Larry’s Party (1997, this edition 2006) is set in Winnipeg and Toronto in
Canada, and Chicago in America, over 20 years, from 1977 to 1997.
The story of Lawrence (Larry) John Weller, a floral designer at
Flowerfolks, begins in Winnipeg when he is 26 years old in 1977. He lives with
his parents and has a sister, Midge, who is two years older. He marries his pregnant
girlfriend, Dora (Dorrie) Maria Shaw at 27, and they go to England for a
two-week honeymoon. At Hampton Court gardens he falls in love with the oldest
hedge maze in England. His maze craze begins and he creates his own hedge maze
in his backyard in Winnipeg.
Larry uses three varieties of plants for his maze: a cotoneaster, which
turns red in autumn; a common caragana for the middle ring; and an alpine
currant, which leads to the heart (‘the goal’) of the maze – a fountain.
But Dorrie goes to work instead of staying home to look after their son
Ryan, which causes tensions, and she leaves Larry. At 30 he marries 29-year-old
Beth Prior, an academic on women saints. They move to Chicago where he starts
his own landscape architecture business, making mazes for wealthy folk. They
travel around England, France and Spain visiting famous mazes and labyrinths,
described briefly in the novel.
Larry loves it when he sees his son back in Winnipeg, and sometimes they
travel together during his school holidays. Larry’s second wife has been trying
to get pregnant, but work keeps her busy and she moves to England as a university
lecturer. The commute from America to England strains their relationship and
they divorce.
The maze is a metaphor for Larry’s life: ‘the teasing elegance and
circularity of the labyrinthine structure, a snail, a scribble, a doodle on the
earth’s skin with no other directed purpose but to wind its sinuous way around
itself … The path to a maze’s goal is always shortened by turning away from the
goal, and this perversely, every time he thinks of it, brings a shiver of
pleasure.’
Larry is not well; he’s stressed and depressed. He moves to Toronto where
his sister Midge lives. He is still sad and lost in a maze. His ‘great day of
awakening’ comes, and he is taken to hospital: but his ‘two ex-wives had not rushed to his bedside.’ He must
reassess his life, especially because he has been anti-social and reclusive
for three years since Beth’s divorce.
When both ex-wives are coincidentally in Toronto at the same time, Larry
decides to have a party. ‘Unless your life is going well you don’t dream of
giving a party,’ he says. So, instead of turning away from his problems, he
decides to face them head on. Larry’s party is the focus of the novel.
This is a well-crafted novel, and although it is slow to start, it could be
the author’s intention. Shields shows the humdrum of Larry’s life as it takes
twists and turns. He is overwhelmed by the passage of time, as he ages, lost
and alone on the unknown paths where passions and obsessions lead, finding
people but losing others along the way. Although the maze of life is short, and
the heart of the maze is hidden, it is reachable.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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