Child abuse, relationships, mental illness, family relationships ( )

I don't know what I just read and I don't know how I should feel about it. I don't even know if I really want to give three stars or if I want to give no stars at all. This story has me so confused. I feel embarrassed, ashamed, dirty, sad, angry. So do I give more stars since it made me feel so much? I just don't know. I hate this book. But sometimes I love this book. Most times I hate it.

I read this novel for a book club I belong to and the other night we all met online with the author. I hadn't finished reading the book at that point so I wasn't entirely sure how things were going to end up but I had a feeling it wasn't going to be good. I was going to comment on what a great job he, the author, did at creating such unlikeable characters but thankfully I didn't! I had no idea this novel is based on true events in his life! Now that I know, this story just seems even more terrible. The things that some people live through......I have no words.

I disliked every character except Wade. They all completely sickened me to the point where I got very angry. That evil son of a bitch Hans.....don't even get me started on him. Thinking back, I guess the characters were incredibly real to me since they elicited such a feeling of detest which is what the author was going for I suppose.

The poetry was maddening. I would read the poem in the chapter and then I couldn't get myself out of the rhythm. I had to keep reading and rereading just to make sense of it all. Did I mention that I hate poetry? This novel certainly was a journey!

I don't know if I should recommend this novel or not. It is not for the faint of heart. I guess you'll have to read it and see what you think. It is full of evil people and events and the poetry almost makes a mockery of it all. This is the hardest review I have written. I don't even know how to end this, so here it is.....I'm done. The end.

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Wow! This is an amazing, epic story about four sisters and the family secret they carry. The writing is wonderful, with parts of the novel written in verse. The characters are complex and true to themselves.

Wade, an aspiring writer in Newfoundland meets Rachel at University and falls in love. As he becomes more involved with her, and moves to South Africa with her and her parents (who are returning after immigrating to Canada) he meets Rachel's three sisters and discover that, like Rachel, each is dysfunctional in some way. Wade struggles to understand his beloved, and slowly comes to understand the secret they are keeping.

This is one of my favourite books ever. ( )

I have read most of Wayne Johnston’s novels and have enjoyed them all; those I have reviewed on my blog have all been given 4-star ratings. I was excited to receive a digital galley of The Mystery of Right and Wrong, his latest, and it does not disappoint.

Wade Jackson, a young aspiring writer from a Newfoundland outport, meets Rachel van Hout while at university in St. John’s and falls in love with her. Little does he know how much the van Hout family will change his life. As he gets to meet Rachel’s three sisters and their parents Hans and Myra, he comes to see how dysfunctional they are. The daughters are all damaged souls: Gloria is hypersexual and has had a spate of broken marriages; Gloria is addicted to drugs provided by her husband Fritz; Bethany is an anorexic who has made several suicide attempts; and Rachel is hyperlexic, obsessively reading Anne Frank’s Het Achterhuis, and hypergraphic, obsessively writing a diary in a secret language. Wade accompanies Rachel to South Africa and it’s then that more and more family secrets are revealed, most with Hans at the centre.

The point of view alternates between Wade, Rachel, Rachel’s encoded diary entitled “The Arelliad” written in both prose and poetry, and Hans’ “The Ballad of Clan Van Hout”, a poetic family history which he composes and recites to his daughters. Reading “The Arelliad” is sometimes frustrating because much is left unexplained. Who, for example, is “Shadow She, the also-Anne”? The ballad is also confusing because Hans’ version of events changes and it is difficult to know what to believe. It does, however, provide great insight into Han’s mind and personality.

Characterization is a strong element in the novel. All major characters emerge as distinct. The four sisters, for instance, cannot be confused. They often seem to behave in illogical ways, but all is eventually explained. Rachel’s secret is the last to be uncovered, though I did guess the nature of it. Certainly the last great revelation explains Rachel’s obsessions. In case the reader is uncertain as to why she occasionally writes in poetic form, Johnston outlines his reasoning in the Author’s Note at the end of the book.

Hans will remain for me one of literature’s great villains; more than once I thought of Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello. He is full of self-pity: “I’m not the star that I should be because so many worker bees have spent their lives opposing me . . . the great held back by also-rans.” He doesn’t love his wife, pretending to “adore the woman who so loudly snores, the aging face, the greying head I cannot bear to touch in bed.” He wishes he “could have another wife” but “I would not sully with divorce what matters most – my name of course.” He’s a racist who said “’that the blacks were uncivilized and impossible to educate, so they should never be allowed to vote or to mix with whites.’” He is a master manipulator who accepts no blame for even his most despicable of behaviour. Some of his comments in his ballad left me speechless. Yet the reader, like Rachel, will ask, “Was it the sum of his experience that made [him] what he was, or some mechanism in his brain, some defect in his DNA?”

As the title indicates, the book examines right and wrong. Hans argues that right and wrong change over time, “The rules are endlessly revised.” Decisions made by several people at different times in the novel inspire one to consider if a wrong can be a right in certain circumstances. In order to survive, for instance, is it right to commit a wrong? As the author admits, he doesn’t offer answers to the questions it poses, but book clubs will find much to debate.

At over 550 pages, the book is lengthy. At first the revelations come slowly but then I wondered what other secrets would be revealed. I was even starting to think that the book was becoming almost unbelievable. Then the Author’s Note clarifies that the novel is based on people and events in his life. I was astonished by what Johnston discloses and by his bravery in doing so.

I highly recommend this book. Though the pace is sometimes slow and sections are confusing, all is eventually made clear. And though it touches on many serious topics, it is, as the author states, not a totally dark book. I’m not certain that I, like one of the book’s characters, can claim to be a “great reader” who reads with “hard-won discrimination,” but I do know this is a book that will reward a second reading: I’m certain it will make the author’s skill even more obvious.

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). ( )