Strange Heaven is tearfully hilarious, as funny and appalling as reality. Bridget Murphy, almost eighteen, has come to Halifax from industrial Cape Breton, had her baby, and given it up for adoption. Transferred to the psych ward of the children’s hospital, she’s incarcerated with five seriously disturbed teenagers and a flock of wan children. She’s depressed, they say. Apathetic. Bridget is a bit detached, but Four South is peaceful compared with the chaos back home. Her grandmother, Margaret P., raves and prays from her bed, banging the wall with her bedpan. Bridget’s parents, Robert and Joan, take care of her and her mentally handicapped son, Rollie. Joan tries to keep the lid on, but she’s no match for Robert’s wild profanity, Margaret’s dementia, and Rollie’s efforts to join the fray. Uncle Albert, a kind man who saves his eloquent wrath for outsiders, springs Bridget from the hospital for Christmas. But home is more chaotic than ever, and she’s sick of her boozy friends and the whining of the baby’s father. She had half planned to hibernate at home till kingdom come, but it’s become like a lurid movie she saw eons ago and she’s forgotten the plot. Her future may be unclear, but she has a good idea of the direction it won’t take.
Strange Heaven
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"A stellar first novel. . . both nightmarish and laugh-out loud funny." -- Quill & Quire
"Coady, with a Roddy Doyle-ish gift for punchy dialogue, gives Bridget a voice to remember." -- Maclean's Magazine
"Strange Heaven, a study of the joys and frustrations of life, is both hilarious and heart-breaking, and one of the most astonishing fictional debuts I have read." -- Kenneth J. Harvey, The Globe and Mail
"Written in truly lucid, hilarious prose . . . there is little excuse for you not to read it." -- Shift Magazine
"Coady, with a Roddy Doyle-ish gift for punchy dialogue, gives Bridget a voice to remember." -- Maclean's Magazine
"Strange Heaven, a study of the joys and frustrations of life, is both hilarious and heart-breaking, and one of the most astonishing fictional debuts I have read." -- Kenneth J. Harvey, The Globe and Mail
"Written in truly lucid, hilarious prose . . . there is little excuse for you not to read it." -- Shift Magazine
From the Publisher
Winner - 1998 Canadian Authors' Association Award for the most promising writer under 30 years of age.
Winner - 1998 Dartmouth Book Award
Winner - 1999 Atlantic Booksellers' Choice Award.
The book was nominated for a 1998 Governor General's Award for Fiction and the 1998 Thomas Raddall Fiction Award
Picked as one of top 100 books of 1998 by the Globe and Mail
Picked as one of the top ten books of 1998 by the Vancouver Sun
Picked as one of the top ten books of 1998 by the New Brunswick Reader
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
An entertaining and insightful read, not to be missed,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Strange Heaven (Paperback)
A single teen mother never comes without their baggage. "Strange Heaven" tells the story of Bridget Murphy, marauded by her fates and trying to find her place in life, she puts her unwanted child up for adoption and trying to come to terms with her strange and unusual family. Family isn't something you can't just leave behind, and Bridget slowly comes to term with it. With plenty of black humor, "Strange Heaven" is an entertaining and insightful read, not to be missed.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful Chaos,
By
This review is from: Strange Heaven (Paperback)
A great read--Lynn Coady's text is rich and scattered with many humorous moments. The characters are fascinating and awful at the same time. This text deploys a 'strategic regionalism', that is, it challenges essentialist notions of Atlantic Canada; The people you encounter in this story are not your 'jolly, complacent folk' but are confused, often psychotic but nonetheless lovable characters. Coady speaks not only to the monotony of adolescent lives--Bridget and her 'friends' search for some kind of meaning through self-discovery--but also to feminist and religious politics. Ideals of Catholicism are subverted in this book, as are notions of the innocent virginal woman. Female characters in this book experience their bodies as a locus of betrayal.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
No Mistake,
By "directblaze" (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Strange Heaven (Paperback)
You are making no mistake if you read this book. Lynn Coady has a cutting sense of humour that will make you laugh and wonder if you should be. Her portrait of a tourmented young girl is both accurate and saddening.
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