Lesley Krueger

Far Creek Road by Lesley Krueger is a very highly recommended domestic drama set in the early 1960's where a young girl faces adult problems. An excellent literary novel!

Mary Alice (Tink) Parker lives in Grouse Valley, a Vancouver suburb. Her father, like many fathers, is a WWII veteran and her mother, like almost all other mothers, is a housewife. Tink is nine (and ten) years-old in the novel and her life full of playing outside, reading comics, and attending school. Tink's brother and sister are much older than her, so she is basically an only child. Her best friend is Norman Horton whose family just moved to the neighborhood. Both of his parents are teachers and the Hortons are different. A working mother is unusual enough, but they are also intellectuals and hold strong left beliefs during the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The narrative foreshadows the coming fear surrounding the threat of a nuclear attack but there are also other things going on in the neighborhood that Tink doesn't understand. Krueger establishes the setting and the innocence of the time which contrast sharply with the changes and adult problems that come later in the novel. Tink is a wonderful, unforgettable, fully realized character. Kruger does an excellent job capturing her innocence, as well as her fear and uncertainty of the events around her that she has no control over.

The time period, at least from a child's point-of-view, is carefully crafted and presented in a realistic way. Duck and cover drills were especially terrifying as some locations practiced these well into the late 60's. With Far Creek Road, Krueger has captured a time in history of unrest and fear and the effects this had on a young girl and her friend. The narrative covers more than the political and international atmosphere of the times. It also clearly shows bullying, abuse, infidelity, and the inevitability of some people's unwillingness to think for themselves when it is easier to go along to get along. In some ways Far Creek Road is reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of ECW Press via NetGalley.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2023/10/far-creek-road.html… (mer)

An historical fiction novel that examines the lives of Richard Dadd and Charlotte Brontë and the ways in which their art and approaches to life as an artist overlapped and reflected each other.

This novel was a bit of an odd one. Richard Dadd was an up and coming painter in the 1820s-1830s who suffered some sort of mental breakdown while on a tour of Europe and the Holy Land, murdered someone, and ended up in Bedlam. Krueger fictionalizes his life up until the murder and juxtaposes it with a year in Charlotte Brontë's life just after the publication of [Villette], while she attempts to decide what to do with an offer of marriage she's received. Both story arcs are well-constructed and the prose is beautiful and richly detailed. But other than the occasional commonality, the twin narratives didn't really feed off each other very well. It also didn't help that while Dadd's narrative is given the higher page count, I didn't find him very sympathetic and constantly was wishing for more of Charlotte's. May be more of a hit with readers who enjoy considering the artistic process, what makes an artist, and the Victorian era.… (mer)