Cindy Dyson’s debut novel for adult readers, “And She Was,” is one of contrasting cultures and psyches, and arguably the most striking dissimilarities are those involving survival. But this is just one of many themes that are wrapped in a tale that juxtaposes a trashy blond bar waitress and the history of the aboriginal Aleuts on Unalaska Island.
Brandy is casual and unapologetic as she steps off the ferry that carried her 800 miles and three days from Anchorage. “I am blond, and that’s where most of my problems started … I had let my hair get away with too much.” In July 1986, the 31-year-old is, as has become her habit, following a man. This time it is Thad, who has come to this spot in the Aleutian chain to chase the money that can be made working the fishing boats.
It doesn’t take Dyson long to establish a direct and surprisingly engaging character. In real life, Brandy might be a little hard to take: She smokes, she drinks – a lot – and she gladly accepts any drugs that might pass her way. She is well-aware of, and unafraid to manipulate, the benefits that accrue from the molded fit of her stone-washed jeans. But in this self- awareness there is also vulnerability and depth, and these give Brandy her soul.
Upon arriving and seducing Thad in record time, Brandy finds herself unable to sleep. While walking outside the hotel she meets Bellie, an Aleut woman whose dark hair and skin stand in sharp contrast to Brandy’s pale blond. Bellie warns Brandy, over a few lines of coke, that the island is not a place anyone should come by accident, “‘And you,” she said, eyes taking in everything from my boots to my hair, “look like an accident.”‘
What these women share, despite obvious physical and psychic differences, are hard lineages of survival. Bellie is a product of a culture decimated by poverty and alcoholism. Brandy has also been betrayed by inebriants. Her father, to whom she had once been fiercely devoted, is an alcoholic in the last stages of his life. Her mother’s power lay in her looks, and her unrelenting lesson to her daughter is to “be bad enough so they call you good.”
Dyson alternates between Brandy’s narration and a third-person historical exploration of the island’s Aleuts. Reaching back almost 250 years, she shares the impact of a famine, brought on when Russian marauders destroyed the Aleuts’ boats and weapons. The men are gone, either captured or fighting and the women are left to fend as they can. With the fate of their people in their hands, three women defy cultural taboos, trading their sanity for a future. The implications of their decision reverberate for generations.
Facing the realities that Thad will be gone for weeks at a time, and that there is precious little to do on the island, Brandy takes a job waiting tables at a dive bar, The Elbow Room. She was raised to be a boy toy, and her mother’s lessons about hair spray, high heels and male company continue to shape her behavior. But her parents may have left her with some unintended wisdom. Brandy doesn’t truly connect with anyone. She knows that love is something that can crush you, and that people can’t hurt what they don’t know. She is not a woman who confuses sex with intimacy, and she flees from any man who might.
Like the women of the island, Brandy holds her fate in her hands. Unlike them, she doesn’t know it. She has a brain and time to spend exploring. She becomes curious about the island, its people and their history and sets off down a path that will lead her to discoveries some would prefer she not make.
Dyson packages thought-provoking content in a wonderfully readable form. She evokes the island’s harsh beauty and unceasing winds. It would be easy, and less effective, to allow her central characters to become brave and unfortunate stereotypes; hers are real people facing hard dilemmas.
Dyson also effectively shares the aboriginal history, neither sidestepping the horrific actions of the island’s conquerors or the behavior of the Aleuts, which at times conspires to keep them victims. The resulting novel is far more complex than it first appears, and its impact sneaks up on the reader. What starts out feeling like a light story ends up packing a walloping punch.
Freelance writer Robin Vidimos reviews books for The Denver Post and Buzz in the ‘Burbs.
“And She Was”
By Cindy Dyson
William Morrow, 287 pages, $24.95
