The beginning of Michelle Godard-Richer's novel Into the Fog quickly and interestingly introduces the main character, Heidi. She lives in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, and has just signed a contract for the publication of her first novel. If it sells well, she'll be able to quit her job and write full-time.
Personally, I haven't experienced that kind of success as a novel-writer, but I can relate to this character's high hopes. And I wish her well.
But there's a complication. Heidi is pregnant. When she tells her boyfriend, he proposes marriage. They love each other so that's fine.
Except it isn't. The boyfriend, Brent, disappears before the wedding, leaving Heidi to raise their daughter on her own. Fortunately, the money she makes writing detective novels is enough for them to live on if they're careful. So that's fine then.
Except it isn't. On Heidi's way home from taking her daughter to school, she encounters ice fog on a mountain road. After almost colliding with an animal, possibly a moose, she finds herself on a dead-end road. The Rocky Mountains have vanished. She and her Jeep are in a hot brown desert. Unfamiliar brown brick buildings line either side of the road.
I can relate to this setting since I live in the semidesert city of Kamloops, British Columbia. But Kamloops is much better than "Ghost Town," the nickname for the place Heidi has unexpectedly arrived in. Ghost Town has no streets. There's no gas station. For sure there's no Electric Vehicle charging station. Heidi feels as if she's "trapped in a bad Western."
Because of the heat and maybe other factors, Ghost Town's inhabitants aren't very lively or ambitious. An exception is a young man named Dustin. He prepares meals for the other inhabitants. "Most don't pull their weight," he tells Heidi when she helps him in the kitchen. "If you want to fit in, you should slack off more."
But Heidi doesn't want to slack off. She wants to find out where and what this place is, get out, and return to her daughter. Is Ghost Town purgatory, halfway between Heaven and Earth, as one resident says? Is it an alternate world like those in some Navajo stories? Is it a "guinea-pig" community whose residents are being studied by the government or aliens?
About halfway through the novel, Heidi and some other inhabitants discover the answer. So that's fine then. She can leave and return to her daughter.
Actually, Ghost Town isn't that easy to escape from. Dustin says some groups of people have tried. They "headed north, south, east, and west. They all drove in different directions until they ran out of gas and had to hike back." When Heidi asks if these people found anything besides barren desert, he shakes his head.
How Heidi and the other residents deal with this desperate situation makes for an exciting and thought-provoking story. Godard-Richer tells it well. She's particularly good at portraying the characters' motivations and feelings. She's also good at mystery, planting just enough clues about the characters' plight to keep readers curious and engaged. And she often gives information in poetic and pithy ways. Examples:
-When describing the desert environment, the author says, "No insects buzzed in the air, and no leaves rustled on the absent trees."
-She contrasts that desert environment with forest, snow, and the "blessed Rocky Mountains."
The story's main character, Heidi, has good values. She forgives a man who bullied her, observing that forgiving is "a gift for the one doing the forgiving." She cares about all of Ghost Town's inhabitants, not only herself. She works hard toward the seemingly impossible goal of ensuring that all return to where they came from. Do they? You'll need to read the book to find out!
