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The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie…
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The Way the Crow Flies (edition 2003)

by Ann-Marie MacDonald

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
2,243636,956 (4.06)76
4.25 stars

It is the early 1960s. Jack, Mimi and their two kids, Madeleine and Mike, are moving home to Canada from Germany. Jack is part of the Royal Canadian Air Force, and is moving to Centralia, Ontario to train new pilots. They are a happy, normal family, and are able to fit into their new community fairly quickly. After they are there for some time and have all made some good friends, something happens in the community that shatters their lives, as well as the lives of all the families around them. Jack and Madeleine, in particular, have secrets they are keeping, but it’s becoming more and more difficult.

I thought it was very realistic, right from the first few pages with Mike and Madeleine fighting in the backseat of the car. Most of the story was told from either Madeleine’s or Jack’s point of view, but there were parts that were from other character’s points of view, as well. I have to admit that I found my mind drifting through parts involving politics and the military (some of Jack’s part of the story). But overall, a very, very good book. ( )
  LibraryCin | Jun 20, 2017 |
English (58)  Dutch (3)  German (1)  All languages (62)
Showing 1-25 of 58 (next | show all)
This is, in my opinion, great literature. Multiple themes and storylines that the author weave together so well. Strong, completely believable characters. Truth and lies. Lies that are harmless, until they are not. Guilt and innocence -- of children, of the times. Sometimes difficult to read because of the subject matter but always provocative and insightful.

I loved the setting and got swept up in memories of my own childhood.

I loved the issues probed by the story, such as the moral cost of the space program in Canada and U.S. And especially Jack's struggle in determining whether to condemn an innocent child to prison for the greater good of national security.

Maybe a bit long...it took a while for the story to get moving; on the other hand, I got totally immersed in the time and place of the story. There is a big jump in the story from Madeleine as a child to an adult. The t transition wasn't well managed and it took me a while to care about the adult Madeleine. But overall, a great read. ( )
  LynnB | Mar 21, 2024 |
Excellent literature. Amazing symbols (eg butterflies, birds, planes) motifs (eg dogs) multiple themes (eg truth/lies) woven throughout the book. The characters are dynamic, round, and well developed so that you care about them (hate/love). There are enough hints to make you see what the author wants you to see (but does not want to tell you outright) and still many things left to the end.

I love the caricature of the 1950s/60s household: innocence and appearances in the memory of WWII and the face of the Cold War. I love the areas of grey that the author invites you to see. I love the writing style -- descriptive without being narration-heavy, for instance. Also, in the change in story between Parts 3 and 4 there is a shift in the writing that echoes the changes in time and characters -- the characters are older, the world is different, and without being completely different, the voice is also more adult, more mature. Brilliant.

The setting of this story is completely different from [b:Fall on Your Knees|5174|Fall on Your Knees|Ann-Marie MacDonald|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165517999s/5174.jpg|941309] but both books deal with disturbing subject matter. They both are so well written, however, that I still can call them excellent. ( )
  LDVoorberg | Dec 24, 2023 |
I read this book loving it several years ago. It brought back my memories of living in the sixties during the Cold War; that part is still true. My patience and tastes must have changed as this time I felt there was way too many details and I didn't particularly like the "grown up" Madeleine. Overall, still a good read. ( )
  maryreinert | Jul 12, 2023 |
Too slow for me. Way too much detail without plot progress. Gave up after 400 pages (there was another 400 to go!). ( )
  Jenn4567 | Mar 3, 2023 |
This book held me from beginning to end. A horrible crime, and in the end, a story about how secrets can have a devastating outcome. I will be reading this like a dog gnaws on a bone. ( )
  juliechabon | Jan 26, 2023 |
I am in awe of Ann-Marie MacDonald. She brings together so many current themes, makes them dramatic, and makes them matter to me as a reader in a fluid and coherent storyline. Some elements of the story are intensely uncomfortable, and they are intended to be. Others raise provocative ways of looking at the mid-twentieth century that may not be new, but are insightful. She offers no simple resolutions, but nevertheless takes readers on a satisfying journey with some interesting characters and compelling stories.
The central character, Madeleine, is nine when we meet her, and we see a new home through her eyes. Unlike the over-knowing kids in some books (and movies), she sees and understands, or fails to, in a way that seems to me to be consistent with a nine year old, and her vision is fascinating. She does not understand a lot of what she experiences until she becomes older and tries to make sense of how it has marked her. The fact that she is a tomboyish, mouthy lesbian makes her perspective more interesting, especially as she adopts the voices of her smart-ass cartoon characters. The picture that MacDonald gives of her relationships with her friends and rivals seems completely plausible. As a successful adult queer woman, she later finds her childhood both a source of comedy and a painful impediment to maturity. Her knowledge and insights seem so right-on that it’s hard not to see MacDonald examining her own childhood for a realistic picture of Madeleine’s psyche. (And in some regards, they do parallel MacDonald’s own childhood, but not, I hope, in the traumas that make up the story.)
While Madeleine is interesting, so are the other protagonists, her parents. Her Acadian mother is the image of a 1960s housewife, and MacDonald shows that that means – organizing the household so that her husband is never troubled. The image of her hiding her cleaning clothes so that her husband need never imagine her as less than glamourous is perfectly telling. I never thought to be interested in the inner life of an air force executive officer, but Madeleine’s father Jack also has to struggle with a cruel morality. He makes his choices and pays a price, one of the themes of the book.
Hard moral choices seem to be the central theme of the book, as all of the central characters have to face decisions and painful consequences. This sets a personal framework within the context of the Holocaust and the ’60s space race (or the arms race), the Vietnam War, anti-queer discrimination and prejudice against both outsiders and Indigenous peoples. When the policing system comes into the story, it’s hardly surprising that even a conscientious officer follows the prevailing current in the wrong direction. While no one ends up without damage, MacDonald does find a positive outcome for some. We can only hope to be among the lucky ones who survive the damage.
While these are big and complex themes, MacDonald also manages to bring many other ideas into the plot, including trust and espionage, loyalty and truth, family, grief, pop culture and the news media, nature, and a distinct Canadian perspective on it all. Un Acadien errant stands in as a succinct summary of the storyline. It’s amazing how MacDonald uses philosophical observations on these subjects to move the plot and reflect on her characters.
At times, I felt that MacDonald was writing the story like a Hitchcock movie. The plot moves along like a movie, balancing quick cross-cut edits with slow building tension. I think the novel reflects her success as a playwright. Even the crow’s-point-of-view asides are a deliberate intrusion, an invitation to step outside of the plot and think about what the story means.
I’m disappointed that MacDonald has written only two novels, because I’ve read her first one, and I’d like to read more of her. ( )
  rab1953 | Jul 31, 2020 |
A long, engaging narrative that slowly tightens the noose until everyone falls apart. The mini omniscient musings do get irritating and the last section of choppier closure-for-everyone vignettes is almost satisfying. I liked its sprawl and effective characterization of children. The parents seemed a little too perfect, even from their own point of view. I remember liking her other novel, Fall on Your Knees (though I can't remember much about it) and I think this one will stick longer in my memory. (December 17, 2003) ( )
  cindywho | May 27, 2019 |
It was a very good detailed story but it just made it so long. I did enjoy the base of the story. ( )
  Samqua | Aug 17, 2018 |
Long, slow paced novel set in a Canadian Air Force base in the early 60s, from the viewpoints of a 9 year old girl and her father. The Cuban missile crisis looms, and bad things happen. Worse things: a murder.

A complicated, well crafted story in which people make decisions that lead to lies, but they’re harmless lies, until they’re not, and telling the truth is more complicated than continuing the lie. It’s about trust, too. Who should you trust? Your parents? Your teacher? Your commanding officer? Your old friend? Your new friend?

Then it shifts to the present, where the girl, now grown, is remembering things and seeing how they don't add up... and she starts trying to figure them out.

I didn't anticipate the way the murder was resolved, and had a little bit of doubt about it, but really, everything felt right and made emotional sense.

It's loosely based on a real murder case, which I hadn't been aware of till I read the reader's extra section. Sad. ( )
  piemouth | Jan 2, 2018 |
4.25 stars

It is the early 1960s. Jack, Mimi and their two kids, Madeleine and Mike, are moving home to Canada from Germany. Jack is part of the Royal Canadian Air Force, and is moving to Centralia, Ontario to train new pilots. They are a happy, normal family, and are able to fit into their new community fairly quickly. After they are there for some time and have all made some good friends, something happens in the community that shatters their lives, as well as the lives of all the families around them. Jack and Madeleine, in particular, have secrets they are keeping, but it’s becoming more and more difficult.

I thought it was very realistic, right from the first few pages with Mike and Madeleine fighting in the backseat of the car. Most of the story was told from either Madeleine’s or Jack’s point of view, but there were parts that were from other character’s points of view, as well. I have to admit that I found my mind drifting through parts involving politics and the military (some of Jack’s part of the story). But overall, a very, very good book. ( )
  LibraryCin | Jun 20, 2017 |
"When stories are not told, we risk losing our way. Lies trip us up, lacunae gape like blanks in a footbridge. Time shatters and, though we strain to follow the pieces like pebbles through the forest, we are led farther and farther astray. Stories are replaced by evidence. Moments disconnected from eras. Exhibits plucked from experience.
We forget the consolation of the common thread-the way events are stained with the dye of the stories older than the facts themselves.
We lose our memory.
This can make a person ill.
This can make a world ill."


When I first picked up this book, I read the description and the tags and labels that people had pinned on it. When I first looked at this book, I did not think I'd ever read this.

What persuaded me to read it was that MacDonald's first book was written so well that I wanted to see how she would tell the story of The Way the Crow Flies.

But how can you tell this story of the murder of a child - even if the story is partly based of the real life case of Steven Truscott? How can you tell of the lies and secrets that unravel the lives of everyone involved? Of the naivety of the individuals that condemn evil and, yet, at the same fail to see that it is their own simple-mindedness that fuels the travesty of justice that ensues?

MacDonald tells it masterfully. She uses imagery and language that packs a punch. Never overly evocative or manipulative, she shows each story from the characters point of view - and this at times makes you want to stop reading and jump in and shake the person. At other times, this makes you draw the book in closer and cling to every page to find out what happens next.

The Way the Crow Flies is, however, not only the story of a community torn apart by the murder. The book goes deeper. Whilst the books' main character, Madeleine, tries to deal with the events in her own life - events which she feels she cannot speak of, which she feels she needs to protect her family from -, her father, Jack, becomes entangled in a cold war scientific espionage plot in aid of the West's race to the moon.
A boys' own adventure, which in turn will make him question everything he believes in. But to what end? And while he is keen to teach his daughter that the truth must be told, is he mature enough to take responsibility for the consequences?

On another level, MacDonald draws out the individual dilemmas against a historical context - not just the backdrop of the Cold War, but also that of the Second World War - paralleling the space race to the development of the V2 and the atomic bomb. All are inextricably linked through the people that were involved. However, this link creates an issue - How can the same people be working for opposing ideologies?

"But he has enough - his children have enough - to cope with, never mind taking on the past. To report this man would not only be futile; it would be to exhume what is cold and can never heal. To haunt his new family with the inconsolable griefs of his old one."

The book does not try to answer this question but offers serious food for thought. Because the stories, or rather the secrets of both, father and daughter, are bound to test their ideals, their perception of each other and of the world.

"This precious mess. Democracy. How much can be done in its name before, like an egg consumed by a snake, it becomes a mere shell?"

Without knowing of each other's secrets, both main characters are wounded in the process. Are they able to heal?

The Way the Crow Flies has seriously impressed me. MacDonald has not only written a mystery, a political thriller, and a court room drama all in one, she also created a deep and complex psychological tour de force that questions whether the reality we perceive always ties up with the facts and how this reality changes as we mature. Individuals are defined by their story unless they take action to confront it.

Nina says: "Fear isn't the opposite of courage."
"What?"
"It's the prerequisite to courage."



Review originally posted on BookLikes: http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/1082831/the-way-the-crow-flies ( )
  BrokenTune | Aug 21, 2016 |
It took me 16 years after having read Ann-Marie MacDonald's first novel to read her second. What a waste of time! The Way the Crow Flies is a brilliant novel that moved me both to laughter and to tears. It is a brickstone of a novel, but I didn't look forward to leaving the characters that I had learned to understand and empathize with over the cause of more than 700 pages. The novel is marketed as a crime story, but this is nothing like the crime novels you'll pick up in a hurry at airports. The story of nine-year old Madeleine and her family and friends and foes on the air force base in Canada in the early 19060s is an emotional study of people of our time, how small events can turn life on its head, but also how fundalmental events can be pushed down into the unconscious, at least for a while. The characters are so well drawn that it feels incolceivable that they are not real people. I know the novel is both based on real events and on the author's own upbringing, but that does not take away from the feat of creating characters of flesh and blood. I am particularly impressed by how the children's characters are made believable. The novel's two parts are very different but equally good. My only minor complaint is that the first part of the book is a bit uneventful, but in no way less readable. MacDonald wants to draw us completely into this world before she really begins to make things happen. Why MacDonald's books have not reached a wider audience outside North America is beyond belief. ( )
  petterw | Mar 23, 2016 |
Precocious, smart and funny 9-year old Madeleine is not prepared for the series of events that occur on the Canadian air force base of Centralia in early 60's. No one could have anticipated what would happen. Many years later Madeleine is able to figure out what actually occurred.

Her father Jack has been transferred back to Canada after having been posted in Germany which he, his beautiful Acadian wife Mimi, older son Mike and Madeleine, his “old buddy” loved. Jack had history in Centralia: it was here he learned to fly, and then nearly died in a freak accident, ending his piloting career. At that time he was simply an angry young man but years later he realized the accident probably saved his life because many of the pilots who did fly never made it home alive.

MacDonald creates strong settings that feel familiar. The timing and pacing are amazing, i.e. Jack being seen in the phone booth by Boucher, the time when Jack waved to Ricky on that fateful day. The dialogue stands out as well because it is so normal and mediocre until you listen to the underlying nuances.

Innocence and guilt are major themes in The Way the Crow Flies. It seems the girls who remain in class after 3pm protect their parents’ “all’s right with our world” innocence by not telling them about Mr. March. It definitely takes a village to raise a child but the adults on the base were naïve about their children’s lives. Most were good, well-meaning parents pre-occupied with the minutia of life. They simply did not worry about their children. Claire, Grace and Ricky are all innocent but left unprotected.

And then there are Jack and Simon. Both are smart and committed to the Canadian Air Force; trained to be loyal cogs and do “their jobs.” (We all know who else were just doing their jobs during WWII!) Pressured by Simon, Jack is forced to make a difficult decision which negatively impacts him, his family, Ricky and his family.

The novel’s main plot is where guilt comes in. What was the moral cost of ramping up the space program in Canada and the US with mass murderers? The US invited nazi scientists in but didn’t allow many Jews from Europe safe haven during the war when our government knew these Jews would face certain death!

Outstanding and substantial novel with much to think about. ( )
1 vote Bookish59 | Dec 19, 2014 |
I enjoyed this novel so much that it makes me rethink others that I rated as a 4.5 or 5 out of 5. The story is familiar in so many ways. It's easy to appreciate how much mind and soul searching the author must have engaged in to bring out all of those long ago, seemingly insignificant feelings and internal dialogues that we all have in our pre-adolescent years. Its really unfairto try to make a few comments on the book and think that I have done it justice. There is alot to enjoy in hearing the thoughts of an 8 year old growing up in the 1960's. Its just a whole dose of reminiscence of the greatest part of my life, as well as many others.
Ms. MacDonald portrays a childs attempt to relate to and make sense of what she sees and hears all day long in such a way as to satisfy her own need for safety along with a sense of belonging, not only in her family but in her peer group and social structure. But even when this ideal is threatened, the author shows how we are able to take the violations of life in stride, encapsulate them, store them away and continue our journey. But she also reveals, clearly and in detail, how those issues that we 'handled' so smoothly in childhood remain alive, and eventually resurface and demand to be heard.
The story weaves together how our family, friends, and even authority figures play a role in the stability of our entire lives, not just the few years we spent as a child. How the leaders and protectors all seem to justify the small inconsistecies and red flags they notice in our life and the cost of not being what we considered at the time as over-protective, believing that monsters do NOT exist. The book shows how much we, as a society, have become aware that monsters really do exist and how the norms for social interraction have changed considerably in light of that truth.
If I would have read a synopsis of this book before I began to read, I would certainly have passed it by because I really do not like to dwell on the perversions that sometimes seem to surround all of us, but as it turns out, I am very happy to have read this book and will reread some of the parts again and again. Some parts are so profound, thought-provoking, and written with such grace that it is a pleasure to read those few paragraphs and pause to just ponder its meaning. ( )
  pife43 | Jul 23, 2014 |
Precisely 1.5x as long as it could have been. Lesbian U-Haul subplot appreciated but not entirely necessary :) ( )
  amelish | Sep 12, 2013 |
This book brought back many memories of growing up in the 1950's. Even though I was far away from an air base in Canada, the scary bomb drills, the music, the silly fun of little girls, and moms baking cookies were the same in the midwest as well.

I loved the characters and the plot(the resolution to the murder was a surprise for me). The "fast forward" to Madeline as an adult tied everything together so well. Great read -- just be prepared to devote many hours to reading and not getting anything else done because the book is long and one you won't want to put down. ( )
  maryreinert | Aug 16, 2013 |
I picked this book up in the local thrift store, based purely on the cover. Wow. This is such a captivating, and sometimes uncomfortable and disturbing, novel. I really enjoyed it. Especially because you keep getting surprised by the truth behind what you think happened. ( )
  andrearules | May 13, 2013 |
Excellent literature. Amazing symbols (eg butterflies, birds, planes) motifs (eg dogs) multiple themes (eg truth/lies) woven throughout the book. The characters are dynamic, round, and well developed so that you care about them (hate/love). There are enough hints to make you see what the author wants you to see (but does not want to tell you outright) and still many things left to the end.

I love the caricature of the 1950s/60s household: innocence and appearances in the memory of WWII and the face of the Cold War. I love the areas of grey that the author invites you to see. I love the writing style -- descriptive without being narration-heavy, for instance. Also, in the change in story between Parts 3 and 4 there is a shift in the writing that echoes the changes in time and characters -- the characters are older, the world is different, and without being completely different, the voice is also more adult, more mature. Brilliant.

The setting of this story is completely different from [b:Fall on Your Knees|5174|Fall on Your Knees|Ann-Marie MacDonald|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165517999s/5174.jpg|941309] but both books deal with disturbing subject matter. They both are so well written, however, that I still can call them excellent. ( )
1 vote LDVoorberg | Apr 7, 2013 |
Reading this novel I found myself veering from feelings of frustration at its hefty length to enthralled admiration at the scope of the writing and beauty of the prose.

I was swept away into a world of a quiet Royal Canadian Air Force station in rural Ontario during the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The characters in this story were so vivid and plausible, none more so than the two main families featured in it - The McCarthys and the Froelichs. Madeleine McCarthy is the 9 year old daughter of RCAF Wing Commander Jack - one of the commanders at the base, and his Acadian wife Mimi. Her world is full of jokes and funny voices, a loving family home, playing with her friends and going to school. Asking her Papa difficult questions. So far so very normal. Except that being a military family means that their life is always transient, "say good bye to the house buddy". Friends come and go. But Madeleine never had a friend like Colleen Froelich before, the moody tough girl in the unusual family across the street. Some of the other girls at Madeleine's school are her closest friends, and then there is the bossy and annoying Marjorie, and Grace who nobody much likes and chews her fingers...

A new family from America arrive at the base, a USAF Exchange Officer on secondment. Only Madeleine's father knows why Captain McCarroll is at the base, only Jack that is and his top secret contact Simon at the British Embassy in Washington.

Within a year the lives of the McCarthys, the Froelichs, and the McCarrolls will all have changed dramatically for ever. Two of them will be dead. This is a wonderful story which by its finish has spanned over twenty years in the lives of the protagonists. The painful and tragic subject of child abuse crops up quite early on and throughout the book in passages - and it is difficult to read, but very integral to the plot. The vast scope of this book also encompasses the Cold War at its peak, the space race, a Nazi war criminal defecting from the Soviets, Vietnam, and a murder trial with some brilliantly executed courtroom scenes.

I read this book as part of the LT Reading Globally group's theme read on 'Closed Societies' and I'm so glad that I did. I might not have found this book if it weren't for that reason. In the end, the plot of the novel was more related to a 'closed society' than I bargained for - the transient nature of the families' lives, the secrets and duties that Madeleine's father Jack is burdened with, the false atmosphere of safety and security in a seemingly close-knit community. Ann-Marie Macdonald's writing is excellent. She wrote a book that was so cinematic and in its style, full of poignancy, tragedy, and a fair bit of humour too. Full of everyday cultural references that give the 1960s (and later 1980s) settings a particular vividness, I was totally transplanted to the places in the book. My only complaint is that it is so very long. At 700+ pages I think it could have been edited down by perhaps a 100 pages or so, maybe the author was guilty on occasion of just a little over-indulgence in her beautiful prose - but maybe the accumulative effect on the whole book wouldn't have been quite as good? I nearly put it down at about 100 pages as it was taking me a while to get going with it, (really down to my own distractions though and not the book itself) but in the end I'm so glad I didn't and that I pushed on. I found the rest of the book flew by pretty quickly. By the end I was sad to see the story over, and the ending did come as a surprise to this reader.

All in all a book that is well worth the effort and one that will reward the patient reader. ( )
  Polaris- | Jun 30, 2012 |
I liked the book for the most part. Don't know French so had a bit of a struggle with the words. I was mystified as to who committed the murder and was shocked at the revelation. ( )
  GrannyNanny | Mar 20, 2012 |
One of the best books that I've read in a long time. ( )
  maryintexas39 | Aug 19, 2011 |
I found this too disturbing. I read most of the book but just couldn't bring myself to finish. I probably wouldn't recommend it for mums.
  lberriman | Mar 5, 2011 |
I tackled this book shortly after reading MacDonald's award-winning bestseller, FALL ON YOUR KNEES, which both my wife and I simply devoured, albeit a dozen years after its publication and international success. That book topped 500 pages, and this one, THE WAY THE CROW FLIES, went over 800 pages! Even so, I managed to get through it in just over two weeks, even with some minor heart surgery thrown in somewhere in the middle of it. This book has probably already had reams of reactions written, so there's probably not much original that I could add. It is, quite simply, 'unputdownable' (is that a word?). This book has something for everyone. I was originally intrigued by reading that the core sequence of events took place around the time of the Cuban Missile crisis in October of 1962. During that pivotal moment in Cold War history I was not quite halfway through army basic training in Ft Leonard Wood, Missouri. As trainees, we had very limited access to media reports of what was happening, but we could, I remember, feel a palpable tension emanating from our drill instructors and cadre, an unsettling sense of urgency about what they were doing - training us!

MacDonald's protagonists in TWTCF are a young family in the Royal Canadian Air Force (the RCAF no longer exists), the McCarthys. The father, Jack, is a WWII veteran and a senior officer at a training base in Centralia, Ontario. They have just been transferred there from Germany. Jack and Mimi (an Acadian beauty) have two children, Mike (Michel) and Madeline, who are twelve and eight when the story opens. Although MacDonald offers multiple points of view in the course of this mammoth epic, Madeline is the main focus of the story, with Jack running a close second. Jack's big disappointment in life was a flight training accident he suffered during the war, when he was just 18, which impaired his vision, making him unsuitable for flying status. Ever after he "flew a desk" as a support officer. That partial 'blindness' plays an important symbolic part of the narrative, as he is chronically unable to see what is happening to his children, or to properly see "the small picture" in his constant striving to understand the "big picture" of Cold War conflicts and intrigues in which he is naively embroiled, things which nearly destroy him in the end.

MacDonald is a writer of prodigious talent, mixing dark fairy tale symbolism with comical samples of pop culture and humor, and that comic relief is very necessary in this disturbing and increasingly dark story of pedophiles, political intrigue and entrapment. The author has obviously done her homework. I learned more about that aforementioned Cuban Missile crisis and also about the U.S. missile program and space race between the U.S. and the USSR from this book than I could ever have imagined. There is much here too about the sinister involvement of former Nazis and war criminals in that missile and space development program - on both sides of the Iron Curtain. (A selected bibliography is appended at the end of the novel.)

The darkest part of the plot, however, is found in the lives of the little girls of the story, Madeline and her classmates (and they come alive in ways that fiction has seldom succeeded in the past), and the vile ways in which they are victimized by an unscrupulous pedophile, practically under the noses of the children's unsuspecting and preoccupied parents. This sexual abuse has far-ranging ripples and repercussions which will haunt these kids - and their parents - for the rest of their lives, as is represented in the continuing story of Madeline McCarthy and her family over the next couple of decades.

I wonder how many people are frightened away from a book like TWTCF by its very 'heft.' I pity those readers who are. Because what MacDonald has wrought here is a simply stunningly beautiful book - primarily about human relationships and families. And she has placed it into an historical and cultural context that makes it all the more believable and effective. I can't understand how she managed to keep all those balls in the air, and how she made it all seem so effortless, so real, and so darkly beautiful. If you love good writing and a good story, I entreat you - read this book! ( )
5 vote TimBazzett | Feb 8, 2011 |
My second novel by this autor.
Appalled by the story, amazed by the storytelling.
A book for tough people which shows the ugly face of human beings.
Recommendable, but not a light and easy reading. ( )
  Luli81 | Oct 24, 2010 |
I enjoyed this book, although I did enjoy the first half of the book with Madelaine as a child more than the second half. The writing of this book is beautiful, to me it sort of 'echoes'. You read it once... then it hits you.. and it is so beautiful that you read the section again.

The book starts with Madeleine settling into her new home, the air force base Centralia, near London, Ontario. She is 8 years old, and still sees the world through a child's eyes. Through her eyes you believe you are seeing the world through the eyes of a child again as well. Madeliene, her brother, and their parents seem to be living the perfect life. However a teacher begins keeping some of the girls after school... for reasons that are confusing and shameful to her. When one of the girls in brutally abused and killed, a local Metis teenager is blamed. In the second half of the book Madelaine begins to put the pieces together, both the fragments of her memory and the fragments of her life. The child abuse is dealt with in a reasonable manner... something horrible is happening, but it is seen through the eyes of a child who does not know what is going on. However it is still hard to read. Reading about the railroading of the Metis teenager by the Canadian justice system was also very difficult. ( )
1 vote Bcteagirl | Jul 20, 2010 |
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