28 Seconds: A True Story of Addiction, Tragedy, and Hope
By Michael Bryant
Viking, 337 pp., $32.00
A boy born into politics, Michael Bryant had an outwardly glorious life on an upward career trajectory when everything spectacularly fell apart on Aug. 31, 2009, the night he was charged with dangerous driving, causing the death of Darcy Sheppard in Toronto. It was his twelfth wedding anniversary. In 28 Seconds (the time of the altercation between the two men), Victoria native Bryant describes the shattering effect of the tragedy on him, his family, his friends, his career and of course, on Sheppard.
Bryant's idol was his grandfather Jimmie Bryant, an alderman in Esquimalt. Bryant's father Ray became the mayor of Esquimalt in 1966, the year Michael was born, and apparently Ray quit politics to return to practising law and spending more time with his family. The book explains Bryant's education, including his technique for getting through law school with minimal effort; his move into politics and eventual position as Ontario's attorney general; and his decision to move back into private life when he was seemingly elbowed out by political forces.
And he describes his love affair with alcohol. The addiction nearly cost him everything, but he managed to get clean, and that happened before the awful events of Aug. 31. He is vigilant in detailing his selfabsorption and self-regard: "By the night it all changed, I had created a monster of a media darling, and harboured a titanic ego - in every sense of the word."
There's no doubt that Bryant is smart and hardworking, but as he admits, he was not a very nice person. This book aims to show that he has changed.
And in that regard, it's still all about him and his reputation. What happened on Aug. 31, 2009, is eventually regarded as a horrible accident by the judicial system, and by the end of the legal proceedings, Bryant's life is irrevocably changed.
If this book is supposed to redeem Bryant in the eyes of the public, it may do so. Or it may raise questions about why he wrote the book at all. Two of the eighteen chapters have a focus other than Bryant, and they are the most compelling.
Chapter 15 focuses on Darcy Allan Sheppard and the enormous challenges this man faced before he ended up as a bicycle courier in Toronto, also an addict, and from an opposite world to that of Bryant, who is careful not to blame Sheppard for attacking him that fateful night.
What Bryant does do is show the massive failure of the social safety net in its treatment of Sheppard. For example, as small children, Sheppard and his brother endured over 30 foster homes in about a three-year period. Bryant writes: "And the most astonishing aspect of the life of Darcy Sheppard is not that he behaved for most of his 33 years in the angry, self-destructive way that he did. The marvel, given the appalling story of his life and the monstrous odds stacked against him, is that he managed to do as well as he did."
Chapter 16 focuses on criminal justice. This chapter lifts the book out of the examination of Bryant's life and delivers a strong argument about the failure of the Canadian system to deal with addiction. Bryant says, "The criminal justice system is blind to addictions, even though that's what drives most crimes."
And Bryant shows unequivocally that the system must change to address the problems. Most tax money is spent on enforcement, not treatment or harm reduction. And that approach is simply not working.
I hope this book is a step in Bryant's professed change. He has the intelligence, education and network to effect change in systems, not only in himself. That may take a move back into the political arena. And maybe this book is paving the way for that.
Candace Fertile teaches English at Camosun College.
