Emma Hooper

The Connor family lives in a small fishing village in Newfoundland. It's the early 1990s and the fish have disappeared; slowly, the village empties of its residents who move to find work elsewhere. Aidan and Martha eventually have to compromise and so one of them leaves for a month to go work in the oil industry in Alberta while the other stays home with their children, Cora and Finn. Each month they switch off. Meanwhile, Finn is convinced he can lure the fish back and make his family and community whole again. Interspersed with this narrative is the story of how Aidan and Martha met and fell in love.

I wasn't sure about this book at first - it took some time to settle into, it but I ended up really enjoying the experience. There is something folkloric about it that I loved. I listened to the audio, and the narrator's Canadian accent and ability to sing really enhanced the story.

4 stars… (plus d'informations)

KIRKUS REVIEWHooper?s debut is a novel of memory and longing and desires too long denied. On Saskatchewan?s Great Plains grew 15 Vogel children. When Otto Vogel was still a child, half-orphaned Russell joined the brood. The Great Depression burned on, crops failed, and schooling was casual. One of the teachers was Etta, no older than Otto and Russell. World War II came. Otto left. Russell, broken leg improperly mended, could not. As Hooper?s shifting narrative opens, now-83-year-old Etta awakens, intending to walk to Canada?s east coast, leaving a brief note for her husband, Otto. She carries a bit of food, a rifle, and a note of her identity and home. To a Cormac McCarthy?like narrative¥sans quotation marks, featuring crisp, concise conversationsÂ¥Hooper adds magical realism: Etta?s joined by a talking coyote she names James, who serves as guide and sounding board. With Etta absent, Otto begins baking from her recipes, his companion a guinea pig, always silent. Soon Otto becomes obsessed with constructing a menagerie of papier-m?ch? wildlife. Russell, shy lifelong bachelor and Etta?s wartime lover, follows her, finds her, only to hear her urge him to seek his own quest "because you want to and you?re allowed to and you can. You could have if you wanted to enough"Â¥the novel's thematic heart. Russell disappears into flashbacks. Hooper reveals more of Etta and Otto in letters exchanged during World War II, where Otto by turns is terrified, sickened and enthralled. Otto marries Etta on return, a less than perfect union shadowed by damaged Otto striking out at Etta. With beautifully crafted descriptionsÂ¥derelict farm machinery as "gently stagnant machines"Â¥Hooper immerses herself in characters, each shaped by the Depression. The book ends with sheer poetry, stunning and powerful, multiple short chapters where identities and dreams, longings and memories shift and cling to one character and then another within the "long loop of existence."A masterful near homage to Pilgrim?s Progress: souls redeemed through struggle.Pub Date: Jan. 20th, 2015ISBN: 978-1-4767-5567-0Page count: 320ppPublisher: Simon & Schuster… (plus d'informations)