Review
Praise for Berth "This is a subtle work of offhand wisdom and insight, heartbreakingly true-to-life. -- Lynn Coady "Berth is excoriating in its illumination of women who are dependent, and how love (in its most romantic sense) can be utterly destructive." -- The Globe and Mail "Berth is a novel about taking chances with one's heart and what happens when you cast off the present for a questionable future ...The emotions in the novel are raw ones, the writing empathetic and skilled. A Nova Scotia novel with a difference, Berth is a winner." -- The Sun Times (Owen Sound) Praise for Purple for Sky, winner of the City of Dartmouth Fiction Award and the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award "Reminiscent of Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel ... An intricate and compelling novel [that holds a rich inventory of complex characters, historical details, and hard-won truths." -- Atlantic Books Today -- Carol Bruneau's Purple for Sky ... will be this year's unheralded surprise. Bruneau ... has a saucy, punchy even ebullient writing style, and is completely at ease in the wonderful Arcadian milieu of the story. -- National Post "An endearing, entertaining tale by a first-class storyteller ... It is as meticulously crafted and multi-textured as the quilt that stands as the book's central metaphor." -- The Globe and Mail (
The Globe and Mail )
Praise for Berth "This is a subtle work of offhand wisdom and insight, heartbreakingly true-to-life. -- Lynn Coady "Berth is excoriating in its illumination of women who are dependent, and how love (in its most romantic sense) can be utterly destructive." -- The Globe and Mail "Berth is a novel about taking chances with one's heart and what happens when you cast off the present for a questionable future ...The emotions in the novel are raw ones, the writing empathetic and skilled. A Nova Scotia novel with a difference, Berth is a winner." -- The Sun Times (Owen Sound) Praise for Purple for Sky, winner of the City of Dartmouth Fiction Award and the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award "Reminiscent of Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel ... An intricate and compelling novel [that holds a rich inventory of complex characters, historical details, and hard-won truths." -- Atlantic Books Today -- Carol Bruneau's Purple for Sky ... will be this year's unheralded surprise. Bruneau ... has a saucy, punchy even ebullient writing style, and is completely at ease in the wonderful Arcadian milieu of the story. -- National Post "An endearing, entertaining tale by a first-class storyteller ... It is as meticulously crafted and multi-textured as the quilt that stands as the book's central metaphor." -- The Globe and Mail
Product Description
Seventy-one-year-old Lucy Caines’ husband suffers a severe stroke that makes Lucy reexamine her complicated relationship with the man she has variously loved and loathed. Lucy and Harry Caines’ house is destroyed in the 1917 Halifax Explosion, a catastrophe in which they lose their first child, Helena. With their second child, a boy named Jewel, the young couple carves out a life for themselves amid a survivor’s village of ramshackle houses, gambling, moonshine, and illegal fishing.
Fifty-two years later, Lucy’s son Jewel is married to the daughter of Lucy’s worst enemy, and her grandson Robert wants to quit school to go on a hippie pilgrimage. Forced to work together during Harry’s long recovery, the family gains a new perspective on the past, as a mysterious stranger is more than she seems, and a fresh loss is countered with the emergence of a new hope.
Glass Voices explores the interior life of a woman who has always worked hard for her family and taken little for herself. At the thought of losing her husband, Lucy confronts her dependence on a man whose self-destructiveness has frequently isolated her.
Award-winning author Carol Bruneau’s moving portrait of a mother and her family traverses personal tragedy, two World Wars, and the social tumult of the 60s, tackling the necessity of moving on, and celebrating the possibility of finding salvation in the unlikeliest places.
