The Spoon Stealer

from Atlantic Books Today No. 92 Fall 2020

Teasers

Gemma Marr Reviews Lesley Crewe’s bingeworthy and charming new novel

Lesley Crewe’s latest novel, The Spoon Stealer, offers a rumination on the unpredictability of life. The novel follows Emmeline Darling, a woman born and raised in rural Nova Scotia who relocates to a small community in England.

Emmeline is confident, self-aware, funny and kind. She is a self-described “big lady with a large rump and a full bosom” who wears sensible shoes, round glasses and “more tweed than Sherlock Holmes” (at least according to her grouchy neighbour). Single, retired and living with a “charmingly bowlegged” and scrappy white dog named Vera, Emmeline’s life appears tranquil.

Early on, however, readers get the sense that Emmeline is a troublemaker. In her memoir-writing class, she gives quite a bit of sass to the ornery woman in charge and gets caught stealing a spoon from the library kitchen. This is not her only spoon theft—the habit allows her to make a handful of dear friends (and enemies).

Like the spoons, the memoir class acts as a central thread as the plot moves through time and space, following Emmeline from the early 1900s into the 1960s. Her present-day encounters are interspersed with the memories she recounts to her friends and to readers.

Her work on the Darling farm and difficult relationships with family, her time as an aid and companion and her intrepid sense of adventure rest alongside the mundanity of doctors’ appointments, trips to the chip shop and long talks with new friends.

In some ways, The Spoon Stealer is a quirky novel about the difficulty of sharing your truth. As a meta-reflection on writing, it seems clear that Crewe took pleasure in depicting the nuances of the creative process through Emmeline’s internal struggles and joys.

As Emmeline shares her memoir, she notes that it’s like reading “a fairy story.” She oscillates between a sense of disconnect with her past and the intensity of some memories that feel omnipresent. Sifting through her experiences in a public forum offers a meditation on the power and discomfort of storytelling.

There are certainly some aspects of her story that defy belief or that remain just beyond the reader’s grasp. The novel navigates multiple timeframes and follows Emmeline and her family between Nova Scotia and England, so there is a lot of ground to cover and many characters to keep track of.

Thankfully, those familiar with Crewe’s previous novels will recognize her charm and wit—descriptions of sandwiches are gut busting, stories about chauvinistic husbands and over-thetop divas generate many chuckles and the relationship between Emmeline and Vera is as humorous as it is heartwarming.

There are also beautiful snippets of wisdom. We are reminded that loss is a part of life, and that it serves no purpose to “be afraid of what people think of you.”

Emmeline’s outlook on the porous boundaries of family is similarly astute: “What happens to one member of a family sends ripples through the nervous systems of the others. You are not one individual. You are linked to each other.”

Though she is speaking here to her great-nephew, many of Emmeline’s close relationships push past connections bound in blood or family name. In these moments, we are reminded of our power to choose who we love and hold close.

Emmeline’s friend, Mrs. Tucker, describes the novel best when she declares, “I’ve been waiting all week for this episode!” She’s referring to the next chapter of Emmeline’s memoir, but the phrasing of an episode struck me as an apt description for the experience of reading The Spoon Stealer.

There is a binge-worthy quality to the novel as Emmeline gets “carried away with memories and legacies and romantic hogwash.” Her constellation of wild experiences offer a reprieve from the uncertainty of our contemporary moment.

At one point, Emmeline looks out at the clothesline on the farm and watches the towels blowing in the wind. She thinks, “It was rather like life. One minute you’re going in one direction, and the next, you’re completely turned around, looking the other way. And sometimes that was the path you should’ve been on all along.”

In the face of doubt and loss, Emmeline’s story responds with hope, humour and different forms of kindness. Readers looking for an escape will certainly find one in this charming novel. ■ GEMMA MARR grew up in rural New Brunswick, but now she lives in Ottawa. She has a BA in Atlantic Canada Studies from Saint Mary’s University, an MA in English Literature from the University of Ottawa, and is currently pursuing a PhD at Carleton University.