Defying Gravity
"Defying Gravity", by Jennifer Wynne Webber; Coteau Books
by DENE MOORE
Canadian Press, July 15, 2000
Smart, successful and engaged to her musician boyfriend, from the outside Miranda Tyler has it all.
But this high-powered television producer's fairytale life quickly unravels during the first day of her vacation in Alberta's Rocky Mountains.
Abandoned by her boyfriend atop a mountain peak, Miranda finds herself in the company of a young man about to enter a Catholic seminary and the unlikely pair set out for the West Coast.
This chance meeting with Indrin turns Miranda's vacation into a spiritual journey that forces her to look inside herself, beyond the image she's built over the years.
Jennifer Wynne Webber's story, told in the first person has the familiar ring of a conversation she is having with herself - the whispers we all have in our heads.
The story unfolds slowly, Miranda's history coming out piece by piece, the way a friendship develops.
Readers get to know Miranda the way they would get to know a co-worker or someone they may take the bus with every day - oh didn't I tell you my parents died in a car accident? Did I mention I didn't get along with my father?
Miranda is a confidante who tells the readers about all the neurotic crisis she plays out in her mind.
Indeed, by the end she is a frustrating, but familiar friend we are rooting for.
The events in Wynne Webber's story at first do not seem realistic, but her story-telling style has the charm to overcome this and make the reader believe.