Book review: Etta And Otto And Russell And James

Etta And Otto And Russell And James

Etta is 82 and has never seen the sea, so, one morning, she leaves her farm in Canada’s rural Saskatchewan.

With a rifle, chocolate and the skull of a fish in her possession, she walks 2,000 miles across the country, becoming a celebrity on the way.

She leaves behind her husband Otto, who respects her wish for freedom, and their neighbour, Russell, who doesn’t.

Interspersed with Etta’s journey is the tale of how Etta and Otto met, when she became his teacher at the local school, and fell in love.

Otto then signed up to fight in a war and wrote letters to Etta from across the ocean, so he could improve his spelling. But they both came to treasure those snatched epistles, which are dotted throughout the book.

Russell, who has an injured leg and couldn’t fight, has always loved Etta and tries to find her on her travels, soon discovering he, too, can have adventures beyond their small community.

Otto waits and waits for Etta to come home and makes a menagerie of papier mache animals to while away the lonely hours.

Their story is the enchanting debut novel of Emma Hooper, a musician and lecturer at Bath Spa University, and she has a natural affinity for rhythm and lyrics — snapshots of each of the characters are presented like short prose poems and each word has fought to earn its space in the tightly woven narrative.

Etta has trouble remembering who she is and her present soon blends into Otto’s past.

She befriends a coyote whom she names James, and who walks with her for most of the way, and talks to her, reminding her who she is, but when he disappears he’s replaced by a caring female reporter.

Hooper uses these unnecessary props to enable Etta to converse on her journey — and find help — but this is a minor irritation in an otherwise richly evocative tale of love, loss and longing, which is also a Valentine to the power of letters.