Downhill Chance
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- $179.00
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- $179.00
Descripción editorial
"[An] almost mythical story of fractured families, wars, and homecomings" from the international bestselling author of The Fortunate Brother (Quill & Quire).
With Kit's Law, Donna Morrissey established herself as a gifted storyteller. Her chronicle of life in a remote Newfoundland outport was acclaimed by critics and embraced by readers worldwide. Downhill Chance is a captivating successor to Morrissey's first novel. Set in a pair of isolated fishing communities in Newfoundland during and after the Second World War, this is the story of two families joined by friendship but torn apart by fear and sorrows.
Prude Osmond reads her tea leaves and predicts dark days ahead. Meanwhile, an hour's boat ride away, Job Gale leaves his wife and two young daughters behind to fight in the war, a cause neither they nor their neighbors understand. The war and the dark secrets it holds cascade over the Gale family, afflicting the sensitive yet resourceful Clair, an unforgettable heroine. Forced to restart her life in another place, she must forsake the family she loves and her community.
Morrissey blends drama, gritty realism, and a flair for the comic in this unique novel. At its core is the unravelling of secrets—and the redemption that truth ultimately brings.
"Hardy and Dickens are the probable inspirations for this sprawling, old-fashioned tale of two maritime Newfoundland families . . . the narrative moves like a house afire, and its racy energy keeps our attention riveted." —Kirkus Reviews
"Achingly beautiful . . . A major novel by a remarkable writer." —Booklist (starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Morrissey's sprawling second novel (after Kit's Law) once again takes readers to a fishing community on the coast of Newfoundland. There, life for the Gale family is disrupted when father Job Gale decides to enlist as a soldier in WWII. His eldest daughter, Clair, still a girl, takes on the tasks he left behind, caring for her younger sister, Missy, and her mother, Sare, who is undone by Job's absence. Things don't get much easier when Job returns, discharged after a shrapnel injury. He is shell-shocked, depressed and prone to fits. These events are told from the point of view of Clair, who becomes a teacher and marries the son of another local family, Luke Osmond. Woven in with the Gales' story is that of the O'Maras, Irish immigrants who wash ashore after a shipwreck. The second half of the novel shifts to the point of view of Hannah, Clair's daughter, who describes the scandal that Missy causes when she becomes pregnant out of wedlock, as well as the revelations about Job's military service that emerge after his death. With vivid imagery and a fantastic ear for dialect, Morrissey breathes life into the small harbor town, where gossiping neighbors and eccentrics are a small price to pay for the comforts of living in a place where everyone knows one another. The novel is overstuffed with plot turns and family melodrama, but Morrissey keeps the story moving at a pleasant clip; readers may lose track of subplots, but they won't be bored.
