Canada

By: Richard Ford

Narrated by: Holter Graham

Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

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

When 15-year-old Dell Parsons' parents rob a bank, his sense of normal life is forever altered. In an instant, this private cataclysm drives his life into before and after, a threshold that can never be uncrossed.

His parents' arrest and imprisonment mean a threatening and uncertain future for Dell and his twin sister, Berner. Willful and burning with resentment, Berner flees their home in Montana, abandoning her brother and her life. But Dell is not completely alone. A family friend intervenes, spiriting him across the Canadian border, in hopes of delivering him to a better life. There, afloat on the prairie of Saskatchewan, Dell is taken in by Arthur Remlinger, an enigmatic and charismatic American whose cool reserve masks a dark and violent nature.

Undone by the calamity of his parents' robbery and arrest, Dell struggles under the vast prairie sky to remake himself and define the adults he thought he knew. But his search for grace and peace only moves him nearer to a harrowing and murderous collision with Remlinger, an elemental force of darkness.

A true masterwork of haunting and spectacular vision from one of our greatest writers, Canada is a profound novel of boundaries traversed, innocence lost and reconciled, and the mysterious and consoling bonds of family. Told in spare, elegant prose, both resonant and luminous, it is destined to become a classic.

©2012 Richard Ford (P)2012 HarperCollinsPublishers

Snore Fest

What would have made Canada better?

Making it interesting.

Would you ever listen to anything by Richard Ford again?

Nope

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Don't make the boys voice so weird.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Nope.

Any additional comments?

SOOOOOOOOOO slow and totally boring. Don't do it!!

Interesting Treatment

Interesting idea. So much foreshadowing. The author tells you time and time again what is going to happen so there's no surprise when anything does actually happen.

Suspend your critical thinking

So your parents are bank robbers; okay, an interesting starting point. But not enough to create a story around - at least not in this book. The listener is expected to believe that the boy can remember the minutest details after 50 years. And then the details don't add up to anything. The only reason I listened to the whole book is because the reader is good and keeps you hoping something interesting is around the corner. But there is not.

Good Narration Can't Save A Boring Story

What seemed like a great premise was turned dull by the writer using words, so many unnecessary words, as filler and never really getting anywhere. You'd think bankrobbing parents and a murder would make for a great read but what this book needed was a great editor and someone to say "Get to the point, already!" I stuck with it through Part 2 because of the narrator, Holter Graham, who I'd just heard narrate a great book, "The Art of Fielding", but even Mr. Graham could not save this book - too bad, it sounded like a potentially great story.

disappointed

What disappointed you about Canada?

Supposedly written from memory of 10yo recalling events as an adult. Instead an excruciating detailed account from adult as if he could recall the complex dynamics of the family unit. This reads more like a self help book from an adult trying to work his way through an emotional recovery from childhood. I kept waiting for this listen to pick up but it plodded along like a mule through mud. The narrator was not to blame.

Thoughtful story but very slow moving.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

not sure anything could. its the authors deliberate style, or his story line that did not work for me.

Has Canada turned you off from other books in this genre?

likely, I would not listen to any of the authors books

What three words best describe Holter Graham’s voice?

very good. did great job with various characters

What character would you cut from Canada?

creepy character at the inn in canada

Any additional comments?

very well developed characters and monologue. while thoughtful, story was not exciting in the least.

Painfully slow

I should have paid attention to the one reviewer who said this book moved slowly. The story was OK at best but how long it took to tell it was painful. Tons of detail, little story-line.

Disappointing--didn't deliver on description blurb

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

story was too slow and didn't take us where we wanted to go with it

What do you think your next listen will be?

Jeff Shara's new WW II novel

Have you listened to any of Holter Graham’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I don't follow narrators.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Canada?

we needed more reason to care about these characters than we got. very little humanity until the final scenes with the sister.

Any additional comments?

I was just disappointed overall. I didn't like any of the characters enough.

Bleak and Dreary from Beginning to End

This is a relentlessly gloomy novel where everything goes wrong. Set in 1960 in Great Falls, Montana (apparently a miserable place) and somewhere in Saskatchewan (even worse), it is the story of a twin brother and sister, military brats who never find a home, and their ill-matched, desperate parents who wreck it all. There are several references to Thomas Hardy. If you are partial to that author’s cheerful brand, maybe you’ll like this. I mostly didn’t.

The narrator tells you on page one that this is a story of bank robbery and murder, but of course it’s not crime fiction. There is no attempt grab your attention with a twisting plot, colorful characters or other middlebrow gimmicks. If a bank is going to get robbed, the act, the details, the outcome and the consequences are are telegraphed, and sometimes stated outright, well in advance, many times. If there’s a potentially deadly confrontation brewing, will someone perhaps get murdered? It’s right there on page one.

Apart from the first-person narrator, who is retelling his teenage experiences from a distance of many years, the characters are a sorry lot. There’s Dad, who excelled at incinerating the citizens of Osaka as a WWII bombardier but couldn’t adjust to peacetime. There’s Mom, who was meant for better things than life with this loser. There’s the irritable sister who just walks away.There’s a creepy metis hunting guide. There’s a sociopath. There are no laughs whatsoever.

There are, however, pages and pages of powerful writing. The tone is mostly restrained, highly controlled and undecorated, but now and then it blooms into something that just takes your breath away: “a life lived in a wind-deviled, empty-vistaed town, alienated, remote... . The towering weather, the endless calendar, the featureless days...” [Hope I didn’t mangle the transcription of those phrases]. That’s a lot of talent to deploy in the service of so much desolation.

Don't Bother

What would have made Canada better?

A story that actually moved along, had interesting characters, and something to say! This book has none of these.

Would you ever listen to anything by Richard Ford again?

I doubt it

What didn’t you like about Holter Graham’s performance?

It was ok given the dreadfully dull character he was having to read.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Canada?

Almost everything

Any additional comments?

Worst story I have ever downloaded