EMPIRE UNDER GLASS

A somewhat clichÇd approach to storytelling—a retirement home resident relates her life story—offers mixed results, thanks in part to a huge gap left in the narrative. Octogenarian Viola Bagg finds herself underwater when the Cessna she's in dives into a pond, trapping her in an air bubble created by the windshield. As water slowly seeps in and her oxygen diminishes, Viola relives the events of her life. Though born on Wallawalhalla, a tropical island in the East Indian Ocean, the infant Viola was carted back home to Ontario, Canada, after her mother's mysterious death. There, she endures a dull childhood under the care of her reserved father until, years later, she returns to Wallawalhalla as a young woman to offer secretarial support to an archaeological dig. But what with the island's eccentric colonial inhabitants (including the elderly Miss Bartram, who believes Viola's mother was kidnapped and made empress of the white ants) and the kind of scandalous behavior that wouldn't wash in Canada, more is eventually buried than dug up. Viola and best friend Jenny are living with Jenny's Uncle Roddy, the dig's photographer, and his vacant wife Emma, who suffers from mysterious bruises and black eyes. After an unfortunate turn of events, Uncle Roddy is thrown from a cliff. Ever after, Viola leads a cautious life, hoping to avoid the kind of murderous excitement she experienced that Wallawalhalla summer. She marries Harry Bagg, an archaeologist. They travel the globe, have a daughter, and divorce. The next 50-odd years are skipped (to the detriment of the narrative), and we pick up with a now-aged Viola at long last striking out independently, throwing caution to the wind with an aviator boyfriend and a whole new identity, which may or may not survive the crash. Despite its breach in continuity, Anderson's first fiction nevertheless offers a likable assemblage of characters—and we do end up caring about Viola's fate.