- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Cormorant Books Inc (Oct 4 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1897151403
- ISBN-13: 978-1897151402
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 14.2 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 662 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #486,065 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Quill & Quire
Karen McLaughlin’s second novel incorporates similar themes to those of her first, 1995’s Choral. From This Distance examines women’s relationships with each other and the damage those relationships can do. This is frequently travelled fictional territory, and while McLaughlin doesn’t bring anything especially new to it, her story is well-told and compassionate.
When her mother-in-law Muriel dies, Robyn inherits the older woman’s car. Driving home to Calgary from New Brunswick (where Muriel was buried), Robyn is torn between feelings of contempt and affection for the dead woman. It takes her most of the Trans-Canada Highway to come to some sort of understanding about Muriel, who embodied everything Robyn fears becoming.
Unfortunately, Robyn never outruns her biggest fear: becoming, like Muriel, a complainer. Recalling a typical afternoon with Muriel, Robyn laments, “What I get for my efforts is an afternoon of complaining about [the relatives] when they’re out of earshot.” The irony is that it often seems as though the two women are in competition to see who can complain the most, who can be the most passive-aggressive.
McLaughlin’s writing is compelling, despite suffering from a desire to fit everything in, both in terms of descriptive details and the scope of the narrative. And even though most of the supporting characters remain shadowy – Robyn’s husband is seldom seen as more than a self-centered man forcing his own will on his family, and her children, supposedly the light of her life, are all but invisible – Robyn and Muriel are authentic, and their journey is an interesting one.
Product Description
Robyn Gallagher inherits a car from the mother-in-law she believes disapproved of her. In it, she sets out from the town where she buried Muriel, on the banks of the Bay of Fundy, to go on a cross-country road trip back to her home in Calgary. Although there are hazards along the way, Robyn discovers that her journey crosses more than just physical terrain. The long stretches of solitude enable her to finally speak her mind to Muriel, to settle old scores, and to seize the opportunity to reflect on where she stands -- both within herself and within the world. At times furious, funny, and deeply compassionate, From This Distance is the life-affirming story of one woman's liberation from limited expectations.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Soul Searching Women's Fiction,
This review is from: From This Distance (Paperback)
The style and subject matter of this novel would not normally attract me but the book was recommended by a friend and once I started it I was pulled in and held like a rabbit hypnotized by a snake in a queasy, oddly guilty fascination as the author laid bare this story of an ordinary woman's life with excruciatingly embarrassing female honesty. This is a long novel (460 pages, not 320 as is listed on the description). I read it in bed over five stormy November nights. It requires your attention and you probably won't be able to do it justice if you try reading it on the bus. If you like Anita Shreve then you might like this author. She delves into the unvarnished memories of a forty-something woman trying to sort out her life and decide if she wants to salvage her marriage during a lonely cross-country drive. The setting and experience are thoroughly Canadian but I don't think you have to be Canadian to identify with this woman's dilemmas. The main strength of the story is the author's ability to brutally nail down the secret desires, questions, impulses and petty thoughts that run through every woman's mind. Never in a million years would we admit to most of them but they exist nevertheless. I guess that is why I stayed glued to the page as the main character Robyn examined her life, trying to understand her mistakes and to determine how much (or how pitifully little) of her life had been governed by personal choice and how much was the result of chance, inexperience, her own myopia and to the influence and manipulation of other people especially her mother-in-law. Was this book uplifting? I'm not sure but it stopped me in my tracks and made me think about the direction of my own life. If you are in the mood for some serious soul-searching than this book will mean something to you.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Mother of All Journeys,
This review is from: From This Distance (Paperback)
A little Homer''s Odyssey and a little Jack Kerouac''s On the Road, Karen McLaughlin's second novel makes you travel from coast to coast in a two-toned burgundy Buick Skylark bequest to her main character, Robin Gallagher, by her mother-in-law, Muriel.
The old car, in shipshape outside, is 'time-hardened' inside'-or rather, corroded by the salty sea air. "''I''m driving a metaphor, Muriel. Imagine that,'" says Robin. And that''s what Robin does all the way from New Brunswick to British-Columbia: talk to her indomitable mother-in-law, queen of the church functions, paragon of respectability, and beholder of moral truths and petty secrets. Robin's mistake was to think, as a young woman, that she could replace her own inadequate mother with this one, and swap her whole dysfunctional family for a brand new one by marrying Muriel''s only son, Jamie. Oh dear...' Oh yes! We're in for a good ride, from sea to sea with everything that lies in between, each chapters of Robin's life as she gains momentum and learn the secrets hidden behind even the most upright citizen, and the litany of self-pity born from a life not lived but endured. "''I'm beginning to think that endurance is an overrated quality,'" Robin thinks out loud somewhere between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg. ' "Only survival is expected under this precept. Not flourishing.'" This could have been a banal tale in another writer''s hand, but it''s not. It's gritty and almost painfully true, with sentences that falls like nails to crucify whatever illusions Robin still harbors. Like this one, my favourite: "'I thought I'd weigh much less with you dead, Muriel.'" From A Distance sometimes feels so intimate that this reader, although unable to put the book down, also felt she should stop peeking through the keyhole.' A funny, highly unusual, and ultimately enlightening read 'because unlike Homer's or Kerouac's, this is a woman''s journey.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant and personal pan-Canadian epic novel,
By
This review is from: From This Distance (Paperback)
I rate From This Distance up there with The Diviners, Solomon Gursky Was Here and Fall on Your Knees.
The story spans many disparate Canadian locations - the Maritimes, Labrador, Northern BC, Regina, Calgary, suburban Toronto - and an equally vast panorama of personal experiences - marriage, kids, love and the eventual emergence of a suppressed creative voice. We see the vast machinations of industry and technology on the land and the minutest nuances of the human heart. Robyn - the main character - is in many ways a personification of Canada, of a generation and a nation learning to see itself. It's funny, heartbreaking and revealing, the kind of book you don't want to put down and don't want to end.
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