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Canada  By  cover art

Canada

By: Richard Ford
Narrated by: Holter Graham
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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

What listeners say about Canada

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

After the last word, went right back to beginning

There are only a very few books I've listened to twice in immediate succession. After I finished it the second time, I had to wait a couple of days before I could read any other book, in either print or sound This is not only one of the best audiobooks I've experienced; it's one of the best books I've ever read. I'll be buying a print copy to pass around my family.

I've always liked Richard Ford (especially The Lay of the Land), and this book was something of a surprise. You can see the connections with his other work, but this seems to have sprung all at once (a very focused and intense book) from some rather different place. I wish Ford a long and productive life! And I thank him for this book.

Also, an excellent reader.

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27 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

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.

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

CHILDHOOD DECISIONS CAN MAKE ADULT OUTCOMES

Are some people simply “amoral,” neither moral nor immoral? Are there people who truly believe that their wants and needs justify any action, even murder, if it is required for satisfying their wants?

Teenage fraternal twins, Dell and his sister Berner have a father with this outlook. After the father is “pushed” out of his Air Force career, although with an honorable discharge, and is unable to hold jobs for which he considers himself highly qualified, he needs money. So, he robs a bank and a man is killed. He implicates his wife and both are sent to prison.

The twins are left with $500, fears of being sent to orphanages, very little time for decisions and their mother’s plan for them to be cared for by the brother of an old friend in Saskatchewan, Canada. Berner takes the money and runs away to live on her own. Dell is left to be sent to Canada. Ford addresses how seemingly single decisions can impact generations of lives.

Fifteen year-old Dell faces life in a strange, cold, hard environment, living in virtual solitude in an “overflow shack” among strangers. His saving grace is a decision he had made when he was younger. He loved school and learning. He wanted to learn everything in the world. He grows in maturity and in confidence as he learns to live within himself and his circumstances. He learns to adjust to his new life, where there is no school, and still hold on to his decisions to go to school and learn someday. And then he is confronted by an event beyond his control.

He is forced to make decisions that should not be faced by a fifteen year- old. He is drawn into the life of of another totally amoral man. Arthur simply does not think of his actions as being immoral or moral. He simply acts as required to get what he wants. No anger. No animosity. No hard feelings. No regrets. Same as leaving small animals as roadkill.

Richard Ford writes thought provoking books. This one also has suspense and interesting (for someone who shivers when the temp drops below 70 F)information about living north of even Montana.

It is a compelling read (listen) with an excellent narrator. I recommend it.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Very slow going

I would have given up about a third of the way through if I was reading this book. The narration of the audio version made it possible to stick with it until the end. A fifteen year old boy is shipped off to the Canadian "outback" after his parents commit a crime in the USA.. Much of the first half of the novel deals with the lead up to the crime from the boy's point of view. Once in Canada in the second half, he tells us what happened to him there in the first six months or so in great detail. I found it all rather tedious going. Then the story skips ahead many years for a brief summing up. I have enjoyed other Richard Ford novels but this one, not so much.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Patience required

It you can take the time for this VERY meditative narrative, it finally pays off.
Dell isn't as interesting an observer as Frank Bascombe and it's best to ignore the logic of a 66 year old man recalling so vividly his 15-year-old self. A very good reader but someone should have caught the idea that 'row' meaning argument is not pronounced (twice) like what one does in a boat...and Ipana (the toothpaste) is NOT pronounced e-pahna. Picky picky

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Only About Halfway There

I think the initial premise works well, and the exploration was compelling:: confused and disoriented child flung about and dismantled emotionally by the incongruities and reversals of fortune which are visited upon his parents, themselves victims of incompetent parenting. Add to this the flippant handing off of the child to an estranged brother in another country and subsequent culture shock and immersion into what for the average person would be intolerable circumstances. But Dell soldiers on, even managing to up his position on the back-country food chain.

The second part of the book - although these sections are not officially partitioned - evolves more into a bush country "guns and robbers" period piece, with all the conventionally colorful characters one is used to meeting in a border community. I find such people to be interesting from a visual standpoint, as if regarded in some sort of retro catalogue, but ultimately they are children, inwardly self-loathing, pathologically attached and grasping. This would all compel me to read faster and with more urgency, but the angle did not hold my interest, as Dell's introspection on all this just about disappears.

I like Holter Graham as a narrator. His prose readings are smooth, character-driven and as good and vivid as any performance you'd see on the big screen. The loud, anxious whining of characters in trouble in earlier narrations has disappeared, and that's all to the good.

I'll only give this a 4 out of 5, simply because of the disconnect between the first and second sections.

Definitely readable; I'd just like to see more of the protagonist's perspective.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

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.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars
  • LW
  • 08-10-12

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.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

An achingly beautiful book

This novel grabs you from the first surprising sentence to the last. The first half of the novel, in which the main character deals with his recollection of how his parents became bank robbers and how that affected his life, is both touching and suspenseful. Del, the main character, just wants to be the geek he is--chess club and raising bees!--but his parents' reckless decisions get in the way. The second half is less compelling, but still well done, as Del tries to adjust to his life as a lonely semi-adult on his own in Canada, surrounded by ambiguous characters.

The narration by Holter Graham is wonderful. He perfectly captures the longing and innocence of Del, as well as his sincerity and sense of character.

This is one of the best novels I have read in a long time. I had read Richard Ford's Independence Day and liked this one much better.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing story, narrator not so much

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

The way he made the characters sound - his "voices" for the Berner and Dell, as well as any of the women were halting and stilted and annoying. He also said Front Royal instead of Fort Royal at least three times. Row ryhmes with OW not Oh!

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4 people found this helpful