Though your neighbourhood English professor may hesitate to admit it, there are some novels that, for all their awards and rave reviews (the phrase “internationally acclaimed” comes to mind) are simply not that readable, nor are they highly read (think Finnegans Wake, or Moby Dick). Something about the first page, even the first sentence, discourages (frightens? warns?) the average reader from continuing much further. Then there are those underground, unheard of novels that, almost as soon as you read the first page, make you want to find a chair and use it. A chair with big arms, a headrest and hopefully, an ottoman in close proximity. Homing, winner of the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award at the Atlantic Book Awards this May, is undoubtedly one of these books. Fast-paced, witty, and dark without being gloomy, Stephanie Domet’s first novel is a marvel of contradictions. Part comedy, part tragedy, it revolves around a fantastical yet straightforward plot, set in motion by characters that are both realistically rendered and mostly fascinating, even in their apparent ordinariness.

As the first novel published by Invisible Publishing, whose mandate is to “work exclusively with emerging and under-published authors to produce entertaining, affordable, print-based art,” Homing sets its sights on transparent simplicity over obscure symbolism. That isn’t to say that a deeper meaning doesn’t lurk beneath the surface details of this story. Rather, the point seems primarily to entertain, mostly through a cast of familiar and original characters. Leah is the grieving and guilty protagonist, who spends her days wandering around her apartment, talking to her cat, and sending notes to her brother’s ghost, via homing pigeons. Her brother is a ghost in search of his home, whether it’s meatball heaven, where people play Rummoli all day, or simply a release from the earthly realm, and his sister’s grief. Leah’s next-door neighbour, Henry, is in search of the perfect batch of songs (and a record deal to go along with it). The more minor characters, Johnny and Charlotte, are simply in search of a good lay (or love, whichever comes first).

Though in no way is Domet’s debut a typical Maritime novel (the inclusion of a ghost being but one dead giveaway), the action takes place entirely in Halifax, and for anyone who’s been there, Domet seems to have the city pegged. For once, a book set in Halifax that doesn’t rely upon the stale clichés of ships at sea, of the Halifax explosion, or some other such fare. Even Nathan’s ghost is rendered in such a way as to not appear clichéd or expected. In fact, with such a strong focus on the idea of searching, and recovering something that has been lost, it’s no surprise that Domet uses the ghost story genre to accent her purpose. Falling more in line with Marquez’s use of spirits than, say, Poe’s, Homing strikes a nice magic realist tone early in the story, and combines the mundane and the otherworldly in expert fashion. Readers won’t be any more surprised to learn that Nathan is a ghost, than they’ll be to discover that Leah is using poetry and pigeons to communicate with him.

Here, as in most magic realist offerings, light comedy is the lubricant that allows these two worlds, the real and the fantastical, to work so well together. If it weren’t for Domet’s sense of humour (for example, Leah admitting that her vision of heaven includes her grandmother’s meatballs and all-night card games), the haunting aspect might’ve come across as melodramatic, or even a bit asinine. As it stands, it seems natural that Nathan struts back and forth like Winston Churchill in front of the Halifax Public Library, barely able to decipher why he is doing so. After all, what else would a somewhat scholarly ghost have to do with his time but paw through old books?

While Homing is primarily character-driven, and the characters are for the most part believable and sympathetic, the danger of such ordinary characters is that they sometimes lapse into clichés, or become so believable that they cease being interesting. For example, though his character provides some much needed comic relief, Johnny Parker does come across as a bit one-dimensional, and his relationship with Leah’s friend Charlotte gets a bit tiring. Moreover, Henry’s desperate attempt to “get signed” gently treads the line between naively endearing and Hollywood cheesy, as do lines like the following: When Henry wasn’t holding his guitar, “his fingers itched for contact, but sometimes it was too much. Sometimes it was so intense it burned.” Fortunately, sentences like that are rare, and on the whole, due in part to book’s concise nature, one doesn’t become tired of the characters or the plot before the end.

By focussing on brief, episodic scenes, blending fantasy with realistically rendered characters, and showing a fine sense of irony and wit, Domet tells an exceptional story that is sure to please most audiences. Homing is a fine debut, and a thoroughly entertaining read, especially on those warm summer days when Dostoevsky, Faulkner and the other internationally acclaimed simply aren’t willing to cooperate.