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Product Description
From Amazon
Kit's Law is the passionate, well-told story of three feisty female characters struggling against imposed order and male tradition in a harsh Newfoundland outport. Lizzy is the steadfast grandmother; crazy, red-haired Josie, the mother; and Kit, the 14-year-old daughter who tells their story. Like a maritime cutter, the narrative sails along smoothly, and much of the dialogue is in the distinctive argot of that windy Atlantic island: "When it's clear like ice and ribbed on the bottom--that's the killin' frost. Your berries are dead. Good for moose and caribou pickin's. Now, there's them that picks 'em anyway, and that's why their jam is as tart as a whore's arse."
With its partridgeberry patches, moose stew, and endless cups of tea, this is quintessential Newfoundland. After Lizzy dies, the nasty local pastor wants to put Kit in an orphanage and Josie in an appropriate institution. The compassionate Doctor Hodgins becomes their staunch defender against both do-gooders and those plotting Kit's downfall. This first novel is a female coming-of-age story of the rural variety, replete with endemic poverty, good-hearted and downright evil village people, and the constant irritant of Newfoundland's raw, nasty weather. It is also the touching story of Kit's first love, and it reads like a breeze. --Mark Frutkin --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Suffused with a wonder for the natural world like Thomas Hardy's, and the tart forthrightness of Marilynne Robinson, this atmospheric coming-of-age story marks the promising debut of Canadian scriptwriter Morrissey. It's Newfoundland in the 1950s, but it feels like 1850 in Haire's Hollow, a tiny, remote outpost community. There, 12-year-old Kit Pitman lives in a gully shack with feisty grandmother Lizzy and mentally retarded mother Josie, an often drunk near-vagrant scorned by townsfolk as "the gully tramp." Lizzy tigerishly protects her girls, but when she suddenly dies, local women join forces with the vitriolic Reverend Ropson in a campaign to ship Kit and Josie away. Defended by kindly Doctor Hodgins, Kit and Josie are allowed to remain in the gully shack with frequent visits from babysitters and spies, most notably the minister's teenage son, Sidney. But they are never safe, as a psychopathic murderer named Shine roams Haire's Hollow, and Josie persists in meeting him. Some of Morrissey's secondary characters (like the minister and the doctor) are hackneyed and predictable, but Kit is a fresh, delicately nuanced first-person narrator, who almost imperceptibly blossoms from a wary, joyless preadolescent into a "full-blooded" woman, falling disastrously in love with Sidney. Like her beloved grandmother, Kit is valiant and impulsive, but most fetching is her voice whether describing Josie's "smell of rotting dogberries" or the big Newfoundland skies which Morrissey captures with thrilling verve and precision. Agent, Beverly Slopen. Northeast regional author tour; reading group guide.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Decent. Expected More.,
By
This review is from: Kit's Law (Paperback)
I loved Morrissey's Downhill Chance so expected a lot from this book which was ranked so high and considered her "best". I was put off with the thin plot, lack of character development and excess of unpalatable description, such as Kit's mother vomiting into the wind and having it land in her face and hair, or her mother smelling of men. Yuck! Also, it would have been better to bring Nan, the grandmother, to life in a series of backflashes rather than have her die so unexpectedly and suddenly. Since she loomed so large, dominating the first pages of the book, it was jarring for her to disappear like a popped balloon. However, it was an easy read that entertained enough to keep me turning the pages.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not Enough Story,
By A Customer
This review is from: Kit's Law (Paperback)
I hate to be the lone dissenting voice here, but... I'm sorry, I just did not think it was that great. Donna Morrissey writes well. Her descriptions, such as those of the desolate coastal village, are lovely, and the dialect her characters speak in is charming, but those things alone do not make a good novel. There is just not enough happening here. The Shine murder is the only real plot, and there are only fifty pages or so covering his stalking of Kit and Josie, the murder, and the trial. I don't necessarily require complex plotlines to enjoy a book, but if you're going to have this little going on, you need to have well developed characters to carry it along. Most of Morrisey's characters are too one dimensional, either all good (Sid, Loret, and the doctor) or all bad (the Reverend and his wife) and lack believability. Lizzy and Josie are more interesting, but Lizzy is killed off after fifty pages, and with the exception of a few scenes, Josie is mainly reduced to running around and irritating everyone else with her childishness and promiscuity. Kit is the only character that develops much, but she is rather overshadowed by the larger than life secondary characters. The "shocking" relevation about Sid just made me roll my eyes and wonder how many VC Andrews novels the author read before beginning her book. It was at that point that I pretty much just skimmed the rest of the book. I do think that this author has promise, and I'd probably give another novel from her a chance. Now to move on to my next read and duck the hate mail and "unhelpful" reviewer votes that will surely be coming my way! :-)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truly a Newfoundland talent,
This review is from: Kit's Law (Paperback)
I had heard about Donna Morrissey awhile ago and I am a bit embarassed to say that I had not read any of her books. Being from Newfoundland myself, I pride myself on keeping up with my "locals". I sat down with Kit's Law and immediately I was transported to a time from my childhood. Donna Morrissey has not only written a wonderful story but she's done it in the language that I grew up with. She has the ability to immerse the reader into the deepest part of each character's life...and make you want to remain there. I felt and lived each emotion throughout the book and truly could not put the book down until the very end. An extremely satisfying book with the wit and wisdom that you could only find in Newfoundland. I've been telling friends and strangers about this book and this writer - just ask the lady who sat next to me on my last flight to Newfoundland! Bravo Donna!
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