Stephen Leacock, the humorist celebrated as a cordial
Canadian and master of gentle satire, defined humour as “the kindly
contemplation of the incongruities of life and the artistic expression
thereof.”But readers of the novel She's a Lamb!, this
year’s winner of the award named in Leacock’s honour, might struggle to think
of the word “kindly” or anything gentle or cordial.
In the opening chapters, narrator and aspiring musical
theatre performer Jessamyn St. Germain surveys her corner of the entertainment
world with a ferocity that would make Simon Cowell wince. Fellow auditioners
are “wannabes” and “aging women” with “makeup caked over discount Botox.” A
co-worker is “a troll.” Theatre patrons are “rubes.” A former evaluator was a
“bitter old cruise ship musical assistant” and “obviously a talentless hack.”
Her rival for the role of Maria in a Vancouver production of The Sound
of Music is “the king bitch herself,” whose YouTube followers are
“drooling, sugar-soaked Midwestern teenagers.”
Jessamyn, meanwhile, sees herself as committed, serious,
talented and “a deeply attractive blonde woman.” There is more than a little
Norma Desmond in Hambrock's portrait of a performer convinced stardom is her
right.
The result is a story fueled by extravagant self-regard,
delusion, next-level snark, and long runs of unkindly thoughts.
Yet, the book fits well within the Leacock tradition and the
pantheon of Leacock Medal winners.
First of all because it is relentlessly funny. Humour
flows that classic source of laughter: incongruity - between Jessamyn's dark
thoughts and her syrupy public interactions, between her exalted self-image and
reality, and between the grand narrative she has constructed about her destiny
and the “messy” truth.
This gives the book a special dynamic that amplifies the
humour even as the storyline and snarkiness become increasingly
unnerving. The acidic observations that initially delight gradually
evolve into something darker. Jessamyn's private assessments become violent
fantasies. Her magical thinking intensifies. The novel edges toward
psychological suspense.
Meridith’s experience writing for small screens is evident here. She's
a Lamb! moves with the pace and the narrative engine of strong
television: scenes arrive quickly, images linger, and inducements to ask “What
happens next?” appear on nearly every page. The vivid backstage theatre world gives the novel an almost
cinematic quality.
Hambrock, who grew up in Ontario and later earned BFA and
MFA degrees at UBC, has said she is fascinated by “messy women” - female
characters struggling to repair lives in shambles. That interest animated her
earlier novel Other People's Secrets and reaches a new
humorous level in the person of Jessamyn. But Hambrock also populates She’s
a Lamb! with memorable supporting characters, from a
voice-coach-cum-therapist and stalker-turned-boyfriend to arch-rival Samantha,
whose apparent success masks vulnerabilities not unlike Jessamyn's own.
Character may be Hambrock's greatest artistic strength. Her people surprise,
change and, above all, feel quirky and yet real.
The feeling of something real is bolstered by Hambrock’s
intimate knowledge of The Sound of Music and the theatre world.
Auditions, rehearsals, rivalries and disappointments feel wholly authentic.
Just as importantly, the novel conveys the sense that its
author had enormous fun writing it. Even at its darkest, scenes crackle with a
kind of exuberance, suggesting a love of storytelling itself and faith in the
therapeutic possibilities of art-making. With Anton Chekhov allusions and
The Seagull’s I-am-an-actress droppings throughout, the book is
also an ode to great literature as well as theatre traditions.
The story, in fact, has a humour-writing feature that is,
perhaps surprisingly traditional.
She's a Lamb! is, among other things, a
celebration of community.
That may sound odd for a book whose protagonist spends so
much time disparaging everyone around her. But the theatre world Hambrock
creates is itself a small town - an ecosystem governed by rituals, hierarchies,
gossip, rivalries, disappointments, and dreams. The awkward traditions and
eccentric inhabitants of this artistic community echo, in contemporary form,
the interconnected world of Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little
Town.
Scholars have suggested that Leacock's “kindly” humour is
best understood not simply as gentleness but as kinship: humour directed toward
one's own kind. Hambrock's theatre workers, like Leacock's residents of
Mariposa, are flawed, self-important and sometimes ridiculous. But they are
also recognizably human.
Many previous Leacock winners have also stretched the “kindly”
boundaries of humorous writing with flawed and edgy humans. Trevor Cole's Practical
Jean featured a protagonist whose reflections on mortality lead her to
murder her friends, while Earle Birney's Turvey frequently
veers toward the crude and absurd. Birney incidentally founded UBC's celebrated
creative writing program, linking Hambrock to a distinguished lineage of
UBC-associated humourists that includes Eric Nicol, Pierre Berton, Birney, and
others.
Last year's Leacock Medal winner, Natalie Sue's I
Hope This Finds You Well, likewise centred on a protagonist defined by
harsh judgments of others. But Sue's novel ultimately arrives at reconciliation
and mutual understanding.
Not so She's a Lamb!
Jessamyn never achieves the self-awareness readers might
hope for. There is no neat redemption arc or conventional happy ending. Yet
Hambrock accomplishes something arguably more difficult. Through Jessamyn's
words and actions, readers come to understand her. We see the wounded ambition,
loneliness, insecurity, trauma, and desperation beneath the narcissism. We also
recognize the broader community she inhabits: struggling artists juggling
second jobs, performers altered by #MeToo experience, and people navigating
fragile mental health in a Vancouver shaped by social media and precarious
creative careers.
Leacock himself challenged the notion that humour and a
sense of community must always be gentle. Arcadian Adventures with the
Idle Rich offered biting social satire aimed at privilege, vanity and
self-deception, yet retained sympathy for its targets.
So too does Hambrock.
Jessamyn St. Germain is frequently appalling, often
delusional and at times frightening. But by the novel's end, readers understand
both her suffering and the damaged community that cradled her. And we can all
relate to circumstance coloured by varying levels of talent, commitment, and
kindness.
That understanding - compassion without absolution, satire
sharpened by cruelty yet softened by backstory - may be the deepest connection
between She's a Lamb! and the tradition Stephen Leacock
established.
In awarding Meridith Hambrock the 2026 Leacock Medal, the
judges thus recognized a novel that honours that tradition while boldly
updating it for our anxious, performative, hyper-social-media, and
psychologically fraught times. So, Meridith joins another kindly kind of
community that of the people who get the joke and appreciate her work, the
Leacock Medal winners and their supporters.
Hopefully this one has fewer jealousies, snarky interactions, and tendencies
toward violence.
