- Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Greystone Books; Reprint edition (Feb 18 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 155365577X
- ISBN-13: 978-1553655770
- Product Dimensions: 18.8 x 13.2 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 222 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #113,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Quill & Quire
Lorna Crozier is a poet, anthologist, and creative writing teacher. But readers coming to her memoir seeking an account of the writing life will be disappointed. Rather, this is a book about her relationship with her immediate family, especially her parents. The trouble is that the circumstances of Crozier’s life in Swift Current, the small Saskatchewan city where she grew up, are mostly unremarkable. The PR copy refers to “the grief and shame caused by poverty and alcoholism.” True, her parents were too poor to own a house, and their rentals sound pretty dilapidated, but they had a car and a speedboat and the family was never in danger of starving. Her father drinks, but he’s more of an after-work-beers-at-the-Legion sloppy drunk than a destructive dipsomaniac. The shame in the book is caused more by small-town status anxiety than skeletons in the closet. Through it all, Lorna does her darnedest to fit in. She gets her first period, gets bullied, gets felt up by boys, acts in the school musical, and becomes high school valedictorian. Her best friend gets pregnant and married at fifteen, so Lorna resolves to abstain from sex – and she does, until she finally marries “to break [her] maidenly state.” The humdrumness of these events isn’t irredeemable, but the writing provides little relief. Style has never been Crozier’s forte and her prose here ranges from plodding to purple. She lacks the raconteur’s instinct for pacing and anecdotal embellishment that makes the work of such disparate memoirists as Frank McCourt and David Sedaris hum, and the only humour in the book is of the accidental variety, such as when Tiny, her brother’s poultricidal Pomeranian, is likened, sans irony, to Cerberus. The subtitle of this book is “A Prairie Memoir,” and the best parts tend to be the interludes in which Crozier riffs on some aspect of the landscape. More of this and fewer tedious quotidian details would have been welcome. Ultimately, however, Small Beneath the Sky seems to have been written more for the author’s catharsis than the reader’s enjoyment.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
"How rare such honesty is, and how hard-won, and radical, and beautiful!" (Ursula LeGuin, author of "Lavinia" 20090927)
"With her poet's eye, Crozier lays out the taste and smell and feel of her childhood...Her memoir is a tender reflection of her youth, and we are left with prairie visions dancing in our heads. " (Chronicle Herald 20090815)
"[Lorna Crozier's] poetic gift gives her prose a wonderful edge and clarity." (Winnipeg Free Press 20091128)
"The Governor General's Awardñwinning poet's vivid narrative about her upbringing in Swift Current, Sask. Her father, Emerson, was an alcoholic, and we come to know the shame she experienced living with poverty and addiction. Her mother, Peggy, was a tough proud woman who never wasted a potato and who loved her daughter fiercely, if quietly. This is a fast read, due in great part to Crozier's superb ability to tell a story simply and from the gut." (National Post 20090713)
"Crozier's prose illuminates our world. She is a writer of the first rank." (David Adam Richards, author of "The Lost Highway" 20090809)
"Crozier's character sketches are solid but it's her poet's eye that rewards an attentive reader." (Toronto Star )
"With her poet's eye, Crozier lays out the taste and smell and feel of her childhood...Her memoir is a tender reflection of her youth, and we are left with prairie visions dancing in our heads. " (Chronicle Herald 20090815)
"[Lorna Crozier's] poetic gift gives her prose a wonderful edge and clarity." (Winnipeg Free Press 20091128)
"The Governor General's Awardñwinning poet's vivid narrative about her upbringing in Swift Current, Sask. Her father, Emerson, was an alcoholic, and we come to know the shame she experienced living with poverty and addiction. Her mother, Peggy, was a tough proud woman who never wasted a potato and who loved her daughter fiercely, if quietly. This is a fast read, due in great part to Crozier's superb ability to tell a story simply and from the gut." (National Post 20090713)
"Crozier's prose illuminates our world. She is a writer of the first rank." (David Adam Richards, author of "The Lost Highway" 20090809)
"Crozier's character sketches are solid but it's her poet's eye that rewards an attentive reader." (Toronto Star )
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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A walk down memoray lane,
By
This review is from: Small Beneath The Sky (Hardcover)
Lorna's vivid description of my home town and of the people and places of my youth evoked numerous memories and emotions - some painful, others wonderful - that stayed with me for days after reading this book. Her story is not unlike my own in many respects, and I suspect it will resonate with many others who grew up in similar circumstances. Her exquisite poetry delighted my senses as I recalled the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the prairies. Even those who did not grow up in this prairie town will have a sense of what it means to do so though this book. Thank you for sharing some of the most intimate details of your life, Lorna.
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of potatoes, but not enough gravy.,
By
This review is from: Small Beneath The Sky (Hardcover)
This is more a bio than the story of a family. The poetry is exquisit throughout the novel, which I came to savor upon each entry.
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