Donna Morrissey
Author of Kit's Law
About the Author
Donna Morrissey was born in The Beaches, a small village on the northwest coast of Newfoundland that had neither roads nor electricity until the 1960s - a place not unlike Haire's Hollow, which she depicts in "Kit's Law". When she was sixteen, Morrissey left The Beaches & struck out across Canada, show more working odd jobs from bartending to cooking in oil rig camps to processing fish in fish plants. She went on to earn a degree in social work at Memorial University in St. Johns. It was not until she was in her late thirties that Morrissey began writing short stories, at the urging of a friend, a Jungian analyst, who insisted she was a writer. Eventually she adapted her first two stories into screenplays, which both went on to win the Atlantic Film Festival Award; one aired recently on CBC. "Kit's Law" is Morrissey's first novel, the winner of the Canadian Booksellers Association First-Time Author of the Year Award & shortlisted for many prizes, including the Atlantic Fiction Award & the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Morrissey lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: cabottrailwritersfestival.com
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Works by Donna Morrissey
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Morrissey, Donna
- Birthdate
- 1956
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Memorial University, Newfoundland
- Short biography
- Donna Morrissey (born in 1956 at The Beaches, Newfoundland) is a Canadian author.
At age 16 Morrissey left her birthplace, The Beaches, a small outport on the west coast of Newfoundland. She lived in various places of Canada before returning to St. John's where she studied at Memorial University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Social Work, and a diploma in adult education. Morrissey now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Morrissey has written three prize-winning novels — Kit's Law, the national best seller Downhill Chance, and Sylvanus Now — as well as one prize-winning screenplay.
Morrissey defended Frank Parker Day's novel Rockbound in Canada Reads 2005. Rockbound eventually won the competition. In the 2007 edition of Canada Reads, an "all-star" competition pitting the five winning advocates from previous years against each other, Morrissey returned to champion Anosh Irani's novel The Song of Kahunsha.As most young people do, Morrissey left The Beaches. At sixteen, having flunked out of high school, she set off travelling that vast expanse of country to the west. “I was like, ‘Jesus, I want to see a hippie! And I want to smoke pot, and I want to do all of that stuff and travel the world.’ I didn’t do the world so much, but I certainly traipsed through this country a few times.”
For ten years, Morrissey moved from province to province, working as a waitress, a bartender, a cook on an oilrig. She got married and had two children (a son, now twenty-six, and a daughter, now nineteen). And when she tired of life “abroad,” she brought her family back to Newfoundland and worked splitting cod at a fish processing plant. - Nationality
- Canada
- Birthplace
- The Beaches, Newfoundland, Canada
- Places of residence
- The Beaches, Newfoundland, Canada
St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada - Associated Place (for map)
- Newfoundland, Canada
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Reviews
This is the third in a trilogy which began with Sylvanus Now and was followed by What They Wanted. Readers who are familiar with the Now family will want to read this third installment, but the book can certainly be read as a standalone.
This book focuses on Kyle Now who is still mourning the death of his brother Chris who died working on an Alberta oil rig. The family is a troubled one. Sylvanus, the father, takes refuge in alcohol; Abbie, the mother, is facing breast cancer; and Kyle’s show more relationship with his sister Sylvie is strained because of what he sees as her role in Chris’ death. Then a local bully, Clar Gillard, is murdered and suspicion falls on the Now family with whom he has had confrontations.
Characterization is amazing. All characters are fully developed, round characters, their traits consistent with those in the first two books of the trilogy. Kyle is a dynamic character. At the beginning he sees nothing positive in the world: “Felt like the one long day for three years now. The one long dull day, caught on a cloud of grief hovering over his house.” He has no hope: “Nope. Kyle Now was done with wishing.” He does not talk and share his grief with others but worries about everyone else, his constant fingernail-chewing and foot-jiggling clearly indicating his tension. His typical response is to run: “he’d pushed [Sylvie] away and ran and was still running. Running from everything.” The novel shows how Kyle goes from such desperation to finally running towards someone and seeing the beauty around him: “The moan’s broadening smile rose above the hills and glimmered amongst stars that were mostly dead and yet whose lights still shone through the eternal sky.”
Kyle’s foil is his mother. Addie, despite all her troubles, always remains hopeful. Chris is “struck once more by her fortitude. That whatever this new thing thickening her cloud of sorrow, hope was already ignited in her heart and offering itself as a shelter for him and his father.” The contrast is obvious when Kyle is described: “But he was done with hope. It took her babies and Chris and he had no more courage for hope. Hope had failed her too many times. Rather that she had never hoped. Rather that it was just those babies she grieved and not the pain of lost hope as well.” Kyle needs to learn what Addie has, that “hope eventually creeps through darkness, making inroads through to an easier tomorrow” and that “’There’s good to be found in everything, even grief.’”
There are, of course, other lessons that Kyle must learn: “’Some people have illness, everybody has something. It’s how you carries it – that’s what you take into the other world with you. That’s the only thing we takes’” and “’You can’t go getting down and blaming yourself for stuff you got no control over’” and “’You needs to be like everyone else, tending to your own concerns.’” I love the references to Job: “’We’re blessed like Job then, when we feels the fear of something and does it anyway’” and “’we’re sainted like Job when we can stand the pain and thrive in the end.’” A person may be given advice but does not necessarily listen, and part of the interest of the novel is in seeing if/how Kyle will learn these lessons.
As suggested, a major theme is that of hope. It is introduced in the epigraph, a quotation from George Eliot’s Adam Bede: “There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have recovered hope.” Repetition is used to emphasize the need for hope: “’And you can’t lose hope, either. You got to trust some things’” and “’Hope’s a powerful thing. It’s what takes us into the next world, hopes of a better life’” and “’There’s always hope’” and “Hope’s contagious like that: if one believes, then another might.”
It is not just characterization and theme development that are amazing. There is such pleasure in reading Morrissey’s style. The dialogue is truly that of a Newfoundland outport. The images are also wonderful. An abstract like guilt is made concrete: “Guilt rotting him like an old shack built on wet ground, leaving no shores strong enough to shelter himself or his family.” And descriptions of setting say so much: “Sulphuric smells rose from a smoking pulp mill that headed the harbour while nice shingled homes and shops and oak trees encircled the mill’s land side as ribs might encircle the life-giving heart.”
I strongly recommend this book; it is literary fiction at its best. If you haven’t read Sylvanus Now and What They Wanted, read them first, but if you have been fortunate enough to meet the Now family, reunite with them by reading The Fortunate Brother. You will not be disappointed.
Note: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less
This book focuses on Kyle Now who is still mourning the death of his brother Chris who died working on an Alberta oil rig. The family is a troubled one. Sylvanus, the father, takes refuge in alcohol; Abbie, the mother, is facing breast cancer; and Kyle’s show more relationship with his sister Sylvie is strained because of what he sees as her role in Chris’ death. Then a local bully, Clar Gillard, is murdered and suspicion falls on the Now family with whom he has had confrontations.
Characterization is amazing. All characters are fully developed, round characters, their traits consistent with those in the first two books of the trilogy. Kyle is a dynamic character. At the beginning he sees nothing positive in the world: “Felt like the one long day for three years now. The one long dull day, caught on a cloud of grief hovering over his house.” He has no hope: “Nope. Kyle Now was done with wishing.” He does not talk and share his grief with others but worries about everyone else, his constant fingernail-chewing and foot-jiggling clearly indicating his tension. His typical response is to run: “he’d pushed [Sylvie] away and ran and was still running. Running from everything.” The novel shows how Kyle goes from such desperation to finally running towards someone and seeing the beauty around him: “The moan’s broadening smile rose above the hills and glimmered amongst stars that were mostly dead and yet whose lights still shone through the eternal sky.”
Kyle’s foil is his mother. Addie, despite all her troubles, always remains hopeful. Chris is “struck once more by her fortitude. That whatever this new thing thickening her cloud of sorrow, hope was already ignited in her heart and offering itself as a shelter for him and his father.” The contrast is obvious when Kyle is described: “But he was done with hope. It took her babies and Chris and he had no more courage for hope. Hope had failed her too many times. Rather that she had never hoped. Rather that it was just those babies she grieved and not the pain of lost hope as well.” Kyle needs to learn what Addie has, that “hope eventually creeps through darkness, making inroads through to an easier tomorrow” and that “’There’s good to be found in everything, even grief.’”
There are, of course, other lessons that Kyle must learn: “’Some people have illness, everybody has something. It’s how you carries it – that’s what you take into the other world with you. That’s the only thing we takes’” and “’You can’t go getting down and blaming yourself for stuff you got no control over’” and “’You needs to be like everyone else, tending to your own concerns.’” I love the references to Job: “’We’re blessed like Job then, when we feels the fear of something and does it anyway’” and “’we’re sainted like Job when we can stand the pain and thrive in the end.’” A person may be given advice but does not necessarily listen, and part of the interest of the novel is in seeing if/how Kyle will learn these lessons.
As suggested, a major theme is that of hope. It is introduced in the epigraph, a quotation from George Eliot’s Adam Bede: “There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have recovered hope.” Repetition is used to emphasize the need for hope: “’And you can’t lose hope, either. You got to trust some things’” and “’Hope’s a powerful thing. It’s what takes us into the next world, hopes of a better life’” and “’There’s always hope’” and “Hope’s contagious like that: if one believes, then another might.”
It is not just characterization and theme development that are amazing. There is such pleasure in reading Morrissey’s style. The dialogue is truly that of a Newfoundland outport. The images are also wonderful. An abstract like guilt is made concrete: “Guilt rotting him like an old shack built on wet ground, leaving no shores strong enough to shelter himself or his family.” And descriptions of setting say so much: “Sulphuric smells rose from a smoking pulp mill that headed the harbour while nice shingled homes and shops and oak trees encircled the mill’s land side as ribs might encircle the life-giving heart.”
I strongly recommend this book; it is literary fiction at its best. If you haven’t read Sylvanus Now and What They Wanted, read them first, but if you have been fortunate enough to meet the Now family, reunite with them by reading The Fortunate Brother. You will not be disappointed.
Note: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less
Sometimes a book may not have an action packed plot-line, but the words on the page transport the reader into the day-to-day world of the story so eloquently, that one feels as if they have been there. I know what the wind from the point of a tiny town on Newfoundland tastes like. I've heard the crash of the waves, and the sting of the salt as the fish are set to dry. I've lived with the people of that town, through their sorrows, and seen their hopes.
I was fascinated to learn about the show more coastal fishing life off the Newfoundland coast. I've heard about problems of overfishing etc, but never parlayed it into terms of technology vs tradition. I remember the salted fish, so common in my childhood, that could be seen in the delicatessens of my youth. The coppery color of the skin fascinated me as a child, though the taste didn't win me over. I now realize that I don't see those same salted, dried fish many places, though there seems to be an abundance of frozen or canned fish. I never thought on what that change might have meant to the fishermen who pulled the fish out of the waters. And though I'd heard of jigging, never understood the rhythm of it until this book.
If you're looking for a monumental, fast-paced read, put this book down. If you're looking for a complex mystery, this isn't the book for you. But if you want a glimpse in a time gone by, want to see how modern day life can change a way of life, want to immerse yourself in a world of real people, pick this book up. show less
I was fascinated to learn about the show more coastal fishing life off the Newfoundland coast. I've heard about problems of overfishing etc, but never parlayed it into terms of technology vs tradition. I remember the salted fish, so common in my childhood, that could be seen in the delicatessens of my youth. The coppery color of the skin fascinated me as a child, though the taste didn't win me over. I now realize that I don't see those same salted, dried fish many places, though there seems to be an abundance of frozen or canned fish. I never thought on what that change might have meant to the fishermen who pulled the fish out of the waters. And though I'd heard of jigging, never understood the rhythm of it until this book.
If you're looking for a monumental, fast-paced read, put this book down. If you're looking for a complex mystery, this isn't the book for you. But if you want a glimpse in a time gone by, want to see how modern day life can change a way of life, want to immerse yourself in a world of real people, pick this book up. show less
I’ve read and loved all of Donna Morrissey’s novels. She is one of my favourite Canadian authors, and this, her latest book, only adds to my regard for her writing.
It is 1914 in Newfoundland. Twenty-year-old Roan is an orphan who has been raised and educated by Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, the renowned Newfoundland medical missionary. A nurse’s deathbed confession has Roan discovering that his father may still be alive, so he sets out to discover the identity of that father and the truth show more behind his mother’s death. He travels by dog sled from St. Anthony to Deer Lake and then takes a train to St. John’s. Believing he has found his father, he follows him onto the SS Newfoundland, a ship heading to the sealing grounds for the spring hunt.
I didn’t know about the history of the Newfoundland, one of the worse marine disasters in Newfoundland history, but as soon as Roan joins the sealers on the ship, I suspected there would be a tragedy. I’ve read enough about the seal hunt to know of its dangers. The conditions are not favourable as the Newfoundland keeps getting trapped in ice so the captain and the sealers are more and more desperate to find seals; the decision to have the men walk for hours to reach a herd just ramps up the suspense.
The seal hunt is controversial, but it has been part of Newfoundland’s culture for generations. Regardless of one’s position on the hunt, a reader will feel empathy for the sealers. For them, the hunt means making some money to feed themselves and their families. The living conditions on the ship are miserable; food is very basic and there’s not much of it. Once the hunt begins, the dangers increase. The men need to earn money and it is desperation that drives the men onto shifting ice.
I love novels with a dynamic character and this one has Roan. At the beginning, Roan loves solitude: “Quiet. He loved quiet. Loved how it settled around him without shadow.” He even tells a young woman he encounters that “We are best alone, Ila, we are best alone” and believes that “She will learn, as he has, not to fear aloneness. She will learn that it is in solitude where one finds one’s courage.” As a young boy, Roan was sent to a boarding school in Boston where he was an outcast because he was considered an orphan from the backwoods, but on the ship he is accepted by the men and bonds with them. He learns that “our pathways through life are equally shaped by the others who sail with us” and realizes that he gathers courage “from living these past days among a brotherhood that breeds such courage out of misery that all things seem possible.”
Roan has other lessons to learn as well: patience and humility. The ship’s captain, for instance, is described as proud and one of the sealers says “’Men does strange things when they got that drivin ‘em.’” Roan comes to recognize “his own naked pride” and acknowledges the presence of “his old pal vanity.” Watching the sealers help and support each other, he becomes more compassionate and realizes the truth of Dr. Grenfell’s words that “What we give to others is the rent we pay for our room on this earth.” Roan does uncover the truth of his birth, but it’s the other lessons that more profoundly affect his behaviour.
Characterization in the novel is excellent. Characters are flawed like real human beings: keeping secrets, telling lies to themselves and others, and falling subject to misunderstandings. Though there are few women, they are memorable. Ila, though the same age as Roan, seems so much more mature, probably because of her life experiences. But the most authentic for me are the sealers. They speak in distinctive Newfoundland accents which I love, but it’s their supportive fellowship, resilience, and humour that stand out. Even when miserable, they break out into song to bolster morale. They watch out for and help each other. They share equally what little they have, unlike captains who keep the best food for himself and unlike Roan who in the past succumbed to the “greed of hunger.”
There is so much to recommend this novel: a suspenseful plot, authentic characters, lots of local colour, lyrical descriptions, and thematic depth – all things I’ve found in all of Donna Morrissey’s novels.
Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less
It is 1914 in Newfoundland. Twenty-year-old Roan is an orphan who has been raised and educated by Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, the renowned Newfoundland medical missionary. A nurse’s deathbed confession has Roan discovering that his father may still be alive, so he sets out to discover the identity of that father and the truth show more behind his mother’s death. He travels by dog sled from St. Anthony to Deer Lake and then takes a train to St. John’s. Believing he has found his father, he follows him onto the SS Newfoundland, a ship heading to the sealing grounds for the spring hunt.
I didn’t know about the history of the Newfoundland, one of the worse marine disasters in Newfoundland history, but as soon as Roan joins the sealers on the ship, I suspected there would be a tragedy. I’ve read enough about the seal hunt to know of its dangers. The conditions are not favourable as the Newfoundland keeps getting trapped in ice so the captain and the sealers are more and more desperate to find seals; the decision to have the men walk for hours to reach a herd just ramps up the suspense.
The seal hunt is controversial, but it has been part of Newfoundland’s culture for generations. Regardless of one’s position on the hunt, a reader will feel empathy for the sealers. For them, the hunt means making some money to feed themselves and their families. The living conditions on the ship are miserable; food is very basic and there’s not much of it. Once the hunt begins, the dangers increase. The men need to earn money and it is desperation that drives the men onto shifting ice.
I love novels with a dynamic character and this one has Roan. At the beginning, Roan loves solitude: “Quiet. He loved quiet. Loved how it settled around him without shadow.” He even tells a young woman he encounters that “We are best alone, Ila, we are best alone” and believes that “She will learn, as he has, not to fear aloneness. She will learn that it is in solitude where one finds one’s courage.” As a young boy, Roan was sent to a boarding school in Boston where he was an outcast because he was considered an orphan from the backwoods, but on the ship he is accepted by the men and bonds with them. He learns that “our pathways through life are equally shaped by the others who sail with us” and realizes that he gathers courage “from living these past days among a brotherhood that breeds such courage out of misery that all things seem possible.”
Roan has other lessons to learn as well: patience and humility. The ship’s captain, for instance, is described as proud and one of the sealers says “’Men does strange things when they got that drivin ‘em.’” Roan comes to recognize “his own naked pride” and acknowledges the presence of “his old pal vanity.” Watching the sealers help and support each other, he becomes more compassionate and realizes the truth of Dr. Grenfell’s words that “What we give to others is the rent we pay for our room on this earth.” Roan does uncover the truth of his birth, but it’s the other lessons that more profoundly affect his behaviour.
Characterization in the novel is excellent. Characters are flawed like real human beings: keeping secrets, telling lies to themselves and others, and falling subject to misunderstandings. Though there are few women, they are memorable. Ila, though the same age as Roan, seems so much more mature, probably because of her life experiences. But the most authentic for me are the sealers. They speak in distinctive Newfoundland accents which I love, but it’s their supportive fellowship, resilience, and humour that stand out. Even when miserable, they break out into song to bolster morale. They watch out for and help each other. They share equally what little they have, unlike captains who keep the best food for himself and unlike Roan who in the past succumbed to the “greed of hunger.”
There is so much to recommend this novel: a suspenseful plot, authentic characters, lots of local colour, lyrical descriptions, and thematic depth – all things I’ve found in all of Donna Morrissey’s novels.
Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less
I read this book in 2005 when it was first published. I’ve subsequently read the two other books in the trilogy: What They Wanted and The Fortunate Brother. I recommended Donna Morrissey to my book club and suggested we start with Sylvanus Now since it’s the first in the series. And it gave me an opportunity to re-read it. I think a second reading of it only heightened my appreciation.
Sylvanus Now is a fisherman from the Newfoundland outport community of Cooney Arm. He falls in love with show more Adelaide, a beautiful girl from nearby Ragged Rock. Adelaide wants to escape her stultifying life working the flakes drying cod and helping care for her many siblings. Sylvanus convinces her to marry him, promising her, “’You won’t ever have to touch a fish agin’” (103) and building her a house with no windows facing the flakes or the sea. The two face personal tragedies and the outside world intrudes as they work at building a life together.
Set in the 1950s, this novel is also the story of changes in the Newfoundland fishery. Sylvanus fishes the traditional way, by hand-jigging and drying his catch on flakes, but the traditional fishery is being supplanted by trawlers using gill nets and by giant factory ships. Sylvanus’s method of fishing is very ethical as well; in the first fishing trip described in the novel, he releases a mother-fish full of roe which has not yet spawned: “The ocean’s bounty, she was, and woe to he who desecrated the mother’s womb” (4). His method is contrasted with that of the trawlers, “scraping the bottom, getting the mother-fish and all them not yet spawned” (200). Sylvanus witnesses one of the colossal factory ships wasting thousands of fish when a net splits: “Within minutes Sylvanus’s boat was encompassed by the fish now drifting on their backs, their eyes bulging out of their sockets . . . their stomachs bloating out through their mouths . . . Mother-fish. Thousands of them” (255). Because of foreign freezer ships, “offshore killers,” the fish Sylvanus catches become smaller and eventually he catches fewer and fewer. Sylvanus foresees the collapse of the cod fishery because of what he views as a raping of the sea: “What kind of fool can’t figure we’re farmers, not hunters; that we don’t search out and destroy the spawning grounds, that we waits for the fish to be done with their seeding, and then they comes to us for harvesting” (219)?
This is very much a novel of character. Adelaide and Sylvanus in particular are developed in depth. A reader will feel as if s/he knows these people because they are so realistic. They have flaws and inner conflicts which make them relatable and sympathetic. In some ways, the two are foil characters. For instance, Sylvanus “was poor at book learning” (4); what he loves is his life fishing which gives him “satisfaction” and “fulfilled him” (3). For Adelaide, school is “salvation. For it was there her work was tallied, and her excellence in Latin, calligraphy, and reading raised her to the front of the class” (27). Because he loves the sea, Sylvanus imagines “The sea would be [Adelaide’s] garden” (21), but “She hated the water, hated its stink of brine and rot and jellyfish, and hated how all night long it shifted and moaned like some old crone hagged in sleep. And worse, she hated the briny smell of salt fish” (26). Yet they do share some similarities. For instance, both enjoy being alone, Sylvanus on the sea and Adelaide in her house.
For me, Adelaide is the most relatable. She’s a dreamer with aspirations to be a missionary and not just a woman whose worth is “determined by the white of her sheets flapping on the line” (29). She’s very intelligent and loves school, so being forced to stop her education and work on the flakes is heart-breaking for her; she becomes “a soul forced along another’s wake” (43). Her desire to escape the wretched work on the flakes and at the cannery and the “bathing, diapering, and feeding the babies, and scrubbing, sweeping, and picking up after the toddlers trailing behind her” (24) is understandable. Likewise, her desire to be alone is understandable. She has virtually no time to be alone in peace and quiet. Unfortunately, her wanting to be alone earns her a reputation as being standoffish. When women come to comfort her, she interprets their visits as attempts to snoop and gossip: “so far had she dwelled outside the lives of these neighbours, their goodwill had less effect upon her heart than a tepid kiss upon a wintery cheek” (156).
Fortunately, Adelaide is a dynamic character. Suze gives her a gift which acts as a catalyst for change. Suze also tells her, “’We don’t know half the time what we’re giving others. . . . there’s a comfort knowing others are suffering worse than you right now. Makes you think about them rather than yourself’” (164). And Adelaide listens and acknowledges the wisdom of this warm-hearted, generous woman “whose soul she had shunned because it couldn’t read a prayer book” (162). She realizes her selfishness: “’Perhaps I don’t think of anybody long enough to talk about them. . . . I never done that in my life – go visiting somebody needing company’” (160). The window Sylvanus puts in their house symbolizes Adelaide’s new outlook.
The relationship between the Sylvanus and Adelaide is developed very clearly. Sylvanus’s love for Adelaide is so obvious: everything he does, he does for her. He builds her the type of house he thinks she would like, and he tells her not to worry: “’Strong hands, I’ve got, and a strong mind when it comes to caring for you’” (169). He’s always thinking of things to make her happy and make her life easier: “And it was nice, those gifts he kept bringing her, of snow crab, and scallops bigger than tea plates, and handfuls of last summer mint tea buried beneath the snow, and the paths he kept well shovelled . . . “ (170). Because we are given their perspectives in alternating sections, the reader sees what they think of each other and how misunderstandings arise. During an argument, Adelaide twists away from her husband, “her mouth lined with self-loathing” (176) but Sylvanus interprets her actions differently: “she had pushed him away, staring upon him with loathing” (199). Both leave much unspoken and that causes problems.
The dialogue is perfect because Morrissey has truly captured the Newfoundland dialect. The conversations between Sylvanus and his brothers really need to be read aloud.
This book is highly recommended to readers who like complex characters. It will take a reader on an emotional ride; s/he will feel anger and sadness but, most of all, admiration for the spirit and resiliency of a people faced with harsh realities. And for those who have fallen in love with the Now family, there are two more books chronicling their lives; I think I will re-read both What They Wanted and The Fortunate Brother.
Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less
Sylvanus Now is a fisherman from the Newfoundland outport community of Cooney Arm. He falls in love with show more Adelaide, a beautiful girl from nearby Ragged Rock. Adelaide wants to escape her stultifying life working the flakes drying cod and helping care for her many siblings. Sylvanus convinces her to marry him, promising her, “’You won’t ever have to touch a fish agin’” (103) and building her a house with no windows facing the flakes or the sea. The two face personal tragedies and the outside world intrudes as they work at building a life together.
Set in the 1950s, this novel is also the story of changes in the Newfoundland fishery. Sylvanus fishes the traditional way, by hand-jigging and drying his catch on flakes, but the traditional fishery is being supplanted by trawlers using gill nets and by giant factory ships. Sylvanus’s method of fishing is very ethical as well; in the first fishing trip described in the novel, he releases a mother-fish full of roe which has not yet spawned: “The ocean’s bounty, she was, and woe to he who desecrated the mother’s womb” (4). His method is contrasted with that of the trawlers, “scraping the bottom, getting the mother-fish and all them not yet spawned” (200). Sylvanus witnesses one of the colossal factory ships wasting thousands of fish when a net splits: “Within minutes Sylvanus’s boat was encompassed by the fish now drifting on their backs, their eyes bulging out of their sockets . . . their stomachs bloating out through their mouths . . . Mother-fish. Thousands of them” (255). Because of foreign freezer ships, “offshore killers,” the fish Sylvanus catches become smaller and eventually he catches fewer and fewer. Sylvanus foresees the collapse of the cod fishery because of what he views as a raping of the sea: “What kind of fool can’t figure we’re farmers, not hunters; that we don’t search out and destroy the spawning grounds, that we waits for the fish to be done with their seeding, and then they comes to us for harvesting” (219)?
This is very much a novel of character. Adelaide and Sylvanus in particular are developed in depth. A reader will feel as if s/he knows these people because they are so realistic. They have flaws and inner conflicts which make them relatable and sympathetic. In some ways, the two are foil characters. For instance, Sylvanus “was poor at book learning” (4); what he loves is his life fishing which gives him “satisfaction” and “fulfilled him” (3). For Adelaide, school is “salvation. For it was there her work was tallied, and her excellence in Latin, calligraphy, and reading raised her to the front of the class” (27). Because he loves the sea, Sylvanus imagines “The sea would be [Adelaide’s] garden” (21), but “She hated the water, hated its stink of brine and rot and jellyfish, and hated how all night long it shifted and moaned like some old crone hagged in sleep. And worse, she hated the briny smell of salt fish” (26). Yet they do share some similarities. For instance, both enjoy being alone, Sylvanus on the sea and Adelaide in her house.
For me, Adelaide is the most relatable. She’s a dreamer with aspirations to be a missionary and not just a woman whose worth is “determined by the white of her sheets flapping on the line” (29). She’s very intelligent and loves school, so being forced to stop her education and work on the flakes is heart-breaking for her; she becomes “a soul forced along another’s wake” (43). Her desire to escape the wretched work on the flakes and at the cannery and the “bathing, diapering, and feeding the babies, and scrubbing, sweeping, and picking up after the toddlers trailing behind her” (24) is understandable. Likewise, her desire to be alone is understandable. She has virtually no time to be alone in peace and quiet. Unfortunately, her wanting to be alone earns her a reputation as being standoffish. When women come to comfort her, she interprets their visits as attempts to snoop and gossip: “so far had she dwelled outside the lives of these neighbours, their goodwill had less effect upon her heart than a tepid kiss upon a wintery cheek” (156).
Fortunately, Adelaide is a dynamic character. Suze gives her a gift which acts as a catalyst for change. Suze also tells her, “’We don’t know half the time what we’re giving others. . . . there’s a comfort knowing others are suffering worse than you right now. Makes you think about them rather than yourself’” (164). And Adelaide listens and acknowledges the wisdom of this warm-hearted, generous woman “whose soul she had shunned because it couldn’t read a prayer book” (162). She realizes her selfishness: “’Perhaps I don’t think of anybody long enough to talk about them. . . . I never done that in my life – go visiting somebody needing company’” (160). The window Sylvanus puts in their house symbolizes Adelaide’s new outlook.
The relationship between the Sylvanus and Adelaide is developed very clearly. Sylvanus’s love for Adelaide is so obvious: everything he does, he does for her. He builds her the type of house he thinks she would like, and he tells her not to worry: “’Strong hands, I’ve got, and a strong mind when it comes to caring for you’” (169). He’s always thinking of things to make her happy and make her life easier: “And it was nice, those gifts he kept bringing her, of snow crab, and scallops bigger than tea plates, and handfuls of last summer mint tea buried beneath the snow, and the paths he kept well shovelled . . . “ (170). Because we are given their perspectives in alternating sections, the reader sees what they think of each other and how misunderstandings arise. During an argument, Adelaide twists away from her husband, “her mouth lined with self-loathing” (176) but Sylvanus interprets her actions differently: “she had pushed him away, staring upon him with loathing” (199). Both leave much unspoken and that causes problems.
The dialogue is perfect because Morrissey has truly captured the Newfoundland dialect. The conversations between Sylvanus and his brothers really need to be read aloud.
This book is highly recommended to readers who like complex characters. It will take a reader on an emotional ride; s/he will feel anger and sadness but, most of all, admiration for the spirit and resiliency of a people faced with harsh realities. And for those who have fallen in love with the Now family, there are two more books chronicling their lives; I think I will re-read both What They Wanted and The Fortunate Brother.
Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less
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