Barbara Gowdy

Rating: 3.5* of five (for this re-read)

The Publisher Says: Barbara Gowdy's outrageous, hilarious, disturbing, and compassionate novel is about the Canary family, their immoderate passions and eccentricities, and their secret lives and histories. The deepest secret of all is harbored in the silence of the youngest daughter, Joan, who doesn't grow, who doesn't speak, but who can play the piano like Mozart though she's never had a lesson.

Joan is a mystery, and in the novel's stunning climax her show more family comes to understand that each of them is a mystery, as marvelous as Joan, as irreducible as the mystery of life itself.

In its compassionate investigation of moral truths and its bold embrace of the fractured nature of every one of its characters, Mister Sandman attains the heightened quality of a modern-day parable.

I GOT THIS BOOK DECADES AGO, AND HAVE NO MEMORY OF HOW.

My Review: I read it in 1996 or so, loved it, and felt a re-read would be a fun thing. Queer representation has come a long way in thirty years.

I'm not as excited and delighted as I was in my 30s, and got more and more uneasy with the characters' poor communication skills, so I pulled thr ripcord at 50%. It's pretty well-written so I'm not warning you off. I'm just not that guy anymore.

It's out of print; there's an AI-generated audio version, should you wish to participate in the theft of authorial work. show less

Woah! An unusual, imaginative and probably controversial-at-the-time novel from the early days of Barbara Gowdy. A story about a family in which both parents are trying to work out their sexual identity - and other identity issues. The first daughter has a baby from a one-night stand and the parents pretend the baby is theirs, even keeping this secret from their second daughter. The three children are, not surprisingly, confused about who they are. And the baby apparently has an unusual form show more of brain damage. Normally I would prefer a story which seemed closer to the reality of the world as I know it, but this novel had enough reality and complexity to keep me reading, and I enjoyed it in the end. I have more Gowdy on my TBR pile and I'm looking forward to them. show less

This book is a marvelously written tale about a family so dysfunctional that their actual functioning comes across as completely normal (think Geek Love). It's difficult to put into words, because Gowdy does a fine job by herself. Her characters are robust, a little pathetic , delusional at times, and very much alive. The plot is unbelievably scandalous, yet, at the center of it all, is the Canary family - very strange yet completely devoted to one another. The youngest, Joan, is show more unforgettable. This is a very odd (I like odd) but compelling novel. show less

Somewhere around the middle of Barbara Gowdy's FALLING ANGELS (1991) I was reminded of Leonard Cohen's last album, "You Want It Darker?" Because this novel, which at first seems to be about a sort of normal family in 1960s Ontario with a mom and pop and three teenage daughters proceeds to get darker and darker, as we learn that Mary Field, the mom, whose first child, a boy, died under curious circumstances, now spends her days in front of the TV, drinking herself into a stupor while the show more three girls are more or less raising themselves, without much help from their father, Jim, a used car salesman and serial womanizer, who goes on drunken binges between women. Oh, and he might be a bit nuts too, as evidenced by his building a bomb shelter in their back yard and then forcing the family to stay in it for two weeks to test it out, an ill planned venture. The tale is told mostly from the girls' viewpoints, with each getting a turn in alternating chapters. Norma, the oldest (the three are barely a year apart in age), is pretty but "fat." The boys at their high school "moo" at her in the halls. She compensates by doing most of the work at home - cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc. - and learning carpentry and "handyman" skills to please her father, as her weight balloons up and down. Lou, the middle daughter, is rake thin and filled with rage and anger at nearly everyone, until she meets Tom, a new boy at school who is English, and bears a strong resemblance to John Lennon. Sandy, the youngest, is beautiful and pampered, and is noticed and courted by middle-aged married men.

There is a lot of very dark and disturbing stuff here - hints and examples of incest, abortion, alcohol and drug abuse, suicidal tendencies, mental illness, neglect - you name it, it's in here. And yet Gowdy has created some very real and often sympathetic characters, with compelling stories that will keep you turning the pages and wondering what the hell they'll do next. I was impressed enough to research Gowdy and learned she has been one of Canada's most praised and popular writers for the past thirty-plus years. And yes, she is known for the "darkness" in her stories. She is a very good writer and I will recommend this book highly. And if I should run across any more Gowdy books, I will grab 'em up "toot sweet."

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less