A Student of Weather [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Hay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 19, 2001

On the prairie of Dust Bowl Canada, two sisters fall down the same well, and the well is named Maurice Dove. A Student of Weather is a brilliant first novel by acclaimed story-writer Elizabeth Hay. Already a best seller in Canada, it tells the story of the rivalry between two contrasting sisters and of the stranger who changes both their lives forever. Spanning thirty years, it opens in the Prairie Dust Bowl of the 1930s and, later, in the decades following the war, moves back and forth between Ottawa and New York City. Maurice Dove is a visitor to the Saskatchewan farm of widower Ernest Hardy. The relationship he forms with Hardy's daughters-the beautiful, virtuous Lucinda and the dark, intelligent, younger Norma-Joyce-gives rise to an act of betrayal that throws into relief the deep-rooted enmity between them. Norma-Joyce's life, from the time she is eight, is fuelled by her obsessive (and unrequited) love for Maurice Dove. Later, in pursuing her life as an artist, she makes discoveries about her past that bring the story full-circle. Hay's evocation of place is palpable, vivid; her characters at once eccentric and familiar. Norma-Joyce, once a strange, dark, self-possessed child, becomes a woman who learns something of self-forgiveness and of the redemptive power of art. Hay's writing is spare yet richly textured, dark and erotic. The physical and emotional landscapes she portrays evoke tragic and comic surprises, and teach us about the lasting imprint of first love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Two sisters fell down the same well, and the well was Maurice Dove." Acclaimed Canadian short story writer Hay's first novel, recently shortlisted for the prestigious Giller Prize, is a compelling and highly original debut telling the story of two sisters and the jealousy that irrevocably changes their lives when a young student comes to stay on their father's Saskatchewan farm in the 1930s. Ernest Hardy is widowed, a single father raising two young girls on the rural prairies, when twenty-something Maurice Dove arrives from Ottawa to study the region's unusual weather patterns. Eight-year-old Norma Joyce, dark, fiercely intelligent, and inflicted with early puberty, claims Maurice from the first moment she sees him, albeit unrequitedly. Her sister, the "beautiful, saintly" Lucinda, 17, falls deeply in love. After Maurice leaves and his letters stop coming, Lucinda suffers a two-month-long deep depression. Seven years later, the sisters cannot forget Maurice. The Hardy family inherits a relative's house and moves to Ottawa, on the same block as the Dove family home. What occurs between then teenaged Norma Joyce (who will likely invite comparisons to Rhoda Penmark of The Bad Seed) and the war-damaged Maurice brings to light a childhood betrayal significant enough to devastate everyone involved. Moving seamlessly through 30 years in Saskatchewan, Ottawa and New York City, Hay's novel offers up just the right combination of melodrama and melancholy. Already a best seller in Canada, it should soar this side of the border, too.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Canadian author Hay's first novel begins on a Depression-era farm in Saskatchewan. The Hardy sisters, Norma Joyce and Lucinda, live with their widowed father. The sisters are opposites in appearance and in their approach to life. Norma Joyce, the dark, homely sister, is full of intellectual curiosity with artistic abilities, while Lucinda, older, blonde, and beautiful, is quiet and domestic. Thus, in some ways, they are natural rivals. When both fall in love with Maurice Dove, a student who stays with the family to study weather patterns, this unrecognized rivalry leads to mutual betrayals and a sad lack of family affection and understanding that affects the quality of their lives for nearly 30 years. As the story progresses, Hay's lyric descriptions of emotions, the prairie, the weather, and other natural conditions compel the reader's attention to the last page. Recommended for large public and academic libraries. Cheryl L. Conway, Univ. of Arkansas Lib., Fayetteville
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 364 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint Press; First Edition edition (February 19, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158243123X
• ISBN-13: 978-1582431239
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,001,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #31 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > Sisters

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, emotionally gripping story, May 8, 2001

By 

Lynn Adler - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Student of Weather (Hardcover)

This little story was truly a wonderful surprise. I expected a cozy little family saga, but got much more. This quiet unassuming novel about ordinary people builds slowly into a gripping tale that once it gets going is impossible to put down.

It begins in 1938 on a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada with two lonely motherless sisters, nine years apart in age and worlds apart in looks and personality. Norma Joyce is small, dark, wiry, homely, inquisitive, provocative, and restless, while older sister Lucinda is a ravishing redhead, quiet, serene, the hard working homemaker for father and younger sister. Although Norma is just a kid, when Maurice Dove, a 'student of weather' visits the farm, both sisters, each in their own way, fall desperately in love with him, a love to last a lifetime, but with tragic consequences. The presence of Maurice will be the wedge that drives the sisters apart and alters the family fate, although the personality of each character will also determine the outcome of the story, which later shifts to Ottawa and then alternates between Ottawa and New York City.

What makes this novel stand out from the crowd aside from its careful plotting and lovely descriptive passages about foliage, flora, and of course weather, are the ways in which the author makes brilliant use of small details of personality and psychology to drive what would otherwise be an ordinary story into high gear and to create unforgettable complex characters. She gets it right on target, too, so much so, that the reader feels that he/she is a witness to real peoples' lives. This book is one of my top picks of the year!

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing story of a misfit's search for fulfillment., July 22, 2001

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Student of Weather (Hardcover)

Setting her story in the Saskatchewan Dust Bowl in the 1930's, where "children grew up never tasting an apple and thinking Ontario was heaven," Hay tells of Norma Joyce and her sister Lucinda, opposite in appearance and personality, who have little to keep their minds and hearts occupied on the flat prairie and on their farm, where they have only their stern and uncommunicative father for company. The sisters fixate on the homely details of their lives, beautifully and vividly described by Hay--strange, little Norma Joyce collecting (or stealing) bones, buttons, and small objects, which she displays in the unused room which once belonged to her mother, while shy, beautiful Lucinda cleans every corner of the house and concentrates on being the perfect housekeeper. Into this emotional void steps Maurice Dove, a handsome student of weather and fascinating story teller, who quickly becomes the focus of both sisters' attentions while he stays with them and studies the native grasses which have apparently protected their farm from the ravages of the wind and weather.

In the hands of a lesser writer, the story could have become a romantic pot-boiler, at this point, but Hay's insights into the differing thoughts and motivations of all the characters, all of them with faults, combined with her beautifully realized setting, her lovely, often quiet, descriptions of weather and nature in all seasons, and her use of common sights and objects as symbols make this an absorbing story of a woman's search for fulfillment.

As Norma Joyce grows from a spunky 9-year-old, suffering from early puberty, to a woman in her mid-40's, moving from the farm to Ontario and New York and back, Hay shows how external social forces, combined with Norma Joyce's powerful memories of the farm and Maurice Dove, continually affect the choices she makes as an adult, even when she urgently attempts to free herself from these influences and take full control of her life. Sometimes selfish to the point of cruelty in her desire to manipulate outcomes, Norma Joyce is not a typical "heroine," but Hay creates such believable contexts for her behavior that the reader will have no difficulty empathizing, if not, identifying, with her. This is an absorbing story of a woman's attempt to come to grips with her past--both the good and the bad--and to use it in forging a fulfilling life in the present. Mary Whipple

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Contrasts and Small Surprises, April 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: A Student of Weather (Hardcover)

This wonderful book is full of contrasts - the dust of Willowbend, Saskatchewan and the snow of Ottawa, Ontario; farm life in the dust bowl days and urban life of New York City; the "bad" sister and the "good" sister; remembering and forgetting. The details are so evocative that you can taste the grit, feel the scrape of a twig, smell the roses in the botanical garden. The best part, for me, were the unexpected little twists. I would think, from the author's hints, that I knew what was going to happen - that this was going to be just another trite "woman's book" - and time and again I would be wrong. And all the wonderful little details (such as Norma Joyce eating the rose) jump out and stick with you. It is primarily a book about character, and by the end of the book you love them all in spite of their very human flaws. After you are finished reading, you can't help thinking about the characters and whether they ever really knew each other, and by extension, you can't help wondering how well we understand the motivations and actions of those nearest to us.