The Artificial Newfoundlander is a fast-paced ride, a vibrant story, crackling with wit and adorned with an off kilter yet entirely realistic cast of characters. This is a great, gut-busting summer read, with a rare abundance of laugh-out-loud moments, thanks to the book’s likeably cheeky, amusingly over-contemplative protagonist.

Hugh Norman is a semi-disgruntled professor of English. Suddenly, and unannounced, his daughter barges in on him one day, her children in tow, fleeing her home in Vancouver, telling him she’s leaving her husband. It quickly becomes apparent that there’s more to her sudden, unexpected arrival than a dissolving marriage, and this subplot provides an engaging, humourous mystery angle to this novel, as Hugh tries to piece together why she’s just run across the country to his doorstep. There are calls to his house from “the incredibly rude woman.” He eaves drops when she calls and has “been able to rule out the following: a collections agency, an aggrieved wife, drug dealers, political parties, and angry landlady, a cult.”

Not long after his daughter arrives, his son-in-law — who happens to be a former student and drinking buddy of Hugh’s –  shows up just as confused as Hugh. This man, Foley, a well-meaning womanizer and somehow endearing halfwit, is one of the best likeable-fool characters you’ll come across. I found myself waiting for Foley moments as I read the book. Mathews is a masterful crafter of characters, each one of his many characters are alive and real and convincing and flawed and human. Foley showing up puts Hugh in an awkward place: though he’s never agreed with his daughter’s choice of a husband, he quite likes Foley. In fact, there was a mild jealousy when Emily took a romantic interest in Foley, and a suspicion her interest in Foley was out of spite (long story).

This engaging family dynamic and comic-mystery plotline is only one of many plotlines woven seamlessly together in this great novel. This is what makes the book shine. There’s an obvious benefit to a writer having a book with 4 or 5 plotlines: the reader doesn’t tire from a “slow” or linear plot. But not every writer can weave plotlines like Mathews has here. Jagged and jarring shifts can knock a reader out of the story, but that’s never the case with Mathews: his transitions are not only seamless, his storylines all play off each other. The other plotines include Hugh’s dealing with the at-times indignant, almost schoolyardish politics of the race for the head of the department (the players involved here provide yet another round of entertaining character squabbles). Hugh is a prof who doesn’t quite condone or fit in with academic hoopla, and is himself intrigued by and writing about an obscure novelist and embittered priest named Cleary, “ I am in a fanclub with one member.” Hugh’s research on and portrayal of Cleary, an enigmatic man presumed dead under suspicious circumstances (though his body was never found) – is yet another engrossing subplot, as is his rekindling of a relationship with Maureen Finnerty, another storyline that fleshes out the novel and Hugh’s character, and gives the book one of the funniest, most original gender-role dilemmas I’ve read. I won’t spoil it here.

While it is called the Artificial Newfoundlander, it succeeds — perhaps better than any other Newfoundland-set novel — in capturing contemporary St. John’s in terms of its vibrant, diverse arts scene, and that scene’s range of players: from eccentric social butterflies to its enigmatic reclusive artists. Who better to portray modern-day St. John’s than a transplant “come from away” teacher of creative writing like Hugh Norman (or Larry Mathews) with a fresh set of eyes? Whether it is the promising young filmmaker, Raissa McClouskey, who is too quick to flash her engagement ring and announce she is taken to all the men she assumes want her, or the Salingeresque writer-priest Cleary, Mathews serves up a cast as vibrant as modern day St. John’s.

I haven’t been this gut-busted by a novel since Ed Riche’s Rare Birds back in 2001. I enjoyed Hugh’s candid honesty and cerebral musings: it helps that the writing is witty and distinctive, and a pleasure to read. It’s the kind of book you lay down, and halfway through another task, find yourself wanting to pick back up, just to hear that Hugh guy again. That kind of narrative hook is invaluable, as are this novel’s pace and narrative construction. Mathews’ clever witty diction deserves applause, and so does his smooth, edgeless transition from one storyline to another. Each one is grounds for a novel in itself, but instead, each subplot is pared down, sharpened to a point and stitched into the other, and as a result, there is far less filler in this novel than most, and thus far more punch. Mathews’ constant wit, his unforgettable characters and his multi-layered plot prevent the story from growing stale and linear, as even the best of novels often do. It’ s a fun book and a quick read from a “searing and silver-tongued wit.” (That quote is from Mark Anthony Jarman’s backcover endorsement.)