The Gallery Of Lost Species
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''The Gallery of Lost Species'' is a novel by
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
Nina Berkhout Nina Berkhout (born 1975) is a Canadian poet and novelist who won the Archibald Lampman Award The Archibald Lampman Award is an annual Canadian literary award, created by Blaine Marchand, and presented by the literary magazine ''Arc'', for the ...
. It was published in 2015 by House of Anansi Press. It is the debut novel by Berkhout, who was previously a published poet. The novel is about the intense rivalry and friendship between two sisters who are raised by unsuccessful artists: the plain Edith Walker, and her older sister Vivienne, the family beauty who is also imbued with artistic talent. The novel is set in Ottawa and features many notable Ottawa landmarks and artworks including the
National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...
, Maman, Chateau Lafayette, The Dream by
Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...
, Mrs. Tiggy Winkles, and
The Jack Pine ''The Jack Pine'' is a well-known oil painting by Canadian artist Tom Thomson. A representation of the most broadly distributed pine species in Canada, it is considered an iconic image of the country's landscape,Silcox, p. 193 and is one of th ...
.


Plot

Edith Walker is the youngest child of Henry and Constance Walker. Her parents had a brief affair in New York City where Henry was a struggling painter and Constance was a model. Constance moved back to her home country of France but discovered she was pregnant, causing Henry to marry her and bring her back to
Ottawa, Ontario Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
, where they settled in the lower-income neighbourhood of Mechanicsville. Constance gives birth to their first daughter, Vivienne, and three years later gives birth to Edith. Henry is never able to make it as an artist and works as a custodian at
Place du Portage 250px, The Place du Portage complex facing the Ottawa River. 250px, The Place du Portage model on display in the main lobby 2014 Place du Portage is a large office complex in the Hull sector of Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, situated along Boulevard ...
. Constance, who had always wanted to be an actress, settles down as a home maker, but becomes a stage mother, forcing Vivienne to participate in beauty pageants as a child. When Vivienne is a teenager she finally rebels against her mother and after two disastrous pageants (including one where she throws up on stage and another where she simply refuses to appear), Constance finally lets her quit the pageant circuit. Edith, meanwhile, is much closer to her father and enjoys helping him search for scraps for his art projects. He gets Edith a job with a woman named Serena who runs a business dealing in antique coins. Her son Omar is around Edith's age and steals from his mother. When Edith is 13 and Vivienne is 16, they go on a trip to
Lake Louise, Alberta Lake Louise is a hamlet within Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. Named after Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, it lies in Alberta's Rockies on the Bow River, northeast of the lake that shares its name. Initially settled in 1884 as an ou ...
. While there Edith meets and develops a crush on Liam Livingstone, a college student who is also originally from Ottawa who is fascinated by Vivienne. Edith also sees a unicorn around the lake. After they part, Edith and Liam become pen pals. Vivienne begins dressing like a punk and dates a high school boy named Nick Angel who introduces her to drugs. Edith expresses her concern to Omar, who tells her to give Nick money so that he will overdose. Edith is reluctant to go through with the plan, but after discovering her father and Serena are having an affair, she helps Nick steal a coin and uses her share of the money to bribe Nick into leaving her sister. Nick does not break up with her sister, but as Omar predicted he buys cocaine with Edith's money and overdoses, blaming Vivienne and breaking up with her. Vivienne quits her last year of high school and begins living and working in
Chinatown, Ottawa Ottawa's Chinatown is located along Somerset Street west of downtown Ottawa. It runs from Bay Street in the east to Preston Street in the west (according to the Chinatown BIA). Signs for Chinatown continue along Somerset until Preston Street, an ...
. Liam leaves school to come help her and eventually persuades her to finish her high school degree and apply to art school. Vivienne is accepted to the
Emily Carr University of Art and Design Emily Carr University of Art + Design (abbreviated as ECU) is a public art university located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The university's campus is located within the Great Northern Way Campus in Strathcona. The university is a co-e ...
and Liam decides to move with her. Edith, who had been hoping that Liam would turn to her when Vivienne tired of him, is crushed. Nevertheless, Liam, who continues to fund Vivenne's lifestyle in Vancouver, eventually grows exhausted with her as she slides into alcoholism. He eventually leaves her, but maintains contact with Edith. When Edith is 17 Henry develops lung cancer and eventually dies from it. As he is dying, Constance reveals that she knew about his affair with Serena, but forgives him. Vivienne refuses to come home until the funeral. Edith, who has spent her entire adolescence overweight, finally loses all the weight due to not eating from grief and decides to forgo university for college. She also discovers that Vivienne's prestigious art career is a result of their father going into debt to buy her works. Edith gets a degree in Museum Studies and manages to wrangle a job at the
National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...
where her father always longed to have his works exhibited. Liam informs Edith that he's coming back to Ottawa to teach and she offers to let him stay with her until he finds a place. Instead she seduces him and the two fall into a routine although Liam remains reluctant to call her his girlfriend or introduce her to his family. Vivienne returns to Ottawa, now completely consumed with alcoholism. Despite this Edith is bitter when she sees Liam and Vivienne interacting. Shortly after, Liam announces he has taken a job away from Ottawa and leaves Edith. Constance moves to Florida with her new lover, Pierre. Vivienne continues to live around Ottawa though Edith rarely sees her. A few months after Liam leaves, Edith receives a call from Vivienne who is in North Bay. She goes to retrieve her and discovers that Vivienne had applied to a rehab centre and was rejected after they discovered that she had recently smoked marijuana to try to alleviate her alcohol cravings. She no longer paints as her alcoholism has affected her hands. Months later Edith receives a call from the hospital informing her that Vivienne is dying and has
cirrhosis Cirrhosis, also known as liver cirrhosis or hepatic cirrhosis, and end-stage liver disease, is the impaired liver function caused by the formation of scar tissue known as fibrosis due to damage caused by liver disease. Damage causes tissue repai ...
. Because she is an alcoholic she is not eligible to receive a donor liver. Edith is her best chance of survival. Despite the fact that Constance is an eligible donor she turns her back on Vivienne and encourages Edith to do the same. Instead Edith decides that she will donate her liver to Vivienne and maxes out her credit cards and takes out loans in order to pay the fee to have the surgery done in India, the cheapest country where the surgery is possible. With the due date slowly closing in Edith realizes she is still $10,000 short. She goes to Serena's old shop hoping to get a loan from her and finds that Omar has inherited the store. He tells her he will get her the money but refuses to take a conventional loan, insisting that he will exchange the money for sex with Edith or an artwork she will steal from the Gallery. Edith prostitutes herself to Omar but shortly after Vivienne disappears. In the course of searching for her Edith learns that she lied about going on a doctor-approved retreat, that she had quit her job and that she had maintained a relationship with Nick Angel and that they had been together on and off since they were teenagers. Edith tries to find Vivienne herself, going to the police and hiring a private investigator but she cannot find her. On Remembrance Day Edith once again runs into Nick Angel and meets his daughter who looks visibly like Vivienne. He informs Edith that Clair is Vivienne's daughter and she was born shortly before Henry's death, abandoned by Vivienne after a year. Edith expresses interest in getting to know her niece and though Nick is reluctant he eventually agrees. Edith never gives up hope of once again finding Vivienne and begins to work on helping to feed local drug addicts. She meets a cryptozoologist who works at the
Canadian Museum of Nature The Canadian Museum of Nature (french: Musée canadien de la nature; CMN) is a national natural history museum based in Canada's National Capital Region. The museum's exhibitions and public programs are housed in the Victoria Memorial Museum Bui ...
. A year after Vivienne's disappearance Edith returns to Lake Louise to scatter her father's ashes, hoping to see a unicorn again.


Reception

The novel received mostly positive reviews. The reviewer for ''
The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
'' called it "one of the most deeply moving stories I have read in many years". The
Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...
praised it as "masterful". The review from The National Post was more mixed calling the novel "undercooked" while still praising Berkhout for choosing "all the right subjects".


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gallery of Lost Species, The Novels set in Ottawa 2015 Canadian novels House of Anansi Press books 2015 debut novels