The Little Shadows

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Reviewed By Toni Whitmont, Booktopia Buzz Editor
The Little Shadows follows three sisters into the backstage world of Polite Vaudeville before and during the First World War. Overseen by their fond but barely coping Mama, the sisters (Aurora, Clover and joyous, headstrong Bella) set out to make their living as a singing act after the untimely death of their father. With little in their favour save youth and hope, the sisters navigate their way to adulthood among a cast of extraordinary charmers, charlatans, ruffians and impresarios-and once in a rare while, a true star with transcendent gifts. From the brightly lit stage into the little shadows that lurk behind the curtain, the art of vaudeville-in all its variety, madness, melodrama, hilarity and sorrow-echoes the art of life itself.

In this highly anticipated follow-up to her award winning first novel, Good to a Fault, Marina Endicott tackles the fascinating world of vaudeville in it's hey day of the early 20th century. The Little Shadows is itself something of a variety act, at turns tragic and comedic, melodramatic and risqué. It is a theatrical performance of a book, written in four acts and separated by an overture, intermission and encore. And from the moment the curtains rose on this tale of the three Avery sisters and their widowed mother, I was hooked.

In The Press

“Different as The Little Shadows is from its predecessor, it has Endicott’s wry sensibility, her pithy lyricism and her skill at pulling the rug out from under the reader’s feet. Like the previous novel, this one also concerns itself with big ideas: the point of art, sisterly and familial love and, as the war’s shadow extends and darkens, the meaning of life itself. Endicott is at her most magical when she describes their singing and dancing acts. Her love for this material, her confident musicality and her understanding of the sometimes subtle relation between emotion and art is nothing short of wondrous… This novel is redolent of the small-to-large western cities of a century ago. But its beautiful conclusion happens on a farm near Qu’Appelle, Sask., where the sisters reunite as the war looms large. Bella’s husband is enlisting, the once astoundingly agile Victor has been wounded and Aurora is (with one important exception) alone, where she is always happiest: ‘Not pretending, not folding herself small to fit in someone else’s grasp.’ In this rural peace (reminiscent of another pastoral final scene, in E.M. Forster’s Howards End), they talk about art and war and the pointlessness of it all. Victor disagrees that art is pointless: ‘Perfecting it. Making it—realer, or less real… We are only pointing at the moon, but it is the moon.’ Aurora, Clover and Bella—each now accomplished in her true metier—embark on tour once more. That’s the Finale, or so you’d think. But, in the best vaudeville tradition, there’s one last surprise in the Encore.” – Katherine Ashenburg, GLOBE & MAIL, 2011

“The Little Shadows is a theatrical event as much as a literary one…. In her efforts to reform modern readers into a turn-of-the-century audience, Endicott proves experimental. She rolls out whole evenings of vaudevillian entertainment, performers performing in real time. She forces us to relinquish our need for cinematic wizardry and literary tricks, to rely on our own unmediated sense of delight…. The Little Shadows is a novel about art and women, and personal fulfillment and the thrill of performing. But it is also a story about the rôle of the audience; Endicott celebrates the art of watching. Set against a backdrop of ice and snow and war, the book belongs to a Canadian tradition preoccupied with survival. At the same time, Endicott insists, art has always had its place. She has written an entertaining, moving and original work.” – Donna Bailey Nurse, NATIONAL POST, 2011

The Little Shadows should come with a warning label: You will stay up too late at night reading this book. And in the morning, your first thoughts will be about its characters. Are they all right? How will they manage? …The first two-thirds of The Little Shadows is a rollicking romp. We meet – and grow to love – at least a dozen outrageously eccentric vaudeville performers. We’re dazzled by their feats; we laugh out loud at their witty routines and even at their corny jokes (Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana)…Yet despite giving us chapters that grow inevitably darker, Endicott finds a way to maintain the gentle spirit of her story’s telling. In this way, The Little Shadows is nothing less than legerdemain. – Monique Polak, MONTREAL GAZETTE

“How fitting that a novel that features vivid descriptions of stunning displays of skill should be such a stunning display of skill itself… Like these three singing sisters, this book is clearly bound for greatness. With a background in live theatre, Endicott has a deep understanding of the unique and intimate relationship between performer and audience… Extensively researched, though never ostentatiously so, The Little Shadows conjures a richly detailed world. As with Guy Vanderhaeghe’s The Englishman’s Boy, we’re given the chance to experience our home turf in a different time. Endicott opens with a quote by Crowfoot that begins “What is life?” and that simple question really is the exploration at the heart of her novel. As the aging and broken performers lurch towards their final curtain, or the boys we’ve come to love return broken (or not at all) from the theatre of war, Endicott celebrates the tenacity of life. As entertaining as it is profoundly moving, The Little Shadows will leave you crying for an encore.” – WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

“Besides her obvious research into vaudeville and its colourful people, Endicott mines her own life on either side of the curtain to show us how these young women come into themselves as performers, even as they grow as women, with particular tastes, trials and triumphs… To go from glum from not eating, from covering a bruise or from hiding a pregnancy to a “sudden froth of mirth” is what these young women must do, every night and matinee. The astonishing amount of work that makes it all look easy, as well as their increasingly outlandish adventures, is what makes Endicott’s new novel a gradually unfolding marvel to behold.” – SASKATOON STAR-PHOENIX

“Within an hour… I was the happy captive of three gorgeous teenage women, Aurora, Bella and Clover, and their indefatigable Mama, along with a vividly irrepressible cast of actors, singers, impresarios and cads — all alive and rampaging through a story that, as Canadian novels tend to go, is long (nearly 550 pages) but wasn’t long enough for me. I don’t want to diminish the accomplishment of this book by using tired adjectives of description (brilliant, compelling, rich, dramatic, sexy) or understate the power of the characters (funny, strong, tragic, brave and, yes, sexy) — so I’ll simplify: the best book I’ve read in a long, long time; it deserves to be a contender for every major literary prize this fall.” Linden MacIntyre, Recommended Reading, cbc.ca