What do you think?
Rate this book
Great Village
Retired schoolteacher Flossy O’Reilly feels the whisper of death at her back. It is in her home in Great Village, Nova Scotia where she is surrounded by piles of books. It is beside her as she gazes out over the shore with her lifelong friend Mealie. It walks with her into the village, while details of the distant past return to her with startling clarity. With worsening chest pains, exacerbated by the arrival of an unwelcome teenager, she fully expects her life is ebbing away — but before it does, she must finally confront the deceptions and shame of the long-hidden past.
- GenresBook Club
207 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 31, 2011
9 people are currently reading
87 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 21, 2011
"Great Village" by Mary Rose Donnelly is an exquisite gift of such ruddy delicacy that it has left me breathless.
Donnelly has given me and everyone else whom I can persuade to pick it up, an experience of literary joy.
In this her first novel, she has crafted a story in which, through the internal monologues of a most loveable character, we are privy to astute observations on life, friendship, family, despair, creative genius, and death. Flossy O'Reilly is the aunt we all would loved to have had. She's witty and pithy. She is a key observer of those around her and the struggles that make up their lives. Even more so her own. She sees all this not so much with her eyes as with a finely balanced sensitivity that is equal parts distressed heart and keen intellect.
But it is not the story that I want to celebrate as much as the writing itself - the images, the metaphors, the cadences, the lyricism:
• "She thrust her voice into her sentences as if she were wading through hip-deep water."
• "And sadness was demanding. Its own kind of grief, it drained the colour from everything in every direction."
• "Was it a perspective to love a day folding down tidily on itself, another one finished? Perhaps it was a late-life infatuation, some aging resonance with the dying of the light."
Be sure that you read the book when you are not in a rush. Actually, that’s not really a necessary caution. I venture that you will find, as you move into Flossy’s world, that you cannot help but walk through it at a measured pace. You will luxuriate in every paragraph of “Great Village”. I certainly did.
Donnelly has given me and everyone else whom I can persuade to pick it up, an experience of literary joy.
In this her first novel, she has crafted a story in which, through the internal monologues of a most loveable character, we are privy to astute observations on life, friendship, family, despair, creative genius, and death. Flossy O'Reilly is the aunt we all would loved to have had. She's witty and pithy. She is a key observer of those around her and the struggles that make up their lives. Even more so her own. She sees all this not so much with her eyes as with a finely balanced sensitivity that is equal parts distressed heart and keen intellect.
But it is not the story that I want to celebrate as much as the writing itself - the images, the metaphors, the cadences, the lyricism:
• "She thrust her voice into her sentences as if she were wading through hip-deep water."
• "And sadness was demanding. Its own kind of grief, it drained the colour from everything in every direction."
• "Was it a perspective to love a day folding down tidily on itself, another one finished? Perhaps it was a late-life infatuation, some aging resonance with the dying of the light."
Be sure that you read the book when you are not in a rush. Actually, that’s not really a necessary caution. I venture that you will find, as you move into Flossy’s world, that you cannot help but walk through it at a measured pace. You will luxuriate in every paragraph of “Great Village”. I certainly did.
January 24, 2013
If a book can be beautifully quiet, then this is it. There's little action, other than interior, but the author has rendered the characters, place and time thoughtfully and artfully. The book rewards those who take the time to savour the mood and spirit of the story.
March 5, 2019
One summer day in 1927 sixteen-year-old Thomas O’Reilly finished his chores, entered his family farmhouse in Great Village, Nova Scotia, and, without explanation, walked up the stairs to his bedroom – where he remained until his death twenty-four years later. Adding to their distress over Thomas’s mental health, his mother Lillian and younger siblings Flossy and Jimmy are now forced to deal with the demands of running the family farm without help from the otherwise healthy teenager.
Although Great Village, by Mary Rose Donnelly, begins on the day Thomas “took to his bed,” the story takes place in the 1990s and is told from the perspective of Flossy, now 82 and still living in the family home. Increasingly drawn back in time by thoughts involving past relationships, her brother’s mental illness, and her abusive father, Flossy wonders if these “visitations from the dead” represent “warnings” that her own death is looming. Periods of distraction from her recollections of years gone by come in the form of frequent visits from Flossy’s younger brother Jimmy and her best friend Mealie Marsh.
Mealie, a seventy-six-year-old artist with a true flare and a quick wit, is a source of humorous one-liners that are sure to evoke a chuckle.
“Oh Mealie, (says Flossy) you know my life, nothing happens for fifty-one weeks of the year, then it’s all crammed into seven measly days. I’ve just a bit too much on my mind.”
“You and Yahweh, Pet,” (responds Mealie).
An ever-present cat named Oscar Wilde; a looming visit from a friend with a big secret; and an ongoing passion for the writings of Virginia Wolfe and Elizabeth Bishop add to Flossy’s busy routine. However, introspection persists and leads this character to new insights as she reconciles the past through the wisdom of her present.
In addition to golden nuggets of dialogue, Mary Rose Donnelly’s writing style offers eloquent expressions of sentiment. “Here she sat quietly beside Mealie Marsh, her oldest, most-accepting and forgiving friend, fully determined to talk about everything but what was bleeding her concentration. It was her own unfinished poem, her elusive couplet, Flossy just could not bring herself to bare her soul, did not have the words.”
With intriguing characters, an engaging writing style, and a plot rich with surprising developments, Donnelly’s first novel kept me turning pages into the early hours of the morning. Great Village, in my opinion, is a great novel by a gifted writer
Although Great Village, by Mary Rose Donnelly, begins on the day Thomas “took to his bed,” the story takes place in the 1990s and is told from the perspective of Flossy, now 82 and still living in the family home. Increasingly drawn back in time by thoughts involving past relationships, her brother’s mental illness, and her abusive father, Flossy wonders if these “visitations from the dead” represent “warnings” that her own death is looming. Periods of distraction from her recollections of years gone by come in the form of frequent visits from Flossy’s younger brother Jimmy and her best friend Mealie Marsh.
Mealie, a seventy-six-year-old artist with a true flare and a quick wit, is a source of humorous one-liners that are sure to evoke a chuckle.
“Oh Mealie, (says Flossy) you know my life, nothing happens for fifty-one weeks of the year, then it’s all crammed into seven measly days. I’ve just a bit too much on my mind.”
“You and Yahweh, Pet,” (responds Mealie).
An ever-present cat named Oscar Wilde; a looming visit from a friend with a big secret; and an ongoing passion for the writings of Virginia Wolfe and Elizabeth Bishop add to Flossy’s busy routine. However, introspection persists and leads this character to new insights as she reconciles the past through the wisdom of her present.
In addition to golden nuggets of dialogue, Mary Rose Donnelly’s writing style offers eloquent expressions of sentiment. “Here she sat quietly beside Mealie Marsh, her oldest, most-accepting and forgiving friend, fully determined to talk about everything but what was bleeding her concentration. It was her own unfinished poem, her elusive couplet, Flossy just could not bring herself to bare her soul, did not have the words.”
With intriguing characters, an engaging writing style, and a plot rich with surprising developments, Donnelly’s first novel kept me turning pages into the early hours of the morning. Great Village, in my opinion, is a great novel by a gifted writer
June 25, 2015
Flossie O’Reilly is an eighty-two year old retired school teacher living in Great Village on the edge of Nova Scotia’s Cobequid Bay. She feels that death is fast approaching as she looks back and wonders about her life and all the secrets she has kept. The book begins with a curious flashback when Flossy was just 13 years old. Her older brother Thomas came in from his long day of hard work in the fields, went upstairs to his bed and stayed there for 24 years.
As the story unfolds, we hear the troubling account of a family who struggled to survive a life with a hurtful father who had a vicious temper. Each member of the family was marked by their time living with this bear of a man who was always charming to anyone outside the family and had a reputation as a hard worker. But at home he would have tantrums fueled by a dark Irish rage that would strike suddenly and unpredictably. It seems Flossy, her mother and her younger brother Jimmy all survived unscathed. But there is so much that was never known to others. There are deep painful scars that have never truly healed. Flossy’s vivid memories still haunt her. They rear their ugly heads at times when she least expects it. As Flossy looks back, she shares the dark secrets her family kept from the other villagers and from each other.
We meet Amelia Marsh (known as Mealie) who is Flossy’s best friend, a woman she has known since childhood. Mealie and Flossy live next to one another and Mealie spends much of her time in Flossy’s kitchen when she isn’t painting and preparing for her next exhibition in Halifax. Flossy could not ask for a better friend. Mealie is capable and kind and doesn’t gossip. She keeps her own counsel and says exactly what she thinks. Flossy cannot imagine trying to navigate her life without Mealie’s companionship.
Flossy is presently preparing for the visit of her long time childhood friend Marjorie, who is coming from Ontario with her teenage daughter Ruth. Marjorie a minister, is working her heart out in her congregation mothering hundreds of people, yet seems to be missing focusing her attention on Ruth who deserves it the most.
Although Flossy is looking forward to their visit, she is also anxious, unsure how the teenaged Ruth will fare during the period when her mother is away at a conference in Sackville. She wonders if Ruth will be happy stranded in this small village with two elderly ladies. When her two guests arrive exhausted and grumpy, it seems Flossy’s fears are well founded, as Mother and daughter have not been talking to one another and Ruth makes it clear she wants to be back home with her friends playing baseball.
Although Ruth begins her reluctant visit with chill indifference, she soon settles in to the quiet warm friendship of the two older women and makes a place for herself in Flossy’s world. It was the last thing anyone, especially Ruth, expected.
Flossy loves literature and in particular the work of Virginia Wolfe. As she works her way through Woolf’s letters and diaries, a sense of doom emerges in the text. The story of the life of the poet Elizabeth Bishop who lived in the village for a short period and also experienced a life touched by mental illness and loss, is also interwoven among the lives of Flossy, Jimmy, Mealie, Ruth and Marjorie.
Donnelly’s prose is quiet and beautiful, as she describes the maritime scenery and the incredible Fundy Bay tides. Every once in a while the narrative is peppered with a bit of humour that makes the reader chuckle:
Jimmy: “I’m sweating like a hen hauling hay.”
Or, Flossy talking to Mealie’s cat Oscar Wilde, as she watches Ruth refusing to move out of the car after she arrives at Flossy’s home: “Wilde, I think we may have a calico on our hands”;
And, on seeing Marjory entering her home dragging a bad cold, Flossy remembers "how she always tried to put the length of two lumber trucks between herself and people with dreadful colds".
Donnelley portrays Flossy as a warm and wise woman and it is quite a pleasure to know her.
Beautifully written; a simply wonderful book.
As the story unfolds, we hear the troubling account of a family who struggled to survive a life with a hurtful father who had a vicious temper. Each member of the family was marked by their time living with this bear of a man who was always charming to anyone outside the family and had a reputation as a hard worker. But at home he would have tantrums fueled by a dark Irish rage that would strike suddenly and unpredictably. It seems Flossy, her mother and her younger brother Jimmy all survived unscathed. But there is so much that was never known to others. There are deep painful scars that have never truly healed. Flossy’s vivid memories still haunt her. They rear their ugly heads at times when she least expects it. As Flossy looks back, she shares the dark secrets her family kept from the other villagers and from each other.
We meet Amelia Marsh (known as Mealie) who is Flossy’s best friend, a woman she has known since childhood. Mealie and Flossy live next to one another and Mealie spends much of her time in Flossy’s kitchen when she isn’t painting and preparing for her next exhibition in Halifax. Flossy could not ask for a better friend. Mealie is capable and kind and doesn’t gossip. She keeps her own counsel and says exactly what she thinks. Flossy cannot imagine trying to navigate her life without Mealie’s companionship.
Flossy is presently preparing for the visit of her long time childhood friend Marjorie, who is coming from Ontario with her teenage daughter Ruth. Marjorie a minister, is working her heart out in her congregation mothering hundreds of people, yet seems to be missing focusing her attention on Ruth who deserves it the most.
Although Flossy is looking forward to their visit, she is also anxious, unsure how the teenaged Ruth will fare during the period when her mother is away at a conference in Sackville. She wonders if Ruth will be happy stranded in this small village with two elderly ladies. When her two guests arrive exhausted and grumpy, it seems Flossy’s fears are well founded, as Mother and daughter have not been talking to one another and Ruth makes it clear she wants to be back home with her friends playing baseball.
Although Ruth begins her reluctant visit with chill indifference, she soon settles in to the quiet warm friendship of the two older women and makes a place for herself in Flossy’s world. It was the last thing anyone, especially Ruth, expected.
Flossy loves literature and in particular the work of Virginia Wolfe. As she works her way through Woolf’s letters and diaries, a sense of doom emerges in the text. The story of the life of the poet Elizabeth Bishop who lived in the village for a short period and also experienced a life touched by mental illness and loss, is also interwoven among the lives of Flossy, Jimmy, Mealie, Ruth and Marjorie.
Donnelly’s prose is quiet and beautiful, as she describes the maritime scenery and the incredible Fundy Bay tides. Every once in a while the narrative is peppered with a bit of humour that makes the reader chuckle:
Jimmy: “I’m sweating like a hen hauling hay.”
Or, Flossy talking to Mealie’s cat Oscar Wilde, as she watches Ruth refusing to move out of the car after she arrives at Flossy’s home: “Wilde, I think we may have a calico on our hands”;
And, on seeing Marjory entering her home dragging a bad cold, Flossy remembers "how she always tried to put the length of two lumber trucks between herself and people with dreadful colds".
Donnelley portrays Flossy as a warm and wise woman and it is quite a pleasure to know her.
Beautifully written; a simply wonderful book.
April 1, 2015
I am joining a book club in my neighborhood and this is the book they are reading next. I have never heard of Mary Rose Donnelly before, but when I found out that the book is set in Nova Scotia, I was pretty sure would love the story. I went to university in Nova Scotia and it is my favorite province in Canada. The book was wonderful. The characters were exquisite. I laughed out loud with them, I felt their pain and I cried with them. Ms Donnelly writing style is so poetic which made reading this book so enjoyable. I hope I will be able to meet Ms Donnelly in person and express my gratitude for writing such a great book.
April 16, 2019
This was a surprisingly delightful read. (surprising because the author is unknown to me). It is set in Nova Scotia, but bypasses the usual "maritime" cliches. This is a story, poetically told, of two older women with an enduring, lifelong friendship, with flashes back to the past to fill out the details of how they became the people they are. These characters rang very true, with their understated affection for one another and their pragmatic views, doubts, and self-searching ruminations. Lovely descriptions of nature and scenery in a matter-of-fact way that reveals how someone who has lived in a place all her life can still appreciate the turning of the seasons, a nice sunset, the return of birds to the shore. This is one of the few books I will likely read again. Books rarely move me to tears, but this one actually did. Highly recommended. I can only hope that this author writes more!
January 28, 2020
A moving story of a family and a great friendship between twomen, neighbors, in a community called Great Village in Nova Scotia.
The narrator, Flossy, reminisces on her life and in it's course conveys appreciated wisdom. The author, Mary Rose Donnelly's graceful prose pleases on every page.
The novel was a wonderful and enriching experience.
The narrator, Flossy, reminisces on her life and in it's course conveys appreciated wisdom. The author, Mary Rose Donnelly's graceful prose pleases on every page.
The novel was a wonderful and enriching experience.
March 6, 2020
Loved the characters, beautifully written!
March 4, 2017
The author appears to be strongly influenced by Author Virginia Woolf. There are strong parallels in style and pace to Woolf's novel 'To The Lighthouse' . The author can turn a great phrase at times, but I found the pace torturously slow. I can't believe it took me so long to get through this book. I persevered and feel that the effort was worthwhile.
A story about family, friendship, trauma and the enduring spirit.
A story about family, friendship, trauma and the enduring spirit.
October 15, 2012
Amazing! I used to work with the author at the head office of the United Church and was thrilled to find her at Word on the Street in Toronto sitting behind the table at the booth of one of my favourite publishers (Marc Cote/Cormorant Books) signing copies of this book. And it won the Atlantic book prize for fiction. How could I not buy one? And it is fantastic. Mary Rose's penetrating gaze into the human heart is just wonderful, with passages that made me marvel at her insight and wishing that I had written them. A wonderful novel recommended to all, especially those of us tossed about a bit by life.
June 5, 2014
This book was a gentle somewhat sad look back. I did not feel it was about life in a typical Maritime village-it was about loss, the difficulty of communication with lived ones and hope. Even though the main character is thinking that death is near the arrival of a young person makes her glad to be alive.
I did think the Bishop stuff a little intrusive, unless probably one knew about Bishop.
I did think the Bishop stuff a little intrusive, unless probably one knew about Bishop.
December 28, 2012
Loved this story! Beautifully written with intriguing characters. Definitely a page turner. Lots of Canadian content....including the mentioning of my employer Sobeys, many times throughout the book. The ending of this story completely took me by surprise.
March 11, 2019
A wonderful story, set in small town Nova Scotia, about two women adjusting to age and making the best of whatever life brings their way. The location is really another main character which I love. Full of real life, wit and wisdom. Excellent reading.
Read
January 24, 2013I had to put this book down for a bit. I like it, but to much descriptive text for me, and not enough dialogue. I will pick it back up, just needed a break.
October 8, 2014
I enjoyed this book a lot and look forward to hearing the author when she is in Woodstock later this month. Loved her descriptions of Maritime weather & landscapes.
February 29, 2016
A really nice book. Easy read!
May 2, 2016
I struggled to get into the book as the story starts out a little slow. However, once the story gets settled in, it picks up and is a nice read with interesting characters.
January 23, 2017
I truly enjoyed this novel. It is a sensitive and thoughtful journey through the heart of a lovely character.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews