Writer Joan Barfoot has attempted something very difficult in her novel, Critical Injuries. She has tried to place herself inside the mind and body of a person, who is critically injured, and who has difficulty understanding what has happened. At the same time she gives voice to the perpetrator of that critical injury, and the confusion in that  individual's mind stemming from not only his unplanned act of violence, but from his family surroundings.

This is only the second time that I have read one of Barfoot's works. The first book was Abra, which also happened to be her first novel. I disliked the book immensely, finding its leading character completely dislikable, and the story badly researched. So, with this in mind, I approached Critical Injuries with trepidation. I should not have. In this book, Barfoot has created a very plausible work that goes beyond and behind the scenes of the lives of the two main characters in this book, the critically injured Isla, age 49, and the 17-year-old Roddy, who commits an act he cannot really comprehend.

Bridging the gulf between these two is Isla's daughter, an unlikely person to attempt such an endeavor. Yet, she finds a way to help heal and to bring about a kind of reconciliation to the shattered lives of both main characters, and so, to her own life. One leaves the point of complete reconciliation open because Barfoot chose not to give the book the kind of happy ending that one may have wanted.

Critical Injuries is a truly fine work, even if Isla, like Abra, is a self-involved character and not really that likeable. In this book, however, this factor does not disturb enough to distract from the extraordinary achievement in putting to paper what it must be like to be a prisoner in one's body, unable to communicate, able to comprehend yet not understand the circumstances in which Isla finds herself when she wakes up in hospital.

This book is, however, not just about Isla and Roddy. It is about their families, their past lives and about how they adjust to circumstances of their own making and that of others. Barfoot has succeed in what she started out to do. I will now seek out some of her other works, which until now I have avoided because of Abra.

[Critical Injuries by Joan Barfoot, Key Porter Books, 336 pages, softcover, $22.95]

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