Liberty Street
A Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A deeply affecting novel about the truths we avoid and the bad choices that come back to haunt us.
Gridlocked in the churchyard of a small Irish town, the traffic frozen in place for a funeral, Frances Moon pauses long enough to make a confession to Ian, her partner of nearly twenty years. The next morning, she finds he has left her. Unsure what else to do, Frances sets out for Elliot, the small town in western Canada where she grew up.
As the perspective shifts backward, cruel students and unsympathetic teachers await a young Frances beyond the borders of her family’s quiet farm. Curious, imaginative, and lost, she finds comfort in two outsiders, the troubled local boy, Dooley Sullivan, and a decorated Native American World War Two veteran named Silas Chance. But ever present, splitting the narrative apart, is a small town that will close ranks, turning a blind eye when one of them is killed.
The crime, itself, and the denial that follows, takes both Silas and Dooley from Frances in different ways. By high school, she’s become the girl most likely to disappoint, and at eighteen is already headed toward a disastrous marriage. Even after she shakes off the dust of the town and flees her husband, even as she builds a new life, she buries her past so deeply that she believes she has lost it. Until one day in an Irish churchyard, it all comes sweeping back. And so begins an unforgettable novel of lost souls and second acts.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Warren's fifth novel (after Juliet in August) tells a story about a woman's journey through life in small-town Saskatchewan and, more broadly, about the strength of second chances, which bring the ability to recognize one's own mistakes and ways for people to begin to repair themselves, even many years after they were broken. Frances Mary Moon's young life was full of bizarre tragedies that affected her more than she knew, and everything boils up inside her again when she and her partner, Ian, get trapped in traffic due to the funeral of a young girl and her infant. She blurts out her secrets: that she lost a baby during premature birth when she was 19, and that she had been married and probably still is. The long chapters jump between Frances's formative years and her present-day adult life as she decides to return to her hometown and see for herself what ghosts reside there. The depiction of Frances as a child is just exquisite; to see through her eyes is a perfect recreation of a child's inner workings. With a strong narrative voice in both sections, the novel creates an intimate portrayal of the road to resolution and recovery for a soul adrift. Frances as a child has a confused but determined voice. As an adult, she sets to thinking through what exactly she is looking to recover by digging into the past. Warren's novel is a thoughtful, intricate tale that builds quietly but strikes hard and fast.
