Carol Bruneau

Bruneau's Glass Voices covers around five decades in the lives of Lucy, Harry, and their family. Harry, Lucy, and their young daughter survive the terrible Halifax Explosion. Harry is injured during the explosion. In the midst of this difficult time and its immediate aftermath, their son is born. What should be a joyous occasion is instead made stressful thanks to circumstances, especially since their daughter disappeared and was presumed dead. These events will follow the family for the rest of their lives, shaping them all in different ways.

I found this story confusing at times. It shifted past to present and back again often. The writing style did not mesh with me, making my reading fits of start and stop. It's not bad, just not my cuppa. I liked the colloquial language though. Phrases and slang of bygone eras fascinates me. I was unaware of the Halifax Explosion, and this prompted me to research it.

***Many thanks to the Netgalley and Nimbus Publishing for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.… (more)

In the opening chapter of A Circle on the Surface, it is 1956 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Enman Greene has taken his daughter Penelope to a fish & chip shop for her 12th birthday, intending to tell her the truth about her absent mother, Una. Enman’s life is filled with regrets, and subsequent chapters reveal the reasons why. The story Enman wants to share with his daughter begins in 1943. Against a wartime backdrop, Enman and his new wife Una have left Halifax and moved to the coastal village of Barrein in order to care for Enman’s mother, whose health is failing. Leaving a vibrant city to care for an old woman in a rural backwater does not sit well with Una, who worked for twelve years as a teacher (until being dismissed for committing an indiscretion) and who enjoys the city’s hustle and bustle, the abundant entertainments and the social life. She does what’s asked of her though out of a sense of duty and because she loves her husband, and because Enman has assured her it’s only temporary. Enman, on the other hand, does not mind leaving the dirt and noise of the city behind, and doesn’t particularly miss his job at the bank. Carol Bruneau’s psychologically probing and emotionally devastating narrative about the gradual breakdown of their marriage tells the story from the perspective of both Enman and Una. Enman’s mother dies, but Enman deflects Una’s questions about moving back to the city. His rationalization: he’s working, they have a place to live, and village life is less expensive than city life. But Una, left to her own devices, has little to do but take solitary walks on the beach, avoid the prying eyes of the locals, and stay out of trouble, though trouble eventually finds her. When Una determines in her own mind that Enman has deceived her and has no intention of taking her back to Halifax, she grows despondent, and, though pregnant, cannot muster enthusiasm for the baby or for motherhood. Enman himself knows he’s betrayed the woman he loves, and though he tries to maintain a positive outlook, as Una withdraws from him he takes solace in his music and indulges a weakness for booze. The novel that Bruneau has written is achingly raw, a sombre tale of two people drawn together under extreme circumstances but who are fundamentally incompatible, a fact that they are eventually forced to acknowledge but only after it’s too late. The period setting is evoked with great care—the level of detail is often astonishing—but never does it overwhelm the story. A Circle on the Surface refrains from casting judgement on its deeply flawed characters. Carol Bruneau lets her readers reach their own conclusions about Enman and Una and what might have been. The result is an outstanding example of understated, lyrical storytelling.… (more)

Short stories. Bruneau captures settings really well: crowds in Florence, the city of Berlin, the parking lot where Shannon tries to live in her van.

She approaches the narratives on a tangent, rather than just tell us who and where, but then moments of pure clarity. I gave up 2.5 stories from the end of the book.

All of the stories are supposed to be linked by NS. First is an Irish Great war bride of 10 years; then nun (?) from Lagos in Halifax, then Haligonian couple in Florence, and another in Berlin. Tenuous.… (more)