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This slow-burning story set in the rough-hewn heart of the Canadian Shield was the most talked about debut at the London Book Fair in 2001. For the Pye family, life is a Greek tragedy where the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons. For their neighbours, the Morrison children, tragedy appears more immediate, if less brutal, but in reality is insidious and divisive. Lawson ratchets up the tension with humour and consummate control in a novel that is tragic, funny and full of surprises.
About this Author
MARY LAWSON was born and brought up in a small farming community in Ontario. She is the author of Crow Lake, and The Other Side of the Bridge, both international bestsellers. Crow Lake was a New York Times bestseller and was chosen as a Book of the Year by The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others. The Other Side of the Bridge was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Her latest novel, Road Ends, was a national bestseller and finalist for the Folio Prize. Lawson lives in England but returns to Canada frequently.
Reviews
"Crow Lake is a remarkable novel, utterly gripping and yet highly literate. I read it in a single sitting, then I read it again, just for pleasure. I await her next work with eagerness (and a little envy)."
--Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat
"I didn't read Crow Lake so much as I fell in love with it. This is one beautiful book."
--David Macfarlane, author of Summer Gone
"A finely crafted debut . . . conveys an astonishing intensity of emotion, almost Proustian in its sense of loss and regret."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Beautifully written, carefully balanced, Mary Lawson constructs a history of sacrifice, emotional isolation and family love without sounding a false note." --Daily Mail (London)
"Crow Lake . . . is a spellbinding story . . . a marvelous story. . . . The bitter land and climate of Northern Ontario are like characters in this story of four orphaned children struggling to stay together as a family. . . . The language is subtle but beautiful. The reader is drawn into the lives of the characters. . . . The prospects for success are endless."
--W.P. Kinsella, First Novels
"Crow Lake mesmerizes. . . . Crow Lake may be one of the loveliest novels you almost ever read."
--The Telegram
"Crow Lake [is] superb, elegant. . . . Lawson is a brilliant storyteller; she takes her time in laying the foundation of her tale and layering on the complexities. She's also an elegant stylist; her prose is lyrically thoughtful. . . . The depth, honesty and feeling throughout are superbly wrought. Crow Lake is a wondrous thing--it's a new Canadian classic."
--The Hamilton Spectator
"The assurance with which Mary Lawson handles both reflection and violence makes her a writer to read and watch. . . . Peripheral portraits are skillfully drawn. Pot-banging Bo, with her minimal vocabulary of mostly shouted words, speaks to the heart without a scrap of sentimentality. The combative Cranes, unusual among fictional academics, are funny without being ridiculous and square off over the tablecloth with intelligence intact. . . . Most impressive are the nuanced and un-self-conscious zoological metaphors that thread through the text."
--The New York Times
"Lawson delivers a potent combination of powerful character writing and gorgeous description of the land. Her sense of pace and timing is impeccable throughout, and she uses dangerous winter weather brilliantly to increase the tension as the family battles to survive. This is a vibrant, resonant novel by a talented writer whose lyrical evocative writing invites comparisons to Rick Bass and Richard Ford."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Beautifully written, carefully balanced, Mary Lawson constructs a history of sacrifice, emotional isolation and family love without sounding a false note or a showy sentence."
--Daily Mail (UK)
"Crow Lake: deep, clear and teeming with life. A lot of readers are going to surrender themselves to the magic of Crow Lake. . . .Within days, you'll see people reading Crow Lake in odd places as they take quick breaks from the business of their lives. You'll also hear people say, 'I stayed up all night reading this book by Mary Lawson.' Mary Lawson, Mary Lawson. Remember the name. . . . Kate Morrison' s voice overturns convention and makes everything fresher, larger, livelier than it first appears. . . . She is very special. So is Crow Lake. . . . This is the real thing."
--The Globe and Mail
"Every detail in this beautifully written novel rings true, the characters so solid we almost feel their flesh. Bo must be one of the most vividly realized infants in recent literature. Lawson creates a community without ever giving in to the Leacockian impulse to poke fun at small-town ways, instead showing respect to lives shaped by hard work and starved for physical comfort. The adult Kate's alienation from Crow Lake is initially difficult to accept, for everything in Kate's life, including her career in science, reflects the values of her formative years on the farm. Soon, though, her crippling guilt becomes the mystery that draws the reader on."
--Quill & Quire (starred review)
"Lawson's narrative flows effortlessly in ever-increasing circles, swirling impressions in the reader's mind until form takes shape and the reader is left to reflect on the whole. Crow Lake is a wonderful achievement that will ripple in and out the reader's consciousness long after the last page is turned."
--Amazon.co.uk
"Critics are raving about . . . Crow Lake, a tightly plotted page-turner about sibling love, murder, and invertebrate zoology in rural Ontario, set in the 1950s and '60s."
--The Toronto Star
"Lawson achieves a breathless anticipatory quality in her surprisingly adept first novel, in which a child tells the story, but tells it very well indeed." --Booklist
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