In Joel Thomas Hynes’s novel We’ll All Be Burnt in our Beds Some Night, former convict, occasional criminal, part-time drug user and full-time loser Johnny Keough has run out of options. In the novel’s opening chapters, he is nervously awaiting trial on assault charges for injuries inflicted on his girlfriend Madonna: his previous record means that conviction will land him a stretch in federal maximum-security. Instead, Madonna’s convenient death by overdose the night before the trial is to start sets him free. But the freedom Johnny gains is bittersweet since Madonna is the only person on earth with whom he has ever shared a genuine and loving connection. Hynes’s novel is written in the form of a monologue. In an expletive-laced high-octane Newfoundland vernacular, Johnny describes his current exploits and misadventures, and delves frequently into a hard-luck past to fill us in on his twisted family history and explain how a violent and emotionally deprived childhood set him up to become the man he is. Madonna’s death not only sets Johnny free, it gives him a mission, and at about one third of the way through the novel he embarks on a cross-Canada road trip to British Columbia where he will scatter Madonna’s ashes on a beach she used to enjoy visiting with her family (Almost as important: he is also running from the police who are after him for armed robbery). Along the way, he wants to stop off in Kingston to visit his biological father, a man he has never met, who is serving hard time for a crime that Johnny is convinced he didn’t commit. But Johnny’s departure from St. John’s is rushed and thoughtless, and once he hits the road almost nothing goes according to plan. The end of the book finds Johnny wandering the streets of Vancouver, hobbled by a vicious assault, disoriented, hungry, penniless, filthy and with a warrant out for his arrest. We’ll All Be Burnt in our Beds Some Night takes place in a sort of moral no-man’s-land. Johnny Keough, never one for schooling, has been taught by life one thing for certain: the only person he can trust is himself. He takes prides in his self-sufficiency, but lives by deceit, thievery and off the proceeds of petty crime. And yet, he is not so hardened that he does not regret the suffering he causes others. He accepts responsibility for his predicament as a wanted criminal, readily admitting his shortcomings and failures, and takes full blame for his problems. But he also makes clear that young Johnny was victimized by the adults in his life, lied to and brutalized by the very people whose duty it was to protect him. Johnny is not a complainer, but it’s still very hard for the reader to ignore the note of grievance that runs through his narration. For all the suffering that takes place in its pages, the book is often uproariously entertaining, by turns horrifyingly violent and hilarious. It is also tragic, the outcome inevitable. Johnny’s life has led him down the path to disaster, and the poor decisions he has made and continues to make tell us that his story could not have turned out any other way. ( )

I have mixed feelings about this book. Johnny Keough is a petty criminal who was abused as a child and largely unloved. As the story opens, he is charged with assault for attacking his girlfriend Madonna with a tea pot. When Madonna dies of an overdose the day the trial, Johnny finds himself free, and deeply saddened by her death. He decides to take her ashes to Vancouver to scatter them at a beach she was fond of. As we travel with him on this trip, we learn Johnny's back story and see how he copes as a fugitive on the run.

What I liked about this book was the writing style. The author created a voice for Johnny that was very real, unique and true. The author made me feel as if I were there with Johnny. What I didn't like was Johnny himself. While I don't always have to like a character to enjoy their story, in this case, I didn't want to go along for the ride. ( )

If you can get past the profanities, this is a heartbreaking tale tinged with black humour of young petty criminal Johnny Keough. When the girlfriend he injured - accidentally with a teapot - died of an overdose on the morning of his court case, he was suddenly off the hook instead of facing years in a federal penitentiary. Johnny decided to use the freedom to hitchhike across Canada from Newfoundland to Vancouver with the urn containing her ashes under his arm, to scatter them on a Vancouver beach she remembered from childhood.

Johnny is a long-time hardened malefactor but Hynes brings out likeable elements and we feel sympathetic toward him. He's had a brutal childhood, never experienced a role model of the positive kind, and trouble follows him like a shadow. Hynes injects this misery with a dark comic humour that keeps the story from spiralling downwards. He often shifts viewpoint from past to present, letting the reader into Johnny's head to find out how events really happened. I desperately wanted him to succeed on his monumental journey, but Johnny is the master of his own fate.

If it had been possible, I would have read this book from the acknowledged bad boy of Canadian literature in one sitting. It is coarse and ribald, but you won't forget Johnny Keough. ( )