Canada

"First, I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then the murders, which happened later.”

So begins Canada, the unforgettable story of a boy attempting to find grace, written by the only writer in history to win both the Pulitzer Prize and Pen/Faulkner Award for a single novel.

This is the story of Dell Parsons, whose parents rob a bank and fracture his life into a before and an after, crossing the threshold that cannot be uncrossed. After his parents’ arrest and imprisonment, Del and Berner, his twin sister, face a blank future of foster care and social services visits. Berner, willful and burning with anger, runs away – orphaning Del completely.

In the midst of his abandonment, a family friend intervenes, spiriting Del across the Montana/Saskatchewan border. There, in a dilapidated town floating in the sea of the Canadian prairie, he’s taken in by Arthur Remlinger – an enigmatic, charismatic man whose own past exists on the other side of a similarly uncrossable border.

Undone by the calamity of his parents’ robbery, Del struggles under the vastness of the prairie sky and the stark, unforgiving landscape to realign his sense of self and his perception of the parents he thought he knew, even as he moves on an inexorable collision course with the slow-simmering violence trembling just beneath Arthur Remlinger’s cool reserve.

A resonant and luminous masterwork of haunting and spectacular vision, CANADA is an elemental novel of boundaries traversed, innocence lost, and of the mysterious and powerful bonds of family. Told in spare, elegant prose but rich with emotional clarity, lyrical precision, and an acute sense of the grandeur of living, it is a masterpiece from one of the greatest American writers alive.

so so read

What did you like best about Canada? What did you like least?

I liked the reader, he made the book a little more interesting. I found the character's to be a little unbelievable..... I couldn't see the mother ever doing what she did.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

This question is not a good one; the author is the creator and that's the story!

Do you think Canada needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

NO, it was clear what the outcome was and little else could be elaborated upon.

Any additional comments?

worth a read if there's nothing else.

Too much waffling, not enough action

Any additional comments?

This book is not the narrative of a 15-year old boy. It's the narrative of a retirement-age man, looking back on a defining moment in his life. The praise for the voice in this novel is wildly overblown. This is not a wise-beyond-his-years teen explaining how he found himself in such dire circumstances. This is the story of a man who has had his whole life to figure the things out.

Good Storytelling and Narration. Good not Great.

i thoroughly enjoyed the writing of Richard Ford. i am a big fan of repetition in a novel to elicit emotion and create a mood. well, when it's done well...and i think that Ford does it well.

i struggled at first with the naivety of Dell as a teenager..i mean, he was supposed to be 15 years old and he seemed, at times, like he was 7 or 8. but as the story goes on, i understand that this was the way that Ford meant for his character to be written. he was supposed to be extremely immature...i also remember that this story takes place in the 60's...not now. and i think that children were more naive back then. but it still frustrated me and served to make me dislike Dell more than i think i was supposed to.

anyway, there were also parts of this book i did not understand....bits of Dell and his sister's relationship didn't make sense and disturbed me, sometimes the feelings Dell had for his father were a mystery. but once he made it to Canada...i think this story got really interesting. the characters in Canada were very well written.

so...while the great American novel this is not...i do think that Ford has a great manner of telling a story and i would read another book of his.

Fabulous writing

The plot of Canada isn't all that interesting as it would be described--"Two childrens' lives are changed forever when their parents rob a bank". However, the writing is wonderful and the plot lifts off into something out-of-this world. The narrator is so good that you don't think about him twice. Sometimes a narrator soars with accents and voices, but Holter Graham simply reads this so well, that you can't imagine anyone else doing it. I enjoyed Canada so very much that I might listen to it a second time. I recommend it without reservation.

I loved this book and the reader

This was a very good book; fascinating to listen to. The story moved along exploring the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist, as he was trying to figure out what he WAS thinking and feeling, and how that related to what was actually happening. The narrator was first rate. Not many novels manage to investigate those wiggles in life which could move a person this way or that. I'd like to see the sister's story. Bravo. Thanks, guys.