Rather pastoral, with so much nature in the descriptions. Meanders a bit, not everything is nearly chronological or nearly laid out. Yet the disconnects are artful in how they pick up and drop off, what is said and unsaid. Not a book to pick and put down often, or one could lose the thread and names or events that weave through the story. Is it about Connie, the aunt? Parley Burns, the pervert principal? Michael, the student with dyslexia? Or the narrator, Anne Elizabeth? (And is this based on reality or pure fiction?) ( )

The first 3/4th of this novel is a very readable (if occasionally annoyingly incomplete) historical novel set in the late 20s and 30s in Canada. The last 1/4th changes that to something totally different. We know it is not just a historical novel - even at this first start there is a narrator voice who does not belong completely but I really enjoyed the story set in the past. Once she moved to recent past and current times, things went downhill.

The narrator, Anne, starts a story about her mother -- but somewhere in the novel she does admit that she went sideways to it. And it ends up being a novel about an aunt and about Anne herself - and the memories that bind a family.

When a novel starts with a murder (in 1937), you would expect that this will be the main story. Hay does not do that - she opens with a murder but it is there mostly to allow the story of Connie to the introduced - the aunt who went teaching in the Canadian prairies in 1929 (when she was 18) and where she met the two men whose lives will fascinate Anne a few decades later. The story of 1929 and then 1937 is the part of this novel I really liked -- the young girl who teaches the kids who are almost her age, the principal who seems to have something broken inside of him, the school and the details of the life in the area and in the school - despite a lot of unsettling moments, including another dead girl (Susan).

But then Anne comes into the picture, not just researching the past but interacting with the characters (now in their 60s or older) and the run through the next 30 years or so change the whole tone of the novel. I suspect that the beginning and the past were there to support this last part but it just did not work for me. I had no issues with the affair or with Anne's obsession with the past (or that we never learned the truth about that murder that opened the book) but this part felt overwritten and repetitive in places.

Looking back at the novel, I liked it more than I expected but I wish it had been just Connie's story - even if it was the complete Connie story, with the last years' affair - adding Anne's existential thoughts just did not match. And then there is the very end where an old play emerges which makes you (and Anne) wonder if all we just read was ever the truth - did she really get the full story while she was looking for it or did she just get one side of the story - do we really know what happened to Susan and later in the lives of everyone who was there.

I liked the author's style - I am not planning on seeking her other works but if I find one, I may read another one. ( )

Narrator, Anne, sets out to write a book about her mother but finds herself writing about her mother's sister, Connie, while her mother remains a in the background. The story begins around 1930 when Connie becomes a teacher in a small town in Saskatchewan. Michael, a pupil who is obviously dyslexic, a condition unrecognized at the time, is unfortunately regarded as stupid yet he is talented in other areas. Connie provides some extra tuition after classes. His sister, Susan, is a blossoming actor under the direction of head teacher, Parley Burns. Then something terrible happens to Susan with consequences even more horrendous. Hay continues several decades of the charismatic Connie's life of which Michael, who is just as appealing, forms a major part.

Hay's sprawling novel has more to do with memories and how they affect lives than with the characters themselves. As a result the story develops a nebulous focus, that drifts somewhat. Even at the inconclusive end, Anne throws some doubt into what she has written before, which was annoying. The novel may elicit unpleasant memories of school for some readers, while for others, there will be little connection. Hay's writing is beautiful but there was something missing, especially in the second half of the book. ( )

This book is actually lovely, if taken slowly, in small doses, not as a novel, but simply as a rambling fictional memoir about the good old days, with tales of a few sexually irresistable men and a few women who are easily swayed by such men. I really liked that the central female characters in this book are able to be sexual without it being a huge moral issue; in this sense this is a rather modern novel, and it is at least as well written as many classics that are still regularly read and reprinted. There is also some lovely writing in this story, quotable and thought provoking.

But, as a coherent novel this one is unsatisfyingly unfocused and unresolved. There really isn't a central plot, just characters and events strung together haphazardly. Things do certainly happen, but we never find out whether Parsey raped Susan, or who raped and killed Ethel. We never learn who caused the fire the destroyed the Gravess' house, either. There are so many characters to keep track of, too, from several generations, in a very jumbled timeline, that it is exhausting and offputting trying to keep track of what is going on from one chapter to the next. I'm someone who can easily keep track of all the characters in a huge saga like the Wheel of Time series, and I was having a terrible time remembering the family tree for the primary character groups and keeping track of who knows who and who sleeps with whom.

If what you want is something nice to read a few pages at a time before bed, not for plots and action, but simply to ease the way into sleep, this book may be an excellent choice, and as a piece of literature to read in academic settings this might be an interesting choice, but it is not one of my favorite novels for sure. ( )

This novel is filled with so many beautiful lines that I found myself marking many pages so that I could go back and savor the prose. I really wanted to love this book but the multiple characters and plotlines diluted the story's overall impact. ( )