Two older brothers, and their two younger sisters are suddenly orphaned when a tragic accident takes their parents. This debut book deals with the sacrifices the brothers make to keep the family intact. For me, I just wasn't wowed. I did fall in love with Crow lake, and the descriptions of this desolate, Northern Canada rural town. I didn't love the protagonist, Kate Morrison, but maybe that was the point. She was aloof and purposely distanced herself from family and others.

The story of Crow Lake is told to us by the third of four siblings, Kate Morrison, looking back on her eight year old self and the events of a summer that changed the trajectory of her life and the life of her beloved brother, Matt. The thing that Lawson does that makes this book sing is create the relationship between Kate and Matt in such a way that we feel their bond and their emotions, and we hurt for the older Kate who has let so much of what went wrong shape her feelings toward life and love.

Kate’s parents are killed very early in the narrative and the burden of raising two little sisters falls upon the two boys in the family, twenty year old Luke and eighteen year old Matt. Luke is poised to step off into the world and attend university and Matt is in his final year of high school. To say that their lives are turned upside-down is an understatement. The youngest daughter, Bo, is only two, very self-willed, thumb-sucking and in need of constant attention; Kate is just beginning to find her identity and shape her dreams; everyone is fragile.

From this tragedy, Lawson spins a magnificent tale of love, disappointment, and family dynamics. It is painful at times to watch these youngsters struggle with issues that would be too weighty for much older and cooler heads. The extra character in this book is the town of Crow Lake, itself. A small, isolated town, with one store, a church and scattered farms, it is described beautifully and plays as important a part in the unfolding history of the Morrisons as the children themselves.

A lovely read. Not my last Lawson, as I am happy to find I have one more already sitting on my physical bookshelf hoping to be picked soon.

Oh my gosh what a wonderful book. The fictional town of Crow Lake reminds me so much of my young life in a northern Ontario town. This family has the fortitude to make the best of their situation. I was kept in suspense because it is apparent that something terrible is going to happen. But every time it gets close I am returned to the present for a relaxing chapter or two before the suspense builds again. And indeed their are disappointments and things don’t turn out as planned. But in the end the real tragedy is not what we thought it was. This a beautifully told story of expectations, disappointments and success!

3.5* rounded up

"I have pursued your dream single-mindedly; I have become familiar with books and ideas you never even imagined, and somehow, in the process of acquiring all that knowledge, I have managed to learn nothing at all."

Beautifully written and emotionally moving, Crow Lake is told through the point of view of a young woman who has lived through a certain type of family hell and survived it. Sort-of. Four children, different ages with different temperaments, are forced into bonds and responsibility that weighed them down when tragedy struck their family in a small town. Ultimately the book is about sacrifices people make and how they come to terms with it.

There isn't any surprise revelation at the end - the book didn't need that - but it was a sense of awakening for the protagonist, Kate. She finally opens her eyes and loses some of the blinders she had on for most of her life. I felt bad for not liking her some of the time because I kept reminding myself she was a vulnerable person drowning in tragedy at one point and that I probably just couldn't understand her view enough, but I can't help it - there's a small selfish, unlikable vibe she has going down.

The bonding of siblings with small town people who act like heroes was maybe the best part. I could care less about the twisted side story of the neighboring family, but the author took pains to inject foreshadowing and hinting galore about them - even opening the story by comparing the two. Really the book would have been just as good without that family and the secrets, but I suppose it did add another dimension to the storyline and where one character ended up, just probably not as strongly as the author intended it to.

Despite how beautifully written it was, how well the author handled the ups and downs of small-town life and tragic struggles, the book held little content other than a small step in the direction of personal growth. It leaves a bittersweet feeling in the chest that sad stories often imprint. It was a telling of how four lives evolved and how four people beat the odds in different ways, but my interest didn't raise above a three star by the end of it.

When Kate is only 7-years old, tragedy hits her family in Northern Ontario. She and her baby sister, Bo, end up being raised by their older brothers, Luke (19-years old) and Matt (17-years old). Luke gives up his future so they can stay together, and also so Matt can finish school and continue to university (he was always the smarter one, anyway – the one expected to go to university). Kate and Matt have a bond.

Grown-up Kate, a professor in Toronto, never thought she’d fall in love, but she has. But she also has a hard time opening up to Daniel about her past and her family, even though they’ve been together for more than a year. Daniel still hasn’t even met her family.

I really liked this. It was slow-moving, but I found even the biology bits interesting. There was tension in Kate’s family, though she didn’t understand much of it when she was a kid. And the neighbours had some drama (this may be putting it lightly) going on at their place, as well. I actually read this over a decade ago, but only remembered siblings and a lake (actually it was a pond). I really didn’t remember much at all, but it was chosen as a book club book, and I’m really glad I reread it.

This book is a gem for lovers of literary fiction. Mary Lawson captures the emotions and narratives of one family in Northern Ontario and puts them onto the page and into the hearts of readers. Told from the perspective of Kate, we are privy to the gifts, challenges, and tragedies that the Morrisons encounter, endure and surmount.

As the novel opens, the four children - Luke, Matt, Kate and Bo - are depicted as living a comfortable life with their middle class parents in a remote area of Canada. Luke has unexpectedly passed his national exams and has won a scholarship to study education at a Toronto university. Shortly after the reader finds this out, the children's parents are killed in a tragic automobile accident.

Time passed and Kate, now grown up, is a zoologist at a Toronto university and has been invited to Matt's son's high school graduation. She is debating whether to attend as she has distanced herself from her family. Once, she and Matt were so close, and it was Matt who instilled in her the love of science. What has happened? Kate reminisces about her childhood and the events that occurred which shaped her and her siblings throughout childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood.

Kate explores her life as an orphan, how she was raised and by whom. She looks back at herself and the impact of her parents' death on herself and each one of her siblings. Luke, overnight, as the oldest, is put in a place of responsibility. Can he continue with his education? Matt, the smart one, is forced to consider whether he should put his own dreams on hold. Kate is speechless after her parent's death. It appears that she has post-traumatic disorder which impacts her ability to trust and open up with others. Her life has been one of guardedness and secrets. Bo, the rebellious one and a toddler when her parents die, is only aware of herself.

Ms. Lawson writes beautifully and the book is an examination of love, family, projection, and finally, acceptance. I savored every page and felt connected to every character. The language is rich and poetic as is the sens of place it describes. It draws the reader into a place that only great literature is capable of doing.

n  “I believe we have choice. The idea that we are carried along by fate, unable to resist or change direction, sounds suspiciously like an excuse to me.”n

Kate Morrison, Assistant Professor (Invertebrate Ecology), faces a problem. She has been invited to her nephew’s eighteenth birthday celebration which she plans to attend. However, the invitation extends to her bringing a friend, and the current man in her life has seen the invitation. The problem is that much as she cares for Professor Daniel Crane, she is not keen to introduce him to her family or her past. Her reticence is becoming a problem in their relationship, as she accompanies Daniel on visits to his parents who are both academics. Kate feels an enormous gulf between her world (or the one she has more or less left behind) and that of the Cranes. In addition, she simply finds it difficult to share: “Understatement was the rule in our house. Emotions, even positive ones, were kept firmly under control. It was the Eleventh Commandment, carved on its very own tablet of stone and presented specifically to those of Presbyterian persuasion: Thou Shalt Not Emote.” Kate is not good at “chit-chat”, and she doesn’t like the teaching aspect of her job as she finds it difficult to relate to students; she prefers her research. It is not that she does not love anyone; she simply finds it very difficult to express her feelings. Daniel on the other hand is open and uncomplicated, and he is baffled and hurt by her evasion or lack of empathy as he sees it. Can a relationship survive if there is no mutual sharing?

The invitation causes Kate to reflect on her past, on the years of growing up in Crow Lake, Northern Ontario, and on the day when everything changed. The day when her parents were killed (this is not a spoiler as the book blurb mentions her being an orphan). At the time Kate was but a little girl, her younger sister Bo was a toddler and her two brothers were in their upper teens. I won’t go into the details of what happens immediately after the tragedy as that is for you to read, but suffice to say that the brothers end up looking after the little girls, and they do so to the best of their abilities. Luke optimistically believes that everything will be OK, whilst Matt worries about the lack of funds and just about everything else. Luke is the main housekeeper and is adored by Bo, but Matt sees the chaos of the household and equates that with the general state of their lives.

Since the time of their great-grandmother Morrison obtaining a good education has been of primary consideration in the Morrison family as it provided not only good opportunities, but also choice which meant that one could choose to live on a farm in the middle of nowhere if one wanted to, as her father did: “In the living room of his house he had a bookcase full of books, and rarer still, he had the leisure time to read them. If he had settled in a farming community it was because he felt at home with the values he found there. The point was, he had a choice. That was what they had won for him.” Choice is an important theme in this novel. Luke, the eldest boy, although not the brightest in the family, does better than expected at school and has the opportunity to further his studies. Younger brother Matt is brilliant. However, with both parents dead, circumstances have changed, hopes have to be modified and new plans need to be forged. Matt’s choices are a problem for Kate. Will she come to terms with the fact that those choices were his, and that they are not her responsibility, but that Matt has to live with whatever decisions he made.

Not everyone else in the neighbourhood has the luxury of choice either. The Pye family has a reputation for family violence, each successive patriarch in the family perpetuating the violence. The Pye children have to work on the farm night and day. They do have simple choices such as leaving, but their choices are very limited and don’t include education. The fates of the Pyes and the Morrisons eventually become intertwined, but no more details from me. It is quite interesting to note that in these outlying communities the girls seem to have a better education than the boys as the latter are required to do farm work, whereas girls who finish schools can do the bookkeeping and perform other clerical duties on the farm. But finishing school does not necessarily mean further education. One of Kate’s students tells her that: “She had won a scholarship to university. Her father had been both astonished and annoyed when she said she was taking it up. He couldn’t see what good a degree would do her. A waste of time, he said, and a waste of money. Her mother was proud of her, but mystified. Why would she want to leave home?”

Quotes:

“But then, I hadn’t been aware that people could die. At least not people you loved and needed. Death in principle I had known about; death in practice – no. I hadn’t known that could happen.”

“Love goes deeper than anything else, I guess. It gets to the core of you, and when Daniel got to the core of me I found that Matt and Luke and Bo were there too. They were part of me. In spite of the years apart I still knew their faces better than my own. Anything I knew of love I had learned from them.”

“Partly too, it is the sensation of going back in time, moving from ‘now’ to ‘then’, and the recognition that wherever you are now and wherever you may be in the future, nothing alters the point you started from.”

“I have pursued your dream single-mindedly; I have become familiar with books and ideas you never even imagined, and somehow, in the process of acquiring all that knowledge, I have managed to learn nothing at all.”

It's a strange thing that I came across this book. I found it wedged into the back of a shelf downstairs. It seems I read it at the perfect time. It came to me in the midst of serious, physical grief, the kind where your body is taken over by sadness and is simply a vessel for your shaking and sobbing and wailing. Oh the wailing. You will wail. And not in the Wayne's World sense. Its the kind of thing that you can't let anyone else listen to, because what the wailing is is the pain leaving your body. That pain, floating about untethered, can do serious injury. That's why you do it alone.

So the same day I'm holding my cousin's 14 hour old baby in my arms, and the knowledge that my own mother won't be there when I hold my children in my arms for the first time- or any time- comes searing through my blood, I find this book.

Kate's parents are both killed in a car crash when she is seven years old, on a day that had begun like any other. As an adult, Kate returns to the year following her parents death, when, to prevent the family from being broken apart more, Luke, the oldest, then 19, decides to raise Matt, 17, Kate ,7, and Bo, 1, on his own.

Perhaps it is hardest for Kate. Losing both parents at seven years old. Such a vulnerable age. Her fear is palpable. If one of her brothers is late coming home, she is certain, until she sees his face, that he is dead too. It's heartbreaking. When you think about it, how often do you get a window into a grieving seven year-old? Though the book is fiction, it has the vividness of an autobiography.


Amid the complication, the arguing, and the desperation among them all, love is present: it is clear and pervasive and strong, and nothing short of miraculous. While this poor child is swallowed by fear, she loves her brothers. And they love her. Grief is a lifelong plague- but the love she has for her family is continually extricating her from it, even into adulthood. Its a fascinating look at time. It is fascinating to see what she carries with her- because its all the right stuff.

As a younger sister, as a victim of parental loss, as someone who is seeking to define herself as an adult in the face of grief, and as someone who has a family (albeit a broken one) I found this book to be enormously powerful, perhaps because it is so relevant. But the writing is simple and beautiful. It is a stunning portrait of familial love (we take its potency for granted.) The story is phenomenally complex but equally simple. Love simplifies things. By the end of the book I was struck dumb, totally overcome with one truth the story brought to light: No love is ordinary.

4 Stars

A lovely, haunting, rural tale of 4 orphaned siblings set in Canada in a remote farming village. The decade is never quite emphasized, which gives this a timely feel. Beautiful descriptions of the natural surroundings, esp. the pond areas, and I wanted more! I had less interest in the academic portions but understood why they are necessary. Also enjoyed the quilted manner in which this was put together. And the ending, which should not be spoiled. Very talented author who is great with character (Bo stole the show). I'll be looking into her other books. Thanks to a Goodreads friend for bringing it to my attention (can't recall who it was, sorry! Maybe Anne?). 4.5 stars.

This book has been sitting on my shelf, unread, for many years. I wish I'd left it there. While this is Mary Lawson's first book, my sympathy is limited. She offers no depth to her characters. You develop no bonds with anyone in the book. It has a poorly assembled storyline which is supposed to develop into an emotional epiphany for the flat protagonist "Kate"; however, by the end of the book, Kate has learned almost nothing about herself and, what she has "learned", was not picked up by her after years of emotional self-probing, but laid out plainly for her in speeches by other characters in the story. She refuses to accept that they might be right and, thus, nothing has changed for her by the end of the story, which Lawson sloppily wraps up in the last few pages.

While some of the characters in the book are interesting, none display more than one defining feature. You grow to dislike the protagonist almost immediately and her little sister "Bo" is nothing but a ball of anger intended to make the protagonist appear less annoying. While the storyline had hope, originally, the author is clearly unskilled and unfit to develop it into something meaningful. She repeats herself on obvious points about the protagonist's fear of emotional bonding and she makes a passing reference to the Luke's possible homosexuality in a side comment that is never mentioned again. Too bad, since he's one of the characters I actually liked.

I did appreciate the author's description of life for farming families in early northern Ontario. It made me want to re-read some Robertson Davies. However, if a story of hard life for Canadian pioneering families in the early 1900s is what you seek, pick up some Margaret Laurence or Robertson Davies to read it done well. This book is considered "Canadian Lit" because it takes place in northern Ontario and the author was born here and probably still has her Canadian passport tucked away in a shoebox with some other trinkets from her childhood. Mary Lawson has clearly not been to northern Ontario since she was a child and has no real memory of it except for insects and water; she wrote the book in Britain where she has lived since she was a teenager.