Reading parts of this book was a little like watching a train wreck -- fascinating yet horrifying. Other parts were funny and touching. This compelling epic is the story of the Piper family of New Waterford, on Cape Breton Isle in Nova Scotia, begins with a bang.

“They’re all dead now,” reads the first line of the prologue. (I’m still not quite sure which child is talking there.) There is certainly nothing dull about the uniquely written book.

James Piper first met Materia Mahmoud on New Years Eve Day 1898, at her father’s house on the hill. James was eighteen and smitten. Materia was twelve, going on thirteen.
When they were married, her father built them a house a few miles away then refused to have any more to do with them. So begins the Piper family’s story, told mostly through their voices: James; Materia; their oldest daughter Kathleen; their two young daughters Mercedes and Frances; and through Lily. It’s a story of family secrets, lies, guilt, loyalty and redemption.

intense reading. There is a blurb on the cover of my copy by Sandra Scofield of the Chicago Tribune that sums it up. “This big, bold epic shocker of a novel reads as if John Irving met Joyce Carol Oates in her Gothic period…it’s a wild ride.”

the tender and the humorous parts. Frances as a child was adorable. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

some of the characters, but then I probably wasn’t supposed to.

find something light and funny to read.

caught in the turmoil and emotion of the characters. It was depressing at times.

is Canadian author Ann-Marie MacDonald, an award winning play write and actor. She wrote Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet). This was her first novel.

if you can take it, “it’s a wild ride.”

There is a quotation at the beginning of the book.
“Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?”
“Why cannot you always be a good man, father?”
Wuthering Heights

That’s the last hint I’m going to give.

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Created May 01, 2007 at 1:33pm • Submit your own review...