Kit's Law: A Novel [Paperback]

Donna Morrissey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2001

In this powerful debut novel from one of the most gifted storytellers to emerge from Canada since Carol Shields, we find “all the old-fashioned virtues: a vivid sense of place, an intricate and suspenseful plot, and a feisty heroine whom we can’t help rooting for on every page” (Margot Livesey). Kit Pitman is fourteen and lives in a ramshackle cottage on the outer banks of Newfoundland, where isolation is all she knows. The only visitors are fogbound fishermen and an occasional young man brought ashore to keep the bloodlines clean. But Kit’s isolation is compounded by the mystery that surrounds her family and her illegitimate birth. Her mother, Josie, is mentally retarded and often runs wild among the clapboard houses that dot the shore. Meanwhile, her grandmother Lizzie staunchly guards them both from the disapproving glances pious townsfolk cast their way. But when Lizzie dies suddenly, Kit and her childlike mother are left vulnerable to life’s harsh realities and to unexpected dangers that repeatedly threaten to break them apart. A wrenching story ensues, as Morrissey depicts with exceptional grace the way the lines between mother and daughter in this unlikely relationship, although blurred, are deeply felt. KIT'S LAW is a novel of extraordinary, almost mythical power and marks the debut of an enormous new talent.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Suffused with a wonder for the natural world like Thomas Hardy's, and the tart forthrightness of Marilynne Robinson, this atmospheric coming-of-age story marks the promising debut of Canadian scriptwriter Morrissey. It's Newfoundland in the 1950s, but it feels like 1850 in Haire's Hollow, a tiny, remote outpost community. There, 12-year-old Kit Pitman lives in a gully shack with feisty grandmother Lizzy and mentally retarded mother Josie, an often drunk near-vagrant scorned by townsfolk as "the gully tramp." Lizzy tigerishly protects her girls, but when she suddenly dies, local women join forces with the vitriolic Reverend Ropson in a campaign to ship Kit and Josie away. Defended by kindly Doctor Hodgins, Kit and Josie are allowed to remain in the gully shack with frequent visits from babysitters and spies, most notably the minister's teenage son, Sidney. But they are never safe, as a psychopathic murderer named Shine roams Haire's Hollow, and Josie persists in meeting him. Some of Morrissey's secondary characters (like the minister and the doctor) are hackneyed and predictable, but Kit is a fresh, delicately nuanced first-person narrator, who almost imperceptibly blossoms from a wary, joyless preadolescent into a "full-blooded" woman, falling disastrously in love with Sidney. Like her beloved grandmother, Kit is valiant and impulsive, but most fetching is her voice whether describing Josie's "smell of rotting dogberries" or the big Newfoundland skies which Morrissey captures with thrilling verve and precision. Agent, Beverly Slopen. Northeast regional author tour; reading group guide.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Set in a remote Newfoundland village in the 1950s, this beautiful first novel balances raunchy folk humor, riveting suspense, and family tragedy with a young girl's profound first love. Fourteen-year-old Kit Pitman lives in a weather-beaten coastal cottage with her mentally disabled mother, Josie, and her fiercely protective grandmother, Nan--a "shadow big enough to blot out all of Haire's Hollow." Both childlike and sexually promiscuous, Josie scandalizes the villagers, but Nan holds the family together until her abrupt death. When a group of locals tries to place Kit into foster care, she fights to keep her beloved gully-side home; with few friends, she cherishes quiet and isolation. Household help comes from her ailing aunt and from the reverend's son, Sid, with whom Kit falls deeply in love as the plot accelerates to a thriller's pace. Kit and Sid's ultimately doomed affair is unraveled first by a violent act of self-defense and then by impossible family secrets. With a poet's attention to sound, Morrissey combines wonderful, rich characters and compelling family intrigue with a powerful, almost meditative sense of place. Startling, vivid, and expertly crafted, this novel introduces an exciting writer whose career needs to be followed closely. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1st Mariner Books ed edition (May 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618109277
• ISBN-13: 978-0618109272
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,349,534 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Enough Story, August 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Kit's Law: A Novel (Paperback)

I hate to be the lone dissenting voice here, but... I'm sorry, I just did not think it was that great. Donna Morrissey writes well. Her descriptions, such as those of the desolate coastal village, are lovely, and the dialect her characters speak in is charming, but those things alone do not make a good novel. There is just not enough happening here. The Shine murder is the only real plot, and there are only fifty pages or so covering his stalking of Kit and Josie, the murder, and the trial. I don't necessarily require complex plotlines to enjoy a book, but if you're going to have this little going on, you need to have well developed characters to carry it along. Most of Morrisey's characters are too one dimensional, either all good (Sid, Loret, and the doctor) or all bad (the Reverend and his wife) and lack believability. Lizzy and Josie are more interesting, but Lizzy is killed off after fifty pages, and with the exception of a few scenes, Josie is mainly reduced to running around and irritating everyone else with her childishness and promiscuity. Kit is the only character that develops much, but she is rather overshadowed by the larger than life secondary characters. The "shocking" relevation about Sid just made me roll my eyes and wonder how many VC Andrews novels the author read before beginning her book. It was at that point that I pretty much just skimmed the rest of the book. I do think that this author has promise, and I'd probably give another novel from her a chance. Now to move on to my next read and duck the hate mail and "unhelpful" reviewer votes that will surely be coming my way! :-)

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Liked it? - Yes, Loved It ? - Sorry, No., March 18, 2002

By 

J. Fercho (Calgary, AB. Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kit's Law: A Novel (Paperback)

While I ultimately enjoyed reading this book, I...had difficulty with the "one-dimentionalness" of many of the characters. To portray so many of them as all good or all bad only adds to their sterotypical nature (the "evil" moonshiner, the doctor with a heart of gold) It was unfortunate that the character of Lizzy died off so early in the novel as she appeared to be more complex than many. Our main character Kit is interesting and sympathtic, her mother I'm sorry to say was just plain annoying, whatever her mental handicaps. I'm afraid to say the "revelation" of Kit's paternity was no surprise at all...don't skewer me for what seems like a lot of criticisms. There are many wonderful aspects about this book, and I look forward to reading another novel by Donna Morressey.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kit's Law took me home, September 18, 2001

By 

Melanie Walker (Ottawa, ON Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kit's Law: A Novel (Paperback)

I recently completed Kit's Law, and, like many who have read the book, once I started I could not stop. I am a 23-year-old Newfoundlander living in Ottawa. I have always been very proud to be a Newfoundlander, and have always know that being a Newfoundlander meant that I was part of something special. I have always had a great appreciation and interest in the rich culture and heritage of my province. However, this interest deepened when I moved away from the province in June of 2000 after graduating from MUN. Ms. Morrisey's book helped to bring me back to the small outport I grew up in through the wonderful story of Kit's braveness, and the strong development of characters in the story who were comparable to those I remember from back home. I felt connected to Kit somehow, although I am not sure how exactly. Most likely it was through Ms. Morrisey's amazing writing style which made the book such a charming piece of work to read. I am anxiously awaiting Ms. Morrisey's next book. I recommend Kit's Law to anyone looking for an amazing and well-written story.