Canada

Canada (2012), a novel by American author Richard Ford, concerns teenager Dell Parsons whose parents are apprehended after robbing a bank. The book received positive reviews and was awarded the American Library Association's 2013 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

When the book begins, Dell, more than sixty-years-old, is on the cusp of retirement from his job as an English teacher. He narrates the story in flashback, telling the story of when he was fifteen years old in 1960. The story takes place over just a few months and covers the bank robbery perpetrated by his parents along with a number of murders.

Dell's parents, Bev and Neeva, get along just fine, Dell says, but he believes they never should have married. They only married, Dell believes, because Neeva became pregnant with Dell and his twin sister, Berner. Bev is a veteran from the U.S. Navy where he served as a bomber, while Neeva is an academic and failed intellectual of sorts. His parents struggle to make ends meet, as Bev's military salary isn't enough to support the family. To make some extra money, Bev enters into a scheme with the local Native Americans to rob ranchers of their cattle, slaughter the cattle themselves, and sell the meat. The scheme goes off the rails quickly, however, and Bev finds he owes the Native Americans $10,000. To pay his debts and give his family some semblance of stability, Bev decides to rob a bank in South Dakota. He brings Neeva along for the ride. The robbery does not go as planned, however. The bank tellers and customers clearly are not afraid of Bev despite the fact he has a gun. All told, Bev only makes off with around $2,500.



Bev and Neeva return to their home in Great Falls, Montana, believing they got away with the crime. However, days pass and the police arrive at their home and arrest the two of them. Instead of being taken in by social services, Dell and Berner are left to their own devices. Berner moves to San Francisco with her boyfriend. Meanwhile, Dell moves to Saskatchewan where the brother of a family friend, Arthur Remlinger, gives him work helping tourist hunters shoot geese. Dell stays in a shack on Arthur's property. Later, Dell's living arrangements improve when Arthur moves him into a hotel he owns called the Leonard. Arthur strikes Dell as a strange individual, though Dell possesses a strange admiration for him. Arthur is predictable and consistent in a way his parents never were, Dell believes.

After Dell discovers a gun owned by Arthur, their mutual friend Charley Quarters tells Dell that Arthur used to attend Harvard but ran out of money and couldn't pay his tuition. He might have received a scholarship or other help from professors, but Arthur was widely denigrated on campus for his extreme reactionary views. Most of his ire was directed at unions, and not long after leaving college, Arthur was implicated in a plot to bomb a union office in Detroit. A union official died in the bombing. Arthur fled to Canada where the sympathetic German who owned the Leonard took him in. When the German died, Arthur inherited the hotel.

Arthur is still on the run, however, and now two investigators from Detroit, Jepps and Crosley, are in town with vague plans to hold Arthur accountable for his crime. In truth, Jepps and Crosley aren't formidable opponents. Nevertheless, Arthur murders them. Dell feels responsible because he drove Arthur to the cabin where he shot the two men. Dell and Charley also help dispose of the bodies. All of this is highly disturbing for Dell.



Shortly thereafter, Dell moves to Winnipeg where he's adopted by Roland, the adult son of Arthur's girlfriend, Florence. Dell proceeds to have a relatively normal young adulthood, but he continues to feel immense guilt over his part in the murders of Jepps and Crosley. Time goes on, Dell becomes an English teacher, and later learns that his mother committed suicide in prison. He also learns that Berner has cancer. He visits her then comes home to his wife, the only person he ever tells about his involvement in the killings. Life goes on for Dell, but much in the same way that Arthur's past eventually catches up to him, Dell believes deep down that someday he will be held unaccountable for his own crimes.

According to The New Yorker, Canada is a novel about the acceptance, resilience, and awareness necessary to live with oneself after committing a crime.