Friday, July 29, 2011

L Reads New CanLit for July: Falling Angels

Falling_angels

Barbara Gowdy is a Canadian author I’d heard lots of buzz about but had never read.  After reading Falling Angels, I now want to read more of her.  She has an interesting voice and in Falling Angels, beautifully tackles dysfunctional family dynamics.  Coming from a dysfunctional family myself, I found much to relate to and much that was cringe-worthy in this book.

 

The book focuses on the three Field sisters – Norma. Lou and Sandy – and the differing ways they cope with a tyrannical military father and a perpetually drunk mother.  At a young age the girls learn that their elder brother was tragically killed as an infant while their parents visited Niagara Falls.  Although there is suspicion their mother threw baby Jimmy over the Falls, no evidence supports this.  Unable to overcome her grief or guilt, Mrs Fields crawled into a whiskey bottle and has stayed there until her own tragic death, or was it suicide?  Many events are unclear and left to the reader’s interpretation, as so many things in life are.  This makes for a fascinating read.

 

The sisters each cope with their father’s abuse and mother’s illness in varying ways:  Norma uses food as a cushion for the pain and struggles with self-image and sexuality; Lou hides behind a wall of anger that is mostly directed at her father, who she sees as the root of all the family’s problems; Sandy turns to older men for love and approval and struggles with self-worth and the inability to love or respect herself.

 

In a broken home with parents who alternately ignore or tyrannize them, the sisters must learn to raise themselves and fight for a future they can be content with.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L :)

 

 

 

TBR = 13

WPL = 23

 

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