Amazon.ca
2002 Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award Shortlist:
Crow Lake, Mary Lawson's first novel, is an expansive story set in a backwoods northern Ontario farming community, but it makes forays into the research labs of the University of Toronto. The narrator, Kate Morrison, a young woman in her late 20s, looks back at the tragedies and struggles that lie at the heart of her childhood years. Kate's parents died in an automobile accident when she was seven years old, and the aftermath of that disaster is the concern of most of the book. Her older brothers--Luke, an earnestly self-sufficient everyman, and Matt, a humble youth but brilliant scholar--take charge of Kate and her infant sister Bo, working as farmhands and school janitors to make ends meet. Their fortunes are paired with those of the luckless Pye family, a self-destructive clan who live just up the road.
Lawson delivers a strong family story in Crow Lake, but the novel does not fully realize many of its own ambitions. Kate grows up to become a biologist, but aside from a few textbook details of pond life, Lawson includes little that effectively depicts the landscape and natural texture of her setting. Kate constantly invokes local history as a matter of great importance, yet it is very difficult for the reader to determine just when the action takes place. Shorn of strongly developed senses of time and place, Crow Lake often founders in its narrator's own self-obsessed world. There is substance here, but Crow Lake feels too much like an overgrown, diluted Alice Munro story to be genuinely satisfying. --Jack Illingworth
From Publishers Weekly
Four children living in northern Ontario struggle to stay together after their parents die in an auto accident in Lawson's fascinating debut, a compelling and lovely study of sibling rivalry and family dynamics in which the land literally becomes a character. Kate Morrison narrates the tale in flashback mode, starting with the fatal car accident that leaves seven-year-old Kate; her toddler sister, Bo; 19-year-old Luke; and 17-year-old Matt to fend for themselves. At first they are divided up among relatives, but the plan changes when Luke gives up his teaching college scholarship to get a job and try to keep them together. The fractured family struggles mightily against the grinding rural poverty of Crow Lake, and the brothers conduct a fierce battle of wills to control their fate, until they both finally land jobs and the family gets some assistance from a neighbor. Unfortunately, that assistance can't overcome the deranged rage of a neighboring farmer, Cyrus Pye, and when Matt becomes involved with Pye's daughter, Maria, a tragic incident robs the brilliant young man of a chance to pursue a career as a naturalist. Kate goes on to become a zoologist at a Toronto college and marry a fellow academic, but her frustration with her brother's fate renders her unable to return to Crow Lake to visit him until the pivotal climax. Lawson delivers a potent combination of powerful character writing and gorgeous description of the land. Her sense of pace and timing is impeccable throughout, and she uses dangerous winter weather brilliantly to increase the tension as the family battles to survive. This is a vibrant, resonant novel by a talented writer whose lyrical, evocative writing invites comparisons to Rick Bass and Richard Ford. (Mar.)Forecast: The combination of orphan protagonists and effortless prose makes this an irresistible first effort. Foreign rights have already been sold in nine countries, and similar enthusiasm should be expected in the U.S.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
by Mary Lawson
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