Crow Lake

About this book

Crow Lake is that rare find a first novel so quietly assured so emotionally pitch perfect you know from the opening page that this is the real thinga literary experience in which to lose yourself by an author of immense talent. Here is a gorgeous slow-burning story set in the rural badlands of northern Ontario where heartbreak and hardship are mirrored in the landscape. For the farming Pye family life is a Greek tragedy where the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons and terrible events occuroffstage. Centerstage are the Morrisons whose tragedy looks more immediate if less brutal but is in reality insidious and divisive. Orphaned young Kate Morrison was her older brother Matts protegee her fascination for pond life fed by his passionate interest in the natural world. Now a zoologist she can identify organisms under a microscope but seems blind to the state of her own emotional life. And she thinks shes outgrown her siblingsLuke Matt and Bowho were once her entire world. In this universal drama of family love and misunderstandings of resentments harbored and driven underground Lawson ratchets up the tension with heartbreaking humor and consummate control continually overturning ones expectations right to the very end. Tragic funny unforgettable Crow Lake is a quiet tour de force that will catapult Mary Lawson to the forefront of fiction writers today.