Sointula

A search for the remote island village of Sointula, a "place of harmony" on the northeast coast of Vancouver Island, drives Canadian novelist Gaston's latest. Spurred by the death of her first, long-ago lover, Claude, Evelyn Poole, the unhappy wife of the mayor of Oakville, Ontario, flees her husband and their small city to look for her grown son, Tom. She crosses the continent and, fighting hunger and prescription drug withdrawal, undertakes a dangerous, improbable kayak journey to Malcolm's Island, teaming up with drifting retired high school teacher Peter Gore, who is trying unsuccessfully to become a travel writer. Weakened and starved for civilization, Evelyn and Peter begin to lose themselves in the towering wilderness, as Gaston tracks their unreliable impressions. Avoiding cliché or easy nature-worship, Gaston (The Cameraman ) is that rare writer who can peel back the deepest fears of Nature (abandonment, pain, futility) and find a vision of vehement, imperfect beauty. (Mar.)