Clara Callan [Hardcover]

A finely detailed depiction of the Depression era, Clara Callan is told entirely in the letters and journal entries of two adult sisters, Clara and Nora Callan, and their older lesbian friend, Evelyn. The novel, Wright's ninth, made a surprising sweep of Canada's major awards for best novel--the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award--in 2001. Wright has the gift of making the reader care deeply about these characters and their worlds, which include small town Ontario, where Clara is a sensitive schoolteacher, and New York City, where the younger Nora has moved to become a radio soap opera star. Since both sisters are still "on the shelf," their roller-coaster love lives--Nora's in worldly Manhattan and Clara's in the more restrictive atmosphere of small-town spinsterhood--are a primary subject of their letters and Clara's journal.

This is a quiet book, studied and well researched, but thoroughly engaging and readable. Numerous references to period music, political events, and the looming war quite successfully place the reader at both the centre and the periphery of life in the 1930s. Side trips to Italy and to view the Dionne quintuplets feel entirely authentic. With deceptive simplicity, the author creates a world of clear images: "Nora came in from her shuffleboard game with a sweater tied across her shoulders, her hair damp from the rain." Most importantly, Wright has realized characters that come alive on the page--quite a feat considering the self-imposed limitations of this novel's form. --Mark Frutkin

Canadian author Wright (The Age of Longing) has published eight novels, but remains unknown to most readers in the States. His most recent offering, which won Canada's 2001 Governor General's Award and the Giller Prize, could change that. The story's conceit is simple enough: Clara Callan is a single "schoolteacher who likes to write poetry," left to fend for herself in the tiny town of Whitfield, Ontario, after her father dies and her sister, Nora, takes off for New York City. The novel is made up of a series of letters and journal entries written between 1934 and 1939. During that time, Nora becomes a radio soap opera star, while Clara loses her faith in God, is raped by a vagrant, has an abortion, engages in an affair with a married man named Frank and finally gives birth to a daughter. Nora and the lesbian writer of her soap opera, Evelyn Dowling, are Clara's main correspondents, but the news she relates in her letters (such as "grippe and calloused hands"-although she also shows concern for the world's more serious injustices) contrasts with the darker events recorded in her journal entries. Wright has accomplished an amazing feat by allowing his characters to emerge, fully formed and true, without authorial intrusion into their intimate psychological world, revitalizing the epistolary form in the process. This novel will remind some readers of the American poet Elizabeth Bishop, herself an avid correspondent, and of the way in which the elegant surfaces of her letters sometimes cracked open to reveal demons lurking below.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

'The content is often profound and the characters so fully formed they haunt and chatter even when -- if -- the book can be put down...Wright is an author to learn from, to trust, and to recommend to any generation' Quill & Quire 'Anyone who doubts whether a male novelist can convincingly and persuasively inhabit the psyches of female characters should read Clara Callan.' The Record 'imaginary figures with such rich inner lives that after a few pages they move into your psyche like emotional squatters and refuse to leave.' Sandra Martin, The Globe and Mail 'The voices of these three women are so true, the portrait of the village so telling, the layering of time and place and character so assured that even when we want to, we cannot turn away from the fundamental truth he reveals.' Ottawa Citizen 'This is a novel I consciously slowed down to read, so I could savour every word.' Times-Colonist 'Clara Callan...set me tingling with the power of great writing. I can only say: I wish I'd written this book.' Diane Schoemperlen 'there is more to Miss Callan than meets the eye...By the end of the book, she seems beyond mere authorial creation -- she seems a living, breathing human being.' Paul Quarrington, The Globe and Mail 'Clara Callan is a terrific novel and possibly even a great one.' The Gazette 'An understated, graceful writer who never makes a false step, Richard B. Wright is a master at revealing the small dramas that unfold in what might appear to others as an unremarkable life. In Clara Callan he has achieved an accomplished and utterly convincing novel.' Jury for the 2001 Giller Prize 'Clara Callan brilliantly transfers ordinary lives onto a wider canvas to portray the grandeur of an era. In a style that is understated yet compelling, Wright blends the forms of the letter and the journal to construct a powerful narrative.' Judges of the Governor-General's Literary Award Wright creates a compelling narrative and characters who brim with humanity. The biggest compliment might be that you forget that his women have been imagined by a man.' Morley Walker, Winnipeg Free Press

Richard B Wright's ninth novel, first published in Canada where it was awarded both the Governor-General's Award and the prestigious Giller Prize, is the beautifully restrained account of the lives of two sisters during the turbulent years of the Depression. Despite the apparent simplicity of the plot, it soon becomes apparent that Wright is adept at confronting contentious issues through the medium of his tortured heroine, the eponymous Clara. Sexual infidelity, loss of religious belief, abortion and lesbianism are all tackled with calm discretion - there is no place in Wright's prose for the sensational or the merely titillating. Clara and her sister Nora could not be more different. Clara is a schoolteacher in the little town of Whitfield, Ontario, living alone in the family house after her father's death. She reads and writes poetry, and is sublimely contented with her own company. Nora, however, has seized the opportunity to make it big in a radio soap opera and has headed for the bright lights of New York. She soon becomes a household name and revels in the glamorous lifestyle resulting from her new-found celebrity. The sisters write regularly to each other and Clara keeps a diary; it is through these that Wright lets the two women tell their own story, and what a moving story it turns out to be. Clara is soon revealed to be far from the sensible, cool-headed woman she at first appears. She takes a dislike to the over-zealous new minister, and experiences such a crisis of faith that she cannot bear to go to church any more. This is a turning point in Clara's life; it is as if the demolition of one fixed, accepted convention has opened the way for her to be true to her real nature. Clara's journey of self-discovery is not destined to be an easy one. A generous gesture, providing casual work for two tramps, has horrific consequences, and Clara turns to her sister and her new friends for support. As she ventures further into the dark heart of experience, and embarks upon a feverish affair with a married man, Clara displays her inner strength and realizes just what a passionate woman she really is. (Kirkus UK) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

In the late 30s, sisters Clara and Nora face the future with hope and uncertainty. Told through their diaries and letters, this novel vividly brings them to life in a world struggling through the Depression and the growing threat of fascism in Europe. The author is the winner of Canadian Giller Prize for Fiction. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

In the midst of the Great Depression, two sisters from small-town Ontario pursue separate destinies. While Nora escapes to New York City to become the glamorous star of a radio soap opera, her older sister Clara follows a more conventional route, staying home and teaching school. Yet, as Clara’s diary and the sisters’ letters reveal, beneath the seeming ordinariness of her daily life the spinster schoolteacher hides dark secrets and clandestine longings. In his sensitive portrait of a quietly passionate woman who defies social mores, Richard B. Wright brilliantly evokes the atmosphere of the 1930s, when show business was still in its infancy and the world trembled on the edge of war. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

The author of nine novels, Richard Wright has been published in Canada, the United States, and the U.K. His novel, The Middle of Life, won the city of Toronto Book Award and the Faber Award, and his novel, The Age of Longing was nominated for the Governor General’s Award and the Giller Prize. He lives, writes, and teaches in St. Catherines, Ontario. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Told through letters and journal entries, this novel spans four years in the lives of two very different sisters from a small Canadian town during the 1930s. Narrators Anne Twomey and Joanna P. Adler each take the part of one sister, enhancing the exploration of contrast between the extroverted, ambitious radio star, Nora, and the reflective, reserved, and old-fashioned schoolteacher, Clara. Each reader renders her character sensitively, without resorting to sentimentality. Built on the details of daily life, the story illuminates the emotional drama that underlies the ordinary while exploring the societal restraints against which independent women of the 1930s struggled. Written in prose that is simple and poetic, CLARA CALLAN is rich in historical detail, psychological insight, humor, and tragedy--a moving work of literature, read with appropriate subtlety. E.S. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.