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The Juliet Stories

by Carrie Snyder (Goodreads Author)

3.74 of 5 stars 3.74 · rating details · 112 ratings · 38 reviews

Shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award: Fiction and selected as a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book

Juliet Friesen is ten years old when her family moves to Nicaragua. It is 1984, the height of Nicaragua's post-revolutionary war, and the peace-activist Friesens have come to protest American involvement. In the midst of this tumult, Juliet's family lives outside of...more

Paperback, 266 pages

Published March 3rd 2012 by House of Anansi Pr (first published February 3rd 2012)

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Governor-General's Shortlist 2012

4th out of 5 books — 2 voters

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Jan 02, 2013 Ruth Seeley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Was blown away by this collection of inter-connected (but not necessarily co-dependent) short stories about a young girl named Juliet (for non-Shakespearean, non-romantic reasons) and her family while living in Nicaragua, southwestern Ontario, and the US.

You come away from this collection thinking, and thinking hard. I found myself wondering why I had never pressed one of my friends to talk more about his brother's death and whether I'd done the right thing in taking my cue from him. I found mys...more

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Nov 01, 2012 Steven Langdon rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book begins from a family's rather off-the-wall experience trying to defend the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua against the US-backed contras. It focuses particularly on the daughter, Juliet, as she comes to accept her transition to a strange (and Spanish) new milieu as normal, and then as she is wrenched back to Canada by her brother's serious illness. Juliet's coming-of-age, and her tough tension with her mother, Gloria, force comparison with Carmen Aguirre's superb memoir "Something F...more This book begins from a family's rather off-the-wall experience trying to defend the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua against the US-backed contras. It focuses particularly on the daughter, Juliet, as she comes to accept her transition to a strange (and Spanish) new milieu as normal, and then as she is wrenched back to Canada by her brother's serious illness. Juliet's coming-of-age, and her tough tension with her mother, Gloria, force comparison with Carmen Aguirre's superb memoir "Something Fierce," the Canada Read's winner for 2012 about a revolutionary daughter's struggle against the Chilean dictatorship. Both books treat the mother-daughter relationship as a crucial battlefield, both stress the relationship with siblings, and both deal with the disequilibrium of moving between the strained uncertainty of a conflict zone and the comforts of Canada.

Carmen Aguirre, within this framework, has written a wonderfully probing and insightful book that shows a young woman coping bravely and passionately with a complex family situation and a serious set of political challenges. But Carrie Snyder, it seems to me, is much less successful. Her Juliet emerges as far more self-centred, and much less aware of the complex environment within which she is living. There is an energy to Juliet, and a somewhat frantic effort to somehow define herself, with a mother who alternately ignores her then enforces choices on her. Her father, Bram, seems to have a loving concern for her -- but he too suddenly shifts direction for reasons that are never fully explored. The result is a book that seems choppy and arbitrary in its development.

Perhaps the most obvious example of this is how the book's plot begins very much focused on Nicaragua and the complicated relationship it has with the US -- with Juliet's family very much in the middle of this as part of a group of American church-oriented volunteers trying to obstruct the contras and their violence. Then suddenly the book shifts direction entirely and turns into a medical melodrama back in Canada, almost entirely unconnected to the focus of the first half of the book. Juliet, of course, is central to both parts -- and so are the tensions between daughter and mother. But there is a fundamental gap between the parts of the book that is hard to understand.

One result of this is that the basis of Nicaragua's revolutionary experience is not explored. Why is there a revolution taking place there? What is it doing to the society? Why does Bram feel so moved to intervene? In "Something Fierce," these sorts of questions are explored with respect to Chile and Argentina. That helps to give depth to Carmen's character -- and the absence of such a focus detracts from "The Juliet Stories."(less)

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Apr 26, 2012 Andrew rated it 2 of 5 stars

She can’t love the people in the pictures; she does not know them. She can hate and fear the men with their bayonets. She can pity the tortured. But she cannot love. It is too painful to throw love like a rescue line to humans doomed to suffer, already dead and gone. She will remember forever, and yet never well enough, never with the particularity of love: these people whom her parents have come to save from suffering, who continue to be killed, whose killing will not end the suffering of other...more She can’t love the people in the pictures; she does not know them. She can hate and fear the men with their bayonets. She can pity the tortured. But she cannot love. It is too painful to throw love like a rescue line to humans doomed to suffer, already dead and gone. She will remember forever, and yet never well enough, never with the particularity of love: these people whom her parents have come to save from suffering, who continue to be killed, whose killing will not end the suffering of others, whose torture and murder fall like drops of rain and vanish in the punishing sun.

Words. They scrape along her skin, enter, and the wound heals instantly. She appears unhurt. She does not suffer nightmares or wake in a cold sweat or fear for her life, because she does not believe it could happen to her.

That keeps her safe: belief that she is different, her family unique, marked out for protection by their skin colour and their citizenship and, yes, by their goodness, their rightness. So much of what she believes is wrong, but if it is never proven to be wrong, how will she ever know?

***

Carrie Snyder’s The Juliet Stories follows the Friesen family’s journey from 1984 to the present day, from an unpredictable life in Nicaragua to a disjointed, directionless one in Canada. Beginning with the American involvement in Nicaragua’s post-revolutionary war, the Friesens, a family of peace activists led primarily by husband and father Bram, travel to Nicaragua to live and protest the Reagan administration’s presence. Bram, Gloria, and their three children—the titular Juliet, Keith, and infant Emmanuel—meet other activists and North American ex-pats. Friendships are made, lives changed… and lives threatened. However, Bram’s passion for activism selfishly trumps the needs of his family, and when a medical crisis threatens their equilibrium, Gloria and the children are forced to abandon Nicaragua for Canada.

Divided into two sections—the childhood-in-Nicaragua based “Amulets” and the adolescent/adulthood-in-Canada “Disruption”—The Juliet Stories is an uneven read. The two halves of the book are, sadly, not tonally cohesive. Both have their strengths: the childhood inability to perceive threats and consequences with their due gravity gives the “Amulets” section some much needed innocence; meanwhile, the more temporally expansive “Disruption” is a more emotionally exposed section that effectively builds the character of Juliet from a stark, one-dimensional child into a more fully realized personality.

However, both sections are somewhat overshadowed by their weaknesses. An artificial sense of distance invades the “Amulets” portion of the book, constantly pulling the reader away from the children, so much so that the language often feels stunted and unemotional. It’s as if this section were a nature documentary being narrated by an uninterested third party. “Disruption,” on the other hand, is more linguistically involving, though its quick leaps through time—covering a much wider breadth than her childhood in Nicaragua in “Amulets”—dampen the revelations Snyder has in store for Juliet and the rest of her family. In short, the plot components of “Amulets” outstrip its characters, while the reverse is true for “Disruption.”

Overall, The Juliet Stories, while intriguing in narrative, is unfortunately marred by an overwhelming sense of sterility. Though the writing is beautiful in fits and spurts, with little poetic asides that juxtapose the naivety of childhood and the very real threats faced by the Friesens, there’s desperately little life in these pages. Certainly not enough to make me feel as if Juliet or any member of her family were ever more than a partially realized collection of delicately written thoughts and unrealized ideals.

While by no means a “bad” book (Carrie Snyder is an intelligent wordsmith, that much is obvious), The Juliet Stories is, for me, an unfortunate failure. I felt strongly that I should care more for Juliet and her family than I did, but the at-a-distance writing and lack of personality gave me nothing to hold onto. In the end, Juliet and her family remain as distant to me as they were in the beginning.(less)

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May 24, 2012 Pooker is currently reading it

Shelves: canada, fiction, short-stories

May 23, 2012:

About halfway through, just into Part 2 - My thoughts so far:

I loved Hair Hat. I didn't want not to love The Juliet Stories, but I have to admit that I did start reading with some trepidation. Everything I know about Nicaragua has not come from history books or news reports. I hated history in school, dropped it in grade nine and have never paid any attention (at least that I can recall) to Nicaragua in the news. Everything I know about Nicaragua, I have learned from Nicaraguans or,...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Clare rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: canadian, short-stories

Read this book. It has a buzz coming out of the gate that is well deserved. I read Carrie's blog, so I feel like I watched these stories come together even though they weren't discussed in any specific way. Now that they form a complete book it's better than I even imagined. The writing is superb. Read it. You won't regret it.

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Nov 03, 2012 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book quite a lot. Although it was a book of interconnected short stories, it all flows together well. While it doesn't completely flow together in the same way a novel does, you still get the effect of the full story you would see from a novel. Well developed characters and plot were both throughout the book, and neither were sacrificed because the story was told like a collection of short stories. In fact, I think it added to the story itself, and how much I enjoyed it because it...more

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Jan 14, 2013 Chantale rated it 2 of 5 stars

Juliet's parents are activists who move their family to Nicaragua in the 1980's to protest the war. Their father leaves Gloria and the three children for long periods for his protest work during which Gloria becomes depressed and Juliet is left to fend for herself, Keith and Emmanuel. Gloria falls in love with another expat family's father who raises his own daughter while his wife works.

Keith is diagnosed with cancer and this is the catalyst for the end of Juliets's parent's marriage. This boo...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Bree rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, fiction

I should know better...if I see it in a magazine, it's won awards or is promoted by Oprah...I won't like it. But I fell for the hype...again. Admittedly, I saw this one in a Canadian magazine, saying it was "the best Canadian lit" etc.

It wasn't terrible, though I'm not really sure what made it NOT terrible. First of all, I couldn't understand what was going on about 90% of the time. It was completely pointless. I hated Juliet's mom, not that I really cared that much about any of the family memb...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Buried In Print rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: canlit, read-in-2012

The Juliet Stories by Carrie Snyder should be on all the prizelists this coming season.

It is like the puppy described later in the work: tough and nippy in parts, lively and new in others.

“Love for the animal rushes through Juliet for its newness, its capacity for destruction. She bends to the puppy’s snarl and snap. She gathers its surprising and lively weight into her arms, against her chest: fur tough, claws smooth, rolls of fat around its ribs. It nips her ear, and a tooth catches on the ti...more

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May 11, 2013 Perth Library added it

Shelves: staff-picks

Shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and selected as a Globe and Mail Top 100, The Juliet Stories by Carrie Snyder follows the Friesens' life as peace activists in post-revolutionary war Nicaragua and their readjustment to life in Canada and the US after personal tragedy. Rae Ann found the lovely, clean prose and evocative descriptions of place made this novel well worth reading.

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Nov 29, 2012 Melinda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: canadian-literature, fiction, short-stories, 2012

Really enjoyed this collection of linked short stories. The structure (but not subject matter) reminded me of Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women--you can dip into the collection and read them individually, but they also function well as a whole. My favourite parts took place when Juliet and her family are in Nicaragua; I thought the author did a great job writing in the voice of a ten-year-old. Recommended.

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Apr 08, 2013 Margarita rated it 2 of 5 stars

The backdrop of the first half of this collection is Nicaragua in 1984. Although the political situation is briefly alluded to, it isn't touched upon directly. Snyder's focus is rather on the domestic life of the Friesen family during this time. With the surprising lack of political context or dialogue, it's very difficult to feel like this story couldn't have taken place in any other unstable environment. This lack of substance distanced me as a reader.

The prose, although lyrical and dream-like...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Nynnie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I got an advance copy through a goodreads giveaway last year, and I finally got around to reading this yesterday. I regret waiting so long. I picked it up just to skim the first few pages to decide if I really wanted to read it right then, but I didn't put it down again until I was done.

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Jan 07, 2013 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

I read several good reviews of The Juliet Stories so I had high expectations when I finally picked it up. It took me a while to get into the stories, but once I did I was completely drawn in. The setting and situation are unique, but the coming of age theme is universal.

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Aug 12, 2012 Alexis rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

A collection of linked short stories about a young girl, named Juliet, who spends some of her childhood in Nicaragua. The stories follow her until she is a grown woman. I thought some of this was good, but there were a few stories that didn't seem to fit in the collection.

I left this in my hostel in Stockholm. Hopefully a European traveller will enjoy it :)

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Jan 16, 2013 Donelda rated it 3 of 5 stars

If I had only read the first half of the book I would have been inclined to give it a five star rating. The uneven and cryptic style of the "grown up" Juliet stories felt very very contrived and overblown.
However, the first section of stories felt almost magical.
Wish I had stopped there.

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Aug 24, 2012 Bailey Olfert rated it 2 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the first part of this book, the tales of the family in Nicaragua. After they returned north, the storyline fell apart, but the bigger issue is that I just didn't like the older Juliet at all.

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Oct 29, 2012 Katey Townshend rated it 2 of 5 stars

I really tried to like this book; I imagined it was going to be like a fictionalized version of Something Fierce (a coming of age novel in the height of a political revolution). The plot had the most arbitrary occurrences, which I think were efforts to make the narrative more interesting, but this ultimately wasn't successful.

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Feb 11, 2012 Chuck Erion rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: canlit

This book comes out Feb 25. I read an advance copy and interviewed the author on Feb 10 - the article will run the The Waterloo Region Record on Feb 18th. I'll post it here.

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Dec 21, 2012 Bonita rated it 3 of 5 stars

The story kept my interest, which is difficult to do. There was a part in the middle that became difficult to follow when the author stopped using names for awhile. It became a bit strange at the end, but overall it was a good read.

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Jan 19, 2013 Naomi McCormick rated it 3 of 5 stars

part of my dedicated effort to read more canadian authors. this book doesn't disappoint, but it doesn't linger in your brain for days after either...

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Apr 22, 2013 Jholbroo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Local Waterloo author. Loved the description of Central America and of the world from the perspective of a child. The writing about the loss of a sibling was very poignant for me.

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Mar 02, 2012 Becky rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

The linked stories in this collection are beautifully crafted and insightful. Perfectly chosen physical details provide a sensual experience for the reader, a feeling of participation in Juliet's stories. Snyder's writing is enviable!

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Jun 26, 2012 Joan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Pretty good. Very gripping, and often dark. The writing is sometimes a little heavy handed for me, but great story, and mood is well done.

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Feb 06, 2013 Shannon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Lyrical stories that span countries and decades. Explores familial relationships, especially sibling dynamics. Coming of age, losing family members, remarriage, unexpected pregnancies. How one generation flows organically into the next. I want to re-read this when I have more time to digest it fully.

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Dec 27, 2012 Melanie Springer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Excellent short story cycle.

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Mar 04, 2012 Kerry Clare rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wonderful wonderful. It's the book everybody is going to be talking about.

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Nov 09, 2012 Donna Burtwistle-Popplewell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club

Our book club hosted the author last night; it was a most illumninating experience!

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May 01, 2012 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

Another First reads book from Goodreads!

I am struggling with completing this book. Although I find it well written and at times very intruiging I cant seem to get "into it" really be with the main character Juilet as she moves throughout the scenes in her life....I feel like I am pushing myself to finish it thus I have allowed it to be cast aside...only making it part way through Part 2.
I shall try again in another couple of months

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Oct 11, 2012 Erika marked it as own-not-yet-read

Shelves: signed-by-author

Interview with the author: http://suddenlybooks.blogspot.ca/2012...

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About Carrie Snyder

Carrie Snyder's second book, The Juliet Stories, is published by House of Anansi (March, 2012). Her first book, Hair Hat, was nominated for a Danuta Gleed Award for Short Stories, and more recently was selected as one of five finalists for Canada Reads Independently: 2010. Carrie has also won a CBC Literary Award for short fiction (2006). A full-time mother to four children, she blogs as Obscure C...more

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