Open Arms (Paperback)

by Marina Endicott (Author)

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Product Details

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Broadview Press (Feb 1 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1551119323
ISBN-13: 978-1551119328
Product Dimensions: 22.1 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
Shipping Weight: 386 g
Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #312,498 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon.ca

2001 Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award Shortlist:: Open Arms, Marina Endicott's first novel, is a big-hearted, funny, and occasionally clumsy debut. It is the story of three periods in the life of Bessie Smith Connolly, a young woman with a decidedly checkered upbringing. The first third of Open Arms, in which 17-year-old Bessie stays with her mother in Saskatoon for the first time since early childhood, is incredibly funny. Here, Endicott reveals herself to be a formidable comic writer, capable of squeezing love, repulsion, and laughter from her readers in the space of a single paragraph.

As Open Arms continues, however, Endicott moves into more serious territory, and her sense of narrative pace begins to let her down. The centre of the book covers Bessie's journey to Galiano Island, ostensibly to visit her father, Patrick, an irresponsible but brilliant poet. She finds his current partner, Doreen, pregnant with twins, but Patrick is nowhere to be found. The conclusion of Open Arms sees Bessie teaming up with her grandmother, Elizabeth, to search for her mother, Isabel, an itinerant singer and newspaper distributor who has disappeared into the wilds of northern Saskatchewan. Their trip is colourful but strangely muted, interspersed with occasional moments of self-revelation and leading to an ending that depends too much on a character who is barely present. But Open Arms is a promising debut, and if Endicott continues to refine her strengths she will soon be a novelist to be reckoned with. --Jack Illingworth --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Books in Canada

Open Arms, by Marina Endicott, meets one of my major criteria for successful novels: three weeks after reading it I can still recall characters, scenes, and events. Bessie Smith Connolly has lived with her grandparents in Nova Scotia since she was a small child, but now at seventeen, mourning the death of her beloved grandfather, and after a breakup with her boyfriend Daniel, she moves to Saskatoon to be with her sometime band singer mother Isabel, who lives with Katherine, the second wife of Bessie's father Patrick, and a half-sister Irene. The characters take a little sorting out, but it's worth the effort. The father is a well-known poet who cannot sustain a relationship and is now living on an island off the coast of British Columbia with a third wife Doreen, who is expecting twins. The story moves back and forth in time as Bess recalls previous visits to Isabel, Katherine, and Doreen. About to become a mother herself, Bess is searching for her own mother both physically and symbolically, and for a stable life. But her mother, though personable, is chronically preoccupied with her own unstable relationships. Bessie's grandmother arrives from Nova Scotia and they take off in search of the elusive Isabel who has trekked off into the wilderness with one of her many admirers. The climax, which takes place in the badlands of Alberta, is sure to leave a tear in the reader's eye. Endicott is an excellent storyteller and this is a substantial, sweet-natured novel, full of hope and promise. --W.P. Kinsella (Books in Canada) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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