Crow Lake is that rare find, a first novel so quietly assured, so compelling, & with an emotional charge so perfectly controlled, that you sense at once that this is the real thing
- a literary experience to relish, a book to lose yourself in, & a name to watch. Here is a gorgeous, slowburning story of families growing up & tearing each other apart in rural Northern Ontario, where tragedy & hardship are mirrored in the landscape. Centre stage are the Morrisons whose tragedy is insidious & divisive. Orphaned young, Kate Morrison was her older brother Matt`s protegee, her curious fascination for pond-life fed by his passionate interest in the natural world. Now a zoologist, she can identify organisms under a microscope, but seems blind to the tragedy of her own emotional life. She thinks she`s outgrown her family, who were once her entire world
- but she can`t seem to outgrow her childhood or lighten the weight of their mutual past.