The Mystery of Right and Wrong

by Wayne Johnston

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

The Mystery of Right and Wrong is a masterwork from one of the country’s most critically acclaimed and beloved writers that is both compulsively readable and heartstopping in the vital truth it unfolds. In a novel that grapples with sexual abuse, male violence and madness, Wayne Johnston reveals haunting family secrets he’s kept for more than thirty years.

Wade Jackson, a young man from a Newfoundland outport, wants to be a writer. In the university library in St. John’s, where he goes every day to absorb the great books of the world, he encounters the fascinating, South African-born Rachel van Hout, and soon they are lovers.

Rachel is the youngest of four van Hout daughters. Her father, Hans, lived in Amsterdam during the Second World War, and says he was in the Dutch resistance. When the war ended, he emigrated to South Africa, where he met his wife, Myra, had his daughters and worked as an accounting professor at the University of Cape Town. Something happened, though, that caused him to uproot his family and move them all, unhappily, to Newfoundland.

Wade soon discovers that Rachel and her sisters are each in their own way a wounded soul. The oldest, Gloria, has a string of broken marriages behind her. Carmen is addicted to every drug her Afrikaner dealer husband, Fritz, can lay his hands on. Bethany, the most sardonic of the sisters, is fighting a losing battle with anorexia. And then there is Rachel, who reads The Diary of Anne Frank obsessively, and diarizes her days in a secret language of her own invention, writing to the point of breakdown and beyond—an obsession that has deeper and more disturbing roots than Wade could ever have imagined.

Confronting the central mystery of his character Rachel’s life—and his own—Wayne Johnston has created a tour-de-force that pulls the reader toward a conclusion both inevitable and impossible to foresee. As he writes, “ The Mystery of Right and Wrong is a memorialization of the lost, the missing women of the world, and of my world. I see it not as a dark book, but as one that sheds light—a lot of light—on things that, once illuminated, lose their power to distort the truth.”

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Audiobook, Literary Fiction, Literature

560 pages, Hardcover

Published September 21, 2021

About the author

Wayne 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.

Reviews

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

In any case, they soon come back. The flickering along the wrack continues until morning comes. The sirens, now that night is done, must go back to the sea and hide — they lost their voices when they died. They cannot sing their secret song, “The Mystery of Right and Wrong”; they know the words but no one who would sing them truthfully to you.

In the publisher’s blurb, it states that in The Mystery of Right and Wrong, critically acclaimed and beloved Canadian author Wayne Johnston “reveals haunting family secrets he's kept for more than 30 years”. With a main character named “Wade Jackson” — an aspiring young novelist from a Newfoundland outport — it is immediately reinforced that Johnston will be cutting close to the bone with this book. What follows is rather harrowing: this is a story of domestic abuse, systemic abuse (from the Nazi occupation of Holland to South African apartheid), intergenerational trauma, and mental illness. It is also a love story, a coming of age story, and an inquiry into whether, in the aftermath of abuse, either evil or free will can exist; the titular “mystery” of right and wrong. In a lengthy afterword, Johnston explains which parts are true (and how they played out in real life), and that part gobsmacked me; I can totally see how a masterclass on Johnston’s work can now be taught, with this novel serving as the key that unlocks it all. This book is courageous and important and compelling, and to be fair, it was also a bit too long, and although Johnston explains the reasons for the segments in verse, I found them, as they went on, exasperating. I am grateful to have received an advanced reading copy of this book five months before publication and I am daunted by the idea of being the first to review and “rate” it, but here goes: based on its importance and artistry, five stars; based on my personal “enjoyment” of the reading experience, I’m knocking it back to four. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms. Note especially, there was no particular formatting for the segments in verse and I reckon that could change.)

I wasn’t sure if the book was making me worse or if it was all that was holding me together. My supposedly secret illness. But it somehow reassured me to think about the ways my sisters coped. Carmen had her drugs. Gloria had her hypersexuality, though not many people called it that at the time. Bethany had her anorexia. I had my diary and Het Achterhuis, which I kept reading even after I knew it by heart. The thought that we were all freaks made me feel less like one.

Wade Jackson — a recent university graduate, working as a newspaper reporter while he plans his first novel — meets a young woman in the university library, which they both frequent as a quiet place to work. Wade will be so struck with this Rachel van Hout — beautiful and quirky, born in South Africa and brought along with her family to St. John’s as a teenager when her professor father took a job there — that despite some alarming proclivities, Wade will immediately throw his lot in with her. No matter how odd, damaging, or dangerous Rachel and her three sisters’ self-harming behaviours become, Wade commits to the long haul. There is a real heaviness and dread to the plot — what will the sisters do next and how did they get this way? — as POV skips through time and rotates between Wade, Rachel, the encoded diary she keeps, and long snippets from the epic verse Rachel’s father wrote and forced the girls to memorise as children, The Ballad of the Clan van Hout:

Girls, get used to contradictions, truthful lies and false non-fictions. What isn’t there is everywhere; the things which are, are not, you see, however much they seem to be — and what is not is what will be as long as you and I agree.

In the moment I could understand why these sections are set apart in verse — and in the afterword Johnston further, intriguingly, explains the impetus behind his use of poetry — but as I began with, and perhaps it comes down to the novel’s length, it eventually became just too much as a reading experience. However, the insight these sections allow into the mind of the girls’ father, Hans van Hout, are integral to the plot and allow us to take his self-mythologising with a grain of salt. (But honestly, less would be more for me.) As the action moves from Newfoundland to South Africa, and back home again through Amsterdam, Hans’ origin story will morph and change; but everywhere and in every time we are forced to consider what is and isn’t credible, defensible, or justifiable.

It struck me that Rachel had been right when she said that history happened not in some nebulous, exceptional elsewhere, but in ordinary concrete places, to commonplace people. My world shrank to this pair of unexceptional streets, to Hans and his family, to Anne Frank and hers. History, the war, the fate of the Franks, were personal, local, terrifyingly actual and immediate. I imagined Hans as a teenager looking out of one of the windows of the house, his hands pressed to the glass as the Nazis marched past, their boots clumping on the cobblestones, row after row of bluff and bravado and menace without purpose, a lethal behemoth composed of men just like the ones who ran South Africa and those who supported them, greater only in number, driven to savagery by a group of men whose madness they need not have fallen for but did for reasons that flattered none of humankind.

There is a lot of disturbing material in this book, reflecting the fact that there is a lot of disturbing material in life (certainly there has been enough in Johnston’s life that he claims to never be surprised by anything of which a person can be accused or to which they might confess). To make a novel out of this kind of material — a novel that employs that material to explore nuanced questions of right and wrong with artistry — is no small feat; to learn that the author is using this vehicle to expose and explore close-held secrets and pathologies is breathtaking. I have no doubt that The Mystery of Right and Wrong will make a big stir upon its release and I am looking forward to reading what others make of it.

[David Waltner-Toews]

I didn't have time for this, I don't read these kinds of books, I have my own writing to do, other things, then got sucked in and he grabbed me & refused to let go, me wondering how can a writer inhabit these characters, this story, without themselves being utterly destroyed? Who can make me laugh in the midst of it? Who is capable of writing this without falling into an endless, dark pit? Only the greatest bravest best of writers: Wayne Johnston.

[Luke Spooner · Rating 1 out of 5]

I appreciate the author's personal relationship to these stories, but they're not his stories, and I do not think he handled the subject matter (incest, sexual assault, trauma, holocaust, etc.) with a very deft touch. The poems felt gimmicky and almost foolish considering their themes and the rest of the writing just felt stilted and lifeless. I did not enjoy this.

[Penny (Literary Hoarders) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oomph. I'll be taking a few days off from reading to sit and stare at mindless TV and colour after closing the cover on this one.

While entirely too long , this was Johnston showing off his incredible craft. A strange, disturbing but uniquely told autobiographical novel laying bare his wife's troubled family history as well as his own. Parts of this are told entirely in verse, hence the comment about showing off his amazing craft. It is also an incredibly layered story that takes its time peeling back and revealing those layers.

I almost gave this one up, like I say above, it is much too long and the first half is very repetitive. I started reading through many of the reviews here on Goodreads because there are so very many 4 and 5 star reviews. Some said it picks up in the second half (it certainly does) and the Author's Note at the end explaining everything is completely mind-blowing. It almost makes the whole book worthwhile just to get to finish it reading those pages. Johnston says people that know him best, or have known him all his life will be shocked. It certainly leaves you with much to ponder and because of all of it taken as its whole, I will be taking a bit of a break from reading for the next few days. What I plan on reading next will be a nice and light cozy mystery.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wayne Johnston promoted this book as one based on his wife and her sisters’ history of parental abuse, thus creating a sense of curiosity in readers to pick this one up from among the mass of fictional intrafamilial sexual abuse stories that litter CanLit.
The author explains his own family story in a lengthy Afterword, and the parallels with the fictional story are very strong, even down to locales and character names beginning with the same letters as their real-life equivalents. In a nutshell, Hans Van Hout, Dutch émigré to Cape Town, South Africa and later to St. John’s, Newfoundland is abusing his four daughters and a host of other vulnerable women, while his wife, Myra, supports and protects him.
Hans Van Hout is the classic predator, an inveterate liar, a brag, a victim, and a professional failure. Under his ministrations, his daughters become, in age order: a nymphomaniac, a drug addict, an anorexic, and the youngest, Rachel, turns into a hypergraphic, hyperlexic, bibliomaniac – ironically, the last three are the conditions that Johnston admits to suffering from as a young man.
The story is told alternatingly, from Rachel’s viewpoint and her boyfriend Wade’s (the latter being a proxy for author Wayne). Wade is preparing to become a writer by reading copious classics. Rachel is already a writer, scribbling voluminously whenever she slumps in and out of psychotic states, but she has no audience, for she does not share her work written in a reverse language called Aurellian. Interspersed with these two point-of-view (POV) narratives are sequences of poetry from Rachel’s diary called the Aurelliad and Hans’s rambling bedtime story to his daughters called the Ballad. I thought the poetry was superfluous, amateurish, and repetitive, but the author insists in his very explanatory Afterword that the Aurelliad is an attempt at self-examination on the part of Rachel and the Ballad is a form of indoctrination and self-justification on the part of Hans. There is even a chapter narrated in Hans’s POV – I guess the author ran out of the means of how to convey a crucial event in the book and needed the villain’s help.
Another prominent character in absentia is Anne Frank, Rachel’s obsession, for despite her bibliomania, the only book she reads is Anne’s famous Diary, in many languages, over and over again. Anne’s Secret Annex is Rachel’s Aurellia – they are both inventing alternative realities to escape from the terrible worlds they live in. To compound things, Hans writes in his Ballad that he betrayed the Franks to the Nazis, and that he also tried to save them by revealing their hideout to the Dutch Resistance.
The scenes shift between St. John’s and Cape Town, with a short transit in Amsterdam. Since the action takes place in the 1970s and ’80s, we are exposed to chilling scenes of Apartheid, viewed through the naïve eyes of Wade who has never travelled outside Newfoundland. Cape Town is beautifully painted, prejudicial warts and all, and so is St. John’s with its bitter winters that drive some people to murder.
After the dramatic whodunit revelation, the story continues to meander between Rachel and Wade, and I found this part lopsided, for one of them knows the whole truth and the other only half the truth. Perhaps, this is the situation that the author lives with today with his wife, for, as the Afterword reveals, nothing of the real-life abuse has been revealed to him, although its occurrence is known, and he lives in a world of half-truth.
Johnston admits the book reaches no answers on child abuse, just like Anne Frank’s Diary didn’t on the Holocaust. However, unlike the real-life sisters who chose to remain cloaked in silence, the fictional sisters in this novel are able to redress the problem with their father, even though there will be much debate among readers as to whether their actions are forgivable or not.

[Jodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm spellbound, my mouth agape 😯 and I can't imagine where to begin.

I feel as though I've been living inside this book for the past 14 days. It's a fair-size at 600+ pages, but it took much longer to read than it should have. I often got so angry at the characters or the situations they were in that I had to stop—to calm myself. I know that seems weird, but Wayne Johnston has always been a favourite author of mine, and I think he's just that good—he made the story come to life!

I loved this book so much. The story—every little bit of it—was so extraordinary, so remarkable, that I really don't want to say more for fear I'll let something slip. I want you to read the book for yourself, including the Author's Note at the end. It might knock your socks off.

Johnston has written several unforgettable novels—important Canadian novels—and I think The Mystery of Right and Wrong may be remembered as the most spectacular offering of his career. It'll speak for itself.

5 "Truth is stranger than Fiction" stars. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, I don’t even know where to start with this review. I have such mixed feelings after having read this book and don’t know if I would recommend it but perhaps not for the reasons you may think.

It is gut wrenching and disturbing and full of trigger warnings. It gives both the viewpoint of victims of child sexual abuse and that of the offender. I normally wouldn’t put what might be a bit of a spoiler in a review but when this became known to me, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I felt ill.

Some of my notes from the first half of the book were that the author seemed to be trying to parse his thoughts through his writing, the repetition of an action sounded like mental illness and that one of the characters has the same initials as the author. I share these because we learn in the author’s note at the end of Johnston’s relationship to the story.

The story reminded me of a raindrop that falls into a puddle and creates concentric circles. There were ever expanding layers to the story. The main character of Rachel is obsessed with Anne Frank and another Anne that she writes about it in her coded language. Hans, the father, also claims to have a connection to Anne Frank-one that will both surprise and anger you.

While part of the story is told in the author’s typical setting of Newfoundland, it also has settings in South Africa and Amsterdam.

Told in both prose and verse, it was a bit difficult for this reader’s mind to switch back and forth but I was impressed by the rhyming.

The first half of this rather long book is a bit slow but knowing what I know now I see in part why the author chose to do this. The second half picked up significantly and threw a few surprises into the story.

Overall, I am impressed by this book as I have been with many of his previous books that I now need to go back and look at for hidden messages from this book, THE book as the author calls it.

Thank you to @netgalley and @knopfca for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinions. The Mystery of Right and Wrong publishes September 21, 2021.

[CarolG]

Last fall I came across a review of this book in the Toronto Globe and Mail which made me really want to read it. For some reason I already had it on my TBR although I don't recall where I first heard of it. The review in the Globe made the story sound so bizarre I wondered how it could be true and I knew I needed to read the whole book and decide for myself. It's a fiction book based on the author's wife's family, mostly her father but also her sisters. I wrote the word "hypergraphia" in my notes which is a behavioral condition characterized by the intense desire to write or draw. The library recently got copies of the book and after a short wait my hold was ready. I hadn't realized the book was 560 pages so that's quite a tome in the hardcover version. I read to page 75 and decided to put it aside until another time. I enjoyed what I read so far but I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to concentrate. The book contains a lot of poetry (think Rime of the Ancient Mariner!). Poetry and I don't really gel plus whenever I went back to the narrative I was still reading in the rhyme scheme for a while. I'd still like to finish the book, just not at the moment.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how to review this book. It was disturbing and triggering to those of us that survived childhood abuse. It also grabbed my attention and stayed with me long after I laid the book down. It was extremely well written. I strongly suggest that you read the authors note at the end as it explains and ties together a lot of the story.
I don't want to give any spoilers, so I'll just say "Thank you Wayne Johnson for taking a very difficult subject and sharing it with the reader. It is a topic that is mostly concealed and denied in families, often to the detriment of healing. Thank you for your empathetic and remarkable writing." ❤

[Genevieve B · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up

I think I am still trying to unpack this one and I am still not sure of my rating is my true feelings.

Right out of the gate, I will say that Wayne Johnston is a master of his craft with beautiful and lyrical writing. Then we would have moments of poetry that would change into Prose, which wouldn't usually be an issue for another reader. I, on the other hand, don't know if my simple brain could take it. I eventually caught on and it got a lot easier for me, but it was a bit jarring at first and something I wasn't expecting. (Poetry isn't really my cup of tea.)

The characters in this novel were written so we'll. Johnston did such a fantastic job of handling trauma and people living with trauma as well as mental illness.
When the book begins to unpack these traumatic events tho, it was a lot. There are moments in this book I found hard to swallow, that disturbed me to the core. I am still struggling with wrapping my head around some of the things I read and strongly believe that this isn't for the faint of heart.

I am not one to read the Author notes often, but in The Mystery of Right and Wrong, I felt compelled to, I needed to know what was going through Wayne Johnston's head, what his inspirations were. It didn't help ease the disturbed feelings I was struggling with, but I still think it is important to read. He shares about how this story is linked to true events, connected to his personal family, home, and history. I think his own personal turmoil, and that of his wife's and her family really helped him to tell this story and develop these characters.

Would I read it again? No, I don't think my heart could take it, but damn...this was a crazy story.

[Diane Hamel]

I am giving this particular book of Wayne Johnston's no stars whatsoever - not because portions of the book didn't have merit or was "thrilling in a CHILLING kind of way" but rather because I have no idea how to rate it - neither from a literary nor enjoyment scale. I certainly did not ENJOY it but was compelled to complete it.

After I finally finished the book, I googled several reviews to see if anyone in their right mind felt as I did. I provide a link to a review (by Zachary Houle) which puts the majority of my feelings into words. The only part of the review I disagree with is in reading the authors note: "The Mystery of Right and Wrong is best read as though you knew nothing of the author’s circumstances. If you plan on reading it, you might want to just stop reading about the book and just experience it, as this is an experience that is probably best served (if you come to it) cold."

If I had read the authors note first, I might have approached the book with more compassion and less revulsion. Unfortunately I came to it cold (or would never had read it).
https://zachary-houle.medium.com/a-re...

Sorry Mr. Johnston. For me this book is a 'Colony of Unrequited Dreams.'

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a difficult book to read given the nature of the trauma involved. I had heard the author interviewed on the radio before beginning it, so I had some sense of what was coming regarding sexual abuse and murder.

I found the use of poetry to represent mental health issues to be somewhat awkward; perhaps it was intended that way. I tended to skim many of those.

A very moving book rooted in reality.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deeply disturbing but another powerful book by Wayne Johnston. It’s a slow burn for the the first half but picks up pace and suspense in the second. Four stars instead of five only because I found the mix of prose and verse to be a bit of a struggle.

[Susan Rudoler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece, very disturbing but then so is real life. A great psychological drama and catharsis for the author, makes you want to give him a huge hug.This book will stay with me forever, one of my all time favs.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mystery of right and wrong is a fictional story about a very dysfunctional family. Wade is a university student and would be writer who meets the girl of his dreams in the library one day. Little does he know this will be quite a roller coaster ride. The mystery of right and wrong is written by Wayne Johnson, a prolific author with many novels to his credit.

Wade is in the library one day and catches the eye of a girl. They become a couple. Rachel turns out to be quite a prolific writer which makes Wade jealous because he is struggling to become a writer himself. It turns out that Rachel actually suffers from a malady where she cannot stop writing or reading. She is obsessed with Anne Frank. Rachel has four sisters and she's originally from South Africa. Her family decides to return to South Africa and Wade decides to go with Rachel for a short term. He finds out that Rachel sisters each have a unique problem and their father seems to exercise control over the whole family. The family spirals down as the novel continues on and more and more of the secrets are revealed.

Johnson is a master in at character development. Rachel is quite a complex character who has an obsession with reading and writing. Wade himself is quite a nice person but seems to have writer’s block as long as he is tied to Rachel. The three sisters also very unique characters and their father seems to be a controlling manipulative person. All of these characters are quite complex and disturbed and they become more so as the story continues.

Overall the story is quite compelling because it is about family dynamics and how the family members interact with each other. How they all become the way they are is quite amazing but the story does take a long time to unfold. I found the middle of the book quite tedious. There are a lot of details especially concerning Rachel and her obsession with Anne Frank. It tends to drag on quite a bit. As well, Rachel’s father develops this fictional story that he recites to his daughters. We go from poetry to prose at times and it becomes confusing and unclear.

The salvation of the book is the way it's wrapped up and how you start to understand what's been going on this whole time. Probably one of the most shocking and interesting things about the book is the author’s revelation at the end of the book. This itself ties into the story quite strongly.

I think of the story is very attractive for those that like stories about family dynamics and how dysfunctional families work. I give the book of three and five primarily because I found it in the middle of the book quite tedious. I want to thank NetGalley, Penguin Random House Canada and Knopf Canada for providing me a digital copy of this book. I provide this review voluntarily.

[Indydriven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Synopsis: Wade Jackson was born and raised in Newfoundland. One day in the university library he meets Rachel van Hout, a young woman who immigrated to Canada from South Africa with her parents a number of years previously. As Wade gets to know Rachel, her parents and three sisters, he discovers that the sisters are all are broken in some way – one is anorexic, one is addicted to drugs and married to a drug dealer, and the third has a string of broken marriages. Rachel’s quirk is that she reads The Diary of Ann Frank obsessively, over and over again and she diarizes her days using a secret language that she made up. When Rachel’s father retires, he and his wife decide to move back to South Africa, and Rachel and Wade agree to go with them and spend six months there as Wade has never left Newfoundland and this gives him an opportunity to see a bit of the world and work on a book he is trying to write. While in South Africa, the façade of the family cracks and everything comes to a head and Wayne learns why each daughter is a wounded soul.

My thoughts: When I first started reading this book, I found it difficult as there is a lot of poetry (or ballads) in the book and I am not a lover of poetry but I was still really intrigued by the story and didn’t want to DNF it. I ended up switching to the audiobook version of the book and I found that it worked much better for me. The characters are well developed and while the story line is riveting, I felt myself filled with a dread anticipating what the truth really was that caused these women to be so troubled. Once I switched to the audiobook, I flew through the approximately 550 pages of this book but what blew me away was the afterword from the author. I’m not going to go into details as that would spoil everything but needless to say, my mouth was hanging open by the time I finished reading it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I gave this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads.

[Stephanie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - rounded up.
As in the Goodreads book summary, I did find it “compulsively readable and heartstopping” until I found it got darker, more disturbing and harder to keep reading… it covers difficult subjects but yet, important ones to acknowledge. The Author’s lengthy Note at the end is a critical, informative piece of this story that connected some dots for me and made me appreciate the extent to which this was incredibly (and sadly) largely based on a true story. It was well written, creatively presenting the story from the viewpoints of just a few of the main characters. I found it got a bit long in places. The verses & rhyming interspersed in the story were indeed impressive writing, but the mix of prose and verse also slowed me down and was challenging by times. This was the first Wayne Johnston novel I have read and I will definitely read another (perhaps choosing a less difficult subject).

[Scott Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never read a book in which there was a chapter I couldn’t stomach. that changed when I read this book. It is incredibly graphic and very disturbing. The story itself is winding and keeps you on the edge of your seat. Based on a true story, this book shows the authentic side of people who are victims to sexual violence and domestic abuse, starting at a young age. Once I finished reading, I figured out that the monster the book is about was a prof at MUN when my grandma was there. that was a mind fuck. I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone as I could barely finish it, but it was an educational, interesting read. Wayne Johnston is a really good writer, and he tells his story well.

[Hannah Gault · Rating 1 out of 5]

This felt like a chore to finish. The first half was very enticing and I liked the style of writing, but the seriousness of the subjects being discussed in the second half was a lot and it honestly just didn’t feel necessary. There should definitely be a better description on the back of this book because I never would have picked it up if I knew what it was about!

[David]

Eventually becomes gripping in an intense fashion. I'm not sure the use of heroic couplets works to reveal the mind of the principal antagonist; to me, it makes him a little 'sing-song' when he should, by rights, be revolting. But the idea behind the narrative is as big as the world and as small as St. John's all at once.

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

[Heidi]

I don’t really know how to rate this book. It was well written but I hated it in parts, and it took me forever to get through due to the dark nature of the content.

[Karen Wedel White · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writer's characterization and style drew me in. I started reading with no idea what the book was about; had I known, I might not have read it. It was disturbing. Approach this book with caution. It's not for everyone, but if you do read it, don't skip the author's note. I feel it offered me some closure that the story didn't. The audio recording was fantastic.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this a mesmerizing, deeply disturbing and very believable book. Wayne Johnston is masterful in his approach. Wow.

[Laura Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know what I just read and I don't know how I should feel about it. I don't even know if I really want to give three stars or if I want to give no stars at all. This story has me so confused. I feel embarrassed, ashamed, dirty, sad, angry. So do I give more stars since it made me feel so much? I just don't know. I hate this book. But sometimes I love this book. Most times I hate it.

I read this novel for a book club I belong to and the other night we all met online with the author. I hadn't finished reading the book at that point so I wasn't entirely sure how things were going to end up but I had a feeling it wasn't going to be good. I was going to comment on what a great job he, the author, did at creating such unlikeable characters but thankfully I didn't! I had no idea this novel is based on true events in his life! Now that I know, this story just seems even more terrible. The things that some people live through......I have no words.

I disliked every character except Wade. They all completely sickened me to the point where I got very angry. That evil son of a bitch Hans.....don't even get me started on him. Thinking back, I guess the characters were incredibly real to me since they elicited such a feeling of detest which is what the author was going for I suppose.

The poetry was maddening. I would read the poem in the chapter and then I couldn't get myself out of the rhythm. I had to keep reading and rereading just to make sense of it all. Did I mention that I hate poetry? This novel certainly was a journey!

I don't know if I should recommend this novel or not. It is not for the faint of heart. I guess you'll have to read it and see what you think. It is full of evil people and events and the poetry almost makes a mockery of it all. This is the hardest review I have written. I don't even know how to end this, so here it is.....I'm done. The end.

[Tania P · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after seeing a write up about it in the Globe and Mail. Even as a Newfoundlander, I’d not yet read any of his other books. It was a draw for sure to read that this book was somehow autobiographical, but I had no idea in what way and what I was truly about to read and be immersed in. This book was complex for sure…full of themes that are heavy and heart wrenching. I left the reading of the author’s note at the end of the book, until the end. I’d suggest readers do the same. I am certainly left with a similar question as the author as to how all of these intense and complex and twisted experiences growing up had an impact on these people/characters? And to think that he has been mulling over aspects of his life and more (I won’t spoil it) throughout all his books, but that this is the closest to the real thing. I’m still somewhat reeling from the whole experience of reading this book and the author’s note.

[ayo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I knew when I read the summary for this book I probably wouldn’t like it but I said why not it can’t possibly be that bad. Little did I know…. This book primarily details a John Green-esque protagonist meeting a manic pixie dream girl, immediately falling in love with her then having to deal with her messed up family. I did appreciate the depiction of the intricacies of familial relationships but I can’t get past the utter unlikeability of most of the characters and how tedious reading this was. I did end up finishing it in the end but did I necessarily enjoy it? No.

[Jo Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Mystery and The Mastery that is Wayne Johnston

I wish I had never read this book. It will never leave me. Nor should it. It’s a masterpiece. There has never been anything like it written, and it’s no wonder. It took Wayne Johnston time, courage, skill and exceptional humanity and empathy to do so. I hope to never read another book like it.

[Linda Churchill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow……not sure what to say about this masterpiece of a book . Compulsive reading, gut wrenching, realistic for sure , fascinating characters, etc. Loved the use of rhyming to convey parts of the history of the family. An exceptional read.

[Doreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read most of Wayne Johnston’s novels and have enjoyed them all; those I have reviewed on my blog have all been given 4-star ratings. I was excited to receive a digital galley of The Mystery of Right and Wrong, his latest, and it does not disappoint.

Wade Jackson, a young aspiring writer from a Newfoundland outport, meets Rachel van Hout while at university in St. John’s and falls in love with her. Little does he know how much the van Hout family will change his life. As he gets to meet Rachel’s three sisters and their parents Hans and Myra, he comes to see how dysfunctional they are. The daughters are all damaged souls: Gloria is hypersexual and has had a spate of broken marriages; Gloria is addicted to drugs provided by her husband Fritz; Bethany is an anorexic who has made several suicide attempts; and Rachel is hyperlexic, obsessively reading Anne Frank’s Het Achterhuis, and hypergraphic, obsessively writing a diary in a secret language. Wade accompanies Rachel to South Africa and it’s then that more and more family secrets are revealed, most with Hans at the centre.

The point of view alternates between Wade, Rachel, Rachel’s encoded diary entitled “The Arelliad” written in both prose and poetry, and Hans’ “The Ballad of Clan Van Hout”, a poetic family history which he composes and recites to his daughters. Reading “The Arelliad” is sometimes frustrating because much is left unexplained. Who, for example, is “Shadow She, the also-Anne”? The ballad is also confusing because Hans’ version of events changes and it is difficult to know what to believe. It does, however, provide great insight into Han’s mind and personality.

Characterization is a strong element in the novel. All major characters emerge as distinct. The four sisters, for instance, cannot be confused. They often seem to behave in illogical ways, but all is eventually explained. Rachel’s secret is the last to be uncovered, though I did guess the nature of it. Certainly the last great revelation explains Rachel’s obsessions. In case the reader is uncertain as to why she occasionally writes in poetic form, Johnston outlines his reasoning in the Author’s Note at the end of the book.

Hans will remain for me one of literature’s great villains; more than once I thought of Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello. He is full of self-pity: “I’m not the star that I should be because so many worker bees have spent their lives opposing me . . . the great held back by also-rans.” He doesn’t love his wife, pretending to “adore the woman who so loudly snores, the aging face, the greying head I cannot bear to touch in bed.” He wishes he “could have another wife” but “I would not sully with divorce what matters most – my name of course.” He’s a racist who said “’that the blacks were uncivilized and impossible to educate, so they should never be allowed to vote or to mix with whites.’” He is a master manipulator who accepts no blame for even his most despicable of behaviour. Some of his comments in his ballad left me speechless. Yet the reader, like Rachel, will ask, “Was it the sum of his experience that made [him] what he was, or some mechanism in his brain, some defect in his DNA?”

As the title indicates, the book examines right and wrong. Hans argues that right and wrong change over time, “The rules are endlessly revised.” Decisions made by several people at different times in the novel inspire one to consider if a wrong can be a right in certain circumstances. In order to survive, for instance, is it right to commit a wrong? As the author admits, he doesn’t offer answers to the questions it poses, but book clubs will find much to debate.

At over 550 pages, the book is lengthy. At first the revelations come slowly but then I wondered what other secrets would be revealed. I was even starting to think that the book was becoming almost unbelievable. Then the Author’s Note clarifies that the novel is based on people and events in his life. I was astonished by what Johnston discloses and by his bravery in doing so.

I highly recommend this book. Though the pace is sometimes slow and sections are confusing, all is eventually made clear. And though it touches on many serious topics, it is, as the author states, not a totally dark book. I’m not certain that I, like one of the book’s characters, can claim to be a “great reader” who reads with “hard-won discrimination,” but I do know this is a book that will reward a second reading: I’m certain it will make the author’s skill even more obvious.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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