{moszoomthumb imgid=952 itemid=74 style_m=2}by Robertson Davies, Macmillan of Canada, 1970, 273 pages

“Those roles which, being neither those of Hero nor Heroine, Confidante nor Villain, but which are nonetheless essential to bring about the Recognition or the denouement, were called the Fifth Business in drama and opera companies organized according to the old style; the player who acted these parts was often referred to as Fifth Business.” —Thomas Overskou, Den Danske Skueplads

Every decision we make, no matter how small, continues us on our course through life. You might decide to ride your bike to work instead of driving and get hit by a car—bad luck. You might choose to go out for lunch one day and meet the love of your life—what are the odds? The choices we make and the possible outcomes are unwritten and endless, and while books are compiled of decision after decision, not many take such a specific look at one small, conscious decision in particular as “Fifth Business.”

After 40 years of teaching, Dunstable Ramsay is taking his leave from Colborne College. Having found the school newspaper’s article about his retirement bland and unsatisfactory, Ramsay takes it upon himself to compose a letter to the headmaster and let him know just who he had working at his school.

“My lifelong involvement with Mrs. Dempster began at 5:58 o’clock p.m. on 27 December 1908, at which time I was ten years and seven months old,” the story begins, recounting the moment in time when Ramsay ducked a snowball being thrown at him by his “lifelong friend and enemy” Percy Boyd Staunton. The snowball strikes, instead, Mrs. Mary Dempster, wife of the town’s Baptist minister. As it happens, Mrs. Dempster is pregnant, and the surprise of being struck in the back of the head causes her to fall down. She goes into premature labor, and delivers a sickly little baby.

And so, at only 10 years and seven months old, poor Ramsay is filled with guilt, which he keeps to himself, at his decision to move out of the way of the incoming projectile. Ramsay’s mother makes the Dempsters her pet cause and takes it upon herself to help the ill baby, Paul, and Mrs. Dempster, who has been rendered “simple” by the trauma. Ramsay does chores at the Dempster home and hangs around with Paul when he gets older, teaching him card games and coin tricks. But life never gets any easier for the Dempster family and as years pass, Mrs. Dempster’s feeble mind takes a toll on the Ramsay family and the town.

Ramsay describes how he moves through his life, fighting in World War I, going to college, rekindling his friendship with Boyd Staunton. He becomes a foremost expert on saints, writing books and spending his summers visiting various places in the world where saints were said to live. He even helps Mrs. Dempster as she gets older and needs constant care, the guilt of the incident never leaving him in peace, and in turn making him wonder if Mrs. Dempster has helped save his life instead.

Davies crafted a wonderful, touching and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny novel with “Fifth Business.” There are freaks and saints and circuses and compassion. It has none of the woe-is-me guilt, t’was-I-who-shook-the-branch, boringness of Knowle’s “A Separate Peace.” Instead, it’s like an early John Irving or Patrick McCabe novel, full of weird little occurrences, raw humanity and delightful strangeness. And it all adds up to literary magic.