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Glory
A northern gothic tale about resilience and belonging
In a boom town dominated by a man-eating lake, Renee and Danny Chance start a new life in his grandfather's cabin. Renee struggles to keep her head above water until she is drawn into the orbit of two beautifully notorious bar-singer cousins, and all three women are called to test the bonds of blood and loyalty. A polyphonic fable riddled with tall tales, Glory explores what it means to be a woman in north-central BC by flooding the shores of the human heart.
In a boom town dominated by a man-eating lake, Renee and Danny Chance start a new life in his grandfather's cabin. Renee struggles to keep her head above water until she is drawn into the orbit of two beautifully notorious bar-singer cousins, and all three women are called to test the bonds of blood and loyalty. A polyphonic fable riddled with tall tales, Glory explores what it means to be a woman in north-central BC by flooding the shores of the human heart.
200 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2017
3 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Gillian Wigmore
8 books15 followersA library branch manager and the daughter of a veterinarian, Gillian Wigmore has published three books of poems: soft geography, winner of the ReLit Prize; Dirt of Ages, shortlisted for the George Ryga Award; and Orient. As well as Night Watch, she has written a novella, Grayling, and Glory, a novel. She lives in Prince George, BC.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 25, 2017
Wow, what a book. I want to write something here because I know it's helpful, when a potential reader wanders over and wants to know why it's rated five stars. But part of what made it wonderful is that I can't quite put my finger on what sucked me in and wouldn't let me go - Wigmore's writing, the aching truth of small town-ness, the unflattering complexity of Renee, Crystal, and Glory. I loved this simple and familiar story of navigating a new town, parenthood, new people, art and family and good men and bad men, and I loved that it was neither simple nor familiar. It felt new and difficult, and I was hooked from start to finish.
On a structural level, the book was carefully and expertly assembled, its main high-stakes storyline (shared primarily by two first-person narrators, Renee and Crystal) supplemented by monologues from other residents of Fort St James, bringing new depth not just to the women, but to the town itself, a character in its own right.
On a structural level, the book was carefully and expertly assembled, its main high-stakes storyline (shared primarily by two first-person narrators, Renee and Crystal) supplemented by monologues from other residents of Fort St James, bringing new depth not just to the women, but to the town itself, a character in its own right.
October 12, 2017
“Glory” is a glorious novel! Set in central British Columbia it’s a story about family, friendship, loneliness and belonging. I loved Gillian Wigmore’s descriptions of the journey north from Vancouver and the subsequent harsh realities of life on the lake in an isolated small town. Wigmore’s language is beautiful and poetic. I thought that her use of the different voices in the Chorus was unique and it certainly enhanced the multi-layered aspects of the story for me. The characters in “Glory” are alive - they are flawed, likeable, disillusioned and disagreeable, and we all know them. From Thomas the baby to the older next-door-neighbours and the bar-singing cousins, Wigmore captures the essence of small-town life and she paints a vivid picture of a community on the shores of a treacherous lake in the shadow of a mountain. I loved this book and look forward to more by this talented young woman!
October 29, 2017
i loved this book. i feel for Renee who is going through post-partum depression in an isolated Northern town. i wanted to know Glory and hear her sing. reading this book is like hanging out quietly at the Dream Beaver Pub, drinking a beer and getting a chance to soak up the local drama of Chance Bay. GW does a fine job of rendering small town conflict and intimacies, without an ounce of saccharine. the portraits of the women are especially strong and believable. i wish Glory had a sequel. i'd read it. fittingly i heard GW read from this book at Grossman's Tavern in Toronto where she sang part of Glory's song. i feel like Joel Thomas Hynes and Gillian Wigmore's writing have something in common in their ability to paint the small, out of the way places as dark and desperate but full of characters we can all relate to.
July 9, 2018
If, like me, you never want to have kids, this book will hammer home the horrible, constricting, suffocating nature of kids. Our protagonist overcomes it, but sort of in a magical way - too much emotional and mental change behind the scenes to be entirely convincing.
What I loved about this book: its role as a love letter to Northern BC, as a love letter to wild or abandoned or small-town spaces which alternately confine and liberate. Which, I suppose, is what it’s trying to say about Renee’s relationship with her kid, too. Confinement and liberation in weirdly equal, simultaneous parts.
What I loved about this book: its role as a love letter to Northern BC, as a love letter to wild or abandoned or small-town spaces which alternately confine and liberate. Which, I suppose, is what it’s trying to say about Renee’s relationship with her kid, too. Confinement and liberation in weirdly equal, simultaneous parts.
April 7, 2019
Cried all the way through. Lovely, breaking, both gentle and rough much like the lake in the book.
September 22, 2022
"Glory" got me from the opening quotes from both Howard O'Hagan's "Tay John" (one of my favourite novels) and Sheila Watson's "The Double Hook" (on my 'to read' list.) I knew we were in the territory of something rare and rugged from BC.
Gillian Wigmore has a way of telling a story in a poetic yet real manner...always anchored in reality and anchored to the place. It may not be a glamorous setting, small town BC where people say "I seen" instead of "I saw, but I do enjoy a break from New York and Paris and London and all that. There are many centers in the world.
I found the main character "Glory" to be, well, rather glorified. I didn't understand the animosity between her and her cousin Crystal. I guess it was supposed to be creative spark almost like a stormy romance except in their case they are musical partners and cousins, not lovers. I suppose we are to assume that their antagonism fuels their music? And Glory and her endless booze and cigarettes, gets a bit tiresome to me after a while. She's 35 years old and still carrying on like that and still supposedly gorgeous? Well...give her a few more years...the bloom will certainly be off of that wild rose!
I didn't find the story incredibly interesting after a while, for a short novel, it seemed to go on, like one crazy drunken night of partying...indeed I am not sure how much time actually passes in the entire novel, but it doesn't seem like very much...several months, maybe?
Anyway, good writing, and refreshing setting in a part of my home province that I have never been to (at least not in the real world).
Gillian Wigmore has a way of telling a story in a poetic yet real manner...always anchored in reality and anchored to the place. It may not be a glamorous setting, small town BC where people say "I seen" instead of "I saw, but I do enjoy a break from New York and Paris and London and all that. There are many centers in the world.
I found the main character "Glory" to be, well, rather glorified. I didn't understand the animosity between her and her cousin Crystal. I guess it was supposed to be creative spark almost like a stormy romance except in their case they are musical partners and cousins, not lovers. I suppose we are to assume that their antagonism fuels their music? And Glory and her endless booze and cigarettes, gets a bit tiresome to me after a while. She's 35 years old and still carrying on like that and still supposedly gorgeous? Well...give her a few more years...the bloom will certainly be off of that wild rose!
I didn't find the story incredibly interesting after a while, for a short novel, it seemed to go on, like one crazy drunken night of partying...indeed I am not sure how much time actually passes in the entire novel, but it doesn't seem like very much...several months, maybe?
Anyway, good writing, and refreshing setting in a part of my home province that I have never been to (at least not in the real world).
January 10, 2024
In her novel GLORY, Gillian Wigmore’s words are beautiful, poetic and the world so real and raw. I really enjoyed her vibrant narrative and discovering yet another area of this breathtaking country so immense that it would be impossible to visit its every place even in the longest lifetime. I found the story interesting, the characters genuine, vivid, and easy to relate to. The ending was also particularly well done.
“The trees were so big they made the cabin look like it was cowering, like it had crawled to the cliff edge to get away from the hundred-year-old firs that stood around it and all the way up Pope Mountain—huge Douglas fir, brambles of dogwood and Labrador tea, spruce that raced each other for the sky—everything was overgrown.”
“My heart gets tore up like my hands when I fall down drunk on a gravel road. Every fuckin’ day there’s something pullin’ at me every which way I turn—some memory, some ghost. I’m sick of ghosts! I want no past. No old selves waitin’ to be remembered at every street corner.”
“The trees were so big they made the cabin look like it was cowering, like it had crawled to the cliff edge to get away from the hundred-year-old firs that stood around it and all the way up Pope Mountain—huge Douglas fir, brambles of dogwood and Labrador tea, spruce that raced each other for the sky—everything was overgrown.”
“My heart gets tore up like my hands when I fall down drunk on a gravel road. Every fuckin’ day there’s something pullin’ at me every which way I turn—some memory, some ghost. I’m sick of ghosts! I want no past. No old selves waitin’ to be remembered at every street corner.”
November 14, 2023
I usually like books that make me feel emotional, but I didn't really like how this book made me feel. Maybe I resonated too much with the main character toward the beginning and it touched on feelings too recent and too raw -- feelings of being "trapped," not good enough, unloved and unlovable in a place she didn't want to be. The characters grow together and find a sense of belonging, but I couldn't get excited about coming back to this book, knowing I would feel a darkness and a heaviness in my chest when I read it. I wanted to give it three stars for this reason, but I also recognize the author's ability to bring these emotions out in me is a talent in and of itself.
March 9, 2018
Gusty, earthy, musical. At times, so dirt-under-the-fingernails real, it's astonishing. Some readers will be thrilled at the lyricism and the fantastic chorus of voices, the diversity of which is a remarkable achievement. Me, I loved the small details that show how attuned the author is to both the landscape and the people of northern B.C. It's a small but powerful book.
February 27, 2019
I said an audible "oof!" as I finished this sucker punch of a book. I'm not usually a visual reader, but I could "see" this book throughout. The inclusion of sections of chorus contributed to this having a dramatic feel, like it was playing out in front of me. Especially in the climactic scene I wanted to reach out and pull everyone to safety, but I'm just a member of the audience.
February 4, 2020
A beautiful short novel. I loved these characters and the story. The struggles of relationships with people and place. LOVED it.
April 28, 2023
Really liked this - the lake, the small town, the characters. Really tight timeline and effective structure.
July 3, 2024
Hauntingly beautiful. It really captures the essence of its characters and their place in the world. I loved the use of the chorus to echo Greek tragedy plus give the small town feel
September 21, 2022
This novel does a great job of depicting the isolation that happens to a woman at home with child for long days with no social contact. This isolation is mirrored in the northern small town that she lives in with her husband. They chose the community because they could have a home with no or little cost, moving from Vancouver where they couldn't afford a home of their own. The trip north is vivid--it brought back memories of my first time moving north, travelling through Cariboo.
The locals that Renee interacts with are depicted well; the dialogue is great. Renee's rebellion is realistic, and the climax of that movement is satisfying.
The locals that Renee interacts with are depicted well; the dialogue is great. Renee's rebellion is realistic, and the climax of that movement is satisfying.
March 13, 2020
4.5 stars. Just when I thought it would be mundane the plot picks things up a notch. Not at all what I expected for a book about small town life. Great characters, great ending. Missed the sense of caring and community that comes with small town life. Not everyone spends their evenings partying and in the bar. Ps. Author lives on my street
June 9, 2023
Had to add a star from my original rating because it's nearly a year after I read it and I'm still thinking about it. I think maybe I was either in exactly the wrong headspace for it and it just hit me wrong or I was in exactly the right headspace for it and I took it too personally.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews