Toby A. Welch
Sask Book Reviews
The Sun Makes A Sound starts off with a bang. The main character, Mason Brigster-Contreras, is deep asleep in his tent when a menacing sound awakens him. Suspecting a polar bear, he grabs his rifle and we are thrust into a fascinating story about a man struggling to find his place in a new world while simultaneously dealing with his past.
The Sun Makes A Sound takes place in Nunavut’s Kivalliq Region, a vast tundra approximately two thousand kilometres northeast of Edmonton, Alberta. It’s a desolate and dreary place that Whitman writes about with so much clarity that the location feels like a character in the book.
While the ‘meat’ of the story takes place in Kivalliq, numerous chapters take place in Calgary, Edmonton, and Toronto. Nature herself plays a massive role as well; from wildfires to wild animals to vibrant seasons, this book is filled with outdoorsy content.
I found Whitman to be an expressive writer. What I mean by that is he has a talent of making it easy for readers to sense very clearly what he is writing about. For example, when talking about a noise, he described the sound as “pantyhose rubbing against corduroy.” I could easily hear the scratching in my head as I read the words.
Another moving passage occurred when our main character woke up after taking a tumble, unsure how long he’d been lying unconscious in the cold outdoors: “I couldn’t tell if I was losing blood, if I had crossed that threshold of too many pints spilled. I couldn’t tell if I was only a husk. Was I only this worried bundle of thoughts, attached to my body out of habit alone? But when the wind held its breath for a moment, I could hear my heart thumping in my ears. My head felt like a bag of rabid weasels. My fingers and toes were being reawakened by thousands of needle pricks. I wasn’t dead yet.” Beautiful! These are just two examples amidst hundreds.
Once you’ve read The Sun Makes A Sound, it won’t be surprising to learn that Regina-based Whitman is an environmental scientist. Used to dealing with environmental messes, Whitman’s past experiences shine through in this tale. (On Amazon, this book is categorized as a literary thriller, literary fiction, and fantasy fiction but I also see it as an environmental thriller.)
The Sun Makes A Sound is Whitman’s first novel. He previously published creative writing for fourteen years under a pseudonym; short fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. I am already looking forward to the future writings with Andy Whitman’s name on the cover.
If you are looking for a vibrant story that combines layered locales with memorable characters, The Sun Makes A Sound should be on your Must-Read list!
This book is available at your local bookstore or from www.skbooks.com.
