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Stray Love
Born of an adulterous affair in London, England, Marcel is ethnically ambiguous, growing up in the racially charged 1960s with a white surrogate father named Oliver. Abandoned as an infant, Marcel is haunted by vague memories of his bohemian mother, and is desperate to know who his real parents are.
When Oliver is promoted to foreign correspondent, he leaves Marcel in the care of his ill-equipped friends, including the beautiful Pippa. The world is being swept by a wave of liberation—coups, revolutions and the end of colonialism. While Oliver rushes toward the action, Marcel is set adrift in swinging London, a city of magic—and a city where he can never quite fit in. Just when it seems they will never be reunited, Marcel is sent to join Oliver in Vietnam. But by the summer of 1963, the war is escalating, and Oliver is finally overwhelmed by his doomed love for Pippa. When Marcel eventually uncovers the shattering truth about his mother, his entire world is rearranged.
Now, as his fiftieth birthday approaches, Marcel is asked to take care of his friend’s eleven-year-old daughter, Iris. Prodded by her sharp-eyed company, he reflects on his own bittersweet childhood and the experiences that have shaped his present. Stray Love is beautifully illustrated with original drawings by noted Toronto artist/filmmaker Heather Frise.
When Oliver is promoted to foreign correspondent, he leaves Marcel in the care of his ill-equipped friends, including the beautiful Pippa. The world is being swept by a wave of liberation—coups, revolutions and the end of colonialism. While Oliver rushes toward the action, Marcel is set adrift in swinging London, a city of magic—and a city where he can never quite fit in. Just when it seems they will never be reunited, Marcel is sent to join Oliver in Vietnam. But by the summer of 1963, the war is escalating, and Oliver is finally overwhelmed by his doomed love for Pippa. When Marcel eventually uncovers the shattering truth about his mother, his entire world is rearranged.
Now, as his fiftieth birthday approaches, Marcel is asked to take care of his friend’s eleven-year-old daughter, Iris. Prodded by her sharp-eyed company, he reflects on his own bittersweet childhood and the experiences that have shaped his present. Stray Love is beautifully illustrated with original drawings by noted Toronto artist/filmmaker Heather Frise.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published March 9, 2012
1 person is currently reading
186 people want to read
About the author
Kyo Maclear
38 books508 followersKyo Maclear is an essayist, novelist and children’s author. She was born in London, England and moved to Toronto at the age of four with her British father (a foreign correspondent and documentary filmmaker) and Japanese mother (a painter and art dealer).
Her books have been translated into eighteen languages, published in over twenty-five countries, and garnered nominations from the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Governor General’s Literary Awards, the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Awards, the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the National Magazine Awards, among other honours.
Unearthing: a Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets (2023) was a national bestseller and awarded the Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction. Her hybrid memoir Birds Art Life (2017) was a #1 National Bestseller and winner of the Trillium Book Award and the Nautilus Book Award for Lyrical Prose. It was named one of the best books of 2017 by The Globe and Mail, CBC, Now Magazine, the National Post, Forbes, the Chicago Review of Books, and Book Riot.
Her work has appeared in Orion Magazine, Brick, Border Crossings, The Millions, LitHub, The Volta, Prefix Photo, Resilience, The Guardian, Lion’s Roar, Azure, The Globe and Mail, and elsewhere. She has been a national arts reviewer for Canadian Art and a monthly arts columnist for Toronto Life.
Kyo holds a doctorate in environmental humanities teaches creative writing with The Humber School for Writers and the University of Guelph Creative Writing MFA.
She lives in Tkaronto/Toronto, on the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the New Credit, the Haudenosaunee, Métis, and the Huron-Wendat.
Her books have been translated into eighteen languages, published in over twenty-five countries, and garnered nominations from the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Governor General’s Literary Awards, the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Awards, the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the National Magazine Awards, among other honours.
Unearthing: a Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets (2023) was a national bestseller and awarded the Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction. Her hybrid memoir Birds Art Life (2017) was a #1 National Bestseller and winner of the Trillium Book Award and the Nautilus Book Award for Lyrical Prose. It was named one of the best books of 2017 by The Globe and Mail, CBC, Now Magazine, the National Post, Forbes, the Chicago Review of Books, and Book Riot.
Her work has appeared in Orion Magazine, Brick, Border Crossings, The Millions, LitHub, The Volta, Prefix Photo, Resilience, The Guardian, Lion’s Roar, Azure, The Globe and Mail, and elsewhere. She has been a national arts reviewer for Canadian Art and a monthly arts columnist for Toronto Life.
Kyo holds a doctorate in environmental humanities teaches creative writing with The Humber School for Writers and the University of Guelph Creative Writing MFA.
She lives in Tkaronto/Toronto, on the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the New Credit, the Haudenosaunee, Métis, and the Huron-Wendat.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
October 22, 2016
Another 3-star read. It was going strong for me in the beginning, but the more it went on, and the more the timeline jumped around, the greater my disconnect to the story became. I don't think there was a strong enough background story on the racial ambiguity of Marcel to support this being a reason for his alienation, in my opinion- it really wasn't a major or often talked about aspect to the story. I also did not like the sometimes wildly arcing and varying timelines on the same page. I don't know - it was just the more I continued reading the less connected I felt to the story and to Marcel. Sigh.
March 30, 2012
Maclear, author of the critically acclaimed The Letter Opener, shines in her newest novel, Stray Love.
She captures the era of the 1960s with all its upheaval through the eyes of a young mixed-race boy. This boy, Marcel, follows his war reporter guardian to Vietnam at the beginning of the conflict.
The horrible things he sees in Saigon as well as the terrible way he is treated by his runaway mother, and the children around him, affect him for life. The introduction into his life of a young girl, the daughter of his childhood best friend, offers him not only a catalyst for his own memories of childhood but also a prodding to take his own life into his hands and make a blank slate of it. This gives Marcel hope for his future, for the future of his young ward, Iris, who is of mixed race like her mother and temporary guardian. It also gives the reader hope that we have changed and the terrible way children like Marcel were treated can stop when society changes.
Maclear is a powerful and expressive writer, one of Canada's best. This book is sublime and should be on awards lists everywhere this fall.
She captures the era of the 1960s with all its upheaval through the eyes of a young mixed-race boy. This boy, Marcel, follows his war reporter guardian to Vietnam at the beginning of the conflict.
The horrible things he sees in Saigon as well as the terrible way he is treated by his runaway mother, and the children around him, affect him for life. The introduction into his life of a young girl, the daughter of his childhood best friend, offers him not only a catalyst for his own memories of childhood but also a prodding to take his own life into his hands and make a blank slate of it. This gives Marcel hope for his future, for the future of his young ward, Iris, who is of mixed race like her mother and temporary guardian. It also gives the reader hope that we have changed and the terrible way children like Marcel were treated can stop when society changes.
Maclear is a powerful and expressive writer, one of Canada's best. This book is sublime and should be on awards lists everywhere this fall.
April 25, 2012
A wonderful novel in many ways, about love and war, art and race. Beautifully written and engaging. Alas a lack of research on the author's part means the narrator's voice never rings quite true - Marcel is British and yet his voice is entirely North American. I could forgive one or two inaccuracies but this novel has one or two on almost every page, and of the kind that make me think the author has never read a British book or seen a British film. We don't say 'sidewalk' or 'fire truck' or 'the fall', and Maclear's understanding of the way British schools work is quite wrong. She writes about London like a tourist rather than a resident as Marcel and Oliver are supposed to be. A shame, as Marcel could just as easily have been Canadian and the novel would still have worked. But there are so many other things - the important things - that Maclear gets right that I can just about overlook the mistakes.
March 28, 2012
I think my favourite part of this book was the narrator, Marcel. Spanning his life from childhood to middle age, you get lots of time to fall in love with this sensitive, mixed-race child with the unusual upbringing. I also loved the setting (1960s England and Vietnam), which is rife with tension and change. The book moved a long at a nice pace and I greatly appreciated Maclear's tone, which was literary but breezy. I knew her as a children's author but was pleased to discover that she is equally comfortable in the sphere of adult fiction. I eagerly await her next novel!
March 30, 2012
TORONTO writer Kyo Maclear's lovely second novel is set in present-day London and Vietnam War-era Saigon and tells the story an adopted son of a British foreign correspondent.
Marcel Laurence, despite his European name, grows up non-white in 1950s England, with no idea who - or where - his birth parents are. The one constant in his life is his adoptive father Oliver, who himself was orphaned by the London blitz.
Given all of that, it will surprise no one to hear that Maclear - the British-Japanese daughter of foreign correspondent and documentary filmmaker Michael Maclear - has focused Stray Love on issues of identity, loss and healing. Traditional Canlit tropes, right?
But it is Maclear's risk-taking, her willingness to write characters so close to her own experience and to put them through so very much that makes Stray Love an important novel. It also firmly establishes Maclear in the echelon of home-and-abroad writers such as Madeleine Thien and Karen Connelly.
Interestingly, while Maclear takes great pains to get Marcel - and her readers - to 1960s Vietnam, the majority of her novel's conflicts are domestic.
Oliver, though distracted by his work and its attendant demons, works hard to keep the details of the war - the zippo missions and hot zones he reports on - from his son.
He also works hard to keep the identity of Marcel's birth parents a secret. All Marcel knows is that his mother was briefly institutionalized and that Oliver loved her. Which isn't much help to Marcel, whose mixed-race appearance draws stares from adults and taunts from schoolmates in England.
Once in Vietnam, however, 11-year-old Marcel is left his own devices, which include drawing in his notebook and wandering the streets around Hotel Continental, the home base for Saigon's foreign correspondents.
Though everything around him is strange, Marcel is startled by how at home he feels in Vietnam:
"In Saigon, I walked lightly. I bore fewer questions, suffered less scrutiny and, consequently, felt more at ease. Everywhere I looked, I saw faces that resembled mine, Eurasian faces, Hmong faces, in-between faces."
Maclear's previous novel, The Letter Opener (1997) and the children's book Spork (2010), were similarly focused on identity.
Unlike Stray Love, which relies on the documentary evidence of Marcel's drawings and Oliver's newspaper clippings, Maclear's earlier work puts a lot of weight, metaphorically, on objects.
Maclear’s debut is told from the point of view of Naiko, a Japanese-British woman who works in Toronto’s Undeliverable Mail Office. The commitment-shy Naiko knows it’s all “just stuff” but finds it reassuring that objects can act as placekeepers for memories, how they are, literally, souvenirs.
Spork, written before the birth of Maclear’s first child, is the story of a piece of cutlery that “is neither spoon nor fork…but a bit of both.”
Structurally, Stray Love alternates between Marcel's insecure childhood and his middle age, where he is still uncertain about who he is, even if he now knows who his parents are.
Marcel is driven into memories of his childhood when his oldest friend, the Japanese-English Kiyomi, asks if he can look after her daughter Iris for a few weeks.
Iris drags out a suitcase of Marcel's mother's things, which Marcel must now deal with, literally and figuratively, before Kiyomi comes to pick up Iris.
Maclear can be forgiven for making Marcel's "baggage" manifest, after all the darkness that has preceded it. It's all "just stuff," right?
July 23, 2016
I fell in love with Maclear's writing and I'm going to pick up The Letter Opener tomorrow, but I haven't changed my mind about how much she could have used a good fact-checker, and I stand by my earlier review written after 60 pages, below.
Before I started Stray Love, I read David's review, which points out how this novel lacks research, making Marcel's British identity sound inauthentic. Since I can't judge its Britishness, I thought the weak factual side of the work wouldn't affect my perception, but unfortunately, the author managed to make a really awkward mistake that I did notice: a Polish character named "Pippa." "Pippa" is by far one of the least-Polish names one can think about. Unlike my Polish name Marta, which can be easily identified with English Martha, the names Filipa or Filipina, which would be equivalent to Phillipa, are extremely rare in Poland. I've never heard or read about a Polish woman of such a name; I found one Filipina in Wikipedia, but zero Filipas. The author says that although Pippa came to England from Poland through Canada, she identifies as English, so one might think she maybe abandoned her original Polish name and picked something very English. The only problem is that "pipa" is a very common Polish slang word for "vagina," and I am having the hardest time imagining a Polish immigrant selecting that out of all the names. Her sister's name, Stasha (Stasia, Stanislawa in Polish) sounds probable, but Pippa from Poland? How did it even happen? I know that what I'm saying might be considered small-minded nitpicking, and I should rather look at the big picture -- at how beautifully love and memory are described here -- than dwell on insignificant details. The problem is that those details build the work's verisimilitude, and if they're wrong, they distract the reader from what's really important, plus, suggest the author was careless. After all, if those details were insignificant, why are they even in the novel? They can be stripped, like in Saramago's Blindness, and yet they are there. It is still beautiful, moving and melancholic, I'm enjoying it, but I agree with David that it would have done the story more good if Maclear had set it in her familiar surroundings. Or if she had done a tad more research (Umberto Eco spent years on research before he wrote The Name of the Rose).
Before I started Stray Love, I read David's review, which points out how this novel lacks research, making Marcel's British identity sound inauthentic. Since I can't judge its Britishness, I thought the weak factual side of the work wouldn't affect my perception, but unfortunately, the author managed to make a really awkward mistake that I did notice: a Polish character named "Pippa." "Pippa" is by far one of the least-Polish names one can think about. Unlike my Polish name Marta, which can be easily identified with English Martha, the names Filipa or Filipina, which would be equivalent to Phillipa, are extremely rare in Poland. I've never heard or read about a Polish woman of such a name; I found one Filipina in Wikipedia, but zero Filipas. The author says that although Pippa came to England from Poland through Canada, she identifies as English, so one might think she maybe abandoned her original Polish name and picked something very English. The only problem is that "pipa" is a very common Polish slang word for "vagina," and I am having the hardest time imagining a Polish immigrant selecting that out of all the names. Her sister's name, Stasha (Stasia, Stanislawa in Polish) sounds probable, but Pippa from Poland? How did it even happen? I know that what I'm saying might be considered small-minded nitpicking, and I should rather look at the big picture -- at how beautifully love and memory are described here -- than dwell on insignificant details. The problem is that those details build the work's verisimilitude, and if they're wrong, they distract the reader from what's really important, plus, suggest the author was careless. After all, if those details were insignificant, why are they even in the novel? They can be stripped, like in Saramago's Blindness, and yet they are there. It is still beautiful, moving and melancholic, I'm enjoying it, but I agree with David that it would have done the story more good if Maclear had set it in her familiar surroundings. Or if she had done a tad more research (Umberto Eco spent years on research before he wrote The Name of the Rose).
January 4, 2016
maclear is such a great writer. i feel like she really got into the head of this mature-before-his-years character. the idea of belonging - where one fits it? - and identity - what is their identity? how can you know yourself if you don't know your parents? - are expressed beautifully in this novel.
my only regret is that because of work commitments and lack of time, i could not read this book in a shorter amount of time. i think i would have been impacted even more strongly had i been able to read it over a couple of days, rather than more than a week.
********
21-feb-13: this is a review in progress, sorry for the mess. :)
Where do we belong in this world? If we aren't even certain of our own origins, how can we possibly make our way in this world without a foundation of support and love? Especially "How?" if the person trying to figure this out is an eleven-year-old boy?
In a beautiful and poetic novel, Kyo Maclear looks at these questions and tries to help makes sense of a world that is determined to judge, label and put everyone in a tidy, little box. For a boy who is neither black nor white, someone who is without parents and just wants to belong, finding the answers to the important questions is a lifelong search.
Marcel
my only regret is that because of work commitments and lack of time, i could not read this book in a shorter amount of time. i think i would have been impacted even more strongly had i been able to read it over a couple of days, rather than more than a week.
********
21-feb-13: this is a review in progress, sorry for the mess. :)
Where do we belong in this world? If we aren't even certain of our own origins, how can we possibly make our way in this world without a foundation of support and love? Especially "How?" if the person trying to figure this out is an eleven-year-old boy?
In a beautiful and poetic novel, Kyo Maclear looks at these questions and tries to help makes sense of a world that is determined to judge, label and put everyone in a tidy, little box. For a boy who is neither black nor white, someone who is without parents and just wants to belong, finding the answers to the important questions is a lifelong search.
Marcel
April 13, 2012
I loved this beautifully written memoir full of melancholy and shell-shocked characters. I loved the voice of the narrator and the slow process of peeling of the various layers of sadness that surrounded Oliver, Pippa, Marcel, Anh, Dinh, Arnaud just like the dense fog that had descended upon London one day and covered everything in yellow gauze. This is not a page turner, everything happens slowly and deliberately, as we wait for the fog to lift. I am happy to discover a writer I love. Being a fan of Ryszard Kapuściński, I am thrilled to discover a nod in his direction. I love all the characters. I love the gentle, thoughtful narration and even all the pain it conveys.
May 24, 2015
I loved the voice of the author and the way she managed to put herself in a man's shoes. I was convinced until the end that it was a man who wrote this book.
The story flowed very easily and pleasantly even though it was heavy with sadness from time to time. I didn't quite like the open ending, but I somehow expected it. Oddly, though I added this to my favorites, there's not much I can say about it, because it was a clean and beautifully constructed story of life. I warmly recommend it to anyone who likes the biographical style.
The story flowed very easily and pleasantly even though it was heavy with sadness from time to time. I didn't quite like the open ending, but I somehow expected it. Oddly, though I added this to my favorites, there's not much I can say about it, because it was a clean and beautifully constructed story of life. I warmly recommend it to anyone who likes the biographical style.
December 21, 2020
Vietnam
"This morning when I woke up, I decided, Today, I’ll veer from habit. Today, I’ll unplot myself."
"A blank book is nothing like the blank of a bomb falling or a parent leaving, nothing like loving and losing, or daring and failing, though it might contain those blanks too. I’ll sit and maybe ease into the full range of it, the emptiness, the boundlessness, the certainty of uncertainty. Surrender. Receive. I’ll weep onto this page that can hold anything."
"This morning when I woke up, I decided, Today, I’ll veer from habit. Today, I’ll unplot myself."
"A blank book is nothing like the blank of a bomb falling or a parent leaving, nothing like loving and losing, or daring and failing, though it might contain those blanks too. I’ll sit and maybe ease into the full range of it, the emptiness, the boundlessness, the certainty of uncertainty. Surrender. Receive. I’ll weep onto this page that can hold anything."
August 26, 2017
Eventhough I really like the cover design and enjoy the story in the beginning, as I read along, the pace of the story became more slowly. I really wanted to read more about Iris' presence than the Vietnam war. At the end, this book felt more like a self-reflecting kinda book, too burdensome and less enoyable than I expected.
March 26, 2013
It is well worth reading this book by a Canadian author. The story weaves from past to present, from one character to another and explores childhood memories and how we are shaped by our environment and those we love.
August 9, 2015
Somewhere between a 3.5 and 4 stars. I enjoyed it more than some of the 3 star books, so.. Interesting story and what I rather liked about it was that it didn't all tie up nicely at the end. It was not a happy story by any means, but well written and interesting.
April 17, 2012
did not finish, very scattered and pointless.
May 22, 2012
Loved this, and thought it was gorgeous. Loved that the main story was about identity and that most of the characters were multiracial. I look forward to checking out Kyo's children's books.
May 17, 2012
In enjoyed this book because it showed how our past influences our presnt.
June 23, 2012
Totally loved this book! Was a real sleeper for me....then I got hooked.....and then I just wanted to savour. Brilliant!
October 14, 2013
I didn't finish this book as he just did not grab my interest at all
June 15, 2015
I liked the narrative style, the nostalgia and the introspection. The Vietnam part got a little boring. I was close to throw it away at some point. Glad that i didn't, the ending was quite touching.
July 30, 2016
The first act in London drags a bit, but the story picks up once Marcel is in Saigon.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews