Sometimes we forget that life is most often really lived in the quietest of moments. Caught up in the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives, we forget how life-affirming silence can be. This stillness is not always peaceful, but it’s rarely false. The quiet moments of our lives are the ones that define who we are. And yet, far too frequently, we shy away from them. We’re afraid of what the silence might reveal.

In his second novel and fourth book, Waiting for Elvis, local author David Elias explores this theme with poignancy and rigour. Well-crafted and brilliantly character-driven, the story unfolds as a sequence of quiet moments shared between a couple of lost souls. In these quiet moments together, they find what they have been so desperately searching for – themselves.

Much of the narrative takes place surrounding a roadside diner in southeastern Manitoba. Picture a stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway somewhere near Falcon Lake and that’s where it would be. Run by an aging woman named Betty and her husband Arty, a former truck driver, Elias sets up the diner as a catalyst for conflict within the novel.

There, Betty meets Sal, a downtrodden nomad. Despite Sal’s dark and traumatic past, Betty is able to forge an incredible bond with him. Others, like Arty and some of the diner’s regulars, may not be able to make sense of the companionship Betty and Sal share, if only because they cannot appreciate the two’s mutual appreciation for what passes and exists unspoken between them.

In a lot of ways, the relationship nurtured between Betty and Sal seems completely dysfunctional. By contrasting their relationship with other, seemingly more functional ones, Elias creates an insightful commentary on the nature of love and friendship in our quest for our own identities.

Waiting for Elvis shows readers that ignoring the quiet moments in our lives leads to ignorance of our own needs, and subsequently the needs of others. A relationship that depends entirely on articulation, masquerading as effective communication, is not quite as healthy as one is all too ready to believe. The solace we may find in the silence of self-reflection is what allows us to truly be able to connect with one another.

Through Betty and Sal, Elias demonstrates that there truly is nothing dysfunctional about a relationship that celebrates the power of life’s quietest moments.

Published in Volume 63, Number 18 of The Uniter (January 29, 2009)