Canada

Who?

That was my eternal problem in dealing with this book: Who is this person? Or, more specifically, Who is this Crosbie?

This isn't a biography of a person. It's a history of a family, but in style, it almost approaches a biography of the Crosbies of Newfoundland treated as a corporate entity. The problem is, there were lots and lots and lots of Crosbies, of whom only one, Chesley "Ches" Crosbie, gets much mention in the standard histories of Newfoundland. So you have to keep track of all these people based solely on internal references. "Lessee -- is Mitchie Anne his wife, mother, daughter, grandmother?" "What's the relationship between Martha Ellen 'Ellie' and Martha Ellen-not-'Ellie'"? It was utterly befuddling.

A simple genealogy would really have helped. As in, it might have made the bewildering into something intelligible. There really were that many Crosbies (more than eighty, if I counted correctly in the index, about a dozen of whom rated at least fifteen page references).

The title, too, is perhaps a little misleading. That the Crosbies were very energetic is obvious. Is that ambition? Only Ches and a few of his descendants were actively involved in government. The rest were businesspeople or just people trying to get by. I suppose, in Newfoundland (a very poor island, especially before Confederation), getting by is a rare ambition. But it seems an odd way of describing it.

There is much that is useful here. The description of Ches Crosbie's role in the campaign for Confederation is useful, because most histories only look at the pro- and anti-Confederation sides, ignoring the pro-American faction Crosbie supported. There are other places where it provides a look at Newfoundland life that I haven't seen elsewhere. But the style is stiff enough that, when combined with al the confusion over names, I found it a difficult and unenjoyable volume. ( )

Sometimes boring. Mostly pretty good. ( )