She did that!!!!!!!!!

Der grobe Plot ist relativ schnell erzählt. 1962 zieht die achtjährige Madeleine, Tochter eines kanadischen Berufssoldaten, mit ihrer Familie auf den Militärstützpunkt Centralia in der kanadischen Pampa. Das Umziehen ist sie gewohnt, sie findet auch schnell neue Freundinnen, genau wie ihre Eltern rasch einen Freundeskreis aufbauen.

Die Kubakrise stürzt alle in Angst und Schrecken, doch mit dem Einlenken der Russen ist diese Gefahr gebannt. Doch im darauffolgenden Sommer sorgt etwas ganz anderes in Centralia für Trauer, Angst und Aufruhr - eine Mitschülerin von Madeleine wird tot auf einer Waldlichtung aufgefunden.

Nach diesem Vorfall ist in Centralia nichts mehr wie früher. Viele ziehen weg, eines Tages auch Madeleine und ihre Familie. Doch der Tod des Mädchens lässt sie ihr ganzes Leben nicht mehr los.

Das Buch ist jedoch kein Thriller. Auf 700 Seiten entfaltet sich manchmal fast quälend langsam ein Porträt des Lebens auf einem Militärstützpunkt im Kalten Krieg, die Geschichte von Madeleines Familie, aber auch der ganzen "Dorfgemeinschaft", die nach dem mysteriösen Todesfall unter Ängsten, Verdächtigungen und Vorwürfen auseinanderbricht.

Es ist keine leichte Kost, dieser Blick in die Gedankenwelt der kleinen Madeleine mit ihrem Imitationstalent (später wird sie als Komikerin daraus Kapital schlagen), die versuchen muss, Dinge zu verarbeiten, für die sie eigentlich noch zu klein ist. Das ganz Alltägliche (Familienleben, Streitereien, Ärger in der Schule) geht beim Erzählen Hand in Hand mit dem Weltgeschehen - und mit den Vorfällen in Centralia, die die Ermordung des kleinen Mädchens nach sich zieht.

Mehr kann man schlecht verraten, ohne zu spoilern, was das Rezensieren natürlich erschwert. Wie schreckliche Ereignisse hier unsentimental und unpathetisch geschildert werden, im fast beiläufigen Ton eines Kindes, erinnert ein wenig an John Irving, doch das Buch driftet nicht wie bei ihm ins Skurrile ab, sondern bleibt sehr realitätsnah.

Im zweiten Teil, wenn Madeleine erwachsen ist und aus über 20 Jahren Abstand auf das Geschehene zurückblickt, fand ich die Erzählweise zunächst ein wenig anstrengend, weil so viele lose Fäden aus der Vergangenheit hier endlich verknüpft wurden (manchmal dauerte es mir ein klein wenig zu lang), doch insgesamt hat mich das Buch gleichzeitig in seinen Bann gezogen und geschockt.

Ein außergewöhnliches Buch!

Hneď na začiatku roka som si dala výzvu v podobe vyše 900 stranovej knihy, ktorú som prečítala oveľa rýchlejšie ako som si myslela. Spočiatku som si vravela, že čo niekto potrebuje napísať na toľkých stranách, ale v konečnom dôsledku mi bolo ľúto, keď som knihu dočítavala. Možno by si niektoré časti zaslúžili trošku skrátiť, možno o nejakých sto strán, ale inak autorka presne vie, prečo tú ktorú časť napísala. Úprimne povedané som "padla na kolená" už druhý raz, pretože už autorkina prvotina (Padněte na kolena) ma dostala. Keď si celý čas myslíte, že viete ako to bolo, tak Ann-Marie MacDonald vám ukáže ako veľmi ste sa mýlili.

Odporúčam iba trpezlivým a skúseným čitateľom, nie fanúšikom lacného mainstremu.

Kniha Kam létají vrány je mistrovskou kronikou novodobej histórie Kanady (60´s) v kontexte kľúčových udalostí v našom svete, ale predovšetkým hlboko presvedčivým príbehom ľudského utrpenia, viny a neviny, vyrovnávania sa s tieňmi minulosti, nezdolnosti a hojivej sily lásky.

"Strach je nezbytný předpoklad odvahy."

"Když zemře rodič, zmizí celá planeta, a noční obloha už nikdy nebude vypadat stejně. A nezáleží na tom, jak moc jsme dospělí, když se nám to stane. A když ztratíme oba, je to, jako kdybychom navždycky přišli o stálou střechu nad hlavou – neviditelný štít, první obranná linie mezi námi a smrtelností, je nenávratně pryč. "

I loved this book, only giving it 4 and not 5 stars because I think it could have been streamlined a bit. Being the same age as Madeleine, I was mesmerized by all the cultural references that seemed like my childhood too. From its idyllic beginning to it’s disturbing middle to its satisfying ending… well done!

"When stories are not told, we risk losing our way. Lies trip us up, lacunae gape like blanks in a footbridge. Time shatters and, though we strain to follow the pieces like pebbles through the forest, we are led farther and farther astray. Stories are replaced by evidence. Moments disconnected from eras. Exhibits plucked from experience.
We forget the consolation of the common thread-the way events are stained with the dye of the stories older than the facts themselves.
We lose our memory.
This can make a person ill.
This can make a world ill."

When I first picked up this book, I read the description and the tags and labels that people had pinned on it. When I first looked at this book, I did not think I'd ever read this.

What persuaded me to read it was that MacDonald's first book was written so well that I wanted to see how she would tell the story of The Way the Crow Flies.

But how can you tell this story of the murder of a child - even if the story is partly based of the real life case of Steven Truscott? How can you tell of the lies and secrets that unravel the lives of everyone involved? Of the naivety of the individuals that condemn evil and, yet, at the same fail to see that it is their own simple-mindedness that fuels the travesty of justice that ensues?

MacDonald tells it masterfully. She uses imagery and language that packs a punch. Never overly evocative or manipulative, she shows each story from the characters point of view - and this at times makes you want to stop reading and jump in and shake the person. At other times, this makes you draw the book in closer and cling to every page to find out what happens next.

The Way the Crow Flies is, however, not only the story of a community torn apart by the murder. The book goes deeper. Whilst the books' main character, Madeleine, tries to deal with the events in her own life - events which she feels she cannot speak of, which she feels she needs to protect her family from -, her father, Jack, becomes entangled in a cold war scientific espionage plot in aid of the West's race to the moon.
A boys' own adventure, which in turn will make him question everything he believes in. But to what end? And while he is keen to teach his daughter that the truth must be told, is he mature enough to take responsibility for the consequences?

On another level, MacDonald draws out the individual dilemmas against a historical context - not just the backdrop of the Cold War, but also that of the Second World War - paralleling the space race to the development of the V2 and the atomic bomb. All are inextricably linked through the people that were involved. However, this link creates an issue - How can the same people be working for opposing ideologies?

"But he has enough - his children have enough - to cope with, never mind taking on the past. To report this man would not only be futile; it would be to exhume what is cold and can never heal. To haunt his new family with the inconsolable griefs of his old one."

The book does not try to answer this question but offers serious food for thought. Because the stories, or rather the secrets of both, father and daughter, are bound to test their ideals, their perception of each other and of the world.

"This precious mess. Democracy. How much can be done in its name before, like an egg consumed by a snake, it becomes a mere shell?"

Without knowing of each other's secrets, both main characters are wounded in the process. Are they able to heal?

The Way the Crow Flies has seriously impressed me. MacDonald has not only written a mystery, a political thriller, and a court room drama all in one, she also created a deep and complex psychological tour de force that questions whether the reality we perceive always ties up with the facts and how this reality changes as we mature. Individuals are defined by their story unless they take action to confront it.

Nina says: "Fear isn't the opposite of courage."
"What?"
"It's the prerequisite to courage."


Review originally posted on BookLikes: http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/...

[Warning: this is a long review, but this complex book merits it.]

This is a long, thoughtful, and multi-layered novel. It was recommended to me as a good depiction of life growing up on Canadian military bases, as I did. And it is. It centres around 8-year-old Madeleine McCarthy, who's on her fourth move in 1962, and her father Jack McCarthy, a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) officer. The early part of the story is about how the McCarthys, including Madeleine's Acadian mother Mimi and her older brother Mike, settle into their new home at RCAF Station Centralia, in central Ontario. Author MacDonald captures very well what it's like moving all the time, setting up in yet another military-supplied house. I've been there and done that and I'll attest to the accuracy. She explains the lifestyle better than I could.

MacDonald writes that when you move all the time, you're not from anywhere that you can locate on a map; you're from a series of events. You define yourself by stories -- what she calls "remember-whens" -- not by home towns. And stories are what I think this book is really about. We tell stories to ourselves to make sense of our pasts. We tell stories to each other. We tell stories at a community or cultural level to make sense of our world. And often, we only know part of anyone else's story.

In addition, we sometimes lie to each other, and even to ourselves, to hide unpleasant truths. Stories and lies drive this novel. Madeleine tells lies to protect her parents from knowing how things are in her Grade 4 class. Jack tells lies to protect the secrecy of a military-intelligence operation he's involved in. And society tells itself lies, or at least omits part of history, to justify actions that are at best unethical and at worst criminal. Throw in post-war World War II optimism and Cold War paranoia, and almost every character in this story is deceived by someone about something. Only the reader knows what's going on, and even we can't be totally sure we have the whole story.

Near the half-way mark, all these stories and lies run against the murder of a child, which is announced on the first page, but not fully recounted until much later. The murder is highly reminiscent of the Stephen Truscott case, which MacDonald acknowledges. Jack and Madeleine both have information that is pertinent. One of them must decide whether to lie, and the other must decide whether to tell the truth. Their decisions have consequences that they must both live with. Nearly 20 years later, the story picks up with Madeleine and Jack having to confront and relive the decisions they made then, and update their stories.

The novel is very well-written, with every word carefully chosen. The whole story is told in the present tense, which gives it an immediacy that makes it very compelling. It is, in short, a page-turner. It is very long, however; over 720 pages. Occasional flashbacks and flash-forwards are also in the present tense, which can be a bit confusing, but it's generally easy to adjust. The first portion, dealing with life on the RCAF station, is slow-moving but still engrossing. The pace picks up with the murder trial and its aftermath. This is a sad, disturbing tale. While there are moments of childhood joy and silliness, the events are, on the whole, demoralizing. This is not a feel-good story, but there are one or two deeply moving scenes that remind us what the real point is: it's all about love.

It's hard to categorize this book, which had me mulling over it during the many times I couldn't be reading.
Set mainly in the early sixties, there are a number of themes at work here, and I hesitate to go into detail so as to avoid spoilers. Having just read The Ratline, it was interesting not only to see it referred to - I was unfamiliar with the term before reading Philippe Sands' book- but to see it being played out on the other end. Duty, expectations, decisiveness and lack thereof, innocence and the desire to protect those we perceive as innocent... A lot of ethical issues to kick around.
An intense and moving read.
This was on my TBR shelf for years -not sure where it came from.

I really just thought this book was okay, but I had to add an extra star because the writing is so wonderful.
This is one of those stories that I just can't (or maybe won't, who can say) appreciate. The drama, the characters, the mystery, the why's and wherefores, I just lost interest. The entire middle part of the book was a dead loss to me, though I thought the beginning and the end superb. I loved how it started, with the little girl telling the story of moving, with her fears and understanding of her parents. It was almost magical in the telling. But then the story moves on to her new teacher and her fathers work and became less enchanted, it moves to murder and secrets and I'm not charmed but getting bored, right though to the modern day life of the little girl, all grown up. And then it get better, with her parents retired and the mystery getting solved, the end was good, with just the right amount of closure but leaving some to the imagination.
There is no doubt the the author is extremely talented, it is not easy to take your reader through the emotional wringer and still leave that hope at the end. But for me, this isn't the kind of book I can get invested in.

The setting for this story is Centralia, an Air Force base in Canada. We are immediately drawn into the setting of a murder, a girl in a blue dress lying in a field. The following chapters detail the lives of the McCarthy family, Jack is a career officer in the RCAF, his wife Mimi, daughter Madeline and son Mike. It is in the beginning that the narrative drags as we are inundated with details of life in the military. The perfect wives, ready to move at any time, always there with a homemade pie for the newcomers, the perfect children, the successful soldiers in high offices. While interesting I think this might have been accomplished with leaner dialogue.

By mid book the plot becomes more intricate as Madeline is one of a group of fourth graders who are being molested by their teacher, kept a secret from her parents. Jack is involved in a plot to bring in and hide a Nazi scientist who is defecting to the United States to help them win the race to the moon. There are a multitude of interesting characters introduced including the Frolich family; Henry, a teacher at the base school, his wife and several children. In addition there is an American family, Captain McCarroll along with his wife and daughter Claire who will play a significant part in further chapters. This case is enriched with Ms. MacDonald's artistically detailed character sketches.

The last third of the book moves at a rapid pace keeping the reader quickly turning pages. This book has it all, love, mystery, patriotism, growth and the ability of the human spirit to endure and flourish.

I would highly recommend this book to readers of literary fiction with an aside to "hang in there" during the first chapters, you will be richly rewarded.

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

This book was way too long and I think the editor knew it. The very first page is the description of a scene in which a murder is foretold. The next 350 pages of the book is the meandering build up to the murder scene. Ann-Marie MacDonald leads the reader through rooms involving child molestation, international spydom, elementary school quarrels, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Nazi refugees. And written like this, I admit it sounds interesting. But all of those topics are told through the eyes of a 9 year old who doesn't quite understand.

Interspersed through the narrative are occasional jumps to the murder scene, in which the reader gets time to formulate a motive and suspect. The author is very skilled at leading the reader along the wrong path. Too skilled, I'd say, because if this weren't my book group book I would have stopped reading it about 500 pages in thinking that I knew the who/what/where/when. I think the editor felt the same way, otherwise the murder narratives wouldn't be necessary. The plot would just propel you through the evidence of the case.

After the murder was revealed (I was right about who got killed, by the way, thus adding to my "I can see right through this plot" feeling I had), the plot was more solid and focused. I flew through pp. 350 - 600, really really good stuff. Then in the six hundreds somewhere you hit a chapter that reintroduced Madeleine, the lead character, as an adult. You learn of her hinted at lesbianism and the outcome of her parent's marraige after moving from Centralia, Ontario. She's screwed up, she's leaving her girlfriend for another woman. Honestly, I didn't need all this explication.

Round about p. 725, McDonald starts to reapply the circumstantial evidence of the case and the reader learns their assumed culprit had a solid alibi. You read the main characters findings of the case after she starts researching evidence about 30 years after the incident had taken place and find out the true story of that murderous night. Very well done. I was completely wrong about thinking I knew the mystery at p. 200. The clues planted all along the way that the obvious suspect was not the killer are perfectly fitting in hindsight. Really beautifully told, I just wish I hadn't had to wade through 400 pages of red herrings to find out I was wrong.

This was an amazing book. It is very tragic. The theme and material were hard for me to get through. I had to slow down at times to recover from the tragedy, but I am glad I stuck to it. I also had a hard time "getting into" the book. I was not fond of her style and was not drawn to all the military life details that fill the first part of the book. But, I fell in love with this McCarthy family and I just had to soldier on. Of course her style ending up charming my socks off once I got going.
It is intricately woven and deeply affecting. I loved how the 2 stories paralleled and mirrored each other and then wove themselves together in the end. This woman is amazing. Her use of epitaph (I think that's what they're called) is fantastic. And the intimacy she creates around the main character, Madeleine, is mesmerizing. I highly recommend this book, but I warn that the theme and subject are difficult at times. I, personally do not do well with this sort of thing, but I made it, and I'm glad I did.

Very seldom do we get both a mystery and a well written, intelligent novel in the same book.