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The Opening Sky
A stunning character-driven novel about the human desire to do the right thing, and the even stronger desire to love and to be seen for who we truly are. Deeply felt, sharply observed, and utterly contemporary.
Liz, Aiden, and Sylvie are an urban, urbane, progressive family: Aiden's a therapist who refuses to own a car; Liz is an ambitious professional, a savvy traveler with a flair for decorating; Sylvie is a smart and political 19 year-old, fiercely independent, sensitive to hypocrisy, and crazy in love with her childhood playmate, Noah, a bright young scientist. Things seem to be going according to plan.
Then the present and the past collide in a crisis that shatters the complacency of all three. Liz and Sylvie are forced to confront a tragedy from years before, when four children went missing at an artists' retreat. In the long shadow of that event, the family is drawn to a dangerous precipice.
Liz, Aiden, and Sylvie are an urban, urbane, progressive family: Aiden's a therapist who refuses to own a car; Liz is an ambitious professional, a savvy traveler with a flair for decorating; Sylvie is a smart and political 19 year-old, fiercely independent, sensitive to hypocrisy, and crazy in love with her childhood playmate, Noah, a bright young scientist. Things seem to be going according to plan.
Then the present and the past collide in a crisis that shatters the complacency of all three. Liz and Sylvie are forced to confront a tragedy from years before, when four children went missing at an artists' retreat. In the long shadow of that event, the family is drawn to a dangerous precipice.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published September 16, 2014
419 people want to read
About the author
Joan Thomas
6 books107 followersWild Hope, my fifth novel, is a love story, a mystery, and a critique of contemporary values. Two of my previous books, Five Wives and Curiosity, were fictional dives into real events. My novels have won numerous prizes, including the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the Amazon Prize, the McNally Robinson Prize, and a Commonwealth Prize. I live in Winnipeg. You can visit me at joanthomas.ca.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
October 7, 2019
After having dithered around in slow pursuit of a Ph.D. in English for a good part of his adult life, Aidan Phimester ultimately trained as a psychotherapist. For years, his partner, Liz, a planned-parenthood coordinator, has been the chief bread-winner and decision maker in the home, inwardly resenting this role. Their already troubled common-law marriage, characterized mostly by ambivalence, is only to become more strained when the two receive news that their nineteen-year-old daughter is pregnant.
Sylvie, a university student committed to the environmental movement, floats around in her own world. She’s committed to the earth but totally out of touch with her own body, not even noticing she hasn't had a period in months. She only knows she’s pregnant when the student-health-center physician tells her. The young woman’s long-distance boyfriend, Noah, is also studying environmental science in another province. He and Sylvie have known each other since early childhood when their mothers were involved in a hippy-ish alternative parenting group. Their friendship ended years before when Noah had a serious injury while in Liz's care. However, the summer before the story opens, the two reconnected.
With a child on the way, the two families are forced into a tense reunion. Liz, a brittle, competent woman, more interested in home decorating and cooking projects than emotional connection, is forced to revisit her rivalry with Noah's self-righteously maternal mother, Maggie. Liz experiences strain from another direction as well. Years ago she and daughter Sylvie were involved in an incident involving infidelity and the death of a child. After that traumatic event, a disillusioned Sylvie distanced herself from Liz and began addressing her mother by her first name.
A good part of The Opening Sky revolves around Liz and Maggie. The conflict this time around is over the fate of their newborn unnamed grandchild. In fact, the grandmothers are far more invested in the infant than the parents are. There is a resolution to this problem, but it is implied rather than stated. Thomas seems to hate being direct about anything. After a while, her writerly commitment to “subtlety” becomes more tedious and annoying than effective.
In some ways, The Opening Sky put me in mind of the fiction of American writer Sue Miller who also writes character-driven domestic fiction that explores the undercurrents in family life. Joan Thomas's characters are complex, yes, but, even so, unlikeable (and annoying) enough to make them uninteresting. The novel's accomplished prose as well as its environmental themes lift it above mere domestic or "women's" fiction, but minus these characteristics, it isn’t much more than a soap opera. There is a detached chilly quality to the novel, and I can’t say I liked or would recommend it.
Sylvie, a university student committed to the environmental movement, floats around in her own world. She’s committed to the earth but totally out of touch with her own body, not even noticing she hasn't had a period in months. She only knows she’s pregnant when the student-health-center physician tells her. The young woman’s long-distance boyfriend, Noah, is also studying environmental science in another province. He and Sylvie have known each other since early childhood when their mothers were involved in a hippy-ish alternative parenting group. Their friendship ended years before when Noah had a serious injury while in Liz's care. However, the summer before the story opens, the two reconnected.
With a child on the way, the two families are forced into a tense reunion. Liz, a brittle, competent woman, more interested in home decorating and cooking projects than emotional connection, is forced to revisit her rivalry with Noah's self-righteously maternal mother, Maggie. Liz experiences strain from another direction as well. Years ago she and daughter Sylvie were involved in an incident involving infidelity and the death of a child. After that traumatic event, a disillusioned Sylvie distanced herself from Liz and began addressing her mother by her first name.
A good part of The Opening Sky revolves around Liz and Maggie. The conflict this time around is over the fate of their newborn unnamed grandchild. In fact, the grandmothers are far more invested in the infant than the parents are. There is a resolution to this problem, but it is implied rather than stated. Thomas seems to hate being direct about anything. After a while, her writerly commitment to “subtlety” becomes more tedious and annoying than effective.
In some ways, The Opening Sky put me in mind of the fiction of American writer Sue Miller who also writes character-driven domestic fiction that explores the undercurrents in family life. Joan Thomas's characters are complex, yes, but, even so, unlikeable (and annoying) enough to make them uninteresting. The novel's accomplished prose as well as its environmental themes lift it above mere domestic or "women's" fiction, but minus these characteristics, it isn’t much more than a soap opera. There is a detached chilly quality to the novel, and I can’t say I liked or would recommend it.
October 14, 2014
"If a lot of people are responsible then nobody is responsible?" she says with sudden emotion. "Is that better? Is that easier? To think that nobody is responsible?"
This quote, to me, is the crux of The Opening Sky by Joan Thomas: whether talking about individual responsibilities within personal relationships -- who's at fault, who should bend, who should apologise -- or our collective responsibilities towards the Earth, it's a fact of humanity that despite our best intentions, there is often a gap between what we know is right and how we actually act.
The plot at the heart of The Opening Sky is wonderfully ironic: Sylvie, a fiercely independent, eco-conscious, 19-year-old student discovers she is pregnant by her ambitious, eco-conscious, student boyfriend Noah -- a young man who has signed the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement pledge to never reproduce, unwilling to add another carbon footprint to the Earth's burden. Sylvie is loath to tell her parents: her Dad, Aiden, is a therapist who believes he can talk any problem through (except, perhaps, problems with his own wife); and Mom, Liz, is the director of a Planned Parenthood office, for whom a pregnant daughter is a professional embarrassment. Sylvie is too far along in her pregnancy when she realises it to consider termination and she has a visceral dislike for the type of people who would spend ten years on an adoption waiting list; the type of people who want a healthy white newborn or no child at all; the type of people who would probably raise her daughter in a McMansion, dressing her up in princess clothes to drive around in their Hummer. As both Sylvie and Noah have big plans for their education and eventual careers saving the planet, no perfect solution presents itself.
This book is full of flawed and truly human characters; I might even say that none of them are completely likeable, but Thomas fleshes them out with enough backstory that the reader can understand their motivations even when their actions are frustrating. A subplot about a tragedy that Sylvie and Liz were witness to eight years earlier helps to highlight both the tensions between mother and daughter and the lingering effects of choices made and regretted. Dialogue is crisp and authentic, the settings are richly described, and the plot is completely modern -- even if the unwed teenage mother is one of the oldest stories of all. And yet, The Opening Sky was not without its flaws.
Ecofiction is such a hard genre to get right because no reader wants to be harangued. It's very interesting in The Opening Sky to witness how Sylvie and Noah -- who are smart and earnest and try to live what they believe -- struggle, for instance, with birth control: he doesn't want to use condoms because they're not biodegradable and she doesn't want to use the pill because of the effects of hormones on the watershed, but being pragmatic, they know they have to make compromises. Characters discussing environmental issues -- and especially when Sylvie makes snarky comments to what she perceives to be her consumerist mother -- can be organic and totally relevant to their characters; this doesn't bother me. What did bother me was the not infrequent moralising, like:
She hadn't thought about that moment in years. Not because she forgot it, no. Because she buried it deep, the way you bury radioactive waste.
Or:
Just before supper, a valve in the sky opened for about ten minutes and a ton of water was dumped on the city. Water that should rightly have fallen somewhere else, stolen from the poor and given to the rich.
Should I really feel guilty when it rains? And also annoying: several times characters define words as they think them (like albedo effect and mordant), which, not only would no one ever do while privately musing, offended my intelligence. If Thomas can't trust me to understand and follow her -- if she thinks I won't believe that Sylvie would think the word "uxurious" without explaining to herself that she read it in a book once -- then I won't follow her.
And yet, so much was done right in this book: the conflicts in the family dynamics were spot on and they did satisfactorily echo larger global issues. The notion of responsibility vs private desires is an interesting one to explore.
February 23, 2021
This book begins with Sylvie as an eleven-year-old. She is missing, along with other kids the parents are searching for. There is a reason she is hiding instead of really lost, and that is a mystery that will be revealed as the story unfolds. Sylvie watches the adults as they search, calling out her name. At one point she slips into the house and cuts a boy’s picture from a photograph and slashes a book. She slips the picture of the boy in her pocket. This boy will become a major person in her life.
The mystery is why Sylvie hid from the searches. What had happened to make her act so?
The story then takes off when Sylvie is 19-years-old and finding out she is five months pregnant.
The question then becomes: What is the right thing to do? What is best for all involved?
This is a book about family crisis and the lasting effects of past secrets.
April 25, 2017
The Opening Sky doesn't reveal much, if anything.
If the sky opens in author Joan Thomas's novel, The Opening Sky, it doesn't reveal much. This could be a story about your neighbours and is about as interesting.
Aiden and Liz are a career oriented, upper middle class couple with a daughter, Sylvie, in college. Liz is the director of the non-profit Sexuality Education Resource Centre and Aiden is a therapist.
Their comfortable lives begin to unravel, not a lot mind you, when their daughter becomes pregnant.
This unwanted pregnancy is what drives the novel, though with such a tepid conflict suffice to say it never really gets out of first gear.
While many novels take ordinary people in less than good circumstances and have them step up and do heroic deeds, Thomas's characters do just the opposite, despite ideal circumstances and training they come up short.
Liz seems to define herself by her good taste in decorating, clothes, gourmet cooking, living in the right neighbourhood and holidaying in the trendy destinations. It takes all her time, energy and focus - which is why she does it.
Aiden is one of those people who espouse liberal ideals but does not have the guts to follow through. He subsequently feels powerless and impotent though it's by his own doing - or not doing.
Sylvie is an only child, naive and unrealistic in her cocoon of entitlement, who is constantly proselytizing about how people should make sacrifices to save the planet while having yet to experience life other than attending college and living in a dorm, both funded by her parents.
All the characters in this novel are not only unsympathetic, but insipid. Though at times the plot smolders, it never bursts into flames.
The only redeeming quality in this novel is Thomas's exceptional writing. Unfortunately, whereas a good story can overcome bad writing, the opposite is never true.
If the sky opens in author Joan Thomas's novel, The Opening Sky, it doesn't reveal much. This could be a story about your neighbours and is about as interesting.
Aiden and Liz are a career oriented, upper middle class couple with a daughter, Sylvie, in college. Liz is the director of the non-profit Sexuality Education Resource Centre and Aiden is a therapist.
Their comfortable lives begin to unravel, not a lot mind you, when their daughter becomes pregnant.
This unwanted pregnancy is what drives the novel, though with such a tepid conflict suffice to say it never really gets out of first gear.
While many novels take ordinary people in less than good circumstances and have them step up and do heroic deeds, Thomas's characters do just the opposite, despite ideal circumstances and training they come up short.
Liz seems to define herself by her good taste in decorating, clothes, gourmet cooking, living in the right neighbourhood and holidaying in the trendy destinations. It takes all her time, energy and focus - which is why she does it.
Aiden is one of those people who espouse liberal ideals but does not have the guts to follow through. He subsequently feels powerless and impotent though it's by his own doing - or not doing.
Sylvie is an only child, naive and unrealistic in her cocoon of entitlement, who is constantly proselytizing about how people should make sacrifices to save the planet while having yet to experience life other than attending college and living in a dorm, both funded by her parents.
All the characters in this novel are not only unsympathetic, but insipid. Though at times the plot smolders, it never bursts into flames.
The only redeeming quality in this novel is Thomas's exceptional writing. Unfortunately, whereas a good story can overcome bad writing, the opposite is never true.
March 1, 2015
I'm a great believer that certain books come into your life at just the right time for a reason.
Joan Thomas' "The Opening Sky" was one of them! A terrific read.
Joan Thomas' "The Opening Sky" was one of them! A terrific read.
August 25, 2014
I loved this book. I think that the synopsis blurb on Goodreads, that says it is for fans of Marina Endicott's Good to a Fault and Meg Wolitzer, is really accurate.
April 4, 2016
OK, so I gave this book two stars rather than one because other reviewers have said that the story part is good even though the characters are awful. There was no way for me to force myself to read the book so I gave the benefit of the doubt and added a star. In fact, at the third time I tried to force myself to read a few more pages, I remembered that life is too short to spend on books that I am hating to read.
I hated all of the characters, before I even 'met' them all. The daughter is a manipulative brat who uses and takes advantage of her friends. The father is a pretentious jerk. Both father and daughter indicate the mother is a rigid, unforgiving, cold fish... Even the descriptions of the daughter's friends and father's clients suggested that all of these people were pretty horrible too.
I would never interact with this type of person in real life (or would minimize contact with them if I were stuck dealing with them, e.g. a boss). Why would I want to interact with them on my recreational reading time? OH! Wait! No! I decline to interact with them in books too.
I fail to understand why this book got such rave reviews. There was no way for me to care whether the plot was good or not. I could not get past the awfulness of the characters.
I hated all of the characters, before I even 'met' them all. The daughter is a manipulative brat who uses and takes advantage of her friends. The father is a pretentious jerk. Both father and daughter indicate the mother is a rigid, unforgiving, cold fish... Even the descriptions of the daughter's friends and father's clients suggested that all of these people were pretty horrible too.
I would never interact with this type of person in real life (or would minimize contact with them if I were stuck dealing with them, e.g. a boss). Why would I want to interact with them on my recreational reading time? OH! Wait! No! I decline to interact with them in books too.
I fail to understand why this book got such rave reviews. There was no way for me to care whether the plot was good or not. I could not get past the awfulness of the characters.
October 4, 2014
I received this book as a Goodreads FirstReads giveaway, in exchange for an honest review.
Ideally I'd be giving this book 3.5 stars, but the writing in this book is just about enough to give it that extra half star.
There is a family crisis occurring and as in many cases, a lot of the underlying tension stems from events that happened many years previously. This new crisis is just bringing it all to the surface.
While I found the writing itself quite beautiful, and the story moved along, I really didn't like the character development. Some of the characters were very one-dimensional (e.g. Noah), while others just annoyed me (Sylvie). I understand that some of the traits that drove me nuts in the characters were because of their ages, or being stilted, but I didn't see a lot of growth in them.
Overall, the story was good and the writing great, so while I may have loved this book I will probably read others by Joan Thomas.
Ideally I'd be giving this book 3.5 stars, but the writing in this book is just about enough to give it that extra half star.
There is a family crisis occurring and as in many cases, a lot of the underlying tension stems from events that happened many years previously. This new crisis is just bringing it all to the surface.
While I found the writing itself quite beautiful, and the story moved along, I really didn't like the character development. Some of the characters were very one-dimensional (e.g. Noah), while others just annoyed me (Sylvie). I understand that some of the traits that drove me nuts in the characters were because of their ages, or being stilted, but I didn't see a lot of growth in them.
Overall, the story was good and the writing great, so while I may have loved this book I will probably read others by Joan Thomas.
June 13, 2015
*ARC via Goodreads First Reads and the publisher*
I liked the story, but not the characters all of which were unlikable:
Sylvie(Daughter): A very selfish eco-brat who is out of touch with reality who finds herself suddenly pregnant through a bout of stupidity.
Liz(Wife and Mother): Uncaring mother who doesn't seem to connect with anyone.
Aiden(Husband and Father): Way out there. A loser in some ways. Not quite grown up and a bit of a wimp.
Noah(Boyfriend to Sylvie): Space cadet.
All in all the story was good. That's what got me through the book, but the characters were a handful and hard to take in. I didn't like any of them.
The ending was way too abrupt. I still don't know what really happened on the last page. I have an idea, but it was so vague.
I liked the story, but not the characters all of which were unlikable:
Sylvie(Daughter): A very selfish eco-brat who is out of touch with reality who finds herself suddenly pregnant through a bout of stupidity.
Liz(Wife and Mother): Uncaring mother who doesn't seem to connect with anyone.
Aiden(Husband and Father): Way out there. A loser in some ways. Not quite grown up and a bit of a wimp.
Noah(Boyfriend to Sylvie): Space cadet.
All in all the story was good. That's what got me through the book, but the characters were a handful and hard to take in. I didn't like any of them.
The ending was way too abrupt. I still don't know what really happened on the last page. I have an idea, but it was so vague.
November 12, 2015
Story line painful to follow. Got two-thirds in the book and decided to shelf it. I really didn't care about the story nor the characters, maybe a little bit about Aiden (the father and therapist who supposedly is an expert in human behaviour), but Sylvie, Liz and Noah (the android) were as annoying as someone talking to you as you're reading a good book (not this one).
Although there is too much pondering, a tighter edit would've given the novel more momentum. The book also falters with many irrelevant plot points placed at its forefront that detracts from the central story.
That central story is an age-old tale about accidental pregnancy and family at the point of crisis.
Although there is too much pondering, a tighter edit would've given the novel more momentum. The book also falters with many irrelevant plot points placed at its forefront that detracts from the central story.
That central story is an age-old tale about accidental pregnancy and family at the point of crisis.
April 18, 2020
September 2019 Book Club selection. Although I would miss the September meeting I was eager to read this book, because I had enjoyed others we had read by Joan Thomas. However to say I enjoyed this novel is to minimize it. The tangled web of emotions and deceptions among Liz and Aiden and their nineteen year old daughter Sylvie were unsettling enough to keep me on edge. I was thoroughly involved and, as often happens in real life, could see no way out of their shared crises that wouldn't have devastating consequences for them individually and as a family. So while it wasn't an easy read, it was a compelling one. I have even more respect for Joan Thomas as an author than I did before.
October 27, 2014
*I won a free copy of this book from Goodreads first reads*
(3.5 stars) I had a bit of a hard time with this one. It's very well written, but I didn't find that I neither related to or even liked the characters so I wasn't drawn in. I know that I say this all the time but when the blurb talks about "a tragedy from years before, when four children went missing at an artists' retreat", I assume that it will come up before page 250. I don't like the feeling of reading while waiting for the inevitable.
(3.5 stars) I had a bit of a hard time with this one. It's very well written, but I didn't find that I neither related to or even liked the characters so I wasn't drawn in. I know that I say this all the time but when the blurb talks about "a tragedy from years before, when four children went missing at an artists' retreat", I assume that it will come up before page 250. I don't like the feeling of reading while waiting for the inevitable.
April 21, 2017
This novel is gorgeous. I read it greedily. It's about responsibility, and memory, and love, and the environment, and regret, and uncertainty, and......
I'll be reading more of Joan Thomas.
I'll be reading more of Joan Thomas.
June 16, 2015
I abandoned it after reading 50%. Nothing happened up to that point. Nothing! Even character-driven novels need some action.
September 17, 2015
Nice setting of stage for a significant moment, while using description to great effect.
"The old garage will always be a special place to Sylvie: the dense smells of motor oil and dirt and sheep manure, the windows overgrown with Virginia creeper, her father's motorcycle shrouded by a tarp. They were in a grotto, as if they'd stepped down into it on moss-covered stones. It's not the actual things they'd said to each other, although she'll always remember what they said. It's that her mother followed her out to the garage. That they met there, in dim green light, and passed secret tokens to each other. This is who I am. This is who I am."
Nice description of the scene, without taking over and going on and on and on, as some writers are wont to do.
"He sits as the sun slides without fanfare into the garage roof, dragging the sky down with hit, and then he's out of beer. ..."
Great dog description, and personification. Who doesn't personify dogs? She does it well.
"Max smiles and butts his head against Aiden's thigh. Play! he barks. Throw something, Aiden! When no tennis ball materializes, he appeals to the cop with the ponytail, pawing flirtatiously at her thigh. You love me, he barks. I can tell."
Is this my reality? A mother/not a mother. A mother who does not offer fairy, does not do what I think a mother does?
"Everything is easier without a mother, contrary to what the fairy tales say."
I love how Thomas describes the baby, and how she affects everyone, even though she's so tiny, so new, so unexpected. This is what I do not know. I do not know babies, and how they are. But I can imagine. I can figure it out, if I need to write a story with a baby in it. From this, I learn.
"...Her mother is causing this, glancing through the archway at every opportunity to see how they're getting along. Or the baby is, with her talent for transformation. When other people are around, she's a white doll, perfect and serene, but the second she and Sylvie are alone, she morphs into a furious imp, squalling waah waah waah waah, her eyes fixed glassily on nothing."
I used to believe this, but I don't anymore. I think art can and does change things / affect people, in a heart way that politics and speeches cannot. And I think it is doing something.
"'...My friends actually think they can change things through a Fringe play. And I thought the same thing for a while. Art is bad that way. It gives you the illusion that you've been active. It's better to put your energy into actually doing something.'"
Fairies. Always fairy references get to me.
"...He's so slim and graceful. He looks like a fairy -- like the fairies that used to live at the end of the garden in children's books. In England, I guess."
Birds and what they mean. There has been a lot in the way of birds in the books I've been reading. A lot. And the little birds in our back, and the robins in the front. There is something here for me.
"Defrag's previous counsellor (an MSW Saurette referred Defrag to) gave him a relaxation CD of birdsong. Brain-imaging technology has shown that birdsong promotes a sense of well-being, she explained. It's evolutionary: if the birds are singing, no predators are prowling the forest. ..."
Sometimes memories from terrible times come back to me and I love how Thomas describes this; it validates me. This book is well-written, but it's not gripping, it does not resonate, its meaning is dim, but this is what redeems it.
"...Liz hears the words in her mind and they make her gasp, they flip her right out of bed. She sits on the edge, cradling her pillow. She hasn't thought about that moment in years. Not because she forgot, no. Because she buried it deep, the way you bury radioactive waste."
This is a magickal description of the moon.
"...When she was gone, Sylvie got out of bed, dragged her chair over to the window, and knelt on it, looking out into the night, the window blind draped over her back like a turtle shell. That was when she saw it, for the first time ever: the dark, stony, gloating round of the whole moon. There all the time."
Very nicely written and beautifully evocative.
"...He slips his hand inside her silky blue kimono and lays it on her warm belly. She shivers, grabs at his hand, and then surrenders, leaning back into him. Their fit is still perfect, though their bodies are not."
The miracle of spring in the mid winter. It's something to try.
"...Tomorrow she'll bring her paperwhites out of the cold storage room and put them on the kitchen window ledge, and they'll have the miracle of delicate spring flowers blooming at Christmas. Everything will be better tomorrow."
It starts off magickal and goes in and out of magick. And it starts out mysterious and tragic, but loses its way, and then more tragedy, more immediate occurs.
"...The nameless trees were wide enough to hide her, and in the dusk she'd scrambled from one to the next, stifling her yelps of pain when the twigs and roots hiding under the leafy carpet bit at her. Not a child, she was not a child. She was a dark forest creature, lost by her own hand."
December 23, 2015
Received a copy of The Opening Sky by Joan Thomas through the First Reads Giveaway program in exchange for an honest review
There is a highly-involved family drama that is going on in this story that is relevant to the people of Wolseley as well as to those across the country. It seems that every member of the Phimister-Glasgow clan with all of their varying personalities are going through their own personal crises and anxieties about their current place in life. All of the members of this family are troubled by past experiences, present circumstances, and future repercussions. The author is continuously on the precipice of a grand reveal while still leaving the reader in the dark with the true heart of the families disconnect.
Sylvie Phimister-Glasgow is a nineteen-year-old young lady with great visions for the world. She is a vivacious and an emboldened university student from Wolseley, Winnipeg, Manitoba whose ambitions know no bounds. The heart of her ideals are based on the fundamental principles of environmental-consciousness for which she practices on a daily basis with hopes of advancing it professionally through studying botany. She is a member of many groups that are focused on environmentally-friendly actions rather than spreading the word that often falls on deaf ears. Together, with a few of her fellow tree-huggers they're working on a theatrical play to help aid in their activism. Her voice is the strongest and most pervasive of the group which has made her the de facto leader, a role she has definitely taken to heart.
Most people opine that in strong relationships opposites attract. Perhaps that rule applies to more frivolous matters like favourite sports teams, but not when it comes to the environmental preservation. Sylvie's boyfriend Noah Oliphant is studying to earn his master's degree in environmental microbiology and biotechnology at the University of Guelph. They've been in a relationship for over a year and are currently trying to make it work despite not seeing each other for months at a time. Noah and Sylvie used to be best friends growing up as children. Playing in the sand, forest, and lake together is where they found their passion and saw the beauty in the world around them. But after an unfortunate accident at the playground in alliance with the overreaction of overbearing mothers of small children their friendship ended that fateful afternoon. It wasn't until ten years later at a local lake that they were able to rekindle their friendship and develop much more of a physical relationship outside of a misplaced swing. Over time and cross-provincial distance they have maintained a loving relationship from their summer at the cabin into their current lives of post-secondary students.
Sylvie has always preferred a natural way of living, making use of her food wastes, being a valued shopper at second-hand stores, protecting water systems, denying pharmaceuticals, processed goods, animal tested products and other by-products. One day Noah strongly suggests that Sylvie go against her principles regarding oral contraceptives and go on the birth control pill. He is simply doing this for his own personal pleasure and career security since he is a pledged member of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. He would rather secure his values than those of Sylvie's by her facing a moral dilemma regarding contraceptions. Begrudgingly she agrees to go on the pill, but over time she feels like it is having adverse effects and a visit to the doctor will give her conclusive reasoning for her pessimism.
Liz Glasgow is the executive director at the regional Sexual Education Resource Centre. A centre that promotes safe sex and pro-choice. Liz is a very intelligent, vulnerable, well-meaning, and cultured woman that seems to come across as a know-it-all, stubborn, authoritative, and immovable mom, husband, and boss. The root of her issues with Sylvie and Aiden are not known until the end and provide a black cloud throughout the course of the novel. I know Sylvie is studying "plant" sciences, but she is not showing a whole lot of love to her mother Liz, with whom she refers to on a first name basis. Periodically Sylvie resists including her mom in typical maternal responsibilities, doing whatever it takes to avoid coming home and isolating herself to the basement if she does. After one auspicious day several years ago, Liz decided to take Sylvie to Minnesota under the appearance that they were going to go shopping at the Mall of America, when in reality the sole purpose was to go to a nearby renaissance reenactment festival after their shopping spree. At that moment in time, at that role-playing party, their lives and their relationship as they once knew it would be changed for the foreseeable future.
Aiden Phimister has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and English, Master of Arts in English, Master of Family and Individual Therapy. He has been unable to commit to a single profession for more than ten years since he was first out of school. For the past six years he's settled down and has his own therapeutic practice which has faced plenty of struggles and provided a lack of financial security at home. Aiden and Sylvie have a healthy relationship. Aiden usually finds himself as the middleman in the lines of communication between Sylvie and Liz, but given his disposition he doesn't seem to mind all that much. Outside of the house Aiden is responsible for his father Rupert who has dementia and if we let the facts be known, doesn't have a whole lot of love for his son. With his two brothers nowhere to be found, Aiden has had his father thrust upon him. Throughout the novel he is trying to find the perfect balance between father and son, father and daughter, and husband and wife. No wonder he needs the odd weed relief, this man's plate is full.
At points I was reminded of the book We Need To Talk About Kevin. The culture, the progressive lifestyles, environmental sensibilities, love of food, varying differences of affection between mother and father all in an urban setting. Obviously the lead characters don't go as far off the deep end as the other book, but there were some striking similarities. The author writes with a contemporary, methodical, decadent, atmospheric and deliberate style that intertwines the dynamics between the darkness and the light, the past and the present, marriage and parenthood, and the beauty and the horrors that come along with it.
"People with a seamless view of the world are intimidating, even when they're full of shit."
There is a highly-involved family drama that is going on in this story that is relevant to the people of Wolseley as well as to those across the country. It seems that every member of the Phimister-Glasgow clan with all of their varying personalities are going through their own personal crises and anxieties about their current place in life. All of the members of this family are troubled by past experiences, present circumstances, and future repercussions. The author is continuously on the precipice of a grand reveal while still leaving the reader in the dark with the true heart of the families disconnect.
Sylvie Phimister-Glasgow is a nineteen-year-old young lady with great visions for the world. She is a vivacious and an emboldened university student from Wolseley, Winnipeg, Manitoba whose ambitions know no bounds. The heart of her ideals are based on the fundamental principles of environmental-consciousness for which she practices on a daily basis with hopes of advancing it professionally through studying botany. She is a member of many groups that are focused on environmentally-friendly actions rather than spreading the word that often falls on deaf ears. Together, with a few of her fellow tree-huggers they're working on a theatrical play to help aid in their activism. Her voice is the strongest and most pervasive of the group which has made her the de facto leader, a role she has definitely taken to heart.
" 'Yeah, right.' Liz was eating an apple. She finished it and opened her windows, and the noise of the highway roared into the car.
Sylvie lowered the binoculars. 'Hey!'
'It's an apple core.'
'Mom! It will attract mice to the side of the road.'
'Mice.'
'And the mice will attract eagles. And the eagles will get hit by cars.'
Most people opine that in strong relationships opposites attract. Perhaps that rule applies to more frivolous matters like favourite sports teams, but not when it comes to the environmental preservation. Sylvie's boyfriend Noah Oliphant is studying to earn his master's degree in environmental microbiology and biotechnology at the University of Guelph. They've been in a relationship for over a year and are currently trying to make it work despite not seeing each other for months at a time. Noah and Sylvie used to be best friends growing up as children. Playing in the sand, forest, and lake together is where they found their passion and saw the beauty in the world around them. But after an unfortunate accident at the playground in alliance with the overreaction of overbearing mothers of small children their friendship ended that fateful afternoon. It wasn't until ten years later at a local lake that they were able to rekindle their friendship and develop much more of a physical relationship outside of a misplaced swing. Over time and cross-provincial distance they have maintained a loving relationship from their summer at the cabin into their current lives of post-secondary students.
Sylvie has always preferred a natural way of living, making use of her food wastes, being a valued shopper at second-hand stores, protecting water systems, denying pharmaceuticals, processed goods, animal tested products and other by-products. One day Noah strongly suggests that Sylvie go against her principles regarding oral contraceptives and go on the birth control pill. He is simply doing this for his own personal pleasure and career security since he is a pledged member of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. He would rather secure his values than those of Sylvie's by her facing a moral dilemma regarding contraceptions. Begrudgingly she agrees to go on the pill, but over time she feels like it is having adverse effects and a visit to the doctor will give her conclusive reasoning for her pessimism.
Liz Glasgow is the executive director at the regional Sexual Education Resource Centre. A centre that promotes safe sex and pro-choice. Liz is a very intelligent, vulnerable, well-meaning, and cultured woman that seems to come across as a know-it-all, stubborn, authoritative, and immovable mom, husband, and boss. The root of her issues with Sylvie and Aiden are not known until the end and provide a black cloud throughout the course of the novel. I know Sylvie is studying "plant" sciences, but she is not showing a whole lot of love to her mother Liz, with whom she refers to on a first name basis. Periodically Sylvie resists including her mom in typical maternal responsibilities, doing whatever it takes to avoid coming home and isolating herself to the basement if she does. After one auspicious day several years ago, Liz decided to take Sylvie to Minnesota under the appearance that they were going to go shopping at the Mall of America, when in reality the sole purpose was to go to a nearby renaissance reenactment festival after their shopping spree. At that moment in time, at that role-playing party, their lives and their relationship as they once knew it would be changed for the foreseeable future.
"Years ago, when things were so bad with Sylvie (until they settled into it, you might say), she contemplated going to a counsellor. What stopped her was knowing the way therapists operate. A therapist would set out to tear down the beautiful structure she had managed to build of her life, though given less than ideal materials That's what they do; it's their modus operandi. They strip away your ways of managing, ways that might be flawed and even duplicitous but are better than not managing at all."
Aiden Phimister has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and English, Master of Arts in English, Master of Family and Individual Therapy. He has been unable to commit to a single profession for more than ten years since he was first out of school. For the past six years he's settled down and has his own therapeutic practice which has faced plenty of struggles and provided a lack of financial security at home. Aiden and Sylvie have a healthy relationship. Aiden usually finds himself as the middleman in the lines of communication between Sylvie and Liz, but given his disposition he doesn't seem to mind all that much. Outside of the house Aiden is responsible for his father Rupert who has dementia and if we let the facts be known, doesn't have a whole lot of love for his son. With his two brothers nowhere to be found, Aiden has had his father thrust upon him. Throughout the novel he is trying to find the perfect balance between father and son, father and daughter, and husband and wife. No wonder he needs the odd weed relief, this man's plate is full.
At points I was reminded of the book We Need To Talk About Kevin. The culture, the progressive lifestyles, environmental sensibilities, love of food, varying differences of affection between mother and father all in an urban setting. Obviously the lead characters don't go as far off the deep end as the other book, but there were some striking similarities. The author writes with a contemporary, methodical, decadent, atmospheric and deliberate style that intertwines the dynamics between the darkness and the light, the past and the present, marriage and parenthood, and the beauty and the horrors that come along with it.
"The longing she feels for Noah is studying as sharp as a knife - she could cry for how much she wants him. Her breasts are all in lumps because there are little sacs swollen with milk inside them like the seeds of a pomegranate. She can't bear to think of him seeing her. Noah is one thing, whole; he's like a tree that grew up in the shape it was supposed to have. And Sylvie... she's crooked and mangled and grafted together, someone who wants so badly not to be who she is that she is no one at all. And yet, if you'd asked her anytime in the past year, "Does Noah love you?" she would have said yes without a second thought."
Read
August 5, 2024I nearly abandoned this in the early chapters but something about Aiden, the father character, snagged me and kept me. Of all the characters, he is the one I feel most drawn to, who feels most real. Sylvie, the idealistic uni student seems like a cliche, her boyfriend, even more so. When Sylvie discovers in her fifth month (unlikely) that she is pregnant, it is an ironic and direct assault on her mother, Liz, director of Winnipeg's sexual resource centre. Angst unfolds, as Sylvie decides to keep the baby but of course has no clue about what this will entail. There is also an undisclosed animosity between Sylvie and her mother, which reads like an imposed sub-plot: never fully integrated in a realistic way. The reveal feels forced, as if for psychoanalytical reasons this must be. But the father! I keep coming back to Aiden who searches for a way to be in a world where he can't abide the consumerist throughput. He captured me in a way none of the others did.
Unquestionably though, Thomas is a talented writer. Some bon mots included (read on my Kobo):
"She is pretty in the way of serious women who have absolutely no interest in their looks."
"...she feels the full weight of her anxiety again, pressing on her like one of those lead vests you wear for dental X-rays."
"The issue's still alive somewhere, no doubt, but she's packed it away in some storage facility for undetonated resentments."
"He says our entire civilization is in denial, whereas Sylvie's already at the anger stage. or Acceptance. I forget which."
"Marriage is made up of fitting gestures. If you always do what you feel like doing, you'll never make a relationship work."
"You can only give up so much, before you are lost altogether."
Unquestionably though, Thomas is a talented writer. Some bon mots included (read on my Kobo):
"She is pretty in the way of serious women who have absolutely no interest in their looks."
"...she feels the full weight of her anxiety again, pressing on her like one of those lead vests you wear for dental X-rays."
"The issue's still alive somewhere, no doubt, but she's packed it away in some storage facility for undetonated resentments."
"He says our entire civilization is in denial, whereas Sylvie's already at the anger stage. or Acceptance. I forget which."
"Marriage is made up of fitting gestures. If you always do what you feel like doing, you'll never make a relationship work."
"You can only give up so much, before you are lost altogether."
February 28, 2020
I had trouble getting into this novel at first. It may have been my mood when I started reading it. I’m glad I stuck with it though, as the narrative quickly hooked me.
Liz and Aiden are educated, privileged, and the middle-aged parents of 19-year-old Sylvie. The story takes place in Winnipeg, where the family members lead ordinary lives on the surface. An unexpected incident causes them to exam their relationships with each other and it tests their principles and beliefs. Sylvie’s ideology clashes with her mother’s. Liz and Aiden’s marriage is strained. Through these three characters, Ms Thomas explores the modern family. Her character's insights are spot-on throughout the story. The family suffers from poor choices made in the past and the heart-rending consequences of uncontrollable events.
This book speaks true of families and parenting, with all its trials. And every person who has been a parent, or has had one, can relate to the themes.
Liz and Aiden are educated, privileged, and the middle-aged parents of 19-year-old Sylvie. The story takes place in Winnipeg, where the family members lead ordinary lives on the surface. An unexpected incident causes them to exam their relationships with each other and it tests their principles and beliefs. Sylvie’s ideology clashes with her mother’s. Liz and Aiden’s marriage is strained. Through these three characters, Ms Thomas explores the modern family. Her character's insights are spot-on throughout the story. The family suffers from poor choices made in the past and the heart-rending consequences of uncontrollable events.
This book speaks true of families and parenting, with all its trials. And every person who has been a parent, or has had one, can relate to the themes.
January 21, 2019
Is it possible Joan Thomas' Opening Sky was ahead of its time five short years ago? Reading some of the reviews and ratings near the time of its publication, I was surprised. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for an immaculate structure, clear and lovely prose, and characters that transported me. Five short years ago, Sylvie might have been a "radical," her mother a cardboard suburban housewife, her father a freak. Five short years into the present chaos, they all seem stunned by realities that have no clear path forward. Maybe it wasn't quite "amazing," but I'm pretty confident it deserves a better rating that it has.
February 2, 2020
Once again, I wish 1/2 stars were allowed and this would be a two and a half star read for me. I picked up this book because I really enjoyed Five Wives by the same author. While the writing in this book was good I almost gave up on it a few times because the plot seemed a little “done before” and the characters stereotypical. I did however push on and did want to see how it all ended. All in all somewhat disappointing but kept my attention – if that makes any sense at all.
December 17, 2019
Enjoyed Five Wives greatly, so grabbed this from the library to read on a long flight. I finished Part One, but, now that I’m home, just can’t muster enough enthusiasm about any of the characters to wade through Part Two. Too many intriguing “Want-to-Reads” await my attention. I wholeheartedly agree with other reviewers who have noted that the people who populate this work are for the most part just not likable. I don’t care what happens to them, not even enough to lay out why I feel that way—I simply concur with previous lukewarm reviews.
October 4, 2022
The points about classism were too forward. I didn’t think the author offered much new insight, the characters’ responses to their problems made me cringe with embarrassment at their superficiality and egocentric weakness. If Thomas had used a different perspective, say more omniscient, she could have been more objective to deal with the question of why middle-class people are the makers of their own misery, but still portrayed them as flayed human being capable of growth. She did that, but it was a little too “on the nose” so I felt like she was using a sledgehammer to drive home the points.
January 15, 2023
I love Joan’s writing style, as one has to pay attention, and use their brain. She is a wordsmith, and crafts wonderful prose. Admittedly, this prose can meander into esotericism, and that would be what prevents me from giving it five stars. This particular story is set in my own city, and while I lived in the specific neighbourhood for a only few months, it remains familiar. It’s hard to like the “adults”, but I was filled with hope for the young mother. The human dynamics are complicated, but so very common. There is substance in Joan’s work, and The Opening Sky is no exception.
October 18, 2019
I read Five Wives and loved it, but I didn’t love this one. The author’s writing is very poetic at times, which kept me reading. But all the characters were so deeply flawed... I know it’s a character driven novel, but the characters were very unlikeable for me. Also, I dislike the trope of when women express their sexuality in an unconventional way, say outside of marriage, or break their vows, something very bad will happen and they will suffer.
October 6, 2021
The three main characters were the narrators, so it was a great way to connect and know them. I felt the book grew in tension as you read further, with hints of the major issues - which we eventually discovered. I love her prose and loved seeing images of Winnipeg.
The relationships were difficult on so many levels - just as it is in life. It left me speculating about how their lives would be months and years down the road.
Great read.
The relationships were difficult on so many levels - just as it is in life. It left me speculating about how their lives would be months and years down the road.
Great read.
June 7, 2017
I give this book 4 stars because it is a book with good writing, a normal plot, realistic characters (so normal!), a satisfying but not tidy ending, and because there is no sensational twists, sappy love story, ridiculous action, explicit sex, stress or otherwise difficult reading. it is what I wish more books were: a good story about regular life.
June 25, 2018
Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s this summer, but this book is so good it hurts. With splendid imagery, her flawed characters sing with visceral spectacle in their complex and contemporary conflicts. A true Winnipeg novel.
November 10, 2019
Too much detail about characters you didn't like
May 21, 2020
Honest. Raw. Complicated. Intricately written.
Want to read
April 19, 2021Unfinished.
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