The Little Shadows

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night
the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime
the little shadow which runs across the grass
and loses itself in the sunset.
~Crowfoot

The Little Shadows opens in 1912 as Flora – recent widow and former vaudeville star, down to her last twenty dollars – ushers her three teenage daughters to an audition at the Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod. Having been trained in song and dance by their mother for their entire lives, the girls believe themselves ready to perform professionally, but it's not until they tread the boards and rub elbows with seasoned acts that they recognise their own amateurism. Fortunately, some leads and luck and a willingness to work for next to nothing sends the Belle Auroras off on the vaudeville circuit of western Canada and the US, where the girls hone their craft until they become headline acts themselves. Spanning the years from 1912 – 1917, we watch as the girls grow into women against a backdrop of the drums of war from Europe and the last glory days of vaudeville before the motion pictures take over. What a fascinating time for author Marina Endicott to explore with this lovely work of historical fiction.

As a regular patron of live theater, I was hooked by this book right from the start. More particularly, I once sat in the audience of the Empress Theatre and watched as actor friends of mine were married on that very stage, and when the fictional sisters later move into The Arlington in Edmonton, I could recall the artsy friends I had who also lived there (not in a coveted top floor suite, but with an original murphy bed nonetheless). As I can see that reviewers either love or hate The Little Shadows, I must acknowledge that part of my own enjoyment of the book is likely related to how much I could identify with the world portrayed within it; where some readers might think the book would benefit from fewer song lyrics and Abbot and Costello-type comedy routines written out in full, I loved how immersive they made the reading experience; like watching an evening of theater.

As for the sisters themselves, I got a real Little Women vibe from their relationship, and although the time periods of these two books don't quite overlap, they had similar writing styles (complete with parenthetical exclamations!), and as both books are about girls and their mothers trying to get by without the presence of a man, I don't think that the similarities are accidental (and appreciate the authenticity that the tone lends; I believed it could have been written in the time in which it's set.) But whereas the March sisters had their passions held in check by the Victorian morals of their age, Aurora, Clover and Bella Avery are fully human and sexual beings, constantly pulled between the backstage licentiousness of their profession and the need to appear as respectable artistes of “polite” vaudeville (they might vamp and wink to the audience, but this is never burlesque). The honesty of their emotions – and the awareness that girls on their own must do what they must to get by – is what marks The Little Shadows as a thoroughly modern book, full of self-awareness and compromise. As the three grow older and more distinct, I believed each one of them and the choices that they made.

What makes this a wonderfully Canadian book is the growing presence of WWI. Even though the male vaudeville performers are mostly Americans, when the setting switches to a farm in Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan and a flat in London, England, the effects of the war in Europe on the Canadian consciousness is vividly portrayed, complete with telegrams notifying deaths and returning soldiers suffering the effects of gassing and shell shock. That Endicott chose to set her story in the overlap of vaudeville and Canada's first great international war effort makes for a fascinating and holistic view of our own history.

All men who had been in battle knew things she would never know. She was eavesdropping. But she, waiting without word for weeks, being with Victor when the visions plagued him, knew things that men did not seem to remember.

As I started with, I've known plenty of actors and other artistes and I could never imagine myself performing onstage – not just because I have no talent for it but because I have no intuition for it. What Endicott demonstrates so well in this book is that her performers aren't just trying to entertain their audiences, they're attempting to commune with them; to create an interactive conversation of subconscious call and response. When the Belle Auroras – or even the elocutionists and comedians – reach that level of interconnectedness with their spectators, amusement is elevated to art and we're all the better for it. As one artiste explains the importance of this effort:

Perfecting it. Making it – realer, or less real ... We are only pointing at the moon, but it is the moon.

With The Little Shadows, Endicott also achieves this level of transcendence; this elevation of amusement to art. Throw in some funny patter, a truly Canadian backdrop, and a believable coming of age story, and this book checks all my boxes.