Customer Reviews

Crow Lake (Alex Awards (Awards))

5 star:		(74)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

CROW LAKE is one of those wonderful novels you pick up and are immediately engrossed in the lives of the characters. Kate Morrison is the narrator and takes us back twenty years to the eventful year when she was seven years old. That's the year that an accident killed both her parents and left her and her one-year-old sister Bo and two older brothers, Matt and Luke, an orphaned family. Rather than allow the children to be split up among relatives, nineteen-year-old Luke makes the decision that he will forego college and care for his siblings. Life is hard but always interesting as the four survive by their wits and help from family and friends.

Mainly, this is the story of Kate and her love for her brother Matt. Matt has always been her role model, her idol and inspiration. It is he who first plants the idea of studying zoology in her head with his always entertaining trips to the nearby ponds on their land. Matt is the over-achieving academic of the family who hatches a secret plot with Kate. He will get his college degree and with the wonderful job he will land he can pay for her to attend college. When she graduates, the two of them will help send Bo and Luke.

Alas, the plan goes awry when a terrible tragedy at a neighbor's house spills over to the Morrisons and changes the course of all their lives. How Kate deals with this tragedy and its far-reaching effects on her will certainly give the reader a lot to consider about families and the place each child has in his or hers. This is a story of great love and great loss and the healing that takes many years to accomplish. It is a tale of resentment and jealousy played against the power of loyalty. It is an uplifting tale of succeeding against terrible odds and almost losing what is most important.

Mary Lawson's Crow Lake is a wonderful novel, a work that will blow away all expectations of what it really is all about. The novel, which is narrated by Kate, a scientist in her late twenties, begins with the death of both of Kate's parents in a car accident, an accident which leaves Kate and her three siblings orphans. I know what you are thinking--sounds like Oprah, sounds predictable, we see where this is going. Well, it's none of those things and it will take you some place else. Lawson delves into the depths of family relationships, of familial expectations and love. One of the things that makes this book different is Kate's narrative style. We follow the story of what happened after her parents were killed, as that story somehow collides with her present story. She has been invited back to Crow Lake, doesn't know if she can handle it, doesn't know if she should take her current boyfriend. Her current predicaments are all caused by what happened to her family so many years ago and it's fascinating and thought-provoking. Mary Lawson has given us a terrific novel, an engaging read. Highly recommended.

Crow Lake is reminiscent of books like "A Northern Light" and "Atonement". We follow the story of the books narrator, Kate Morrison, from age 7 to age 29. The untimely accidental death of her parents finds Kate and her siblings, Matt and Luke (the two older brothers) and Bo (her 1 ½ year old sister) facing choices and challenging decisions that alters each of their lives forever.

Lawson utilizes her writing talent to capture not only the plight of Morrison family but to surround them with an assortment of friends, family and neighbors equiped with noble hearts and curious idiosyncrasies.

I did have a problem with the "adult Kate" who came across as self-absorbed and unforgiving. It seems that for all her knowledge and formal education she has never been able to grow out of her adolescent mental image of Matt and as a result is left with unresolved feelings of guilt and a self imposed emotional isolation.

Crow Lake serves as a warning to us all of the potentially destructive nature of hero-worship and challenges us to examine our definition of success and how we measure it. 3 1/2 STARS

This is the story of a woman, Kate, whose relationship with her brother has defined her life and the way she views the world around her. Kate and her brother were extremely close during her early childhood but events later occur which change the way Kate and her brother relate to one another. Upon reaching adulthood, Kate leaves her very small farming community and eventually becomes a highly-educated zoology researcher/professor at a university in a large city. She seems very aware of the differences in background between herself and her students/colleagues and between herself and the people she grew up with. Kate claims that she doesn't "get people" to the extent that she doesn't understand what makes people tick or why people do the things they do. But Kate's narrative proves that she sells her self short. Although emotionally withdrawn, Kate is a woman who is constantly noticing and analyzing factors that affect the way people develop throughout their lives.

This book was a graceful, easy read that I enjoyed very much. It is the kind of book that you end up thinking about for days after reading it. I would definitely recommend it and I look forward to more from this author.

Crow Lake is an interesting novel on many levels. It has beautiful descriptions of the land in northern Ontario, a tragedy that occurs in the beginning of the novel, obstacles to overcome by family members and a dire mystery that is alluded to from early on. What is it then that disappoints me? I guess for me, I never became involved with the central character Kate. She is unemotional, detached and academic. She resists facing her past, by refusing to become involved in her current relationships both with her students as well as her boyfriend. Her story is told in a series of flashbacks beginning with her parents death when she was age seven. It describes her relationships with her siblings especially her brother Matt whom she looks up to and loves devotedly. The story continually refers to a deeper, darker, oppressive mystery that is yet to come and involves the neighboring Pye family. The problem is, when everything is said and done, it is all anti-climatic. So what!! Mary Lawson, has a talent for writing. Her words and imagery are beautifully depicted. Her descriptions of seven year old Kate struggling to process her parents death is right on. Why resort to using the big "mystery" technique for the story. I felt this story was rich enough to sustain itself simply by the feelings, actions and environment that Lawson created for the Morrison family. Good story, wonderful descriptions but lacking in the final chapters.

I was extremely surprised with this lovely story. In a day when excitment and plot twists are needed to give adrenalin junkies their shot for the day, it was so refreshing to read a story where the characters were people who we might see every day but are not the glitzy media heros usually adored and sought after. We see young men putting others first, thinking of the family's needs above their own, demonstrating integrity, self control and kindness. We see a young woman, Kate, who feels she has learned it all but in the end she is confronted with truth from someone who had never impressed her before. Kate faces the accusation and actually learns something about herself and something about those she loves. Dare I say it? She learns a life lesson. This truly becomes deeper and deeper as the characters and the shadings of their lives impact who they become. They are people of substance. I will look forward to more from this author.

What a pleasure it was to read this novel, such a refreshing, honest and sincere look at family tragedy and redemption. This is not your typical "dysfunctional family" fare although you might think that by reading the book jacket..... young girl and her siblings are orphaned when parents are killled in a car accident. Yes that does set the stage for this book, but the story itself is not limited to a melodramatic interpretation of the outcomes of that event. The author flawlessly weaves the narration of the main character Kate between the past and present, it's as skilled and understated a portrayal as I have ever read. This novel would be an excellent choice for a bookclub, I give it an unconditional recommendation.

This is an extraordinary novel about sacrificing what you most want in life and shattering dreams in the process.

Lawson has set the story in rural Ontario revolving around a farming community. The descriptions of the land and encompassing environment is both stark and beautiful. The author has demonstrated her ability to tie the surroundings in with her characters and plot. Both are reliant upon each other.

The story is narrated by Kate, the second youngest in a family that has just learned that their parents have been killed and they are now orphans, struggling to stay together and exist as a family. Through this storyline the author is able to reveal the true nature of family relationships and ones expectations on certain outcomes. Unfortunately, as Kate learns, things are not always as they appear.

By way of vivid characterization of all the siblings, Luke, Matt, Bo and of course Kate, the reader is able to fully capture the reality of their situation and how the past and present often collide with one another.

This was a wonderful read for me. I will look forward to Ms. Lawson's next novel.

Crow Lake is a poignant and clear-eyed portrayal of loss, a novel whose pages are haunted with the regret of missed chances. The Morrison family suffers overwhelming personal tragedy when the parents are killed in an accident. The parents leave behind seven-year-old Kate, her younger sister, Bo, and two older brothers, Luke and Matt. Their particular tragedy is swift and final, but serves to unite the children in common purpose.

The four children's isolated world is Crow Lake, where the harsh indifference of nature is tempered by the necessity of strict physical limitations, when often only changing seasons bring relief through renewal. Compromises are made and dreams delayed, in the pursuit of the basic needs of this small family, especially for Luke and Matt. But children often survive unimaginable misfortune, and the Morrisons cling to each other, overcoming substantial odds to remain together in the family home. The intrepid Kate, as she grows, chronicles their struggles with the immediacy of hard-won experience.

There is a deeper, more relentless violence visited on their neighbors, the Pyes. The domestic discord of the Pye family is both generational and pervasive, slowly escalating as the years pass. Eventually, the two worlds collide in unexpected ways.

It is Kate, after all, who becomes the achiever, with a career as a scientist, once her beloved brother and mentor, Matt's dream. Kate's acceptance of herself and her resolution of conflict and ultimate commitment to success is the key for all of them, bridging the past and accepting the grace of the present.

This novel is a testament to the courage of siblings, where fear and mistrust collapse under the combined strength of familial bonds, an awareness of peace in spite of the vagaries of fate. Lawson's pure and arresting prose gently guides her readers through the complexities of a world suddenly turned upside down, with the promise, at last, of comfort, acceptance and forgiveness. Luan Gaines/2003.

The Northern Ontario landscape comes alive under the pen of writer Mary Lawson in this novel which reminds us that wholeness depends emotional maturity. There are many paths to personal integrity, Lawson seems to say -- don't be so quick to assume that yours is the best way.

The novel moves between an academic setting in Toronto and the land of muskeg and mosquitoes that is the far north, the settings of the protagonist's current (and emotionally sterile) life and her emotionally intense and challenged past.

If you've spent any time in the Ontario northland, Lawson's prose will paint familiar pictures behind your eyes. The story's outcome is predictable, and some of the characters are too one-dimensional to be real -- but these flaws don't alter the fact that this book is an enjoyable read.