Crow Lake

by Mary Lawson

Crow Lake is that rare find, a first novel so quietly assured, so emotionally pitch perfect, you know from the opening page that this is the real thing—a literary experience in which to lose yourself, by an author of immense talent.

Here is a gorgeous, slow-burning story set in the rural “badlands” of northern Ontario, where heartbreak and hardship are mirrored in the landscape. For the farming Pye family, life is a Greek tragedy where the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons, and terrible events occur—offstage.

Centerstage are the Morrisons, whose tragedy looks more immediate if less brutal, but is, in reality, insidious and divisive. Orphaned young, Kate Morrison was her older brother Matt’s protegee, her fascination for pond life fed by his passionate interest in the natural world. Now a zoologist, she can identify organisms under a microscope but seems blind to the state of her own emotional life. And she thinks she’s outgrown her siblings—Luke, Matt, and Bo—who were once her entire world.

In this universal drama of family love and misunderstandings, of resentments harbored and driven underground, Lawson ratchets up the tension with heartbreaking humor and consummate control, continually overturning one’s expectations right to the very end. Tragic, funny, unforgettable, this deceptively simple masterpiece about the perils of hero worship leapt to the top of the bestseller lists only days after being released in Canada and earned glowing reviews in The New York Times and The Globe and Mail, to name a few.

Genres: Fiction, Book Club, Canada, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Family, Coming Of Age

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Mary Lawson (born 1946) is a Canadian novelist.

Born in southwestern Ontario, she spent her childhood in Blackwell, Ontario (located between Sarnia and Brights Grove) and is a distant relative of L. M. Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables.

Lawson moved to England after graduating from McGill University with a psychology degree in 1968. She also married in Ontario, has two grown up sons and now lives in Kingston-Upon-Thames, Surrey. Her three novels to date, both published by Knopf Canada were set in Northern Ontario.

Reviews

[Debbie W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why I chose to read this book:
1. I came across it on Goodreads. Written by a Canadian author (that I haven't read before) only added to my desire of placing it on my WTR list; and,
2. July 2023 is my "O' Canada Month"!

Praises:
1. author Mary Lawson excels at writing realistic fiction! When four siblings are suddenly left orphaned, her slow-burn story shows how these children coped, and how their community rallied around them;
2. Lawson's depiction of all her characters, their thoughts and their actions, make them so incredibly believable! I loved following Bo's character as a typical toddler. Her antics were hilarious. Daniel's character (Katie's partner) was so astute, which made him someone I could trust. But most of all, I could closely relate to MC Katie's thought processes. I'm guilty of using "the silent treatment" at times;
3. the peaceful setting based in northern Ontario was like a character in itself; and,
4. the plot is like a pebble dropped into a pond. It spreads out like ripples, taking me in, wondering what drove two siblings, who were exceptionally close, so far apart? How did the other characters fit in?

Overall Thoughts:
Lawson's debut skillfully drew me in to care about all of her characters, leading me to wonder - what happened? And why?
A quick read - difficult to put down!

[Diane Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I give my star rating based entirely on my emotional response to a book, regardless of how I have rated other books by the same author. As this is the first Mary Lawson novel I have read, and also Mary Lawson's first novel, these 5 stars are justified by the fact that I was so immersed in the story, and so involved in the character's lives, that when I saw I only had 20 pages left, my first thought was "That can't be right". Alas, it was, but I could have continued for another 100 at least.

Of course, in my case, emotional response is also triggered by the excellence of the prose, and Mary Lawson delivered on that end as well. It is hard to believe that this is a first novel. The writing is confident and assured, the transitions between past and present are seamless, and you can see and hear what is going on in every place in the little town of Crow Lake. The characters are not perfect, but perfectly human. A quiet little novel giving us 20 years in the life of a small community, this puts the author on my "must read everything she writes" list.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book SOOOOOO
MUCH!
I’m afraid I’m going to sound like a broken record when I say how much I really LOVE this book. Recently I’ve had a good run with a few books that are absolutely terrific….
And
THIS NOVEL IS TOO!!!!!
It’s a *REALLY* special novel to me….
Effortless reading…. smooth
gorgeous - addicting-prose….
exactly the type of literary fiction I love best….
I was sad — so that must be said—
but “Crow Lake and the Morrison family, deeply resonated with me.

Just SOOOO WONDERFUL (haha, those last two words have become my signature autograph lately )….
But…
ITS TRUE!!
…..by golly…this is the BEST BOOK!!!
And given my background of having lost a father to death suddenly - at age 4 - and all the things that unfolded…..
I was incredibly choked up during about 50% of reading it. (throughout)

I read parts of this novel while feeling sick & horrible associated with the devastation in Florida — the building that collapsed….

Also….
I know I’m getting sloppy and lazy with reviews lately.
So much is going on….
Between some of my own physical ailments ….. running a business…..lots to take care of ( body, property, health issues physical pain, etc etc.)…. people stopping —-three different people this morning and it’s barely 1:30 pm….
plus….. aren’t we allowed to get sloppy with writing reviews when it’s summertime?
The desire to simply be outside —every moment enjoying this blue
sky ‘warm-weather’…is so inviting and overall health enhancing.

There is much I’d love to say about this book….loved it passionately!!!

Thank you for all the people who have talked about this for many years. I don’t know why it took me so long to read it, but I want to thank each and everyone of you.
And….
This is another book I want to put in the hands of every friend I know….who hasn’t taken their turn to read it yet.

It’s another family story… themes include with love, death, loss, choices, …. and more!
Readers will feel as if you know characters.
The narrator, Katherine, who goes by Kate, was outstanding!!!


I am left thinking about our unfulfilled dreams….
..our failed family relationships ….
And
..the possibility of ‘okay-ness’….. even when life has thrown us some shitty curveballs.

You and I are constantly having to re-adjust and accept the way things are…..
This novel opens our thinking and hearts - for sure- when disappointments happen, when the rug is pulled out from under us, and we bump up against ourselves (our own worse enemy)

Here are a few excerpts:
none of them spoil the plot.

Kate attended a conference in Edmonton to give a paper on the effect of pesticides on the life of still-water ponds.
“We flew very low over northern Ontario”…..
She was staggered by the vast-ness of it…..
“miles and miles of nothing, of rocks and trees and lakes, beautiful and desolate and remote as the moon. And then below us I suddenly saw a thin gray-white line, weaving about in the middle of all that nothingness, finding its way around the lakes and swamps and granite outcrops. and at the head, as if it were a balloon and that fragile line a piece of string attached to it, a small clearing adhered at the side of the lake.
Kate thought about how brave she and other people were who dared to live remote from their other fellows in such a vast and silent land”.

“Pond watching—as therapy”..
“There is something about water, even if you have no particular interest in the life-forms within it”.

Outstanding, a favorite, highly recommend it!!!

[B the BookAddict · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very basically, Crow Lake is the story of four orphaned children in a remote farming community. Kate, the third child, narrates the story twenty years later, looking back on their childhood from her now removed life in Toronto. Her relationship with her older brother Matt was paramount in her childhood and his passion for nature helped nurture her love of the ecology; in turn, leading to her profession as a zoologist. Through now adult eyes, Kate sees the struggles, heartbreak and hardship in the family and also those the community battled which she was not aware of as a child. She is also forced to see what Matt sacrificed so that she might excel in her chosen field.

Mary Lawson has that rare gift of being able to place her reader so exactly in the shoes of the narrator. You don’t hear or see the story; you feel it as Kate does. She builds a slow burning tension throughout the novel that finally explodes with a shocking revelation. Wonderfully paced and beautifully written. A huge thank-you to Heather in AAB who recommended this novel to me. Lawson is an author whose books I will continue to visit. 4★

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siblings …Luke, Matt, Kate, and Bo are orphaned by the sudden death of their parents.
They live in the beautiful, very far north, rural area of Ontario called Crow Lake.
Dreams of the future for these intelligent older brothers, are put on hold because the parents didn’t leave much money behind and the boys wanted to care for their young sisters, (instead off going off to college) so that they could keep the family together.
It’s a lovely story filled with hardship and sacrifice also laced with humor and the goodness of a community
4.5.

[Zoeytron · Rating 4 out of 5]

'. . . just one more dropped stitch in a family tapestry full of holes.'

This is a story of strong familial bonds forged early in life, then eroding from deep-seated resentments, guilt, and an ingrained reluctance to speak the truth and set things straight. Smiling on the outside, hurting on the inside, even simple eye contact too uncomfortable to maintain.

This author has a knack for writing characters so vivid that you would recognize any one of them if he or she came knocking at your front door. Luke, Matt, Katie, and Bo Morrison, orphaned early in the novel, are struggling to make a life without their parents. I can still almost hear baby Bo clanging those pots and pans playing on the floor while big brother Matt tries to study at the kitchen table. You will make the acquaintance of their neighbors, the tragic Pye family, with their messy lives and mean secrets. I cannot say enough about the author's skill with character development. Major and minor players alike are fashioned with care, and I reference old Miss Vernon, she of the rattling teeth and long whiskery jaw, 100 years old and a most extraordinary storyteller.

Small, quiet, and unassuming, this story will stay with me for a bit. Excellent.

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

6/20/22 Update after reading it a second time: even more moved the second time. This book grows with the reader.

Original 2017 Review
I feel such a commonality with this book—Mary Lawson's style, the movements, the issues, the dialogue that is perfect pitch and as natural as breathing—that it almost renders me speechless. It's a story about children raising children. About no grownups. About being propelled into adult responsibility as a child and the delusions of survivor's guilt. There's a short Q&A with Lawson (http://www.marylawson.ca/qa-video/) where she qualifies the story as complete fiction. I believe her. The commonality I feel is not that I've lived this story because I haven't. What I feel is that, were I Canadian and from similar land, I too might have imagined it as she did.

Recently Goodreader Larry Hoffer wrote: "Did you ever get the feeling you and an author would be great friends (or perhaps mortal enemies), simply based on the books they write and the way they tell stories?" I have that feeling about Mary Lawson. She seems to think the same thoughts and write them the way I would, and it's spooky and I love it and I love this book. It quietly and gently knocked the wind out of me.

Thanks to Goodreaders Esil and Zoeytron for recommending Crow Lake in their comments about my review of Road Ends . I've found a new favorite writer.

5/25/17 A very personal note after a day of reflection:

I hesitate to share this, but since I've published articles half-assedly alluding to it ( Me and My Electra Complex and The Truth about the Making of The Trouble with the Truth), I don't know why I should be embarrassed; but I am.

Until I read Crow Lake, I never realized the full extent that survivor's guilt has clouded my vision of my dead mother, whose book I edited and published a couple of years ago. I'd imagined that she suffered terribly in life because she never had my solo writer's life--a life that she might have enjoyed more than marriage and a whole bunch of kids who she didn't really want to take care of. (Don't worry, I worked all that stuff out a long time before she died, and we became best adult girl friends.) In my opinion, Mary Lawson offers the best a fiction writer can offer: the possibility for a reader to suddenly have a dark room lit up and realize the monsters you've installed there don't exist. Never existed. That's why, a day after finishing this masterful quiet novel, I'm still vibrating.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of Crow Lake is told to us by the third of four siblings, Kate Morrison, looking back on her eight year old self and the events of a summer that changed the trajectory of her life and the life of her beloved brother, Matt. The thing that Lawson does that makes this book sing is create the relationship between Kate and Matt in such a way that we feel their bond and their emotions, and we hurt for the older Kate who has let so much of what went wrong shape her feelings toward life and love.

Kate’s parents are killed very early in the narrative and the burden of raising two little sisters falls upon the two boys in the family, twenty year old Luke and eighteen year old Matt. Luke is poised to step off into the world and attend university and Matt is in his final year of high school. To say that their lives are turned upside-down is an understatement. The youngest daughter, Bo, is only two, very self-willed, thumb-sucking and in need of constant attention; Kate is just beginning to find her identity and shape her dreams; everyone is fragile.

From this tragedy, Lawson spins a magnificent tale of love, disappointment, and family dynamics. It is painful at times to watch these youngsters struggle with issues that would be too weighty for much older and cooler heads. The extra character in this book is the town of Crow Lake, itself. A small, isolated town, with one store, a church and scattered farms, it is described beautifully and plays as important a part in the unfolding history of the Morrisons as the children themselves.

A lovely read. Not my last Lawson, as I am happy to find I have one more already sitting on my physical bookshelf hoping to be picked soon.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a simply told and captivating family drama with a northern Ontario setting. I’ve never been there but the author’s observations of that area in Canada established such a powerful sense of place that the story came alive for me. I grew up in the high plains of eastern Colorado (Kent Haruf “territory”) and there were parts of this novel that echo my own rural background – especially her description of life for farm families.

The story details the struggles of four siblings who were orphaned when their parents are killed. It’s told through the eyes of the adult sister, Kate, who was seven years old at the time of the deadly car accident. She reflects on her childhood as she reluctantly prepares to return for a family gathering. Her account slowly reveals details of the broken dreams and sacrifices that they all made in their efforts to keep the family together. Nothing very dramatic happens yet it elegantly portrays events that affect most families – hopeful aspirations, misunderstandings, missed chances and sibling rivalry.

I have several brothers and sisters of my own so parts of this story provoked reflections of my own life. I thoroughly enjoyed this finely crafted and bittersweet tale of survival and love of family.

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I’ve just been hit by a truck—this book blindsided me and despite the impact, I adore it. This may be because it ticks so many of my personal boxes, but I’ve been wandering the house since I finished it, ploughing my way through laundry, dinner, dishes, trying desperately to find my footing again, while I’m processing.

Within the first few pages of the book, Katherine’s parents are killed in a car accident, sending the four children on a confusing, agonizing struggle to put their lives back together again. Katherine is only seven years old—I was 34 when it happened to me, and my life was blown apart and has never fully recovered.

“You make it sound like it was centuries ago,” Daniel said. “If you parents died when you were seven, it’s barely twenty years.”
“It feels like centuries,” I said.

Lawson nails it with that tiny bit of dialog. Although it’s been 18 years since my parents’ car accident, some days it feels like yesterday—other days it feels like I never had parents. And I completely relate to Katherine’s numbness, the reluctance to feel anything about anyone—if you care, there’s a good chance that they will get yanked away from you. Not caring seems like your only defence against heart wrenching pain. The only problem is that is doesn’t work. People like Katherine’s boyfriend Daniel worm their way into your life and you reluctantly begin to care about them, all the while struggling to see them as temporary and frustrating the hell out of them, as they wonder what is wrong with you.

I clearly remember the day that I put my emotions on ice—it was about a year and a half after the funerals and I remember thinking, “I’m so tired of crying.” So I quit. It has taken years to thaw that permafrost and I’m still unsure that the process is finished. Still a bit freezer-burned, I guess.

It’s taken me eighteen years, but I’ve finally been able to engage with my family again—they’ve been very patient, they waited and I’ve been accepted back without reservation. Knowing this makes me love them fiercely—after being emotionally frozen for so many years, the strength of that love surprises me on each and every occasion that I spend time with them.

I also have a farm background like Katherine and used university as a way to do something different—I even started my university career as a biology major until I was seduced by so many other interesting subjects and wandered away into the arts and social sciences. But I have so many fond memories of wandering the coulees of home, identifying wild flowers, scooping snails out of the pond, and studying the ground squirrels as I emulated my personal idol, Jane Goodall [chimpanzees were in short supply, but ground squirrels were plentiful on the prairies].

So I may have been predisposed to love this book—still, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is worth more than 5 stars to me.

[Jaline · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful family saga that is filled with heart and endurance. Set mostly in the early days of settling the northern area of Ontario, a small village and its people come to life with vividness and love.

Thank you to AngelaM for first introducing me to this author. Please read her excellent review as it is perfect – and exactly the kind of writing that will appeal to most of our book friends.

[Greta Samuelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that I read many beautiful reviews of, I saw it at a used book shop a while back and picked it up.

I am glad that I did.

This is the story of Kate and her family. She is the 3rd of 4 kids who grew up in a very rural farm village in Ontario. She is the narrator telling you this story as an adult.

Her oldest brother, Luke, was the first in their whole family to get into college (and receive a scholarship). Brother Matt, a year behind Luke in school was following those footsteps too and he is expected to do the same. Kate was 7 years old and baby sister, Bo (short for Elizabeth) is probably just about 2.

Mom and dad are happy and proud. After dinner, they drive the car to town to buy a suitcase for Luke while the kids wait at home. Both parents tragically die in a car accident.

The story of their lives after this heartbreaking event is what you will read.

This isn’t a happy flowery book but it is well written and even though it is bleak, you will find yourself savoring the story as Kate tells it to you.

[Erin *Proud Book Hoarder* · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I have pursued your dream single-mindedly; I have become familiar with books and ideas you never even imagined, and somehow, in the process of acquiring all that knowledge, I have managed to learn nothing at all."

Beautifully written and emotionally moving, Crow Lake is told through the point of view of a young woman who has lived through a certain type of family hell and survived it. Sort-of. Four children, different ages with different temperaments, are forced into bonds and responsibility that weighed them down when tragedy struck their family in a small town. Ultimately the book is about sacrifices people make and how they come to terms with it.

There isn't any surprise revelation at the end - the book didn't need that - but it was a sense of awakening for the protagonist, Kate. She finally opens her eyes and loses some of the blinders she had on for most of her life. I felt bad for not liking her some of the time because I kept reminding myself she was a vulnerable person drowning in tragedy at one point and that I probably just couldn't understand her view enough, but I can't help it - there's a small selfish, unlikable vibe she has going down.

The bonding of siblings with small town people who act like heroes was maybe the best part. I could care less about the twisted side story of the neighboring family, but the author took pains to inject foreshadowing and hinting galore about them - even opening the story by comparing the two. Really the book would have been just as good without that family and the secrets, but I suppose it did add another dimension to the storyline and where one character ended up, just probably not as strongly as the author intended it to.

Despite how beautifully written it was, how well the author handled the ups and downs of small-town life and tragic struggles, the book held little content other than a small step in the direction of personal growth. It leaves a bittersweet feeling in the chest that sad stories often imprint. It was a telling of how four lives evolved and how four people beat the odds in different ways, but my interest didn't raise above a three star by the end of it.

[Tea Jovanović · Rating 5 out of 5]

Već sam pisala o lepoti kanadske književnosti... Ovo je jedna od kanadskih autorki čije knjige obavezno treba pročitati... I koje se dugo pamte... A svaka njena nova knjiga s čežnjom i nestrpljenjem se iščekuje... Jedva čekam da je neko od vas pročita i da čujem vaše utiske... :)

[sAmAnE · Rating 3 out of 5]

داستان در مورد چهار خواهر و برادر است که پدر و مادرشان را ازدست می‌دهند و با چالش و دست و پنجه نرم کردن با مشکلات زندگی و عدم حضور حضور والدین مواجه می‌شوند. داستان فوق العاده زیبا ولی غم‌انگیز در مورد عشقی که بین اعضای یک خانواده میتونه وجود داشته باشه بود. واقعا داستان تاثیرگذاری بود. داستان از زمان دختری بیان می شود که ماجرا را از گذشته تعریف می کند و بخش‌های مهمی از داستان شامل همین توصیفات اوست از آن رنجی که به او تحمیل شده...

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I love Kate’s voice, as a child and as an adult. Every character is sufficiently developed that I felt as though I knew them well and that I would immediately recognize them if I ever met any of them. I thought the family relationships and the psychology of each character were presented in an authentic and believable way. The writing is lovely too. No complaints about any of the above.

There was constant foreshadowing in this book. There was also more than one major event including a big reveal. I didn’t really need any of that, and I came close to guessing all of the mysteries, such as they were, before the reader is officially informed. I really liked the story anyway but it was the slice of life scenes and the characters and their relationships that made the book work for me. I didn’t need the extra drama or tension.

I thought it was a great book though. I read it for my real world book club. Because of the libraries being closed during the pandemic I borrowed an e-copy from my library and chose the Kindle format. (I started it before and ended it after I broke my clavicle on my dominant side, so a lot happened in my life the 5 days I spent reading it.)

ETA: Especially given the tragedy, I particularly appreciated the humor!

[Karen J · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

When I started reading this book I thought I wasn’t going to be able to get into it…how wrong I was.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crow Lake is a unique (to me) story about a family and the fate of 4 siblings after the tragedy of their parents' early death. Their story is narrated by Kate, one of the siblings, as a young girl and as an adult, and switches seamlessly from past to present. The most important themes are the effects of loss and how choices affect the trajectory of one's life. It's also about (mis)perceptions and survivor guilt.

This novel captivated me. It is a somewhat slow yet compelling read. The characters and the setting are so well drawn I felt like I knew Kate and her siblings and that I could easily step into the farm setting on which they lived. My only disappointment was that the novel ended.

It is very difficult to believe that Crow Lake is a first novel. I look forward to reading more by Mary Lawson.

[Carmel Hanes · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...The Eleventh Commandment is Thou Shalt Not Emote, the Twelfth is Thou Shalt Not Admit To Being Upset, and when it becomes evident to the whole world that you are upset, Thou Shalt On No Account Explain Why."

"So I did not, in the months to come, say to Daniel that sometimes he made me feel that he would like to put my life and everything in it on one of his little glass slides and slide me, like some poor hapless microbe, under his microscope, where he could study my very soul."

Hiding from ourselves is the best way to hide from everyone else. Or is it the reverse?

On the surface, a story about tragedy within families and the outcomes that shape what comes next, with our will or against it. On a deeper level, an examination of how those silences, how those unspoken self-stories build emotional dams that stop relational flows.

"That was the real heart of it. I had never loved anyone as I loved Matt, but now, when we saw each other, there was something unbridgeable between us, and we had nothing to say."

How does one move from love, admiration, dependence, comfort...to awkwardness, distance, estrangement? One misplaced step at a time. One misunderstanding or misread at a time. One decision at a time. One ill-formed perception and judgement at a time. Like a rock chip in a windshield, the changing relational weather creates run after run until one can no longer see clearly.

Silence is golden, until it's not.

This one ticked a lot of what I like in a read. Interesting characters, well-written prose, a deep look into what trauma can do to us, the struggle to be real and open and honest, the ways we derail ourselves, and how "life happens when we are making other plans". The basic story of four kids struggling in the aftermath of parental death is interesting enough, but Lawson provides some real depth by being in the narrator's head as she struggles to overcome the ongoing effect of that loss and what came after. The refrain running through my head...."You are only as sick as your secrets."

And that Bo character...Lawson has to have parented small, noisy, stubborn children!

[Patricija || book.duo · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5

Viena vertus, vieną tų knygų, kur šiaip nelabai kas įvyksta ir tai daliai skaitytojų atrodys kaip didžiausias trūkumas. Kita vertus, įvyksta gyvenimas ir to gana. Ir kitai daliai skaitytojų tai bus didžiausias romano laimėjimas. Lawson man tampa viena tų autorių, į kurią suksiuos, kai norėsis kokybiško, visapusiškai atidirbto teksto. Skaitant labai susišaukė su Joyce Carol Oates „Mes – Malveiniai“ – tais didelės šeimos santykiais, akistata su didžiausiomis įmanomomis katastrofomis, asmeniniais išgyvenimais, kurie tampa bene giminės folkloru, teka kraujyje, įauga į DNR. Tiesa, pastaroji paveikesnė, bet čia tik mano asmeninė preferencija. Ir „Varnų ežerą“ galima rinktis, kai „Malveinius“ rinktis dar biškį tingisi. Gal netikėta, bet skaitydama galvojau, kad čia yra „Ten kur gieda vėžiai“, tik kitokiam skaitytojui – kuris nori nutylėjimų, bet tuo pačiu nori ir santykio su gamta, ir paslapties, kurią tik nujauti, ir asmeninių katastrofų, ir tikslo siekimo, kad ir kas bando tau sutrukdyti. Net jei bando Dievas, likimas, gyvenimas ir visi kiti, tie patys įtakingiausi.

„Varnų ežere“ labai žavūs, o svarbiausia, nors realistiški, tačiau neerzinantys vaikų ir paauglių portretai (pabandykit Bo nepamilt, nu pabandykit), ir puikus Eugenijaus Ališankos vertimas. Galiausiai, nuostabus tikrojo išsimokslinimo, tikrojo suvokimo, išmokimo, sužinojimo motyvas. Vietomis man atrodė, kad knyga, nors ir neilga, visgi truputį per ilga. Tačiau vis tiek ir rekomenduoju, ir labai džiaugiuosi perskaičiusi. Labai kokybiškas, visapusiškai žavingas romanas, kurį skaityti malonu. O Lawson, tikiu, jei dar neparašė, tai tikrai skels tokį romaną, kuris ateityje bus laikomas klasika.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ostensibly I spent 6 hours on a train yesterday, but really I was at Crow Lake in northern Ontario. I managed to consume the entire novel in this short period of time.

Lawson's writing is understated and vivid. I found myself chuckling aloud at Lawson's depiction of Bo as a toddler. I have had experience with spirited, assertive young children who are very clear about what they want; and these scenes are spot on. Lawson also manages to infuse a tension in the story that kept me turning pages.

Kate tells her story, moving back and forth through time. (Lawson handles these transitions with consummate skill, and I always know where I am in the narrative.) Kate's tale is also the engaging story of her siblings and their small farming community. Her narrative includes loving relationships, neighbors helping each other, and family cycles of violence (not Kate's family). I especially enjoyed the scenes of Matthew teaching his much younger sister Kate about pond life.

Coping with grief from the death of her parents at age 7 and having only limited understanding of some of the events occurring soon thereafter, Lawson's protagonist, Kate, shuts herself off from emotion.

"You must understand: I had never thought that I would really love anyone. It hadn't been on the cards, as far as I was concerned. To be honest, I had thought that such intensity of feeling was beyond me."

When Kate realizes that she does want to have a serious relationship and that she is indeed fully bonded to her siblings, she returns home for a visit and is forced to reconsider some of her certitudes from an adult point of view. Haven't most of us been in this position?

I do have one criticism. Lawson is very heavy handed with her foreshadowing. On a few occasions irritation pulled me out of the narrative thinking, "Enough, already!" Some judicious editing could have easily corrected this flaw.

How can you not love a book that begins, "My great-grandmother Morrison fixed a book rest to her spinning wheel so that she could read while she was spinning, or so the story goes."?

[JimZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guessed the ending about 70 pages before the author revealed it. I think she tried too hard to keep the reader dangling as to how the book would end. I mean...I get it, many books have a surprise ending but in between one hopes the telling of the story is good. When it’s really really good even without a surprise ending, I can give a book 5 stars. If I guess the ending before the ending and the telling of the story is somewhat blasé...boring...that affects my rating.

The story is told in the first person by 27-year-old Kate Morrison who has a PhD in Biology (Invertebrate Ecology) and does research and teaches at a Canadian university. She is invited to her brother’s sons’ birthday party, and she accepts the invitation with trepidation because she and the older brother, Matt, have lost a close bond they used to have.... the reasons for the close bond and then it is breaking is told in painstaking detail in the book.

3 stars. I know the book was well-liked by others. It just didn’t do much for me. 😐

Note: On the back cover of the book Joanne Harris, author of ‘Chocolat’, gives it a rave review. From Wikipedia: Her first novel, Crow Lake, was published in 22 countries and landed her a guest appearance on the Today Show, and several positive reviews in the New York Times, the Guardian, and many other publications. Her second novel, The Other Side of the Bridge, also did well.

Reviews:
• https://www.litlovers.com/reading-gui...
• https://quillandquire.com/review/crow...
• https://www.januarymagazine.com/ficti...

[Майя Ставитская · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems that the comparison of this novel with "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens is inevitable. In fact, there are many parallels between them, in a variety of evaluation planes. Looking at what are the similarities and differences?

Similarities:

1 . Age non-professionals. The authors are almost the same age: Owens is seventy-two, Mary Lawson is seventy-five. Both ladies are scientists who have not written novels before, but have experience writing popular science books (as in the case of Owens) and short stories (Lawson).

2 Late debut. Owens wrote her "Crayfish" at seventy, Lawson "Crow Lake" at fifty-two, edited it for three more years and tried to attach it to a publishing house, and saw it printed only when she was fifty-six.

3 Orphanhood. In both books, the main character is an early orphaned girl from a large family, the scene is a picturesque wilderness, far from civilization.

4 Growing up + survival. In both cases, it is a novel of growing up, closely related to the experience of survival and preservation of integrity in extremely unfavorable external circumstances.

5 Ecology. Both are imbued with a love of nature, largely devoted to the problems of ecology and environmental protection from the destructive effects of human civilization.

6 Sibling relationships. In both, the girl feels the strongest attachment to one of the older brothers, and the departure of one of them into the big world becomes the cause of a painful discord of fraternal-sisterly relations.

7 Detective is not love. Here and there there is a detective line with a murder, secondary to the plot, but adding tension to it. At the same time, the love line almost does not play a role. For both heroines in their relationships with men, love-friendship is much more important than love-passion.

Differences

1 Location: the harsh Canadian nature of "Crow Lake" is strikingly different from the warm humid tropical swamps of Louisiana.

2 Family: while the girl from "Where the Crayfish Sing" is faced with the monstrous selfishness of relatives who abandon her to the mercy of fate, the four Morrison children are united by the misfortune that befell them and makes them work together, and distant relatives do not stand aside.

3 Community: while the Kia family are outcasts and outcasts, whom no one in the neighboring town respects, and the townspeople do not support the girl left alone, the Morrisons are not left with care, help them and take care of them.

4 Problems. Unlike the fabulous swamp robinsonade of a lonely girl, the difficulties of the Morrisons' children are real, and a young handsome guy who is forced to wash his sister's soaked diapers, instead of shooting girls or throwing acid at a disco, is an image that evokes lively sympathy.

5 Priority of education. Baby Kia attends school exactly one day in her life, which does not prevent her from becoming a popular author of books about swamp fauna in the future, while the heroes of "Crow Lake" see learning as the key to solving most problems and for them schooling is a real daily work.

6 Problems of unprotected sex. While the heroine of "Singing Crayfish" allows herself close communication with a man without any noticeable unpleasant consequences, the boys from Lawson's novel have to make their choice, in accordance with the hormonal background, and carelessness costs the heroine's brother the opportunity to continue his education.

7 Social relations. Delia Owens' novel is pristine in this sense, the heroine is initially turned off from society, while Lawson's characters are closely involved in many relationships of the rural community and the academic environment, revealing themselves in them, searching and finding their place, comprehending the features of interactions.

To summarize: both books are good, each in its own way. Having brought acquaintance with one, it is difficult to resist and not read the second. Enjoy reading.

Не там, где раки поют: сравниваю "Воронье озеро" с книгой Дэлии Оуэнс

Кажется, сравнение этого романа с "Там, где раки поют" Дэлии Оуэнс неизбежно как дембель. И не только потому, что обе книги от издательства Фантом Пресс. На самом деле, параллелей между ними, в самых разных оценочных плоскостях, множество. Смотрим в чем сходства и различия?

Сходства:

1 . Возрастные непрофессионалки. Авторы почти ровесницы: Оуэнс семьдесят два , Мэри Лоусон семьдесят пять лет. Обе дамы ученые, прежде романов не писавшие, но имеющие опыт написания научно-популярных книг (как в случае Оуэнс) и рассказов (Лоусон).

2 Поздний дебют. Оуэнс написала своих "Раков" в семьдесят, Лоусон "Воронье озеро" в пятьдесят два, еще три года редактировала его и пыталась пристроить в издательство, а напечатанным увидела только пятидесятишестилетней.

3 Сиротство. В обеих книгах главная героиня - рано осиротевшая девочка из многодетной семьи, место действи�� - живописная глушь, вдали от цивилизации.

4 Взросление+выживание. В обоих случаях это роман взросления, тесно связанного с опытом выживания и сохранения целостности в крайне неблагоприятных внешних обстоятельствах.

5 Экология. Обе проникнуты любовью к природе, в значительной степени посвящены проблемам экологии и охраны окружающей среды от разрушительного воздействия человеческой цивилизации.

6 Сиблинг- отношения. В обеих наиболее сильную привязанность девочка испытывает к одному из старших братьев, а уход одного из них в большой мир становится причиной мучительного разлада братско-сестринских отношений.

7 Детектив - не любовь. Там и тут имеет место детективная линия с убийством, второстепенная для сюжета, но добавляющая ему напряженности. При этом любовная линия почти не играет роли. Для обеих героинь в их отношениях с мужчинами любовь-дружба куда важнее любви-страсти.

Различия

1 Локация: суровая канадская природа "Вороньего озера" разительно отличается от теплых влажных тропических болот Луизианы.

2 Семья: в то время, как девочка из "Там, где раки поют" сталкивается с чудовищным эгоизмом родственников, которые бросают ее на произвол судьбы, четверку детей Моррисонов постигшее их несчастье сплачивает и заставляет совместно трудиться, не остаются в стороне и дальние родственники.

3 Община: в то время, как семья Киа изгои и отщепенцы, которых никто в соседнем городке не уважает, и горожане не поддерживает оставшуюся в одиночестве девочку, Моррисонов не оставляют попечением, помогают им и опекают.

4 Проблемы. В отличие от сказочной болотной робинзонады одинокой девочки, сложности детей Моррисонов реальны, а молодой красивый парень, вынужденный стирать обкаканные подгузники сестры, вместо того, чтобы кадрить девчонок или закидываться кислотой на дискотеке - образ, вызывающий живое сочувствие.

5 Приоритет образования. Малютка Киа посещает школу ровно один день в жизни, что не мешает ей стать в дальнейшем популярным автором книг о болотной фауне, в то время, как герои "Вороньего озера" видят в учебе ключ к решению большинства проблем и для них школьное обучение это реальный ежедневный труд.

6 Проблемы незащищенного секса. Тогда как героиня "Поющих раков" позволяет себе тесное общение с мужчиной без сколько-нибудь заметных неприятных последствий, мальчикам из романа Лоусон приходится делать свой выбор, сообразуясь с гормональным фоном, и неосторожность стоит брату героини возможности продолжать образование.

7 Социальные отношения. Роман Дэлии Оуэнс девственно чист в этом смысле, героиня изначально выключена из социума, в то время, как персонажи Лоусон тесно ввязаны во множество отношений сельской общины и академической среды, раскрываясь в них, ища и находя свое место, осмысливая особенности взаимодействий.

Резюмируя: обе книги хороши, каждая по-своему. Сведя знакомство с одной, трудно удержаться и не прочесть вторую. Приятного чтения.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars — All the metaphors I kept thinking up to describe this evoked some variation of "warmth" - ironic for a novel set in the chilly wilderness of Northern Ontario. A warm piece of homemade pie you wish could last at least another dozen bites. The warmth of a hug from a special friend that neither one of you wants to pull away from too soon. A warm, cozy fire around which local legends are told.

I wasn't the least bit surprised to learn from Mary Lawson's profile here on Goodreads that she's a distant relative to L.M. Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables, one of my favorite novels growing up. This captured a similar sense of that childhood classic's vibrant, close-knit community populated by memorable characters you never want to leave.

Books like these remind me what a beautiful gift the art of literature can be. After a mere three or four nights of reading, I already feel like I've grown up in Crow Lake and known its rural residents my whole life. What a testament to Lawson's vivid world-building and rich characterization that I find myself wishing I could spend many more nights with these wonderful characters, immersed in their world!

Crow Lake isn't exactly Avonlea, though. This is no sweet and sentimental Hallmark movie. There's a darker edge to this story of four orphaned siblings learning to cope and survive in the aftermath of the sudden deaths of their parents, and the ways in which their fates collide with the secretive and troubled family from the farm down the road.

Like the Morrison siblings in this novel, I come from a family of two boys and two girls, although thankfully our parents are still alive and healthy. Lawson examines with unsettling candor the volatile and sometimes violent dynamics between siblings, even and perhaps ESPECIALLY in families that care deeply about one another.

There's a lot here about the way siblings misunderstand and unfairly judge each other's life choices in sometimes harsh and unforgiving ways, that struck uncomfortably close to home for me, having been on both ends of such behavior over the years. I suspect I'll be doing a lot of emotional wrestling with this novel for some time to come.

I also appreciated Lawson's skilled and strategic pacing, the way she turns an otherwise slow-burning domestic drama into an absorbing page-turner by withholding certain pieces of information at just the right times, occasionally dropping enticing hints of future events, gradually allowing the full, haunting story to reveal itself in due time.

If you enjoy lucid, lyrical writing and wonderfully drawn characters that feel like people you've known all your life, then I strongly recommend making your own visit to Crow Lake this winter. Trust me, you won't want to leave!

[Ian M. Pyatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spectacular! My first book by Ms. Lawson and look forward to reading the others on my TBR list.

Loved seeing the varied and multiply story-lines through the eyes of Kate as a young person (especially the trips to the pond with Matt) and then with Daniel as she tried to explain her family to him and then her reunion with Luke, Matt, Bo and her nephew's birthday party and discovering her brother's long-held secrets.

Well developed main characters and those of her aunt, the townswomen who did their best to help the children after the sudden death of the parents and the men who owned the various businesses and hired the boys to provide financial assistance in the early days when the Kate and Bo were young.

[Tara Rock · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had just finished reading a bloody thriller and began my first book by Mary Lawson - a novel completely at the other end of the spectrum. Her style and voice was such that I felt that she was sitting next to me on the couch telling the story. The novel takes place in a small Northern Ontario farming community and revolves around the future lives of four children whose parents were killed in an accident. I thoroughly enjoyed this and will be reading more of Mary Lawson.

[BrokenTune · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I remember reading somewhere a theory to the effect that each member of a family has a role – ‘the clever one’, ‘the pretty one’, ‘the selfish one ’. Once you’ve been established in the role for a while you’re stuck with it – no matter what you do people will still see you as whatever-it-was – but in the early stages, according to the theory, you have some choice as to what your role will be."

This was one of the books on my "Canada" reading list. Most titles on this list are books and authors I had never heard of before setting myself a challenge to read up on the place I'm going to visit this summer. So, I knew nothing of Crow Lake before I started reading. Unfortunately, I also read parts of the Ferguson brothers' How to be a Canadian at the same time - and the Ferguson's acerbic description of what makes the quintessential Canadian novel seemed to very much apply to Crow Lake.

"Understatement was the rule in our house. Emotions, even positive ones, were kept firmly under control. It was the Eleventh Commandment, carved on its very own tablet of stone and presented specifically to those of Presbyterian persuasion: Thou Shalt Not Emote."

Don't get me wrong, Crow Lake has got a great premise and interesting characters but the dysfunction and hardship described seemed rather prefabricated.
I also found it hard to relate to Kate, the main character, who is raised by her brothers after their parents die in an accident.
But part of me is convinced that it is hard to relate to Kate for anyone because she does not relate to anyone in the book. In fact, one of the issues dealt with in the book is the emotional detachment which people create for themselves as protection against loss.

Another aspect of this detachment, and one which also did not help to endear Kate to me, was her determination to not just shut out her family, but also to use the acquisition of knowledge as an escape mechanism.

All in all, it was an interesting book, but the aloofness (in generous terms) of the main character made it sometimes hard work to want to work with the story and see the characters open up about their lives.

"Great Grandmother Morrison, I accept that the fault is largely mine, but I do hold you partly to blame. It is you, with your love of learning, who set the standard against which I have judged everyone around me, all of my life. I have pursued your dream single-mindedly; I have become familiar with books and ideas you never even imagined, and somehow, in the process of acquiring all that knowledge , I have managed to learn nothing at all."

[Lori Keeton · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first read by Mary Lawson who has been highly recommended by many GR friends and I can say from the start that I am not disappointed and I can’t wait to read more!

Crow Lake centers on a family of siblings who have lost their parents and are left to take care of one another. Luke is set to head to college to become a teacher but he gives this up in order to take on the responsibility of caring for his youngest sisters, Kate, 7 and Bo just about 18 months old. Matt has one year of school left and is expected to get a scholarship as his aptitude is for science. Kate grew up shadowing Matt at the pond and learning everything she knew from her big brother almost in a worshipful way. She shared all of the fascinations of biology that Matt did. Kate was actually the one who left home to make her way in the world becoming a professor of zoology. But her adult life remains distant and separated from her siblings. Now she pities Matt for passing up his academic future for one on a farm.

What the reader must understand is the legacy of a passion for learning passed on from their Great-grandmother Morrison who never had the opportunity but vowed her future family members would fare much better. Kate has finally achieved this success and is not bound by the isolation and impoverished lifestyle her siblings remain connected with. We see Kate struggle to understand why she feels as if her past is holding her back and not allowing her to be free in her new life. What is it that she fears?

Memories. I’m not in favor of them, by and large. Not that there aren’t some good ones, but on the whole I’d like to put them in an airtight cupboard and close the door.

Told from Kate’s point of view looking back on the year she was 7 and her life changed forever, this is a heartfelt, emotionally charged account of a family figuring out how to move on after tragedy. Lawson creates a perfectly serene atmosphere surrounding the lake and the natural world. And then there is the other family, the Pyes, a family full of violence and generations which cannot seem to break the cycle. The community of secondary characters are richly drawn as well and we learn to fall in love with the school teacher and the neighbors who love on this family of siblings who never asked for the situation they wind up in. It’s a beautiful story and one I highly recommend.

[Camie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Morrison children have been left orphans in the farming community of Crow Lake which is part of the wild terrain in Ontario, causing them to become a project of sorts for the townspeople. Meanwhile a nearby family the Pyes, are having plenty of tragedy themselves. The eldest two Morrison boys have worked on the Pye farm on occasion throughout the years and it's no surprise that the two families are drawn together in grief. This is Mary Lawson's debut novel(2002) She has written a book with rich characterization and lyrical descriptions of place. It was chosen as a Todays Bookclub read, where most of the books picked are very popular. I personally kept hoping for a bit more plot, but it's still a nice read. 3 stars

[Paul Weiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I said, ‘Haven’t you ever been up north?’
He pondered. ‘Barrie. I’ve been to Barrie.’
‘Barrie! Good God … Barrie’s not north!’ ”

Many’s the pampered southern Ontario resident of Toronto who imagine that Barrie, a mere 120 kilometers out of the north end of the city, is a distant snow-buried representative of Ontario’s sub-arctic northland. But residents of real-life towns such as Sioux Lookout, Pickle Lake, Timmins or Moosonee shake their heads and laugh at such a ridiculous notion.

From my review of A TOWN CALLED SOLACE:

“Solace is a typical northern Ontario town. Home base to millions of mosquitoes in countless lakes; a year comprised of two seasons – winter and July; surrounded by marsh, swamp, rivers, and boreal forest with only one road in and one road out – the opposite sides of the same road that eventually wends its way south to Toronto; fun evenings out and dating restricted to watching the hockey games at the local rink, shopping at the Hudson’s Bay Store or asking the waitress at the local café for the daily special with a plate of pie à la mode to close out the evening festivities!

A reader’s natural inclination might be to yawn and wonder what possible stories might be told about such a dreary location.”

With the sole difference of having a topography forgiving enough (one hardly need add “barely”) that a masochistic farmer could scrape a hard scrabble living off some cleared land, CROW LAKE was a town set in the boreal forest of the Canadian Shield cut from the same rough hewn cloth.

Unlike A TOWN CALLED SOLACE which could be characterized as a mystery, CROW LAKE was definitely a much more slow-burn, character driven family melodrama set over several generations – love, lust, and hate; marriage, families, children, and estrangement; birth and death; murder and suicide; morality and not so much!

Mary Lawson is unquestionably an eloquent wordsmith but CROW LAKE, for me at least, was a distant second to the gripping story that I fell in love with in A TOWN CALLED SOLACE. Your mileage may vary and I’d be willing to bet that reactions to this novel will be widely varied depending on readers’ personal tastes.

That said, it might be instructive to quote a lovely example of Ms Lawson’s musings on a roadside stop for a wilderness kidney relief break (a common enough occurrence, I dare say, for those familiar with the sparsity of public restrooms!)

“I got out of the car and picked my way through the underbrush to the pines. They were growing in a shallow dip between bare ribs of granite; around them tough wiry blueberry bushes fought with the grasses and the mosses and the lichens, all of them struggling for foot room. In some places there is so little topsoil you wouldn’t think it was worth the effort of trying to grow, but they manage. They thrive, in fact. They find every crack, every crevice, every crumb of soil, and send out their tough little roots and dig in, and cling on, and hoard every dropped leaf, every twig, every grain of sand or dust that’s blown their way, and gradually, gradually build up enough soil around themselves to support their offspring. And so it goes on, down the centuries … I squatted down behind the scant shelter of the pines, flapping my hands behind me to fend off the blackflies, and peed into a brilliant green pillow of moss, and ached with love for it.”

You have to admit that that’s a long, long, beautiful way from what many might picture as a simple hurried act of squat, squint, squeeze, and squirt, LOL!

Give CROW LAKE a try and judge for yourself.

Paul Weiss