Crow Lake: FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE LONGLISTED AUTHOR OF A TOWN CALLED SOLACE

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Crow Lakeis the kind of book that keeps you reading well past midnight; you grieve when it’s over. Then you start pressing it on friends.” —The Washington Post Book World

Q. Do you see Kate’s character as being autobiographical to a certain extent and if so, in what ways? Understatement was the rule in our house. Emotions, even positive ones, were kept firmly under control. It was the Eleventh Commandment, carved on its very own tablet of stone and presented specifically to those of Presbyterian persuasion: Thou Shalt Not Emote." stars — All the metaphors I kept thinking up to describe this evoked some variation of "warmth" - ironic for a novel set in the chilly wilderness of Northern Ontario. A warm piece of homemade pie you wish could last at least another dozen bites. The warmth of a hug from a special friend that neither one of you wants to pull away from too soon. A warm, cozy fire around which local legends are told. For the first few weeks following the death of her parents, Kate believes that she was “protected from the reality by disbelief.” How did she carry this defense mechanism with her throughout her childhood and into adulthood? What are some examples? Q. What do you think lies behind the anger and resentment between the two brothers, Matt and Luke, which results in violence?And then comes the accident. Traumatic though it is, I think the accident is the making of Luke. From being the family problem, he becomes the family solution. He sees that it is in his power to save the rest of the family, and he does that, at great personal cost. Perhaps he would have ‘found himself’ anyway, but it would have taken a long time. In particular, it is Bo’s overwhelming need of him that transforms Luke. No one ever needed him before, and no one adored him as she does. ‘Yeah, but she likes me,’ he says to Aunt Annie. You could say that he needed Bo every bit as much as the other way round. I feel such a commonality with this book—Mary Lawson's style, the movements, the issues, the dialogue that is perfect pitch and as natural as breathing—that it almost renders me speechless. It's a story about children raising children. About no grownups. About being propelled into adult responsibility as a child and the delusions of survivor's guilt. There's a short Q&A with Lawson ( http://www.marylawson.ca/qa-video/) where she qualifies the story as complete fiction. I believe her. The commonality I feel is not that I've lived this story because I haven't. What I feel is that, were I Canadian and from similar land, I too might have imagined it as she did. Crow Lake begins at a luminous moment for the Morrison family. Luke, the eldest son, has been accepted at teachers’ college, the first of the family to go on to higher education. Matt, two years younger, is even more gifted, a rising academic star. Kate found an escape from the legacy of their dark past in her passion for the natural world. Now a zoologist far away from the small farming community where she grew up, she thinks she's outgrown her three brothers, who were once her entire world. Growing up + survival. In both cases, it is a novel of growing up, closely related to the experience of survival and preservation of integrity in extremely unfavorable external circumstances.

The Canadian Encyclopedia, s.v. "Crow Lake," by Tom Hawthorn, Accessed October 31, 2023, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/crow-lake On his side, I believe Daniel is attracted to Kate partly because of her honesty. She does not pretend, to others or to herself. It is this which is her salvation, in the end – she is able to look at her ‘picture of how things are’, and see that it is wrong. We are meant to assume that Luke and Miss Carrington develop a romantic relationship at the end of the book. Do you think they are compatible? Why or why not? What are some examples? I have pursued your dream single-mindedly; I have become familiar with books and ideas you never even imagined, and somehow, in the process of acquiring all that knowledge, I have managed to learn nothing at all."Kate says that “understatement was the rule in our house. Emotions, even positive ones, were kept firmly under control.” How would you say that this “rule” affected each member of the Morrison family? How did it influence their relationships with each other and with people outside their family? What are some examples? Books like these remind me what a beautiful gift the art of literature can be. After a mere three or four nights of reading, I already feel like I've grown up in Crow Lake and known its rural residents my whole life. What a testament to Lawson's vivid world-building and rich characterization that I find myself wishing I could spend many more nights with these wonderful characters, immersed in their world!