It seems that the comparison of this novel with "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens is inevitable. In fact, there are many parallels between them, in a variety of evaluation planes. Looking at what are the similarities and differences?

Similarities:

1 . Age non-professionals. The authors are almost the same age: Owens is seventy-two, Mary Lawson is seventy-five. Both ladies are scientists who have not written novels before, but have experience writing popular science books (as in the case of Owens) and short stories (Lawson).

2 Late debut. Owens wrote her "Crayfish" at seventy, Lawson "Crow Lake" at fifty-two, edited it for three more years and tried to attach it to a publishing house, and saw it printed only when she was fifty-six.

3 Orphanhood. In both books, the main character is an early orphaned girl from a large family, the scene is a picturesque wilderness, far from civilization.

4 Growing up + survival. In both cases, it is a novel of growing up, closely related to the experience of survival and preservation of integrity in extremely unfavorable external circumstances.

5 Ecology. Both are imbued with a love of nature, largely devoted to the problems of ecology and environmental protection from the destructive effects of human civilization.

6 Sibling relationships. In both, the girl feels the strongest attachment to one of the older brothers, and the departure of one of them into the big world becomes the cause of a painful discord of fraternal-sisterly relations.

7 Detective is not love. Here and there there is a detective line with a murder, secondary to the plot, but adding tension to it. At the same time, the love line almost does not play a role. For both heroines in their relationships with men, love-friendship is much more important than love-passion.

Differences

1 Location: the harsh Canadian nature of "Crow Lake" is strikingly different from the warm humid tropical swamps of Louisiana.

2 Family: while the girl from "Where the Crayfish Sing" is faced with the monstrous selfishness of relatives who abandon her to the mercy of fate, the four Morrison children are united by the misfortune that befell them and makes them work together, and distant relatives do not stand aside.

3 Community: while the Kia family are outcasts and outcasts, whom no one in the neighboring town respects, and the townspeople do not support the girl left alone, the Morrisons are not left with care, help them and take care of them.

4 Problems. Unlike the fabulous swamp robinsonade of a lonely girl, the difficulties of the Morrisons' children are real, and a young handsome guy who is forced to wash his sister's soaked diapers, instead of shooting girls or throwing acid at a disco, is an image that evokes lively sympathy.

5 Priority of education. Baby Kia attends school exactly one day in her life, which does not prevent her from becoming a popular author of books about swamp fauna in the future, while the heroes of "Crow Lake" see learning as the key to solving most problems and for them schooling is a real daily work.

6 Problems of unprotected sex. While the heroine of "Singing Crayfish" allows herself close communication with a man without any noticeable unpleasant consequences, the boys from Lawson's novel have to make their choice, in accordance with the hormonal background, and carelessness costs the heroine's brother the opportunity to continue his education.

7 Social relations. Delia Owens' novel is pristine in this sense, the heroine is initially turned off from society, while Lawson's characters are closely involved in many relationships of the rural community and the academic environment, revealing themselves in them, searching and finding their place, comprehending the features of interactions.

To summarize: both books are good, each in its own way. Having brought acquaintance with one, it is difficult to resist and not read the second. Enjoy reading.

Не там, где раки поют: сравниваю "Воронье озеро" с книгой Дэлии Оуэнс

Кажется, сравнение этого романа с "Там, где раки поют" Дэлии Оуэнс неизбежно как дембель. И не только потому, что обе книги от издательства Фантом Пресс. На самом деле, параллелей между ними, в самых разных оценочных плоскостях, множество. Смотрим в чем сходства и различия?

Сходства:

1 . Возрастные непрофессионалки. Авторы почти ровесницы: Оуэнс семьдесят два , Мэри Лоусон семьдесят пять лет. Обе дамы ученые, прежде романов не писавшие, но имеющие опыт написания научно-популярных книг (как в случае Оуэнс) и рассказов (Лоусон).

2 Поздний дебют. Оуэнс написала своих "Раков" в семьдесят, Лоусон "Воронье озеро" в пятьдесят два, еще три года редактировала его и пыталась пристроить в издательство, а напечатанным увидела только пятидесятишестилетней.

3 Сиротство. В обеих книгах главная героиня - рано осиротевшая девочка из многодетной семьи, место действия - живописная глушь, вдали от цивилизации.

4 Взросление+выживание. В обоих случаях это роман взросления, тесно связанного с опытом выживания и сохранения целостности в крайне неблагоприятных внешних обстоятельствах.

5 Экология. Обе проникнуты любовью к природе, в значительной степени посвящены проблемам экологии и охраны окружающей среды от разрушительного воздействия человеческой цивилизации.

6 Сиблинг- отношения. В обеих наиболее сильную привязанность девочка испытывает к одному из старших братьев, а уход одного из них в большой мир становится причиной мучительного разлада братско-сестринских отношений.

7 Детектив - не любовь. Там и тут имеет мес��о детективная линия с убийством, второстепенная для сюжета, но добавляющая ему напряженности. При этом любовная линия почти не играет роли. Для обеих героинь в их отношениях с мужчинами любовь-дружба куда важнее любви-страсти.

Различия

1 Локация: суровая канадская природа "Вороньего озера" разительно отличается от теплых влажных тропических болот Луизианы.

2 Семья: в то время, как девочка из "Там, где раки поют" сталкивается с чудовищным эгоизмом родственников, которые бросают ее на произвол судьбы, четверку детей Моррисонов постигшее их несчастье сплачивает и заставляет совместно трудиться, не остаются в стороне и дальние родственники.

3 Община: в то время, как семья Киа изгои и отщепенцы, которых никто в соседнем городке не уважает, и горожане не поддерживает оставшуюся в одиночестве девочку, Моррисонов не оставляют попечением, помогают им и опекают.

4 Проблемы. В отличие от сказочной болотной робинзонады одинокой девочки, сложности детей Моррисонов реальны, а молодой красивый парень, вынужденный стирать обкаканные подгузники сестры, вместо того, чтобы кадрить девчонок или закидываться кислотой на дискотеке - образ, вызывающий живое сочувствие.

5 Приоритет образования. Малютка Киа посещает школу ровно один день в жизни, что не мешает ей стать в дальнейшем популярным автором книг о болотной фауне, в то время, как герои "Вороньего озера" видят в учебе ключ к решению большинства проблем и для них школьное обучение это реальный ежедневный труд.

6 Проблемы незащищенного секса. Тогда как героиня "Поющих раков" позволяет себе тесное общение с мужчиной без сколько-нибудь заметных неприятных последствий, мальчикам из романа Лоусон приходится делать свой выбор, сообразуясь с гормональным фоном, и неосторожность стоит брату героини возможности продолжать образование.

7 Социальные отношения. Роман Дэлии Оуэнс девственно чист в этом смысле, героиня изначально выключена из социума, в то время, как персонажи Лоусон тесно ввязаны во множество отношений сельской общины и академической среды, раскрываясь в них, ища и находя свое место, осмысливая особенности взаимодействий.

Резюмируя: обе книги хороши, каждая по-своему. Сведя знакомство с одной, трудно удержаться и не прочесть вторую. Приятного чтения.

3.5 stars

Spare and somber (but not overly so), Mary Lawson's Crow Lake is evocative of Carol Shields' Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Stone Diaries but (to its credit) isn't quite as overladen with flowery prose (or twee cutesiness). Both novels are set in rural Canada (Crow Lake in the northern-most inhabited reaches of Ontario, Stone Diaries in stone quarry-filled central Manitoba); both feature a female narrator whistfully looking back on their hardscrabble rural pasts. In the right melancholic frame of mind, I enjoyed both of these, but Crow Lake ultimately wins out with a more relatable story.

Kate Morrison, twenty-eight year-old environmental biology professor at an unnamed (but probably Toronto-based) university, reminisces about her life in Crow Lake, a sugar beet farming community with little more than a schoolhouse, a general store, and a Presbyterian church to barely mark it on the map. She focues back to when she was eight years-old, on the two years following the tragic deaths of her parents, and how she and her three siblings (two much older teen brothers Matt and Luke, and infant sister Bo) try to keep what remains of their family together. The Morrison family, despite living in a farming community that prioritized (by necessity) crop returns for survival's sake, valued education above all. So the elder Morrison boys, university-bound, are faced with the decision of either shelving their academic dreams (and working the fields, an Herculean task when you've got two young siblings to take care of) or submitting to the wishes of distant family willing to take them in (but in doing so breaking up the sibling bonds that tie them together.)

This is not a particularly splashy novel, but it is quietly affecting, and not nearly as depressing as the jacket info led me
to imagine. I believe this was Ms. Lawson's first novel; I'd like to visit her more recent works as I'm plenty certain she's got more lovely stories of rural Ontario life and family to share with us.

I love this book SOOOOOO
MUCH!
I’m afraid I’m going to sound like a broken record when I say how much I really LOVE this book. Recently I’ve had a good run with a few books that are absolutely terrific….
And
THIS NOVEL IS TOO!!!!!
It’s a *REALLY* special novel to me….
Effortless reading…. smooth
gorgeous - addicting-prose….
exactly the type of literary fiction I love best….
I was sad — so that must be said—
but “Crow Lake and the Morrison family, deeply resonated with me.

Just SOOOO WONDERFUL (haha, those last two words have become my signature autograph lately )….
But…
ITS TRUE!!
…..by golly…this is the BEST BOOK!!!
And given my background of having lost a father to death suddenly - at age 4 - and all the things that unfolded…..
I was incredibly choked up during about 50% of reading it. (throughout)

I read parts of this novel while feeling sick & horrible associated with the devastation in Florida — the building that collapsed….

Also….
I know I’m getting sloppy and lazy with reviews lately.
So much is going on….
Between some of my own physical ailments ….. running a business…..lots to take care of ( body, property, health issues physical pain, etc etc.)…. people stopping —-three different people this morning and it’s barely 1:30 pm….
plus….. aren’t we allowed to get sloppy with writing reviews when it’s summertime?
The desire to simply be outside —every moment enjoying this blue
sky ‘warm-weather’…is so inviting and overall health enhancing.

There is much I’d love to say about this book….loved it passionately!!!

Thank you for all the people who have talked about this for many years. I don’t know why it took me so long to read it, but I want to thank each and everyone of you.
And….
This is another book I want to put in the hands of every friend I know….who hasn’t taken their turn to read it yet.

It’s another family story… themes include with love, death, loss, choices, …. and more!
Readers will feel as if you know characters.
The narrator, Katherine, who goes by Kate, was outstanding!!!


I am left thinking about our unfulfilled dreams….
..our failed family relationships ….
And
..the possibility of ‘okay-ness’….. even when life has thrown us some shitty curveballs.

You and I are constantly having to re-adjust and accept the way things are…..
This novel opens our thinking and hearts - for sure- when disappointments happen, when the rug is pulled out from under us, and we bump up against ourselves (our own worse enemy)

Here are a few excerpts:
none of them spoil the plot.

Kate attended a conference in Edmonton to give a paper on the effect of pesticides on the life of still-water ponds.
“We flew very low over northern Ontario”…..
She was staggered by the vast-ness of it…..
“miles and miles of nothing, of rocks and trees and lakes, beautiful and desolate and remote as the moon. And then below us I suddenly saw a thin gray-white line, weaving about in the middle of all that nothingness, finding its way around the lakes and swamps and granite outcrops. and at the head, as if it were a balloon and that fragile line a piece of string attached to it, a small clearing adhered at the side of the lake.
Kate thought about how brave she and other people were who dared to live remote from their other fellows in such a vast and silent land”.

“Pond watching—as therapy”..
“There is something about water, even if you have no particular interest in the life-forms within it”.

Outstanding, a favorite, highly recommend it!!!

Why I chose to read this book:
1. I came across it on Goodreads. Written by a Canadian author (that I haven't read before) only added to my desire of placing it on my WTR list; and,
2. July 2023 is my "O' Canada Month"!

Praises:
1. author Mary Lawson excels at writing realistic fiction! When four siblings are suddenly left orphaned, her slow-burn story shows how these children coped, and how their community rallied around them;
2. Lawson's depiction of all her characters, their thoughts and their actions, make them so incredibly believable! I loved following Bo's character as a typical toddler. Her antics were hilarious. Daniel's character (Katie's partner) was so astute, which made him someone I could trust. But most of all, I could closely relate to MC Katie's thought processes. I'm guilty of using "the silent treatment" at times;
3. the peaceful setting based in northern Ontario was like a character in itself; and,
4. the plot is like a pebble dropped into a pond. It spreads out like ripples, taking me in, wondering what drove two siblings, who were exceptionally close, so far apart? How did the other characters fit in?

Overall Thoughts:
Lawson's debut skillfully drew me in to care about all of her characters, leading me to wonder - what happened? And why?
A quick read - difficult to put down!

this is a story i felt. mary lawson's tight focus on the inner lives of her characters consumed my attention from first to last page. it's mostly a meditation on love and loss. it's about a family of children who will stop at nothing to stay together after their parents die. it's about how a bright future can be blindsided in a moment, it's about how circumstance shapes character, it's about good townsfolk & hard work, it's about might-have-beens, & it's about self-awareness. loved it.

One way to tell if I have enjoyed a book is as I near the end I purposely slow my reading down. I don't want my relationship with the characters to end I want to savor the final knowing.....

Such was the case with Crow lake. Kate is an academic from a rural Northern Canadian small town. At 27 she is falling in love with Daniel,a fellow academic who has less complicated background. For her to come to terms with this, she needs to gain insight into why it is not easy to let love in. Her past contains tragedy, sensitivity, acts of unselfish kindness and harsh brutality, all of which she has not really examined. She is closely linked to her three siblings and their shared experiences but has managed to compartmentalize things and perhaps have a different view

The story is a delicate unfolding of her self discovery towards a closer perception of the shared view.

I read this book several months ago and am still having a hard time reviewing this properly. To say I loved this book would be a huge understatement. It was such a powerful story and one that stays with you for a long time to come.

This is the story of Kate Morrison and her tragic childhood, after being orphaned quite young. I found myself quite emotional throughout the book… not because the subject matter was sad, but because Mary Lawson made me feel everything. The story was told in such a subtle way so that I felt everything but wasn’t manipulating into feeling it. (That’s a fine line in writing)

This is very cleanly written, so it's a fast read. Just a good simple story about 4 children who lose their parents in a car accident and the struggles they go through to stay together as a family. The narrator looks back on how the choices each of them made altered their own lives as well as the lives of their siblings.
I've been reading a lot of emotionally wrenching stuff lately, so this was a nice calm read for a change!
I liked her second novel (The Other Side of the Bridge) a little better because it has more depth, but this one is good too.

Good story. I liked Katie the main character of the story and adored her family members. Especially Bo. I could picture that child exactly! Touching but a short book. I actually wanted more.

I feel like I’ve just been hit by a truck—this book blindsided me and despite the impact, I adore it. This may be because it ticks so many of my personal boxes, but I’ve been wandering the house since I finished it, ploughing my way through laundry, dinner, dishes, trying desperately to find my footing again, while I’m processing.

Within the first few pages of the book, Katherine’s parents are killed in a car accident, sending the four children on a confusing, agonizing struggle to put their lives back together again. Katherine is only seven years old—I was 34 when it happened to me, and my life was blown apart and has never fully recovered.

“You make it sound like it was centuries ago,” Daniel said. “If you parents died when you were seven, it’s barely twenty years.”
“It feels like centuries,” I said.

Lawson nails it with that tiny bit of dialog. Although it’s been 18 years since my parents’ car accident, some days it feels like yesterday—other days it feels like I never had parents. And I completely relate to Katherine’s numbness, the reluctance to feel anything about anyone—if you care, there’s a good chance that they will get yanked away from you. Not caring seems like your only defence against heart wrenching pain. The only problem is that is doesn’t work. People like Katherine’s boyfriend Daniel worm their way into your life and you reluctantly begin to care about them, all the while struggling to see them as temporary and frustrating the hell out of them, as they wonder what is wrong with you.

I clearly remember the day that I put my emotions on ice—it was about a year and a half after the funerals and I remember thinking, “I’m so tired of crying.” So I quit. It has taken years to thaw that permafrost and I’m still unsure that the process is finished. Still a bit freezer-burned, I guess.

It’s taken me eighteen years, but I’ve finally been able to engage with my family again—they’ve been very patient, they waited and I’ve been accepted back without reservation. Knowing this makes me love them fiercely—after being emotionally frozen for so many years, the strength of that love surprises me on each and every occasion that I spend time with them.

I also have a farm background like Katherine and used university as a way to do something different—I even started my university career as a biology major until I was seduced by so many other interesting subjects and wandered away into the arts and social sciences. But I have so many fond memories of wandering the coulees of home, identifying wild flowers, scooping snails out of the pond, and studying the ground squirrels as I emulated my personal idol, Jane Goodall [chimpanzees were in short supply, but ground squirrels were plentiful on the prairies].

So I may have been predisposed to love this book—still, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is worth more than 5 stars to me.

This story is about much more than relationships. It is about life. It is about organisms that live in ponds and how they cling to life. It is about family. It is about carrying on the dreams and hopes of previous generations. It is about education and how important it is and how, sometimes, you miss life as it is happening. It is a lyrical and wonderfully magical story that ensnares you in its telling. It is dreamy and haunting. It is one of the better books I've read this year ~~ it is something I was not expecting to read and, now, I wish there was more of it.

There is nothing in this book that seemed out of place or false.

It is said that all good writing must provide a 'sense of place' in which the action occurs, and Crow Lake and the surrounding community are almost as important as characters as are the humans in this lyrical and evocative book.

Crow Lake succeeds on all levels.

Book #26 of 2009
Back to the serious side of things I guess... I've been chewing on this book for a couple of days now, never being really invested in it to make a big to finishing it, certainly not devouring it like the last five books or so. I'm not even really sure how I feel about it. Its almost anticlimatic in a way. The whole book builds up to this supposedly huge catastrophe, which isn't really a catastrophe at all, but a decision moving life one way instead of another. But the supposed catastrophe isn't even really the point of the book, it's the narrator's view of said catastrophe that is really the purpose of the book it seems, and the climax is such a small mental shift in the way she looks at "the catastrophe". The narrator herself isn't really an overly likeable character in my opinion. When she talks about her younger self she just seems so selfish. But then again, she was a kid so I guess that is to be expected. And when she talks about her adult self, she seems so aloof, emotionally univnested in much of anything.