The Second Trilogy

Abstract

Richards’ Second Trilogy, which he later refers to as his “Miramichi Trilogy,” consists of Nights Below Station Street (1988), Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace (1990), and For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down (1993). Their main action takes place in the early 1970s, 1979, and 1989 respectively. Considered together, these novels demonstrate important developments in both technique and ideas. Both the individual novels and the trilogy as a whole are more carefully planned than was the case with Richards’ first trilogy, and his move away from subjective narration, heavily dependent on reactions in the minds of selected characters, clarifies underlying fictional world principles in ways his earlier novels sometimes failed to do. Nights and the novels that follow demonstrate that Richards no longer felt the need to be inside characters’ minds to look inside. In consequence, characters’ motivations and the broader implications of scenes and events are more readily comprehensible, and both the novels themselves and Richards’ subsequent comments about them show a strong commitment to making the underlying ideas so clear that even those reviewers most inclined to ideological wishful thinking would be challenged to misinterpret them. Also, in paying close attention to the social context over close to 20 years in fictional time, the trilogy as a whole illustrates the extent of rapid change characters have to deal with in their local fictional world. Characters that embrace change are contrasted with those who fail or refuse to. Juxtaposition and irony are managed carefully.