The Bay of Love and Sorrows

by David Adams Richards

Set mainly within a small rural area along a bay between New Brunswick and P.E.I., The Bay of Love and Sorrow is a hard-hitting tale of ambition and betrayal in which the senseless murder of a young woman in the summer of 1974 changes the lives of an entire community.

Events are set in motion when the once-strong friendship between privileged Michael Skid, the young son of a judge from town, and farmhand Tommie Donnerel ends in bitter misunderstanding. As Michael sets out to prove something to himself and to others, he finds himself drawn into the company of the beautiful, strong-willed Madonna Brassaurd and her brother, Silver. The three of them soon fall prey to the glamour of Everette Hutch, a charismatic and violent man, whose latest scheme pulls them in over their heads, leading to tragedy.

Bridging the decent world of Tommie Donnerel and the darker realm of the Brassaurds and Everette Hutch is Karrie Smith. She is home for the summer from community college, and it is her poignant longings for a different life that make her most vulnerable to a world she doesn’t understand.

The summer becomes fraught with desperation and abrupt changes of fortune, but it is only in the aftermath of murder that the real truth flowers for those who have been most responsible.

Taut, intricately layered, written in penetrating prose, The Bay of Love and Sorrows explores the possibility of redemption in whatever circumstances people find themselves.

Genres: Canada, Fiction, Canadian Literature, Literature, Novels

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

David Adams Richards (born 17 October 1950) is a Canadian novelist, essayist, screenwriter and poet.

Born in Newcastle, New Brunswick, Richards left St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, one course shy of completing a B.A. Richards has been a writer-in-residence at various universities and colleges across Canada, including the University of New Brunswick.

Richards has received numerous awards including 2 Gemini Awards for scriptwriting for Small Gifts and "For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down", the Alden Nowlan Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the Canadian Authors Association Award for his novel Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace. Richards is one of only three writers to have won in both the fiction and non-fiction categories of the Governor General's Award. He won the 1988 fiction award for Nights Below Station Street and the 1998 non-fiction award for Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi. He was also a co-winner of the 2000 Giller Prize for Mercy Among the Children.

In 1971, he married the former Peggy MacIntyre. They have two sons, John Thomas and Anton Richards, and currently reside in Toronto.

John Thomas was born in 1989 in Saint John, New Brunswick.

The Writers' Federation of New Brunswick administers an annual David Adams Richards Award for Fiction.

Richards' papers are currently housed at the University of New Brunswick.

Reviews

[Connie G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael Skid, the son of an affluent judge, has had a falling out with his best friend, Tom Donnerel, and no longer has the influence of Tom's good values. Michael and his new friends, Madonna and her brother Silver, are looking for some excitement during the summer of 1974 in a rural New Brunswick town. The charismatic ex-con Everette Hutch manipulates the group of young people into helping him with a big drug deal. One bad decision leads to larger unwise decisions, and eventually to some tragic consequences. It reaches the point where Michael and each of his friends cannot find their way out of the mess, and innocent people are hurt. Madonna and Silver are trapped by poverty as well as by the violent Everette. "He was the swirling centre, the black hole where all the debris, the planets and moons, like Madonna and Silver and Michael Skid, teetered and wobbled in their orbits, and were being sucked into. And this is exactly what all of them had sensed from the moment they had met him thirteen months before."

The author was very skillful at weaving a web around the characters where there is no way to escape unscathed. I admired the plotting, and felt the book gave a good sense of place in the small Canadian town. The story is very grim, with many unlikable low-life characters, so it would probably not appeal to some readers.
3.5 stars

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book in a second hand book store this past summer. I had read another of this author's books and knew it would be a good one. I was not disappointed. This author writes simply but with such feeling about characters who are so real. Both of the books I've read take place in New Brunswick in smaller rural communities where the lives of the characters are tightly woven. This one takes place during the of summer 1974. A group of unlikely young people are linked together because of tragic event. The plot thickens and turns quickly. It had me from the get go.

[Drew Amyot · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book it utterly depressing and hard to put down. It shows the effects that prolonged poverty and abuse can have on a rural community. The unraveling tragedies are fuelled by a central criminal influence, but the flames of this character are given oxygen by the insidious accumulation of self interested and self-preserving acts by many.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this hard cover David Adams Richards novel off a discarded pile in a local library out of curiosity. Who would discard this doyen of Canadian literature, a writer I have had the highest admiration for?

Then I realized why. This is a hard book to read because its style is so unique, and unlike the other books of this author that I have read. An omniscient narrator flits around all the characters, twisting and turning them into a plot line that goes around in circles, leaving the characters and the reader dizzy at times. Who is chasing whom? Of course everything fits into place in the end: the good are rewarded, the bad punished, and the lost ones find redemption by sacrificing their lives. The narrator also confidently gives us previews from time to time of what is to come (stay tuned, for the next chapter of...etc.) even going so far as to predict that secretarial skills would be obsolete in 10 years ( as the main action of the book takes place in 1974 – he is pretty close).

The terrain is familiar Adams Richards’ land – New Brunswick farm country. The characters are abused, bereaved, lost, drunk and discarded, and invent their own version of morality. Gossip and rumour fly fast in this place, through a powerful internal grapevine, and the guilty (or the supposed guilty) are punished by having their farms burned down by unknown vigilantes.

Michael Skid, a privileged kid, son of a judge, falls in with this God-forsaken set of misfits and their charismatic and violent leader, Everette Hutch, and this union leads to a chain of tragic events culminating in a string of murders and suicides. Some of the situations border on implausibility even though the narrator tries hard to convince us that this is so: Michael’s vulnerability and attraction to the fallen, when he has so much going for him. The narrator also takes it upon himself to occasionally throw in new bits of information on the characters that shout “contrived”: Michael’s intention to marry Laura McNair – that news, among many others, comes out of left field.

I fully appreciate the author’s original voice, and in not submitting to a proper editing that would have rendered him indistinguishable from many other Canadian writers; for example, I lost count of the number of times he began sentences with “But” or “So” and how often he used the word “suddenly. But his choice of narrator makes this book a very “tell not show” one and I am not sure that he needed to go to such an extreme against the conventions of the novel to provide an outstanding voice. Original it may be, outstanding – no. No wonder, the English graduate worker at the library found this book subpar and tossed it into the “Discarded” pile (my surmise only), much to my good fortune.

[Kevin Gallan · Rating 5 out of 5]

a very good book ...had a really hard time putting it down..the characters are so real,so compelling,i know them...i care for them..when they hurt, i hurt, i have read the first 11 of david adams richards books and i have to say to you david this is the best so far...

[Harry Junior · Rating 5 out of 5]

The kind of story I've always wanted to write. Lives intertwined and irrevocably changed through perception and small town violence and struggle. Moments of fear and love and beauty. Loved it.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Adams Richards' Mercy Among the Children was really my top book of 2009. It was so incredible that I hesitated over reading another one of Richards' books. The Bay of Love and Sorrows is the powerful tale of ambition and betrayal in a small Nova Scotia town in the 1970s. Karrie Smith and Tom Donnerel are sweethearts who, after her first year of college, have a falling out. Karrie gives in to her attraction to Tom's former friend, Michael Skid who lures Karrie into a manipulative and loveless relationship. Michael, in turn, is manipulated by a drug dealer, Everette Hutch. Those who look to Michael to help and/or protect them are disappointed to learn how incapable he really is of taking a stand.

Richards's is simply an incredible writer. I know he's won awards in Canada, but, really, the man deserves a wider audience. The characters are well written but flawed; the plot is tightly defined. The intensity of the story was, at times overwhelming. You could see destruction coming, they could see it coming, and yet no one stopped it. Richards firm grasp of and insight to the human condition is, at times, heart breaking. I liked how one Amazon reviewer put it: "Although the reader will have affinity with the characters' very human flaws, Richards never allows us to get too close and I believe he does that deliberately; this fiction takes an in-depth look at the shallowness of living on the edge and the waste that it is."
Very Highly Recommended - but a book full of sorrow; http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/

[LiL · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was about were I was born and grew up and I Loved It!

[Diane Cavanagh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the author's writing style erratic. For the first couple of chapters, I found myself going back and forth and re reading paragraphs to to figure out who was who. Dizzy writing at times, the author's writing was written in a twisting and turning way to introduction the characters. It did become clear as I got more familiar with his style of writing, I was able to connect the initial events and characters and follow the storyline.

The story takes place in 1974 in a small rural community, where the lives of unlikely personalities are tightly woven and how they are linked together because of tragic events. Their lives are grim, abused, bereaved, lost, drunk or discarded.

Michael, is a privileged kid, son of a judge and falls for a set of misfits. He has a falling out with his best friend Tom Donnerel, a nice, small town good guy and he no longer has influence on Tom's good values. Karrie Smith is Tom are sweethearts but Karries gives in to her attraction to Michael Skid who lures Karrie into a manipulative and loveless relationship.

Another character is Everette Hutch is a charismatic violent leader. Michael, along with two other characters Madonna and Silver; who are trapped by poverty, are manipulated into helping Everette with a drug deal. One bad decision leads to larger unwise decisions and eventually find their way out of a the mess and innocent people are hurt.

A sad, depressing story unfolds and lead into the tragic events ending in a string of murders and suicides.

[Julia Cheung · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting. Loved it. Keen insight into human nature, and plenty of biblical themes. Explores repentance and the consequence of our actions, and reveals so much about human nature. Expresses a lot of wisdom about motivations and self-deception. Brings you through moments of anguish and triumph as you watch the story unfold. Young people (Michael Skid, siblings Madonna and Silver) get mixed up with the wrong crowd, drug trade, and eventually murder, pulling their neighbor and hard-working friend Tom Donnerel into the bedlam. Set in rural new Brunswick and paints an accurate picture of small town life. Religious and spiritual musings and parable-like reflections pepper the book as some characters come to a point of moral realization and others continue on in deception. Also the contrast between book learning and real-life learning, and the coddling of riched, privileged children vs. the lessons of poverty and life on the hard tracks for orphans and the disadvantaged. The spoiled judge of a son goes from selfishness and entitlement to philanthropy and self sacrifice in his later years. Fascinating.

[Amanda T · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A bit convoluted, especially at the end when it all came together (sort of).

The novel has some serious pacing issues. I found the beginning of the book slow as it was all set up. There are a lot of characters and I kept getting them mixed up. Then I found the ending was settled far too fast. I lost track of who did what, who was where and who was involved (as opposed to just observers).

I'm keeping it on my shelf for now. I'm going to think about whether or not I want to re-read it to see if I get more out of it on a second reading.

[Trish Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tangled web in a small, rural NB town leaves behind a botched drug deal, murder, and suicide. Almost all of the characters in this story are deeply flawed, with often distorted or misplaced reactions that result in emotional and sometimes physical trauma to those around them. Though well written, this dark tale shows what can happen when self-preservation and fierce need meet arrogant ambition, greed and betrayal.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solidly woven plot with a lot of characters interacting. We see the breakdown of love, the struggle with jealousy and a whole lot of other typical Richards tropes. It's a good read, but not his absolute best work.

[Peter B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Richards is the king of darkness for me. Maybe I go into the work anticipating a moody, violent piece of writing and then my expectations are met...should change my mindset when I start. Nonetheless it is a clever piece of work and I enjoyed the reading,,,most of the time.

[Mary Nikisher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the storyline very depressing and the characters unlikeable. Read over 100 pages and decided book was not for me. I watched the movie and it confirmed not my cup of tea.

[Lily]

Saddest ever

[David]

In many ways the best of his later novels, this one, too, allows a glimmer of hope in the otherwise bleak landscape of betrayal, violence, gossip, abuse, etc.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A certain force works against every character in the story; yet this force, while powerful and profoundly negative, can only influence - it does not have the ability to make a choice.

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has been a long time since I have read a Richards book,and this one did not disappoint. The ones I have read are more recent; this story took place in the 70's. There is some overblown description, but overall, I love the images he invokes - and a lot of them are dark and evil. You really get a sense of what it is to be poor in rural New Brunswick and how, given a tiny break, people could get at least a chance in life. What is also evident, in the rich, is their lack of compassion, understanding, empathy, you name it. However, Michael, the chief rich boy here, pays the penalty for his crimes and poor judgement; he serves jail time, but he also finds another life in which to redeem himself. Just as there are rich and poor, good and evil, there are also grey areas in all aspects of life. People now with responsible jobs, have done things they regret from High School; seemingly respectable business owners cheat the government; highly educated people in the legal system can be misled; the church preaches goodness, but has it doors locked at critical times; girls can use sex to get what they want, but also to save people.
I did not understand where this book was going at first (other than where the blurb said it would): I felt we were being led, but to what? Later, as the consequences of the initial acts and events start to unfold, we get the feeling of a snowball gathering up everything in its path until it wipes out all.
I recognize a character, cop Deborah Matchette, in the story. I think I met her in Mercy Among the Children.

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Adams Richards has become one of my favourite Canadian authors. I have thoroughly enjoyed the four books of his that I have read. The Bay of Love and Sorrows is probably his most tragic to read and contains less humour then the others. But Richards is a great writer and knows how to relate a story and get you involved in characters that you either sympathize with or that you hate so much you look forward to their untimely end. Regardless of your feelings to the character, they are fascinating, real-life people that you want to read more about and find out what happens to them next. And the backdrop of New Brunswick again acts as one of the main characters. This novel is the story of two friends who separate due to a minor misunderstanding and relates how their lives still remain connected via incidents and other people. The plot takes some unsuspecting turns and twists along the way. I look forward to reading more books by this author.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Adams Richards certainly has a unique way of telling a story. This is perhaps the 3rd book of his that I've read now. He writes in the 3rd person narration mode as though someone is telling the story - not one of the characters. This just gives a different perspective to the story - it's a telling and not so much feeling what is happening.

This story is about a community in rural New Brunswick - a community where individuals are eeking out a living as best they can and sometimes that means that crimes are committed out of desperation. It is a tragic story, one of intense poverty and hopelessness. It is depressing, but a good read, if you can detach yourself from the pathetic problems of the characters.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Recommended to me by a friend because I need to read more Canadian authors, and I worked in the area of NB where this story takes place. The story itself is very sad, and the way of life these people had was scary. I'm very lucky to not know what it's like to be robbed, beaten and very poor my entire life.

I found it, at times, difficult to follow. There was a lot going on, a lot of characters and sometimes I forgot who was who and who had done what to who and whether they were coming or going. But in the end most everyone died anyways.

[Shawn Bird · Rating 4 out of 5]

While thoroughly admiring David Adams Richards skill at crafting the gritty world of poverty and hopelessness, it's just so damned depressing, I have to give 4 stars. This kind of view gets into you in a horrible way.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another achingly sad, terrifying, profound trip into the bleak world of rural Atlantic Canada.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't put it down, great local maritime culture & crime piece.

[Carol Loeppky · Rating 1 out of 5]

I actually did not complete this book. It was dark and depressing. The characters had no redeeming value. I could not find hope.

[Ed Hayden · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible book, juvenile, shallow characters. Doesn't ring true.

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, if somewhat predictable story. The ebook version I was reading had countless spelling and grammatical errors-kind of distracting

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found Mercy Among the Children to be so profound. Bay of Love and Sorrows carries the author's simplicity but the story seems more outlandish and less possible. Bleakly sad but redemptive.