The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
2007, McClelland & Stewart. 352 pages, $21.00
Humour, Political
Winner, Canada Reads 2011
Winner, Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour
This is my first foray into literary humour in a long time, and I’m glad for the trip. The story is that an Ottawa political party apparatchik decides that he’s done with politics after a lover affair goes sour, but the party asks him to help out with one last election in a seat in eastern periphery of Ottawa, beyond the fabled eastern wilderness of Orleans in Prescott-Cumberland, now called Prescott-Russell-Cumberland. The riding is as blue as blue can be, and occupied by a beloved cabinet minister, so running a red candidate is a pro-forma commitment to the electoral process without any real chance of winning, giving our protagonist an opportunity to take a final bow from federal politics. This is how he sells the candidacy to neighbour and colleague, Angus McLintock, a curmudgeonly Scottish engineering prof at Ottawa University.
Predictably (a word that can be often used in describing the plot), the Tories self-implode, propelling the reluctant candidate to victory. His salt-of-the-earth folksy brogue and ornery, but honest nature pushes him into the national spotlight, and renews our protagonist’s faith in the democratic process.
Cumberland was a rural community outside of Ottawa in this story, but Cumberland joined the city in 2000. The fictitious election is in late November, so I’m placing this as the 37th General Election, November 27th, 2000, though it isn’t dated in the text, and we’ll ignore that the real election led to a third consecutive Liberal majority, rather than Conservative minority in the story.
While it’s not exactly a riveting storyline, it was a fun promenade down a familiar road. Daniel Addison, the POV character of the story, is a good straight-man to the well-intentioned chaos of McLintock, and these two characters and their interplay were what made the book interesting.
There were a couple of weaknesses to the book, in that the other characters were fairly flat and uninteresting, the story and finale were predictable and telegraphed, but none of that takes away from the fun of the yarn. The biggest hurdle is the first chapter, which is the weakest. If you find yourself reading it and turned off by the childish sexual puns, don’t worry, they don’t return. The rest of the book is drastically better.
The story was first published in 2007 as an audiobook/podcast, and then put to print the following year. He apparently signed a book deal mid-way through the podcast.
The book was successful enough to launch two sequels, creating the Angus and Me series. It’s a fun, lighthearted read and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for some summer vacation reading. I heartily enjoyed it.
★★★★☆
