Moving, Harrowing, Insightful and all that Other Stuff

What They Wanted
Donna Morrissey
Penguin Canada

The bulk of my day today was spent in waiting rooms. Last week's craziness left me a little under the weather and I ended up heading to my local clinic to see if I could get something to shake a nasty bug. Stuck in a room full of wailing children, disgruntled immunization candidates, and more sniffles that you could shake a stick at, I decided to block out the world by getting into a good book. Already in a contemplative mood, I was ready for harrowing, insightful and moving. And boy -- did I get it.

Morrissey's novel was gut wrenching. Spanning the course of twenty years, it tells the story of a Newfoundland family that is literally and figuratively pulled from the sea. The story opens with the ruin of the fisheries and the patriarch of the family having to leave the sea and take up residence (and occupation) on the land. A generation later, his daughter and son take it one step further and leave Newfoundland to work the oil fields of Alberta. They are as much in search of themselves as they are in search of a livelihood.

There was so much feeling poured into the writing of this novel that it is no wonder that I was overwhelmed when I first picked it up. I definitely want to know what happens to this family -- I can only hope that Morrissey writes more. Four intractable clouds out of five.