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The Novice of Holloway Hall: A novel
From award-winning, bestselling author Wayne Johnston comes a boisterous, sweeping tragicomic saga of faith, loyalty, and family secrets that refuse to stay buried
At twenty-eight, Vivvy Holloway is nearly the same height as when she was five. Though she hides her face behind a veil, a different colour and fabric for each day of the week, she brandishes an acerbic wit that far outweighs her small stature. Having just spent eight years of the 1930s in a convent failing to become a nun, Vivvy is now returning to Holloway Hall, the largest private dwelling in Newfoundland and the crumbling seat of her formidable family.
Vivvy’s sister Freda, a doctor, now rules the estate and its fortune. She is also its sole occupant, save for the five-year-old “special member of the family” known as Ivan, who came home with Freda after her failed marriage in the Congo, where she and her husband were missionaries until tragedy struck. Tasked with caring for the boy while Freda works long shifts—and displays increasingly erratic behaviour—Vivvy begins to suspect that something is dangerously amiss in Holloway Hall.
Over the course of a single turbulent week, Vivvy faces off against her domineering sister, her ten cleric brothers, and a host of meddling hangers-on, unearthing long-buried secrets that threaten not only her and Ivan’s place in the family, but the fate of the entire Holloway name.
At twenty-eight, Vivvy Holloway is nearly the same height as when she was five. Though she hides her face behind a veil, a different colour and fabric for each day of the week, she brandishes an acerbic wit that far outweighs her small stature. Having just spent eight years of the 1930s in a convent failing to become a nun, Vivvy is now returning to Holloway Hall, the largest private dwelling in Newfoundland and the crumbling seat of her formidable family.
Vivvy’s sister Freda, a doctor, now rules the estate and its fortune. She is also its sole occupant, save for the five-year-old “special member of the family” known as Ivan, who came home with Freda after her failed marriage in the Congo, where she and her husband were missionaries until tragedy struck. Tasked with caring for the boy while Freda works long shifts—and displays increasingly erratic behaviour—Vivvy begins to suspect that something is dangerously amiss in Holloway Hall.
Over the course of a single turbulent week, Vivvy faces off against her domineering sister, her ten cleric brothers, and a host of meddling hangers-on, unearthing long-buried secrets that threaten not only her and Ivan’s place in the family, but the fate of the entire Holloway name.
- GenresCanada
294 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 14, 2026
About the author
Wayne Johnston
22 books325 followersWayne Johnston was born and raised in Goulds, Newfoundland. After a brief stint in pre-Med, Wayne obtained a BA in English from Memorial University. He worked as a reporter for the St. John's Daily News before deciding to devote himself full-time to writing.
En route to being published, Wayne earned an MA in Creative Writing from the University of New Brunswick. Then he got off to a quick start. His first book, The Story of Bobby O'Malley, published when he was 27 years old, won the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel award for the best first novel published in the English language in Canada in that year. The Divine Ryans was adapted to a film, for which Wayne wrote the screenplay. Baltimore's Mansion, a memoire dealing with his grandfather, his father and Wayne himself, won the Charles Taylor Prize. Both The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and The Navigator of New York were on bestseller lists in Canada and have been published in the US, Britain, Germany, Holland, China and Spain. Colony was identified by the Globe and Mail newspaper as one of the 100 most important Canadian books ever produced.
En route to being published, Wayne earned an MA in Creative Writing from the University of New Brunswick. Then he got off to a quick start. His first book, The Story of Bobby O'Malley, published when he was 27 years old, won the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel award for the best first novel published in the English language in Canada in that year. The Divine Ryans was adapted to a film, for which Wayne wrote the screenplay. Baltimore's Mansion, a memoire dealing with his grandfather, his father and Wayne himself, won the Charles Taylor Prize. Both The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and The Navigator of New York were on bestseller lists in Canada and have been published in the US, Britain, Germany, Holland, China and Spain. Colony was identified by the Globe and Mail newspaper as one of the 100 most important Canadian books ever produced.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 22, 2026
This is a strange book with strange characters and it left me with more questions than answers. That said, the storytelling was stellar and it kept me listening (audiobook version) long after I should have pressed pause. I’m still wondering what the heck was up with these people but I like how the author didn’t lay it all out and let the reader draw their own conclusions. The audiobook narrator has a wonderful Newfoundland accent that made the listening even more enjoyable.
April 17, 2026
I’ve read and loved many of Wayne Johnston’s novels so I was pleased to receive a copy of his latest. It did not disappoint.
This family drama is set in St. John’s, Newfoundland, over the course of a week in September of 1947. Twenty-eight-year-old Vivvy Holloway is of small stature because she hasn’t grown since she was five years old. After eight years in a convent, she returns to her family home, Holloway Hall, the largest private dwelling in Newfoundland. Vivvy is the youngest in a formidable family which has ten cleric brothers.
Freda, Vivvy’s only sister, is in charge of the family estate and fortune. She is the sole occupant of Holloway Hall, except for Ivan Bradford, a five-year-old boy she brought back from the Congo where she once worked as a missionary doctor. Vivvy is tasked with caring for Ivan since Freda works such long hours. The two sisters clash because of Freda’s domineering personality but it’s her increasingly erratic behaviour that is disconcerting and has Vivvy worrying about Ivan’s safety. The arrival of all the Holloway brothers inspires people to come forward and begin the unearthing of long-buried family secrets which threaten the reputation and fate of the entire Holloway clan.
Vivvy is a memorable character. Something happened on her first day of school that changed her life forever. She hides her face behind a veil, a different colour and fabric for each day of the week. It is her acerbic wit that I loved, though it certainly does not endear her to her siblings who think of her as “an insufferable, subversive, heretical nuisance.” Vivvy herself acknowledges being “nonconforming, acerbic, ironic, voluble.” She makes observations like small-town rumours traveling “faster than the speed of spite” and describes her brothers’ reactions to Freda being made the sole heir: “If Freda had been wearing a ring, they might have all lined up to kiss it, but they had to settle for her backside.” Few people escape her jabs; when looking at a portrait of her mother, Vivvy comments that “she wasn’t as cheerful as that scowl might make you think. When it came to persuasiveness, she had a higher success rate than a thumbscrew.”
Another character who is memorable is Smack though he never actually appears in the novel. He is Ivan’s older friend who says things he has heard from his parents. Ivan then repeats Smack’s comments in conversations with Vivvy. When Maynard, a cardinal and Vivvy’s oldest brother, is coming for a visit, Ivan says, “’Smack said Maynard’s not here to see the sights . . . He’s seen both of them. Too late in the year for icebergs, and thank God for that. The Basilica, a.k.a. Small Potatoes Chapel. Once you’ve seen Signal Hill. And once is once too often for Cape Spear . . . So why is the Cardinal here? To say Mass. Bring out a big crowd. Cheer them up. Rub the Anglicans’ noses in it. . . . But local boy makes good only goes so far. Something must be off the rails. Enter Cardinal Cavalry.’”
The novel’s pace is slow at the beginning, but my interest was maintained by hints about past events. What happened that resulted in Vivvy’s hiding her face? Then there are strange behaviours which leave the reader questioning: Why did Freda bring Ivan home but refuse to adopt him or even have him baptized?
The book emphasizes the control that the wealthy and the Catholic Church had over society in Newfoundland. The wealth and status of the Holloway family has allowed them to hide shameful truths, and it is suggested that the Church does so as well. Knowing about the sexual abuse eventually uncovered at the Mount Cashel Boys’ Home, the references to the Christian Brothers left me feeling unsettled. Often the Holloways and the church work together for their own purposes; in neither case is their concern the welfare of the poor.
As a former English literature teacher, I really enjoyed the literary allusions; the writings of Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, and many others are mentioned. I love that my knowledge of vocabulary was challenged: I had to check on the definitions of words like enisled, chthonic, and borborygmi. And then there’s the wordplay. When Ivan has chicken pot pie for dinner, Vivvy jokes that if they went by their respective ages, she should have “’pterodactyl pot pie. Or why not a pteroanapest pot pie? Poor Anna. She’s the most ignored of all the pests. How about Budapest pot pie. Ivan is so Hungary.’”
This book is a mix of drama, mystery and comedy and a great read.
Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/).
This family drama is set in St. John’s, Newfoundland, over the course of a week in September of 1947. Twenty-eight-year-old Vivvy Holloway is of small stature because she hasn’t grown since she was five years old. After eight years in a convent, she returns to her family home, Holloway Hall, the largest private dwelling in Newfoundland. Vivvy is the youngest in a formidable family which has ten cleric brothers.
Freda, Vivvy’s only sister, is in charge of the family estate and fortune. She is the sole occupant of Holloway Hall, except for Ivan Bradford, a five-year-old boy she brought back from the Congo where she once worked as a missionary doctor. Vivvy is tasked with caring for Ivan since Freda works such long hours. The two sisters clash because of Freda’s domineering personality but it’s her increasingly erratic behaviour that is disconcerting and has Vivvy worrying about Ivan’s safety. The arrival of all the Holloway brothers inspires people to come forward and begin the unearthing of long-buried family secrets which threaten the reputation and fate of the entire Holloway clan.
Vivvy is a memorable character. Something happened on her first day of school that changed her life forever. She hides her face behind a veil, a different colour and fabric for each day of the week. It is her acerbic wit that I loved, though it certainly does not endear her to her siblings who think of her as “an insufferable, subversive, heretical nuisance.” Vivvy herself acknowledges being “nonconforming, acerbic, ironic, voluble.” She makes observations like small-town rumours traveling “faster than the speed of spite” and describes her brothers’ reactions to Freda being made the sole heir: “If Freda had been wearing a ring, they might have all lined up to kiss it, but they had to settle for her backside.” Few people escape her jabs; when looking at a portrait of her mother, Vivvy comments that “she wasn’t as cheerful as that scowl might make you think. When it came to persuasiveness, she had a higher success rate than a thumbscrew.”
Another character who is memorable is Smack though he never actually appears in the novel. He is Ivan’s older friend who says things he has heard from his parents. Ivan then repeats Smack’s comments in conversations with Vivvy. When Maynard, a cardinal and Vivvy’s oldest brother, is coming for a visit, Ivan says, “’Smack said Maynard’s not here to see the sights . . . He’s seen both of them. Too late in the year for icebergs, and thank God for that. The Basilica, a.k.a. Small Potatoes Chapel. Once you’ve seen Signal Hill. And once is once too often for Cape Spear . . . So why is the Cardinal here? To say Mass. Bring out a big crowd. Cheer them up. Rub the Anglicans’ noses in it. . . . But local boy makes good only goes so far. Something must be off the rails. Enter Cardinal Cavalry.’”
The novel’s pace is slow at the beginning, but my interest was maintained by hints about past events. What happened that resulted in Vivvy’s hiding her face? Then there are strange behaviours which leave the reader questioning: Why did Freda bring Ivan home but refuse to adopt him or even have him baptized?
The book emphasizes the control that the wealthy and the Catholic Church had over society in Newfoundland. The wealth and status of the Holloway family has allowed them to hide shameful truths, and it is suggested that the Church does so as well. Knowing about the sexual abuse eventually uncovered at the Mount Cashel Boys’ Home, the references to the Christian Brothers left me feeling unsettled. Often the Holloways and the church work together for their own purposes; in neither case is their concern the welfare of the poor.
As a former English literature teacher, I really enjoyed the literary allusions; the writings of Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, and many others are mentioned. I love that my knowledge of vocabulary was challenged: I had to check on the definitions of words like enisled, chthonic, and borborygmi. And then there’s the wordplay. When Ivan has chicken pot pie for dinner, Vivvy jokes that if they went by their respective ages, she should have “’pterodactyl pot pie. Or why not a pteroanapest pot pie? Poor Anna. She’s the most ignored of all the pests. How about Budapest pot pie. Ivan is so Hungary.’”
This book is a mix of drama, mystery and comedy and a great read.
Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/).
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Thank you to Penguin Random House and Knopf Canada for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Vivian Holloway faces the secrets of her family and its ancestral home while still uncovering the truth about herself and the veil blinding her from the truth.
I am not sure where to start with this book because I think it somewhat outsmarted me. It is an interesting discussion around traditions, religion, and capitalism and what lengths we will go to to protect wealth. I have felt as confused and enraged as let down during this reading.
The first half of the book felt very uneventful, and the build-up was so slow I didn't think I was going to make it. But the second half got to me. This book's ambiance and setting are probably the best part. When I first read the page, I was like, "Welcome home.” Johnston has an incredible way to write about nature and weather; I could really place myself in Canada because I could recognize the environment so easily. The same goes with Holloway Hall; the descriptions really make the house come alive, and I love books that are able to personify a house to be part of the characters.
Speaking of characters, they are all unique and distinct, making their stories and discoveries much more engaging. The lack of agency held towards women is infuriating, but it makes their decisions, lacks and wins all more interesting.
Nevertheless, I felt the plot was quite predictable and my interest in the characters is what made me sit down with this book every time. To be honest, I just love books that unveil the truth about men.
Vivian Holloway faces the secrets of her family and its ancestral home while still uncovering the truth about herself and the veil blinding her from the truth.
I am not sure where to start with this book because I think it somewhat outsmarted me. It is an interesting discussion around traditions, religion, and capitalism and what lengths we will go to to protect wealth. I have felt as confused and enraged as let down during this reading.
The first half of the book felt very uneventful, and the build-up was so slow I didn't think I was going to make it. But the second half got to me. This book's ambiance and setting are probably the best part. When I first read the page, I was like, "Welcome home.” Johnston has an incredible way to write about nature and weather; I could really place myself in Canada because I could recognize the environment so easily. The same goes with Holloway Hall; the descriptions really make the house come alive, and I love books that are able to personify a house to be part of the characters.
Speaking of characters, they are all unique and distinct, making their stories and discoveries much more engaging. The lack of agency held towards women is infuriating, but it makes their decisions, lacks and wins all more interesting.
Nevertheless, I felt the plot was quite predictable and my interest in the characters is what made me sit down with this book every time. To be honest, I just love books that unveil the truth about men.
May 27, 2026
Johnston's prosody comes in full force but there's more than a few complications elsewhere. Major deductions for referencing "scrote malone—" whoever that is. Ew!! Feels very much like two books. One that's too slow in the first 65% and the rest too fast. When it started kicking off my ears perked up but then I realized the brake lines were cut. Not a lot of meaningful resolution, perhaps a consequence of wandering setups. Will read some other Johnston: if there's a work of his with this writing proficiency and a plot I can give a hoot about I'll get at it.
May 4, 2026
A momentous and beautifully orchestrated book. Johnston’s command of language is that of a master, and reading his latest felt like a playful masterclass. Such tender and complex range in each of his characters, even the minor ones. His stamp on place lingers for ages. He gives us texture and lighting, comedy and tragedy, rooms and wind and dark, ugly secrets. What a giant! An immense pleasure to engage with his latest work.
May 17, 2026
The story of the one big rich family in a small town. The book is packed with kooky characters, starting with the narrator Vivvy. I laughed out loud with her comments and word play. The book takes on tough subjects and the humour of Vivvy guiding you through shines strongly.
A masterpiece. Recommend
A masterpiece. Recommend
May 7, 2026
This was hard to get into, hard to pick up characters and Vivy reminded me of John Irvings book A Prayer for Owen Meany. I couldn't get past that and the religious, weird stuff. Made it as far as the 2nd day but it was very slow
May 22, 2026
Not my favourite Wayne Johnston book but I did love the character of Vivvy and the humor Johnston breathes into most of his books. I did feel I was left a bit confused and with more questions than answers.
Read
May 28, 2026I tried with this one… I pick it up, put it down, pick it up, put it down… wash, rinse, repeat.
It just doesn’t hold my attention at all. I’m pretty bored by the whole thing.
DNF
It just doesn’t hold my attention at all. I’m pretty bored by the whole thing.
DNF
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews