Nowick Gray’s Advance Review of Much Ado About Corona
The topic of COVID is both overripe and overdue, since the full story cannot be easily told. While the captured mainstream media has blared nonstop propaganda for universal injections, the alternative media continues at a disadvantage in gaining access to mass minds. Perhaps John C. A. Manley’s fictional facsimile, Much Ado About Corona, can bring the whole picture into focus, which after all is the purpose of fiction: to crystallize the truth of a human predicament, casting wise light and uncovering deep truths.
The pace of the story is livened by wry repartee and persistent forces at work—of personal awakening to knowledge and power, true caring and love. Yet there is, along the way, time and place for relaxed exploration of family dynamics, politics and theology, even role-playing games.
The central relationships of Vince, the protagonist, with his Ojibwe grandfather, drives this character’s navigation through the hall of mirrors of COVID policy. At the same time it links the oppressions of Canada’s past, including the genocidal residential schools. This wry Elder offers a powerful portrait and voice to speak for a more sustainable and humane future.
The novel is rich in its realistic portrayal of small-town (Moosehead) Ontario, featuring a cast inclusive of all ages, races, and walks of life. We engage with those who stand for our own aspirations for freedom, justice, understanding, affection; and we witness those who oppose, in thrall to other motivations: fear, safety, conformity.
The characters in this novel are not mere caricatures, but living beings in all their inherent contradictions, played out before us. If we’re lucky or stubborn, we will have experienced just such interactions in our daily drama; if we’ve been keeping full social distance, we will hunger to know what it is like to air our fears and rages, resentments and derailed desires, and to hear the testimonies of our fellow prisoners, unmasked, unredacted.
John Manley’s holographic recreation of the emblematic story of our time engages our attention with full authenticity and redeeming humour. This rendition at once shrinks the world to a recognizable size, and expands our own experience to the shared trauma, the better to acknowledge it and bear witness to a healing transformation. The result is both artful and true to our experience—one that never will be forgotten.
Nowick Gray writes a weekly column for the online New Agora and contributes to GlobalResearch.ca and other publications. His most recent books include Talking Sprit: Essays and Inspirations. Visit his website at NowickGray.com.
