I discovered Margaret Laurence through the first in the Manakwa series, The Stone Angel, a marvellous novel told in the voice of an angry 90-year old woman who doesn't want to be locked up in an old folks' home. I wanted to read more, but Laurence's books are near-impossible to find. Or were, till I joined Bookmooch. Now I have three of them in my TBR pile.

I picked this first, not realising it was the last, and read it over a couple of days while stuck at home with a cold. What a marvellous writer; she pulls you into her characters' lives and dilemmas, and Morag is very real, if clearly largely autobiographical.

At one point I found myself thinking that many of these concerns have been aired many times before... intelligent girl stuck in small town, gets educated and leaves, marries the wrong man, liberates herself through writing. But then I realised that Laurence wrote this series in the 60s and 70s, before the women's movement had really started, before Margaret Atwood, before Alice Munro ... she paints the trapped lives of women and Morag's gradual letting go of her daughter and reconcilement with her past with subtlety and intelligence. ( )

Excellent, excellent book!! ( )

this is without a doubt one of my favourite books in the can-lit cannon: a story of racism, romance, and class divisions that grow from the small town to the big city over the period of the main character's life. morag gunn as a heroine is strong, yet not without mis-steps, and it is through her own exploratory journey that we find ourselves examining our own influences and prejudices. this one is always on the re-read list as it is a true classic in the canadian tradition. ( )

Morag Gunn is my favourite of Margaret Laurence's strong women characters. She has a difficult life, and a life-long relationship with Jules, a metis man. She is a writer, who worries about her daughter and reflects back on her own life and some mistakes she made along the way. She holds imaginary conversations with Catherine Parr Traill, a Canadian pioneer and writer, about living in the wilderness. This classic is worth re-reading every few years. Different parts strike me as very moving and meaningful, perhaps as I change and grow older myself. ( )