Novels with big themes can make dull reads. In Drive-By Saviours ,
first-time novelist Chris Benjamin examines the chains of culture and
politics and the barriers between established and new Canadians. There’s
an unusual plot and a character whose vitality and energy illuminate
the novel, which took first place in the 2008 Atlantic Writing
Competition.
From the first pages, we’re deeply involved with Bumi, a
gifted child born on an Indonesian island to a fisherman father who
mistrusts his son’s intelligence.
Yusupu thinks his son is “The
first five-year-old potentially smarter than the sea.” Bumi adores his
dad and invents a fishing method that will allow his father to spend
less time fishing and more time at play.
But Yusupu copes badly
with unaccustomed leisure. He becomes a drunk, alternately warm and
violent toward his son. For Bumi, being with his dad is “like hanging
out with a wasp’s nest.” But Bumi still suffers when he and other island
children are plucked from their homes and sent off to a residential
school.
Bumi “needs books for joy,” but school is so stressful his
intellectual hunger dims and the ticks and rituals of his
obsessive-compulsive disorder escalate. Too much of an individual to
blend into the conformist society under General Suharto, he is
eventually accused of murder and forced to flee Indonesia, winding up in
Toronto, where he meets Mark, a well-meaning social worker trying to
help refugees.
Like Bumi, Mark is damaged by his childhood. The
cold impersonality of Toronto also troubles him and he connects to
others primarily through his habit of drawing the faces of strangers
glimpsed on the subway.
The bones of the story make Drive-By Saviours
sound like a pretty gloomy read. It is anything but. Benjamin’s
depictions of life in Indonesia and Toronto are affectionate, the voices
of his characters occasionally joyful and often witty. His characters
are humanly flawed, authentic.
Benjamin, who is also a journalist
with an interest in social justice, has said that Bumi is based on the
extraordinary refugees he met while working as diversity co-ordinator
for the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. The newcomers’
strength and their ability to start anew in Canada fascinated him.
The title Drive-By Saviours
refers to the power brokers of the world who finance and enact aid
programs without understanding the people they’re trying to help. This
system is illustrated by the high-handed way Bumi and other island
children are sent off to residential school. They are not allowed to
visit their families. They are taught to read and write, then sent home
without employment, only to find that many family fishing businesses
have collapsed without their help.
The system is explained to Bumi
by Syam, a communist-sympathizing teacher. “The reason you’re at this
new school is that someone across the ocean got the idea that everybody
in the world should be literate and Suharto saw the chance to get some
easy money from the World Bank,” Syam says. “They want to make you
civilized Bumi. The only surprise is that the government actually
followed through with a school, but I’m sure Suharto got his share
somehow.”
Eventually, Bumi and Mark become friends; it’s a lifeline the reader is glad to see thrown to two lonely and likeable men.
Journalist
and author Carol Moreira spent almost a decade in Asia, including
stints in Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei and Shanghai. She now lives in Nova
Scotia.
