From My Bookshelf....by Lynn Willoughby

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The Sentimentalists ~ Johanna Skilsrud
Family life and family members are complicated and everyone has beneath the surface stories. Napoleon Haskell is no exception, but it is irony when he is near death that his daughter, whose own life is unraveling, hears his story for the first time.

"When we were young we called Henry our grandfather because we had no better term to describe the relationship." Henry Carey is the father of Owen Carey, Napoleon's best friend. When Owen dies fighting in Vietnam, Napoleon spends years looking for Henry. He had not thought to look in Canada.


But Henry did indeed live in Canada, in "Casablanca" - a town created from the remnants of another town now completely underwater - the result of the opening of the St Lawrence seaway. This story is built in layers. It is slow paced and the language is beautiful. Like the towns now underwater, "nothing disappears, it just gets hidden sometimes."

The troubling subject of war, whether in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan, will make this novel timeless. Skilsrud's own father fought in Vietnam and had "in him a deep anger toward a government willing to repeat the mistakes of the past at the expense of innocent people, soldiers as well as civilians."

In this thought provoking work, the author manages the horror of war and the sadness people live through, but also finds the nugget of heroism in all of us. Sometimes that just means getting up in the morning. The eradication of communities, displacements of people, devastation of land and the impact on wildlife - both on land and in the water due to the flooding of the seaway, was an eye-opener for me. This is not a wildly exciting book and I found it strangely reminiscent of "The English Patient”. The language is often ornate - revealing the author's roots as a poet, but I liked it and learned a lot about another page in Canadian history.
      The Gathering

Father of the Rain ~ Lily King
"Daley has spent the first eleven years of her life carefully negotiating her parents' conflicting worlds: the liberal, socially committed realm of her mother and the conservative, decadent, liquor-soaked life of her father."

This thumbnail is the perfect overview of the book. However, there are many themes explored before the conclusion. No matter how base and abusive he becomes, Gardiner Amory is still Daley's father and she has a daughter's love for him. She can, and does, reject his narrow world, but as he hits rock bottom, she will drop her entire life to try to help him and to try and build a trusting relationship. Everything she has worked for and accomplished as an adult - her relationships, friendships, job, home and connection with her brother, is put on hold.

I found Gardiner, with his WASP views, his old money, skewed values, quick and devastating rages, alcoholism and base impulses, totally disagreeable. But Daley has survived her childhood surrounded by all of that and become the person she is today - with an envious job waiting for her, a black lover and a wonderful future ahead. Is it plausible she would return to live with her sexist, racist, alcoholic father? I don't think so, but we cannot underestimate the power of guilt or one's love for a parent. And none of us are beyond trying to remake the past into a better place, especially if it will make us the saviour.

The heartbreak is that none of us can ever "fix" another person, especially one who is so ignorant and self-satisfied with no real interest in changing himself. The true value of this book is in the evolution of Daley, from a helpless child to a woman with choices.
     The Pleasing Hour
     The English Teacher

Who Knew?
White Anglo Saxon Protestant or WASP is a derogatory term used for a closed group of high status Americans who supposedly wield disproportionate financial and social power. It typically excludes Catholics, Jews, Slavs, Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asians.