Crow Lake: FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE LONGLISTED AUTHOR OF A TOWN CALLED SOLACE

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When Kate leaves for university, she takes with her a portrait of her great-grandmother, who had fixed a book rest to her spinning wheel so as to become educated even as she completed chores. Kate goes on to enjoy the academic career she feels should rightly have been her brothers’. Her long overdue return to Crow Lake, with boyfriend Daniel in tow, comes on the occasion of the 18th birthday of Matt and Marie’s son, Simon. Now a zoologist, Kate is estranged from her family and her roots in Northern Ontario, feeling she has outgrown them. Mom and dad are happy and proud. After dinner, they drive the car to town to buy a suitcase for Luke while the kids wait at home. Both parents tragically die in a car accident.

Hawthorn, Tom. "Crow Lake." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published March 09, 2020; Last Edited March 09, 2020.

I’m afraid I’m going to sound like a broken record when I say how much I really LOVE this book. Recently I’ve had a good run with a few books that are absolutely terrific…. So the same day I'm holding my cousin's 14 hour old baby in my arms, and the knowledge that my own mother won't be there when I hold my children in my arms for the first time- or any time- comes searing through my blood, I find this book.

Social relations. Delia Owens' novel is pristine in this sense, the heroine is initially turned off from society, while Lawson's characters are closely involved in many relationships of the rural community and the academic environment, revealing themselves in them, searching and finding their place, comprehending the features of interactions. The Morrison siblings have been haunted by tragedy since the sudden death of their parents in an accident when they were young.There was quite a gap between the short story and the novel, and during that time both of my parents died and my children flew the nest. I spent even more time than usual, then, thinking about issues of family, home and childhood, and I have no doubt that that had an influence on the novel.