Customer Reviews

Cape Breton Road: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Other reviewers have given plot details and discussed their reactions to the novel's ending, so I'll just cut to the chase: Cape Breton Road is amazingly well-written -- without the prolixity and gratuitous detail of so many contemporary novelists. Its prose is lean and spare, and therefore intense. Every detail strikes the reader as authentic; every experience woven into the plot has been "earned" or "lived" -- come by honestly and set down with something akin to reverence. Its presentation of nature and its impact on the observer are fine and true, reminiscent of D. H. Lawrence at his best, as in Sons and Lovers. Cape Breton Road is destined to become a word-of-mouth classic.

This was a well-written tragedy. I compare it to a Shakespeare tragedy. I didn't like the ending but it wasn't that I didn't like what the author wrote. I kept hoping Innis would make better choices. It was that hope that kept me reading to the end. And, of course, the author's wonderful descriptions of Nova Scotia's people, woods, water, events also kept me reading with great enjoyment. So even though I didn't like the ending, I loved the book.

Cape Breton Road is a book that could have been a masterpiece of literature. Instead, it turned into a mind-numbing repetitive description of woods and water. Count, if you can, how many times he uses the same descriptive words for trees and cold. The book comes more alive in the description of Innis' painful feelings of love for the unattainable Claire. As for the ending, it reminds me of the gimmick sometimes used by film makers. You supply the ending. Worse, the author didn't know how to end his book.

I found this to be a decent story up to the end. Would Innis get off Cape Breton? What would come of the love triangle between him, his uncle and his uncle's girlfriend. The ending did not answer these and left me disappointed.

I gave this book three stars for one reason. It had a very unsatisfactory ending. I felt cheated. The conclusion was not an ending in the real sense.

It left several questions unanswered. The most important ones being the fate of the protagonist and his uncle. The author either ran out of interest, or made the beginners error of letting the reader come up with his own ending.

The book and characters was so very vivid and beautifully drawn that you could literally breathe the air and atmosphere. Then we are left high and dry.

This writer is no amateur. He is brilliant. I loved this book. And because I did, because I cared about the characters, i wish he had done a better job on the conclusion.

Still and all, I intend to read his other books. I guess that is the real test.

I didn't like this novel.

My father came from Cape Breton - he was born in Louisburg, NS. I bought the book in search of insights into the Cape Breton Scotch (yes, "Scotch," the same as the whiskey, which is what the Canadian Scots-descent people were called). Instead, I found the story of a modern-day profound loser, deported from the States for stealing cars for joy rides, which he proceeded to do again in the little Cape Breton village where he found work. The novel ends with a disastrous low-speed attack of the car by an angry moose, a sudden back-up escape attempt, and immobility in a ditch.The next events - arrest by the Mounties, trial, and jail, are left to the reader's imagination.

D. F. Morrison

Cape Breton Road by D.R. MacDonald is the story of a young man with a good heart but a penchant for taking risks like "borrowing" fancy cars. Banished from the US to live with his uncle in Canada, he picks a spot high up in the hills to secretly cultivate marijuana, a cash crop "guaranteed" to buy his independence. When he falls painfully, hopelessly in love with the uncles live-in girlfriend, the tension and bitterness between the two men begins to mount. Cape Breton Road is a charming story that holds you in suspense as you hope against hope that this wholesome but naive young man won't get caught at some of his "indiscretions". Beautiful prose, wonderfully descriptive and insightful . . .a work of art.

The description given on the back cover sounded intriguing but the book reads like a teenage soap opera written by a randy young man whose goals in life are limited to getting high and stealing cars. The only reason I kept reading was in hopes that this fellow might be inspired by place and become a decent human being. The reason I didn't like this book isn't because the fellow never did see the error of his ways, it is because the nice details about the nature and inhabitants of Nova Scotia got lost in the silly details about a 19-year old's hormones and wonders of pot. What a bore.

Deported to Cape Breton to live with his mean-spirited uncle, Innis might leave his pot-smoking, weed-growing, car-stealing days behind him as he comes to appreciate hard work and simpler ways. But no, he becomes obsessed with his uncle's girlfriend, and there is no redemption for any of them, three losers to the end. Meanwhile, some very interesting characters are left undeveloped. The writing is very good, both in setting the scenes and developing tension, but ultimatly, this is just not a good story and is a slow read. Want to sample Cape Breton life? Try Alister MacLeod's Island

I was totally enraptured by this novel about a 19-year-old boy ousted from the U.S. for stealing cars, and sent back to the place of his birth, Cape Breton Island, Canada. I was enraptured, that is, until the end when everything fell apart. It was an interesting tale about Innis, who just wanted to raise a small crop of weed in the woods and then make enough money from the sale of that weed to enable him to escape the confines of the island. Of course, along the way, he meets some wonderful characters, who teach him the value of the old-time ways. The end just didn't feel right to me, with Innis taking a giant leap backwards after all the believable little steps he had taken forward.