The Troupers by Richard Scarsbrook: Review by Robin L. Harvey
This week we welcome an old friend and fellow poet to this site. Robin L. Harvey acted in my play Cheating for Buddies In Bad Times Theatre in 1978. She will be providing book and theatre reviews for Do Androids Dream?
The Troupers by Richard Scarsbrook, Cormorant Books 234 pages $24.95
Canadian author Richard Scarsbrook’s newest book The Troupers is a light-hearted, yet engrossing read, jam-packed with trivia from The Golden Age of Hollywood. The book’s cheeky tone echoes Miriam Towes’ best-seller, Fight Night.
The author picked Niagara Falls for its setting, perfect for the ensuing literary frolic about a group of quintuplets turned into life-long novelty acts living under their vainglorious, egomaniac father and director John Lionel Trouper’s thumb. The tale is told from the perspective of the only male and youngest of the Fabulous Trouper Quintuplets, Errol.
The protagonist can never live up to his father’s expectations and wants to outgrow life as part of The Troupers sideshow. His struggle? Getting his zany siblings, including his scene-stealing eldest sister Joan, daddy’s favourite named after screen idol, Joan Crawford), his father and diva grandmother, to let him leave. Scarsbrook hooks the reader in a gripping opening that depicts Errol’s three fantasies of the horrific car crash the reader is led to assume killed both his mentally unstable, alcoholic mother, Lily, and his favourite sister, Marigold.
The author paints a hilarious picture of a dysfunctional showbiz family made up of a group of aging child-star charmers, their womanizing father and domineering diva grandmother. Both daddy and grandma are hell-bent on keeping their former cash-cow, cutie-pies as breadwinners. Scarsbrook shines when he describes the zanier aspects of the quints’ history, like the live YouTube stream of their birth, and an on-stage performance that is actually, in real-life, a funeral. In keeping with its showbiz theme, the book uses “scenes” instead of chapters and parts are formatted as a movie script.
Scarsbrook is obviously a die-hard movie buff who has packed The Troupers with so many references to The Golden Age of Hollywood that, at the back, the book has a detailed, seven-page, annotated filmography so the less “tuned-in” reader can make sense of them. This may be the book’s one weakness. For those who are not old-time film aficionados may lose focus looking up the numerous film and movie characters cited in the story. Trivia buffs, however, will find the book a feast.
The story’s opening “life or death” mystery has no firm resolution. Some may find this lacking, though others may enjoy deciding the outcome of the book’s inciting trauma for themselves. No matter, The Troupers is still a roller-coaster ride well worth taking, created by a fine wordsmith who has mastered his art. The Troupers is available through Amazon, Chapters and Indigo stores and through numerous independent bookstores and smaller chains in every province across Canada.
Robin Harvey (robinharvey@live.com) worked on staff for The Toronto Star for more than 20 years. There she wrote book and theatre reviews. She was a reporter, editor and columnist as well as a News Editor, Assistant City Editor and Public Editor. As Deputy Sunday Editor she was supervisor of the books page. For a time, she ran The Sunday Star short story contest. She's been published in Sun Media, The Toronto Sunday Sun, the Southam news chain and the National Post. Ms. Harvey studied journalism at Metropolitan University, Fine Arts at York University, and is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers.
Robin Harvey