The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud

• Born: 1980
• Birthplace: Meadowville, Nova Scotia

First published: 2009

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Psychological

Time of plot: 1946–2007

Locale: Fargo, North Dakota; Ontario, Canada; Vietnam; Maine; New York City

Principal Characters

Napoleon Edward Haskell, a troubled Vietnam War veteran

The Narrator, his unnamed daughter

Henry Carey, his friend, a disabled Canadian

Owen Carey, his friend and Henry Carey’s son

The Story

The Sentimentalists is a work of fiction based in part on author Johanna Skibsrud’s recollection of her late father’s life and a historical incident in the Vietnam War in October 1967. The plot follows a postmodern pattern, weaving in and out of time, with many introspective interludes of the narrator, and leaving some questions about the story open-ended.

The plot begins as Napoleon Edward Haskell’s trailer home is being removed from its lot in Fargo, North Dakota. Napoleon, the narrator’s father, moves to live with his friend Henry Carey in the fictional town of Casablanca, Ontario, Canada. Napoleon bought the trailer in the first year of his sobriety. Because of his alcoholism, for a period of four years, he lost touch with his two daughters (Helen and the unnamed narrator) and their mother, his former wife. Now, Helen has a daughter, Sophia.

Napoleon’s daughters, especially the straightforward Helen, persuade their father to move to Casablanca so that Henry’s nurse, Susan, can take care of both him and Henry. Henry has been living in a government-built house in Casablanca since 1959. That year, his original home, along with much of the town, was submerged in a human-made lake as part of the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway project.

The narrator reflects on her own birth in the (real) town of Mexico, Maine, in the spring of 1981. Her mother drives herself and Helen to the hospital as her father builds a wooden sailboat for the family, staying nights in the boat shed. When Napoleon abandons his boat project in December of that year, the couple’s love withers away. When the narrator is twelve, her father disappears for four years. She, Helen, and her mother move to her maternal grandmother’s home in Orono, Maine.

Before this, in the summer of 1987, Napoleon discovers the wheelchair-bound Henry in Casablanca. Henry’s son, Owen, was Napoleon’s wartime friend in Vietnam; Owen died in the war.

The narrator does not hear from her father again until she is seventeen—in the first year of his sobriety. Seven years later, in the present tense of the novel, they are on a road trip to Casablanca. He tells her both that he settled in Fargo because he was pulled over there for a DUI and that he has an estranged brother, Clark. Meanwhile, Helen has just separated from her husband and decides to move back with her mother.

In the fall after his arrival in Casablanca, Napoleon has seemingly settled in well with Henry. However, in the winter, he is disparately both despondent and optimistic whenever he calls the narrator.

In spring 2006, when the narrator should be twenty-five according to the established time line, she is suddenly thirty, and proceeds from this age. The narrator has an out-of-body experience in New York City after she discovers her boyfriend in their bed with another woman. The narrator moves to Casablanca to be with her father and Henry.

While the narrator is visiting, Napoleon breaks his right shoulder blade, and the narrator drives him to the veterans hospital in New York. X-rays taken at the hospital reveal that Napoleon has terminal lung cancer. Upon receiving this news, he has his first beer in thirteen years, a plot point that contradicts the earlier reckoning of eight years of sobriety. As he resigns himself to dying, he retrieves his old boat stored with the narrator’s mother. Later he gives it to Gerry, his friend from Fargo.

After the narrator and Napoleon return, Henry tells his story: His father was a miner who returned to his home in Casablanca when he became ill. Henry married his high school sweetheart, Jacqui, in the summer of 1946. In December, their son Owen was born. When Jacqui died when Owen was four, Henry drove his father’s car into a brick wall, fracturing his spine, and confining him to a wheelchair.

Finally, Napoleon tells his daughter of his traumatic Vietnam War experience. He joined the Marines, badgered to do so by his older brother, Clark. In Vietnam, he meets Owen, a splendid officer. Napoleon and Owen smoke marijuana and drink heavily. He admits that the fate of South Vietnam meant nothing to him while he was there. While telling the story, Napoleon quotes a line of poetry by Keith Douglas to the narrator. She states this proves they are both are sentimentalists.

Napoleon’s returns to his Vietnam story. In the Quang Tri province, according to Napoleon, Owen is shot by his own lieutenant. On patrol, the lieutenant has just killed a female Vietnamese civilian. Napoleon’s story implies Owen wanted to shoot the lieutenant for his crime, but he was shot first. A few days later, Napoleon relays the incident to a chaplain. The priest instigates a military investigation, during which Napoleon testifies. Later, he is wounded and sent home.

Soon after the narrator hears the story of her father’s time in Vietnam, the narrator leaves to be with her mother. Napoleon calls the narrator to read her his poem, which she finds to be full of love. A historian calls Napoleon to interview him in early November. However, Napoleon is sliding into dementia. He dies in early winter.

In January, the historian gives the narrator the transcripts of her father’s testimony at the trial about the incident in Quang Tri. Skibsrud’s afterword states this excerpt is based on historical testimony, but it, and its accompanying facts, differs substantially from the historical record.

In the story the military states that Owen was wounded by a land mine and died in a field hospital. The narrator wonders whether her father’s or the official story is true. She feels that maybe her father made up his story to cover for a third version, in which Owen was shot by a sergeant the night before the incident. The narrator admits she will never know the truth. She gains hope from the fact that her father’s boat is on its way to his friend in Fargo.

Bibliography

"Grappling with the Giller Effect." Quill and Quire 77.1 (2011): 9–10. Canadian Literary Centre. Web. 11 June 2014.

Kulik, Gary. "What Really Happened in Quang Tri?" War Stories. Dulles: Potomac, 2009. 203–44. Print.

Lermitte, Jan. "Truth Embedded in Fiction." Canadian Literature 209 (2011): 179–80. Print.

Sawhney, H. "The Sentimentalists." New York Times Book Review 3 July 2011: 18. Print.