This is the story of being an "outsider". Albert is a member of the Erskine clan...a family that lives in semi-isolation on a mountain. The Erskine's abuse drugs, alcohol and, tragically, their children. As the oldest of his generation, Albert lives alone. He doesn't participate in the abuse, but does little to stop it,either.

In town, Tom Evans' wife is an outsider as well. She comes from "away", and struggles to cope with everyday challenges of life. Her children feel this isolation. And when teen-aged Bobby meets the slightly older Albert, we see the two worlds of town and mountain collide.

This is a good story that raises issues of what it means to distance ourselves from others -- the tragic implications of doing nothing, the lost potential of our young people, family breakdown. Well written, good characters, thought-provoking....this is what I like in a book. ( )

This book is set in a small community in New York state. The town's residents fear and are contemptuous of those who live on the mountain. The story centers on a town family that is falling apart. Tom Evans went all the way to the city and brought back Patty, who is, years later, still viewed with suspicion as an outsider. She's struggling to cope, while her husband watches helplessly. Her ten-year-old daughter is being bullied at school but finds a refuge of sorts with the widow who runs an antique store. And her son, Bobby, a teenager, finds a new and exciting friend in Albert, who is 22 and one of the Erskine clan who live on the mountain.

This novel starts like a firecracker, combining a rural noir setting that Donald Ray Pollock and Daniel Woodrell would envy, pulling no punches as she describes what life is like for the Erskine clan through the eyes of Albert, who would dreams of leaving, but is trapped by both the family code of honor, where no one snitches and no one leaves, and his inability to leave the children trapped there to their fates. His uncles have decided to start making meth, which increases the level of danger for everyone in their small community. Add to this an End Times church with an outspoken, firebrand pastor and the scene is set for a dark and fascinating story.

And then Davis retreats. She moves the story into the small town at the base of the mountain, where everyone may be in each other's business, but they are respectable and law-abiding. The story of the Evans family is a good one, but after the raw power of that first chapter, it feels like a milder, less interesting story than what is happening a few miles away. Davis returns to the mountain at the end of the book, but by then that hard-edged approach feels tacked on for the shock value. This is a good book lessened in impact by the killer first chapter, the ending a disappointment of easy solutions. I'd love to see what Davis could write if she let herself go for an entire book. And the central story was interesting and worth reading, but so overshadowed by the framing chapters that its impact was lost. ( )

You ever met anybody didn't have trouble, and I mean real trouble, with their families? They are there to fuck you up. That's it. They are there to see if you're strong enough to survive and if you're not, you're not. It's like Darwin right? Survival of the fittest. Throw the baby bird out of the nest and see if it can fly and if it can't then feed it to the cat. They tell you it's all about love and that shit, but it's not. It's about biology. Survival of the species. It's a badge of honor, is the way I look at it. Pg. 158

The Erskines have lived on the isolated North Mountain for generations. They keep to themselves while the city folks have for the large part just kept their eyes shut, ignoring the going ons. Secrets and darkness abounds. Evil flourishes. Albert has learned to run fast and fight hard. He is a survivor against all the horrors he has endured, the humiliation, the terror. A newly found friendship with a teenage boy in the city threatens to uproot the delicate balance between them and us while a whole community must come to terms with the repercussions of a pandora's box spanning the generations.

Our Daily Bread was a stomach churning, bile raising kind of read. The subject of child abuse, child torture, child neglect is a prevalent thread that runs throughout the story and each time I find myself cringing inwardly. Loosely inspired by the exposure and conviction of the Goler clan in Nova Scotia, the story runs deeper than the atrocities that are described, delving into the psychology of treating people as outsiders, of the guilt of being a just a bystander, and the loneliness of isolation. In the end, there is the tiniest shred and faintest glimmer of redemption, making the uncomfortable reading experience bearable. Not for the faint of heart, but clearly an issue that needs to be brought to light. ( )

“You keep your secrets to yourself and you keep your weaknesses a secret and your hurts a secret and your dreams you bury double deep. He’d had that list by the time he was ten.” (56)

Our Daily Bread, in itself fictional, is based on the true story of the Goler Clan of the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. The Erskine Clan lives on North Mountain in the maritime town of Gideon. The Clan lives in secrecy, poverty, and ignorance – marginalized by their neighbours as being beyond salvation. For decades, the “Lost Children” of the Clan have endured unspeakable abuse, incest, and neglect. Those in a position to help are content to leave the Erskines, “The Others,” relegated to the fringes of society.

Albert Erskine, an intelligent and compassionate young man in his early twenties, has lived by his “code” for over a decade now. He dreams of a better future for himself and for his sisters, brothers, cousins. But his look is “far away, and kind of locked down, and unutterably sad.” (95) When Albert ventures down the mountain one day, he chance encounters Bobby Evans, a vulnerable teenager, himself the target of local gossip: Bobby’s father, Tom, a well-liked local, married a restless outsider and rumours swirl about their troubled marriage. Bobby’s younger sister, Ivy, seeks refuge in Dorothy Carlisle, an independent-minded widow who runs Gideon’s antique store. The unlikely (and secret, in the case of Erskine and Bobby) friendships, provide comfort to youth and adults alike – in fact, they will prove to be transformational.

Conrad’s prose flows easily, her descriptions and attention to detail both haunting and mesmerizing. She masterfully makes us aware of the perils of the increasing polarization in our modern world, of the ever-widening gaps in our society. Beautifully done, and highly recommended.

“What had she seen? What had she done? What had she not done? Oh God, we confess we have sinned against thee in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” (225) ( )

Our Daily Bread is set in small-town America, where the line between good and evil is often starkly drawn. The town of Gideon harbours a shameful secret. For years the judgmental and morally righteous citizens and lawmen of Gideon have turned a blind eye to the nefarious activities of the Erskine clan, a family that lives in ignorance and poverty on a squalid compound deep in the forest on the "North Mountain" and gets up to God only knows what within its isolated precincts. People are quick to complain, vilifying the Erskines and blaming them for every unsolved crime that occurs in the town. But they are convenient scapegoats, and since the family is regarded as somewhat less than human and beyond saving, and since nobody wants to get their hands dirty, nothing is done and things continue as they have for generations. But this is about to change. Albert Erskine grew up the victim of his elders, subject to every kind of abuse imaginable and a few that are not. But Albert is different. He lives apart from the other Erskine adults in a flimsy cabin he built with his own hands, earning his keep through petty thievery and taking no part in deviant sexual activities he finds repulsive. Unlike the elders of the clan, who view him as a threat, he is burdened with an empathetic nature, a restless if unschooled intelligence and a moral awareness that make it difficult for him to ignore the suffering of the latest generation of Erskine children. At age twenty he has reached a crossroads--his only two choices: break with his family's shameful history and build a new life elsewhere, or allow himself to be drawn into his family's illegal drug and bootlegging enterprises and join the cycle of abuse. When he befriends young Bobby Evans--a troubled boy of fifteen from a broken home--he does so with some misgivings and no clear motive. But the friendship brings out a protective side of Albert's character that takes him by surprise and sets in motion a series of events that ultimately compels him to make the decision he has been putting off. Lauren Davis patiently brings her characters into focus and allows the tension of the drama to build gradually, making it impossible for the reader to put the book down. This is a shocking and painful story, but rather than focus her narrative solely on the dark side of human nature, Davis gives us the generous and heroic side as well. She does not ask the reader to sympathize with the Erskines, but she does suggest that the society that allows abusive practices to be handed down from one generation to the next is complicit in the crime and has much to answer for. Our Daily Bread is a brave and risky novel by a skilled storyteller and fully deserving of the accolades that have come its way. ( )