave, hardworking, death-defying men who were the lumbermen in Canada when all the work was done by men with horses and wooden sleds. It is a story with many interesting characters, women and men. And as in most stories there is some injustice that happens. I really liked this book and the author is fast becoming one of my favorites.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. If you are on a beach mid-July, you will feel like snow is melting in your boots, making your socks wet, slide down, bunch up... you will kick at the sand not realizing it is your beloved small town roots you want to push away...for a moment.

[Chris Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

a less depressing read from DAR, more fable-like.

[Dboyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

a good story to illuminate the history of the area. I"m from that area and enjoyed the descriptions of the people and their relationships

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of his best.

[Debbie Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never expected a novel set within the logging industry to grip my attention so strongly! Once I carved some quiet time to read it, I couldn't put it down.

A powerful, heart-wrenching historical saga by an award-winning and gifted Canadian storyteller.

Well-written and researched! Infused with literary layers and well-rounded memorable characters.

One of my favourite lines from the book: "For those who believed that acquisition of things made you understand the world would always mistake these men as less than themselves until the time they had to rely upon them, either in kindness or in battle." (p. 81)

Three cheers for the 'under-dogs' who never give up!

Five stars ***** plus! Highly recommended!

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book challenging to read it first because of the style and wasn’t even sure I liked it. There were many characters that were hard to follow and every so often another name would pop up, seemingly out of nowhere. However over time I became very interested in the story. Given the time that it takes place, mostly after the second world war, and before social media, it is a study in how gossip can absolutely ruin lives. Gossip in a small town being the predecessor to social media.

It is a book that made an impact on me and one that I don’t think I’ll soon forget. I’ll be looking for other titles by this author.

[Darren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Life as a lumberman can drive you insane; as is shown in the following abstract of a conversation held in a New Brunswick forest during the dead of winter some seventy years ago.

Crazy Mike: "To lift one's tip to the Gods, tis' no greater honour amongst us woodsmen! Who amongst me has the courage to life their tip as well?"
Old Mr. Zarlinski: "Lift one's tip? In all my years on this cursed land I've heard a great many things. But nothing as absurd as the lifting of one's tip to the Gods. I'm going to bed, sir. I suggest you do the same."

Old Mr. Zarlinski never did make it to bed that night. Crazy Mike was indeed a lot more crazy, or perhaps just as crazy as everyone had suspected.

[Rami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite feeling like a long book, the story hooked me in after some chapters. It did feel annoyingly real at times, in how rumors can take root and change people's lives forever. The characters were also interesting enough to keep me reading.
It was a great insight into the Canadian lumber industry.

[Carley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this read despite it being tragic. The imagery was vivid, the writing was excellent, the characters were well-rounded. I also appreciated what the author had to say about gossip and rumors. I don't want to give any spoilers but I highly recommend this book.

[Gertie Bews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a great story, but way too wordy in the middle. Loved the beginning and ending.

[Sue Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just wow. Shakespearean and dark and sad and telling. What a sad lot we humans are.

[David]

All the usual Richards features, for better or for worse. Meager Fortune himself, whom we don't meet until about 80 pages in, is a rather likeable fellow. Not so much some of his friends.

[Shannon Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very beautifully written. But it drags a lot at times and becomes a chore…

[Barbara Parrish · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I ever read.

[Kris (My Novelesque Life) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 STARS

"Growing up in a prominent lumber family in the Miramichi, brothers Will and Owen Jameson know little of the world beyond their town and the great men who work the forest, including their father. But as young men, the boys couldn’t be more different — where seventeen-year-old Will is headstrong and rugged, able to hold his own in the woods or in a fight, Owen, three years his junior, is literary and sensitive. What worries their mother Mary, however, is the prophecy told to her by a local woman upon Will’s birth: “that her first-born would be a powerful man and have much respect — but his brother would be even greater, yet destroy the legacy by rashness, and the Jameson dynasty [would] not go beyond that second boy.” She tries to laugh it off, but the prophecy becomes a part of local legend and hangs over the heads of the boys like a dark cloud.

When their father dies in a freak accident and the management of the Jameson tracts and company falters, Will, as the true inheritor of his father’s “shrewd mind and fists to match,” quits school to take over. He’s a strong leader of men, but perhaps too strong at times, and dies while clearing a log jam during a run. Reggie Glidden, Will’s best friend and the Push of the Jameson team, takes Owen under his wing, searching for any small sign that the younger boy has his brother’s qualities. But Owen knows his limitations and, after his brother’s death and then rejection by the girl of his dreams, Lula Brower, he joins the army and heads off to war hoping to get himself killed. Instead, he returns a decorated war hero.

Then he falls in love with the beautiful, childlike Camellia — the wife of Reggie Glidden — and soon Owen and Camellia find themselves watched on all sides, caught in the teeth of an entire town’s gossip and hypocrisy despite the innocence of their relationship. But for the community, it’s as if taking Owen Jameson — and therefore the whole Jameson family — down a peg or two will give them control over their changing world. Inexorably, Owen and Camellia are pulled into a chain of events that will end with death, disappearance, and a sensational trial.

At the same time, realizing his destiny, Owen takes over the family business and begins what will become the greatest cut in New Brunswick history, his men setting up camp on the notoriously dangerous Good Friday Mountain. The teamsters spend months in fierce ice and snow, daily pitting themselves against nature and risking their lives for scant reward, in the last moments before the coming of mechanization that will make them obsolete. This heroic, brutal life is all Meager Fortune, the camp keeper, knows. A good and innocent man, he shows unexpected resolution in the face of the betrayals of the more worldly men around him." (From Amazon)

Another great dark novel set in the East of Canada. I enjoy the family dramas.

[BookDigger · Rating 2 out of 5]

So far, definitely an interesting novel. I like it at this point and am hooked to see the rest unfold. In the first 22 pages, three deaths occurred, definitely leaving me astounded and curious. Owen is a character I find compelling and realistic, as I did Will Jameson. There seems to be a mystery behind Mary to me that I have yet to unfold. What is to happen is quite another mystery to me as well. Great start considering so many books are predictable these days. (more to add once I've read more)

The plot line was interesting to me, but the actual writing just didn't, satisfy me I guess. It seemed dry and almost bland. I got about 150 to 160 pages in and yes, I wanted to find out how everything unraveled, but I just couldn't muster the energy to truly continue. Sorry David Adams Richards.

[Kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel, set in the forests of New Brunswick before such new-fangled technologies as buzz saws and trucks have revolutionized the logging industry, has a plot that moves right along and a moral perspective on the community under its lens; these things I liked. But the writing is over-dramatic and repetitive, and the characters are familiar stereotypes (the intellectual male misfit in a manly family; the woman so innocent she doesn't realize that her words and actions are being interpreted by the town as immodest; the saintly, picked-on character who never turns on those who persecute him, etc.). Having said that, I will also say that Richards shows some skill at illuminating the motives of the loggers and townspeople who end up behaving badly; perhaps there's some take-away there for all of us.

[Gloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started out almost too slow for me, but I persevered and am glad I did. The two brothers, Will and Owen, have grown up in a lumber family in New Brunswick and although very different, carry on the family business. There are many levels to this story - the traditional vs technological harvest of trees, the pull of the world vs the draw of family expectations, the role of rumour in the perception of events, the tangle that love makes. I especially enjoyed the vivid descriptions of horse-logging in the frigid snowy winters and the river running of the logs in the spring. Amazing deeds in treacherous conditions.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

It warms my heart that in the 21st Century someone still has the patience and talent to write like Thomas Hardy, lionizing the manual laborer and glorifying the unshakable decency of common people while gently exposing their foibles and "famines" as well.

The long logging passages were a challenge, but they created the perfect milieu for this complex, careful story to unfold.

I love the way each detail leads to a poignant place: the one-armed teamster awaiting the photographer to immortalize his champion load and impress the young schoolteacher who rejected him back when . . . and who has been dead for three years.

What a beautiful novel!