I'm going to have to read this one again in order to do it justice. It has so many elements that I enjoyed: some mystery, some romantic intrique, both blunt and poetic prose, a cast of well-developed and slightly lost characters, an unique context(Yellowknife & small town radio)...read it!



Another Canadian novel - how lucky am I? And I found it at a flea market at the university - four books for three euros. Best deal ever considering the bookstore stocks only paper back bodice rippers and mysteries for 12-16 euros. I very nearly put it down. I picked it up and read "On a Canadian air force base in the early 1960's the McCarthy family is leading a post-war dream" - eww, the 60's? I started watching Mad Men last week when it debuted over here and barely lasted the episode. That was not a good era for women. This book though captivated and I could not put it down all weekend despite the migraine inducing small type (what is wrong with me, I missed half a day of work recovering)Part childhood memoir, part cold war thriller (mild), part crime/mystery novel and rather patriotic...got me thinking with one character's supposition that the worst kind of Canadian patriotism is anti-Americanism. Makes sense, doesn't say much to define your country by what your country is not. And yet it is so easy (and tempting) to do. Part Four seemed to loose momentum and the dreamy story telling quality that drew me in...but satisfying just the same. And to be honest, I'm rarely satisfied with the ending of a good book, it seems the characters should keep living their lives on the pages...

"When you look closely, however, you can see that they all have the thing in their eye. The result of an accident or a gift. Perhaps God dropped each of them on the head before they were born. Light seems to reflect at an odd angle from their irises - the visible effect, possibly, of information that, having entered the brain obliquely, exits the eye at a corresponding tilt. Something, at some point, smote or stroked them. Each lives in genial terror of being found out and exposed as a fraud. Each is fuelled by a combustible blend of exuberance and self-loathing, informed by a mix of savvy and gullibility. None was cool in high school. Denizens of the great in-between of belonging and not belonging; dwellers in the cracks of sidewalks; stateless citizens of the world; strangers among us, familiar to all. Comedians. These are Madeleine's people."

"The man who whined reappeared from time to time, but she kept him separate from her dad. It never occurred to her that the woman who criticized was anyone other than her mother."

PS- Jaralyn, I think you would like this one...