Book: The Rasmussen Papers

By Connie Gault
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Brandon Fick

Connie Gault’s The Rasmussen Papers is a precise work of psychological realism about one woman’s obsessive quest to gain access to the papers of a deceased poet, Marianne Rasmussen, in order to write her biography. Readers enter the mind of an unnamed narrator who bluffs her way into lodging with Rasmussen’s former lover, the almost-centenarian Aubrey Ash, and his eighty-year-old brother, Harry, who live in an aging townhouse in Toronto’s Cabbagetown. Gault’s novel toys with the premise of Henry James’ 1888 novella, The Aspern Papers, but no knowledge of that book is required to enjoy this deft look at a lonely soul.

One of the book’s major strengths is the narrator’s observations of those around her, whether it’s Aubrey’s “shiny, scaly, scabby scalp, his dandruff sprinkled Ray-Bans, the blue vein like a snake at his temple,” or in a key turning point, a female addict with the “look of having been eroded from the inside.” But there is a limit to these observations. What does the narrator really see? There’s more to the situation with Aubrey and Harry, Marianne’s poetry, the marginalized people she encounters, and even herself, than she realizes. Gault builds considerable intrigue out of a situation that could be boring in the hands of a lesser writer. While gesturing towards nineteenth-century plotting and romance, the “mystery” is modern: how to look, see, and know. Ultimately, the question is not whether the narrator will get her hands on the Rasmussen papers, but if she’ll “always be the one watching from a streetcar passing by.”

The narrator’s need to know “everything it was humanly possible to know about” Marianne and Aubrey’s affair, to write a “very literary biography,” even to posses a nude photo of Marianne so readers of her book will know “not just how someone like Marianne Rasmussen thought and worked, not just how she lived, but how she was unclothed,” resonates in today’s social media world where privacy is often disregarded in favour of making waves. Gault makes us consider the costs of making art, and pokes fun at the critical industry that can arise around creative work. There is wry humour and a strange sense of domesticity evoked by the interactions between the narrator, Aubrey, and Harry - three older misfits with relatable desires and flaws.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much this book engaged me. It’s unpretentious, short yet substantial, anchored by a compelling first-person voice. Towards the end, the unnamed narrator reflects on Aubrey Ash’s stories: “They were full of his idiosyncratic charm, his zest, his greediness for life. They’d made me think how personal all writing is, how hard it is to get it right, and how little time a person has.” The Rasmussen Papers shows us that there is more to life than writing, but sometimes, writing is the way through.

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